"I can't believe I'm letting you do this again," Rose grumbled.
"How am I supposed to learn the proper way to drive if you never let me?" the Doctor demanded, scowling at the road.
Rose's knuckles were white from gripping her arm rest.
"You're going to get us both killed," she said shakily.
"Don't be silly. We're fine," the Doctor said, making a sharp right hand turn the wrong way onto a one way street. Rose closed her eyes.
The Doctor turned again, off the one way street.
"That car was going the wrong way," he observed.
"It was a one way street," Rose said faintly.
"Ah," replied the Doctor. "That explains it then." He drove in silence, avoiding the other cars and even managing to stop properly at a stoplight.
"What about Mary?" he said suddenly.
Rose looked up.
"Mary who?" she asked.
"Mary. As a name for this car," the Doctor explained.
Rose rolled her eyes.
"Why do we have to name it anything? Why can't we just call it 'car'?" Rose asked.
The Doctor shook his head.
"You are completely devoid of imagination, you know that?"
"Yes," she answered back.
"We have to have a name for the car," the Doctor explained patiently, "Because I'm used to travelling in a sentient vehicle, and it feels wrong not to have this one have a name."
"Fine," Rose said. "What do you want to call it?"
The Doctor shot her an annoyed look.
"If I knew that, I wouldn't have to run names by you, would I?"
"Bob," Rose suggested.
"Rose," the Doctor said in a long-suffering voice, "Cars are female. They have female names."
"Why?" Rose asked. "Isn't that a bit sexist?"
"Not necessarily. Look at it this way: a man loves his car, and the object of his adoration should be female. Therefore, cars are female."
"So, cars have female names cuz guys love them?" Rose asked.
"Sort of," the Doctor conceded. "Now help me think of a name."
"Not Mary," Rose said quickly. "What about Bessie?"
The Doctor frowned.
"Can't," he said.
"Why not? Didn't you say you had a car called Bessie once before?"
"Exactly," the Doctor said. "I couldn't name this car Bessie. It would be like… like calling your girlfriend by your ex girlfriend's name."
Rose raised a delicate eyebrow.
"Or bringing your wife to your ex girlfriend's house on your honeymoon?"
"Hey!" the Doctor protested. "That was a mistake and you know it!"
"Yeah, yeah," Rose grumbled good- naturedly. "So Bessie's out."
"Definitely out. It would be a slight to Bessie's memory to give her name to some other car. She was special. She was an antique. She got me out of a lot of scrapes. There was this one time…" the Doctor smiled dreamily.
"Doctor! Memory lane is closed. Pay attention to the road!" Rose begged.
The Doctor took the next turn rather sharply.
"I have everything under control," he said confidently.
"Are we there yet?" Rose asked rather queasily.
--
"I thought we were never going to get here!" Rose said dramatically as they walked into the front lobby of Torchwood Tower.
The Doctor rolled his eyes.
"I told you I wasn't going to kill you. I think I'm getting better."
"Better is when you don't almost kill us every time," Rose replied.
The Doctor just looked smug.
"Goodbye," Rose said pointedly, turning to catch the elevator.
The Doctor kissed her forehead lightly.
"Try not to get into any trouble today, yeah?" Rose requested.
"No promises," the Doctor threw over his shoulder. With a quick movement, he snatched Rose's ride, and smirked at the mock-outraged look on her face as the doors slid shut.
The basement offices of the R&D department were full of their usual noise. The trouble with such a large space was that everything seemed to echo, making it half as loud again as it really was. A muffled boom! followed by cursing made the Doctor chuckle. It came from Andrea's corner, so of course something was blowing up. Andrea was renowned for her astounding ability to accidentally blow things up. Banks kept saying he would fire her, only he wasn't sure if London was safe if he did.
The Doctor got to his desk after greeting a few people, and hung up his coat on the coat rack. With much dignity, he unwound the long, multicoloured scarf from around his neck, and hung it over the top of his tan suede coat. Rose had helped him pick out the coat when the weather started getting cooler. At the time he hadn't thought it was quite his style, but Rose had insisted that it suited the new him. The colour was lighter than he would have liked, and having a coat that ended at his waist instead of going nearly to the ground had felt strange at first, but it had grown on him. Plus, he was appreciating the sheep skin collar a lot more now that it offered protection from the biting winds.
"Good morning Max!" the Doctor greeted his partner cheerfully.
"Nothing good about it," Max muttered blearily, clutching a huge coffee cup to him. "I hate that you're one of those annoyingly chirpy morning people. It's obscene."
"And unlike you, I don't need addictive substances to get me going in the morning. Do you have any idea what that caffeine is doing to your brain?"
