Starting Over 21: The Third First Date (also known as the emotional roller coaster of fluff and angst and lust and fluff and...)

Woohoo! New Doctor Who series! Happy Whoniday!

XxXxXxXx

The Doctor was in a great mood for two hours, twenty-three minutes, and thirty-five seconds after the meeting ended. He was telling Jake that he finally, properly asked her out for once, instead of just going somewhere, enjoying it, and later calling it a date.

"Where are you takin' her?" Jake asked, which ended his great mood.

"I don't know, Jake. I don't even know what's considered good around here. Where do you take people on dates?" he asked.

"Depends on what I know they like," Jake answered. "Or food, if I don't know them well enough. You know Rose very well, though. So ask yourself, 'What's she like to do?'"

"Get in trouble. Wander off. Dance. Curl up and watch a good movie. Read. Things that cause an adrenaline rush," the Doctor listed.

"Dancing and watching a good movie?" Jake wondered incredulously. "Well, that doesn't sound like the Rose I know. Trouble and running off into danger sure do though."

"I don't think Rose was in a mood for the quieter things," the Doctor admitted softly.

"Why not try to recreate your first date?" Jake asked, getting them back to the discussion at hand.

"No, that won't be good," the Doctor said, remembering what they'd always referred to as their first date. "There's no way in this reality or any other that I'm going to blow up the Earth. Or take her back to the end of this planet. Suppose I could do the chips, but that's nothing special. We got chips all the time. That woman seriously has a thing with fried potatoes."

Jake looked at him with his wide eyes for a second. "On your first date, you took her to see her home planet get destroyed?" he asked incredulously. "Why the hell would you do that?"

"It was her first trip. Seemed like the thing to do at the time. You know, show her a whole lot of aliens at once," the Doctor replied, shrugging.

"Helluva idea of romantic, Doctor," Jake said, shaking his head.

"I wasn't trying to be romantic, I was trying to-" the Doctor started, but cut himself off. He saw Jake staring at him, wordlessly trying to get him to go on. "It doesn't matter," he finished, somewhat lamely.

Jake looked at him a moment more, but then decided to drop it. "Oh, I've got it!" he exclaimed.

XxXxXxXx

Rose shut the folder she had just finished with a grin. That was the last of her work for the day. The last she was going to do anyway. She'd had a hard time concentrating on any one task since the moment the Doctor had put his hand on her thigh. He'd asked her out. He'd properly asked her out. Inside, she felt like a schoolgirl who's crush had asked her to the prom. She wondered where he had planned to take her. What would she need to wear?

She handed the folder to her new secretary and told her to have a great weekend. The fact that she had a secretary in the first place baffled her. She'd only had Emily for a few hours and was unsure about the whole thing. Emily wasn't only her secretary, since Rose's primary job was in the field. She had to share the woman with the office next door, which was fine with her, because Lawrence was a boring pencil pusher, so he'd be able to use the woman much more than she could.

She hadn't gotten all the way to the lift yet when the door opened with a ding. Inside stood the man who'd been pervading her thoughts all day. They both grinned at each other and Rose stepped inside the small space with him. He threaded his fingers with hers before the door closed.

"So, where we goin'?" Rose asked.

"It's a surprise," he answered in a sing song voice.

"Okay, then. What sorta clothes do I need?" she wondered.

He looked over at her, then slowly ran his eyes down her body, making no effort to hide what he was doing. "Something at the length that you're wearing now will do just nicely, though you may want to wear something a little less businessy." He considered her feet for a moment. "And flats. Something you could run in," he added.

"Will we be doin' any runnin', Doctor?" Rose asked, flashing her grin at him.

"Welll, you never know what you'll be doing. Don't want to break an ankle," he replied nonchalantly. "Plus, high heels do damage to your feet over time. Even the lower ones," he added. Rose looked down at her own feet. The heels she wore were low, only about an inch high.

The lift doors opened right then, and they stepped out into the car park. During the drive to the house, Rose kept noticing the Doctor out of the corner of her eye. She could feel his nervousness. It was just like her own.

At the house, the Doctor made a beeline for his office, just like he had on any other day. This time, he came out only a couple of minutes later.

"What are you doing in there?" Rose asked, not for the first time.

"I told you, it's a surprise," he repeated, as he had every time Rose had asked the question. "The best kind of prize is a surprise," he said, then smiled at his own little joke. The way he said it, she was sure he was quoting something, but she didn't know what. "Get ready," he told her, shooing her off toward the bathroom.

