Delicate flakes of snow were dancing in the air as she pushed open the TARDIS door. Even with her hat, scarf and gloves as well as a thick coat, she still felt cold. The Doctor followed her outside, dressed as always in jumper and leather jacket. She supposed his double circulatory system was some help in the cold, and then smiled at her own thought. The jaunts to the TARDIS library were paying off. Determined to improve her knowledge to the point where she no longer had to be reliant on the Doctor for every little piece of information, the fact finding sessions had proved to be very educational.

The pine forest seemed to stretch out around them in every conceivable direction, little slices of sky visible through the sparse canopy of the trees.

The Doctor clapped his hands together. "Right. Here we are. Pick your tree, Rose Tyler."

She laughed. "They're all huge!"

"We'll have to find some smaller, then." He past her, his feet leaving tracks in the snow. Realising she wasn't following him, he turned back to face her. "Come o–"

The snowball smacked into his shoulder, cutting him off. He brushed the half-melted snow off his jacket as she laughed at him, torn between laughing and shouting.

"You're going to regret that!" he yelled, scooping up a large handful of snow.

She shrieked and jumped down from the TARDIS, running in between the trees. He drew back his arm, aimed and–

SMACK!

She'd hit him again before he'd released the snowball, diving behind a tree for cover. He broke into a run, chasing after her with the snow melting in his hand. Her knitted scarf was flying out behind her as she ran as fast as she could, but his longer legs assured him victory.

"Gotcha!" he shouted, grabbing her by the back of her jacket. She yelled as he roughly shoved the handful of snow down the neck of her coat, before releasing her and retreating to construct a new snowball.

"Urgh! Doctor, it's all down my back!"

"You started it!" he yelled, and lobbed the snowball at her. She stopped it with her hand, causing it to break into clumps.

"Bully!" she retaliated, hastily producing a new missile. When she looked up from the snow, he seemed to have disappeared.

She backed against a tree, glancing left and right, looking for where black leather broke the whiteness of the snow.

A hand unceremoniously dumped a load of snow on her head. He's snuck round behind her and reached around the tree trunk. She grabbed his jacket as he tried to retreat, releasing her own snowball and catching him on the back of the head. The shock of the blow made him jump and he tripped over an inconvenient tree root, pulling Rose down with him as she was still clinging to the back of his coat.

They rolled in the snow and he suddenly found himself nose to nose with his breathless companion, her cheeks flushed red with the cold and childish excitement. Something stirred in the pit of his stomach and he found he was looking at her lips, her weight welcome on top of him. But Rose was looking past him, over his head. "The perfect tree," she said, glancing down at him before scrambling off him. He picked himself up, trying to shake off his unusual moment of longing, to see his companion brushing the snow off the needles of a sizeable pine, well over six feet in height.

"That the one?" he asked.

She nodded. "Is it okay?"

He grinned, producing the sonic screwdriver. "If you're prepared to help me drag it back into the TARDIS."