Rose is pulled from her sleep, rather violently, by the sound of hammering on her door.
"Rose," hisses a voice on the other side. "Rose, it's Mickey. Open up. Please?"
Groaning in response, Rose yanks her pillow over her aching head. When did Mickey's whispers get so loud?
"Rose?" says Mickey's voice, louder.
Swearing under her breath, Rose slides out of bed, squinting against the lightning blaring overhead and steadying herself with a hand to the wall as she slouches her way over to the door-it's an actual door, thankfully, not that magical hole-in-the-wall thing, which is a blessing, because Rose has no idea how that knock thing works, and she's fairly certain her brain can't handle anything more complicated than a doorknob right now. She pushes the door open to find Mickey standing in the hallway, clad in satiny jimjams and a plush robe; yet another set of amenities provided by Uruud or one of the other Votaries, Rose thinks.
"Can I help you?" she grumbles.
"I wanted to check in. What's going on with you right now?"
Rose sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. It doesn't help the pain (in fact, it might make it worse), but it at least helps allay the sensation that her head is going to inflate and float away like some kind of wine-filled balloon.
"It's...nothing," she says after a moment. "It's stupid. I'm just being stupid."
"Rose," Mickey says, admonishing.
"Mickey," she replies flatly.
Mickey crosses his arms. "Okay. Fine. We don't have to talk about it, if you don't want-"
"Great," says Rose, pushing the door closed.
"Wait! Rose!"
Groaning in frustration, Rose pulls the door back open to find Mickey looking stricken.
"Why are you really here?" she asks. "Just spit it out."
"Oh my god, he won't stop talking, okay?" Mickey blurts out. "It's driving me up the bleeding wall. No, scratch that-it's driving me all the way off the planet, out of the galaxy, into a neighboring universe. He just won't. Stop. Talking!"
Rose squints in confusion. "Who?"
"The Doctor," Mickey replies, exasperated. "Who else? Ever since we got back to the room, he's going a million miles an hour, Allstorm this and barometric pressure that and something about Therran politics and just all this stupid nuttery nonsense and he won't bloody shut up."
His mouth quirks downward in a lip-quivering pout. "I just want to sleep, Rose."
Leaning against the doorjamb for support, Rose feels the smallest inkling of pity welling up somewhere where her stomach used to be; she would have warned Mickey that might happen, had it occurred to her, but she'd grown so accustomed to the Doctor's rambling during overnight stays in strangers' homes and sleepy movies in the TARDIS library and occasional stints in otherworldly prisons that his late-night lectures often served as a handy sleep aid. Or at least, they did before. Rose has no idea how she'd react to it now, after half a year's-worth of falling asleep each night completely and utterly alone.
"Look, can I just stay in here tonight?" Mickey asks, fidgeting uncomfortably in his slippers. "Please?"
Yawning, Rose nods, stepping aside to make room.
"Thank you," Mickey gushes, stopping to peck a quick kiss on her cheek before he darts inside, making a beeline straight for the bed. Rose closes the door and follows after much more slowly, her feet dragging over the floor, her entire body moving as if it were filled with lead, heavy and cumbersome and reluctant to fight against gravity's insatiable pull.
Hauling herself back into bed, Rose wants nothing more than to sleep the night away and pretend this godforsaken mess of a day never happened. But instead she lies awake next to Mickey for what feels like hours, her thoughts plodding on sluggishly in an endless parade as her stomach twists in knots.
The Doctor looks more confused than anything when he answers the door.
"Mickey's snoring," Rose grumbles by way of explanation, pushing past the Doctor before he has a chance to reply.
The Doctor doesn't move from his post by the door, doesn't even turn to look at Rose as she kicks off her slippers, gathers the skirts of her gown, and yanks open the canopy-curtain, collapsing into the bed. She pulls the duvet over her head, tunneling deep into the bedclothes like a rabbit in a burrow, and waits. Any minute now, the Doctor will acknowledge her presence, with babble or chatter or a protest, but only silence meets her ears. Silence, and then the quiet whine of the door closing, and the soft padding of the Doctor's shoes over the floor. Rose expects the bed to dip with his weight, and frowns when she hears something that sounds suspiciously like a chair dragging over the tiles instead. She peeks out from under the bedclothes just long enough to see the Doctor depositing himself at the bedside table, raking a hand through his hair.
