(no subject)
"Take off the jacket," Rose insisted, tugging at the sleeves.
The Doctor grumbled. In all the dreams he had never ever had of Rose trying to get him out of his coat while she was wearing something soft and dramatic and nearly non-existent, he had, of course, been gentlemanly reluctant and never ever flung the heavy leather over the nearest guardrail and... erm. Starting over. If he had ever (which he would not admit) entertained the notion of Rose trying to get him out of his leather jacket (which he would not allow), the Doctor had never, not even once, imagined it would be like this.
"I'll just use the psychic paper," he explained, fending Rose off quite poorly for someone who was nearly twice her size. She'd managed to get behind him and had his jacket pulled off his shoulders.
"That's what you said last time, and we were getting shot at before you ever got a chance to show it around."
The Doctor mumbled something that might have been "You're right" from someone who was actually willing to admit that sort of thing. However, the Time Lord was still fighting a rearguard action, trying to defend what was left of his dignity, and was therefore not going to admit anything whatsoever.
"Black's against the law, being that it's the color of outlaws," Rose explained, as if the Doctor hadn't told her this, himself, not three hours ago.
The Doctor rolled his eyes and attempted to shrug his jacket back in place. He both hoped and desperately feared that, at any moment, Rose would also remember that his jeans were black.
"Because you can always tell when someone's gonna do something evil by what color hat they're wearing," Rose added sarcastically. "I mean, we see that all the time, in our line of work, right? All the villains neatly color-coded. Red for disasters and yellow for mad scientists, and what would green be, then?"
The Doctor couldn't resist a little chuckle. "Aliens?" he suggested.
Rose shook her head. "No, that's gonna be blue," she decided, "which is what you need to put on." She popped her blue Stetson forcefully back onto her head and looked almost unconscionably adorable in it.
The Doctor glowered at her. First of all, blue was the most morbid color a Time Lord could wear, not that Rose was to know that. Second of all, he did not wear blue, would never, ever...
"C'mon, Doctor, it'll look gorgeous with your eyes." Rose pouted up at him, her dark eyes sincere and pleading.
... ever be able to resist that look on her face for as long as he lived.
"Going to blame you for this one, not Jack," the Doctor grumbled, and snagged the hanger from Rose's hands.
Rose made a gleeful, girlish noise that made the Doctor's hearts skip a beat and a stupid grin to start on his face without his permission. He tried to be stern and reluctant, but the grin was refusing to recede. Rose swung happily on his arm, and then dashed further into the wardrobe room. While the Doctor watched dubiously, she reached into one of the scattered cubbies and produced a pair of boots in the most unlikely shade of blue ever. "I found these for me to wear," she said.
The Doctor wasn't sure what, if anything, he should say about that.
"With this skirt," Rose added dryly, and pointed at the tiny scrap of pale denim skirt she was still wearing.
The grin had the Doctor's permission to stay. "Fantastic!"
Really, it should have been the easiest thing in the world. Pick a planet, the Doctor'd said. Rose hadn't had a preference; neither had the Doctor, so it was up to Captain Jack. Well, he'd told them, he'd heard of this one place in his own time where a guy (or a gal) could have a good time...
Of course, the Doctor had decided there was no reason for him to change. "Changed my jumper!" was his shtick and he used it as often as he could. Rose was taking a certain satisfaction in him having to bow to her original demands and change.
They'd landed, they'd gone out, and they'd been heading towards the nearest bar when some roaming law enforcement had decided today was a wonderful day to play fashion police. They'd dashed back to the TARDIS under a rain of gunfire and had been about to take off when they'd both realized--no Jack. Any rescue mission was going to involve, by necessity, a change of clothes for them both, something the Doctor was pouting like he was convinced Rose was having too much fun selecting.
Most of the time, being in the TARDIS' wardrobe was an amped-up version of her childhood dressup games, and today was no exception. Touring a planet that was perpetually (or at least, for now) stuck in the Wild West? This was too good an opportunity to pass up. The Doctor politely turned away as, after getting into the boots, she pulled off her t-shirt, then wandered the rows looking for a suitable top. Rose grinned, amused at the opportunity to fluster him.
The Doctor watched her dive into the racks, suspecting that she knew very well what she did to him. "What about this one?" she called as she plucked a hanger off the rack, holding up another blue shirt, stepping back into his field of vision with it held against her chest. She missed the imperceptible clench of his fingers as he turned to her, trying not to remember those dreams he'd most definitely not had, trying not to think of the lacy undergarment being obscured from his view by the shirt she was holding, though he could see two damnably enticing electric blue straps...
"Great," he told her, and this time she didn't give him enough time to turn away, instead dropping the hanger to the floor for a moment as she shrugged the shirt on over that tortuously blue lacy bra, as she began to button up the shirt. She took one hand away from the buttons for a second and pointed to his jeans.
"Don't think I haven't noticed those are black. They'll have to go as well." She quirked an eyebrow with that same smile from before. "If you get to stare at my legs in this skirt, I get to have at least a glimpse of yours."
He reminded himself to work on ways to resist Rose Tyler's smile, and then reminded himself not to think about Rose Tyler's smile too much in the first place, because thinking of Rose too much in any manner always led to those thoughts he certainly couldn't be having. He took the jeans she tossed at him and did, indeed, catch a glimpse of her watching as he changed out of the old and into the new.
"And a white hat," she said, "since you're the good guys."
And as they stood together at the mirror, giving a final glance over their new attire, he noticed that he still had the faintest view of that bra under the shirt, and he muttered something under his breath that he didn't think she quite caught. "Definitely blaming you for this one."
**
Jack blinked blearily and inhaled a familiar perfume. "Star of Mercury," he murmured, naming off the most expensive imported fragrance money could find in any of the hub colonies.
"Now, that's interesting," an unfamiliar feminine tone purred next to his ear. "There are only two kinds of people who are that certain of that smell."
Jack rubbed at his eyes, realized what he was seeing, and grinned. "I gather you're not from around these parts," the courtesan drawled, running a pale hand across Jack's brow, fingers fluttering delicately over a tender spot above his brow.
The Captain frowned as confusion dawned. He didn't remember deciding to come here. "No, I'm not," he agreed. "Some friends and I dropped by, and one of them seemed to think he could talk his way out of being noticed in black jeans."
His hostess allowed a sultry, well-trained chuckle. "It obviously didn't go so well. There'd been some shooting at the top of my staircase when I found you. Lucky the locals couldn't hit themselves with their guns, never mind what they're aiming at." The woman's hands continued investigating him, and Jack realized he'd been stripped to the waist, very probably frisked, and possibly robbed. "You seem very tense, lover," his hostess continued. "Anything I can do to help?"
