You ain't human 'til you've done the domestics

"I can't believe we're doing this" John announced, nose wrinkling crossly as he pushed open the gate and pouted as the yellow brick house, surrounded by fenced off flowerbeds sporting a big assortment of pretty flora, came into view, "I don't want to".
"We promised Mum and Pete we would take care of it." Rose said, rolling her eyes at his childish behavior as she followed him through and secured the metal gate behind her, "Besides, I thought you liked Tony?"
"I do!" the Doctor insisted, "I adore him, you know that. I just don't see why it has to be us who picks him up from kindergarten. You have a ton of servants at your house that could do it for us."
"And you also know that my mother makes a big deal out of making Tony's childhood as normal and regular as possible. That does not involve having nannies taking care of everything around him."
She shrugged, "She would have collected him herself if she and Pete hadn't had to go to Bangkok for something concerning Vitex"

"When did they say they'd be back, exactly?" he was not looking at her, but at the garden where some children were toddling around on their chubby small legs, a couple of them digging in the sandpits with tiny plastic shovels and the rest playing with a red ball with a picture of a fairy printed onto it. His eyes were filled with a sort of lonesome longing, and she promptly averted her eyes in consideration, knowing that this look weren't meant for anyone to see. It hurt a bit, actually, to be aware that there was a part of his life she did not have any access to. He used to have a family, that much information she had managed to gather from conversations involving his personal life over the years. She knew that she ought to be happy with what she had, so she pushed the painful little reminder that he (or well, the other him) had had someone to return to and seek comfort in before she had come along.

Many "someones". More companions during the Doctor's 900-year lifespan than she could count on both hands' fingers. Sometimes Rose swore she'd felt like a time-travelling rebound, especially when they had met Sarah Jane. She had been so bitter and a little bit nasty towards the older woman, and it didn't help matters much that she started to like Sarah Jane after a few hours in her company. That made it much more difficult to hate her, and oh, how she'd wanted to. But Rose did not resent any of them any longer, and the feeling of being his rebound had totally faded after she had found out that he would not throw her out because he found someone he thought was better. After the adventure with the brainwashed middle-school kids it became clear to her. He did not leave them because he grew tired of them, but because he loved them too much. He had dropped Sarah Jane back on Earth because he wanted her to live a real life, but also because he, a Time Lord with an almost infinite lifespan, could not bear to see her grow old and disappear on him. And after Rose had met Donna and Martha as well, she knew that they had been perfect for the Doctor. They had given him hope and fought for him and kept him grounded and eased his path through hard times. They hadn't strayed from his side and they had taken good care of him when she herself wasn't there to do it. To be honest, that was good enough for Rose.

But God, did she want to strangle that man right now. He had all but bolted out of the room last night when Jackie and Pete told them of their impulse-trip to Thailand and left them with the answer of taking care of the domestics (it was clear from her mother's smirk that she had chosen that word deliberately to annoy the Doctor), which also included Tony since he was too young for such a journey. Rose had hoped he would be more mature by now what house chores was concerned, but she had not heard him make such a fuss since… She didn't remember, really.

