Fic: Mirrors 1/1
Title: Mirrors
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose
Rating: All Ages
Disclaimer: They belong to someone who is certainly not me.
Spoilers: Series Two
Summary: "Who would I be, do you think, if I hadn't met you?" Reflections, makeup, and mirrors.
++
She finds him in her bedroom, sitting at her vanity table. He’s leaning into the mirror, one sharp elbow in an open jar of facial moisturizer, the other propped up on a stack of long-abandoned magazines. He glares at the mascara wand in his hand as if it has just insulted his mother.
“How,” the Doctor says without taking his eyes from his adversary, “do you use this thing everyday without blinding yourself?”
She leans against the doorframe. “They send us to a special school. Years of training. Very dull stuff.” She taps her fingernails lightly against the wood of the door. “So it is just me or are you wearing makeup?”
Having stared the mascara wand into submission, he looks up at her with a dangerously wide grin. His work with the eyeshadow is competent enough, but his enthusiasm rather obviously got the better of him when time came to apply liner. He flutters mascara-clumped lashes at her. “How do I look?”
She smiles. “Like a very skinny panda bear in a suit.”
He considers this soberly. “Are panda bears sexy?”
“To other panda bears, maybe. Not really doing anything for me.”
He laughs and slides to one side of the vanity bench, leaving just enough room for her to sit beside him. She does, and they spend a few moments wriggling against each other, battling over limited space with elbows and knees.
She wins, of course.
“You,” he says after she nearly knocks him to the floor, “fight dirty.”
“You fight like a girl.” She turns to their reflection in the mirror, and their eyes meet in the glass. “Speaking of, what’s with this latest experiment?”
He rubs his makeup-smudged hands together and beams at her reflection. “It is but a small part of an ongoing series of explorations into the nature and being of a particularly fascinating specimen of the species Homo sapiens, one Rose Marion Tyler.”
She blinks at him. “Make sense now, please.”
“This is what you do,” he says, gesturing to the jars and powders and pencils on the vanity in front of them. “Since I’ve known you you’ve changed your hair and your clothes and the way you talk-”
“Have I?” she interrupts, startled.
“Just a bit, just a word or a rhythm here and there you wouldn’t have used before-”
“Before I met you.”
He shrugs. “Perfectly natural, considering how young you were when we first met. Of course you’ve changed. But this,” he says, leaning forward and tapping her reflection with the end of an eyeliner pencil, “this stays the same.”
Rose stares at him, flummoxed. “You wanted to wear makeup because I wear makeup?”
He gives her one of his ‘oh, you daft little monkey’ looks. “It’s only a bit of eyeshadow, Rose. It’s not as if I was about to start slathering on the lip gloss or anything like that.”
“Oh no,” she says, “because that would just be silly.” She watches the Rose and the Doctor staring back at her from the vanity mirror, their adventure-stained clothing and wind-wild hair. “You know,” she says slowly, “we do sort of match.”
“We should get you a pinstriped top,” he says and grins.
Her eyes go wide. “I’d rather die.”
His hands jump to his lapels, his elbow jabbing her in the arm. “But I thought you liked the pinstripes.”
“The pinstripes are lovely,” she says, shoving at his elbow, “but I draw the line at exploring alien worlds in matching outfits. We’re not that sort of…” She falters, unable to finish the thought.
“Sort of what?” he asks, his curiosity piqued. “Of intrepid intergalactic time travellers? Tea enthusiasts? Panda impersonators?”
“Couple,” she says quickly, and the word seems to echo in the following silence. “I was going to say that we’re not that sort of couple.”
He studies her reflection for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “You know,” he says finally, lingering on the vowels, “you’re right. We’re not nearly precious enough to pull it off.” He grins. “Unfortunate, really. You’d look brilliant in a suit and tie.”
She laughs and tries to ignore the heat rising in her cheeks. “You are so weird.”
His grin turns wicked. “Maybe,” he says, his voice low and rich with an unfamiliar heat. “Maybe I am. But I think, Rose Tyler,” he twists on the bench and his nose is inches from hers, “that you might be just a wee bit weird yourself.” She opens her mouth to object, but he presses a finger to her lips. “You’re blushing, Rose.”