"Wondering about my friends," Jack admitted. Well, if he was going to be robbed, might as well get his money's worth as it were. He relaxed into the dense satin cushions surrounding him, and enjoyed the aromatic familiarity of a trained 51st century sex worker's boudoir. "Had some plans for them, coming here."
There was a brief flash, and then the lamps in the room all turned up to reveal a charming heart-shaped face and laughing grey eyes underneath a shock of carefully curled and bleached platinum-blonde hair. "Everyone calls me Mercury Star," she said, an ironic little twist to her lips, since she had to know only he would get the real joke of that.
Jack allowed an appreciative chuckle. This woman was obviously an artist: it would be a crime not to appreciate her. "Everyone calls me Captain Jack," he replied. "But you can call me 'Yes, oh god, yes!', if you'd rather."
Mercury's smirk was just like Jack's, dark and sexy and dripping sin. "Oh, a professional," she teased.
"I am," Jack admitted. It was a perfectly logical part of his training. "And so are you. Should be one for the storybooks, don't you think?"
Mercury crawled slowly from his feet to his waist, her eyes never leaving his. "We can certainly try," she allowed.
Jack nodded. "Then, maybe you can help me with my friends..."
**
"Still going to blame me for this one?" Rose asked nervously, watching as the Doctor considered the hinges of what was apparently their home for the night.
The Doctor didn't answer, and she knew that when he got into one of his moods--resonating concrete or whatnot with his sonic screwdriver--it was next to useless to talk to him.
Her apprehension quickly turned to a scowl once he turned back and, catching her eye, promptly burst out laughing. She resisted the urge to slap him, instead pointing and saying threateningly, "It's not funny!"
"How'd they put it? A 'lady of the evening'. It's rich, Rose, you have to admit."
Still scowling at his uproarious laughter, she tugged her skirt down the smallest bit, then sat on the cell's bench, beneath the window. "You're the one always going on about local customs and how not to offend the natives. Didn't hear any objection from you about the skirt. How was I supposed to know it'd be an issue?"
She heard him utter another "fantastic!", his tone still amused rather than annoyed, just before his laughter faded. The grin still lingered on his lips. Despite herself, Rose felt her own lips quirking the smallest bit. The Doctor's amusement was always contagious.
He strolled to the window, standing on the bench and looking out and down before he looked back down at her. "Laws change. Could have been a recent decree, one not on the TARDIS's records."
It wasn't often the Doctor would admit to not knowing something, so Rose took it, her second small victory of the day. If he was so amused at the situation, she decided to push back some. "You certainly weren't in a hurry to deny me being your 'escort'." She'd been called a lot of things since she'd begun traveling with the Doctor, and one lesson of today had been that she preferred "plus one" to any variant of "whore".
"Wouldn't do to be separated from you, too," he reminded her, as he soniced the window briefly and then stepped off the bench. "Although you'd think they'd have enough brains between them to separate two people arrested for alleged prostitution..." He shrugged and changed the subject, gesturing with a nod at the window behind him. "Drop's too far to risk; might run into trouble with guards if we sonic the hinges. Staying here tonight's our best option. We can search for Jack in the morning, once we plead our case."
"Only the one bed," Rose pointed out, motioning to the bed along an adjacent wall. "Any ideas on how...?"
"Unless you want them to continue thinking you're a member of the galaxy's oldest profession... separate's best."
"Right." She nodded, trying to shrug off the thought of being in bed with the Doctor. Because it wasn't as foreign a thought to her as she wanted it to be. In fact, it was... a nice thought. She wondered why she couldn't seem to stop thinking like that, but decided it wasn't an area she could think on when in such close quarters with the Doctor. "Any ideas on how to find Jack?"
She didn't miss the slight roll of his eyes. "If he's not in another cell, I'm sure all we have to do is follow the trail."
"Trail?"
He made a vague gesture with his hands. "New planet, to him. New lifeforms. He's probably--"
"--dancing," Rose finished, with a slight wrinkling of her nose. "Right."
The two of them glanced up as a rattling issued from outside the cell--guards, one of them drawing a key ring from his belt and looking for the correct key. He spoke without looking up. "Mistress Star would like a word with the two of you. You're to be taken to her House immediately."
"Mistress Star?" Rose mouthed at the Doctor as they stepped out of the room between two guards.
He shrugged carefully and gave her a pointed look that Rose was able to translate as "we'll go along with it for now". As long as they were safe, Rose was sure, he would still be of that opinion. It was only when things got risky that he would turn stormy and dangerous. In the meantime, Rose agreed that it was probably best to just play along.
**
Rose didn't know how else to describe what had happened to them except to say that they were smuggled out. It had all been fast, under cover, and wordless, and now she found herself sitting in a fine velvet armchair in a room that looked like it had been stolen from the set of a Liz Taylor movie. She clutched the Doctor's hand, which she had reached for out of habit so strong it was nearly instinct, the moment this room was revealed to her.
They were alone now, just the two of them and a woman who looked like a young, platinum blonde version of the violet-eyed legend who had frequented rooms like this, rooms of satin and gold and columns and fountains. She was watching them with a cat-like gaze, beautiful and predatory, cunning and studious.
"Mistress Star?" the Doctor questioned. Rose could tell he was trying to be polite, but his tone also managed to say that he wasn't dealing himself or Rose in for a hand of whatever game they were playing.
The woman tilted her head, an elegant suggestion of a bow. "I see my reputation has preceded me," she said in a voice like boiled honey. She gave Rose a cool, considering look. "Yours, however, has not, Mistress Rose."
Abruptly, it hit the London girl exactly what this woman thought, and who she was, and Rose felt sick. "Sizing up the competition?" she suggested blandly, just to check.
Mistress Star blinked at her abruptness, then nodded. Rose had to force a choking laugh because if she didn't, she might have screamed. "Sorry, I'm not," she said coldly.
"Not what?"
The Doctor seemed to have finally caught on because Rose saw his eyes roll. "Not competition," he said, annoyed and amused at once. "That's why you brought us here?"
The woman's demeanor shifted so abruptly, it was as if everything around them had changed. The room seemed lighter, the air more breathable, and Mistress Star smiled like a friend having a tea party. "Oh, these complete yokels!" she groaned. "Honestly, this place is so backward, it's forward at the same time." Her face practically sparkled like a star as she beamed at them. "You're off-worlders, like me, aren't you?"
