Demonstration
"Jack..." the Doctor began, noting Jack's movements out of the corner of his eye.
"Yeah?" Jack answered, his hands slipping lower and causing Rose to giggle.
"Hands off."
"Right. Sorry," he apologised, pulling back and grinning at the blonde wolfishly.
"Listen to you; anyone would think you're jealous or something," Rose smirked, twisting around to face the Doctor.
"Me? Ha! Of course not. But I won't have any of that on my ship, thanks very much," the Doctor dismissed, gesturing madly with his hands.
"Any of that? You mean, hugging? You hug her all the time! How is that fair?" asked Jack defensively.
"But I don't feel her up at the same time, do I?" countered the Doctor, and Rose burst into a fit of giggles. He glared at her. "What?"
"Just...you, even saying that sentence..." she paused, laughing hysterically. "It's just...so funny!"
He glared at her some more. "Why is that 'so funny?'" he inquired, folding his arms defensively.
"Well," Jack jumped in. "I can't imagine you feeling anyone up, god knows I've wanted you to," he said, suggestively waggling his eyebrows.
"There you go again, see! Making assumptions about me. I thought at least we were past that, Rose."
"I'm sorry?" she asked, still giggling lightly.
"The making assumptions stage. You know, like the first time we met Captain Jack Harkness."
"You mean, that first time you got really jealous of him?" pointed out Rose.
"Ye – no! What? No, what I was going to point out was the fact that you suggested that I'd never...ahem, danced."
"Do you dance?" asked Jack hopefully.
"He says he does, but he's never actually shown me his moves," teased Rose, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth as she smiled at the Time Lord.
"Yes, well, that's exactly my point," pronounced the Doctor, rolling his eyes in exasperation.
Rose and Jack looked at each other, and Rose shrugged. They both turned back to face the Doctor, and Jack asked, "What is your point?"
"My point is, you, Jack Harkness, have barely returned and you're already all over Rose, and - "
" – you feel like you're missing out?" interrupted Jack.
"Quite frankly, yes," the Doctor answered.
Rose's eyes widened. "You want Jack to touch you up?" she asked in disbelief.
"What! No!" exclaimed the Time Lord, a look of horror flitting across his face.
"Rosie, I think what he means is, I've only just come back, and yet I've already touched your bum, which he's never done, despite being with you all the time, and so, seeing as you didn't reproach me for touching you inappropriately, he feels like he's missed out on several hundred thousand opportunities where he could've done the same thing but didn't in case you punched him in the face in return," Jack explained, while the Doctor shot him daggers.
Rose raised her eyebrow.
"He's talking utter drivel, Rose. Just like usual. Ignore him," denied the Doctor.
"You're so in denial," Jack interjected.
"I most certainly am not."
"You are."
"I'm not!"
"You want to grope Rose's bum."
"No, I don't."
"Yeah you do. Admit it. You've never been so jealous of two hands before, until just then."
"Jack, shut up," inputted Rose. "Don't be silly." She tried not to sound disappointed with the Doctor's blatant refusal to want to touch her bottom.
"Yeah, listen to Rose. Shut up," the Doctor hissed.
"What, you afraid if I say it too many times she'll actually start to believe it? Or are you afraid that if I say it too many times, you'll confess everything?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," claimed the Doctor.
"Oh, yes you do. You know, the fact that you want to kiss her, and touch her and...et cetera."
"Hello? Do either of you realise I am still in the room?" asked Rose, waving her hands around.
"Yes," answered Jack.
"Of course," said the Doctor.
"Right. So would you two mind not talking about this? I don't like being objectified like this."
The Doctor snorted, simultaneously with Jack's snigger.
"Oi!" she exclaimed. "I don't! Especially when it's not even true."
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Oh, but it is true, isn't it, Doctor? You'd like to objectify Rose, eh?"
"Of course not!"
"You're lying again," Jack noted.
"No, I'm not."
"Yes you are."
"I'm not!"
"Oh yes. You really, really are!"
The two men stared each other down for a few minutes, and Rose frowned, bored with their childish behaviour.
"Riighhht," she started. "I'm going to have a bath then go to bed. You two just carry on with this little staring contest you've got going. I'll see you both in the morning."
"Night Rosie," Jack called, his eyes still challenging the Doctor, trying to get him to admit defeat.
"No, Rose – wait!" cried the Doctor, without thinking. He paused mid-turn, half-facing her, half-sensing Jack's smug look out of the corner of his eye.
"Yeah?" replied Rose, her lips twitching in amusement.
"Um...oh! Didn't you say that you wanted me to teach you how to fly the TARDIS?" he asked, grappling for something to keep her awake and with him. He missed her when she slept for ages. Well, he missed her when she slept at all.
"Now?" she retorted incredulously. "Bit late for that, isn't it? I've been up for nearly twenty-four hours without sleep already!"
"Oh," he replied, nodding. "Right, yes, of course." He knew he sounded dejected, but he couldn't help it.
