AN: The ice skating scene in this is very loosely based on the scene in While You Were Sleeping when they slip and slide across the ice back to her apartment. Jesse prompted me to write ice skating fic for Christmas, and I wanted a way to make it unique… and I happened to be watching the movie. So actually, this scene came before the first chapter.

Thanks to rudennotgingr for the prompt, for being a sounding board, and for betaing. And just in general for being awesome.

The next time they celebrated Christmas, their relationship still hadn't changed, but the Doctor had. Rose took care of him all day, wondering if this fit bloke with really great hair was actually the Doctor. Then she watched him win a sword fight to save the planet and those doubts were swept away.

But one still remained. If he was a different man, would he even want her around anymore? Six words put that fear to rest: "Oh, I'd love you to come."

Later that night as they sat in the living room watching the Christmas specials and eating gingerbread, Rose kept stealing glances at him from the corner of her eye, cataloguing the differences. He was a little quicker to smile and he certainly talked more… and he didn't seem to have the same protective armour her first Doctor had.

His laughter brought her back to the present, and her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. Sure, this him smiled more, but that kind of laughter… She took in the flushed cheeks and sighed, taking the wine glass from him. "Oh, Time Lords don't get drunk Rose," she teased.

"Rose! Rose, did you have some of this?" he asked, waving the plate with gingerbread crumbs under her nose. "It's incredible! I've never had anything like it. Welllllll… that might be because I never eat gingerbread, but this has got to be some of the best. Top notch, Jackie. Bravo. Molto bene!"

Rose looked at the plate, then back at his unnaturally bright eyes. "Really? You get pissed eating gingerbread?"

'Take him back to his box to sleep it off, Rose," her mum said. "I don't want to clean up alien sick in the morning."

"Want some help?" Mickey offered.

"Nah, I think I can handle this him," Rose said, purposely ignoring all the ways she'd like to handle him. "C'mon you," she said to the Doctor, tugging him to his feet. "Up you get."

The Doctor grinned as he lurched to his feet. "Oh, are we going somewhere Rose?" he said and slung an arm over her shoulder.

"Yeah, home," she said on a laugh. "Mum, I'm just gonna sleep in my room on the TARDIS," she said from the door. "I promise we'll be around for a few days though."

"You'd better be," Jackie warned. "I don't want you going off without saying good bye."

"Rooooose," the Doctor said as they made their way down the hallway. "Have I ever told you how I feel about your… noooooose?" He giggled. "Get it? Rose and nose. They rhyme."

Rose rolled her eyes and guided him toward the stairs. "Yeah, well done Doctor," she said as she encouraged him to put the hand not resting on her shoulder on the railing

.

After going down one flight, Rose was regretting turning down Mickey's help, but she couldn't very well leave the Doctor in the stairwell while she went back up to get him. "Why'd you go and eat that cake anyway if you knew it would get you drunk?" she muttered as they reached the first floor landing.

"Didn't want to insult Jackie," he said, and she was surprised by how clear his voice was.

Looking over at him though she realised he was still pretty out of it. "That would be a first," she said with a laugh. "Why's it matter to you now?"

Manoeuvring the door kept him from answering, and by the time they were back out in the brisk winter air, she'd almost forgotten she'd asked a question. "Didn't want you to get mad," he said quietly as they crossed the courtyard.

"What? Oh, that's why you ate the cake. Doctor…" Rose sighed and pulled her key out.

The TARDIS lights flashed when they walked in, and Rose thought she could feel the time ship's amused exasperation with her pilot, but she brushed off the notion. "I wouldn't have been mad if you'd told us the cake would make you sick, Doctor," she told him as they walked down the corridor toward his room.

"But what if you got mad and decided you didn't want to come with me anymore?"

The question stopped her dead in her tracks. Rose turned slightly to face the Doctor, and the open vulnerability on his face made her heart ache.

"Doctor… that's never gonna happen," she said, tightening her hand around his waist.

"But what if it did?" he persisted.

Rose sighed. Apparently irrational emotional outbursts were just as common in drunken Time Lords as they were in humans. She pulled him the few remaining yards to his room and opened the door, then tugged his arms out of his coat and jacket before pushing him down onto the bed.