She is, and it is utterly maddening. She is blushing and warm and suddenly, unexpectedly wrong-footed, and the teasing pressure of his finger against her mouth makes her want to laugh, to let her eyes fall closed, to slip her tongue between her lips and taste cool, dry skin. She looks into a face more familiar than her own and wonders how he’d react - would he smile, diffuse the wire tight tension between them and dismiss it as little more than another joke? Or would he - her wonderings die there, forgotten as the taunting brush of his breath against her mouth (the finger on her lips has disappeared and his features blur as he shifts closer, his chest solid and too real against the length of her arm) leaves her stunned, scrambling for coherent thought, her lips parted and wet and waiting. The Doctor is about to kiss her, and as her world narrows to the sliver of space between her face and his, she watches hypnotised as his eyes slide closed-
And flakes of dried mascara fall from his lashes, dusting his cheeks.
There is a moment, just before she dissolves into helpless laughter, when she nearly convinces herself that this is not at all funny, that the man before her is a being of almost unimaginable wisdom and age - a man she adores and desires and who will travel on long after she is dust, a man who until this moment she thought far too wise and old and sad to risk burning himself on so brief a flame - and that if this man of all men has decided to kiss her, then surely it must be a very serious matter indeed.
She laughs so hard that her chest aches, her lungs straining for air. She turns her body into his and presses her grinning face to his collar. “I’m sorry,” she says, gasping. “I really, really am, but your…” Just the thought of what she is apologising for is enough to send her into another fit of giggles.
He sighs and his hands land lightly on her shoulders. She cannot see his face, but she knows he is fighting a smile. “You know, if I weren’t myself absolutely barking mad, this sort of behaviour would be considered something of a turn off.”
She snickers into the skin of his neck and feels him twitch slightly in response. It gives her ideas. Warm, wicked ideas.
He isn’t wearing a tie. He’d been forced to abandon it in an alien dungeon, a necessary sacrifice to the greater good of escaping said aliens and the promised his-and-hers sunrise executions, and now his collar is rumpled and undone. She lets her hand rise to his chest, lets her finger trace the small circle of the button still-buttoned, the plastic ridges and cross of thread. She rests her cheek against his shoulder and watches him swallow.
“Rose?” His voice is rough, and she wants to feel the vibration of it under his skin. She lingers over the button and thinks about clothes and skin and how daft it suddenly seems that she’s never seen him shirtless. Every part of her life is filled with him - he’s in her every breath and blink and sigh - and yet they’ve avoided the simplest intimacies. Skin against skin.
She slips the button through its hole, and he exhales.
Her fingers fall to the triangle of sparse hair revealed by his open collar. A part of him she’s never seen. She touches him, fingertips whispering over newly exposed skin, and feels him tense against her, his knee digging into her thigh. She could pull away now, move her head from his shoulder and look into his eyes, try to read in them what he wants from her. She could pull away, but she doesn’t.
The skin of his throat is cool and smooth under her lips, and when she runs a fingernail through the hair of his chest, the hands on her shoulders tighten their grip. His fingers dig into her back, pulling her closer, and she smiles against his pulse.
“You know,” she murmurs, “I can’t even begin to imagine.” She lays her palm flat over his right heart, her skin pale against the pinstripes of his suit. “Who would I be, do you think, if I hadn’t met you?”
One of his hands slides up her shoulder to her neck, his long fingers tangling in her hair, cradling the back of her head. “Safe,” he says, his voice low. “I think you’d be safe.”
She pinches his arm, gently.
“Oh, very well.” He sighs, and his breath ruffles her hair. “Safer. Happy?”
“No.” She kisses him again, a brush of lips at the curve of his jaw. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“You’ll have to forgive me,” he says thickly, “but I’m just a bit preoccupied at the moment.”
She wants to laugh at him again, but instead she says, “Preoccupied? Really?” She slides her nose along the line of his neck and feels him shudder. “By what?”
“Ha ha,” he manages dryly. “You’re a regular comedian.”
“Oh, do you think?” She slides the hand on his chest inside his suit coat, smoothing over the fabric of his shirt until she reaches the pocket that holds his glasses. In one swift movement she grabs the glasses, pulls away from him, and slips them onto her face. With one finger behind her ear, she makes the specs jump on her nose. “Wocka wocka wocka,” she says, her expression perfectly solemn.
He stares at her, breathless and grinning. “You absolute lunatic.”
