Raspberry Ripple
Title: Raspberry Ripple
Author: nina_ds @ ninamusing
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Nine/Rose
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: None. Set sometime after WWIII and before Dalek.
Disclaimer: Insert obligatory witticism here. Not mine. Just playing.
For hearts_in_time prompts: 43 (hands), 56 (raspberry), and 59 (ripple). This is what happens when they almost literally collide, particularly with a conversation that I have been having recently with cathica. And belated thanks to wendymr for beta duties!
***
“Oh, please? Please?”
“How old are you, four?”
Despite the words, there was a smile in his voice; and despite the roll of his eyes, there was a twinkle there. No more stormclouds today.
“You’ve had chips, candy-floss, and a ridiculous wadge of fudge, and now you want ice cream?”
“But the chips weren’t potatoes, the candy-floss was sort of…blue, and the "fudge" tasted more like maple syrup.” She tightened her arm around his and turned big brown eyes on him. She was tempted to bat her eyelashes, but thought it best not to give away the game too obviously, even though he clearly knew she was playing. Like a kitten on one end of a ribbon, tugging just to get the big cat on the other end to play. It could be dangerous, but it could be so much fun when he joined in. “Please?”
He exhaled sharply, hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket as he considered, staring intently down at the purple asphalt that paved the midway of the funfair. People - mostly not human, but people at a funfair were pretty much alike the universe and history over - parted around them, very few bothering to give them a second glance. Music from several booths and a couple of the whirling, brightly lit rides blended into an odd rhythm that seemed comfortingly familiar.
His eyes, dark as the twilight sky, slid sideways to her and he humphed, “Don’t come runnin’ to me if you’re sick later.”
Feeling a surge of triumph, seasoned by just a touch of guilt at being so blatantly manipulative, she slid her hand down the inside of his leather sleeve to link her fingers with his deep in his pocket. “I won’t, I promise!” She leaned against his side as he shook his head ruefully but tightened his fingers around hers and trailed after her to the ice cream booth.
The array of colours on display was impressive, but she felt her excitement waning slightly when she failed to find what she was looking for. “No chocolate?” Even she was a bit surprised at the wail in her tone.
The vaguely insectoid bipedal server in a seemingly universal white apron and cap folded three of its forelimbs and bowed as it waved the scoop with a fourth. “Apologies, no, sir.”
“Sir?” Her mouth hung open as the Doctor stepped up and asked politely, “Do you have any Earth flavours?”
“Ma’am, I offer habanera, and vanilla.”
Torn between snickering at the “ma’am” and wrinkling her nose at the habanera ice cream, she nearly choked.
“I’ll have a vanilla cone,” said the Doctor, grinning broadly as he reached into his hip pocket for some change. “And she’ll have…” He turned to her with a raised eyebrow.
Wrinkling her brow thoughtfully, she surveyed the variety of colours before her. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to one that was a vivid, almost iridescent purplish-pink.
The server bowed again and pronounced something that, even with the TARDIS’s translation, she failed to understand. It had an x and a g in it somewhere, though, she was pretty sure.
“It’s a kind of berry,” the Doctor explained. “It’s got a sort of sharp, sweet taste.”
“So…it’s sort of like raspberry?” She curled her fingers around the railing and leaned forward to examine the other flavours.
“Yeah, sort of.” The Doctor handed over some coins and took his rather large vanilla cone. “Why don’t you just get vanilla?”
She looked up at him with the same sympathetic exasperation he’d turned on her earlier. “Vanilla’s boring,” she declared, leaning from the railing and letting one hand swing free.
“Really?” His eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. “I love vanilla.” He took a generous lick of the ice cream, and for a moment, she was distracted by the way the tip of his tongue followed the swirl at the top, curling around and teasing it higher
“You would,” she retorted, a little breathlessly, her eyes starting at his close-shorn head, following the black leather jacket and black v-necked jumper all the way down his long, black-denimed legs and stopping at the worn black workboots. Then she grinned and swung back to push up on her toes at the railing as if at a ballet barre. “Okay, I’ll try the raspberry.”
She took her cone with a bit of trepidation, but one tentative touch of her tongue to the cold surface, and a smile broke suddenly across her face. “’S nice. Thank you.” She made a little bow to the server, and then turned to the Doctor and made a more elaborate bow. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” His smile was warm as he molested his cone with his tongue once more. “You’re still not coming to me complaining that you’ve got an upset tummy later.”