That churning-feeling rises up in Rose's stomach again. She tells herself it's just the alcohol.
She hates how much this bothers her, how much she just wants him to pull her into his arms even after what a horrible arse he's been, hates how much she wishes he would hold her tight and promise that everything's all right. She hates it.
"You don't, erm," she tries to say, mentally kicking herself even as the words leave her mouth. "You don't have to stay over there all night, you know. It's your bed after all."
Silence again.
Rose squirms in the bedclothes. Not because she feels guilty and uncomfortable; no, it's because the bedclothes are a little scratchy, that's all. The fancy, expensive, definitely-made-out-of-some-kind-of-silk bedclothes.
(Mickey said the Doctor wouldn't shut up-why isn't he blabbering now?)
"Just...you're not gonna get any rest like that, is all I'm saying," Rose tries again, her voice muffled by the mattress. "C'mon. Bed's big enough for two."
The air is quiet and still, and moments pass in endless agony. But just when Rose thinks the Doctor might sit by the desk all night after all, she hears the soft rustle of moving cloth, feels the mattress pull to accommodate another occupant. She peeks out from under the duvet again to see the Doctor lying atop the bedclothes, staring at the canopy ceiling, hands folded over his stomach and feet crossed at the ankles. He hasn't even taken off his plimsolls, the barmy alien.
The bad feeling in Rose's stomach loosens a little, but only a little. "You're not going to bed like that, are you?"
"Like what?"
"All, y'know. Still dressed and everything. Can't be comfy."
"That hangover you're nursing can't be comfy either."
Rose's cheeks burn with embarrassment. "Shut up," she mumbles, though with a mouthful of bedsheet, it emerges a bit more like Sherderrmpf.
The Doctor shifts next to her, and a hand creeps into her field of vision, unfolding to reveal two tablets. "Take them now, before the full effects set in," the Doctor says softly. "Should clear you up in a jiffy."
Reluctantly, Rose slips the tablets out of his hand.
"You'll need a glass of water."
"I know," she grumbles as she slides out of bed.
"Drink the whole glass."
"I know," Rose repeats, grumpily, even as she follows his orders and drags her half-lifeless corpse over to the en suite so she can fill a glass with water. Tablets, mouth, swallow, water, she drains the glass and refills it and drains it again, and already she's starting to feel better despite herself, damn him. After a moment, she chances a look back at the Doctor, whose thousand-yard-stare bores into the canopy up above, his face alternately painted white by the lightning leaking through the curtains and plunged back into darkness seconds later.
Rose wonders at his strange silence, what she can do to disrupt it. As disconcerting as his extreme chatter was earlier in the day, Rose would trade anything for it right now. She doesn't like it when the Doctor is quiet. It's weird.
Rose avoids her side of the bed on her return trip, heading straight for the Doctor instead, or rather, for his shoes. She ignores the way his eyebrow arches in question when she sits down at the foot of the bed and pulls the laces free from one plimsoll.
"You can't sleep like this," she chides gently.
"To be fair, it's doubtful I'll sleep at all."
Rose finishes unlacing one shoe and sets to work on the other. "I know."
She tugs both shoes off and scoots up the bed, unbuttoning the Doctor's top jacket-button. He doesn't try to stop her, not when she slips the next button free, not even when she moves down further, but with his hands still folded over his stomach, he doesn't exactly try to help her, either.
(Rose can feel the weight of his gaze on her face, though, heavy and questioning.)
Probably she should pull away, give him space, allow him room, if he wants it, but her hands linger near his, fingers ghosting over the landscape of his knuckles. "Just seems like you could use a proper rest, is all," she mumbles.
"I'm not tired," the Doctor says quietly.
"When's the last time you slept?"
"I'm all right, Rose."
"Yeah, that's what you say when you're anything but all right."
With a heavy sigh, the Doctor sits up, dislodging Rose's hands as he swings his legs round, hanging over the side of the bed, feet ready and prepped to stand. To run, Rose thinks, and panic rises in her chest, squeezing her heart until it hurts, bursting at the seams like a stress toy clenched in an angry and unforgiving fist.
"Doctor," she tries to say, but it's too late; he's pushing up from the bed and re-buttoning his jacket and he'll slip his shoes on next just before he slips out of the room, and she's just going to be left here alone with nothing but her own thoughts and aching heart and fluttering stomach for company. Rose doesn't know if she can take another night of that-last evening was more than enough, thanks. So she rises with the Doctor and, pulling him down by the jacket-lapels, presses a kiss to his mouth.
