"Right, so we've established the power of the TARDIS and the sequence of events leading to my regeneration from my ninth to my tenth incarnation. We've also covered the fact that in that ninth incarnation, I was very much in love with Rose Tyler. I don't, mind you, fall in love with every companion on the TARDIS. Far from it; a few have been quite, quite annoying. But occasionally, I have gotten . . . infatuated. It happens. More than one companion has fallen for me as well. Can you blame them?
"I heard that. Excellent ears, these.
"Of course, in none of those cases did the Time Vortex pass through the companion and myself and back to the TARDIS. Very extraordinary set of circumstances, that. Can't think of another quite like it. One might have expected that something would have come of it, but even I, with all possibilities and probabilities running through my head every second, couldn't have predicted this.
"On with the story, then."
Rose spent Saturday in a bit of a dither. She occupied herself with a few errands for work and ran down to the bookstore again to buy a book for Pete Jr.
"Hello," said a voice.
Rose turned to see Aiden. "Oh, hello!" she said. "How are you?"
"Very well. And you?" he asked.
"Fine," she said brightly. Very happy, she added mentally.
Aiden checked out the book she was buying. "Ah, so you decided to get that one as well, did you?"
"Well, who doesn't want to know the Big, Bad Wolf's side of the story?" asked Rose. "I think I'll enjoy reading this one to my brother."
"Big age gap between siblings," said Aiden.
"Yeah, little Pete was a surprise, but a welcome one," said Rose. "For all of us."
"Ah, listen," said Aiden, scratching his neck. "I was wondering--last time I talked to you, I asked you a question. Is there any chance you have an answer for me?"
"I'm sorry," Rose said, "but I-I've got someone. You seem like a really nice guy, though."
"Ah." Something hard flickered through Aiden's eyes, but was gone so fast that Rose thought she'd imagined it. "Well, too bad. At least I tried. I do hope I'll see you again, Rose."
"That'd be nice," Rose said, and he was gone.
She gave no further thought to him as she went home and started to fuss over her wardrobe. She ruled out pink straightaway, and black almost as quickly. She dithered between dresses, trousers and skirts, driving Darcie nearly to homicide.
"Just pick something," moaned her housemate, flopping on Rose's bed. "Pick something, go on the date, and come back and tell us so we can live vicariously."
Rose absently discarded a red blouse so it fell over Darcie's face. "The Privateer's a nice place, but it's not exactly four-star, which is fine with me since I like to actually eat dinner rather than sit there and be seen with it, so it's not like I need something formal, but definitely nice, definitely feminine, something that doesn't make me look like a teenager . . ." Captain Jack wandered in, and Rose got an inspiration. "Aha! Brown!" She pulled out a chocolate-colored pencil skirt and a turquoise wrap top. "There, that'll work."
"Thank God," muttered Darcie, removing the red blouse from her face. "Are we actually going to meet your doctor?"
"He's a gentleman. He'll come to the door, just you see." She zipped up the skirt and pulled on the top. "How do I look?"
Darcie looked her up and down. "Accessorize."
"Now you sound like my mum." Rose nonetheless went on a hunt for earrings and a necklace.
Unfortunately, by the time she'd finished dressing and accessorizing and fussing with her hair and makeup (and driving both her housemates mad), it was only 5:45.
Fortunately, John was on time and thus saved Rose a full minute before Darcie and Shannon decided to kill her. He looked, to Rose's eyes, terrific in dark trousers, a burgundy jumper and a black jacket.
"You look beautiful," he said as soon as she opened the door. He offered her a bouquet of lilies. "I thought roses would be too cliché."
She smiled at him. "Thank you. I'll put these in some water, and then we can go, yeah? Oh, my mates Shannon and Darcie." She waved her hand to where said housemates were making a very unsuccessful attempt to not stare. They both waved hello with big, cheesy grins, and Rose decided that the sooner she got John out of there, the better.
"Did you know that humans are the only creatures in the multiverse that date? It seems to me that there's a very good reason for that."
John's acquaintance with the head waiter at the Privateer resulted in a quiet booth and a free appetizer of artichoke-crab dip and bruchetta. It was, in Rose's opinion, divine.
"Can't believe I've never tried this before," she said, munching a piece of the bread spread thickly with the warm dip.
"It's one of my favorites," said John. He watched her with a smile teasing his eyes.
Rose swallowed and took a mental breath. "Um, in the interest of full disclosure, I should probably tell you that I've been--I've been seeing a therapist for about the past year, after I hit a rough patch. It's Dr. Jane Woods. When I mentioned you to her, she told me that you two have . . . a history."
To John's credit, he took this news in stride. "Jane, yes. It's been a few years, but I knew she moved to London and opened a practice. She's married now, if I remember correctly."
"Yeah, she and her husband have a two-year-old," said Rose, glad to have that out. "I just wanted you to know. She said that anything she knows about you is strictly off-limits, but I wouldn't ask, really."
"It's all right," said John gently. "Jane's a very ethical person. I would expect she'd be discreet."
"I know. I just wanted it out in the open, y'know?"
A waiter stopped by and took their orders. After he left, John looked intently at Rose. "So, Miss Tyler, what exactly is it that you do?"
Rose looked off to the side briefly before returning her gaze to his. "I work for an agency that deals with things like the Cybermen and aliens and such. It's very secret, so secret that barely anyone in the government knows we exist. My father got involved after the Cybermen, and it uses one of his companies for cover. I decided I wanted to be a part of it, too. There were just so many deaths, so much destruction--I felt like I needed to do something."
"It sounds dangerous," said John.
"Can be, yeah," said Rose. She took a sip of water. "It's mostly operatives like Jake and Mickey who get the worst of that, though everyone who works with us is trained in self-defense and firearms."
"Hence the shooting," said John.
"Hence the shooting," said Rose. "Now that I've told you one of my deep, dark secrets, how about yours?"
They were interrupted by the waiter bringing the wine John had requested. After he left, having poured two glasses and set the bottle on the table, John answered Rose's question.
"I was married," he said matter-of-factly, and took a sip of his wine. Rose nodded, hardly even surprised by the news. "I met Paula while I was in medical school, and she and I got married two years later. We had a daughter, Emily."
That did throw Rose a bit. "I gather you're divorced?" she guessed.
"Widowed," said John. Rose sucked in a breath. "There was . . . a car accident. One morning, I was a husband and father. When I awoke in hospital the following day, I was neither."
"God, John," Rose breathed.
He didn't quite meet her eyes. "It's been ten years. I was twenty-eight when they died." He took another sip of wine. "My father was a great comfort to me during that time. My mother died when I was fifteen, so he knew what it was like to lose the woman you intended to spend the rest of your life with."
"I'm so sorry," said Rose, throat tight. "I don't know what else to say."
"You don't have to say anything," he assured her. "I just wanted you to know. It's something you should know about me if--if there's going to be anything between the two of us. I know there's a good-sized age difference--"
"Doesn't matter," said Rose. "You're thirty-eight, if my math skills haven't completely failed me, and I'm almost twenty-two. Far as I know, that means we're both adults and can make our own decisions."
John smiled. "Good. Because I've never been shy about going after what I want, and you, Rose Tyler, are something special."