“Yessir.” She snapped him a salute as they walked away from the ice cream booth. Curling her tongue around her own ice cream, she grinned impishly and bumped his shoulder. “Or should I say ma’am?”
“Oi!” he protested, bumping her back, then catching her around the waist as she bounced away.
She hadn’t been anywhere near falling or even stumbling, but she was more than happy to let his arm stay around her as they made their way down the midway, toward the edge of the funfair along the edge of the small cliff overlooking the beach. The sun had set, but there were still streamers of peach and gold along the horizon to the west -well, she supposed “west” by definition was where the sun set, no matter where they were. Lots of planets have a west. She smiled into her ice cream and felt a little disappointed as his hand left her waist; caught her breath for a moment as it slipped across the small of her back, long fingers brushing the back of her jeans; and sighed contentedly as his fingers found their familiar place between hers. A light breeze blew in from the water - a freshwater lake, with a loamy, homey scent of soil and woodland vegetation. Small lamps, like pale fireflies, were strung on posts and through trees, providing gentle illumination as the funfair receded.
Just off the pathway was small, isolated wooden bench in a crescent of trees, overlooking the water, and the Doctor indicated it with a tilt of his head and a lift of an eyebrow. She nodded, happily and not a little gratefully, having been on her feet all day.
“Tired?” he asked as he settled onto the bench, long legs crossed and his torso turned toward her as he looped his elbow behind the backrest.
“A little,” she admitted, curling one leg beneath her so that she could face him. “It’s not exactly running for your life, but it’s been a long day.”
“Did you have a good time?” There was a tightness around his eyes as he asked, and she smiled warmly.
“I did,” she promised him. “Even if you wouldn’t win me one of those soft toys that looked like a raccoon mated with a rhinoceros.”
“A macerek,” he supplied easily, taking a lick around the circumference of his cone. “Told you why.”
“I know.” She felt sorry for bringing it up, remembering the stormclouds gathering in the bright afternoon sunlight. . The little BB guns at the shooting gallery seemed to provoke a disproportionate response. Don’t like guns, he had said, lips pressing together as if he were trying to stop other words from spilling out, and she had slipped her arm through his and guided him away to a ride that reminded her of a combination of bumper cars and teacups, which had been far more fun than lugging around a stuffed animal almost as big as she was all day.
“Like the xhirogax ice cream?” he asked, bringing her back to the present.
“Xhirogax?” she repeated, testing it out on her tongue, and getting a thumbs up in approval. “It’s good. A bit rich.”
“You don’t have to finish if you don’t want it.”
“No, it’s okay, it’s really nice, actually,” she said, taking another swipe around the edge of the cone. “It’s just a little goes a long way.” In the dusky light, she noted the trails of creamy white spilling over his fingers and nodded toward them. “You wanna be careful. Your precious vanilla is slipping away from you there.”
He narrowed his eyes playfully and curled his hand around to lick the dripping ice cream from his fingers.
“You really like vanilla?” she asked doubtfully, noting the pleasurable way his lashes dipped as he made his way back up to the diminishing dip of ice cream at the top of his cone.
“Yeah, it’s lovely,” he said with the sort of eager passion he usually reserved for celestial phenomena and grungy bits of the TARDIS spread out on the kitchen table. “It’s a bit subtle, yeah, but it’s got all these layers, sweet and spicy and a little salty, and the richness doesn’t overpower you at the front like the xhirogax, it gets up in your sinuses and lingers, almost more a scent than a flavour-and no comments about the size of my nose, thank you very much.” He pointed a pre-emptive finger at her, and she was so breathless from his recitation, it took her a moment to slap at his hand playfully.
“Like I would,” she said sincerely, her fingers curling around his forefinger, still a little sticky from the ice cream, and his tongue… “I like your nose.”
“Must be somethin’ in the ice cream,” he muttered, but his eyes seemed to take on the glow of the fairy lights in the dusk.
Torn between pursuing the flirtation and not spoiling the mood, she bowed her head, still holding onto his finger, and took another lick of her cone. Mid-swipe, she discovered a nearly whole xhirogax berry imbedded in the ice cream, and she pointed her tongue to dig it out, sucking it into her mouth to remove all the cream from the roughly-textured surface. The taste of the fruit itself was sharper, intensely sweet but almost hot, and she gasped in surprise, letting go of his hand to catch the small fruit as it spilled from her lips, sliding down her chin.
“All right?” His concern was genuine as he leaned forward in the near darkness.