He freezes beneath her touch.
Rose's lungs contract painfully in her chest and she pulls away, panic pulsing higher and higher and louder and oh, god, oh, fuck, oh, no, no, no--
"Rose, I thought it was clear that my actions the other night were a mistake," says the Doctor, his voice surprisingly quiet for all that its edges are sharp.
Her cheeks flush hotly in the half-dark. "You didn't say it was a mistake. You said you were sorry."
"It's the same thing, isn't it?"
"No," replies Rose stubbornly. "It's not."
The Doctor shoves his hands into his pockets, but he doesn't move to leave, so Rose considers that a small victory. She'll take them where she can get them, right now.
"Why'd you kiss me, if it was wrong?" Rose asks.
The Doctor bristles. "Why did you push me away, if it wasn't?"
"I don't know. I guess I was just surprised, or confused, or taken off-guard, or…"
Mouth pursed tight, the Doctor watches her, unconvinced.
"Look, what do you want me to say?" Rose asks, crossing her arms defensively. "You want me to say it was because of what happened in France? Fine. It was because of France. Want me to say I was jealous? Fine. I was jealous. Happy?"
"Jealous? Jealous of whom?" the Doctor asks, bewildered.
The question hits Rose like a physical blow; she has to step back to absorb it. "Jealous of…?" she stutters, and when the Doctor doesn't elaborate, she throws her hands up in the air, at a complete loss. "Who do you think?"
The Doctor just shakes his head, eyes wide, and Rose drags both palms over her face in exasperation, heedless of any makeup she might be smearing. "God," she groans, "it's just so easy sometimes to forget what a bloody alien you are."
Buzzing with barely-tamed impatience, the Doctor watches her, waiting. Lightning arcs above them, painting the Doctor's face in a flash of white, and his eyebrow arches expectantly, as if to say, Are you going to go on, or aren't you?
Drinking in a deep breath, Rose steels herself. "You were just gonna disappear," she says. "Just running off after the next shiny thing, like always. You were gonna leave me behind, right after you promised you wouldn't."
"Rose, I never-"
"Never what? Never popped in and out of all those time windows like it was nothing, or flirted and carried on, or made a right arse out of yourself at some bourgeois party while Mickey and I were almost cut up for scrap parts? No kissing, no dancing, no I just snogged Madame de Pompadour?"
The Doctor's expression cools. "You do realize that I don't require anyone's permission to do those things. Or anyone's approval, for that matter."
With a heavy sigh, weighed down by the plummeting twin masses of resignation and defeat, Rose bends over to scoop her slippers off the floor. Coming in here was a mistake; she knows that now.
"Yeah," she says, her voice flat as she slips the shoes back on. "I'm sure you're right. You always are."
"Oh, come on-"
"No, I get it. You're the Doctor, you're your own man, you don't answer to anyone, ain't nobody gonna tie you down. If you're looking for a higher authority, there isn't one. Isn't that right?"
"Rose," the Doctor says warningly, but she plows on.
"Just, if you never want to be held accountable to anyone, not ever-that's fine, I guess, but then what's the point of having friends?" Rose pleads. "Or are we even really your friends at all-are we more sort of empty shells that you can pour information into, or just fresh pairs of eyes to make the universe seem new and bright again, or just things that make noise and distract you from feeling quite so miserable and guilty and lonely anymore?"
"Rose, that's enough."
"Is it, though? Cos I'm happy to go on about how stupid and clueless we all are, all us silly humans struggling to keep up with you hopping from world to world and one obsession to the next. After all, there's none in the group that's stupider than me, since apparently I haven't got even the faintest clue about how other people feel about me or how I'm supposed to react to their ridiculous mood swings and shifting tempers and ever-changing invisible boundaries—"
"Quite frankly, you've got no room to talk—"
"—and I can't even tell whether I've got the right to be jealous or not. C'mon, let's chat about it, I've got all night!"
"Fine," the Doctor snaps. "Yes, you are stupid. Very much so."
Rose's mouth falls open in shock, only to twist back shut. Telltale pressure builds up in her sinuses, insistent and near-overwhelming, and she blinks furiously to dam the flow before any leaks spring forth. She hasn't cried in nearly half a year; she's not about to let it happen now. She'll be damned before she lets the Doctor see her so vulnerable.