"It's only for four days." She said, and he looked visibly more calmed.
"Okay, I can do that"
"Does the thought of being domestic for half a week really scare you that much?" Rose asked with a teasing glint in her eyes, and he stuck out his tongue at her.
"Of course not. I'm just not used to… Don't you have anyone to do the chores?" (he spat out the last word like it left a nasty aftertaste in his mouth and he couldn't get rid of it fast enough).
"Yes, but they've got the weekend off. Seriously, we should be able to handle things without them. Mum thought it would be a learning experience for us. Well, you mainly. Besides -"she gripped the handle of the front door, "You've been living in my parents' house for free for almost a month and a half. This is the least you can do". She opened the door and as soon as she did so, she was almost run down by a group of three-year olds who all seemed very fascinated with the newly arrived. One of them, a little boy, blue eyes so big it looked like they were about to pop out of his head, asked her "Who have you come to pick up?"
Rose laughed. It always was like this whenever she came to fetch Tony, at the rare time when Jackie was too occupied to do it. Children liked basking in the attention of grown-ups, and she didn't want to disappoint them. She started to sit down to be on eye-level with the children, who were all chattering excitedly, but the Doctor got in first. He made his voice calm and patient as he spoke to the boy: "What's your name?"
"William!" the kid exclaimed, "And tomorrow I'm going to Big Ben with Gramps and Gran!"
"That sounds great!" John said enthusiastically, ruffling up William's strawberry blonde hair, "We've come for Tony Tyler. You think you can find him for us?". The question was directed to all of the children, and they ran off, fighting and yelling amongst themselves like Rose's little brother was a precious treasure they couldn't share. Rose turned towards him, both amused and annoyed. "You shouldn't have done that, now there's no way the teachers will get them to settle down." But there was a smile in her voice, and he granted her with that crocked grin that made her heart race a little bit. He leaned in closely, breath ghosting across the shell of her ear, and the sudden intimacy was so overwhelming that she totally forgot that they were still both kneeling on the floor. She felt a blush coming along at the huskiness of his voice as he whispered: "Rose?"
"Yeah?"
He was quiet for a second that felt like a year, and then: "Are you my mummy?"

Rose shot from the floor like a ball from a cannon and stared at the laughing Doctor reproachfully, face flushed, "So not cool! I thought you were going to – " she shut herself up just in time, preventing him from hearing the last words she almost had blurted out unthinkingly.
The grin on his face melted into curiosity, "Thought I was going to what?", he asked her, brown eyes drilling into hers with an intensity that made her a little dizzy. She chewed at her tongue, her default expression when she was trying very hard to seem nonchalant, and opened her mouth to give him some kind of back-paddling response that would brush his question aside, when fortunately she was interrupted by –

"Miss Tyler, if it isn't too much to ask I would like to know what your…" the head teacher, Mrs. Monroe, regarded the Doctor a little icily from behind her red-rimmed glasses, "Friend, are doing on the floor? And also an explanation on why the kids are dragging around your brother like he is some kind of ragdoll."
The Doctor, like Rose, stood and brushed off his clothes for nonexistent dirt, trying very hard to reclaim some of his dignity, but failing miserably. Rose smiled at the elderly lady sweetly and turned so she stood between her boyfriend and the teacher, "John, this – "she motioned towards the woman, "Is Annabelle Monroe. She's the leading teacher of the Sunflower Kindergarten." When nothing happened she glared pointedly at the Doctor, who then seemed to remember his manners.
"Nice to meet you" he said, holding out his hand for Monroe to take. She did, probably not wanting to keep a gentleman, albeit one who had just been squatting on the floor like an Australian ranger, hanging. Rose continued the introduction, saying to the teacher, "Mrs. Monroe, this is John Smith. He's my…" she hesitated, and the Doctor picked up the lost thread of words in a fluent fashion: "I'm her boyfriend."

"Oh. Well then. Does that mean that you aren't really after Mrs. Tyler's money?", Monroe asked in a sharp no-nonsense voice, suddenly looking very protective of Rose, "'Cos if you are, then – "
He interrupted her threat with a raised hand, "I'm not. I assume you've been reading the gossip section of The Times, am I correct?"
The woman just huffed at him and ignored his question, instead turning towards Rose: "So you've come to pick up Tony? Isn't it usually your mother who does that?"
"Yes, but she's in Bangkok. Something to do with Pete's work, I'm not quite sure what. So yes, we're on Tony-duty until they return. We'll make it work." Rose said with a reassuring smile when Mrs. Monroe looked a little suspicious. Thankfully, after giving John one last steely glance, the teacher announced that she would go get Tony.