“High praise coming from the looniest lunatic of all.” She lets her tongue slip between her teeth and watches as his gaze dips to her mouth. “You should see my bit with the rubber chicken.”
Judging by his expression and the way it makes something low in her stomach fizz and twist, he’s about to say something deliciously suggestive when their reflection in the mirror catches his attention. He turns back to the vanity, and she follows.
His eyes are dark and messy with her makeup, his thin face paler in contrast. He looks younger, more fragile, more human. She wonders how it ever seemed funny.
But those dark eyes are fixed not on his own reflection, but on hers - on the sharp rectangular frames of his glasses and the stranger’s face behind them. She sees not herself, but someone more - someone older and tired and maybe a little bit grand. She knows that it is only her imagination, that the glasses are simply that and nothing more, but she lifts her hand to remove them, to return them to his pocket where they belong.
His hand on hers stops her. Long fingers curl around her palm, lowering their joined hands, and then, very slowly, he leans forward and touches his lips to hers.
It is a small thing, skin against skin, and she would smile if she could think of anything but the fullness of her heart and the cool of his mouth.
When he pulls away, he does not go far. His eyes do not leave her lips. “Who would you be, you asked, if you hadn’t met me.” His thumb traces the path of the plastic frames against her cheek. “You don’t regret-”
She will not let him finish that thought, doesn’t want either of them to hear it spoken aloud. “Of course not. Don’t be stupid.”
He kisses her again, lingering longer, and she feels a little as if she is being carefully learnt, memorised, to be recalled at a later, colder time. She squeezes his hand, thin fingers still in hers, and pulls back.
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” she says, trying to meet his heavy-lidded gaze.
“Good to know,” he murmurs, leaning in for another kiss. Her hand on his chest pushes him back, and, surprised, he meets her eyes.
“I mean it,” she says sternly. “I’ve never regretted my decision to come with you. Not for a second.” He opens his mouth to argue, but she doesn’t give him the opportunity. “And I need to know that you believe me when I say it, that you’re not still thinking I’m silly and young and don’t know any better, that one day I’ll grow up and realise what I really want and that it won’t be you. Because I’ve made up my mind and it’s always going to be you, all right?”
He stares past her face with faraway eyes, his mouth a thin line. He does not answer.
She tugs on his hand. “All right?”
He licks his lips, still looking away. “You can’t make promises, Rose. I don’t want you to.”
“I can and I am. Deal with it.”
He turns back to her, his face a careful blank. “People change.”
She looks at him with wide eyes. “Really? Blimey, that explains so much.”
His mouth purses, and she can see the battle between annoyance and laughter writ clear on his features. “Rose.”
She grabs his arm, her expression earnest. “No, seriously! Have you let anyone else know about this? ‘Cause it’s totally rocked my world view.”
The laughter wins, a smile twitching his lips. “Rose-”
“I’ve wondered why kitchen counters and tables and such are so much shorter than they used to be. And now I know the secret. They weren’t shrinking; I was grow-”
He kisses her, his hands rising to cup her jaw. She opens her mouth under his and he takes the hint, deepening the kiss. For a moment it is luxurious, almost decadent sensation, then his lips move to the corner of her mouth, teasing her. “Who would you be,” he says, his eyes still closed, “if you hadn’t met me?”
She pretends to consider this. “Well, rich, famous, and devastatingly gorgeous, obviously.”
He nods, his nose bumping against the frames of her glasses. “Goes without saying.”
“I’d have gone back to school eventually, I think, so I’d be clever and successful to boot.” She wants to touch his hair, so she does, running her fingernails against his scalp. “Maybe I’d have a dog.”
He makes a low sound in the back of his throat - she thinks it could be an expression of agreement, or pleasure, or both.
Rose smiles and withdraws her hands from his hair. “But you know what?”
She can feel his breath against her lips. “What?”
“It’s sort of a silly question, now that I think about it.” She pulls back, waits until he opens his mascara-clumped eyes. They look at each other, face to face. “Because,” she says, “if I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t be me.”
The Doctor thinks about this. “You know,” he says, resting one finger against the tip of her nose, “I’ve grown quite fond of the you you are.”
“Me too, actually.”
He grins. “That works out well.”
She licks her lips, slowly. He watches. “You know what would be even better?”
His finger drifts down to the swell of her lower lip, his hand lingering there for a moment before falling to his side. “No, but I’m open to suggestions.”