The Doctor blinked. "Came here because of the gold rumors?" he asked, and Rose found his new tone surprisingly kind.
The woman gave him a playful, cunning little grin. "No, I came here because every where that thinks it's the Old West needs a good whorehouse. Call me Mercury. You want a drink?"
Rose boggled. "I thought we were under arrest..." She tried not to turn it into a question, but she just couldn't help it. This woman was... she could hardly believe… it was a little bit brilliant, really.
Mercury's grin widened and became predatory and knowing. "The sheriff owes me a favor," she said coyly. "So does the judge. If I want to see someone, they usually get seen." She giggled suddenly, very like a girl. "Don't you worry, sweetie, you're perfectly safe from those half-wits here."
Rose couldn't help heaving a sigh of relief. "They lassoed me!" she exclaimed, indignant.
Mercury chuckled. "I was very nearly lynched when I arrived. They've completely forgotten they're a human colony, somehow. Give them twenty-five years and it's all girls in blue jeans and black hats as far as the eye can see, but in this time, that little skirt of yours is at least three of the seven deadly sins." She reached out and, before Rose knew what to make of it, fingered the hem rather suggestively. "Maybe always, actually."
Rose wondered if the Doctor realized human peripheral vision was good enough that she could see him nodding out the corner of her eye. Couldn't help wondering which sins he thought her skirt covered - or failed to cover, perhaps. Couldn't help hoping one of them was lust.
She let her mind wander down that wicked, sinful little lane while Mercury continued talking. In her mind's eye, Rose could see him, her Doctor, sliding out of his usual black denim. Only this time, instead of hiding away and immediately jumping into something else, she liked to day dream that he flaunted it, showing off for her, every lean, spare inch of...
"I said, will that be all right with you, Rose?"
Rose blinked away from her fantasy. "Sorry," she stuttered. "I was thinking about... er... how stupid I was to get captured."
Mercury's cunning little smile returned and Rose suspected, somehow, that the other woman knew what had been crossing her mind in all his perfect-arsed glory. Nevertheless, she nodded. "It happens, sweetie. I was saying I could put you two up here for the night and then slip you out with the regulars in the morning. There's a room just down the hall. I'll even give you a discount, since you'll have to make your own fun." She winked outrageously.
The Doctor caught Rose's eye and she shrugged back at him. He nodded, ever so slightly, and then started rummaging in his pockets.
**
Once the Doctor and Rose were down the hall, safely ensconced in their private room, Mercury turned as the door to her powder room opened. Jack Harkness leaned in the doorway, this time stripped entirely. The guard had brought up his traveling companions faster than expected; shoving him into the nearest available space had been the only option for hiding him.
"Nice touch with the seven deadly sins speech. They took the room?"
Mercury held up the cash. "Paid in full. Not that I was ever lacking, but you have my thanks for securing a client."
"Eh, don't expect the Doc to return. He's not exactly the thrill-seeking type--at least, not this kind of thrill. Had to get those two alone somehow; their unresolved tension could fill a whole other vehicle." He shook his head, smirking, then nodded to the bed. "So, what d'ya say to a Round Two?"
**
No option but the one bed, now. Rose found herself sitting on it, wishing for all the world she had some sort of earplugs. Next door was having one hell of a good time, obviously, and nothing she could possibly do was making the sounds go away. A woman's voice moaned low, and Rose felt a twinge of something that definitely wasn't sympathy. A man chuckled darkly. Rose would almost bet the Doctor would do that: take enormously smug satisfaction in making her squirm and cry out and beg for him, just like...
She mentally splashed cold water over herself. "Haven't heard this sort of thing since Mum was dating William," she half-grumbled.
The Doctor almost shuddered at the image of Jackie Tyler in the throes of passion. It wasn't often that an over-nine-hundred-years-old Time Lord could be disgusted, but there it went. Rose removed her boots, setting them on the floor and then stretching out on the bed. The Doctor watched her breasts rise and fall as her blue shirt nearly blended in with the blue satin sheets.
He shook himself and considered the room clinically instead. In the manner of fine establishments of this kind, it had various padded surfaces, plus a richly appointed bed the size of a cricket pitch. He had to fight off fifty suggestions with every glance for ways to use nearly everything in the room to make Rose Tyler whimper and blush and…
Clinically. Mercury (an interesting alias, probably chosen for her incredibly expensive perfume) apparently used mostly modern sanitation. It at least meant the bed resembled something clean, though he wouldn't be averse to a stop in the TARDIS' medical bay come morning. No telling what sort of diseases had been brought here. He could only imagine Jackie Tyler's reaction to her daughter turning up joking about exposure to a rare alien STD. He wouldn't put it past Jackie to castrate him, even though he had the cures to everything Rose could possibly catch in this century back at the TARDIS.
Of course, judging from the voices next door, voices which he was absolutely forcing himself to edit out of his conscious awareness, it didn't seem to bother… the owner of that familiar…
"Think Jack's somewhere around here?" Rose asked, nodding her head towards the noises emanating from the wall behind them. The Doctor mentally edited the sounds out. Again. "Good a place as any if he was looking for..."
"We'll ask around tomorrow. Wherever he is, he'll have left a mark."
Rose had to agree with that one. She hadn't known Jack long, but she'd seen enough to know that anything that moved, and maybe even a few things that didn't, was fair game for his seduction.
And speaking of seduction, she could hear the man next door murmuring softly. Though she couldn't make out the words, her brain easily filled in a litany of filthy instructions, lovely, dirty requests. The woman's voice was so excited, as excited as Rose thought she would be, if it was the Doctor, asking her to do things to him. She could imagine, following some of his instructions to the letter, like unbuttoning his jeans, like kissing him, like touching him. Some, though, she'd be coy and wicked about, making him wait until he was breathless and begging for her, until she was so wet with anticipation...
"So just the one bed after all, yeah?" she said, breaking the brief silence, because she had to counter the noise from the other room (mostly because she was mentally editing herself and the Doctor into that scene just as fast as she could).
She thought she saw a smile from the Doctor. "We don't have to make our own fun, if that's what you're asking."
Rose wondered if maybe it was. The idea of dancing with the Doctor just wasn't strange to her anymore. She'd toyed with the thought for a while, but lately, it had become absolutely all she could think about, even without suggestive neighbors banging a bed rhythmically against her wall. Her imagination, putting them into that lurid fantasy scene, just wasn't letting up, and her body was getting into the act, arousal starting to become a definite problem.
