Moving In

The Doctor abruptly woke up as he sensed Rose moving around. His eyes blinking open slowly, he watched her in silence as she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She let out a deep sigh as she felt around for her clothes on the floor, proceeding to get dressed.

He swallowed hard and wondered how to alert her to the fact that he was awake, too. He decided to just murmur her name softly.

"Rose."

She turned around in surprise as she stood up. "Yeah?" she whispered back.

"What're you doing?" he asked sleepily, scrubbing his hand over his eyes to wake himself up a bit more.

Her brow furrowed a little. "I'm just...getting dressed."

"Why?"

"To, you know," she murmured hesitantly, biting her bottom lip for a second before releasing it. "Go back to my room."

He stared at her for a moment, then expelled a short, breathy, "Oh."

Rose tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and shifted awkwardly on her feet. "Doctor?" she prompted.

He cleared his throat and sat up straight to regard her properly. "I just thought that maybe..."

"What?"

"That things had changed," he said, shrugging to feign nonchalance.

Rose looked at him carefully, taking in his expression. "Well I just thought, 'cos things had changed...it might be, I dunno. Awkward," she mumbled in reply.

"Oh. Well, I s'pose..." he trailed off, and glanced away from her eyes for a bit, unwilling to let her see what he was really thinking. "If that's - if that's what you want, that's okay."

He wasn't looking at her now, and Rose knew what that meant. He was sulking. She tried not to smile, needing to keep rational to work out what exactly had happened between them and what exactly it meant to both of them. For now, she sat back down on the bed. "Doctor, talk to me."

He looked back at her. "Hmm?"

"What do you, um, want. Now. After...what happened. What do you want to happen next? What do you want from, well, from me?" she asked, stumbling over her words in her haste to get them out.

The Doctor offered her a small smile and reached for her hand. "I had a very good time last night," he began softly. "And I think you did, too?"

She couldn't contain her smile at that, nor could she prevent her cheeks from flushing slightly pink. "I did, yeah."

"I'd sort of been..." he trailed off, unsure.

"What, Doctor?"

"I hope this is okay, Rose, what I'm about to tell you."

She braced herself. "Go for it."

"Well. Thing is, I'd been thinking, now and then, well, pondering on occasion - well, okay, I'll be honest – it was more like imagining in significant detail what the experience of that, with you, would be like." He paused to gauge her reaction.

She stared at him unblinkingly but said nothing, so he promptly continued.

"And I think we successfully demonstrated that, um, together we're...quite the team," he said next, choosing his words with caution.

Rose giggled. "Definitely."

"I'd thought that I'd perceived what such events would be like in every conceivable way, but, well. It surpassed my already wildly high expectations."

"Yeah?" she grinned.

"Yes. And last night, I was under the impression that it might be...let's say, advantageous, you know, to both our lives, really, if we were to partake in such...team-building activities...on a more, um. Regular basis?"

She caught her tongue between her teeth as she smiled in delight. Things most certainly seemed to be going the way she wanted them to – the way she wasn't sure, before, that she ought to hope for. "And when you say 'regular...?'"

"Oh when I say that I mean as often as you would like," he assured her, his eyes twinkling mischievously. "And when I say as often as you'd like, wellll. I haven't researched into the topic enough to ascertain whether or not you err on the insatiable side of the spectrum. Perhaps you'd, um, like to enlighten me?"

Rose raised her eyebrows. "Just so I can clarify what your own personal definition of what, let's say, constitutes as enough, I have to ask: will you, by any chance, feel up for doing the very inspiring things we did last night in about -" She paused and glanced at the clock. "- five minutes' time?"

The Doctor beamed at her. "Brilliant," he murmured. "That's a yes, by the way. But – why five minutes in particular?" he asked curiously, leaning towards her.

"I want to go and brush my teeth and stuff," she explained practically, letting go of his hand and jumping up before he could get within kissing distance and smell her morning breath.

"Oh, okay," he nodded reasonably. "That's probably a wise idea; I should go do that too."

Rose nodded dazedly as she watched him get out of bed, utterly naked but for his socks. She'd stipulated that he must keep those on, last night, because he had such a cooler body temperature than her and, what with him being so inclined to spoon up behind her naked, she didn't need the added coolness of freezing cold feet bumping hers in the middle of the night.

In any case, she wasn't staring at his socks right now.

"Rose Tyler," he murmured, sounding pleased.

She immediately glanced back at his face. "Yeah?"

"Do you have any idea at all where my various pieces of clothing got to last night? I can't help but notice that all yours were thrown lovingly on the floor by your side of the bed, yet mine have disappeared altogether."

"My side of the bed, eh? We've established sides of the bed already?" she grinned, completely ignoring his inquiry.

"Yes," he replied, as though it were obvious. Then he revised his decision. "That is, if you're comfortable with your choice. We could switch if you like, I don't mind. Or, you know, we could alternate such things if that would be preferable. It would certainly be less domestic..." he chuckled.

"Doctor, it's fine," she assured him, laughing at his ramble. "I'll go and get sorted, and you...well. You just wander about like that if you can't find your clothes; trust me, no one here minds."

He arched his eyebrow. "Would you believe it, I've never felt the compulsion to run around the TARDIS naked before," he pondered.

"That sounds like a challenge," Rose guessed.

"Well, maybe later it will be," he replied flirtatiously. "It would certainly be very liberating."

"Yeah," she agreed.

"I feel quite liberated now, to be honest."

"Do you?"

"Yes. Maybe you ought to join in," he suggested.