"Rose, what if it did? What if you decided to stay here?" he asked again as she lowered him to his bed and dropped to her knees to untie his Chucks.

"I'm not gonna," she promised him gently. The look in his eyes reminded her of the previous day—God, was it only yesterday?—when she'd asked him if he could change back. She'd seen the hurt in his eyes then, and she wouldn't let him go to bed without reassuring him as much as possible.

"Promise?" he said, grabbing her hand.

"I promise. You're stuck with me, remember?"

The furrow between his brows relaxed and his head eased down into his pillows. "Stuck with you… s'not so bad," he mumbled right before he fell asleep.

Rose put a glass of water on his bedside table before she went to her room to get ready for bed. The entire time she was brushing her teeth and changing into her pyjamas, she kept seeing the look on the Doctor's face as he'd verbalised his fear that she would leave him.

Clearly, they both had some insecurities to work though. Rose had thought most of the issues would be hers, after watching the man she loved change right in front of her. Was he still the same on the inside? Would he still want her? But it seemed the Doctor's fears were equally strong—now that he'd changed on the outside, would she still want him?

"What we need is a few days' rest. Just a holiday while we get to know each other again," she decided as she drifted off to sleep.

When the Doctor woke up the next morning, the pounding in his head was all the reminder he needed of his foolishness from the previous night. "Right, brilliant plan Doctor," he grumbled as he rummaged through his bedside table for an analgesic. "Instead of making Rose angry by refusing to eat Jackie's cooking, get so wasted she has to carry you back to the TARDIS."

He froze, hazy memories of their conversation coming back to him. Surely he hadn't told her… hadn't let her know how desperately he needed her to stay with him. He had a feeling he had, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember how she'd replied.

The Doctor was half convinced his neediness would have Rose packing her bags. In his admittedly limited experience, human women were not generally won over by inebriated blokes who made pathetically clingy statements begging them to stay.

But instead, Rose greeted him in the galley with a smile and a cuppa. "Good morning! How are you feeling?"

"Oh, I'm fine. Hangover cure from Maldova Five. Listen, Rose…"

She waved away his apology. "It wasn't the first time I've put a drunk to bed, Doctor, though I admit, none of the others had been hitting the gingerbread too hard."

The corners of her mouth twitched, and he couldn't help but chuckle. "Now you know one of my few weaknesses, Rose Tyler."

"Are you sure you trust me with such dangerous knowledge?"

"There's no one I trust more," he said, wincing when he heard how earnest he sounded.

Rose smiled sweetly, and his hearts skipped a beat. "Listen, I know we don't usually just… stay put," she said as she rinsed her tea cup out, "but I thought maybe we could stay here through the New Year?"

"And what would we do in London for a week?"

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "I think there's enough here to keep us occupied. She took his cup and washed it as well before looking up at him. "It's just been a while since I celebrated Christmas, y'know?" she said.

The Doctor knew exactly how long it had been since Rose had celebrated Christmas. He also knew how close things had come to changing that night. He'd still been working up the courage to follow through on his almost promise when he'd regenerated.

This new him wanted Rose just as much as that him had, more maybe since he'd died with her taste on his lips and had been born loving her. Her quiet request that he change back had nearly killed all hope that she would ever return those feelings again.

But a purposeful reference to Christmas on Cetera fanned the one remaining ember to life, and he had to swallow a few times before he could answer. "Sure, we could do that I suppose. The TARDIS could do with a rest anyway—someone thought it would be a good idea to fling her out of the vortex at top speed."

"Oh really?" Rose grinned at him, her tongue peeking out from behind her teeth. "I wonder who that could have been."

The Doctor would have been a complete idiot to miss the pattern in the places Rose took him over the next few days. The London Eye, Big Ben (to watch the restoration), Albion Hospital… they were all places that held significance in their relationship. She even bought the combo ticket for the London Eye and Madame Tussaud's, joking that the waxen figures reminded her of Autons.

With each outing, he grew more confident that she was trying to tell him, in her own way, that she knew he was still the same man. It was hard to believe a human could adjust so quickly to the strangeness of regeneration, but she seemed to be doing everything she could to tell him she had.

