Such a Flirt

-x-

"I really didn't expect that to happen," the Doctor pondered thoughtfully. He pouted when Rose started cackling beside him on the grass in great amusement.

He was referring to his nefarious adventure of yesterday, within which he'd had the untimely misfortune of being accused of shoplifting.

"Really," he continued. "I was just testing the banana out. Making sure it was edible. You can never be too careful about these things, Rose Tyler."

"Yeah, well," Rose replied breezily. "The manager let you off, didn't she?"

"Because she finally realised how preposterous the notion of me, the last of the Time Lords, Oncoming Storm, Destroyer of Worlds, needing to steal fruit from Tesco is!"

"Nah, it's just that she fancied you."

The Doctor gave her a blank look. "No she didn't."

"She really did," Rose assured him.

"Oh." He grinned cockily and straightened his tie. "Well, why wouldn't she?" he sniffed.

"Surprised she didn't want to be your girlfriend, actually. I asked her if she wanted your number, but she politely declined," Rose giggled. "Maybe you should have flirted with her more."

"Yes, well. In case you haven't noticed, I don't really do things like that."

Rose snorted. "Coulda fooled me!"

His eyes widened dramatically. "What?" he exclaimed, turning onto his side. "I don't!"

"Sure you don't," she replied sarcastically, tilting her head to look at him sceptically.

"I don't!" he squeaked out indignantly.

"Doctor, you're the second biggest flirt I know. Jack holding the title, of course."

"I am not, in any way, on any list, in the entire universe, second place to Jack Harkness, thank you very much. Least of all in this. How are we even vaguely comparable? It's ridiculous."

"Well, I'm just going by the evidence I've seen before my very eyes."

"What on Earth are you referring to?"

"Not just on Earth, Doctor," Rose smirked.

He waved away her point dismissively, urging her to tell him what she meant.

She folded her arms beneath her head and stared up at the sky for a few moments, pondering how to phrase it.

"Rose?" he prompted, after ten point seven seconds of no answer from her. "Listen, you better tell me what I do, so that I can stop, before I give other people the wrong idea."

She matched his position, turning on her side to face him. "You can't seriously be saying you don't know you're doing it!" she laughed.

He swallowed thickly. "Weeelll. Sometimes I do it on purpose, I think."

"Ha! See!" she exclaimed triumphantly raising her arm.

"But only with you," he continued quietly.

Her fist pump faltered and she dropped her arm to her side quickly. "What did you just say?"

"What?" he flinched awkwardly.

She stared at him. "You mean, it means something?"

The Doctor grew very nervous, his breathing stuttering for a moment. "Um..." He exhaled roughly. "Between us? Me and you? Yes, I thought so," he admitted.

Rose thought that over for a minute. He watched for her reaction carefully, but couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"Rose," he said suddenly, breaking the silence. "If I have unwittingly been flirting with other people – and I still don't believe I do; really, I'm just being friendly, for goodness' sake; hardly my fault over three quarters of the universe only thinks about, er, that, side of things – then why didn't you tell me off sooner?"

She frowned in confusion. "Tell you...off?"

He nodded.

"Why would I tell you off for it?" she asked hesitantly.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Because you - " he began, then stopped abruptly, his throat suddenly dry.

"Because I what?" she prompted, baffled.

He shifted a bit closer to her and peered into her eyes curiously.

"What are you doing?" she asked him, her heart picking up its pace.

"Nothing, nothing," he said, sounding disappointed. He flipped onto his back and resolutely began watching the clouds migrate above them.

Rose sat up, crossed her legs, and stared down at him patiently.

His gaze eventually, reluctantly, swept back to her, and she arched an eyebrow, waiting.

"I thought..." he started, and then trailed off, sniffing haughtily. "But it doesn't matter."

"I really don't have a clue what you're babbling on about, Doctor. Can you please just spit it out?"

He sighed, and focussed his eyes on the sky again, embarrassed. "I thought perhaps, there have been, er, incidences, in the past, where you've...been...weeellll, jealous, and so if I've been unknowingly doing that flirting thing, I'm confused as to why you don't seem to care."

Rose burst out laughing, which was in no way the response he was hoping for.

"What?" he demanded, annoyed. He turned over on his other side so that his back was to her. "Can't help it if I've..." The rest of his sentence was hidden in a mutter under his breath, so Rose didn't catch what he'd said.

She made an apologetic sound and tugged on his arm, before taking his hand between hers and squeezing gently. "Sorry, Doctor, what did you said just then? You can't help it if you've...?"

"Nothing," he replied sulkily. But he didn't snatch his hand away, which Rose took as a good sign.

"Doctor," she said softly.

"Hmph."

"Doctor, look at me," she tried again.

"Nope."

"But you're right, you know," she admitted. "In some ways, at least. I have been jealous in the past."

He lifted his head slightly, wanting to hear more. There was a 'but...' coming; he could tell. He hoped it was a good 'but...'

"But you're wrong if you think I don't care anymore. Of course I care. But what can I do? I can't exactly complain about it."

"Why not?" he asked simply, finally turning back around to face her.

She saw the sincerity and confusion in his eyes and was puzzled by it. "Be-because..." her voice faltered.