She didn't take long fixing her makeup up. She had it down to a science now. Exactly what she needed to enhance her features, plus a little additional eye makeup, because she still liked it darker. She didn't wear it as heavy as she used to. It made her look older than she did otherwise.

And it made her look younger than she really was. She didn't know exactly how old she was, but she had a clue within a year.

She left the bathroom and went to the bedroom, not seeing the Doctor on her way. In the bedroom, she chose a little black dress. Something that would be great almost anywhere. The dress had thin straps over the shoulders and was straight and simple on the top. The skirt part was pleated. It was one of those her mother had made her get when they were new in the universe. Something to show off her status, but not too ostentatious. She slipped it on, grabbed a small, black purse, and walked out to the living room to transfer the items from the pocket of her blazer to the purse.

She felt the Doctor's presence and turned around to see him leaning on the half wall of the little library with a soft smile on his face. He was wearing his blue suit and red chucks, but, instead of just the t shirt like he usually wore underneath the blue suit, he was fully kitted out with a tie and Oxford. She liked that a lot better than the t-shirt.

"You look...beautiful," he told her, staring her straight in the eyes. He stepped forward and kissed her softly. She melted into the kiss and decided that she would have been quite happy to stay in that night, but the Doctor had other plans and pulled away. He took her little bag and stuck it in his bigger on the inside pocket.

"Allons-y," he said and pulled her to the door, taking the keys off of the hook by the door as he did so. At the car, the Doctor went over to the passenger's side and opened the door for Rose. It took a second for her to get what he was doing. He was being chivalrous.

"Are you gonna drive?" Rose asked him.

"Well, I do know where we're going," he replied.

"Do ya even know how ta drive a car?" she queried with an eyebrow raised.

"Yes, I've even had a couple of cars before," the Doctor replied. "One of them was a bright yellow roadster. I called it Bessie," he told her, smiling fondly.

"Don't crash my car," she told him, poking him in the chest before she got in the passenger side.

It wasn't a far drive to the first place they stopped. It was just a little diner, much like the ones they frequented in the other universe. It was always the little diners that had the best food, the Doctor asserted, and she agreed. The nicer places had good food, too, but for pure flavor, you wanted to go somewhere smaller.

XxXxXxXx

The pair sat in a corner as far away from a window as they could get, with their backs turned to the entrance. When they took their seats, Rose explained that she didn't want people recognizing them and interrupting their meal.

"You'd never guess what happened today," Rose said to the Doctor right after their order was taken.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I have a secretary now," Rose told him, making a face. The Doctor just laughed. "'M serious!"

"Sorry," the Doctor said insincerely, then shook his head. "Actually, no, I'm not. You, with a secretary?" That was funny.

"I know! All I am is jus' some shop girl who, dependin' on your point of view, got really lucky or unlucky. Now here I am, with a secretary? Well, at least she's not just mine, I have to share 'er with the pencil pusher next door."

"Don't say that," the Doctor spoke up. Her words had metaphorically cut him. Did she see herself as lucky, or unlucky?

"Don't say what?" Rose wondered.

"That. You've never just been some shop girl. You've never just been anything," he told her, taking the hand nearer to him. "You worked in a shop, yes, but that was just a step in your life." She leaned into him and he let go of her hand to wrap his arm around her. "A step that led you to me," he continued. "And that step is something I will forever be grateful for."

Rose lifted her head up and looked him in the eyes, staring as if she were searching for something. Suddenly, he could feel more than just her presence. He felt her nervousness "Really?" she asked quietly. He felt nervousness, love, and outright fear.

"Of course," he replied. "You took a tired old soldier and made him want to be a better man. You're still doing it, and I'm glad to have your hand to hold again."

Wow, he was being sentimental. Great, he'd turned into a sap.

"What about-?" Rose started, then stopped herself, shaking her head. "Never mind."

"What about what?" he asked. He caught flashes of memory from her, spanning almost the whole time they'd known each other.

"You made me better..."

"He needs you, that's very me..."

"...You know what you need most? A hand to hold."

"I'm all alone, cause there's no one else." "There's me."

"How long are you going to stay with me?" "Forever."

Along with the flashes, there came a guilty feeling.

Telepathy was a double edge sword sometimes. While Rose was trying to get more from him, she'd inadvertently opened herself up. She might as well have sent him her memory flash. Rose shook her head, sat back up straight and took a sip of her water. She wasn't going to answer him. She didn't know that she already had.