"On the naked thing?"

"Yeah. We could establish a tradition! No-Clothes-Sunday, how does that sound?"

"And what if we have to go out on a No-Clothes-Sunday?" she pointed out.

"Don't be silly, Rose. We always stay in the TARDIS in the vortex on Sundays. I never land on Sundays."

"Why's that?"

"Well, Sundays anywhere else are boring. On the TARDIS, with you, they're one of my favourite days of the week."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"That's very sweet," she smiled.

"Don't sound so surprised," he laughed.

Rose glanced at the clock again. "Time's ticking away. I'd better go now otherwise the five minutes will be up and you'd have to deal with some serious bed hair and morning breath."

"I don't think I'd even notice," he replied honestly, letting his eyes run over her in the most subtle way he could.

"Even so," she giggled. "I'm gonna go now." She turned to leave the room.

"Will you be naked when you come back?" he called after her.

"If you're very, very lucky," he heard her reply as she walked into the corridor.

The Doctor chuckled and went into his own bathroom, before realising something. He dashed to her room and knocked on the door quickly, promptly entering without hearing a response, as usual. "Rose! I just had the most brilliant idea!" he informed her enthusiastically.

She rolled her eyes, midway through cleaning her teeth. She spat out some toothpaste into the sink and mumbled, "What's that then?" before resuming.

"Well, picture this first scene, right: tomorrow morning, you roll over in bed and look so gorgeously you that I want to kiss you, only you won't let me, because you think you have morning breath or whatever, and so then you get up and have to traipse all the way to your room - "

"Which is literally opposite yours - ooh, such a tough, long walk, that," she interrupted, stifling a giggle.

He ignored her. "Leaving the cosy bed and devastatingly handsome bloke that's in it, I may add, and then you have to traipse all the way back - "

"By which time you've lost the desire to kiss me?" she laughed.

"Never!" he assured her fervently. "But my point is, how time-consuming, right? Missing out on kissing time and everything. So! I propose an alternative scene. Imagine, if you will, tomorrow morning. You roll over in bed and look lovely et cetera, and I'm struck by the desire to make lo – kiss you, and so you say, "Won't be a tick!" and pop into my bathroom, in fact, I could join you and things, be doubly efficient, and everything would be fine and brilliant! Therefore, my suggestion is, bring all these personal hygiene-y things of yours to my ensuite and voila!"

"Doctor, are you asking me to move in with you?" she teased, turning to lean against the sink so that she could face him instead of looking at his reflection in the mirror. Then, she mock-gasped before exclaiming dramatically, "Such commitment! And after only one night of passion! Oh, the haste!"

"Oi, I'm being serious here. It would save time, it would be - "

"Oh-so-domestic," she grinned. "Something you seem to be quite fond of these past twenty four hours."

"Well if you don't want to," he huffed, shrugging a naked shoulder, thus reminding her of his nakedness.

She smiled in approval as she looked him up and down. "Oh, I want to. What I want to know is, will I then, by default, be permanently moving into your bed?"

He scratched the back of his neck shyly. "Yeah, I mean, if you want."

"What do you want, Doctor?"

He smiled slowly. "I don't sleep all that much, not really, but Rose, I would want to sleep every night next to you if I got to wake up with you as the first thing I see."

"Well when you say something sweet like that, how can I refuse?" she grinned. "Hold out your arms a sec?"

He looked confused but complied. Rose draped a towel across his outstretched arms.

"What are you doing?"

"You're gonna be my moving lorry, stop moving," she mumbled, placing a variety of items on top of the towel. "Don't drop all that, yeah? Keep your arms up and straight so the stuff don't fall off."

The Doctor smiled in amused affection. "Innovative," he commented admiringly.

"Oh, you just wait," she grinned, and grabbing a few more bits herself, she followed him out of her bathroom.

::

"So are we like, in a relationship now?" Rose asked casually.

"Yeah, I'd like to think so," he smiled.

"Then I can say this and you can't get moody."

"Say what?"

"If you get crumbs in this bed again, I'm gonna withhold cuddle-time until you clean it up."

"Rose, when I said yes to the relationship thing, I didn't mean the kind of relationship where you are my mother and restrict my cuddle time."

"Did your mother do that to you?"

"Well, no, but then again she wasn't the cuddling sort to begin with."

"Oh. Sorry."

"No need to be sorry. But anyway, my point was - "

She interrupted him swiftly. "My point was that I have to sleep in this bed too, and if you keep bringing toast into bed you've gotta be more careful about where the crumbs end up, alright? 'Cos right now I think some are stuck to my back."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'll clean up. Roll over."

"What?"

"Please may you roll over?" he tried again.

She complied, but not before rolling her eyes, too. She instantly felt his fingertips on her back, trailing down her spine lingeringly. Whenever he encountered a lost crumb from his slice of toast, he brushed it from her skin and off of the bed.

"You're not eating them, are you?" she mumbled into the pillow, unable to see what happened to said crumbs.

"No, no, don't worry."

"Right."

"Rose, has anyone ever told you that you have a really beautiful back?"

"Um, nope, don't think so," she giggled.

"Well, you do," he replied softly, leaning forwards to press a kiss to it. Followed by several more kisses, and a distinct murmur of "Rose," against her skin, making her shiver. "Fancy having a little holiday right here in the TARDIS? A break from traversing the universe?"

"Sounds nice," she murmured, gasping when he pressed a kiss to her lower back.

"Brilliant," he whispered, with a smile.

By the time they left the vortex, two very un-boring Sundays had past...