"Because what?"

"Because we're not...you know..."

"Aren't we?" he murmured.

Her heart rate sped up even more after hearing those two simple words and she didn't know what to say.

The Doctor closed his eyes, swallowing nervously. Then he dropped the bombshell. "It's only ever been you. It's only ever going to be you, Rose Tyler."

At her sharp intake of breath, he opened one eye.

"You okay with that?" he murmured hesitantly.

"I...I..." she stammered, still dazed. "Well, yes. Obviously. But I – we – you haven't..."

"What?"

"You know...made a move..."

"I didn't realise we had somewhere to be," he retorted. "Where's the rush?" He coughed awkwardly. "Besides, it takes a while to get up that sort of confidence."

She snorted. "Confidence? You're way above confident already, Doctor!" she laughed.

He wanted to glare at her, but he ended up just gazing, really. "Not about this sort of thing," he corrected gently.

"Well, that maybe so, but you've had two years! I was starting to lose hope of anything ever happening between us," Rose admitted.

"Well, now we've clarified our mutual intentions, I'm pretty sure we can do something about them..." he mumbled.

"Yeah?" she asked hopefully, trying not to sound too eager.

He smiled. "Yeah."

"When?" She started to lean closer to him.

The Doctor tilted his head up and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. "Whenever you - " he began when he pulled back, but he couldn't seem to finish, because Rose had seized him by the lapels to meet his mouth with hers again. She rolled onto him, and their kiss muffled his groan. Which was just as well, she supposed, because she wasn't sure whether it was a groan of pleasure or from the pain of having her weight crushing down on him. He didn't push her off, though – in fact, his hands slid in opposite directions, one to fasten into her hair, the other gripping her hip, in order to keep her in position.

After a minute or two, Rose pulled back slightly to breathe, and he took the opportunity to flip them over. Her back flat against the grass, she gasped against his cheek as he slipped a leg between hers to hover above her whilst trailing a path from her jaw to her ear with kisses.

It didn't happen when they'd engaged in another few bouts of snogging and started inching hands beneath the fabric of shirts to touch fingertips to bare, hidden, until-now-forbidden skin. No, it was only when the Doctor lifted Rose's leg up and around his hip that a policeman coughed pointedly and made them jump apart.

The Doctor, now sprawled next to Rose on the grass, stared up at the policeman with wide, guilty eyes. "Right," he exhaled. "There's a very good reason why you don't need to arrest us." He glanced at Rose, hoping she'd help him out.

She took his cue and cleared her throat. "Yeah, there is. I mean...well. It could be worse. We could be naked."

The Doctor bit back a groan.

"Miss, Sir," the policeman nodded curtly towards them. Or rather, down to them. "This here is a public location. Not only that, it's a park. It is three o'clock in the afternoon. Parents do not appreciate seeing an amorous couple shove their tongues down each other's throats and grope each other in front of their kiddies."

He was looking at them so sternly that the Doctor and Rose forgot to feel guilty. They were trying very, very hard not to giggle.

The policeman shot a glare down at the Doctor. "I suggest you take your girlfriend somewhere else."

Rose couldn't contain it, then. She burst into giggles and the Doctor tried in vain to ignore her, replying calmly and seriously to the policeman, "Indeed I will, Sergeant. On a bed, perhaps?"

She howled with laughter then. "I can't believe you just said that!"

The policeman did not crack a smile. "Remove yourselves from this park at once, or I shall have to arrest you for indecent exposure."

"But we didn't expose anything!" the Doctor protested. The policeman raised an eyebrow. "Yet," he added feebly. "Look, I'm truly sorry. Thing is, Rose practically, maybe, almost just told me she loves me for the first time, and okay, so I admit it – we got a little carried away – but can you blame me for forgetting where exactly in space and time I was? I mean, look at her!"

The policeman did look at her. He tilted his head, somewhat conceding to the Doctor's point. In fact, his eyes lingered.

The Doctor scowled. "Okay, you can stop looking at her now, thank you!"

The policeman held out his hands, so that each of them could pull themselves up. "I don't want to see you partaking in such activities in a public place again, understood?"

They nodded solemnly, linked arms, and made their way slowly back to the TARDIS. As soon as they were out of earshot of the policeman, they started chuckling again.

"I can't believe you," she laughed. "Two years of getting your 'confidence' up, and then you get completely carried away within seconds? You should've planned this better, Doctor."

He poked his tongue out at her. "I'm not being funny, but you certainly seemed to lose all sense of where we were, too!"

"Whatever," she dismissed. "I just can't believe how impatient you got. You even said, earlier, 'where's the rush?' Ha!"

The Doctor grinned. "We need to catch up on lost time, maybe," he suggested.

Rose smiled back at him beautifully. "I think we do."

They glimpsed the TARDIS up ahead. Rose bit her lip. The Doctor noticed. He swallowed thickly.

She leant closer, to speak into his ear. "Race you..."

And then she ran. The Doctor stood still, blinking for a second, before realisation hit, "Oh, you cheat!" he exclaimed, bounding after her.

He didn't mind if he didn't win the race, though. He had a feeling he'd still get a nice prize.