"I cannot believe that you finally took me to Barcelona, only to find a dog that actually does have a nose!" Rose scolded lightly as she puttered around the bedroom, folding clothes, straightening items on the dresser.
It was the Doctor's favorite time of the evening, when everything was quieting down. He and his family were all tucked in their beds so to speak, everyone safe and sound. The TARDIS was parked on a tiny moon with very little atmosphere, the perfect way to help contain curious children who loved to sneak out at night and explore. Thankfully, they were both settled in their respective rooms for the night, hopefully too tired from their day's activities to cause too much trouble.
The Doctor grinned over the book he was reading. "Now Rose, the dog has a name." He waggled his eyebrows at her.
She rolled her eyes as she pulled back the covers and curled in the bed beside him. "Fine, Alonso. You finally have an Alonso on board. He's in bed with your daughter." She poked him in the chest, and he chuckled.
The Doctor shook a finger at her. "Now, now. Use his full name, if you please."
Rose shot him a glare that should have sent him into respiratory bypass. "Fine. Alonso Esperanza Sabado Domingo Tyler."
He beamed, pleased with the name he and his children spent hours working on, much to his wife's consternation.
"You get that's just a bunch of random Spanish words just jumbled together, right? It's like a Spanish name salad. That poor animal." She bit her lip. "What made you give in to getting a dog all of a sudden?"
"Welll…" The Doctor pulled his glasses off. "It just seemed like it was a good time. You know, after running into our younger selves and all–" at her narrowed eyes, he continued more thoughtfully. "-because I didn't listen to my brilliantly beautiful and colossally clever wife who told me that I should have double checked the date before we landed."
Rose gave him a pleased smile, and he couldn't resist giving her a kiss on her forehead. "Also, I figured the kids would be less likely to ask a bunch of questions about today if they had something else to distract them."
"I should go check on the–" Rose made to get up but the Doctor snatched her back.
"Rose, you've already checked on them four times tonight—they're here, they're safe, as are we." He frowned at her. "No one is getting Back to the Futured–oh blimey, you've got me saying it now."
At that, Rose burst into tears. The Doctor tucked her head against his chest, wrapping his arms around her and rubbing her back in comfort. She shuddered, clutching him closer.
The Doctor murmured in her hair. "Hey, sweetheart…it's ok. We're ok. I've got you." He should have expected this–Rose was always the one to put aside any fears or anxieties until later, when they were alone and she could process them. Werewolves? Slitheen? Watch her mom turn into a Cyberman in an alternate universe? Kill Satan? No problem. Rose Tyler will do the thing, then think about it later.
"I was so sc-scared," she hiccuped into his shirt. "I tried so hard to keep it together, but thought about what could happen if we–if they–the children…"
"You did amazing, love. You know that." He curled a finger under her chin to meet her eyes. She gave him a watery smile in return and laid her head back down on his chest. He leaned back against the headboard, his fingers idly tracing Gallifreyian love words on her back.
"I'm just worried that somehow we, or they–" her words were muffled against his shirt, but the Doctor knew what she was trying to say.
"Everything is fine–I made sure of it."
"How?"
"Well," the Doctor replied, thinking. "I may have left just a little…just the teensy tiniest little bit of a suggestion, mind you, when I was erasing my–er–Pinstripe's memory."
"You what?" Rose raised her head to quirk an eyebrow at him. Helpless to resist, he kissed her nose then grinned smugly.
"I had an insurance policy in place, just in case that stupid pinstriped git didn't get his shit together."
She grinned. "You weren't that much of a git."
"Sweet of you to defend me, Rose, but I was a total git."
"But you were my git." He beamed at her words.
"So, what did you do, Doctor?"
He winked at her. "I just left him with two words running through his head. Just two words." He picked up his book again, enjoying how his wife was hanging on every word. He pretended to be outraged when she snatched the book from his hands and threw it behind her.
"Hey, that was–"
"I swear, if you don't tell me what you said–"
"Tell. Her."
Rose's brow furrowed in confusion. "What?"
He locked his hands behind his head, unable to hold back the smug smile. "Right now, that pinstriped pretty-boy has two words running through his head like a stuck record, and it's not going to let up until he finally listens."
Rose was silent for a moment and the Doctor delighted in watching her expressions change, especially once she worked out what he'd done.
He was not as amused when she hit him with a pillow. "Ouch! Rose, what the–"
"Oh, you are completely unbelievable, Doctor! If you're talking about what I think you're talking about–" Rose popped him with the pillow again. "You can't mean—no, no, no—you wouldn't have…""
He rubbed his cheek absently, confused at her reaction. "It was the first time I told you that I love–"
She hopped off the bed to stand over him, wielding another pillow over her head like a sword. Her sleeping shirt rode up, exposing a nice patch of skin just above her shorts. Wisps of hair escaped the messy bun at her nape, and shone around her head like a golden halo.
"Are you referring to that time, and if I'm recalling correctly, it was a few weeks after we left the Fourth Moon of Kentucky, we went to mum's for Sunday dinner–"
"Yes! You do remember! See? It worked!"
"Do not interrupt me! I was loading the dishwasher. You just waltz in the kitchen, cool as you please."
"I thought it was more of a saunter…" he squeaked when her eyes narrowed and he held his arms over his head in defense, just in case. Those pillows were stuffed with feathers from an avian creature from Sirius Thirty-Five. Softest feathers in the galaxy, but pretty dense, and heavier than one would think.