"You know, it occurs to me that I really would not want to be in your position," the Doctor started, fiddling with the napkin in front of him. Rose looked over at him in confusion. "Really. You worked so hard to get back and, just when you reach your goal, it all goes pear shaped, which is another reason to hate pears, by the way. Suddenly, there's two of me, and I'm not crossing my timeline for once. And then there's what happened on the beach."

Rose was looking very nervous now, and had closed herself off completely. He couldn't feel her presence anymore, telepathically, at least. She'd shut herself down so much, that he couldn't even feel her presence as a sentient being. She was a telepathic void, which she shouldn't have been able to do. The loss of her mental presence entirely and so quickly put him on edge.

"This isn't a great conversation for a date, but it needs to get out there," he continued. "I felt the guilt coming off of you in waves, and that won't do at all." Beside him, Rose stiffened.

"Were you in my head?" Rose questioned, eyebrows furrowed. It made a crease mark on her forehead.

"No, I was not in your head," he replied. "But you were sort of in mine, and I got a bit from you," he told her. "Very rude, by the way, getting in someone's head without their permission," he chided her.

"'M sorry," Rose replied with her hand over her mouth. She looked mortified. He knew that she hated when people got in her head. "I wasn't- I was jus' feelin'."

"It's a bit harder to control telepathic shielding when emotional, just like anything else. It's alright. You'll get better over time," he assured her. "I'm glad it happened, though. I didn't realize you felt so guilty over what happened on the beach."

"I was impulsive," Rose suddenly spoke up.

Ow. That hurt. Was she regretting her choice? He'd thought she'd been okay with it, but she'd become very good at hiding things.

"You should've never had to make that choice," the Doctor informed her.

"Choice?" Rose asked indignantly. "That was no choice. You wanna get things out? Fine then. That whole thing on the beach was a manipulation, pure and simple," she hissed, trying not to draw attention to them from the people on the other side of the restaurant. "Starting with my mother."

"If I recall right, and I usually do, your mother was silent through the whole thing," he reminded her.

"Yeah. Her presence was a manipulation all on it's own," Rose asserted.

"How's that?" he wondered.

"As soon as I knew for sure that I was in the right place at the righ' time, I sent word back, lettin' everyone on this side of the wall know. That's when Mum an' Mickey came through. Mum was hopin' she could talk ya into takin' me back 'ere and droppin' me off. Didn't matter that I told her time and again that it was incredibly dangerous."

"She doesn't want to lose you," he reasoned. "She's your mother." Rose nodded sadly.

"I didn't wanna leave 'er, but, well. It was better than the alternative. Besides, she was being completely hypocritical. She left her own mother, my gran, to come a different universe and be with a stranger who looked and acted like her husband, but wasn't. I just wanted to go back where I belonged and...you know."

The Doctor could see the parallels between her parents and their situation. "Like us," he said.

"Nothing like us," Rose denied. She waved her finger between the two of them. "We have history an' you're not a parallel version. Anyway, that's how Mum was manipulatin' the situation. Just by being there as a reminder. An' she wasn' the only one doin' it."

Their food came just then and Rose, who was sitting on the outside, passed the Doctor's plate to him.

"Rose, I didn't-" he started when the waitress left.

"No, no you weren't. You were the only one standin' on that beach who wasn't," Rose assured him sadly. "The only one who gave me a choice. Donna was standin' there, head fulla you and was all, 'Oh, he's bettah for you,'" she mocked, shocking the Doctor. He'd thought Rose liked Donna.

"He," Rose continued. "He stood there and told me you were a cost an' you were dangerous an' I had to take care of ya. An' even if what he was sayin' was true, why the hell is it my responsibility?"

She was really getting on a roll now. All these thing's she'd kept inside since that day. He knew she needed to let it out. She'd let some of her frustrations out that day at the hotel they'd stayed at in Bergen, but only the part where they'd made choices without consulting her, not the fact that she'd felt manipulated.

"It's not," he assured her. "It's really not. That's not your job, and he was out of line to say so."

Rose sighed. "I can't help but think I could have stopped this from happening in the first place. You wouldn't be stuck here, I wouldn't be stuck here. It could all be different if I had just told-"

"Oh, Rose, there was nothing you could have done shy of walking right back in the TARDIS and refusing to come out until he had to leave," he told her. "His mind was made up, and you know how stubborn I can be." Rose nodded sadly at that. "Then I would have wound up stuck in this universe alone. Wellll, not alone, with Jackie Tyler," he shook himself and Rose cracked a smile. He considered that a win for the conversation.