Max hugged the cup to himself protectively.
"No. And don't tell me either. I want to enjoy my habit without the tinge of guilt attached."
"Have it your way," the Doctor said with a shrug. He stretched out luxuriously at his desk, extending his long legs so that the tips of his black converses poked out into the aisle. He grinned at Max.
"Bloody ray of morning sunshine," Max grumbled, taking his place at his own desk and beginning to rearrange things for the day.
The Doctor fished a scrap of paper from his pocket, and began dialing the number on it.
"Hello. Yes, I would like to order 4 long-stemmed roses… delivery… pink… no, wait, better make that red. In the language of roses, red means love triumphant. Actually the language of flowers dates back to… uh, yeah, card. Write 'Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come. It alters not with these brief hours or weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom'. You got all that? … ok, then write 'Happy 4th, love the Doctor.' Yeah. Just 'the Doctor'. She'll understand. Deliver to Torchwood Tower, Canary Warf, for Rose Smith. Yeah… ok… sounds good… I'll be by later… yeah. John Smith…. Ok… thank you.
The Doctor hung up the phone.
"What was that all about?" Max asked. "You and Rose haven't been married for 4 years."
"4 months," the Doctor explained, a little sheepishly.
"Right," Max sighed. "At least you have a girl."
"Trouble in paradise?" the Doctor asked.
Max frowned
"What paradise?" he asked.
The Doctor smirked.
"Who is it this time?"
"Michelle. It's always been Michelle," Max said, a dreamy look coming into his eyes. "All those other girls weren't real, they were just kidding around."
"Michelle from front desk?" the Doctor asked, recalling the bubbly blond who manned the front desk Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Friday mornings.
"Yeah. She's just… and then… and…. You know?" Max said.
The Doctor couldn't help a smile from forming on his face.
"You've got it bad, haven't you?"
Max took a long sip of his coffee.
"Mocking me isn't going to help much."
"Weeeeeell…" the Doctor said. "I have recently come into possession of a wealth of knowledge about the female species that I could share with you, young paduan."
"Cuz you're married?" Max asked, wrinkling his nose.
"No, because of a friend of mine named Donna. She… shared some of her mind with me on this and many other subjects. As a result, I know more about women then I ever wanted to know."
"Care to share?" Max asked. "Like, are there any basic principles to follow?"
The Doctor thought for a moment.
"Well, I've travelled with a fair number of girls in my time, and although I was never romantically involved with any of them before Rose, I have learned a few things about them. Basic Principles: no matter what, no matter where, no matter who, any man has the chance to sweep any woman off her feet. All he needs is the right broom."
"That… was either really cheesy or really profound," Max said ruefully.
The Doctor laughed.
"Possibly both."
The two shared a smile.
"Now, no woman wakes up saying 'I hope I don't get swept off my feet today!'" the Doctor continued, in a voice that clearly indicated he knew a thing or two about women. "She might say 'This is a really bad time for me,' or something like 'I just need some space,' or my personal favorite 'I'm really into my career right now.' You believe that? Neither does she."
"I dunno. Michelle's pretty serious when she says that she's busy."
The Doctor shook his head.
"It's not a bad time for her. She doesn't need any space. And she may be into her career, but what she's really saying is 'Uh, get away from me now,' or possibly 'Try harder, stupid.'"
"So how do you tell which it is?" moaned Max.
"It's one of the mysteries of girls: you'll never know. You just have to keep on trying. 60 of all human communication is nonverbal body language; 30 is your tone, so that means 90 of what you're saying isn't coming out of your mouth."
"Is that what you did with Rose?" Max asked. "Just kept trying?"
"Sort of. Rose was different though," the Doctor answered.
"Different how?"
"Well, when I asked her to travel with me, it was just like all the other girls who had come with me in the past. They were all smart, pretty girls, and some of them fancied me. Some I even fancied back, a little bit. But Rose met me at a time when I was really vulnerable. I had just lost everything, and she came in and took care of me. We went through a lot together."
Max perked up a little.
"Like what?"
"Lots of things. We solved mysteries, and saved the world, and went on a game show, and saw amazing things, and accidentally got caught in a fertility ritual. And running… we did a lot of running."
"Got arrested?" Max asked.
The Doctor's mind flashed back to sitting in an uncomfortable cell with Rose's head on his shoulders while they awaited their 'execution'.
"Yup."
"Got drunk?"
Banana daiquiris floated in front of the Doctor's eyes.
"Yuuuup."
"Stole?"
"Not on purpose," the Doctor said defensively. "It was an emergency. And we ended up saving the planet."
Max gave him an odd look.
"Nobody's grateful any more," the Doctor grumbled good-naturedly.