She stretched a bit, about to make some sort of joking response just to see how he'd take it, but as she straightened she saw it--the Doctor's gaze, lingering on her legs, almost entirely bared by the skirt. Without meaning to, she caught his eyes, and neither of them seemed to want to be the first to look away. His eyes were so dark, a thin icy ring around the blackness all she could see of their usual blue. His tongue slipped out, wet his lips like she wanted to do.
Her heart thundered in her chest. The Doctor's eyes compelled her. The woman next door cried out, a steady prayer of "yes, yes, yes..." Her voice sounded, to Rose, like her own.
"We don't have to," Rose realized, breathlessly.
Still not looking away, the Doctor nodded, swallowed hard. His adam's apple bobbed, and Rose wanted to lick it. It was his voice she heard, not whoever was next door, inviting, "Please. Now."
"But we can, if we want?" she suggested, tentatively.
His eyes caught fire and he smiled slowly, like a vision out of every fantasy and daydream she had ever entertained of him. "Oh, Rose," he murmured, his voice like liquid sin.
"Doctor," she answered and slowly held out her hand.
Just as slowly, and with a kind of reverence that made Rose feel wholly treasured, the Doctor accepted her hand. He accepted her offer.
They accepted each other.
**
"Morning, Rose, Doc," Jack said, strolling up next to them as casually as if this was the kitchen in the TARDIS and not some sort of smugglers' tunnel leading out into the fields beyond the Old West city where they still hadn't managed even a few moments' sight-seeing.
He narrowly ducked a slap from Rose, whose stern expression was overruled by the smile that broke onto her face a second later, laughter creeping into her tone. “We got arrested coming back for you, I’ll have you know. Only the kindness of a certain… madam… kept us from spending the night in a jail cell!”
“Mercury’s a wonderful gal, isn’t she?” Jack smirked, and Rose groaned at the confirmation of her suspicions about his antics. She resisted the urge to slap him again, knowing it was useless to chide him. Without his being captured, they never would have ended up at Mercury’s, and if they hadn’t… well, she wasn’t sure the night would have been quite so pleasurable - emphasis, of course, on the pleasure.
Actually, she realized, she had Jack Harkness to thank for the best night of her life.
"Didn't even steal my wallet," Jack continued, proudly.
"Bankrupted you, I bet," Rose joked. Jack had the good grace to be a little embarrassed when he showed her the large wad of local cash in his wallet.
"Offer you a job, lad?" the Doctor teased. Rose was amazed at how good his mood was this morning. Well, not amazed, so much as, well a bit smug, actually.
Jack chortled merrily. "Why? Would you come visit me?"
"No money," Rose and the Doctor both chorused.
Jack shot them both gleefully knowing looks and ushered them into the tunnel.
Rose was always a bit bubbly when it came to choosing their next destination, but she was even more so this time, practically bouncing up to the Doctor and grabbing at the crook of his elbow, her fingers kneading into the warm leather. “Where to next?”
“The TARDIS could use refueling. Stop off at the Cardiff rift for a few days-see your mother and Ricky,” the Doctor said. He found himself a tad more jealous of Rose’s ex than usual, but reminded himself not to be. She’d chosen him, hadn’t she?
“Sounds great. ‘M dying to see Mum.” Yes, apparently she had.
As they came into the light of day, surfacing not far from where they’d left the TARDIS, Rose grinned and let go of his arm, nearly twirling into the field, at the same time being careful enough not to flatten more dandelions than was necessary.
He itched to pull her back again, but let her have her fun, content just to watch her. Her childlike wonder at so many of the things they saw never ceased to amaze him. Jack came up beside him, watching Rose with that same sort of fascination, but not, the Doctor noticed, with any sort of lust, not like when he’d first come to join him. He’d seemed to realize fairly quickly that Rose’s heart was already engaged.
Rose waited for them to catch up, linking her arms through one each of theirs and giving the two of them that same winning smile as always. “Off we go?” she said hopefully, as if they’d say no. As if any one of them could say no to continued adventures in time and space.
Neither of them did.
**
Meanwhile, back in the best little whorehouse in the local group...
A young woman sprawled across blue satin sheets, naked except for a pair of brightly blue cowboy boots. Her eyes drifted slowly open as sunlight played lightly over her face, and her lover, as sprawled as she was, but naked except for a pale blue Stetson, toyed idly with one of her breasts.
"Didn't you get enough last night?" she mumbled, but made no move to stop him. "Or this morning?"
Her lover chuckled and added a hand to her other breast, his movements no longer quite so playful. "Or other time last night. Or later this morning," he added, grinning wickedly. "They were very loud next door, weren't they?"
She smirked and tugged playfully at his hair. "And you just had to keep up with them, of course."
"Of course. I've always been a little competitive."
She flicked an eyebrow at him and he grinned like a happy child. "A little?"
"All right," he chortled merrily, "a lot. Still, they've got nothing on us, don't you think?"
The woman rolled her eyes, then turned onto her stomach, effectively blocking his questing, persuasive hands from their prize. "I get time traveling pranks, yeah, but don't you think we should try to see some of the actual town this time?" she asked.
He had to wiggle quite a bit to catch her eye and give her his best pleading look, but he managed, though his hat tumbled to the floor in the process. She ruffled his hair. "Don't pout, Doctor."
"But Rose," he whined. He turned huge, dark eyes on her, his lips pursed and inviting, just the shadow of a beard on his jaw at this early hour.
She grinned helplessly back at him. "C'mon, at least we'll be dressed properly for it this time."
The Time Lord glanced at his brown pinstripes slung carelessly over an opulent chair near the foot of the richly appointed bed. "True," he allowed. "But there was something to say about you in that miniscule skirt... I say 'something', though of course I mean novels I could have said, and really only one thing, one word that actually came to mind, and that is quite an indicator of how impressive your legs really are, Rose Tyler, because even if I wasn't so loquacious then, I still knew plenty of words..."
Her eyes went tender and shining as she put a finger over his lips. "Good. Then after we see the town, I'll see if I can't dig the silly thing out again, yeah?"
"Yeah?" the Doctor wondered, his eyes dancing right back at hers.
Rose put up a leg and straightened her boot. "Silly things to sleep in, really," she said.
"Well?" the Doctor insisted, reaching as if to grab that raised leg.
Rose laughed and caught his hand, tugging him towards her. He went willingly, as he always did, anywhere she wanted to go, really. "Yeah," she promised. "Anything."
