11 Reasons He had Lied to Himself

Chapter Two: She Smiled, and He Saw the Stars

"I did it – give the man a medal! Earth, Naples – December 24, 1860!" he says with a small chuckle, his face split in a grin as he leans back and crosses his arms over his chest. He glances at her, eager to see her reaction to his cleverness, and she doesn't disappoint – she hasn't yet.

"That's so weird," she says, her lips curving slightly. And suddenly he feels his hearts start to race, his eyes unexplainably drawn to that little smile gracing her face. She looks at the screen, and the smile grows. "It's Christmas."

And he turns from her, holding out an arm to the waiting doors of the TARDIS. He wants her to run out, to see and feel and live Christmas in Naples, 1860 – he wants to see that smile grow until it nearly tears her face in two. He wants to see that smile she had worn when she first ran in, leaving Ricky behind in a dingy alley – he wants to know he caused it, just like before. He wants…

"All yours," he says, cutting across his thoughts and smiling at her in welcome invitation. He wants, but he can't – he's a Time Lord, and she's a human. It doesn't matter what he wants when it can't last – it never does.

She follows his gaze, and he sees her hesitate. He wonders if her mind has gone back to the observation deck, to seeing her planet burn before her. Just like…

"But it's like…think about it, though – Christmas, 1860," she says, and his mind is brought back to here and now – to her. She looks up at him, and he folds his arms back over his chest, observing her. He focuses on her and sees her mind turning behind her eyes, and he wonders what she's going to say. Something fantastic – she has a habit of surprising him like that. So young, and yet so wise. It isn't the first time he's glad he went back, and he knows it won't be the last.

"Happens once – just once – and it's…gone," she says, looking down. "It's finished – it'll never happen again."

He looks back to the monitor, smiling as her reasoning plays out. He looks back at her, the smile brightening as she looks back to him, and he can't fight the rush of pride at how she seems to work everything out. He may be dead clever, but he was starting to believe that she was, too – maybe more so.

"Except for you," and he's nearly blown away. She smiles at him, leaning closer with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, but he's drawn to that smile – to that tip of tongue poking against her teeth, peeking out in a perfectly innocent, teasing –

"You can go back and see days that are dead and gone a hundred thousand sunsets ago," she says, and his smile softens. He fidgets slightly, unsure of what exactly to say. He presses his tongue against his lips, trying to work something out, but he stays quiet – and she continues right along, once again causing that rush of pride to swell within him. "No wonder you never stay still."

"Not a bad life?" he asks, and she watches him for a moment, her mouth hanging open in a suspended look of happiness and awe. And he can see it suddenly, swirling around her in a golden glow of life and perfection and something just so simply Rose he can't really explain it.

"Better with two," she says, and he can't agree more. Her lips draw up and squint her eyes, and it's there again – that smile he saw that first day, the one that has captivated him ever since. And it's because of him, because he went back and asked twice – because he brought her along for the adventure of a lifetime, and he knows she loves every minute of it.

And he sees it, then, the golden glow softening to everything she had said. He offered her the universe, the chance to see stars and planets and people she never could have dreamed of seeing stuck in a council flat. He looks at that smile and sees it all and so much more – everything he offered her, everything he still plans on showing her – it's all tied up in that one smile.

He looks at the smile of this one human girl, and he sees the universe, stretching out before him in a dazzling display of light and life and Rose.

He gives her his own smile, knowing it's nowhere near as fantastic as hers, but he can't hide it – though he looks down in an effort to. She pushes around him, surprising him as she runs to the doors.

"Come on!" she calls, and his eyes fly open as he watches her try to leave.

"Oy, hey – where d'you think you're going?" he calls, and she stops to grin at him.

"Eighteen-sixty," she says, and he fights the urge to roll his eyes.

"Go out there, dressed like that – you'll start a riot, Barbarella!" he says, hiding the grin as she picks at her jacket and looks herself over. "There's a wardrobe through there – first left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left. Hurry up!"

She walks off with the air of a scorned child, and when she's gone and past him he lets out the beaming grin he'd been trying so hard to hide. It wasn't good lecturing someone with a smile – it completely ruins the effect of authority you try to maintain.

He hops through an open grille on the floor, determined to get his mind off that smile by doing some necessary repairs on the TARDIS. It isn't long, though, before he hears her footsteps echoing through the halls, though he tries to ignore them – even when the rustle of fabric comes to a stop right by his head. He can't, and when he looks up he wishes he had.

"Blimey," he gasps, looking her over. From the deep scarlet of the full skirt, the shimmering black lace of the bodice with a neckline he wanted so badly to label indecent, the black cape she had tied about her shoulders to block the inevitable December chill, all the way to the dangly earrings and the matching scarlet ribbon she was using to sweep her hair up into a delicate knot, she is…well, an image. She's gorgeous, but by the smile she gives him and the warning point he knows she doesn't realize.

"Don't laugh," she says, her tongue again poking between her teeth. And he sees them again, the stars and the worlds and the universe swirling around her in that beautiful golden glow mirrored by that smile.

"You look beautiful," he says, and he means every word. But she looks up shyly, startled from her observation of how she must think she looks, and the stars burn just a bit brighter as the smile warms. And suddenly he realizes his slip, and it's all he can do to pull himself away from what he knows he can never have – no matter how tempting or how bad he wants it. He pushes the stars away and looks back to the panel he had been working on. The real stars are better, anyway.

"Considering."

A.n.: I would love to know how it's possible that the plunny started raving while listening to 12 Stones's "Broken Road", which is so obviously not a happy breakup song and should totally not inspire anything DRose (though the first verse is so very tempting…). I was gonna leave this alone for a day or two, work on school stuff that needs finishing, but then I put that song on and shapow! Plunny madness. Anyway, theme is #03 from table one ("mouth/lips/tongue/sense of taste").

And a big thanks to everyone reading; I was not expecting this to take off like it has, and it means so much that you guys are enjoying this so far. Y'all rock so much.