"Guess I sort of walked into that one," she mutters to herself.
"You're an incredibly stupid, reckless, selfish, short-sighted human child who can't see past the here and the now," the Doctor spits out. "Did you even think about what could have happened when you jumped through that mirror? Did it ever cross your mind, the damage you could have caused? Do you ever stop, even for a single second, to consider the consequences of your actions, how you might alter things irreparably, how you-"
"Jesus, I get it, all right? We already talked about this, I was never gonna let anything happen to Reinette or the timelines or-"
"I'm not talking about Reinette!" the Doctor shouts, throwing his hands up in the air. "When did I ever bring up Reinette? I'm talking about you, I'm talking about me!"
Inhaling sharply, Rose hesitates. She opens her mouth to speak. Nothing comes out. She closes it again.
She waits.
The Doctor shoves both hands in his pockets, looking resolutely at anything in the room besides her. "What would have happened if I hadn't found that last connection?" he asks, perhaps more of himself than anyone. "Or if I'd found it even a few moments later? You were already stuck there for months, months, and your stupid human life is already so short as it is. If you'd been stranded there for years, decades-what if you'd gotten sick, what if you'd gotten hurt?"
Rose hasn't got a reply for that. They were all things she had wondered herself, back in France, and just hoped every day she wouldn't ever have to find out.
"I was so-I panicked, Rose, I panicked and it rendered me utterly useless," the Doctor continues. "That could have cost you everything. What if I had found the connection too late, what if I'd never found it at all?"
"You would have found another way," Rose insists. "That's what you do."
"I don't, though," the Doctor laughs weakly. "Not every time. And I worry you don't understand that. You look at me like I can do anything. I can't, Rose. Your unwavering faith-I don't deserve it. And I'm not saying that for the sake of receiving reassurance," he snaps when Rose tries to interject. "I don't want that. I don't need it. Heaven knows I haven't earned it. My behavior has been nothing short of abominable, if not downright monstrous; don't think I'm not aware."
He pushes one hand through his hair, sighing heavily. "The truth is, I can't always engineer a happy ending. Sometimes there simply isn't one to be had. You've seen it, time and time again; no matter how hard I try, nearly each time we intervene to help someone, there's someone else who doesn't make it. We may save the day for most, but in the end, there are still lives lost. Someone I couldn't help, someone I couldn't save. What happens when that someone is you?"
"That'll never happen," Rose says stubbornly.
"It will, though." His eyes cinch shut, as if the conversation costs him, like his body is paying the bill with hurt. "We've already come so close. You just rush in, headfirst, no looking back, no thinking, no stopping to consider what might be. You just in front of a car to save your father, break through a time window to save a stranger, absorb the Vortex to save me-"
The Doctor swallows. "It's just a matter of time. You'll do something, or I'll misjudge something, or I'll panic, or there'll be an accident, or you'll grow tired of all of this, and-and then you'll be gone. And I'm not ready for that yet. I'm just not."
His shoulders sag in defeat. "And I'm not sure I ever will be."
Rose's hand twitches, the impulse to soothe him with touch so deeply ingrained that her body starts to move of its own accord, drawn to him like her hands are programmed to comfort, her arms to embrace. But she stops herself. Some strange cocktail of emotions is brewing and surging in her veins and she just needs a moment to sort it out properly, so the whole thing doesn't boil over into one big bubbling sticky mess. So she doesn't drown.
(She can't believe that the Doctor would ever feel so much, all because of her. All for her.)
"Well," she says, hesitantly. "Stop insulting me and maybe I'll stick around longer."
"I don't think it qualifies as insulting so much as accurate. Your actions really are astonishingly ill-advised, sometimes. Shockingly so."
"Right," says Rose, anger rising to the surface once again. "So I'm reckless. Great. And selfish. Fine. And yeah, stupid, too. Why keep me around, then? What's the point? If I'm so foolish, why don't you just get rid of me?"
"If you're not foolish," the Doctor snaps, "then why do you love me?"
A lump lodges in Rose's throat.
"I don't," she lies.
The Doctor's gaze meets hers and god, does he look tired. His expression is so sad, so unbearably pathetic in the watercolor-grey splashes of light, that something wells up in her, a blind driving need to wipe that stupid, awful look off his face.
