Hello! The next two chapters are fluff with a plot, in that order, where previously it was a plot with fluff, in that order. The emphasis has changed, people! But if my attempts at the Doctor courting Rose fail, lemme know okay? Enjoy! Reviewers will be thanked next chapter!
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Theta had tired himself out at the zoo... made faces at the monkeys, tried to get into the penguin pool with the other five-year olds, talked telepathically to the lion and freaked it out... Rose remembered the poor lion snarling at her and then being reduced to a whimpering wreck as Theta gave it a good telling off for roaring at his "darling Rose".
He had then rather sweetly bought her a triple chocolate ice-cream cone with chocolate sauce and chocolate flakes... apparantly he was friends with the owner of the ice-cream van. It was a VERY good job she liked exactly the same foods as he did because he then persuaded the ice-cream man to put marmalade on top...
He took her to the local park, where he persuaded her to climb to the top of a large tree, ignoring the curious stares of the many passers-by. Sitting up in a large branch with Theta, Rose was startled to discover her fear of heights had mysteriously vanished, and was speechless at the view of the park their tree afforded.
"I... wow."
"NOW you know how the monkeys feel..." She gave him a strange look. He thought she was confused and did a monkey impression for her benifit.
"Remember... the monkeys? No?" She laughed so hard at this she nearly fell off her branch and Theta grabbed her quickly. As she took his hand, they both watched the tiny yellow spark display that appeared where they touched and smiled.
She swung from her branch and jumped to the ground, landing on both feet with ease. Theta dropped down beside her and gave her a grin.
"Now you're getting it!"
They spent the rest of the day chasing squirrels through the park. Being a new hybrid humanoid, he came very close to catching them on several occasions. As he dashed around the park, Rose saw a flash of red pass by, and sprinted for it on impulse. She couldn't say why. It might have had something to so with the Doctor's genes in her veins. A sudden compulsion to catch anything that was moving. She shot out her hand and managed to get a firm grip on the squirrel's tail. It was beautiful, she thought. Very small for a squirrel too. And it's eyes were bulging out of it's head due to the fact that she was holding it upside down. Watching the poor thing dangle there with some amusement, she motioned Theta over and was astonished at the tender and fascinated look in his eye as he saw her stroking the squirrel gently, right side up.
"Oh! Rose... can I see?" And delight reigned.
After exhausting himself in the park, being pushed into a large muddy puddle by Rose and tickled senseless, and working out the entire evoloutionary line of the common squirrel, Theta made it back to the square incredibly late, arguing ferociously about who exactly had gotten them hoplessly lost trying to find said square.
One look at the town hall clock said it all. They made a beeline for the nearest bus stop. When the large double decker arrived, Theta dashed for the top deck and found a desolate row right at the back. He smiled drowsily at Rose, curled up next to her and fell asleep almost immediately.
It was a courtship... of a sort. Done the Doctor's way, Rose supposed with a grin, stroking his hair. That man really was the most unromantic idiot she'd ever seen. He was getting married to her on Saturday... and he took her chasing squirrels? However... through it all he loved her senseless. That much was obvious. And even though he was so insufferable - the ultimate hyper-active genius - she felt exactly the same.
She looked down and discovered that he had latched onto his thumb again and was making little sucking noises. He was also... drooling on her hand. Fantastic. Rose sighed but couldn't stop a slow smile as the bus drove on down the road.
As the bus ground to a halt outside Jackie's estate, Theta woke up, found himself curled up against Rose, and smiled happily. She showed him her hand with a patronising gleam in her eye and he looked at it sheepishly before attempting to lick the slobber off her hand. Restraining him, she dragged him out of the bus and out into the night. Seeing she was shivering, Theta took off his coat and draped it around her without hesitation. Even though he was cold too...
"Right - let's get you inside, you're freezing!"
Seeing how tired she was, he picked her up and carried her indoors. They were almost at the flat when a flash of red suddenely leapt out of Theta's coat pocket and onto Rose's shoulder.