“Yeah, fine,” she reassured him with a bright smile, holding up the small, half-crushed fruit to look at it. “It’s just really strong.”
“The fresh ones are an acquired taste,” he acknowledged.
“Do you like them?” she asked, offering it to him.
To her amazement, he leaned forward, taking the xhirogax from her fingers with a velvet-soft brush of lips and tongue, seeming almost hot in contrast to the ice cream. She caught her breath, her fingertips trembling against his stubbled cheek as he used the tip of his tongue to catch a drip of syrup that escaped down her thumb toward her palm, and she almost thrust her thumb back into his mouth as he sucked away the last of the juice.
His lashes lifted to fix her with an intense gaze, and she felt the humid heat sweep through her body as she yearned toward him. As he bent toward her, the backs of her fingers curled against his rough cheek, and her lips parted, gasping as the tip of his tongue ran up the side of her chin. She turned toward him, instinctively seeking his mouth, but he was gone…
Sitting back on the bench, as if nothing had happened. Bastard.
She stared at him in disbelief, her heart pounding, and his eyes skittered away, taking stock of his own ice cream. A crack had opened up in the side of his cone above his thumb, and softening ice cream was spilling out over his hand.
Adrenaline, undoubtedly amplified by other hormones, surged through her, and she leaned forward, licking and sucking at his thumb, opening her mouth to take more and more as the cone disintegrated and the cool cream flowed out.
“Hey, hey,” he protested softly, his free hand coming up to push her hair back from her flushed face as she moved closer, rising on her knees. Climbing astride him, she pressed him back against the bench, her hands gripping the back on either side of him, and his purred “hey”, his stroking of her hair became soothing as she finished off the ice cream and cone, licking his hand clean.
“I thought you didn’t like vanilla.” The faint chuckle in his voice was warm, and he wasn’t so alien that she couldn’t tell in her position that he was not immune to the moment. That gave her courage as she realized what she’d done and eased his long thumb out of her mouth, cheeks flaming. Reaching up to rake her hair back from her face with trembling fingers, she ran her tongue around her lips and lifted her head to find his eyes.
“I may have been too hasty in my judgment,” she breathed. A grin broke over her face as his hand, which had been at her shoulder, slid down into the small of her back, urging her closer. “There’s a lot to be said for vanilla.”
“Xhirogax is nice, too. Throws a little tang into the mix.” His fingertips were cool against the bare skin that gapped between her hoodie and jeans, and she giggled when pressing her hips closer to his caused him to catch his breath.
“Like raspberry ripple?” Her heart was pounding, and she refused to think, refused to let herself shrink away from this chance.
“Something like that, yeah.”
Even before he had finished, she had slid her berry-bright tongue into the cold sweetness of his mouth, and she lost herself in the kiss. His hand slid up beneath her hoodie and t-shirt, and she smoothed her clean hand over the silky-soft bristles of his cropped hair, thrilling at the unexpectedly sensual stimulus against her palm.
“Ghghghgghghgm.”
The throat-clearing tore through their kiss, and the Doctor groaned, his forehead falling against her bare throat as she lifted her head, her fingers trembling guiltily against her mouth. The native police officer was tapping her baton against the back of the bench. Although her smoky-blue features were not exactly human, Rose couldn’t fight back a sheepish grin at the expression that clearly read, “Get a room.”
“Sorry.” She fought back a guilty giggle, and the police officer crossed her arms on her chest, waiting patiently as Rose slid back off the Doctor’s long thighs onto slightly unsteady feet. “We’ll be going now.” She didn’t dare look at him, just reached for his hand, knowing it would be there, and they set off back toward the funfair. The police officer swung her baton on its lanyard and headed in the opposite direction.
Nerves jangling, hormones racing, she slanted her gaze up at the Doctor, who was watching her cautiously. Sliding her tongue along her teeth, she grinned, “Race you to the TARDIS.”
His thumb, still a little sticky, brushed across the back of her hand. “I thought we came here because you were tired of running for our lives.”
“I was,” she said, moving closer to him as he stopped, looking down at her. She placed her hand over his hearts. Her fingers were just long enough to touch the smooth skin in the v-neck of his jumper. “But we're usually running from something. This time, we’d be running toward something, yeah?”
“Ah, Rose,” he murmured softly, cupping her face tenderly in one big hand, and she tipped her head back, stretching up for his kiss…
But suddenly, he grinned and grabbed her hand. “Run!”
