A/N: Now, I wrote this awhile ago (and by that I mean...ooh, February? Ha. Where did all those months go? I swear time is running faster this year...) after A Who Down In Whoville prompted me the idea :) So, big thanks! Hope you like it xx
-x-
When Pub Brawling Pays Off
"I can't believe you've got us into this mess," sighed the Doctor dramatically.
"Right. 'Cos you don't get us into trouble three times a week as it is," Rose scoffed.
"Not for something as trivial as this!" he barked out indignantly, folding his arms.
"What do you call that time with Henry VIII, eh? When you got banged up in the Tower of London for being rude to him?"
"He was trying to make you his new mistress," the Doctor muttered in a low voice, seething at that particular memory.
"Exactly! You got jealous and almost punched him the face. Not so different to this."
"I was not jealous," he insisted, as if the idea was ridiculous. "I was just looking out for your welfare."
"I can look after myself," she huffed.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Evidently."
There were a few moments of tense silence.
"Look, I'm sorry, alright?" Rose apologised, turning to face him. "She was just...you know...taking things too far. I could see you were really uncomfortable with it. She wasn't backing off when you asked her to."
"I'm over nine hundred years old, Rose. I can look after myself."
"Fine," she grumbled. "I was only trying to help."
"Well, that's the most unconvincing lie I've ever heard," he countered smugly.
"Fine! I was jealous. See? I can admit it. Which means I get the moral high ground here," she told him exasperatingly.
The Doctor hid his grin. "Moral high ground? You? You started a brawl in a pub. You got us arrested and thrown into this disgusting, dark, dirty prison cell. You got us sentenced to death. You got - "
Rose's shoulders slumped. "Okay, okay; I get it. I'm a horrible person," she admitted, biting her lip.
His eyes met hers and his expression softened. "Oh, now. I didn't say that," he said quietly. "In fact, you're the least horrible person I know."
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth at the unexpected sort-of-compliment. "Thanks," she replied, just as quietly. "And I am sorry."
The Doctor didn't bother to hide his grin this time, deciding he'd had enough of teasing her. "It's okay," he chuckled, almost pulling her into a nice cuddle but deciding not to because she might've seen that as some sort...invitation, considering that evening's events. Which it actually would have been, no doubt about it. His restraint was faltering just as much as hers. So, he couldn't risk that.
"It's really quite funny," he continued. "Do you know, nine hundred years and I've never been fought over in a pub before? Weeelll, I've never been fought over full stop. Weeeelll. I have. But not in a nice way. I've been fought over in terms of who out of these three groups of aliens got to kill me. But never who got to...well...uh..." he trailed off, not sure where he was going with that sentence. He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably.
Rose pursed her lips to hold in her giggle. "Yeah," she mumbled, averting her eyes from his and staring at the door.
"So!" the Doctor exclaimed loudly, breaking the awkward silence. "Fancy breaking out of jail again, Rose Tyler?" He leapt forwards suddenly, peering through the small hole at the top of the steel-bolted door, before spinning around to face Rose again. "Right, there's a guard at either end of the corridor, but the one to the left is dozing in and out of consciousness, lazy sod, so if we run quietly enough, we should be able to leg it past him before he can wake up and stop us. Good plan? Yes, I thought so. Right!"
He reached for his sonic screwdriver, which was usually located in his pocket. He paused, an expression of frustration taking over his face.
"Doctor?" Rose prompted, bringing his attention back to her. "They took it, remember?"
"Ah yes," the Doctor realised, begin to pace. "So...really, then...we...well, we could...oh dear. There's not much we can do to escape then, actually."
Rose shrugged. "We'll just have to wait until someone comes to bring us some food, yeah? Then we can make a run for it."
"How long will that take!" the Doctor complained, wrinkling his nose up.
"Well, considering it's the middle of the night, probably 'til morning," she answered, sitting down on the thin, holey mattress resting on a wooden ledge at the back of the cell. She presumed this was what constituted as a bed in a Uklilei prison. It was better than some of the beds she'd been forced to sleep in across the galaxy, so she wasn't about to complain; she just hoped it would hold her weight.
The Doctor sighed, and moved to sit down next to her.
Make that, she hoped it would hold both their weights.
"Yeah, you're probably right," he said. He leant back against the wall. "Well then. We're stuck here for a few hours. What shall we do?"
Rose looked at him wearily. "Dunno 'bout you, but after all that...brawling...I'm a bit tired. Think I'll have a nap, if that's alright?"
The Doctor pouted. "Great. So I'm going to have to sit here talking to myself all night then, am I?" he said begrudgingly. He really wished she didn't have to sleep so much. He felt like he missed out on so many hours of Rose Time due to her human, persistent need to sleep.