Feeling daring and not a little mad, she rests one hand on his thigh and leans into him. “How about continuing this conversation somewhere else?”
“Any particular else in mind?”
She indicates the bed behind her with a tip of her head.
His eyes go a little wide. “Oh,” he exhales, clearly intrigued. “That sort of else.”
She smiles, showing teeth. “Enough with the ‘else’ thing.”
“Or else?”
“I’m trying to be seductive here, Doctor.”
“I’d noticed that, actually.”
“And?” she says, tightening her grip on his thigh.
“And you should be expecting some very impressive results, believe you me.”
She swings her legs to the other side of the bench and stands, offering him her hand. “All right, then. Impress me.”
He grins up at her, not moving. “All right.”
She waits for him, unsure what to say next, and her eyes are drawn once again to her reflection in the mirror - her dirty hair and clothes, his glasses on her still unfamiliar face. I’ll probably need glasses one day, she thinks. For reading and things. When I’m older. She thinks of them running about the universe in matching specs and smiles.
“Doctor?” She wiggles her fingers, waiting for him to take her hand. “Having second thoughts?”
He snorts. “Remember who you’re talking to, Rose. I’m well past my forty-seventh thoughts by now.”
She drops her hand. “Oh.”
He scratches behind his ear. “Thoughts twenty-three through thirty were on the negative side, I admit, and thoughts thirty-six and thirty-seven were simply filthy-”
“The good sort of filthy?”
“Of course.”
She gives him a crooked, nervous grin. “Why don’t we just stop there, then, and forget the rest?”
He watches her steadily for a long moment. “I’m not going to change my mind either, Rose. You’re just as stuck with me as I am with you.”
She shakes her head, a little overwhelmed and trying not to show it. “I don’t expect promises from you. I don’t need them.”
“Well, you’re getting this one, so deal with it.” He stands and takes her hand. “Now, before we,” he nods in the general direction of her bed, “relocate, I have one more question.”
She smiles up at him. “What’s that?”
He rubs his free hand over his eyes, smearing his makeup and dramatically increasing his resemblance to a sulky panda bear. “How, exactly,” he says with a grimace, “am I supposed to get this ridiculous stuff off my face?”
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose
Rating: All Ages
Disclaimer: They belong to someone who is certainly not me.
Spoilers: Series Two
Summary: "Who would I be, do you think, if I hadn't met you?" Reflections, makeup, and mirrors.
++
She finds him in her bedroom, sitting at her vanity table. He’s leaning into the mirror, one sharp elbow in an open jar of facial moisturizer, the other propped up on a stack of long-abandoned magazines. He glares at the mascara wand in his hand as if it has just insulted his mother.
“How,” the Doctor says without taking his eyes from his adversary, “do you use this thing everyday without blinding yourself?”
She leans against the doorframe. “They send us to a special school. Years of training. Very dull stuff.” She taps her fingernails lightly against the wood of the door. “So it is just me or are you wearing makeup?”
Having stared the mascara wand into submission, he looks up at her with a dangerously wide grin. His work with the eyeshadow is competent enough, but his enthusiasm rather obviously got the better of him when time came to apply liner. He flutters mascara-clumped lashes at her. “How do I look?”
She smiles. “Like a very skinny panda bear in a suit.”
He considers this soberly. “Are panda bears sexy?”
“To other panda bears, maybe. Not really doing anything for me.”
He laughs and slides to one side of the vanity bench, leaving just enough room for her to sit beside him. She does, and they spend a few moments wriggling against each other, battling over limited space with elbows and knees.
She wins, of course.
“You,” he says after she nearly knocks him to the floor, “fight dirty.”
“You fight like a girl.” She turns to their reflection in the mirror, and their eyes meet in the glass. “Speaking of, what’s with this latest experiment?”
He rubs his makeup-smudged hands together and beams at her reflection. “It is but a small part of an ongoing series of explorations into the nature and being of a particularly fascinating specimen of the species Homo sapiens, one Rose Marion Tyler.”
She blinks at him. “Make sense now, please.”
“This is what you do,” he says, gesturing to the jars and powders and pencils on the vanity in front of them. “Since I’ve known you you’ve changed your hair and your clothes and the way you talk-”
“Have I?” she interrupts, startled.
“Just a bit, just a word or a rhythm here and there you wouldn’t have used before-”
“Before I met you.”