Author: nina_ds @ ninamusing
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Nine/Rose
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: None. Set sometime after WWIII and before Dalek.
Disclaimer: Insert obligatory witticism here. Not mine. Just playing.
For hearts_in_time prompts: 43 (hands), 56 (raspberry), and 59 (ripple). This is what happens when they almost literally collide, particularly with a conversation that I have been having recently with cathica. And belated thanks to wendymr for beta duties!
***
“Oh, please? Please?”
“How old are you, four?”
Despite the words, there was a smile in his voice; and despite the roll of his eyes, there was a twinkle there. No more stormclouds today.
“You’ve had chips, candy-floss, and a ridiculous wadge of fudge, and now you want ice cream?”
“But the chips weren’t potatoes, the candy-floss was sort of…blue, and the "fudge" tasted more like maple syrup.” She tightened her arm around his and turned big brown eyes on him. She was tempted to bat her eyelashes, but thought it best not to give away the game too obviously, even though he clearly knew she was playing. Like a kitten on one end of a ribbon, tugging just to get the big cat on the other end to play. It could be dangerous, but it could be so much fun when he joined in. “Please?”
He exhaled sharply, hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket as he considered, staring intently down at the purple asphalt that paved the midway of the funfair. People - mostly not human, but people at a funfair were pretty much alike the universe and history over - parted around them, very few bothering to give them a second glance. Music from several booths and a couple of the whirling, brightly lit rides blended into an odd rhythm that seemed comfortingly familiar.
His eyes, dark as the twilight sky, slid sideways to her and he humphed, “Don’t come runnin’ to me if you’re sick later.”
Feeling a surge of triumph, seasoned by just a touch of guilt at being so blatantly manipulative, she slid her hand down the inside of his leather sleeve to link her fingers with his deep in his pocket. “I won’t, I promise!” She leaned against his side as he shook his head ruefully but tightened his fingers around hers and trailed after her to the ice cream booth.
The array of colours on display was impressive, but she felt her excitement waning slightly when she failed to find what she was looking for. “No chocolate?” Even she was a bit surprised at the wail in her tone.
The vaguely insectoid bipedal server in a seemingly universal white apron and cap folded three of its forelimbs and bowed as it waved the scoop with a fourth. “Apologies, no, sir.”
“Sir?” Her mouth hung open as the Doctor stepped up and asked politely, “Do you have any Earth flavours?”
“Ma’am, I offer habanera, and vanilla.”
Torn between snickering at the “ma’am” and wrinkling her nose at the habanera ice cream, she nearly choked.
“I’ll have a vanilla cone,” said the Doctor, grinning broadly as he reached into his hip pocket for some change. “And she’ll have…” He turned to her with a raised eyebrow.
Wrinkling her brow thoughtfully, she surveyed the variety of colours before her. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to one that was a vivid, almost iridescent purplish-pink.
The server bowed again and pronounced something that, even with the TARDIS’s translation, she failed to understand. It had an x and a g in it somewhere, though, she was pretty sure.
“It’s a kind of berry,” the Doctor explained. “It’s got a sort of sharp, sweet taste.”
“So…it’s sort of like raspberry?” She curled her fingers around the railing and leaned forward to examine the other flavours.
“Yeah, sort of.” The Doctor handed over some coins and took his rather large vanilla cone. “Why don’t you just get vanilla?”
She looked up at him with the same sympathetic exasperation he’d turned on her earlier. “Vanilla’s boring,” she declared, leaning from the railing and letting one hand swing free.
“Really?” His eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise. “I love vanilla.” He took a generous lick of the ice cream, and for a moment, she was distracted by the way the tip of his tongue followed the swirl at the top, curling around and teasing it higher
“You would,” she retorted, a little breathlessly, her eyes starting at his close-shorn head, following the black leather jacket and black v-necked jumper all the way down his long, black-denimed legs and stopping at the worn black workboots. Then she grinned and swung back to push up on her toes at the railing as if at a ballet barre. “Okay, I’ll try the raspberry.”
She took her cone with a bit of trepidation, but one tentative touch of her tongue to the cold surface, and a smile broke suddenly across her face. “’S nice. Thank you.” She made a little bow to the server, and then turned to the Doctor and made a more elaborate bow. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” His smile was warm as he molested his cone with his tongue once more. “You’re still not coming to me complaining that you’ve got an upset tummy later.”
