Been long enough, hasn't it? Apologies. I don't really have much of an excuse, though. All the same, I'm back. :D Enjoy!
The next few weeks were spent in a whirlwind of laughter and comfortable silences, and for the first time since that day on the beach, they believed that they were truly happy. The smiles were genuine ones, with tongues against teeth and small laughs in their throats. They were for that time, The Doctor and Rose Tyler, together, as it should be.
It was on lazy morning with strong tea and no sugar that the words finally came. It was said softly, between bites of breakfast.
"I love you." The Doctor's jam-covered fingers stopped halfway into his mouth, the jar in his hand. Rose didn't look as if she had said anything - She was sorting through yesterday's mail, eyes skimming over a letter that was held in one hand, her other holding a half-eaten piece of toast, as it seemed that she had been for the past couple of minutes. But it had been her voice.
"What?" He asked, needing to make sure that he wasn't dreaming. Rose glanced up, a small smile briefly gracing her lips.
"I love you." She repeated, setting the mail down.
"Ah." He set the jar behind him, licking off his fingers and sitting across from her, grinning from ear to ear. "Well that's…" he trailed off, unsure of what it was. (It wasn't brilliant, it was better than that.) "I love you, too."
She set the toast down as well, fingers of one hand curling around her mug as she pulled it to her mouth and the fingers of her other curling around his. "Your hands are sticky." Rose tried to look cross, but her grin was growing to match his. "You're worse than Tony."
"Sorry," he replied, but didn't really look like he was. (They might have been words that they both already knew, but some things do need saying.)
It wasn't clear who moved first – maybe it was both of them, simultaneously – but in a moment the tea was set down and his sticky fingers were in her hair and they were leaning across the table, jam-tinted lips against tea stained ones.
They were laughing before they even broke apart.
"I love you, my Doctor." Rose said again, a giggle escaping with her words. (Her Doctor – he wondered if that was intentional. Her Doctor, the one sitting across the table from her in his stripy pajamas with sticky fingers and jam-and-tea lips and not the one a universe away. Her Doctor, the one that stayed.)
And then those quiet confessions – reminders – were added to the daily routine that they were falling into so easily.