He shrugs. “Perfectly natural, considering how young you were when we first met. Of course you’ve changed. But this,” he says, leaning forward and tapping her reflection with the end of an eyeliner pencil, “this stays the same.”
Rose stares at him, flummoxed. “You wanted to wear makeup because I wear makeup?”
He gives her one of his ‘oh, you daft little monkey’ looks. “It’s only a bit of eyeshadow, Rose. It’s not as if I was about to start slathering on the lip gloss or anything like that.”
“Oh no,” she says, “because that would just be silly.” She watches the Rose and the Doctor staring back at her from the vanity mirror, their adventure-stained clothing and wind-wild hair. “You know,” she says slowly, “we do sort of match.”
“We should get you a pinstriped top,” he says and grins.
Her eyes go wide. “I’d rather die.”
His hands jump to his lapels, his elbow jabbing her in the arm. “But I thought you liked the pinstripes.”
“The pinstripes are lovely,” she says, shoving at his elbow, “but I draw the line at exploring alien worlds in matching outfits. We’re not that sort of…” She falters, unable to finish the thought.
“Sort of what?” he asks, his curiosity piqued. “Of intrepid intergalactic time travellers? Tea enthusiasts? Panda impersonators?”
“Couple,” she says quickly, and the word seems to echo in the following silence. “I was going to say that we’re not that sort of couple.”
He studies her reflection for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “You know,” he says finally, lingering on the vowels, “you’re right. We’re not nearly precious enough to pull it off.” He grins. “Unfortunate, really. You’d look brilliant in a suit and tie.”
She laughs and tries to ignore the heat rising in her cheeks. “You are so weird.”
His grin turns wicked. “Maybe,” he says, his voice low and rich with an unfamiliar heat. “Maybe I am. But I think, Rose Tyler,” he twists on the bench and his nose is inches from hers, “that you might be just a wee bit weird yourself.” She opens her mouth to object, but he presses a finger to her lips. “You’re blushing, Rose.”
She is, and it is utterly maddening. She is blushing and warm and suddenly, unexpectedly wrong-footed, and the teasing pressure of his finger against her mouth makes her want to laugh, to let her eyes fall closed, to slip her tongue between her lips and taste cool, dry skin. She looks into a face more familiar than her own and wonders how he’d react - would he smile, diffuse the wire tight tension between them and dismiss it as little more than another joke? Or would he - her wonderings die there, forgotten as the taunting brush of his breath against her mouth (the finger on her lips has disappeared and his features blur as he shifts closer, his chest solid and too real against the length of her arm) leaves her stunned, scrambling for coherent thought, her lips parted and wet and waiting. The Doctor is about to kiss her, and as her world narrows to the sliver of space between her face and his, she watches hypnotised as his eyes slide closed-
And flakes of dried mascara fall from his lashes, dusting his cheeks.
There is a moment, just before she dissolves into helpless laughter, when she nearly convinces herself that this is not at all funny, that the man before her is a being of almost unimaginable wisdom and age - a man she adores and desires and who will travel on long after she is dust, a man who until this moment she thought far too wise and old and sad to risk burning himself on so brief a flame - and that if this man of all men has decided to kiss her, then surely it must be a very serious matter indeed.
She laughs so hard that her chest aches, her lungs straining for air. She turns her body into his and presses her grinning face to his collar. “I’m sorry,” she says, gasping. “I really, really am, but your…” Just the thought of what she is apologising for is enough to send her into another fit of giggles.
He sighs and his hands land lightly on her shoulders. She cannot see his face, but she knows he is fighting a smile. “You know, if I weren’t myself absolutely barking mad, this sort of behaviour would be considered something of a turn off.”
She snickers into the skin of his neck and feels him twitch slightly in response. It gives her ideas. Warm, wicked ideas.
He isn’t wearing a tie. He’d been forced to abandon it in an alien dungeon, a necessary sacrifice to the greater good of escaping said aliens and the promised his-and-hers sunrise executions, and now his collar is rumpled and undone. She lets her hand rise to his chest, lets her finger trace the small circle of the button still-buttoned, the plastic ridges and cross of thread. She rests her cheek against his shoulder and watches him swallow.