“Yessir.” She snapped him a salute as they walked away from the ice cream booth. Curling her tongue around her own ice cream, she grinned impishly and bumped his shoulder. “Or should I say ma’am?”
“Oi!” he protested, bumping her back, then catching her around the waist as she bounced away.
She hadn’t been anywhere near falling or even stumbling, but she was more than happy to let his arm stay around her as they made their way down the midway, toward the edge of the funfair along the edge of the small cliff overlooking the beach. The sun had set, but there were still streamers of peach and gold along the horizon to the west -well, she supposed “west” by definition was where the sun set, no matter where they were. Lots of planets have a west. She smiled into her ice cream and felt a little disappointed as his hand left her waist; caught her breath for a moment as it slipped across the small of her back, long fingers brushing the back of her jeans; and sighed contentedly as his fingers found their familiar place between hers. A light breeze blew in from the water - a freshwater lake, with a loamy, homey scent of soil and woodland vegetation. Small lamps, like pale fireflies, were strung on posts and through trees, providing gentle illumination as the funfair receded.
Just off the pathway was small, isolated wooden bench in a crescent of trees, overlooking the water, and the Doctor indicated it with a tilt of his head and a lift of an eyebrow. She nodded, happily and not a little gratefully, having been on her feet all day.
“Tired?” he asked as he settled onto the bench, long legs crossed and his torso turned toward her as he looped his elbow behind the backrest.
“A little,” she admitted, curling one leg beneath her so that she could face him. “It’s not exactly running for your life, but it’s been a long day.”
“Did you have a good time?” There was a tightness around his eyes as he asked, and she smiled warmly.
“I did,” she promised him. “Even if you wouldn’t win me one of those soft toys that looked like a raccoon mated with a rhinoceros.”
“A macerek,” he supplied easily, taking a lick around the circumference of his cone. “Told you why.”
“I know.” She felt sorry for bringing it up, remembering the stormclouds gathering in the bright afternoon sunlight. . The little BB guns at the shooting gallery seemed to provoke a disproportionate response. Don’t like guns, he had said, lips pressing together as if he were trying to stop other words from spilling out, and she had slipped her arm through his and guided him away to a ride that reminded her of a combination of bumper cars and teacups, which had been far more fun than lugging around a stuffed animal almost as big as she was all day.
“Like the xhirogax ice cream?” he asked, bringing her back to the present.
“Xhirogax?” she repeated, testing it out on her tongue, and getting a thumbs up in approval. “It’s good. A bit rich.”
“You don’t have to finish if you don’t want it.”
“No, it’s okay, it’s really nice, actually,” she said, taking another swipe around the edge of the cone. “It’s just a little goes a long way.” In the dusky light, she noted the trails of creamy white spilling over his fingers and nodded toward them. “You wanna be careful. Your precious vanilla is slipping away from you there.”
He narrowed his eyes playfully and curled his hand around to lick the dripping ice cream from his fingers.
“You really like vanilla?” she asked doubtfully, noting the pleasurable way his lashes dipped as he made his way back up to the diminishing dip of ice cream at the top of his cone.
“Yeah, it’s lovely,” he said with the sort of eager passion he usually reserved for celestial phenomena and grungy bits of the TARDIS spread out on the kitchen table. “It’s a bit subtle, yeah, but it’s got all these layers, sweet and spicy and a little salty, and the richness doesn’t overpower you at the front like the xhirogax, it gets up in your sinuses and lingers, almost more a scent than a flavour-and no comments about the size of my nose, thank you very much.” He pointed a pre-emptive finger at her, and she was so breathless from his recitation, it took her a moment to slap at his hand playfully.
“Like I would,” she said sincerely, her fingers curling around his forefinger, still a little sticky from the ice cream, and his tongue… “I like your nose.”
“Must be somethin’ in the ice cream,” he muttered, but his eyes seemed to take on the glow of the fairy lights in the dusk.
Torn between pursuing the flirtation and not spoiling the mood, she bowed her head, still holding onto his finger, and took another lick of her cone. Mid-swipe, she discovered a nearly whole xhirogax berry imbedded in the ice cream, and she pointed her tongue to dig it out, sucking it into her mouth to remove all the cream from the roughly-textured surface. The taste of the fruit itself was sharper, intensely sweet but almost hot, and she gasped in surprise, letting go of his hand to catch the small fruit as it spilled from her lips, sliding down her chin.
“All right?” His concern was genuine as he leaned forward in the near darkness.
