The road less travelled...

Title: Is A Kiss Just A Kiss?
Author: katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: Rose has been thinking about what happened on New Earth.
Word Count: approx 500 words
Characters: Ten, Rose
A/N: Because she did such sterling work at the Support Stacie auction, catyuy was invited to give me a prompt, which was “Ten/Rose, kiss”.

“Doctor?”

Rose enters the console room to find the Doctor on his hands and knees, peering into the depths of the TARDIS. She can’t help a small smile as she sees him. Clearly some things about the Doctor don’t change, just because his face is different.

He beams at the sight of her and straightens up. “Hello!” he says cheerfully. “All right after today then? I really should have warned you about the disinfectant before we went into the hospital, but…”

“No, it’s fine,” she says quickly to cut him off before he can start on a rambling speech. “I was just thinking – it was weird today.”

He chuckles and slides a hand through his hair. “Very true,” he agrees, leaning against the console, his arms folded over his chest. “But then,” he goes on before she can say anything, “possession is usually a pretty weird experience, especially the first time you go through it. I wouldn’t worry, though, if you can help it. I promise you Cassandra’s gone. Well, you saw what happened. Even died happy, if that’s possible.”

She nods, but the problem is that it isn’t the possession that’s bothering her. She’d felt the instant that Cassandra had left her body each time, the rush of returning consciousness, so she knows it’s just her mind in her body.

No, it’s more what she did while she was possessed that’s worrying her.

When she remembers the way she threw herself at him – or at least that was the impression she knows he must've got – she cringes. After all, just because she’s thought about him in a certain way sometimes doesn’t mean she’d do anything like that.

And then it wasn’t really this him that she’d been thinking about anyway.

That’s the real problem.

If this was the other Doctor, she wouldn’t have had a problem talking about what had happened today. They would have joked about it a bit and that would have been that.

This isn’t him, though, and she isn’t sure how he’d react to her bringing it up. The fact that he hasn’t said anything about it either makes her wonder if he’s waiting for her to say something first, or if he’s already forgotten about it.

She can’t help wondering if the other Doctor would have realised how important it was to her.

“Rose?” There’s concern in the Doctor’s voice, and she realises that he’s been saying something and she wasn’t paying attention.

“Huh?”

“I said, you are okay?”

“Yeah.” She makes herself smile, seeing as the worry disappears from his face, and she understands that he worries about her just as much as the other Doctor ever did. “Yeah,” she repeats more confidently. “I’m fine.”

She promises herself that, one day, when she knows this Doctor better, as well as she knew him before, they’ll talk about it again.