"You coulda stayed too," Rose pointed out.

"Dunno about that," he said shaking his head and popping a chip into his mouth. "We'd have fought like cats and dogs," he informed her around the bit of fried potato. "I know, I've got a tendency to argue with myself. Master of self depreciation, me. I've even been known to insult myself right to my own face!" He laughed. "Got several of me together a couple of times, and we spent half the time arguing amongst one another. One time, two of me were together, and a younger version of me had to come along and break us up! And no matter how many times you run into yourself, the pronouns are awkward."

Rose rolled her eyes and he could tell she was amused. "Only you," she said, fondly. "Different incarnations?" Rose wondered.

"Yep," he replied, popping the 'p'. He thought for a moment, wondering if he should continue the conversation and get answers, or just let things play out. He decided to throw caution to the wind. "If you were properly given a choice, with all options explained fully, what would you have chosen?" he asked, needing to know.

Rose stilled with a fork nearly to her mouth and shut her eyes tightly. "I dunno. Do I know what I know now? Or what I knew then?" she questioned.

He regarded her for a moment before answering, "Both ways."

"Then, I wouldn'ta been able to make the choice. I woulda insisted on givin' both of you the chance. I'd already been talking to ya, jokin' with you. I knew you were the same man. Now?" She grabbed his hand, leaned over, and kissed him softly as an answer.

Rose would willingly choose him.

He deepened the kiss, singular heart fluttering wildly. When Rose parted her lips, he darted his tongue in, to swipe it against hers.

Rose Tyler would have gone with him.

"Get a room," a woman on the other side of the room called out, then laughed, making the pair of ex-and hopefully future- time travelers break apart. Rose looked wonderfully pink with embarrassment.

The Doctor, however, wasn't embarrassed. He was elated, because Rose Marion Tyler said she'd choose him, this him, not the other him.

They ate the rest of their meal quickly and quietly, trying to finish, so they could get out of there. One of the people with the woman who had called to them had recognized Rose, and they were shooting glances at the table. The Doctor was sure that one of them had even taken a picture with his phone. The whole celebrity thing made him nervous, and not just because he had a lot to hide.

When they reentered the car, Rose asked, "Okay, so where to now? And don't say it's a surprise."

"How do you feel about going out dancing?" he asked. Rose's eyes lit up.

"Are you going to show me your moves?" she asked, giving him her teasing, tongue in tooth grin.

"Wellll, first, we're going to find out if I have them, then I will show them off," he told her.

"So, what kind of dancing will we be doing, Doctor?" Rose asked flirtatiously.

"It's a surprise," he told her, causing Rose to roll her eyes.

XxXxXxXx

Rose stepped out of the car and looked up at the building. "Dance lessons, Doctor?" she asked, with an eyebrow raised.

"Yep," he replied, looking smug. He looked around to make sure no one else could hear them. "If I can dance this time around, great, if not, well, I'll learn. My last self could dance. I'm hoping, since this body is very similar, that it carried over."

"So the ability to dance isn't one of the things that stays with you?" Rose asked.

"Well, the basic mechanics do, that's cerebral. The physical is part muscle memory and part if that body is built for it. But I won't ever have to worry about that again." He clapped his hands, said, "I wonder what they're teaching tonight," and started off toward the building.

"You don't know?" Rose asked.

"Well, I called and asked when the class tonight was," the Doctor explained. "Didn't wanna know what class it was. More fun that way." Rose giggled at him. There was her Doctor.

"What if they're doing, oh, I dunno, square dancing?" Rose asked, trying to keep a straight face.

The Doctor snorted. "It's not the hills of ol' Kentucky, Rose. But if they do, it'll still be fun."

It turned out that they were doing Salsa.

"You might wanna move those new feet, which you'll find are still attached to the end of your legs, In case you've forgotten," Rose teased when the instructor told everyone where to stand, causing the Doctor to laugh.

They were twisting and turning, doing what the instructor commanded. They giggled at their mistakes, especially since Salsa had a lot of spins where the pair had to keep their hands held. The Doctor had twisted her arm up behind her twice, but Rose had to admit she wasn't any better. She'd stomped on his foot once.

The instructor came up to them and gave the pair a few extra pointers, demonstrating with both Rose and the Doctor.