"Phew, she's tough" the Doctor announced as soon as she was out of hearing range, "I can imagine that she would just keep your brother 'til next week if she weren't satisfied with your answer. Perhaps she's an alien" he turned towards her with mock worry in his eyes, "Perhaps she's Slitheen!".
Rose shushed him and then punched him in the arm for good measure. "Don't say that. She's actually really sweet. She's just a little protective with Tony and me, that's all".
He pouted. "A little? She seemed to me more like a mother bear, ready to devour me if I didn't – Oh, there's Tony!"

His face filled with genuine happiness as the small child ran into his arm with a loud "Uncle Doctah!". Said man scooped up Tony into his arms and started tickling him mercilessly, having Rose's brother shrieking with animated glee. Once he'd finished torturing the boy enough, John patted the giggling mess on his brown curls and said, "You ready to go home?"
Tony nodded in affirmation, and then he realized that his big sister was present as well. He sent her a smile so big that the dimples in his cheeks became visible, "Hi Rose!"
Rose, who had been standing quietly and smiling wistfully at the scene playing out in front of her, snapped back to reality. "Hey you" she chuckled at the halfway toothless grin he gave them. Tony had started losing a couple of his baby teeth and in the very front, one had yet to grow out and fill the empty gab between two other teeth.

Rose's voice rose a little so that it could carry a message audible enough to be heard by "their" teacher, who was reading some of the kids a fairytale in the other end of the room, "Mrs. Monroe, we'll take Tony with us now. See you on Monday!"
Monroe looked up from the book, smiled at Rose and waved at Tony, before she started reading aloud again. The three of them left with no further ado, Tony on the Doctor John's arm, babbling away about what had happened today. "And then we made a fire in the garden and – "
"You what?" Rose gasped at the exact same time as John proudly exclaimed "That's great!". For this he received an overjoyed giggle from Tony and a fierce glare from Rose, almost angry enough to burn a hole between his eyes. Just about to start correcting his mishap by telling the youngest Tyler that it was frowned upon to play with fire in public, John realized too late that Rose was having him on as she started sputtering and then buckled over with laughter.

"Rose! You had me terrified! If looks could kill…"
"Oh my, you should have seen your face! Back at you for the whole Mummy-thing before!" she almost couldn't squeeze out the words in between giggles, and the laughter was so catching that Tony joined in, shortly followed by John himself after he was done scowling. When their fit had died down a little they walked the rest of the way to the car, and Rose buckled up her brother in his children's seat. The two adults got in as well, and she set the car in motion towards the city. The Doctor John started speaking rapidly with
Tony, halfway in Toddler and the other half in Human, which was apparently becoming his first language.

"We drive a lot these days, don't we?" John suddenly shifted his attention to her instead, and she smiled at him.
"You've got a problem with that?" she asked teasingly, sure that if she played along he would turn out to have a point.
"Huge problem. I think we could make transportation easier. You know the gasses, the traffic, the meaningless feeling of being a sheep just running along with all the other sheep on the motorways…!" his sentence drifted off, but Rose caught his drift easily.
She sighed, then said: "You want to go for a ride in my Zeppelin, Doctor?... Oh. That sounded dangerously much like an innuendo, didn't it?". She was thankful for the fact that her brother had yet to learn what that word meant. The Doctor just smiled wryly, "Just a little." His cheeks were a little red, though, and Rose couldn't help thinking about what she had just implied could actually imply. And she knew that he was thinking about it as well. Suddenly they were stranded in an awkward-zone loaded with semi-sexual tension, until her brother, bless him, grew bored with the silence and loudly said "Zepp-lin!"
The Zone melted away at Tony's excited exclamation, and John and Rose smiled at each other carefully, before he turned around in his seat towards Tony and said, "Yes, Zepp-lin!"
"Can we go?" the kid asked, eyes shining.
"You'll have to ask your sister"
Wo-oh, here it comes. Three, two, one and…
"Rooooose?" two different pair of voices, one a child's and another one belonging to one who might as well have been, cried out in combined pleading which they knew she wouldn't be able to resist.