There was still only one word for it. "Fantastic."
The Doctor grumbled. In all the dreams he had never ever had of Rose trying to get him out of his coat while she was wearing something soft and dramatic and nearly non-existent, he had, of course, been gentlemanly reluctant and never ever flung the heavy leather over the nearest guardrail and... erm. Starting over. If he had ever (which he would not admit) entertained the notion of Rose trying to get him out of his leather jacket (which he would not allow), the Doctor had never, not even once, imagined it would be like this.
"I'll just use the psychic paper," he explained, fending Rose off quite poorly for someone who was nearly twice her size. She'd managed to get behind him and had his jacket pulled off his shoulders.
"That's what you said last time, and we were getting shot at before you ever got a chance to show it around."
The Doctor mumbled something that might have been "You're right" from someone who was actually willing to admit that sort of thing. However, the Time Lord was still fighting a rearguard action, trying to defend what was left of his dignity, and was therefore not going to admit anything whatsoever.
"Black's against the law, being that it's the color of outlaws," Rose explained, as if the Doctor hadn't told her this, himself, not three hours ago.
The Doctor rolled his eyes and attempted to shrug his jacket back in place. He both hoped and desperately feared that, at any moment, Rose would also remember that his jeans were black.
"Because you can always tell when someone's gonna do something evil by what color hat they're wearing," Rose added sarcastically. "I mean, we see that all the time, in our line of work, right? All the villains neatly color-coded. Red for disasters and yellow for mad scientists, and what would green be, then?"
The Doctor couldn't resist a little chuckle. "Aliens?" he suggested.
Rose shook her head. "No, that's gonna be blue," she decided, "which is what you need to put on." She popped her blue Stetson forcefully back onto her head and looked almost unconscionably adorable in it.
The Doctor glowered at her. First of all, blue was the most morbid color a Time Lord could wear, not that Rose was to know that. Second of all, he did not wear blue, would never, ever...
"C'mon, Doctor, it'll look gorgeous with your eyes." Rose pouted up at him, her dark eyes sincere and pleading.
... ever be able to resist that look on her face for as long as he lived.
"Going to blame you for this one, not Jack," the Doctor grumbled, and snagged the hanger from Rose's hands.
Rose made a gleeful, girlish noise that made the Doctor's hearts skip a beat and a stupid grin to start on his face without his permission. He tried to be stern and reluctant, but the grin was refusing to recede. Rose swung happily on his arm, and then dashed further into the wardrobe room. While the Doctor watched dubiously, she reached into one of the scattered cubbies and produced a pair of boots in the most unlikely shade of blue ever. "I found these for me to wear," she said.
The Doctor wasn't sure what, if anything, he should say about that.
"With this skirt," Rose added dryly, and pointed at the tiny scrap of pale denim skirt she was still wearing.
The grin had the Doctor's permission to stay. "Fantastic!"
Really, it should have been the easiest thing in the world. Pick a planet, the Doctor'd said. Rose hadn't had a preference; neither had the Doctor, so it was up to Captain Jack. Well, he'd told them, he'd heard of this one place in his own time where a guy (or a gal) could have a good time...
Of course, the Doctor had decided there was no reason for him to change. "Changed my jumper!" was his shtick and he used it as often as he could. Rose was taking a certain satisfaction in him having to bow to her original demands and change.
They'd landed, they'd gone out, and they'd been heading towards the nearest bar when some roaming law enforcement had decided today was a wonderful day to play fashion police. They'd dashed back to the TARDIS under a rain of gunfire and had been about to take off when they'd both realized--no Jack. Any rescue mission was going to involve, by necessity, a change of clothes for them both, something the Doctor was pouting like he was convinced Rose was having too much fun selecting.
Most of the time, being in the TARDIS' wardrobe was an amped-up version of her childhood dressup games, and today was no exception. Touring a planet that was perpetually (or at least, for now) stuck in the Wild West? This was too good an opportunity to pass up. The Doctor politely turned away as, after getting into the boots, she pulled off her t-shirt, then wandered the rows looking for a suitable top. Rose grinned, amused at the opportunity to fluster him.
The Doctor watched her dive into the racks, suspecting that she knew very well what she did to him. "What about this one?" she called as she plucked a hanger off the rack, holding up another blue shirt, stepping back into his field of vision with it held against her chest. She missed the imperceptible clench of his fingers as he turned to her, trying not to remember those dreams he'd most definitely not had, trying not to think of the lacy undergarment being obscured from his view by the shirt she was holding, though he could see two damnably enticing electric blue straps...
"Great," he told her, and this time she didn't give him enough time to turn away, instead dropping the hanger to the floor for a moment as she shrugged the shirt on over that tortuously blue lacy bra, as she began to button up the shirt. She took one hand away from the buttons for a second and pointed to his jeans.
"Don't think I haven't noticed those are black. They'll have to go as well." She quirked an eyebrow with that same smile from before. "If you get to stare at my legs in this skirt, I get to have at least a glimpse of yours."
He reminded himself to work on ways to resist Rose Tyler's smile, and then reminded himself not to think about Rose Tyler's smile too much in the first place, because thinking of Rose too much in any manner always led to those thoughts he certainly couldn't be having. He took the jeans she tossed at him and did, indeed, catch a glimpse of her watching as he changed out of the old and into the new.
"And a white hat," she said, "since you're the good guys."
And as they stood together at the mirror, giving a final glance over their new attire, he noticed that he still had the faintest view of that bra under the shirt, and he muttered something under his breath that he didn't think she quite caught. "Definitely blaming you for this one."
**
Jack blinked blearily and inhaled a familiar perfume. "Star of Mercury," he murmured, naming off the most expensive imported fragrance money could find in any of the hub colonies.
"Now, that's interesting," an unfamiliar feminine tone purred next to his ear. "There are only two kinds of people who are that certain of that smell."
Jack rubbed at his eyes, realized what he was seeing, and grinned. "I gather you're not from around these parts," the courtesan drawled, running a pale hand across Jack's brow, fingers fluttering delicately over a tender spot above his brow.
The Captain frowned as confusion dawned. He didn't remember deciding to come here. "No, I'm not," he agreed. "Some friends and I dropped by, and one of them seemed to think he could talk his way out of being noticed in black jeans."
His hostess allowed a sultry, well-trained chuckle. "It obviously didn't go so well. There'd been some shooting at the top of my staircase when I found you. Lucky the locals couldn't hit themselves with their guns, never mind what they're aiming at." The woman's hands continued investigating him, and Jack realized he'd been stripped to the waist, very probably frisked, and possibly robbed. "You seem very tense, lover," his hostess continued. "Anything I can do to help?"
