Rose walked out of the shop feeling a little perplexed and oddly annoyed, but shook off the feelings quickly. Coffee, that's what she needed. And then she needed to figure out what in the world she was doing with her life.

But for now, coffee was a good goal.

A bright, chipper voice greeted her as she entered the cozy coffee shop next door to the surly bookseller's. "Hello!

"Um, hi," Rose answered, staring up at the brightly-coloured chalk writing that listed the drinks above the counter and feeling overwhelmed again. The coffee shop in Powell had four flavours and two of them were tea.

"Are you new here?" the red-head at the counter asked, leaning forward to eye her up.

"Yep," Rose answered, drawing her eyes off the board to the woman speaking to her. "Just got off the train this morning," she continued, gesturing to the duffel bag at her feet.

"University student?" the woman asked and when Rose shook her head, she tried again. "Just passing through, then?"

"I'm not really sure yet," Rose replied, shifting on her feet. "I just sort of...ended up here. Went to the bookshop, talked to the grumpy guy and then walked in here."

"Ooo! You got Pulled here!" she squealed, clapping her hands together and Rose's face went pale. "How romantic! Have you found him yet? Oh, this is so exciting!"

"I, I don't -" She hadn't even thought about that. She'd just gotten on that train because it had been the next one to arrive and then gotten off here because she'd been bored and hungry. Was her Pull why she was here? It hadn't felt anything like her mum had said it would...there hadn't been any obnoxious prodding in her mind, no bright neon arrow, like Keisha'd said she'd had. Was this it? Was she here to find her Match? Oh, no, no, no, she wasn't prepared for that at all.

"Amy, stop terrorizing the poor girl and let her order her coffee," came a cool, kind voice from the man looking out at them through the kitchen pass. He gave Rose an apologetic smile and then went back to his preparations.

"Sorry, sorry," Amy, apparently, said. "What would you li - oh, are you feeling ok?"

"I don't think so," Rose replied and then she promptly passed out.

-

She woke up a few moments later to a pair of bright blue eyes centimeters from her own. Rose gasped and scooted back from the man in front of her, recoiling on instinct. He sat back on his haunches, and held his hands up in front of him, the position familiar, laughter crinkling the corners of his eyes. "We meet again," the man from the bookshop said and Rose was surprised at how much the small smile on his lips seemed to make him look younger, happier.

"What happened?" she asked, looking around. She was sitting with her back against the coffeeshop counter and her head was throbbing.

"You passed out!" chirped a voice above her, the same voice that had been speaking to her immediately before she'd lost consciousness. "And you banged your head on the way down, so I ran over to get John to take a look at you."

John offered her a hand up, his large, black gloves engulfing her small blue ones, and pulled her to her feet. "It's just a small cut and it'll probably bruise," he said, once she was upright. "But you don't need stitches and I'm pretty sure you don't have a concussion."

"You a doctor?" Rose inquired, raising an eyebrow at him and putting her hands on her hips.

"Something like that," he answered, raising an eyebrow right back and crossing his arms over his chest.

"So, what'll it be?" Amy asked, breaking their odd stare-down. "On the house, since our counter tried to brain you," she added with a grin.

"D'you have anything that shouts 'I just got off a train in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea what I'm doing with my life, and I just passed out in front of a bunch of strangers'?" Rose asked, weakly, with a small chuckle.

"Caramel mocha with extra whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles," Amy replied instantly, smiling at her. "John, you dunce, c'mon, help her over to a chair."

He rolled his eyes, but picked up Rose's bag for her and deposited it next to a chair at the closest table. "I'm not an invalid," Rose mumbled.

"Eh, it's just easier to do what she says," John replied with a smile and, to both of their surprise, a wink. He shifted awkwardly for a moment and then, though he seemed to fight it, sat down in the chair across from hers. "Feeling better?"

"Just embarrassed," Rose replied. "And still a bit lost. I've never done this whole 'go off on your own and experience life' thing. Guess I don't quite know where to start."

"I'd start with where I was sleeping tonight," John said, catching Amy's eye and silently ordering his usual.

"Oh," Rose answered, frowning again. "See, I hadn't even thought of that. Are there any hotels near here?"

John was just about to respond when Amy breezed up with their drinks. "Rory and I were thinking about renting out our spare bedroom, actually. It's got its own loo and we're hardly ever there during the day," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "How about that?"

"R-really?" Rose stuttered. "You'd let me rent your spare room just...just like that? You don't even know me! You don't even know my name or where I'm from or how long I'm staying!"

Amy shrugged and then smiled. "Amy Williams. What's your name?"

"Rose Tyler," she responded.

"There. Now we know one another. You want the room or not?"

"Um, ok," Rose responded, feeling better having made at least one decision today on purpose.

"Good!" Amy answered before turning back to the counter to start taking the orders of the other customers now filing into the shop. "Rory!" she yelled and the man in the kitchen poked his head out again. "I rented out the room!" He gave her a silent thumbs up and then smiled fondly, shaking his head, as she turned away.

Rose turned back to the quiet man sitting across from her, studying his paper cup as though it held all the secrets of the world. "Well, that worked out pretty well. What's your next advice, Doctor?"