"Please Rose? Please Rose, please please please?" Tony begged, and she did not even need to look at the Doctor to know that he was doing the cutesy-face.
She said, steadily keeping her attention on the road, "You know the puppy-eyes don't work on me, yes?". Yet she could already feel her resolve crumbling when John bit his lower lip skillfully. "Okay, okay! But not today, right? I have to make dinner, and you – "
She pointed to John, "You are going to help me."
"Help you?" he asked, eyebrow so far up his forehead one might almost be afraid that it would be consumed by his hairline, "Help you with what exact – oh. Oh no, Rose."
"Oh yeah!" she answered with a lop-sided grin, adopting that breathless voice he sometimes made when he was excited about something, "You are gonna help me cook dinner tonight!"
He stared at her like it was a fate worse than death, like the mere thought of preparing a meal was like having to choose between cholera and the plague, a potential apocalypse representing one of the two and cooking the other. "First your parents forbid us to travel back in time until after Christmas, and now you want me to…" his eyes widened in absolute horror, "Rose Tyler, you want me to go domestic!"
"Seriously, you ought to get over the whole Christmas-thing. We promised them we wouldn't leave until the celebrations are over since we don't know how long this trip will last. I'm sorry, but that's how it is."
"I know, I know, and I get where they're coming from – it's just a little frustrating" he sent her a calming smile, "I'll stop fussing about it. Besides, it'll be fun. I haven't truly spent Christmas on Earth since…" his voice drifted off as he contemplated, and this gave her brother just enough time to proclaim, "Funny 'Drismas! Mum said Santa comes at Drismas night, and I have been nice all year. Right, Doctah John?"
To John's credit he managed not to chuckle at the youngest Tyler's pronunciation of the famous Earth holiday and instead just nodded, not wanting to spoil Tony's excitement by pointing out that he had only known Tony for little more than a month and therefore had no idea whether Tony had been a prick or an angel since last Christmas, "Indeed you have. You know, on a planet called Bisnarn, Christmas was banned because the Bisnarians ate so much food during the holidays that they could not come into work for weeks after the 25th, and the doctors were so busy curing stomachaches that a lot of them got stressed out and started comfort eating, and then their bellies hurt as well!" He winked secretly at Rose, and Rose chuckled in amusement and shook her head at him, whereas her brother started asking a myriad of questions in his endless craving for knowing everything about their adventures, even though he did not quite understand all of the stories. The sentences rushed out of his mouth, and when he had to stop for air he asked a breathless last question, "But won't the children be sad with no Drismas?" His eyes were big and sad in his little face, and the Doctor's expression softened at his sort-of-nephew's (brother-in-law?) distress.

"Nono, don't be sad. It was okay in the end!" he turned all the way around in his seat so that he could hold Tony's hand, struggling so much that Rose had to duck her head to avoid his flailing arms. Rose's brother's tiny fingers disappeared in between his larger, more calloused ones.
"He's right" Rose pitched in, looking away from the road in front of them for just a second to flash him a reassuring smile, before continuing, "The Tardis caught a signal from a group of Bisnarian children – "
"But not your Tardis? Is just a baby, yea?" Tony asked, tilting his head like he had a habit of doing when he was wondering about something.
"I'm talking about the old Tardis." She explained, and then grinned smugly "The one who had sent out the signal, Maqi, was eight years old and real smart. almost as smart as John was at that age!"
"So you're not the cleverest person in the world?" Tony asked the Doctor. It seemed like he couldn't quite decide whether to be delighted or disappointed by this statement.
The Doctor of course only huffed in an offended way and didn't answer, but Rose saw the spark in his eyes as he regarded her, so she deemed it safe to keep going.
"So we arrived on Bisnarn just a couple days before the 24th, and he asked us to help them set it right. We convinced the planet's government to legalize Christmas –"
"Le-dja-lise?"

