A/N: And we're back to good, old Ten/Rose again in this chapter. :) For anyone sensitive to it, there is some extremely minor dubcon kissing between Rose and another character (not the Doctor).

Allons-y!

. . .

Sitting in a Tree

Rose got her cootie shot when she was seven, the chant of circle-circle, dot-dot an induction into the in-crowd though she didn't know it till Suzanne Winters invited her over to the corner table at lunch. Eagerly Rose joined them, not touching her brown-bagged leftovers as she drank in their matching pink backpacks and sparkly butterfly barrettes, scented gel pens and jelly shoes.

The next two weeks were the best of Rose Tyler's young life. She blew on dandelion fluff and counted the seeds left over to see when she would get married and played MASH to find out who it would be to (Marc Conahan, they would have fifteen kids and live in a mansion in LA).

Then it all fell apart.

. . .

"Zoe!" Rose races down the pavement after her friend. "Hey, Zoe! Wait up!"

But Zoe doesn't hear her; she climbs into the back of her mum's car without looking in Rose's direction once. None of them heard her today, not when Mrs. Cormier asked them to split into groups of two and Rose was left paired with Louise Booger-Eater or when she told a joke that no one laughed at but everyone did when Amy told it a minute later. Not even when Suzanne was handing out invitations to her birthday party and everyone got one but Rose. Even Louise Booger-Eater.

Rose sits down on the ground, the new light-up shoes that she begged her mum to buy sitting sadly in the gutter. She wants to cry, even if it means the older girls will make fun of her.

"Hey," says Kenny and he takes a seat next to her, "I got the new Spiderman."

"Cool," says Rose.

"My mum said she was making cookies today. An' she said it was OK with her if you came over 's long as it's OK with your mum." He stuffs one hand into his coat pocket and comes out with a crumpled tissue that he holds out to her.

Rose nods and takes the tissue, wiping her streaming nose. "OK."

"She says you can stay for dinner, too, if you want. We're having lasagne." He grins at her and Rose musters a smile back.

"That sounds fun."

She doesn't notice the older girls snickering.

. . .

"This doesn't count as breaking-and-entering, does it?" Rose darts a nervous glance across the empty yard, half-expecting an attack dog to come charging round the corner or a laser beam to shoot out of the drainpipe. (This is how she knows it's been too long since their last visit to her mum's where the most she has to worry about is separating out her delicates from her tops and trousers.) Trainers squeaking in the wet grass, the Doctor draws her back against his chest; his chuckle ruffles her hair and she tenses in his hold.

Relax, he says. We've broken into Buckingham Palace before, remember?

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?"

Well, I doubt we have to worry about retina scans on a treehouse. Besides, he adds, tipping her an enormous wink as he hoists himself onto the first rung, made for much smaller feet, I want to see if it's bigger on the inside.

He's halfway up the ladder before Rose can think to stop him. No doubt anticipating her reluctance for this adventure in nostalgia, he's worn the blue suit today, the tighter one; it clings to him in a way that can't possibly be legal and Rose has trouble detaching her eyes from his altitude-gaining bum. Three rungs from the top, he pauses to wiggle it enticingly in her direction.

Coming?

With a beleaguered sigh, Rose follows.

. . .

When Rose is in a bad mood, her mum likes to ask if she woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Rose can never tell which side is the wrong one (and has tried sleeping on both without any difference either way), but she thinks the rest of her class ought to try switching.

Suzanne laughs when Rose gives her this advice, but it's a mean laugh, and Rose hears her whispering about it with Zoe and Amy and everyone at snacktime. For the past week, Suzanne has been the only one to talk to Rose and even then it's just to tease her. Everyone else just points and whispers behind their hands, leaving Rose sitting alone with her brown bag, at the table underneath the air vent. Sometimes, Kenny joins her but he's in Mrs. Guilmette's class and they come in later for lunch.

Rose looks up when a cafeteria tray lands with a clatter in front of her. Chocolate milk splashes out of its' little cardboard container onto the table and Rose's sleeve, but Louise (just Louise now, the Booger-Eater part has been erased in light of Rose's offense) doesn't even bother to apologize.

"Stop crying," she says. "You're being a crybaby and no one likes it. Stop it."

"Easy for you to say," Rose sniffles. "You're friends with them now. Everyone in class doesn't hate you."