"No," she answered, and then she pointed to the floor. "You're gonna sit down there and talk to yourself all night."
She grinned innocently when he glared at her. "How is that fair?" he demanded. "It's rock hard and freezing cold, that floor!"
"You don't need to sleep; I do," Rose countered, yawning widely as if to demonstrate her point.
"Who says I don't?" the Doctor said then. "I could do with catching forty winks myself. Haven't done so for a while." Well, he said a while. He meant quite a long while, actually. Four weeks or so, in fact.
He'd been avoiding sleep ever since what he liked to call the Irrationally Gorgeous Bikini Event. It was rather astounding how vivid his dreams could get nowadays – nowadays meaning what he liked to call the Since I Met Rose Days, of course - and he wasn't quite prepared to risk it, ever since he'd caught sight of his best friend in the most ridiculously small red bikini ever invented on their trip to Hawaii 1994. However, he had to acknowledge now that he was in fact rather tired. If sleep-induced images of Rose Tyler's sunbathing body infiltrated his mind (like they weren't already...) then that was absolutely not his fault.
"News to me," Rose replied, bringing him out of his reverie.
He cleared his throat. "Come on, play fair. I wouldn't've thought you'd mind, anyway."
"Mind what?"
"Me sharing a bed with you," he grinned cheekily.
Rose opened her mouth, then closed it abruptly, not having a sufficient retort to that.
"Well, come on, shift over," he said, nudging her. "Plenty of room for two."
She sighed and obediently moved so that she was laying lengthways on the bed, on the side nearest the wall. The Doctor chuckled quietly at her put out expression, and lay down next to her, but he had to turn onto his side or risk falling off.
"Plenty of room for two?" Rose repeated, wrinkling her nose up as she also turned onto her side, so that he could shift further onto the bed. "Don't think so, Doctor."
His eyes were alight with mischief as he looked into hers. "Well, we're only gonna be sleeping. How much room do you need for that?" he smirked.
Rose suppressed a smile. "I like to stretch out across the whole bed, though," she informed him ruefully. "Can't very well do that here, can I?"
"Well, you could," he argued, swallowing thickly to try and dispel the rather alarmingly husky tone of voice he'd suddenly come out with. "Just don't hit me in the face with your elbow or something."
"But then I'd be half on top of you," she teased, starting to grin, her tongue poking out between her teeth.
"You can be fully on top of me if you like," he suggested before he could stop himself. His eyes widened along with hers when he realised what he'd just said out loud. He tried to backpedal for his life. "I mean, if you, you know, need more space, because, well, it doesn't, um, doesn't matter to me; I mean, I probably wouldn't even, uh, notice, if you, you know, were on top, of, of, of um, me..." He winced internally. Oh, he was such a liar. Of course he would bloody notice. He'd notice far too obviously, in fact.
Rose burst out laughing at his futile attempts at not making the situation more awkward. "I'm sure I'll make do just fine here on my side of the bed," she said, once her giggles had subsided.
"Right. Yes. Quite right," he murmured uncomfortably, rather wishing he'd kept his mouth shut and feeling very disheartened by her blatant refusal. The happiness that had previously been shining so brightly in his eyes was abruptly vanquished.
Rose noticed this, of course; perceptive as she was.
"Unless of course, your side is, um...lumpy or something," Rose suggested nervously.
His eyebrows drew together questioningly. "What do you mean?"
"Well, if, for instance, your side of the bed is uncomfortable, then you'd have to, you know...share my side. Or something."
He eyes lit back up when he realised what she might mean by that. "What are you suggesting? That I sleep on top of you?"
Rose flushed a little, but tried to keep her cool. She shrugged nonchalantly.
"So, are you more comfortable to lay on top of than this lumpy, old mattress, then?" he asked her, leaning ever so slightly closer. It occurred to him suddenly that he was probably close to leering inappropriately at her, and he desperately hoped she wouldn't find that off-putting.
"I should hope so," Rose giggled. "There's nothing lumpy or old about me, yet."
"No, there isn't," the Doctor agreed, exhaling roughly.
Her breath caught in her throat at the intense look he gave her. "Doctor?" she murmured tentatively.
"Yes, Rose?" he replied, and it came out as a whisper.
"Did you like it?" she asked curiously.
The Doctor felt his cheeks and neck flush, which he was totally unused to and thus felt very self-conscious about. "Like what?" he squeaked. Surely she couldn't have read his mind about the bikini thing, could she?
"Me getting jealous of that girl in the bar tonight," she clarified, biting her lip anxiously.
He smiled, almost relieved that that was what she meant. "What do you think?" he replied softly.
"Dunno. That's why I'm asking," she countered quickly.