He blinked at the nickname and then smiled broadly and, once more, Rose was entranced with the way the expression changed his whole face. He was good-looking, she decided. Not in a conventional way and not in a way she'd ever imagined she'd find attractive but he was, nevertheless. His arresting features all worked together to create a ruggedly handsome, austere man with the most gorgeous eyes she'd ever seen. And she appreciated the way that jumper of his clung to his torso, showing off a lean, muscled form under that leather jacket. She wanted to crawl into his gaze and reveal all of his tightly-held secrets and her mother had always joked she couldn't be trusted around older men. (She'd had a crush on the sixth form maths teacher when she'd only been five and Errol Flynn when she'd been seven.)

"Well, if you're going to stay, you'll need something to keep you occupied during the day. Classes or a job or a hobby or something," he replied, taking a pull from his black coffee and watching her with interest. She was turning out to be far more fascinating than he'd thought and, if she was going to be staying with Amy and Rory, he'd be seeing her a lot more anyway.

"Hmm," Rose thought. "Well, I'm not ready to start taking classes and I'd rather not burn through my savings just yet, so a job it is, I suppose. Any ideas on one of those?"

"You could work for me," John replied, quickly, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he'd even processed them.

Rose quirked that eyebrow at him again. "Really?"

He shifted in his seat and shrugged, trying not to look at his reasons too hard. "My last assistant just took off and I need someone to help me get the shop in order before the term begins. You any good with numbers?"

Rose nodded and then smiled. "Wow. A place to stay, a job, a free cup of coffee, a new book and some new friends. Maybe I'm good at this after all!"

Drawing out his wallet, John left a few bills on the table and stood up. "Just come on over to the shop when you're done with your coffee and I'll show you around. I'm sure Amy and Rory will take you back to show you around your new room when the shop closes tonight."

"Sounds good!" Rose enthused, with adventure-bright eyes. "And John…" she said, making him turn back to her as he left. "Thanks."

"My pleasure," he answered, nodding and hurrying out, back to his own shop. Oh, this one was going to hurt so much more than it ever had before.

-

Almost six months later, Rose and John had developed such a tight rapport with one another that he wasn't sure how he'd ever run the shop without her. The books were in order, the shelves were far more organized than they'd ever been, he was making far more money than he ever had and the shop was always teeming with patrons. Rose had organized a book club that met at the coffee shop on Thursday evenings, she'd sweet talked Rory into having a poetry slam once a month, and John had never been happier in his entire life.

He'd also never been more anxious, aware that he was living on borrowed moments of stolen time. Rose had told him once that she was twenty-one, almost twenty two now, but they never talked about her Pull or Soul-matching. She'd never asked him about his situation and he'd been too fearful to ask about hers.

He knew it was only a matter of time until she left him, as they all inevitably did, but even that couldn't stop him from falling a little bit more in love with her every time she stumbled into the shop looking sleepy early in the morning or slid the book ladder across the shelves singing Beauty and the Beast songs or heatedly debated with him which one of the TARDIS protagonists was the best. Every time some pretty boy came waltzing into the store or bumped into her at the pub, he held his breath and hoped that today wasn't the day she would break his heart, because it had never been like this before. Nothing had ever been like this before.

-

The afternoon of her twenty-second birthday, Rose was sitting at the kitchen table eating ice cream and listening to Amy chatter about the day. John had given her the day off, promising to take her out for a birthday dinner that night and Rory was manning the afternoon lull in the coffee shop alone so they could have some 'girl time'.

Eyeing Rose slyly over her now-empty bowl of ice cream, Amy casually asked, "So, when are you going to tell him?"

"Hmm?" Rose said, her spoon still in her mouth, brow furrowed.

"John," Amy clarified, impatiently. "When are you going to tell him?"

"When am I going to tell John what?" Rose asked, putting down her spoon.

"That he's your Match, stupid-head," Amy asserted, rolling her eyes. "You've been waiting FOREVER. Seriously, being around the two of you is like sexual tension torture."

"What?" Rose squeaked, her face going nearly as pale as it had been that first day she'd passed out in the coffee shop. "What makes you think he's my Match?"

Amy's eyes widened. "Well, he is, isn't he?"

"I don't know!" she replied, looking panicked. "How should I know? Wait, that's bad isn't it? Shouldn't I know? I should know, right? So if I don't know, it's not him? Amy!"

Amy's mouth dropped open. "Rose, you two are the most sickeningly sweet thing I have ever seen in my whole life and I made you a hot cocoa yesterday with double whipped cream, was stirred with a peppermint stick and had jelly babies on top of it. Don't you feel your Pull around him?"

"I don't know!" Rose shouted, standing up and pacing around the table. "I've thought about it sometimes, of course I have, but it's not like anything that my Mum said it would be or my friends or...And he's been hurt so many times, Amy. I don't want to hurt him again and I don't want to leave him...but I don't know what I'm supposed to feel like and, and, why did you have to bring this up?" She was agitatedly pacing around the table, pulling at her hair and Amy rushed to her side, shepherding her back to the chair.