"It's... the squirrel!" Theta whispered almost inaudibly. The squirrel sat primly upright on Rose's shoulder and suddenely stuck out a tiny paw for Theta to shake. Rose stared in amazement as Theta solemnely shook the squirrel's paw.
"Is that... a normal squirrel?"
"They must respond differently around us... Animals sense the presence of the Vortex much better than humans do, and it changes them."
"So this... is now a hybrid squirrel?"
"From the moment you touched it!" Rose grinned at the squirrel.
"See - it's red instead of grey, it just shook my hand..."
"Can it talk to us?"
"No... at least I don't think so... but it understands us perfectly - and it'll make sure we understand it..."
The squirrel leaned back into Rose's shoulder and made little chirruping noises. "Can we keep it? Please?"
He stared. "Whatever made you think I'd leave it behind?"
He gazed at her and laughed softly. "You've changed so much Rose Tyler... you were the one who didn't want to keep Arthur..."
"I... you..."
Theta read her thoughts and cracked up. "PLEASE don't tell me you were jealous of a horse!"
"Well... you liked him..." She glared at him.
"And at the time... you thought I didn't like you..." He finished for her. "Jealousy. Happens to all women... I'm just irresistable..."
The squirrel snorted. Rose turned to look and saw the mirth on it's little face, while Theta stared at the squirrel in disbelief that it was backing Rose up.
"I like you." Rose told the squirrel and it chirruped happily.
"You are SO full of it!" She informed Theta, who grinned knowingly.
"You love it really..." Rose hit him.
As he cowered she cracked her knucles menacingly and the squirrel bared it's teeth at him and he stood there slightly scared of them both... until she ran her fingers through his hair and admitted that she did love it really. Which made him beam and take her into his arms and admit exactly what he loved about her - and they would have gone on in that fashion for some time... if the squirrel hadn't started making sick noises over Rose's shoulder. It folded it's little red arms and sulked, bored with the two of them making eyes at each other.
Theta remembered something. "You know, I hadn't thought... what're we gonna call him?"
"Erm... I don't think it's a he..."
"How do you know?"
"You can feel genders when you think about it... just use the vortex..."
Theta thought really hard, and suddenely was able to feel the gender pull from every living thing in the universe. Closing that window of thought quickly before it all became too much for him, he concentrated on the squirrel and found that it was, indeed, female.
"Well, women are good with names... you think something up." Men. Was that their attitude to everything?
Rose thought about it. "Hmm... Stephanie's a lovely name, so's Maryam, Brooke, Emily, Laura, Alice, Alexandra, Bethany, Michelle... Katie!"
"Katie?" He considered it. One of the prettier human names.
"Katie it is!" He grinned. "Katie the Hybrid Squirrel. I like it!" Katie chirruped her approval and stuck her teeth out.
He shivered involuntarily then, and Rose put a hand on his arm to find it was ice-cold and a little blue. She took off his coat and gave it back to him in alarm, wrapped it around him, then pulled him towards the door of the flat. As she did so, Katie hopped into Theta's coat pocket like she'd been there all her life, curled up in a ball and went to sleep.
Rose rumaged around for her key, found she didn't have one, and hammered on the door instead. An irritable Jackie was brought to the front door.
"You two! It's ten o'clock in the evening! Where on earth have you been?"
"It's a long story - "
"Don't tell me!" interrupted Jackie, putting her hands over her ears.
"Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it! I've had enough insanity for one day, thank you very much!"
Theta's teeth chattered. Rose took one look at him and dragged him into the house, past Jackie, to the living room, where... DOZENS of people littered the room. Upon seeing Rose, they all fell silent. Then...
"Congratulations dear!" Grandma Mildred hobbled to the front of the group.
Twin cousins Pete and Andy gave her wolf whistles and grins from a corner of the room.
"MUM!" Rose roared. "GET IN HERE!"
Theta began to panick. "Rose! All... these people... can't think!" He dragged her into a broom cupboard, grabbed her and clung to her tight, turning pale and shaking with nervousness.
And for once, being joined to him, Rose understood perfectly. She disentangled herself from his arms and took his hand.