"It means to make it okay again" she said educationally, and Tony nodded in understanding, "And now they only eat healthy meals on Christmas, like carrots and cabbages and Brussels sprouts". She ended the story, satisfied that she had told the tale well and maybe had passed on some wisdom, but when the Doctor started laughing heartily she realized something was wrong. "What's the matter? Tony?"
"I think he's gone into shock. He's completely terrified"
Then Tony chocked out, "Cabbage?", looking absolutely mortified, "But what about duck? And candy? And puddin'?"
Rose sighed. Perhaps she should leave the preaching of the importance of vegetables to her mother. "Well… There wasn't any of that."
A miffed Tony declared, little nose stuck into the sky, "Then I don't want to live there". And that was the end of that conversation.

When back home the Doctor and Rose started on the trial that was the preparation for making dinner, "trial" being the code word. They had just put Tony to bed in the nursery for a little nap, and hadn't even properly started cooking yet, and John was already fighting the inevitable with tooth and nail. The current issue presented itself in the piece of cloth Rose had just handed to him.
"I am not wearing an apron" John said sternly, pushing the offending baby-blue fabric back at her, "For you I will help cook without arguing, but I will not put on that… That thing."
"Well, if you didn't insist on wearing suits this wouldn't be a problem, but stains are horrible to get out of wool and silk blends." Her eyes widened, "Oh Gods, I sound like a wife"
He grinned at her and said teasingly while rolling up his fancy sleeves into a more practical position, "Yeah, but it's good to know that you know your suits".
"Living with Pete for years makes you pick up random facts about classy clothing." She said, "Like what you should and shouldn't do when wearing them. So therefore…"
She raised the bundled apron in an outstretched arm and said pointedly, "You are putting this on."
John rolled his eyes and got into the apron with no further fuss, but when he saw how Rose stared at his chest, snickering like a madman, and looked himself from top to bottom, his entire face turned deadly pale.

"Rose…!"
"It's a present from my Mum, by the way" she informed him, fighting a lost battle to keep her voice neutral and failing when he exclaimed in something akin to outrage: "I can see that!"
She chuckled at his grumbling, "I think that you look smashing, if that's any consolation."
A sudden blush crept even further up his neck, perfectly matching the very red heart on his chest where the message Kiss the Time Lord was printed in white letters. "To think that Jackie even after having become a millionaire is still so vulgar"
"Watch out Spock, it's my mother you're sass-talking" she said warningly, but secretly she thanked Jackie for having brought the apron. This was precious.
"I'm sorry, but you must admit that this is a little crass" he said, hands reaching for his back to pull apart the bow and take off the cloth, but Rose reached him before he made it and still his hands with her own. "No, keep it on."

"Why?" he asked, eyes twinkling. She felt warm inside by looking at him, reduced to a silly love-struck teenager by seeing her boyfriend in a cheesy apron, a bag of flour in his arms and a hint of a kiss in the corner of his soft lips. She shook herself out of her trance-like state before it became noticeable that she had been staring. "You look…" she said, feeling a little stupid. "I look what?" he said, stretching out the fabric covering his front so the message became more visible.
"Cute. You look cute." She muttered, and was relieved that she at least wasn't stammering. That would have been the dead of her. They could normally talk so freely, but when it concerned expressing emotions she behaved like a proper fool. But his face only cracked into a wide grin at her words. He carefully sat down the flour on the tabletop and opened his arms in a beckoning motion.

"Well…" he said, waving her closer with his hands, "Then kiss the Time Lord, Rose"
She flung herself into his embrace, tightening her arms around his shoulder and middle. Standing onto her tiptoes she coaxed the kiss that had been hiding and tempting her from him with her own lips against his. He cradled her gently, hugging her with all his might and kissing her just as energetically as she did him, and his soft laughter mingled with her own and tickled her tongue. Rose felt like she was melting, so she clung to his upper body, and when he made to lift her onto the table to be able to stand between her legs and deepen the kiss, she followed him willingly, pushing against the floor with her feet to help him. She reached out with one arm to catch hold of something to steady herself, but instead of finding something, she hit the back of flour. It tumbled to the floor in almost comical slow-motion, and both she and the Doctor tried to catch it, but to no avail. The paper bag burst open, and its content whirled up and covered both their part of the kitchen and the two of them like a tragically messy and white snow landscape. Some of the powder blew into Rose's nose, and she started coughing and hawking like mad, desperate to rid her poor nostrils of the stuff. When she opened her eyes again she joined the Doctor John in his baffled staring across the surreal flour mountains that had settled in the otherwise spotless kitchen.