He almost reached out his hand to her face, but stopped himself at the last second; instead, he satisfied his need to touch her by clasping their hands together tightly. His thumb stroked across the back of her hand. "What would you think of me if I said yes?" he asked quietly.
Her eyes widened, though almost imperceptibly. "Um. I...I would think...um..." she replied, stumbling over her words to try and find an answer.
"'Cos I did. Like it, I mean. I did like it when you got jealous," he admitted, staring at their joined hands rather than at her face. "When you...uh, staked your claim. So to speak."
"You...you did?" she croaked out, her throat suddenly dry.
"Yeah," he muttered. "What does that say about me?" he asked her, genuinely both curious and worried, as he looked back into her eyes.
She raised an eyebrow. "Well. Um. I dunno. I s'pose it means that you're the same as me then, 'cos when you got all possessive over me after Henry, er, said what he said...well, I quite enjoyed that."
The Doctor's eyebrow mirrored Rose's. "Possessive?" he sniffed disbelievingly.
"Yeah," Rose replied. "Possessive."
"Am I possessive?" he asked in a loud whisper, more to himself than her. He'd thought he'd been hiding it better. Obviously not. Oh dear.
"Yeah," she repeated. "Very." She saw that he looked very anxious about this, and, though embarrassed, she hastily mumbled, "It's okay, though. Like I said...I like that."
His frown smoothed out and he watched her blinking at him for a few moments, completely silent. Then, he admitted, "You were right, though. I was jealous of him."
She smiled. "Yeah, I know."
"He kissed you," the Doctor continued, a lump in his throat. Rose blushed and looked away. "You kissed him back."
"I didn't leave you, though. I didn't risk everything we have to save his life. I didn't invite him along to travel with us. I didn't get upset when I had to leave him. Granted, that's all mostly because I've seen the history books, seen the paintings and read the descriptions of what he looks like when he gets older, but still..." she mumbled.
With every word she spoke, the Doctor's chest constricted painfully and a big, ugly ball of regret expanded in the pit of his stomach. He understood what she was saying. He recognised what an idiot he had been. He could tell that as she spoke, her voice was wavering, and she was trying not to cry. He realised how hypocritical he was. How tactless. How stupid.
He knew now how much he'd hurt her, with their experience on the fifty-first century spaceship and in seventeenth century Versailles. He'd apologised, as soon as Rose had come back from showing Mickey around the TARDIS, when they were alone together in the library. But that probably wasn't enough; he should've realised that. He'd spent every day since pretending that nothing had happened, taking her to all sorts of places to make her forget they'd ever met the uncrowned queen of France. They'd lost Mickey to the gingerbread house that was a parallel world, but he had wanted to go, so that was okay, and well, the Doctor and Rose, they still had each other, so it was back to normal and flying off together to visit Moscow and Pont Pont and Delfor Three and Elvis and Hawaii and Funfair XI. But none of it meant anything if she was still hurting, and he hated himself for that.
When Rose looked back at the Doctor, laughing weakly at her own joke – well, attempt at a joke - she was shocked at what she saw: his lips downturned, his jaw set, his eyes glistening. "Hey," she whispered, lifting her hand to his cheek to wipe a tear away with the pad of her thumb. "Are you okay?" She immediately felt guilty for bringing up Reinette, if this was the reaction she got. She left her hand at his cheek all the same. This appeared to be the right thing to do, though, as the Doctor then proceeded to rest his hand over hers to hold it there.
He blinked quickly to clear his vision and coughed gently to clear his throat. "Rose."
"Yeah?" she asked, trying not to sound nervous.
"I..." he floundered. "I'm sorry."
"What for?"
He closed his eyes briefly. "For being a fool."
"You're the cleverest man in the universe, Doctor. Or so you say," she whispered conspiringly, trying to coax him into a smile.
"No I'm not. Not about what matters, anyway. Not about what should be said, and done, and meant."
"I don't understand. What are you saying?"
"I don't think I can keep doing this. This stupid, stupid pretending that I've been doing for oh, so long."
"What pretending?"
"Pretending that I can ignore all...all this," he said, gesturing between them with his hand.
"Ignore what?" she asked confusedly.
"Us!" he exclaimed, frustrated when she still didn't seem to understand what he meant. He knew it was his own fault; this very conversation, a conversation that had been pending for a while, a conversation that he'd rehearsed over and over in his own head, was the thing that terrified him most about Rose Tyler, and he couldn't get his words out properly. He sighed. "Listen, I know I don't say this very often...weeelll. Actually, I've never said this at all, ever, so...so, I'm sorry for that, most of all." He took in a deep breath. "Fact is, I - "
A loud CLANK sound interrupted him.
The Doctor whipped his head around so fast that he almost toppled off the bed. Standing in the entrance to their cell was the stout, bearded prison warden, eying them suspiciously.