"Shh! I know... Now you are gonna be brave... Stop!" She added hastily as he began hyperventilating. His eyes rolled back in his head and she could see he was about to lose it. So she slapped him. Hard.
And he snapped right out of it.
"Ow! Thank you!"
"Theta! You're the man who faces Daleks and Cybermen! My family won't kill you! Now hush!" She wiggled her fingers in their hands and he smiled at the familarity of the gesture.
"Okay..." He gazed at her, suddenely aware how beautiful she was in the dim yellow light. How her eyes shined in the semi-darkness...
They were heading for a moment again when Jackie came in from the hall, more stressed than Rose had ever seen her. She was muttering under her breath. "Right... Uncle Jacob's coming in tomorrow, that's a whole party of eight from Lincolnshire... Grandpa Ted's flying over tonight from Australia, should make it over just in time - "
Rose pulled Theta out of the cupboard. "Mum! What are all these people doing here?"
"Well you are my only daughter, so I decided to make this wedding as big as I could get it! The entire extended family's over! We're hiring three halls and the local cathedral... three thousand people..."
Rose was nearing hysterics. "There... are gonna be... three thousand people... at my wedding?"
Jackie beamed. "A little more than that, really. It's the event of the year - I invited the whole town over!"
"Rose... breathe..." Theta murmured as Rose began suffocating.
"Word spread - your suprise wedding - two days to prepare - shocked the local press, it did. They're paying me to feature your story. TV cameras and news reporters are coming, they are, an' all! I'm so proud!"
She bustled away and Theta and Rose stared at each other for a moment. Suddenely Theta took her hand.
"I - I can't stay here!"
Rose wholeheartedly agreed and they both ran out of the house and into the carpark. They sprinted for the Tardis that was there waiting for them and ran inside, where Rose slumped against a console as Theta locked the door and hung up his coat.
They grabbed each other instinctively at the same time and held on tight.
"Oh my God... does she realise what she's done?"
"I should've told my mum to make it small. I do NOT want the PRESS at my wedding!"
"Rose... that's not the worst of it..."
She realised the truth. "Theta... what if she let slip... the fact that you or I are alien?"
"Knowing your mother, that's almost certainly happened..."
"They're gonna recognise us! From that photo on the Attack of the Spectres! The saviours of the planet are alien!"
"The government... forget that, the entire planet's gonna be on our tails after this!"
"Your STUPID mother..." And, for once in her life, Rose agreed.
She kissed him suddenely, so passionately he was dazed, his eyes glazed over as they parted.
"Don't leave me..."
He stared in shock. "What? Leave you?"
"I... cos it's kinda my fault... this... problem and the whole wedding thing... you don't like people, and... I'm sorry!"
To his utter amazement, she began sobbing in his arms. He gingerley stroked her hair and held her close as she cried. He was completely unused to holding hysterical girls in his arms, and it showed. He didn't mind too much, however.
"What's brought this on now, eh?" She was soaking his shirt...
Rose sobbed, "You're so angry with me..." He could have laughed. Angry? With her? The most important thing in his universe?
He bent down to Rose's level and looked her square in the eye.
"Rose Tyler! Now you're going to tell me... how the HELL could I be angry with you?"
And she stopped right there and looked at him. For one long long moment. Just looked at him. Then she threw her arms around his neck and he smiled.
"I love you so much!"
He grinned. "Love you too!" He set her down.
Rose yawned into his shoulder and he felt how tired she was. He picked her up and carried her into her room and onto her bed, laid her down on it and found her asleep within seconds. He watched her there for several minutes with a fond expression on his face before padding back to the control room and looking out of a window, just thinking about... everything. Sensing Rose was having a 'thinking' dream, he floated back into her head from time to time to offer alternative solutions to her integral calculus. He was never gonna get used to that. Even though it seemed so... right that Rose should have the same dreams he did.
A few hours later, Rose stumbled into the control room, running her fingers through her hair. He turned and smiled.
"Hello! But... it's four in the morning!"
"Really?" She looked out of the window and saw it was still dark. The sun hadn't even risen yet.
"Oh! We forgot to feed Katie!"
They looked in Theta's coat pocket and found she wasn't in there.