“Rose?” His voice is rough, and she wants to feel the vibration of it under his skin. She lingers over the button and thinks about clothes and skin and how daft it suddenly seems that she’s never seen him shirtless. Every part of her life is filled with him - he’s in her every breath and blink and sigh - and yet they’ve avoided the simplest intimacies. Skin against skin.
She slips the button through its hole, and he exhales.
Her fingers fall to the triangle of sparse hair revealed by his open collar. A part of him she’s never seen. She touches him, fingertips whispering over newly exposed skin, and feels him tense against her, his knee digging into her thigh. She could pull away now, move her head from his shoulder and look into his eyes, try to read in them what he wants from her. She could pull away, but she doesn’t.
The skin of his throat is cool and smooth under her lips, and when she runs a fingernail through the hair of his chest, the hands on her shoulders tighten their grip. His fingers dig into her back, pulling her closer, and she smiles against his pulse.
“You know,” she murmurs, “I can’t even begin to imagine.” She lays her palm flat over his right heart, her skin pale against the pinstripes of his suit. “Who would I be, do you think, if I hadn’t met you?”
One of his hands slides up her shoulder to her neck, his long fingers tangling in her hair, cradling the back of her head. “Safe,” he says, his voice low. “I think you’d be safe.”
She pinches his arm, gently.
“Oh, very well.” He sighs, and his breath ruffles her hair. “Safer. Happy?”
“No.” She kisses him again, a brush of lips at the curve of his jaw. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“You’ll have to forgive me,” he says thickly, “but I’m just a bit preoccupied at the moment.”
She wants to laugh at him again, but instead she says, “Preoccupied? Really?” She slides her nose along the line of his neck and feels him shudder. “By what?”
“Ha ha,” he manages dryly. “You’re a regular comedian.”
“Oh, do you think?” She slides the hand on his chest inside his suit coat, smoothing over the fabric of his shirt until she reaches the pocket that holds his glasses. In one swift movement she grabs the glasses, pulls away from him, and slips them onto her face. With one finger behind her ear, she makes the specs jump on her nose. “Wocka wocka wocka,” she says, her expression perfectly solemn.
He stares at her, breathless and grinning. “You absolute lunatic.”
“High praise coming from the looniest lunatic of all.” She lets her tongue slip between her teeth and watches as his gaze dips to her mouth. “You should see my bit with the rubber chicken.”
Judging by his expression and the way it makes something low in her stomach fizz and twist, he’s about to say something deliciously suggestive when their reflection in the mirror catches his attention. He turns back to the vanity, and she follows.
His eyes are dark and messy with her makeup, his thin face paler in contrast. He looks younger, more fragile, more human. She wonders how it ever seemed funny.
But those dark eyes are fixed not on his own reflection, but on hers - on the sharp rectangular frames of his glasses and the stranger’s face behind them. She sees not herself, but someone more - someone older and tired and maybe a little bit grand. She knows that it is only her imagination, that the glasses are simply that and nothing more, but she lifts her hand to remove them, to return them to his pocket where they belong.
His hand on hers stops her. Long fingers curl around her palm, lowering their joined hands, and then, very slowly, he leans forward and touches his lips to hers.
It is a small thing, skin against skin, and she would smile if she could think of anything but the fullness of her heart and the cool of his mouth.
When he pulls away, he does not go far. His eyes do not leave her lips. “Who would you be, you asked, if you hadn’t met me.” His thumb traces the path of the plastic frames against her cheek. “You don’t regret-”
She will not let him finish that thought, doesn’t want either of them to hear it spoken aloud. “Of course not. Don’t be stupid.”
He kisses her again, lingering longer, and she feels a little as if she is being carefully learnt, memorised, to be recalled at a later, colder time. She squeezes his hand, thin fingers still in hers, and pulls back.
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” she says, trying to meet his heavy-lidded gaze.
“Good to know,” he murmurs, leaning in for another kiss. Her hand on his chest pushes him back, and, surprised, he meets her eyes.
“I mean it,” she says sternly. “I’ve never regretted my decision to come with you. Not for a second.” He opens his mouth to argue, but she doesn’t give him the opportunity. “And I need to know that you believe me when I say it, that you’re not still thinking I’m silly and young and don’t know any better, that one day I’ll grow up and realise what I really want and that it won’t be you. Because I’ve made up my mind and it’s always going to be you, all right?”
He stares past her face with faraway eyes, his mouth a thin line. He does not answer.
