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The end of December brings with it the end of the fall semester. Finals time. She’s reviewing her notes while getting off the train when she slams into an annoyingly solid object. Rose stumbles and grabs on to the object, hoping to steady herself. The object, however, isn't very stable, and continues in the same direction, except this time she's blocking its bottom half.
Timber, she thinks, a little sarcastically, before she begins to wonder if this is what it feels like to be an astronaut, pressed back into the earth with five times the gravitational force of the Earth. There's something rather poetic in the statement and she tries to stow it away in the recesses of her brain to dredge up later in some short story.
There’s a man on top of her but he promptly levers himself upwards and she can’t help thinking that this is the most action she’s had in months so he might as well just stay. It doesn’t hurt that, now he’s not on top of her, she can see him, and he’s properly gorgeous. Tall, skinny, broad shoulders, wearing a pinstriped suit that leaves her breathless for other reasons than his weight.
He helps her up muttering about how daft he is and how he really should have seen her, except that he wasn’t looking down, and she's almost insulted but the man looks so apologetic the entire time.
“Oh right, and, by the way, bee tee dub -funny how acronyms work, they really can be longer than the original words sometimes which completely defeats the purpose of using an acronym, except that humans communicate using symbols a lot of the time, after all, texting is generally preferred rather than calling which introduces the issue of why we don't completely switch to typing everything out all the time, although that is very inefficie- yes. ok. I’m talking. A lot. Sorry. I'm called the Doctor. Nice to meet you…?”
“Rose Tyler”
She’s not entirely sure why she tells him her whole name, but when he mouths it and she catches a glimpse of his(apparently very dexterous) tongue, she's glad she does.
He’s a professor at the local college and he's late to his lecture; thus the hurrying and knocking over. He’s so apologetic and careful that he takes her out to coffee to repay her for any damage caused(at least that’s what he claims, he’s already so besotted with her that he doesn’t know how he could possibly leave after spending such a short time together).
They talk for a long time at the coffee shop and he learns that she’s attending night school to get her A levels, and her shift starts in an hour. He can’t help but notice her makeup does a good job of covering the bags under her eyes and raises his hand up to her face so he can look at her properly. He looks so wounded when she flinches away that she grabs his hand with her own and they end up holding hands for the rest of coffee.
When she finally has to leave for her shift he stands outside and watches her leave. He realizes he’s missed most of his lecture and there’s no point in trying to make the last twenty minutes. The students have probably all left by now. He also realizes he has no way to contact Rose Tyler, doesn't that just sound perfect on his tongue. Rose Tylllleeeeerrrrrrrr. Roooooseeeeee Tylaaaaarrrr, and he takes off running after her.
He bumps into her again, gentler, on purpose this time, and grins while nudging her with his shoulder.
There's a familiar swoop in his stomach, that nervousness from asking a question that you aren't sure if the answer is good or bad, and doesn't he just hate it, the uncertainty of human interaction.
"Numbers! There are so many interesting ones! Have you ever considered pi? The ratio of circumference to diameter. Commonly approximated to twenty-two on seven. Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three four..."
She grabs his hand again, notices the way he freezes, everything paused, human contact cutting off all function, before pulling out a pen and scrawling a number into his palm.
"Call. Or text, if thas better for you."
He leaves with a strange sense of accomplishment that he hasn’t gotten from any of the research projects he’s completed.