"So...what's your name?"
Bearing two large lollipops and somehow managing to clutch a bag of Jelly Babies, the young girl glanced up at him, taking no time to study or investigate the strange person who had suddenly stopped to help her when she had tripped up. Instead, she giggled, watching as a minute blade of grass - previously stuck to the red lollipop that had felt the impact of the fall - trickled to the floor, before grinning back up at him. "Rose. It's a flower," she beamed proudly. "What's your name?"
"I'm the Doctor," he smiled back. "It's uh...a profession."
Rose frowned with confusion, screwing up her face and scrunching her nose. "You're weird."
"Am not."
"Am so."
"Am not."
"Am so."
"Am n..." Making a show of shaking his head and admitting defeat, the Doctor held up his arms, sighing unsuccessfully. "I'm not going to win this, am I?"
The girl shook her head violently, still gleaming. Her smile stood there; she was triumphant, and she knew it. And she reveled in it - this weird man stupidly wearing a leather jacket and a jumper on a hot summer's day, beaten by a seven year old girl with a ponytail and orange dungarees. She giggled again, taking the Doctor's hand into her own, having discarded both the lollipops and the Jelly Babies. Pointing to a couple who had their arms wrapped around each other - completely unaware and oblivious to the strange person talking and holding hands with their daughter - Rose turned back to face her newfound friend. "That's my mum, and that's my dad," she pulled a face. "They're kissing. That's bad."
The Doctor cocked his head sideways. The Rose he knew never complained about kissing...in fact, she was always the one to initiate the damn procedure. Not that he minded. The younger Rose rolled her eyes. "They're...they're OLD. It's icky."
"They're not old!"
"They're like...forty or something. That's old. My fingers don't even go up to forty."
The familiar and frequent hum of the TARDIS.
Home.
Or near enough.
He smiled to himself, his small mission achieved. She was continuously argumentative. Stubborn. Determined. Always had been and always will be.
And he knew he would never change it.
He had liked her just as she was.
His Rose.
"Hey," a voice called from behind, interrupting him from his slight day-dream. "You get your little errand sorted out? I don't see why I couldn't have come with -"
"There was a good reason," he interrupted, grinning insanely as she walked over to face him, settling down upon his lap. "I had to go and do something. It was urgent. But, I've fixed it now," the Doctor beamed. Rose, unintentionally mirroring her previous self that he had seen only a few minutes before, rolled back her eyes, shaking her head. "Let me guess, don't ask?"
"Don't ask."
"You've gotta tell me!"
The Doctor threw a grin towards her. "No I don't."
"You're going to tell me anyway!"
"No I won't!"
"Fine!" Rose groaned, shifting herself away from his arms that kept her upon his legs. Making her way behind the chair in which the Doctor sat, she paused - thinking - before turning back on her heel to come up behind the Doctor's ear.
"By the way...am so."