She tugs on his hand. “All right?”
He licks his lips, still looking away. “You can’t make promises, Rose. I don’t want you to.”
“I can and I am. Deal with it.”
He turns back to her, his face a careful blank. “People change.”
She looks at him with wide eyes. “Really? Blimey, that explains so much.”
His mouth purses, and she can see the battle between annoyance and laughter writ clear on his features. “Rose.”
She grabs his arm, her expression earnest. “No, seriously! Have you let anyone else know about this? ‘Cause it’s totally rocked my world view.”
The laughter wins, a smile twitching his lips. “Rose-”
“I’ve wondered why kitchen counters and tables and such are so much shorter than they used to be. And now I know the secret. They weren’t shrinking; I was grow-”
He kisses her, his hands rising to cup her jaw. She opens her mouth under his and he takes the hint, deepening the kiss. For a moment it is luxurious, almost decadent sensation, then his lips move to the corner of her mouth, teasing her. “Who would you be,” he says, his eyes still closed, “if you hadn’t met me?”
She pretends to consider this. “Well, rich, famous, and devastatingly gorgeous, obviously.”
He nods, his nose bumping against the frames of her glasses. “Goes without saying.”
“I’d have gone back to school eventually, I think, so I’d be clever and successful to boot.” She wants to touch his hair, so she does, running her fingernails against his scalp. “Maybe I’d have a dog.”
He makes a low sound in the back of his throat - she thinks it could be an expression of agreement, or pleasure, or both.
Rose smiles and withdraws her hands from his hair. “But you know what?”
She can feel his breath against her lips. “What?”
“It’s sort of a silly question, now that I think about it.” She pulls back, waits until he opens his mascara-clumped eyes. They look at each other, face to face. “Because,” she says, “if I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t be me.”
The Doctor thinks about this. “You know,” he says, resting one finger against the tip of her nose, “I’ve grown quite fond of the you you are.”
“Me too, actually.”
He grins. “That works out well.”
She licks her lips, slowly. He watches. “You know what would be even better?”
His finger drifts down to the swell of her lower lip, his hand lingering there for a moment before falling to his side. “No, but I’m open to suggestions.”
Feeling daring and not a little mad, she rests one hand on his thigh and leans into him. “How about continuing this conversation somewhere else?”
“Any particular else in mind?”
She indicates the bed behind her with a tip of her head.
His eyes go a little wide. “Oh,” he exhales, clearly intrigued. “That sort of else.”
She smiles, showing teeth. “Enough with the ‘else’ thing.”
“Or else?”
“I’m trying to be seductive here, Doctor.”
“I’d noticed that, actually.”
“And?” she says, tightening her grip on his thigh.
“And you should be expecting some very impressive results, believe you me.”
She swings her legs to the other side of the bench and stands, offering him her hand. “All right, then. Impress me.”
He grins up at her, not moving. “All right.”
She waits for him, unsure what to say next, and her eyes are drawn once again to her reflection in the mirror - her dirty hair and clothes, his glasses on her still unfamiliar face. I’ll probably need glasses one day, she thinks. For reading and things. When I’m older. She thinks of them running about the universe in matching specs and smiles.
“Doctor?” She wiggles her fingers, waiting for him to take her hand. “Having second thoughts?”
He snorts. “Remember who you’re talking to, Rose. I’m well past my forty-seventh thoughts by now.”
She drops her hand. “Oh.”
He scratches behind his ear. “Thoughts twenty-three through thirty were on the negative side, I admit, and thoughts thirty-six and thirty-seven were simply filthy-”
“The good sort of filthy?”
“Of course.”
She gives him a crooked, nervous grin. “Why don’t we just stop there, then, and forget the rest?”
He watches her steadily for a long moment. “I’m not going to change my mind either, Rose. You’re just as stuck with me as I am with you.”
She shakes her head, a little overwhelmed and trying not to show it. “I don’t expect promises from you. I don’t need them.”
“Well, you’re getting this one, so deal with it.” He stands and takes her hand. “Now, before we,” he nods in the general direction of her bed, “relocate, I have one more question.”
She smiles up at him. “What’s that?”
He rubs his free hand over his eyes, smearing his makeup and dramatically increasing his resemblance to a sulky panda bear. “How, exactly,” he says with a grimace, “am I supposed to get this ridiculous stuff off my face?”