"Wondering about my friends," Jack admitted. Well, if he was going to be robbed, might as well get his money's worth as it were. He relaxed into the dense satin cushions surrounding him, and enjoyed the aromatic familiarity of a trained 51st century sex worker's boudoir. "Had some plans for them, coming here."
There was a brief flash, and then the lamps in the room all turned up to reveal a charming heart-shaped face and laughing grey eyes underneath a shock of carefully curled and bleached platinum-blonde hair. "Everyone calls me Mercury Star," she said, an ironic little twist to her lips, since she had to know only he would get the real joke of that.
Jack allowed an appreciative chuckle. This woman was obviously an artist: it would be a crime not to appreciate her. "Everyone calls me Captain Jack," he replied. "But you can call me 'Yes, oh god, yes!', if you'd rather."
Mercury's smirk was just like Jack's, dark and sexy and dripping sin. "Oh, a professional," she teased.
"I am," Jack admitted. It was a perfectly logical part of his training. "And so are you. Should be one for the storybooks, don't you think?"
Mercury crawled slowly from his feet to his waist, her eyes never leaving his. "We can certainly try," she allowed.
Jack nodded. "Then, maybe you can help me with my friends..."
**
"Still going to blame me for this one?" Rose asked nervously, watching as the Doctor considered the hinges of what was apparently their home for the night.
The Doctor didn't answer, and she knew that when he got into one of his moods--resonating concrete or whatnot with his sonic screwdriver--it was next to useless to talk to him.
Her apprehension quickly turned to a scowl once he turned back and, catching her eye, promptly burst out laughing. She resisted the urge to slap him, instead pointing and saying threateningly, "It's not funny!"
"How'd they put it? A 'lady of the evening'. It's rich, Rose, you have to admit."
Still scowling at his uproarious laughter, she tugged her skirt down the smallest bit, then sat on the cell's bench, beneath the window. "You're the one always going on about local customs and how not to offend the natives. Didn't hear any objection from you about the skirt. How was I supposed to know it'd be an issue?"
She heard him utter another "fantastic!", his tone still amused rather than annoyed, just before his laughter faded. The grin still lingered on his lips. Despite herself, Rose felt her own lips quirking the smallest bit. The Doctor's amusement was always contagious.
He strolled to the window, standing on the bench and looking out and down before he looked back down at her. "Laws change. Could have been a recent decree, one not on the TARDIS's records."
It wasn't often the Doctor would admit to not knowing something, so Rose took it, her second small victory of the day. If he was so amused at the situation, she decided to push back some. "You certainly weren't in a hurry to deny me being your 'escort'." She'd been called a lot of things since she'd begun traveling with the Doctor, and one lesson of today had been that she preferred "plus one" to any variant of "whore".
"Wouldn't do to be separated from you, too," he reminded her, as he soniced the window briefly and then stepped off the bench. "Although you'd think they'd have enough brains between them to separate two people arrested for alleged prostitution..." He shrugged and changed the subject, gesturing with a nod at the window behind him. "Drop's too far to risk; might run into trouble with guards if we sonic the hinges. Staying here tonight's our best option. We can search for Jack in the morning, once we plead our case."
"Only the one bed," Rose pointed out, motioning to the bed along an adjacent wall. "Any ideas on how...?"
"Unless you want them to continue thinking you're a member of the galaxy's oldest profession... separate's best."
"Right." She nodded, trying to shrug off the thought of being in bed with the Doctor. Because it wasn't as foreign a thought to her as she wanted it to be. In fact, it was... a nice thought. She wondered why she couldn't seem to stop thinking like that, but decided it wasn't an area she could think on when in such close quarters with the Doctor. "Any ideas on how to find Jack?"
She didn't miss the slight roll of his eyes. "If he's not in another cell, I'm sure all we have to do is follow the trail."
"Trail?"
He made a vague gesture with his hands. "New planet, to him. New lifeforms. He's probably--"
"--dancing," Rose finished, with a slight wrinkling of her nose. "Right."
The two of them glanced up as a rattling issued from outside the cell--guards, one of them drawing a key ring from his belt and looking for the correct key. He spoke without looking up. "Mistress Star would like a word with the two of you. You're to be taken to her House immediately."
"Mistress Star?" Rose mouthed at the Doctor as they stepped out of the room between two guards.
He shrugged carefully and gave her a pointed look that Rose was able to translate as "we'll go along with it for now". As long as they were safe, Rose was sure, he would still be of that opinion. It was only when things got risky that he would turn stormy and dangerous. In the meantime, Rose agreed that it was probably best to just play along.
**
Rose didn't know how else to describe what had happened to them except to say that they were smuggled out. It had all been fast, under cover, and wordless, and now she found herself sitting in a fine velvet armchair in a room that looked like it had been stolen from the set of a Liz Taylor movie. She clutched the Doctor's hand, which she had reached for out of habit so strong it was nearly instinct, the moment this room was revealed to her.
They were alone now, just the two of them and a woman who looked like a young, platinum blonde version of the violet-eyed legend who had frequented rooms like this, rooms of satin and gold and columns and fountains. She was watching them with a cat-like gaze, beautiful and predatory, cunning and studious.
"Mistress Star?" the Doctor questioned. Rose could tell he was trying to be polite, but his tone also managed to say that he wasn't dealing himself or Rose in for a hand of whatever game they were playing.
The woman tilted her head, an elegant suggestion of a bow. "I see my reputation has preceded me," she said in a voice like boiled honey. She gave Rose a cool, considering look. "Yours, however, has not, Mistress Rose."
Abruptly, it hit the London girl exactly what this woman thought, and who she was, and Rose felt sick. "Sizing up the competition?" she suggested blandly, just to check.
Mistress Star blinked at her abruptness, then nodded. Rose had to force a choking laugh because if she didn't, she might have screamed. "Sorry, I'm not," she said coldly.
"Not what?"
The Doctor seemed to have finally caught on because Rose saw his eyes roll. "Not competition," he said, annoyed and amused at once. "That's why you brought us here?"
The woman's demeanor shifted so abruptly, it was as if everything around them had changed. The room seemed lighter, the air more breathable, and Mistress Star smiled like a friend having a tea party. "Oh, these complete yokels!" she groaned. "Honestly, this place is so backward, it's forward at the same time." Her face practically sparkled like a star as she beamed at them. "You're off-worlders, like me, aren't you?"