Louise rolls her eyes. "Well, if you want us to like you again, stop hanging out with your boyfriend."

"Mickey?" But Mickey's four years older than her; lunch and recess are at different times for them and the most she does is wave at him in the halls. When his Gran brings him over this weekend, maybe she can tell him to stop waving?

"Not Mickey, stupid," Louise tuts. "Kenny. Marcy Fields said you go off with him every day after school."

"His mum babysits me," says Rose, half-lying.

"Marcy says you go to his treehouse every day. She says she saw you kissing."

"We weren't kissing!" And that isn't a lie at all; once their homework is done and cookies have been eaten, she and Kenny will pore over his newest issues of Batman or Superman or else divide up his Pokemon cards and play against each other. (Never for keepsies, but he always gives her the Vulpix card, anyway.) If it's rainy out, they'll watch some Star Trek reruns and Kenny's mum will talk about how she used to watch these when she was their age.

But Louise isn't listening. "Rose and Kenny sitting in a tree," she sings, "K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage."

Rose excuses herself just as the chorus, led by Louise and Suzanne, starts up again.

. . .

"Why does it matter to you, anyway?"

Everything about you matters to me, Rose. Content to leave it at that, the Doctor continues to flip through the pile of bent and faded Pokemon cards, left beneath the loose floorboard with old issues of comic books and a box of Hostess cupcakes with an expiration date several years past.

Ooh, look, a little fox, says the Doctor, holding up a card for her inspection.

"Vulpix," says Rose, the name springing automatically to her lips. The Doctor smiles fondly at her and she lifts the top issue from the pile - something about Wolverine from the X-Men - riffling through the pages.

Bit barbaric, fighting with these, isn't it? he wonders aloud. Little foxes and lizards and, he squints down at Jigglypuff, well, whatever this one is. And they just get sucked back into some little ball when you're done with them?

"Maybe it's bigger on the inside," Rose suggests, rather waspishly. Shame washes over her when the Doctor frowns, looking a bit hurt, and she wraps her arms around her knees, curling herself into a little ball.

It was so much easier when she was seven.

Are you angry with me?

"I just don't see why you have to keep pushing," Rose sighs. "It was years ago."

You mentioned it, says the Doctor, his usual bluntness offset by the soft stroke of his thumb along her knuckle. I thought you might want closure.

"Not this time," says Rose. "Sometimes humans just want to forget about things, Doctor, and this . . . 's not exactly my proudest moment."

It's still you, Rose. The roof is slanted low so he crawls to her side, slinging an arm around her. It still helped shape you into the person you are and I happen to love that person. His lips brush softly against her own, offering reassurance that words alone can't bring. I will always love that person.

. . .

"Rose! Rose - hey, wait up!"

Clutching a cafeteria tray tightly in both hands - it's pizza day and her mum lent her the money - Rose heads quickly toward the corner table. She nearly drops her food when Kenny's hand brushes her elbow.

"Didn't you hear me?"

Rose shakes her head, not looking at him. "No. Sorry."

"I haven't seen you all week. Mum says you've been going over somewhere else."

"Yeah. Shareen invited me over to her house," Rose explains. "And it's nearer my mum's, so we thought that was better."

"Oh." Kenny kicks at an imaginary pebble with his shoe. "Maybe next week, then? My dad just got me the new X-Men. It's really cool."

"I don't really like X-Men. Sorry." The words make Rose's stomach hurt to say them and, looking down at her slice of pizza, feels a bit nauseous. She wonders if Mrs. Cormier will give her a pass to the nurse but before she can ask, Kenny calls out for her again. He says something too fast for Rose to hear but then he kisses her, his lips wet and sloppy and gross, and things happen even faster.

Rose shoves him away, face twisted in disgust, shouting that she got her cootie shot for a reason, but the damage has been done. Everyone has seen and everyone is laughing - Suzanne and Marc and Louise Booger-Eater - and by the end of the day the whole school will be singing about Rose and Kenny kissing in a tree again so that even if cooties doesn't kill her, humiliation will. She wants to throw up now more than ever.

Five minutes later that's exactly what she does while the headmistress calls her mum and the nurse strokes her hair.

. . .

You know that was wrong of him, the Doctor reminds her, just as he does every time. You know that, Rose.