"Oh no…" John breathed out quietly, like he subconsciously was afraid of speaking to loud in fear of breaking the illusion that their kissing hadn't just become the reason for the fact that a ginormous cleaning job was in order. Rose wasn't lost for words, however; "Fuck! bollocks, shit, bleeding bloody – "
"Language, Miss Tyler"
"But it's a mess! This is gonna take such a long time cleaning up and I don't – Why are you looking at me like that?" she hissed at him as she sprang from the table and planted her feet solidly back on the floor. He was grinning at her manically, "You're such a hypocrite! You gave me a hard time for not wanting to be domestic, and now this?"
She raised her hand in good-natured surrender and grumbled, "I know and I'm sorry. I just hate cleaning; I did it way too much when I lived alone with Mum. She weren't really the housewife type"
"I can imagine" then his face changed into an expression of almost fatherly pride, "My Tardis was self-cleaning"
Rose rolled her eyes at him, but her mouth was still set in a huge smile. "Then I'll be as dirty and scruffy as possible in it to put that statement to the test. And now…" she clapped her hand in resolution, "Let's fix this, and then make dinner"
"Yeah. Even though it was sort of your fault…"
"Was not!"

The rest of the evening passed by in a largely uneventful, but very nice blur. They cleaned up the kitchen, cooked and ate lasagna, and while the Doctor put the plates into the washing machine and boxed the left-overs, Rose took the youngest Tyler into the bathroom to wash off the remnants of sauce and cheese which dinner had left on his round cheeks. They then proceeded to the largest of their living rooms where the three of them a row about which movie to watch, which finally ended when Tony, eyes glistening, used the ever-so-cliché threat, "I will tell Mum!" and deciding on The Lion King. Rose, having watched this favorite of Tony's with him more times that could be counted on both fingers and toes, knew all the lines and the plot by heart and therefore deemed it okay to divert her attention from the screen a little. So while Scar tricked his poor nephew into all sort of bad things, leaving Tony's large fearful eyes glued to the screen, Rose's own gaze took in the sight of the man sitting next to her. Like her he had pulled his legs onto the couch, and he was resting one arm casually across his leg and the other placed gently on Tony's shoulder. She noticed that whenever Tony, who was sitting on the thick blue rug in front of the couch, would flinch because something scary or unexpected happened in the Pride lands, John would give his shoulder a tiny reassuring squeeze. Nothing much, just a little reminder that they were there with him. And when he thought she weren't looking, Rose saw his gaze flicker towards her at the corner of his eye. Even when he was calm and relaxed, slouched across a sofa and watching a cartoon, his focus never totally left her. He always looked out for her, and Rose was battling a revealing smile from appearing on her face. It was all peace and quiet and greasy popcorn smell, and at some point, during Simba's first meeting with Timon and Pumba, the Doctor discretely lifted her feet into his lap and started massaging them, the sort-of intimate gesture sending small shivers up Rose's spine. It was wonderful and one of those seldom moments where Pete's world ceased being the Parallel World and just became the World instead.