"Rose, calm down! I can't tell you what it's supposed to feel like; it feels different for everyone. But let's talk it through, ok? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you...it just seems so obvious to all of us, I thought you knew already."

Rose put her head down on the table miserably. "I don't know where to start," she mumbled.

"Well, let's talk about how you got here," Amy said, pragmatically. "Why'd you take that train?"

"It was the first one leaving the station," Rose replied automatically.

"Are you sure that's the only reason?" Amy asked. "No nudges or weird feelings or anything?"

"Nope," Rose answered, shaking her head. "All I could think about was getting on a train and getting away from home."

"Ok, how about when you got off. Why'd you get off here, of all places?"

"Dunno," Rose answered again, frustrated. "I've been through all of this in my head over and over again, Amy. I was just hungry and I was tired of being on the train, so, the next place it stopped, I got off."

"And where did you go once you got here?" Amy prodded.

"To the bookshop," she replied. "But you know that already. I was walking down the main street and it was the only place in town that was open! That's just...just logic, or luck or something. Not anything special. My mum said she had this prodding feeling that made her go into the pub where my dad was. And my friend Keisha said there were these bright arrows in her head that pointed her where to go. There was no prodding, no arrows, just me. Being hungry and cold."

"Still, you ended up in the shop with John. How about when you first met him, any sparks?"

"He sort of snuck up on me. Scared me, he did. But I...I don't know! I want it to be, Amy, I really do, but I just don't know! What if I'm wrong and I touch him and it's just awkward? I'll have to move."

"Tell me about how you feel when you're with him, Rose," Amy tried again, unwilling to give this up. They were meant for one another, she knew it.

"I just...I feel safe," Rose replied, slowly. "I feel warm and happy, like he's the most solid thing in the universe. Like everything around me could change but as long as I still had him, I'd be fine. And right now, even though he's only a few stupid blocks away and I know I'm going to see him in a few hours, I feel like I want to be with him, like I want to see him smile or make him laugh and hold his hand." Amy sniffled suddenly and Rose looked up at her in surprise. "What?"

"Oh, honey," Amy said, laying a hand on Rose's shoulder. "That's your Pull."

"Really?" Rose asked and then, suddenly, all those golden feelings she'd gathered together over the past few months, the comforting warmth of John's presence, the happy glow she felt whenever she was near him, and the underlying tug, pulling her ever toward him, clicked into place. "He's my Match," she breathed, glad she was sitting down already.

"He's your Match," Amy repeated, grinning at her. "Wait, where are you going?" she laughed, as Rose stood up and grabbed her coat from the hook by the door, rushing out.

Rose pulled her glove off her hand and waggled her bare fingers at Amy. "To make up for lost time!" she yelled, grinning.

-

The bell over the door tinkled and John looked up to tell whatever poor sod had just come wandering in that he was just closing up, when Rose came barging in, breathless and a bit disheveled, her right hand in her pocket.

Oh, she was beautiful.

He started around the counter, "Rose, what -"

Rose charged right up to him and, to his immense surprise, she backed him into the wall, and then, in the next moment, she was up on her tip toes and her right hand - her un-gloved, bare right hand, came up to grip the back of his neck at the same time her lips crashed into his.

He had heard stories about what it was like, the first time your Match touched you like that, skin to skin. He'd heard how colours suddenly made sense, how it felt as though every single nerve in your body was tingling with electricity, how the entire universe narrowed to one single pin-prick that you could feel, how mountains moved, how oceans roared, how fates shouted.

Nothing could possibly have done it justice.

His long arms wrapped around Rose's waist, crushing her against him tighter and his mouth glided against hers instinctively, exploring brand new, incredible pathways he'd never even dreamed about correctly. Several long, wet, intense moments later, when somehow both of his gloves (and his jacket) had been discarded and he'd discovered that Rose's hair was just as soft as it had always looked and they were thrillingly horizontal behind the counter, they finally paused for air, grinning at one another stupidly.

"How long have you known?" he breathed, tucking a piece of her wayward hair behind her ear, as he'd so longed to way back when he'd first met her.

"Subconsciously, since the moment we met, I think," Rose replied, running a hand over his cheekbone and then back into his hair, which made him almost purr with happiness. "Consciously...about fifteen minutes."

"Oh," he laughed, happily, blue eyes crinkling with joy. "Well, I'm glad you figured it out."

"Me too," she responded, leaning up to kiss him again. "Amy called me a stupid-head," she added, catching his next laugh against her lips.

"Well, she is usually right," he chuckled and then jumped in surprise as Rose's hand discovered wide, lovely expanse of bare skin under his jumper. "Rose," he tried, as her lips began to trail down his jaw toward his neck. "Rose," he said more insistently, despite the very clever thing she'd just done to his Adam's Apple and the very emphatic thing that was beginning to tingle elsewhere. "Maybe, uh, we should go back to my flat?"

Rose was on her feet quickly, pulling him along with her. "Run?" she asked, breathless and beautiful and his and he didn't care how long he'd waited, he knew in that moment that he would've waited nine hundred years to stand here, hand in hand beside her, ready to take on the world.

"Run, Rose Tyler!"