Rose felt bad. He sounded disappointed. Maybe he didn't want to be left in the same room with Jack all night. "Listen, Doctor - "
" – you can teach me instead, if you like?" interrupted Jack with a wink.
"No, wait. I didn't say I didn't want to, I was just...surprised," put in Rose, before she could lose her chance. After all, she didn't want Jack learning before her. Although, he could probably do a fair bit already, but that was beside the point.
The Doctor beamed at her. "You sure you're not too tired?"
"Nah, still running on adrenaline," she answered happily.
"Good. Come here then," he said warmly.
And the lesson commenced.
Jack looked between the two of them for several minutes, watching the Time Lord tell a twenty-year-old human girl the basics of how to fly the TARDIS. Who'd have thought, eh? A Time Lord – one of the most pompous and superior races in the universe, falling for a young human, barely out of her teens, so incredibly, incredibly hard. For it was obvious, watching these two; the way he studied her face as he spoke, an expression of pride and affection lighting up his face when he knew she was taking it all in; the way he lent around her as he pointed to various buttons and levers, and shivered when she lent closer still; the way she was biting her lip in concentration – and surely, she must've known what she was doing there, as the Doctor's gaze was forever dropping to her mouth. Besotted, infatuated, enthralled...in love. That was them. And Jack suddenly felt like he was intruding on a profoundly intimate moment when he saw the Doctor regard Rose with a look of bewilderment and joy as she instinctively stroked the TARDIS console, unaware of the two men's intent gaze on her.
"I'm gonna leave you two it, and try and find my room," Jack said quietly, backing away from the scene. But he knew his words were unheard, and he didn't mind. With one last look at his friends, Jack saw the Doctor rest his hand over Rose's, with the pretence of helping her navigate or whatever, and he smiled to himself.
"That's it, just...turn it a little to the...left..." the Doctor was saying, close to Rose's ear as he looked over her shoulder to guide her. He slipped his arm underneath hers and rested his hand atop hers for a moment or two, moving it with her. His breath ghosted over her neck, and with a start, she realised how close they were.
"So, Doctor," she began, before sighing a little when the Doctor moved away from her to view the console screen.
"Yes, Rose?" he replied absently, putting on his glasses.
She swallowed nervously. "Why are you teaching me all this?"
He looked over at her. "Because you asked," he answered, as if it were obvious.
"You don't mind, though, do you?" she asked tentatively.
He smiled at her. "Course I don't. Why would I mind?"
Rose grinned internally. "Well, you might find that I am a much better pilot than you," she teased, before reaching her arm out to touch the time rotor gently. He watched her movements with a curious smile, and he wasn't sure why but he was feeling very strange. Ever since he'd begun to teach her this barely half-hour before, he'd had butterflies flittering around in his stomach. And really, that was just totally undignified for a Time Lord. Since when did they get butterflies? He was almost never nervous, as a rule. And yet, around Rose...
Well, he supposed there were a lot of things that Rose changed the rules of. For instance, he couldn't imagine what his people would've said if they saw him now. An ancient Time Lord, lusting over his innocent, young, perfect Rose.
Hang on.
Lusting? He hadn't meant that. No way. Not at all. He wasn't lusting! Since when did Time Lords lust over people?
Oh right, yeah. 'Cos they'd never met Rose, had they? That was his entire point. Rose is the exception of all those rules that his people had made; forbidden, impossible partnerships and inferiority and mortal and not enough Time. She had to be the exception; otherwise he wouldn't have fallen –
"Oh, no, no! Don't do that," he told her, half-laughing as he lifted her hand off of a rather dangerous component of the console.
She grinned up at him cheekily. "Oops...did I almost just kill us?"
He matched her wide smile. "Oh yes. See, I might be the most accurate of pilots, but at least I don't almost kill us with the press of a button," he teased.
Rose scoffed, and bumped her shoulder with his playfully. "I was just testing," she joked. "You looked like you'd one off in a bit of a trance; thought I'd better test you were paying attention to what I was doing."
"I'm always paying attention to what you're doing," he replied softly, only realising how that sounded after he'd said it.
Her eyes met his. "Doctor," she murmured.
The Doctor swallowed. "Yeah?" he croaked out slowly.
"Can I have my hand back yet?" she asked innocently.
His gaze flickered down to where he was still holding her hand in his. He let go quickly. "Right. Yes. Course," he stuttered.
"So what does this button do?" she questioned, taking a step in front of him slightly so that she could point to a switch positioned further away from her. This consequently meant that she was now sandwiched between the Doctor and the console. Rose found she didn't mind this, and neither did the Doctor, so they continued as if it were normal for her back to be pressed so close against his front.
He even leaned a little more forward, and extended his arm so that it ran parallel to her pointing one. "That, Rose Tyler, is the radio."
Rose giggled. "Oh."
"Hey, don't sound disappointed; the radio is one of the most important things in a TARDIS!"