“Yeah, fine,” she reassured him with a bright smile, holding up the small, half-crushed fruit to look at it. “It’s just really strong.”
“The fresh ones are an acquired taste,” he acknowledged.
“Do you like them?” she asked, offering it to him.
To her amazement, he leaned forward, taking the xhirogax from her fingers with a velvet-soft brush of lips and tongue, seeming almost hot in contrast to the ice cream. She caught her breath, her fingertips trembling against his stubbled cheek as he used the tip of his tongue to catch a drip of syrup that escaped down her thumb toward her palm, and she almost thrust her thumb back into his mouth as he sucked away the last of the juice.
His lashes lifted to fix her with an intense gaze, and she felt the humid heat sweep through her body as she yearned toward him. As he bent toward her, the backs of her fingers curled against his rough cheek, and her lips parted, gasping as the tip of his tongue ran up the side of her chin. She turned toward him, instinctively seeking his mouth, but he was gone…
Sitting back on the bench, as if nothing had happened. Bastard.
She stared at him in disbelief, her heart pounding, and his eyes skittered away, taking stock of his own ice cream. A crack had opened up in the side of his cone above his thumb, and softening ice cream was spilling out over his hand.
Adrenaline, undoubtedly amplified by other hormones, surged through her, and she leaned forward, licking and sucking at his thumb, opening her mouth to take more and more as the cone disintegrated and the cool cream flowed out.
“Hey, hey,” he protested softly, his free hand coming up to push her hair back from her flushed face as she moved closer, rising on her knees. Climbing astride him, she pressed him back against the bench, her hands gripping the back on either side of him, and his purred “hey”, his stroking of her hair became soothing as she finished off the ice cream and cone, licking his hand clean.
“I thought you didn’t like vanilla.” The faint chuckle in his voice was warm, and he wasn’t so alien that she couldn’t tell in her position that he was not immune to the moment. That gave her courage as she realized what she’d done and eased his long thumb out of her mouth, cheeks flaming. Reaching up to rake her hair back from her face with trembling fingers, she ran her tongue around her lips and lifted her head to find his eyes.
“I may have been too hasty in my judgment,” she breathed. A grin broke over her face as his hand, which had been at her shoulder, slid down into the small of her back, urging her closer. “There’s a lot to be said for vanilla.”
“Xhirogax is nice, too. Throws a little tang into the mix.” His fingertips were cool against the bare skin that gapped between her hoodie and jeans, and she giggled when pressing her hips closer to his caused him to catch his breath.
“Like raspberry ripple?” Her heart was pounding, and she refused to think, refused to let herself shrink away from this chance.
“Something like that, yeah.”
Even before he had finished, she had slid her berry-bright tongue into the cold sweetness of his mouth, and she lost herself in the kiss. His hand slid up beneath her hoodie and t-shirt, and she smoothed her clean hand over the silky-soft bristles of his cropped hair, thrilling at the unexpectedly sensual stimulus against her palm.
“Ghghghgghghgm.”
The throat-clearing tore through their kiss, and the Doctor groaned, his forehead falling against her bare throat as she lifted her head, her fingers trembling guiltily against her mouth. The native police officer was tapping her baton against the back of the bench. Although her smoky-blue features were not exactly human, Rose couldn’t fight back a sheepish grin at the expression that clearly read, “Get a room.”
“Sorry.” She fought back a guilty giggle, and the police officer crossed her arms on her chest, waiting patiently as Rose slid back off the Doctor’s long thighs onto slightly unsteady feet. “We’ll be going now.” She didn’t dare look at him, just reached for his hand, knowing it would be there, and they set off back toward the funfair. The police officer swung her baton on its lanyard and headed in the opposite direction.
Nerves jangling, hormones racing, she slanted her gaze up at the Doctor, who was watching her cautiously. Sliding her tongue along her teeth, she grinned, “Race you to the TARDIS.”
His thumb, still a little sticky, brushed across the back of her hand. “I thought we came here because you were tired of running for our lives.”
“I was,” she said, moving closer to him as he stopped, looking down at her. She placed her hand over his hearts. Her fingers were just long enough to touch the smooth skin in the v-neck of his jumper. “But we're usually running from something. This time, we’d be running toward something, yeah?”
“Ah, Rose,” he murmured softly, cupping her face tenderly in one big hand, and she tipped her head back, stretching up for his kiss…
But suddenly, he grinned and grabbed her hand. “Run!”