(Is he upset because he believes her-or because he doesn't?)
Rose pushes him by the shoulders, a sharp jab that knocks him back a step.
"I don't," she insists. Chest heaving with exertion, she pushes the Doctor again for good measure when he doesn't reply-why won't he just say something, do something, anything, goddammit-and another sharp shove sets him back until his legs hit the bed.
"I don't love you," Rose says, bitter hot tears swelling fatly in the corners of her eyes. "I don't, I don't, I swear I don't-"
"Good," replies the Doctor, his voice short. "Me neither."
"Good," Rose echoes, and please, please don't let him see the moisture glittering on her lashes. "Then none of this means anything."
Yanking him down by the jacket, she captures his lips in a punishing kiss. This time, the Doctor doesn't freeze, isn't a cold marble statue unwilling and unable to respond; no, this time one hand flies up immediately to her face, gripping her firmly by the chin while his other hand clenches her by the hip, pulling her tight against him. Rose's fingers slide up to tangle in his hair, fingernails scraping against his scalp; he bites her lower lip in response, his tongue slipping past her lips when she gasps in shock.
Dizziness fizzes up in Rose's head, and this time, she knows it's got nothing to do with the alcohol. She scrapes her nails over his scalp again, privately reveling in how the Doctor swears under his breath. All those layers, all that haughty superior species thinking-instead-of-doing nonsense, all those snide remarks about the base instincts of human nature, and yet here he is, trembling at her touch and clutching her close just like any human bloke might.
"Leaving your mark?" he asks breathlessly.
"Yeah," she says, pushing him until his knees buckle and he lands on the bed. "Wanna ruin you like you ruined me."
With a growl, the Doctor pulls her in for another harsh kiss.
Afterward, Rose stands on shaky legs, watching the Doctor as he fights to regain control. His chest heaves with labored breaths-did he forget to engage his bypass, she wonders?-and his eyes are glassy, unfocused. Inwardly, Rose rewards herself with a small but satisfied smile; she did this. She made him come apart, spiral unbound, surrender to just a shred of humanlike vulnerability. Just for once, she was the one in control.
Yet, after the heavy rasp of his breathing dies down, when he sits up on the bed and runs a shaking hand through his hair, Rose find she can't quite meet his eyes. She's not sure why.
(He won't look at her either.)
Somewhere in the back of Rose's mind, a small voice pipes up that this is it, this is the moment to throw herself into the Doctor's arms, press a real honest-to-goodness kiss to his lips and tell him everything that's been simmering between her lungs for the last half-year (longer, if she's being totally honest). And if she really thinks about it, the voice goes on, doesn't she think if she opens up to the Doctor first, wouldn't that make it easier for him to respond in kind, to chisel even just the tiniest crack in his walls to let her in? She feels in her gut that that's true. He may never leap into things the way a human partner might, but if she jumps in first, Rose knows, there's a healthy chance he'll at least wade in after her. And even if he doesn't respond quite the way she hopes, at least then it would all be said, spoken into tangibility out in the open. At least he would know.
But something slithers in and strangles the little voice before it can give shape to its words, and suddenly Rose is afraid.
(Who is she kidding? She'll be lucky if he ever looks at her again, after tonight.)
Wordlessly, head thudding dully, Rose crosses to the other side of the bed, ignoring how her body still cries out for attention. She crawls beneath the duvet, her back to the Doctor. She tries not to hold her breath.
Minutes tick by. The silence is deafening.
Finally, the silence is cracked apart by the Doctor, clearing his throat before he leaves to duck into the ensuite. The sound of water splashing on skin greets Rose's ears, and she realizes he's washing up-washing her off, of course, why wouldn't he?-and suddenly all of the air leaves her lungs, her throat seizing up after. The Doctor is better than all of this, higher than all this stupid petty human hormone-ridden muck, and she just dragged him down into the dirt with her, didn't she? Surely that must be what's going through his head right now; surely he's disgusted with her.
Shame boils up deep inside. What's wrong with her?
When the Doctor emerges from the ensuite and does not return to the bed, but rather heads straight for the bedroom door without so much as a Good night, Rose's worst fears are confirmed. The door clicks shut behind him and for some reason that click of utter finality brings the panic flooding in.
Oh god, she's ruined everything, hasn't she?
What the fuck is wrong with her?