The Doctor blinked. "Came here because of the gold rumors?" he asked, and Rose found his new tone surprisingly kind.
The woman gave him a playful, cunning little grin. "No, I came here because every where that thinks it's the Old West needs a good whorehouse. Call me Mercury. You want a drink?"
Rose boggled. "I thought we were under arrest..." She tried not to turn it into a question, but she just couldn't help it. This woman was... she could hardly believe… it was a little bit brilliant, really.
Mercury's grin widened and became predatory and knowing. "The sheriff owes me a favor," she said coyly. "So does the judge. If I want to see someone, they usually get seen." She giggled suddenly, very like a girl. "Don't you worry, sweetie, you're perfectly safe from those half-wits here."
Rose couldn't help heaving a sigh of relief. "They lassoed me!" she exclaimed, indignant.
Mercury chuckled. "I was very nearly lynched when I arrived. They've completely forgotten they're a human colony, somehow. Give them twenty-five years and it's all girls in blue jeans and black hats as far as the eye can see, but in this time, that little skirt of yours is at least three of the seven deadly sins." She reached out and, before Rose knew what to make of it, fingered the hem rather suggestively. "Maybe always, actually."
Rose wondered if the Doctor realized human peripheral vision was good enough that she could see him nodding out the corner of her eye. Couldn't help wondering which sins he thought her skirt covered - or failed to cover, perhaps. Couldn't help hoping one of them was lust.
She let her mind wander down that wicked, sinful little lane while Mercury continued talking. In her mind's eye, Rose could see him, her Doctor, sliding out of his usual black denim. Only this time, instead of hiding away and immediately jumping into something else, she liked to day dream that he flaunted it, showing off for her, every lean, spare inch of...
"I said, will that be all right with you, Rose?"
Rose blinked away from her fantasy. "Sorry," she stuttered. "I was thinking about... er... how stupid I was to get captured."
Mercury's cunning little smile returned and Rose suspected, somehow, that the other woman knew what had been crossing her mind in all his perfect-arsed glory. Nevertheless, she nodded. "It happens, sweetie. I was saying I could put you two up here for the night and then slip you out with the regulars in the morning. There's a room just down the hall. I'll even give you a discount, since you'll have to make your own fun." She winked outrageously.
The Doctor caught Rose's eye and she shrugged back at him. He nodded, ever so slightly, and then started rummaging in his pockets.
**
Once the Doctor and Rose were down the hall, safely ensconced in their private room, Mercury turned as the door to her powder room opened. Jack Harkness leaned in the doorway, this time stripped entirely. The guard had brought up his traveling companions faster than expected; shoving him into the nearest available space had been the only option for hiding him.
"Nice touch with the seven deadly sins speech. They took the room?"
Mercury held up the cash. "Paid in full. Not that I was ever lacking, but you have my thanks for securing a client."
"Eh, don't expect the Doc to return. He's not exactly the thrill-seeking type--at least, not this kind of thrill. Had to get those two alone somehow; their unresolved tension could fill a whole other vehicle." He shook his head, smirking, then nodded to the bed. "So, what d'ya say to a Round Two?"
**
No option but the one bed, now. Rose found herself sitting on it, wishing for all the world she had some sort of earplugs. Next door was having one hell of a good time, obviously, and nothing she could possibly do was making the sounds go away. A woman's voice moaned low, and Rose felt a twinge of something that definitely wasn't sympathy. A man chuckled darkly. Rose would almost bet the Doctor would do that: take enormously smug satisfaction in making her squirm and cry out and beg for him, just like...
She mentally splashed cold water over herself. "Haven't heard this sort of thing since Mum was dating William," she half-grumbled.
The Doctor almost shuddered at the image of Jackie Tyler in the throes of passion. It wasn't often that an over-nine-hundred-years-old Time Lord could be disgusted, but there it went. Rose removed her boots, setting them on the floor and then stretching out on the bed. The Doctor watched her breasts rise and fall as her blue shirt nearly blended in with the blue satin sheets.
He shook himself and considered the room clinically instead. In the manner of fine establishments of this kind, it had various padded surfaces, plus a richly appointed bed the size of a cricket pitch. He had to fight off fifty suggestions with every glance for ways to use nearly everything in the room to make Rose Tyler whimper and blush and…
Clinically. Mercury (an interesting alias, probably chosen for her incredibly expensive perfume) apparently used mostly modern sanitation. It at least meant the bed resembled something clean, though he wouldn't be averse to a stop in the TARDIS' medical bay come morning. No telling what sort of diseases had been brought here. He could only imagine Jackie Tyler's reaction to her daughter turning up joking about exposure to a rare alien STD. He wouldn't put it past Jackie to castrate him, even though he had the cures to everything Rose could possibly catch in this century back at the TARDIS.
Of course, judging from the voices next door, voices which he was absolutely forcing himself to edit out of his conscious awareness, it didn't seem to bother… the owner of that familiar…
"Think Jack's somewhere around here?" Rose asked, nodding her head towards the noises emanating from the wall behind them. The Doctor mentally edited the sounds out. Again. "Good a place as any if he was looking for..."
"We'll ask around tomorrow. Wherever he is, he'll have left a mark."
Rose had to agree with that one. She hadn't known Jack long, but she'd seen enough to know that anything that moved, and maybe even a few things that didn't, was fair game for his seduction.
And speaking of seduction, she could hear the man next door murmuring softly. Though she couldn't make out the words, her brain easily filled in a litany of filthy instructions, lovely, dirty requests. The woman's voice was so excited, as excited as Rose thought she would be, if it was the Doctor, asking her to do things to him. She could imagine, following some of his instructions to the letter, like unbuttoning his jeans, like kissing him, like touching him. Some, though, she'd be coy and wicked about, making him wait until he was breathless and begging for her, until she was so wet with anticipation...
"So just the one bed after all, yeah?" she said, breaking the brief silence, because she had to counter the noise from the other room (mostly because she was mentally editing herself and the Doctor into that scene just as fast as she could).
She thought she saw a smile from the Doctor. "We don't have to make our own fun, if that's what you're asking."
Rose wondered if maybe it was. The idea of dancing with the Doctor just wasn't strange to her anymore. She'd toyed with the thought for a while, but lately, it had become absolutely all she could think about, even without suggestive neighbors banging a bed rhythmically against her wall. Her imagination, putting them into that lurid fantasy scene, just wasn't letting up, and her body was getting into the act, arousal starting to become a definite problem.