"Fraternisation is not permitted," he told them firmly.
Rose's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "What?" she exclaimed.
"Fraternisation?" repeated the Doctor, confused. "What do you mean?"
The prison warden appeared to address Rose, looking straight past the Doctor. "If the male cannot control himself, he shall be exported to another cell," he explained.
Her eyebrows rose to her hairline, and she looked at the Doctor for confirmation of what she thought she'd just heard.
The Doctor's head simply fell back onto the mattress, eyes closed in humiliation.
Rose swallowed and looked back at the prison guard. "When you say control himself...?"
"The male's heart beats have increased and there is a significant rise in the level of riladamine in his blood."
To this, the Doctor groaned out loud, covering his face with his arm.
Completely confused, Rose asked, "And riladamine is what exactly?"
"A hormone, somewhat relevant to his species. Although, of course, not often instigated, according to the legends..." answered the prison guard. The Doctor winced, knowing what was coming next. "...seeing as it's a sexual hormone."
The Doctor sat up straight as Rose gasped in shock. "I was just going to tell her how much I LOVE her, alright?" he burst out in annoyance.
Silence.
The Doctor gulped, belatedly noting that that was perhaps not the best thing to shout at a stranger before he'd even said the words to Rose herself.
He heard a tentative voice stutter behind him. "That was...that...that...that was what you were going to...say?"
Slowly, he turned to face her, tugging at his ear nervously. "Yes," he replied hoarsely. "A lot, is the answer. I love you a lot. Wait, well. No, it's...well, it's more than 'a lot.' I can assure you of that. Um." He chuckled shakily. "It would appear that I'm not very good at this, but I think you can appreciate what I am trying to say."
Rose nodded dumbly, completely speechless.
The Doctor turned back to the prison warden. "If you're not going to let us go, could you leave, please?"
The man held himself firmer, more upright, standing his ground. He even folded his arms. "I'm sorry, I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Because now the female's heart rate has accelerated, and her hormones are - "
" – right!" exclaimed the Doctor loudly, jumping up. "Then what exactly are you going to do? Just stand there?"
"If it is necessary," was his reply.
The Doctor let out a wail of frustration, and contemplated banging his head against the wall. But then, he felt a hand, a hand he knew well, Rose's hand, thank goodness, creep into his own. And then he felt her whisper before he heard it, sharp and tantalising against his neck, "Run!"
So, severely incapable of not doing what she said, like, ever, he sprinted past the bewildered prison guard, tugging Rose along behind him. They easily dodged the sleepy guard in the corridor, and ran as fast as they could for freedom.
Within minutes, they were out in the open air, hidden from view in a dimly lit alleyway to the side of the prison. Rose let go of his hand, leaning against the wall to try and catch her breath.
The Doctor watched her silently, wondering how they would go on from here.
Then, a slow smile spread its way across her face, and she stood up straight.
"Rose?" he murmured, still panting softly as he watched her advance towards him.
Instead of answering him, Rose flung her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.
"You alright?" he mumbled into her hair, squeezing her waist.
"Yeah," she giggled breathlessly.
"You sound happy," he noted, unable to stop a smile forming on his lips even though he was still anxious about what would happen now.
"I am happy," she laughed against his neck. "Just escaped from jail, after all. That's a highlight of any night. Or at least, it would be. If I hadn't've had an even more exciting event happen, too."
The Doctor pulled back slightly to look at her questioningly. "And what's that?"
"Well. Let me think," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "I shared a tiny little bed with my best friend, who then told me that he loves me a lot - wait, no, more than a lot. So! I think all in all it's a pretty great night..."
"Yeah?" he urged, beaming hopefully.
"Yeah. And guess what?" she gasped teasingly.
"What's that?" he replied, his eyes dancing with anticipation.
"It's gonna get even better."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yep," she grinned. And then she stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to his lips.
When she pulled away, the Doctor gravitated towards her, mouth falling open, eyes still closed. Without opening his eyes, he complained, "Um, Rose. Where did your mouth go?"
She leant forwards and laughed into his chest.
"No, seriously; come back," he continued, before chuckling low in his throat. And then his hands slipped up her back and into her hair, tugging her head back to close the distance between their lips once more.
They stayed that way for an exceedingly long period of time, until the guards discovered their little hiding place, and promptly chased them all the way back to the TARDIS.
Behind the closed doors of their little blue box, however, the Time Lord and the human girl could fraternise all they liked.
Predictably, this was a lot.
.
A/N: I'm going camping for a whole week (no internet...save me from this torture, please just save me!) so you won't hear from me for awhile :( It'll still be nice to hear from you, though, so please keep reviewing and I'll reply when I return :) Much love xxx