Suddenly sleep is the furthest thing from Rose's mind, a surge of fight-or-flight adrenaline rushing through her veins. She can't stay in here. The bed is too small. The room is a cage. Her heart hammers frantically in her chest and she throws off the duvet, it's strangling her, she's got to escape, she's got to run-maybe it's not too late to apologize, or maybe if she's lucky she can find a black hole to throw herself in-
Rose yanks open the bedroom door to find the Doctor standing in the doorway, fist posed as if he was about to knock. They both blink at each other in surprise.
Rose's breath catches. Is he…? Could he be…?
"Sorry," says the Doctor, his hand slowly falling. "Erm, I just realized-Shoes."
Frowning, Rose shakes her head. "Shoes?"
Avoiding her gaze, the Doctor scratches the back of his neck. "I might've forgot to put my shoes back on."
Of course. He wouldn't-it wouldn't have anything to do with her. Feeling very stupid, Rose nods, rapidly blinking back tears. She steps aside so he can enter, her mouth twisting with the effort not to cry.
If he registers the look on her face, or notices the stiffness in her shoulders, the clenching of her hands, the Doctor doesn't show it. He crosses the room in several long strides, grabbing his trainers and returning to the door without a single glance in her direction. Stepping into the corridor, his head jerks her way, lips parting like he may say something; if so, he must think better of it, because he just issues a curt nod and starts to walk away.
Rose's pulse thunders painfully in her ears and before she knows it her feet are carrying her after him.
"Erm, Doctor…?"
He stops and turns, expression carefully neutral. "Hm?"
Oh god, what now? She feels dreadfully stupid.
"I just sort of realized," Rose stammers. "I mean, it's silly, I know, but-"
She gulps, audibly. "It's just, we, erm. Haven't really had a proper hug since I got back, have we? You know?"
He watches her silently, waiting, his expression inscrutable.
"And I don't know about you," Rose continues, shaking, "but, erm. I could really use one?"
For a few horrible seconds, Rose is certain he'll slap the olive branch out of her hands, or just leave it hanging there while he turns and runs, abandoning the poor thing to wither and rot. But in the blink of an eye he's dropping his shoes to the floor with a loud smack that echoes in the hallway and another blink later and he's wrapping his arms around her, binding her in an embrace snug enough to crush the air out of her lungs. Stunned, it takes her half a moment to respond with a hug of her own, but once she does, his arms tighten even further, a steel trap with no intention of ever letting go.
Rose isn't sure why that's the thing that breaks the walls to let the tears flow free, but damn if she isn't choking back sobs now.
"The sex wasn't that bad, was it?" the Doctor asks wryly.
She can't muster the energy for a laugh, so Rose just shakes her head instead, burying her face against his chest. He smells-god, he just smells so good, she'd almost forgotten, and he feels so wonderful, like wiry muscles and a slim frame, like comfort, like home. Her tears slowly soak his shirt, but he doesn't seem to mind, or maybe even notice.
"I didn't-" Rose tries to say, and chokes on the words. "I never meant-"
"I know, Rose," he says quietly. "Me neither. I'm sorry."
She hears him swallow, the noise thick. "I'm so sorry."
Sniffling, Rose nods against his chest. "Thank you," she whispers.
Fists clenching in the back of his jacket, Rose's fingers seize up painfully tight. "I missed you," she admits, willing herself not to shake. "God, I missed you so much."
The Doctor doesn't reply, but Rose feels his chest deflate beneath her cheek, as if he's letting out something that was trapped inside. He presses his lips and nose into her hair, breathing her in. His hold on her relaxes in increments as his thumbs draw lazy little circles on the small of her back, and Rose feels her muscles slowly loosening, the last of her tears subsiding with a hiccup. Something uncoils in her ribs, unclenching for the first time in hours-really, the first time in months-and she nuzzles against the Doctor, eyes shuttering in relief.
(It's really quite a nice hug. Nothing in the universe like it, and she would know.)
"C'mon," the Doctor says gently, pulling away after a few moments have passed. "Let's get you some rest."
Rose threads her fingers through his, offering him a faint grin. "You, erm. You gonna stay with me?"
"If you'd like," he replies, his voice soft.
Rose pushes up on her toes to plant another kiss on his mouth, a shy thing, this time, pressed to the corner as lightning pulses gently overhead, and the Doctor's lips twitch in a small smile, after.
"Yeah," Rose says. "I'd like."