A wicked gleam came into Max's eye.
"Had a threesome?" he asked.
The Doctor snorted.
"Maybe in Jack's dreams."
"Who's Jack?"
"Someone I travelled with. He liked to… dance."
Max made a face.
"You sure know how to pick travelling buddies," he said.
"To be fair, Jack picked me," the Doctor explained. "And Rose wanted to bring him along, and I never could say no to her."
"How did you know?" Max asked. "How did you know Rose was… you know… the One?" He winced at the cheesiness of what he had just said.
"Weeeeeell…. I knew she was special when I asked her to come with me again. She refused the first time, and I never ask twice. But something about her made me want to ask her again. And then we met Captain Jack, who flirts with anything that moves. It wasn't so much the fact that he flirted with Rose that bothered me, but the fact that she flirted back. I guess I can admit now that I was jealous. I don't think I realized I was in love with her till I asked her to dance."
Max smirked.
"Is that a euphemism?" he asked.
The Doctor shot him an annoyed look.
"No. There was music playing and she took my hand and we danced around the control room. But the thing was, Jack offered her his hand as well, and she chose mine. That was when I knew I was in love with her."
"That'll never happen with me," Max sighed. "Every time I ask Michelle out she says no."
"I had to ask Rose to come with me twice," the Doctor reminded him.
"I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong," Max said with a sigh. "But then she's such an amazing girl. She probably has lots of blokes ask her out, and why should she say yes to the genius kid freak?"
"Let me tell you something, Max. Girls like intelligent. How do you think I got all those people to travel with me? You just can't make them think that you think they're not as smart as you."
Max ran a hand through his already tumbled hair.
"Blimey. Girls are complicated."
"Tell me about it," the Doctor agreed.
"So all those other girls… did you and they ever…?" Max wiggled his eyebrows expressively.
"Nah. Most of the time I was old and grumpy. Sometimes there were blokes that came along with me as well, and that was a bit strange. Especially since one of them ended up marrying another of my companions."
"You must have been a total Casanova," Max observed.
The Doctor smiled.
"You think they're complicated now? Try being married to one of them."
"I would settle for a date," Max said with a sigh. "Girls are totally strange."
The Doctor nodded sagely.
"I've seen a lot of stuff in my time, but nothing is as complicated as the human female."
Max nodded fervently.
"Will we ever figure them out?" he asked.
The Doctor shook his head.
"Probably not. I haven't, yet."
The Doctor thought for a moment.
"Why don't you go up there, and ask her right now? Tell her how you feel. Tell her you can't get her out of your mind, and you know you could make her happy, and she should at least give you one date to prove how you feel about her. Girls like that sort of stuff."
"I guess you're right," Max said, brightening. "I bet she wouldn't say no if I told her how I felt about her. Hey, and maybe your flower idea isn't bad either. Girls love flowers."
The Doctor nodded solemnly.
Max sat still, thinking.
"Well, my young grasshopper, what are you waiting for?" the Doctor asked.
"I'm thinking."
"There's such a thing as too much thinking. If you put these things off, you lose your chance. I know. It happened to me. Twice. Well, technically only once, but I guess it was also twice, seeing as we're the same…"
Max gave him another of his odd looks.
"The point is, go! Go now, and tell her. Shoo!"
Max got up, and made for the door.
"Ok, ok, I'm going already!" he said, grinning. Then, he turned back to the Doctor, looking nervous. "What were those Basic Principles again?"
The Doctor shook his head.
"Basic Principles? There are none."
Author's Note: So I'm guilty of plagiarism. It's a fanfiction. Plagiarism is par for the course. And Hitch is a fantastic movie. All guys should watch it. It actually explains girls pretty well.
This chapter was my attempt to explain Rose through the Doctor's eyes. See her as he sees her, via poor Max who can't get a date with the secretary. I thought this would also be a good opportunity to show how young Max is. After all, he's only 17, and a freaky genius kid. What he needs, to put it in Doctor terms, is a companion to make the rest of the world understand him.
I'm sorry it's been a while- I've had one heck of a crazy, drama filled week. Not to mention I've been trying to work on my other story, Be All my Sins Remember'd, which is proving extremely tricky. It's a very dark story, so I have to trade it off with this one every other chapter so I don't fall into a black pit of despair. This story is nice and fluffy, so I can handle Be All my Sins if I do this one as well.
In other news, I now have this entire story planned out right to the ending (yay!). Yeah, that's right, I finally figured out a way to end this story gracefully. And what does my diseased mind do? Automatically start planning a sequel. I'm never going to finish all my on-going stories at this rate! Anyways, the point is, I know where this is going now.