"You said, 'Rose Tyler, I love you.' Then you bent down, kissed me full on the lips, then just swanned off like it was nothing."
"I was being spontaneously romantic! Like in a Richard Curtis film–"
"I BROKE THREE OF GRANDMUM PRENTISS' DISHES AND TWO CRYSTAL GLASSES!" she screeched. The Doctor winced, thankful that the TARDIS had long seen fit to soundproof their bedroom.
"And your mum ended up yelling at me! And she slapped me for good measure!" He gave Rose what he thought was his most winning smile, the one he knew could disarm her. "Totally worth it too." He watched her fight back a grin. "Was that a smile?"
Rose tossed the pillow beside him on the bed. "No."
She bit her lip, and the Doctor wanted to shout in victory. "You smiled!"
He reached out and pulled her to him, hauling them both back on the bed, her laughter ringing out.
"I can't believe you did that!" Rose said, still giggling. He trailed a path of light kisses from her lips to just below her earlobe, then downwards to that place on her neck that never failed to have her moaning. "Mum still makes snide little comments about her china being three short."
The Doctor barely heard her as he was focused on how best to get Rose's shirt off with her squirming beneath him. The fabric was super soft from years of washings, the once bright yellow now faded to more of a muted color. Yellow was such a great color, all the best things the Doctor loved were yellow–Rose, bananas, rubber ducks, buttons–
Buttons?
The Doctor suddenly frowned as he eased off of Rose.
"Doctor? What's wrong?"
"Why in Rassilon's great toenails did you think to mention that yellow button on the TARDIS, Rose?"
"Oh for heaven's sake–are you going to bring that up now?"
He stared down at his wife. "Yes, because it was rather an odd thing to mention to yourself, wasn't it? I mean, out of all the things you could have asked yourself–why that? It doesn't make sense!"
Rose gave him a toothy grin. "Oh, well, since you mentioned it. You weren't the only person who took out an insurance policy today."
He frowned. "What? How? And why was the button involved? I've puttered around with that thing for the past seventeen years–it doesn't do anything! Even the TARDIS has said it doesn't work–"
"For you."
"What?"
She blew out a breath, and the Doctor suddenly felt like he was missing something, like the obvious answer to a complex differential equation. "You were right, this afternoon wasn't a time paradox. I remembered something when the other Rose–"
"Absolutely Adorable Rose–"
"When she mentioned we weren't long from Krop-Tor, it reminded me of something that happened just after that time, and it had always puzzled me. There was a note in my pocket that was in my handwriting, but I could never recall writing it."
The Doctor frowned down at Rose. "What did it say?"
Rose gave him her best megawatt smile. "It said 'Push the Button.'"
"Push the button? What does that mean?"
Rose rolled her eyes. "I think it means that you and I were both supposed to be there this afternoon–I think you were fated to give yourself a good bollocking and I was supposed to give myself a note. Thankfully, I kept a pen and paper in that jacket I had on today. I slipped it to the Absolutely Adorable Rose while she wasn't paying attention."
"And this note–you just needed to push a button?" The Doctor suddenly was a bit concerned that his wife may have lost her mind. Maybe she did inhale some sort of exotic spice from the market today.
"Yep." Rose popped the "p" as she beamed. "I pushed the button."
His eyes widened. "You? That button was for you to push? And all this time–ALL THIS TIME—you know what it did?"
"I sure did." She squealed as he poked her in her side, tickling her for all he was worth.
"Rose Tyler, you little minx! I can't believe you'd keep a secret like that from me! Come on, you have to tell me what it does?"
"It translates Gallifreyan."
The Doctor's mouth fell open in shock. "What?"
"The button never worked for you because you never needed it to. I pressed it, and ok, so it took a hot minute for me to figure out what it did–it wasn't until I saw some of the sticky notes you would leave yourself on the TARDIS console, that I realized I could read them." Rose let out a peal of delighted laughter. "You know, like the ones where it would just be my name over and over–Rose Tyler, Rose Marion Tyler, Rose Tyler, the stuff of legend. Oh, and the notes on the fridge that you told me were nothing but grocery lists, but actually was various poems dedicated to–"
The Doctor felt his face flame. "Oh, no. You saw the sonnet about your lips, didn't you?"
"And the haiku about my breasts, and the limerick about my arse."
He fell back on the bed, covering his face with a pillow. "Oh, I forgot about the limerick."
Rose giggled again. "Not to mention all the times you'd mutter under your breath about how much you wanted to kiss me. And do other things…"
The Doctor groaned into the pillow.
"So yeah, I'm betting within a few days or so, the Absolutely Adorable Rose will find that note. And her being her brilliant self, will know that the Doctor she loves is just a big ol' coward who loves her just as much." Rose pulled the pillow from the Doctor's hands and straddled his waist.
He pulled her to him, rolling her on her back so he could kiss her properly.
"Doctor," Rose asked breathlessly after a few moments.
"Hmmm?"
"This afternoon, right before you wiped my memory—you said something to me. What was it?
The Doctor tangled his hands in her hair, holding her steady to meet his gaze. "You asked me if I was happy."
"And?"
"Rose Tyler, I am the happiest I've ever been."
A/N: That's all for this little bit of therapy for myself. Thank you all for letting play in this sandbox.