"He was seven, Doctor," Rose reminds him, just as she does every time. "He was a kid and he liked me and 's not like I told him what was going on. . . ."

So he forced himself on you?

"For two seconds." Still, his arm tightens protectively around her and Rose squirms a bit in his hold. "Trust me, Doctor, I'm not scarred for life or anything."

But you're upset, says the Doctor knowingly.

Rose shakes her head, a vehement denial; the material of the Doctor's suit makes a funny noise when her hair swooshes against it. "Not 'cause of that. He apologized after, and all. I was the one who didn't accept it."

The Doctor snorts, tearing viciously into the box of cupcakes. For humiliating you like that? I should think not.

"He was still my friend, Doctor." Rose snags a cellophane-wrapped pastry from the Doctor's hands, not up to dealing with a tummy ache-afflicted Time Lord. "He was my best friend. And then we just - stopped being friends. And it was all my fault."

You were seven. The Doctor parrots Rose's own words back at her.

But Rose only shakes her head again. "Doesn't excuse it. 'S one thing to make a mistake but I knew exactly what I was doing. I wanted to be friends with the popular girls and he was just - standing in the way of that, so I just . . . god, Doctor, I told him I never wanted to talk to him again. I called him - ugh, I don't even remember what I called him, but it was this really nasty stuff."

Stupidhead? the Doctor suggests, a well-intentioned attempt at humor, but Rose hardly hears him.

"He lent me these comics, too, and I never gave him them back. They're still at Mum's, or . . . what if I threw them out? What if they were collectors' items and I just threw them out 'cause I didn't want to look uncool or whatever? And he could've sold them . . . he could be rich right now if it wasn't for me - god, I'm such a bitch."

Hey, hey. The Doctor frames Rose's face with both hands and she feels her breathing begin to even out at the firm pressure of his fingers, tracing along her jawline. Don't call yourself that. Don't ever call yourself that. Do you understand?

He waits for Rose's reluctant assent before continuing.

We're here to put this behind us, yes? If you won't let me blame this Kenny for something that happened when he was seven and didn't know better, then I certainly won't let the love of my lives blame herself for something which is, in my rather brilliant opinion, a perfectly reasonable reaction to the first something. He raises his eyebrows and, at the sight of her watery eyes, waggles them slightly to lighten the moment.

You're a good person, Rose, he says seriously, nudging her nose with his. One little mistake won't change that.

Again, Rose nods. Nibbling nervously at her cuticle, she ventures, "We couldn't change it, could we? Go back and talk to me and him and fix things?"

No, he says firmly, tone brooking no room for argument, your timeline is not one I'm willing to risk. There's too great a potential for paradoxes.

"Like if I ended up with him instead of you?" Rose asks archly.

The Doctor scoffs. It would hardly be a competition. I have a spaceship.

"He has a treehouse."

Which the TARDIS could easily recreate, the Doctor points out, performing lower lip calisthenics that have the potential to become a serious pout. Probably a better one, too. (For a man who has faced down dictators with a smile on his face, Rose muses, he is remarkably transparent when it comes to matters of the heart.)

"Yeah?" Rose runs a hand down the Doctor's chest, batting her eyelashes exaggeratedly up at him. "You wanna show me your treehouse, Doctor?"

Oh, yes! Grinning devilishly back, the Doctor captures her lips in a searing kiss before bouncing away. Rose scrambles after him down the ladder and when they reach the ground again and he pulls her against him - ostensibly to keep her steady, but she can feel the real reason bulging against his tight blue trousers (not that she's complaining) - and is grateful they parked the TARDIS just down the street.

. . .

Much, much later when Rose is lying, sweaty and sated, on the polished mahogany floor of the studio-sized treehouse, while she stares up at the stars of some distant galaxy through a skylight which the TARDIS so helpfully provided and the Doctor presses idle, drowsky kisses to her breasts and neck, she swears she can hear him singing. He always gets a bit dopey after an orgasm and he doesn't seem preoccupied with proper pentameter or Time Lord protocol (which they must have smashed to bits by now) and Rose lets the words wash over her, stocking them away for the next time he teases her for drooling on the pillow.

The Doctor and Rose, sitting in a tree, S-H-A-G-G-I-N-G.

. . .

A/N: Next chapter is tentatively titled Love and Marriage, but let me know what you thought of this one in a review!