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It was dark outside, and the orange light of the street lamp right in front of their bay window was not quite so garish in the fog that had been rolling in all afternoon. The fire, now that it had exhausted its initial rage, was crackling away merrily in the grate of the massive fireplace. Except for that, and the occasional scratch of a fountain pen on paper, no sound could be heard in the parlour. The CD he had put on earlier had long since stopped after the last track, and the mug of tea sat, ice-cold now, on the coffee table in front of him.
It was only when the floorboards creaked under her weight that he registered her presence.
“Hello, Doctor,” she said softly, and moved towards where he was sitting on the sofa. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind, and dropped a kiss on the crown of his head. His hair was calm, and she could not resists running her fingers through it.
He tilted his head towards her, and was rewarded with a kiss.
“Rose,” he said softly, smiling, and took off his glasses. He dropped his hand surreptitiously to the cushion to cover the black velvet box that was resting there against his thigh. He cursed inwardly at his thoughtlessness and hoped that Rose had not noticed it.
“What are you working on?” she asked, resting the side of her head against his temple.
“A Christmas surprise for Tony,” he explained.
“Oh!” Rose cried, her tired face lighting up in delight. She let go of him and moved around the sofa to snuggle up beside him. He deftly slipped the black box into the pocket of his trousers before he wrapped his left arm around her shoulders and drew her towards him. Rose smelled of cool fresh air and the faint memory of the shower they'd had this morning. She kissed him on the cheek.
“What is it?” She looked curiously at the printed sheets in the open folder he had perched on his knee. The text was alive with red corrections and annotations. It looked more like a sorry effort of one of his less gifted students than anything else. She took the folder and skimmed the text.
“Malalai root?” she asked, looking up at him. The Doctor smiled at her, smoothing his thumb over the furrows on her brow as she was trying to retrieve a memory. His single heart beat a bit faster, as, once again, it reminded him of just how much he loved her, bringing with it the feeling of frustration that he would never be able to prove them to her.
“Wasn't that... “ she wondered aloud. And then her face lit up with realisation. “Those purplish things with which you fenced the slave traders on Ugala Minor?”
“Yep.”
“You're not writing that story down for Tony?” she asked, sitting up in disbelief.
Startled, the Doctor let go of her. “Why not? It's one of his favourites.”
“But...”
“But what?”
“It makes me look like... like the damsel in distress,” Rose protested.
The Doctor grinned in amusement. “But you were, Rose Tyler.”
Rose was at a loss for words.
“He loves you all the more for it,” he said, cupping her cheek.
“But...”
“Sh, my love,” he whispered, drawing her towards him for a kiss. It was slow and tender and delicious. “He thinks half of them aren't true anyway.” They kissed again, and eventually Rose relaxed a bit in his arms. He felt the clipboard slide and drop to the floorboards with a clatter.
As always when they separated, Rose kept her eyes closed as she drew in that first breath after the kiss, and the Doctor was tempted, just for a heartbeat, not to wait until Christmas Day, but give her the black velvet box right then and there.
“Doctor?” Rose asked as she opened her eyes.
He blinked. “What are you giving Tony?” he asked, distracting her as much as himself. One more week. He could do that. He had never given her anything for Christmas, or her birthday, before, and the anticipation at seeing her open his gift was nearly killing him. It was delicious, just as picking it out for her had been. Giving gifts turned out to be such a wonderful pleasure, and he wondered briefly why he had never realised that before.
“I've bought him the wooden toy aeroplane he's been going on about since we saw it in that shop,” Rose replied dejectedly. “It's nothing, compared to what you're giving him.” She leaned back into the cushions, propping her head in her hand, resting her free hand above his heart, as she was wont to.
He covered her hand where it was resting on his chest. “Rose,” he said, “you have no idea.” He let go of her and bent to pick up the clipboard. “The story of the Malalai root is the only one of us in there. The rest are all about the adventures of a certain Intrepid Pilot Tony Tyler and His Wooden Aeroplane. It'll mean the world to him to have the plane.” He held the clipboard out for her. “And the writing's rubbish, I much prefer telling him those stories.”
He tucked an errant lock of her hair behind her ear while she was skimming the red and black text. And again, he was thinking of how wonderful his gift would look on her finger, and how badly he wanted her to have it. Sooner rather than later. Like now.
The Doctor stood. If he didn't put the black box away now, he would give in, and then he would have nothing for her on Christmas Day. He went upstairs on stocking feet to hide the box in the drawer of his desk, then returned downstairs to put on the kettle. Every now and then, he could hear Rose burst out laughing.
And he smiled to himself.
Couldn't be that bad then.
He was adding sugar and milk to their drinks when he heard Rose pad towards him, and a heartbeat later, she was wrapping her arms around his middle from behind. Her breath was hot and moist where she kissed him through the material of his shirt, right between his shoulder blades. “It's not Shakespeare,” she whispered, running her hands up and down his stomach, “but I liked the stories.”
The Doctor covered her hands with his, wove his fingers through hers. “There's more where they came from,” he said softly.
“I know,” Rose mumbled against his back, dropping more kisses where she had begun. “I listened to you, watched you.”
He turned in her arms, pulling her into his body. “You've been eavesdropping?” he asked, arching his left eyebrow.
“Couldn't resist,” Rose said, grinning, tip of her tongue tucked into the corner of her mouth. “I can never resist you.”
“Is that so?” He bent to kiss her, slowly at first, then deepened it when he felt her lips yield under the caresses of his tongue. “Neither can I,” he whispered as he broke the kiss. Again, the image of the ring on her finger flashed through his mind, and he smiled softly to himself.
Rose began to unbutton his shirt, and as soon as she could push enough of the material aside, she kissed his chest, her fingers busy with the rest of the buttons. “Good,” she whispered. “That's good.”
The Doctor untucked her blouse from her skirt and fanned his fingers out over back underneath the silk. “No,” he said, trailing a line of kisses along her jaw. “That's brilliant.”
And while his fingers were caressing her, her fingers dropped to the fastening of his trousers. And as soon as she cupped him through the thin material of his pants, any thoughts of aeroplanes and their pilots, of black velvet boxes and wielding vegetables were forgotten.