She stretched a bit, about to make some sort of joking response just to see how he'd take it, but as she straightened she saw it--the Doctor's gaze, lingering on her legs, almost entirely bared by the skirt. Without meaning to, she caught his eyes, and neither of them seemed to want to be the first to look away. His eyes were so dark, a thin icy ring around the blackness all she could see of their usual blue. His tongue slipped out, wet his lips like she wanted to do.
Her heart thundered in her chest. The Doctor's eyes compelled her. The woman next door cried out, a steady prayer of "yes, yes, yes..." Her voice sounded, to Rose, like her own.
"We don't have to," Rose realized, breathlessly.
Still not looking away, the Doctor nodded, swallowed hard. His adam's apple bobbed, and Rose wanted to lick it. It was his voice she heard, not whoever was next door, inviting, "Please. Now."
"But we can, if we want?" she suggested, tentatively.
His eyes caught fire and he smiled slowly, like a vision out of every fantasy and daydream she had ever entertained of him. "Oh, Rose," he murmured, his voice like liquid sin.
"Doctor," she answered and slowly held out her hand.
Just as slowly, and with a kind of reverence that made Rose feel wholly treasured, the Doctor accepted her hand. He accepted her offer.
They accepted each other.
**
"Morning, Rose, Doc," Jack said, strolling up next to them as casually as if this was the kitchen in the TARDIS and not some sort of smugglers' tunnel leading out into the fields beyond the Old West city where they still hadn't managed even a few moments' sight-seeing.
He narrowly ducked a slap from Rose, whose stern expression was overruled by the smile that broke onto her face a second later, laughter creeping into her tone. “We got arrested coming back for you, I’ll have you know. Only the kindness of a certain… madam… kept us from spending the night in a jail cell!”
“Mercury’s a wonderful gal, isn’t she?” Jack smirked, and Rose groaned at the confirmation of her suspicions about his antics. She resisted the urge to slap him again, knowing it was useless to chide him. Without his being captured, they never would have ended up at Mercury’s, and if they hadn’t… well, she wasn’t sure the night would have been quite so pleasurable - emphasis, of course, on the pleasure.
Actually, she realized, she had Jack Harkness to thank for the best night of her life.
"Didn't even steal my wallet," Jack continued, proudly.
"Bankrupted you, I bet," Rose joked. Jack had the good grace to be a little embarrassed when he showed her the large wad of local cash in his wallet.
"Offer you a job, lad?" the Doctor teased. Rose was amazed at how good his mood was this morning. Well, not amazed, so much as, well a bit smug, actually.
Jack chortled merrily. "Why? Would you come visit me?"
"No money," Rose and the Doctor both chorused.
Jack shot them both gleefully knowing looks and ushered them into the tunnel.
Rose was always a bit bubbly when it came to choosing their next destination, but she was even more so this time, practically bouncing up to the Doctor and grabbing at the crook of his elbow, her fingers kneading into the warm leather. “Where to next?”
“The TARDIS could use refueling. Stop off at the Cardiff rift for a few days-see your mother and Ricky,” the Doctor said. He found himself a tad more jealous of Rose’s ex than usual, but reminded himself not to be. She’d chosen him, hadn’t she?
“Sounds great. ‘M dying to see Mum.” Yes, apparently she had.
As they came into the light of day, surfacing not far from where they’d left the TARDIS, Rose grinned and let go of his arm, nearly twirling into the field, at the same time being careful enough not to flatten more dandelions than was necessary.
He itched to pull her back again, but let her have her fun, content just to watch her. Her childlike wonder at so many of the things they saw never ceased to amaze him. Jack came up beside him, watching Rose with that same sort of fascination, but not, the Doctor noticed, with any sort of lust, not like when he’d first come to join him. He’d seemed to realize fairly quickly that Rose’s heart was already engaged.
Rose waited for them to catch up, linking her arms through one each of theirs and giving the two of them that same winning smile as always. “Off we go?” she said hopefully, as if they’d say no. As if any one of them could say no to continued adventures in time and space.
Neither of them did.
**
Meanwhile, back in the best little whorehouse in the local group...
A young woman sprawled across blue satin sheets, naked except for a pair of brightly blue cowboy boots. Her eyes drifted slowly open as sunlight played lightly over her face, and her lover, as sprawled as she was, but naked except for a pale blue Stetson, toyed idly with one of her breasts.
"Didn't you get enough last night?" she mumbled, but made no move to stop him. "Or this morning?"
Her lover chuckled and added a hand to her other breast, his movements no longer quite so playful. "Or other time last night. Or later this morning," he added, grinning wickedly. "They were very loud next door, weren't they?"
She smirked and tugged playfully at his hair. "And you just had to keep up with them, of course."
"Of course. I've always been a little competitive."
She flicked an eyebrow at him and he grinned like a happy child. "A little?"
"All right," he chortled merrily, "a lot. Still, they've got nothing on us, don't you think?"
The woman rolled her eyes, then turned onto her stomach, effectively blocking his questing, persuasive hands from their prize. "I get time traveling pranks, yeah, but don't you think we should try to see some of the actual town this time?" she asked.
He had to wiggle quite a bit to catch her eye and give her his best pleading look, but he managed, though his hat tumbled to the floor in the process. She ruffled his hair. "Don't pout, Doctor."
"But Rose," he whined. He turned huge, dark eyes on her, his lips pursed and inviting, just the shadow of a beard on his jaw at this early hour.
She grinned helplessly back at him. "C'mon, at least we'll be dressed properly for it this time."
The Time Lord glanced at his brown pinstripes slung carelessly over an opulent chair near the foot of the richly appointed bed. "True," he allowed. "But there was something to say about you in that miniscule skirt... I say 'something', though of course I mean novels I could have said, and really only one thing, one word that actually came to mind, and that is quite an indicator of how impressive your legs really are, Rose Tyler, because even if I wasn't so loquacious then, I still knew plenty of words..."
Her eyes went tender and shining as she put a finger over his lips. "Good. Then after we see the town, I'll see if I can't dig the silly thing out again, yeah?"
"Yeah?" the Doctor wondered, his eyes dancing right back at hers.
Rose put up a leg and straightened her boot. "Silly things to sleep in, really," she said.
"Well?" the Doctor insisted, reaching as if to grab that raised leg.
Rose laughed and caught his hand, tugging him towards her. He went willingly, as he always did, anywhere she wanted to go, really. "Yeah," she promised. "Anything."
There was still only one word for it. "Fantastic."