She turned her head to look at him with a dubious expression.
"Ok, fine, it isn't. I was just trying to make you feel less silly," he teased. He dropped his arm when she dropped hers, and they brushed each other as they fell to their sides. Rose and the Doctor pretended to ignore their limbs' sneaky behaviour, and she asked him another question.
"How about this one?"
"That's the exothermosis detachment filter," he told her, his voice close to her ear.
"Cool," she said, as if she knew what that meant.
"Yep," he laughed. "Right, now see if you can remember the sequence I just showed you," he then whispered.
Rose took a deep breath, and started to go through the motions that he'd taught her. She remembered most of it, but it was getting increasingly difficult to do this while his chin was resting on her shoulder as he watched.
She moved her hand to twist a lever, but his hand shot out quickly to stop her.
"That one first," he informed, moving her hand to a different lever.
She exhaled shakily. "Oh yeah."
A few whirs and beeps later, the Doctor told Rose to pull the handbrake.
She shifted against him to reach over to it, and heard him breathe a sharp intake of breath. Pausing where she was, her arm hovering over the console, she turned her head to look at him.
"Doctor," she murmured, her voice soft but nervous.
He stared at her. "Yes?"
Rose bottled what she was really going to say, and said instead, "Where will this take us?"
The Doctor swallowed thickly. "What?"
"Where are we going to land?" Rose clarified, and was surprised when he let out a breath of relief. Obviously he had been thinking she was asking a different question there.
"Oh! Um...weelll, just wait and see," he answered. He had directed her to fly the TARDIS to a particular point in space and time, but if she didn't end up there, he was going to pretend that wherever they really were was where they were supposed to be.
She smiled, and pulled the handbrake.
The time rotor moved up and down, and the TARDIS shook. Instinctively, she twisted her arm behind her to seek out the Doctor's hand. He linked their fingers, and pulled her around to face him.
"Rose," he began, but then he was interrupted by a forceful shudder that threw him to the floor, Rose landing directly on top of him. "Ooff," he gasped with the impact, and then Rose began to laugh into his shoulder. He soon joined in, and even when the shuddering stopped, they remained in their position on the floor, giggling to themselves. He brought his hand up to stroke her hair, and she sighed happily when she'd recovered from her laughing fit.
"This is nice," she whispered, and he felt her breath ghost over his neck.
"It is?" he whispered back.
"Yeah."
He pressed his lips to the top of her head. "Yeah. It is." He wrapped his free arm around her waist, and held her close.
"If Jack walked in right now, he'd say that we're proving that he's right," Rose giggled.
"Well, maybe we are. Maybe he is," the Doctor mumbled quietly.
Rose stilled. "Yeah?"
"Yes."
"You do want to grope my bottom?" she teased.
"I want a hell of a lot more than that," he answered honestly, for once not thinking about all the reasons that it could be A Really Bad Idea.
"Oh," she breathed. "Good."
"Good?"
"Yep."
"Ah. Right. Good."
Rose lifted her head to look at him. "Shall we - " she began to say, but he cut her off quickly by leaning up and pressing a soft, brief kiss to her parted lips. He flopped back down, and waited for her reaction. "Um..." she whispered nervously.
"Yes?" he asked, smiling innocently.
"Could you do that again?" she asked.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Don't you want to see where we've landed?"
"Where I've brought us," Rose corrected with a grin.
"Exactly," he beamed at her.
"Nah," she answered, shrugging. "It'll still be there in an hour, if we don't move the TARDIS again. Exploring outside can wait."
The Doctor nodded. "Yes. Yes, you have a point there, Rose Tyler."
"Shall we get off the floor?"
"Probably. But first..." he said, proceeding to kiss her again, this time harder, more insistent. She thrust her hands into his hair and kissed him back furiously, and he rolled them both over so that she was lying on her back instead. They remained that way for several minutes, and with a start the Doctor realised that his tie had been flung across the room and his shirt unbuttoned. He laughed gently against her lips.
"What's so funny?" she asked breathlessly.
"I bloody love you," he answered, capturing her lips again before she could respond.
Rose pushed against his chest so that she could break the kiss. "Did you just say - "
" – yes," he interrupted. "Yes I did."
She grinned. "Quite like that," she admitted.
"Yeah, well don't get too used to it," he teased.
She raised an eyebrow and giggled. "I bloody love you too. Just so you know."
"Excellent," he grinned.
And they didn't discover what was beyond the TARDIS doors for quite some time. In truth, it was Jack who first ventured outside, before alerting them to the fact they were on the planet Quaero Four, and congratulating Rose on landing them on the largest nudist beach in the entire cosmos.
...
A/N: hey I'm baaaacckkk :) And I'm VERY happy, because I've done lots of writing this week. Ooh, and I'm pleased about my exam results :D not even the rainiest camping trip EVER and a stackload of homework that I still haven't done brought my mood down. Anyways, hope you liked this chapter! Reviews much loved as always xxx