"Great! Lose your squirrel on it's first day..."
"Listen!" commanded Rose. They could hear a faint scrabbling sound from the kitchen.
In there was Katie, who had managed to get down a packet of biscuits and was now enjoying a chocolate digestive twice the size of her head. Rose laughed as she watched it coat it's little face in chocolate, just like Theta did. Those two were kindred spirits.
Theta picked Katie up, ignoring her angry chattering in protest at leaving her biscuit. He sat her in the palm of his hand.
"Right, listen up, you. You get free run of this place - but don't go near the milk, you'll drown in it, and don't try to run a bath either..." he added as an afterthought. "Got that?"
Katie chirruped and he put her down, where she returned to her biscuit as if nothing had happened. He stroked her tail briefly and she turned, gave him a toothy grin and nipped his finger gently.
So there was a hybrid squirrel living in his Tardis... He went back to the kitchen with Rose, shaking his head. He took her into his arms automatically and she rested her head on his chest and listened to his hearts beating through his shirt.
"Right! Now... we're gonna work out how on earth we're gonna get ourselves out of this mess..."
"We CAN'T get married in front of all those people! What about... the sparks? OR if something else happens and we collapse? What if we start glowing yellow?"
"It's too dangerous... they might dissect us if they find out..."
He looked at her wistfully. "Much as I'd like to run away, that might just cause a riot if your press already knows about this wedding..."
"You wanna... elope?" Suggestive gleam in her eyes. Theta gulped. His life just got that little bit stranger. He stared at Rose and found that indeed, there was nothing he wanted more than to whisk her off in the early hours of the morning to the nearest church and marry her now... Nine would NEVER have believed this...
Rose smirked. "Yes, you do. I can sense it..."
Damn telepathic link! But ah! She wanted to as well. The idea was so tempting...
"But if I married you now..."
He allowed himself to dream... If he married her now he could take her to Barcelona... he wouldn't have to go through another day of shopping, not to mention a huge wedding. The images that flashed down the link of exactly what he could do in a bed with Rose were enough to set them both blushing...
He remembered something. "I can't do it! Jackie would kill me!"
"Theta... if we don't do something about the situation, we're both gonna be dead meat... after we're dissected! Or kept in cages for the rest of our lives!"
"Why can't we just tell Jackie?"
"It's no use - she's already told the media and invited the town..."
"But we're only a minor news feature, aren't we? Maybe we could get away with it..."
This really was crazy. He was a man who didn't do domestic. And here he was trying to arrange a wedding without being plagued by media attention! How the HELL had this managed to happen?
"Get away with what?"
He made his decision. "Get away with what I have in mind... If this goes to plan, we could be married today, right here, and fly away in the Tardis without anyone thinking there's anything wrong..."
"I'm interested..."
"OK. What I'm proposing is that... I fake my own death... and everyone thinks you're distraught... and the wedding is cancelled and we can...elope..." He turned the deepset shade of red as he said the last word, but his eyes were shining at the possibilities.
"Theta... is that REALLY necessary?"
"Playing dead you mean? Well yes - I can't think of anything else that would shake something this big... can you?"
She nodded in agreement, reached up to touch his face with her fingers.He gave an involuntary groan as her fingertips brushed that sensitive spot on his neck and she smiled, mastering him completely through the yellow haze.
Great. All she had to do was touch him and he was rapidly loosing control... She caressed his lower lip slowly with her thumb. The feeling was exquisite. But she was going to have to stop or he wouldn't be able to think straight...
"Rose..." He pinioned her arms down, darted forward and kissed her. It was her turn...
He pulled her head in closer and bit her lip gently as she yelped in shock and squirmed in his arms. Well, they had hours until Jackie would be awake and they could swing their plan into action. Plenty of time to... play. And boy was this was gonna be a fun game...
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Hope you liked! Very Romeo and Juliet, isn't it? You're about to see startling similarities. I have plans for these two... oh yes...
My dear chainsaw... is back from maintenance. Freshly shined! Now with rotating circular saw attatchment... And I am NOT afraid to use it! So please please review!