And if she'd wanted him before, then maybe… The small ember of hope had fanned into flamed, but he still needed something more, some definite sign that she not only saw him, but that she wanted their relationship to change.

After three days of domestic adventures, the Doctor found Rose in the galley flipping through Lonely Planet's London guide. "I think I'm tired of the tourist stuff," she said, tossing the book down on the table.

"Back to the stars then?" he suggested, surprised to find he was a little disappointed.

"No," Rose said. "You promised through the New Year, and it's only the 30th."

"All right then, where to Rose Tyler?"

She looked sideways at him, and his stomach tied in knots. What is she planning?

"I was wondering..." she said slowly, drawing the words out teasingly. "Does the world end if the Doctor ice skates?"

Her words turned his world upside down. "I don't think so," he said, striving to match her casual tone. "In fact, Rose Tyler, I've got the moves—but I wouldn't want to boast."

Rose grinned, and the Doctor thought he saw something like relief in her eyes—relief that he'd picked up her cue and run with it? If Rose had the courage to get us this far, I can take the next step.

After a quick stop in the wardrobe room for coats and skates—"Scott Hamilton gave me these skates, Rose!"—they caught the Tube toward Hampstead Heath and their outdoor rink.

Rose had her skates tied before the Doctor'd worked the knots out of his laces. He watched surreptitiously as she took a quick spin around the rink while he got his skates on, returning to the bench when he stood and cautiously made his way toward the ice.

He stood on the ice for a moment, watching her uncertainly. Ice skating seemed like a romantic activity—there was an entire writing trope dedicated to it—but it was something you could do with friends too. Maybe I misread her.

Before he could backtrack or make a lighthearted comment to ease the tension, Rose held out a hand and raised an eyebrow. "You've got the moves? Show me your moves."

The familiar words froze him in place. He'd thought, before, well she'd barely accepted he was actually a man. Those words and her tone had seemed challenging, rather than flirtatious. But the next night on Cetera, she'd give him in a clear non-verbal sign that she wanted him to kiss her, and had confirmed that's what she meant.

He slid forward and took her right hand firmly in his left, then stood there staring at her a minute, trying to find the words to tell her… whatever it was she needed hear.

Apparently he wasn't fast enough, because Rose rolled her eyes theatrically and said, "you'll find your feet at the end of your legs. You may wish to move them."

The words galvanised the Doctor into action. Grasping her hand firmly, he pushed off with his right skate and propelled them backward, putting his right hand on her waist to hold her steady. "I believe, Miss Tyler, I told you I have moves. Are you prepared to see them?"

Rose's cheeks were pink, and he didn't think it was just because of the chill wind. His confidence grew and he smiled at her cockily, prepared to twirl her around the rink a few times to show off his moves (and maybe take advantage of an excuse to hold her in his arms) while he gathered the final bit of courage necessary to show her his Moves.

The nascent plan forming in the back of his mind was completely derailed when another skater whipped around the corner behind them and nearly knocked Rose and the doctor down. The Doctor flailed, his skates going in opposite directions. In front of him, Rose spun around wildly and he barely caught her by the armpits before she hit the ice.

He lifted her back up to her feet, nearly falling again in the process. Giggling madly, Rose grabbed his hand and pulled herself back around to face him.

The Doctor would be thankful to the laws of physics for the rest of his life for what happened next. Rose's feet slid on the ice, scrambling for purchase on the slick surface. He grabbed her around the waist, hoping that by some miracle he could hold her upright, or that at the very least he would land on bottom if they went down.

Instead, her footing stabilised and she let out a deep breath. He started to move his hand from her waist back to her hand, but then her feet slid forward again. Thanks to the hold he had on her, the motion pulled him toward her, and suddenly he was holding Rose Tyler flush against his body.

The Doctor opened his mouth to apologise, but then he took in the changes in her—the rapid pulse, dilated eyes, quickened breathing—and on instinct, started to lean forward.

Rose looked up at him through her eyelashes. "Why Doctor, are you… leaning?" she asked, a little breathlessly he thought.

Those words finally erased the last doubts from his mind. "Yes," he said, and then kissed her.