"You're passionate about one another. Madly in love. You're a tempest," the instructor said when there were ten minutes left in the class. "You'd do anything for each other, track the other one across the world if you needed to. This is serious, this is passion, this is-"

Rose never heard the end of it, because the Doctor burst out laughing beside her. She followed a second later.

They weren't invited back.

They were still laughing when they got back to the car. The Doctor took them to, of all places, a park. It was a nicer park. Most of the equipment was new.

"A park, Doctor?" Rose asked.

"Why not?" he countered. "It's fun. And now that it's dark, it's cool and there's no one else here. We've got the place to ourselves." He sat down on a swing and slowly swung back and forth. Rose went over to the one next to him and sat on it as well. "There's something so wonderful about a simple swing. Gravity and centrifugal force working together and against each other." With that statement, he started swinging higher.

Rose started swinging too. The swings were always one of her favorite things in a park. The two of them swung for a few minutes, laughing and urging each other to go higher. When they were going high enough that the chain started going a little slack once gravity took hold again, they slowed down and stopped.

Or Rose stopped anyway. The Doctor allowed himself to fly out of the seat on the forward swing, catapulting himself into the air. He hadn't been going high at the time, and he landed on his feet, but those facts didn't stop Rose from momentarily worrying about him until he turned around and gave her a showman's bow.

She rolled her eyes at his antics. "You know, I never thought I'd be messing about on a playground as an adult," she commented, still sitting on the swing.

The Doctor came over and grabbed the chains of her swing. He pushed her back and up so that her face was closer to level with his. She'd had to put her feet on the ground because she was slipping a bit.

"Yeah, but what's the fun in being an adult if you can't act a little childish sometimes?" the Doctor questioned. He then stepped back and held out his hand for her to take.

Rose automatically took the hand offered and was taken over to a large merry-go-round. Rose stepped on it and the Doctor pushed her around. Centrifugal force pushed her outwards a bit, but not much, because the Doctor wasn't pushing very hard.

"Lay down," he told her, and she complied. The Doctor gave one last push and climbed up, laying down next to her. The sky turned around and around and Rose grinned at it.

"This is brilliant," she told the Doctor. "A great date."

"I had hoped you'd like it," he replied. "It was a good first date, or first one for this body anyway. Or a proper third date. Our third first date." He shifted so that he was on his side and focused on her. "I love you, Rose," he whispered and leaned down. Rose lifted her head to meet him halfway in their kiss. The kiss was sweet and soft and didn't last long, but that was okay, because she could feel every bit of love he was pouring into it.

The merry go round had slowed and stopped when their kiss broke. The Doctor looked down at her with wonder in his eyes and cupped her cheek.

"I love you too, my Doctor," Rose whispered. His hand moved to the back of her head and brought his lips to hers again, harder than before. Their kiss was passionate. All teeth and tongue and lips. Rose put one of her hands in his hair, and the Doctor's hand moved down the side of Rose's body until he got to the hem of her dress, the skirt of which was raised up her thigh a little.

Rose moaned, encouraging him to go on, and was rewarded when his hand started moving back up her thigh, only under the skirt. Her own hands had started roaming, and she could feel his excitement, and not just through the telepathy.

The Doctor stopped moving just before he got to the edge of her knickers. Instead, he rubbed his thumb back and forth along the inside of her thigh. He broke the kiss and gazed into her eyes, silently asking her if it was okay. She nodded, and he started kissing down her neck.

The fingers that had been driving her crazy slid over the fabric of her knickers and pushed a little, causing her hips to buck a little in an attempt to get more friction. The Doctor softly laughed against her neck. "Your pants are damp. Now why is that?" he asked with a grin that Rose knew meant he knew exactly why. "Want more?" he asked huskily.

"Yes," she breathed out, and the Doctor fulfilled her wish by sliding a single appendage underneath the fabric and lightly brushing her. Rose moaned and moved her hand to palm the erection she could feel through his trousers. The Doctor moaned and ground into her hand, but stopped her after a couple of rubs.

"I am far too keyed up for that right now, Little Flirt," he told her.

"Then how about we get back to somewhere more proper and private?" Rose asked boldly.

"Right!" the Doctor exclaimed, sitting up. "One properly private space coming up." He stood up and reached down to help her up, when Rose noticed a shadow behind him.

"Doctor?" she shouted, looking behind him. Before he could turn, he was knocked out. Rose noticed a dart sticking out of the side of his neck as he dropped. She went to get up, but saw three darts sticking out of her before she could fully stand. She struggled to get to one of them and do something, anything, but her vision blacked out before she could.