"Did you get him to bed?"
"Yeah", Rose said, smiling tiredly as she closed the door, "And he'll sleep all night through, as tired as he was."
Still she had left the door to her brother's nursery at the other side of the hallway slightly ajar so that they wouldn't miss it if anything happened. John had been anxious about leaving him alone, but Rose had managed to convince him that Tony would be just fine. He had really taken a liking to the little guy, which of course made her very happy, and she always took care of her brother as well, but she had longed to be alone with her Doctor since the… Mishap in the kitchen, and she wasn't going to let his overprotectiveness get in the way of that. And even though she wanted John a little to herself, she couldn't help her next question.
"Why are you in my room, by the way?" she said teasingly as she made her way to bathroom adjoined to her room, fishing out her all-time favorite pair of pajamas – the pink one – from one of her closet.
"I… Well…" he said, taken a little a back and looking kind of lost as he sat on her bed, lanky frame casting shadows on the wall in the glow of the lamp on the bedside table, "I thought -. I can leave if you – " his ears and neck were tinted slightly in a sweet red, and Rose took pity on him. With a flutter of a thousand butterflies – at the very least - she said, "No, you just stay."
"That okay?"

"Yeah. I want you to stay." She answered softly, and before she could see what expression had appeared on his face, she ducked into the bathroom, cheeks a little flushed. It shouldn't be anything to blush about. They had slept besides each other before, along their travels and that one time in this exact room, the first night of their time back in Pete's World more than a month ago. She could handle this. So she slid out of her jeans and t-shirt and donned the fluffy piece of girly fabric, pulled out the band holding her blonde tresses of hair together in the neck, took a deep and steadying breath, once again reaching the conclusion that she was acting beyond silly, shaking her head at this and then returning to the bedroom. He was smiling at her when she exited the bathroom, and it felt like her heart was doing flip-flops in her chest. Crap. It had been so much easier to just crawl into bed and fall asleep the last time, when they were both tired from the long journey and the Doctor had been exhausted from crying and blaming himself for being. And now he was laughing and back to normal and absolutely adorable, and she thought she might… No. Hush, Brain! And she was self-conscious and full of nervous energy and she could swear that she was sweating. Why was she sweating? It wasn't even like anything was supposed to happen, they had silently agreed on taking things slow, but it seemed her sub-consciousness hadn't gotten the memo. "You look a little tense. Anything the matter?" he said, somehow managing to look amused, cocky and worried at the same time. She forced a carefree grin onto her face, "No, of course not." She swallowed something in her throat, "Though…"
Hurt flashed through his eyes, but his voice remained calm and understanding when he said, "I can leave if you want."

"Though I think you should take of the suit" she finished and relished in the fact that she got the smile back on his face. So what if she was nervous and blushing. That was part of it, this being in love business. The butterflies ought to be a good sign. He was making her feel fuzzy and he dazzled her and all she wanted was to lie down next to him and slip into sleep knowing that he would be there when she woke up. She was pulled out of her thoughts by his slight chuckle.
"I'll do that."
He disappeared into the bathroom to change out of his clothes, and when he returned, wearing only his trousers and his t-shirt from underneath his fancy jacket, he jumped into the bed, rustling around with the pillows and the duvet 'til both of them were buried beneath all the soft silken bed linen. He reached out and turned off the lamp on the nightstand, shrouding the room in complete and utter darkness. They lay in silence for a few minutes and just as Rose started becoming hyper aware of the feel of warmth that radiated from his skin and the even sound of his breath rushing out his lungs, the Doctor said, "So, Rose…?"
"Yeah?"
"Kiss the Time Lord?"

She could hear the gentle smile in his voice, and she laughed softly as she sought his hand and entwined their fingers. Then, without another word, she scooped closer to him and pressed her lips to his in a kiss, loving the feel of his slightly chapped skin beneath her mouth. He smelled like soap and man and adventure, and when his arms entwined her upper body and pulled her flush against his chest, it felt nothing but completely natural to rest her head against it. "I liked the apron" she announced sleepily and yawned quietly and smiled contently against the cotton of his shirt, "You have to wear it every time we cook."
Thinking this through for a moment, she added solemnly, "But no more flour"
His rich laughter made his chest vibrate against her cheek. "No more flour", he agreed. Then he carefully pushed a strand of hair away from her face and kissed her forehead affectionately.
"Goodnight Rose"
"Goodnight John"

The Doctor and his Rose, as it was supposed to be.