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You kick a stone with your foot, watching it fly into a nearby pond, then sink into the water. The ripples produced by the impact calm after a while, the surface returning to its previous mirror-like state.
“Doctor?”
“Yes?”
“Are you done?”
“Yes, yes, just a moment.”
“This is the sixth time you’re saying that.”
You get no further response, the Doctor’s attention once again fully focused on the plant he’s been looking at for the past twenty minutes. In this time, he’s inspected it in every way you could possibly think of when it comes to examining plants without any special equipment (excluding the sonic screwdriver). He even licked it, for crying out loud! What else could he possibly want to do?
You crane your neck, peering inside his notebook to survey his progress, and discover a messy spread of haphazard sketches and rushed, nearly indecipherable notes.
“You really are a doctor,” you joke.
He doesn’t react, too absorbed by his task to notice the jab at his handwriting.
“Maybe it’s a- No, no, can’t be…” he mumbles to himself.
“Doctor, can’t you just ask the locals when we go back to the village? I’m sure they know lots of things about the local flora.”
“No, no, it’s alright. I’ve almost got it.”
You sigh, shaking your head. This might take a while.
You look up at the ruins you originally came here to visit before the Doctor got sidetracked. You stare at the ancient structures, longing to explore them instead of standing outside, waiting for the Doctor to finally be done looking at some stupid, boring plant. The days on this planet are drastically shorter than on Earth, and in the time you’ve spent doing nothing, the sun has started getting closer to setting. You’d prefer not to stumble back to the TARDIS when it’s dark, or even worse, spend the night (however short it may be) in the middle of an alien forest.
Your gaze returns to the Time Lord responsible for this, who stopped adding to his scribbles in favour of staring intently at the yet to be identified plant through his glasses. The changed lighting does him good, illuminating his face in the most favourable way, and he takes your breath away without even trying.
The strands of his brunet hair sticking out in every direction, messy from the way he ran his hands through it, deep in thought; his deep, chocolate-brown eyes, so old and expressive, now narrowed in focus; the freckles dotting his face, like stars in the night sky: these traits were there before, and you’ve admired them many times, but there’s something different about the way it all comes together this time.
Looking at him right now as he stands there, bathed in golden light, his beauty seems ethereal, beyond any of the wonders you’ve seen during your travels. In that moment, you’re sure that he’s the most beautiful thing in the universe.
Affection unlike anything you’ve ever felt before grows in your chest and warms you to your core, and you remember just how lucky you are to have met him, to have gotten to know him, to love him, and have him – the kind, charming, smart, wonderful person that he is – love you back.
“Doctor,” you breathe, voice trembling with emotion, “I love you.”
But he, distracted as he is, doesn’t hear you. The only response you get is an absent hum.
You chuckle quietly, and shake your head, a fond smile on your face.
You tug on his coat sleeve, the gesture you always use whenever you need him to lean down for whatever reason, but he doesn’t seem to notice that either.
“Doctor, I need you to lean down,” you say, a little louder this time.
No response. You tug a little harder.
“Doctor,” you repeat, dragging out the vowels, “come here…”
“I’m almost done,” he says, more at you than to you.
You scoff, pouting playfully. Of course he’s not listening right when your need to smooch him is at an all-time high.
Bah, who needs his help, anyway? You’ve been living without a tall alien to help lift you up for years. If you can’t reach something from the ground, then you’ll work around it: get a stepping stool or, when it really comes down to it, climb up the shelves. Or, as it is in this case, up the Time Lord. You position yourself behind him, then jump up, grabbing his shoulders.
With how concentrated he’s been this entire time, you expect him to be completely unmoving and unresponsive, but everyone has a limit, and it seems that the Doctor’s is tiny humans climbing up his back. He startles, shouting something you assume to be a swear, and tries to shake the foreign thing off his back, not noticing a rock on the ground right in front of him. He stumbles, loosing his balance, and falls right on his face.
These things happen so quickly in succession that none of it really registers with you. One moment, you're clutching the Doctor, and the next you’re on the ground and he’s lying below you, wheezing after having his breath knocked out of him.
“Doctor!” you gasp, rolling off him immediately. “Are you alright? Does something hurt?”
“My ha-” he starts, then breaks off, shaking his head rapidly. “I mean, no! Not at all! I’m fi-”
“Shut up.”
He does as he’s told, halting the string of reassurances immediately.
“Be honest, Doctor,” you continue. “Where are you hurt?”
“No, really, it’s nothing-”
“Doctor.”
He sighs quietly, then pushes himself off the ground. You pull him up into a sitting position by his arm, and he doesn’t tell you that he didn’t need the help.
When he turns his palms upwards, you flinch at the sight of dirt and his orange-ish blood coating them.
“It’s nothing serious,” he says quietly. “Just a graze.”
“I know,” you mumble, still feeling guilty. “Let’s go to the TARDIS. Get this cleaned up.” He agrees, and follows you back with no complaints.
He lets you lead him to the sickbay, clean the dried blood off his hands, and gently wrap them in gauze.
“I’m sorry,” you tell him afterwards, gently kissing him on the cheek.
“It’s alright,” he answers with no hesitation, then frowns in confusion. “Why’d you do that, anyway?”
You feel your face heat up.
“I, uh… I wanted to kiss you.”
“Kiss me?” he repeats incredulously.
“Y-yeah…”
“Why didn’t you just ask?”
You cross your arms in front of your chest, scoffing.
“I did, but someone was too busy staring at a plant to pay me any attention.”
“Well,” he drawls, tilting his head, “in my defence, I was pretty close to figuring out what plant it was.”
“You’ve been saying that the entire time I was waiting for you to finish, Doctor.”
He opens his mouth to retort, but can’t actually think of anything.
“I did, didn’t I?”
He leans forward, his nose brushing yours.
“I’ve got a lot to make up for, then.”
“I think we both do,” you whisper, and pull him in for a kiss.