As I am a professional writer and have work to do to get paid, I have decided to deal with these thudding plot bunnies in the traditional manner - I will inflict them on others. Please see my Profile for the Challenges of the Month. June Challenges will be available as of June 3rd, but feel free to tackle May's if you'd rather. The new set will run through the end of June. Please let me know when you respond to a Challenge so I can read and review.

I was bored today and actually did a response to one of my own challenges. Just a silly one shot for June Challenge 2. I'll let you decide who "the girl" is to you. Otherwise, I think I managed to get everything.

Kissing Candies

Romana was annoyed. At the other side of the table, the Doctor was sulking, at least in her opinion. It had been a very simple request, she couldn't understand why he was so distressed about it. Come back to Gallifrey and teach one class. That was all she'd asked. One class, one Rassilon standard month.

You'd think, from the petulant way the dark little man was behaving, that she'd asked him to take a seat on the High Council for the rest of his regenerations. Most Time Lords of his age would have been enormously proud to accept that sort of appointment, but the Doctor was the Doctor, so such a request would have been akin to insisting he allow her to nail him to the ground.

"Excuse me," said a polite, Earth English voice, interrupting her musing, "is that yours?"

Romana looked up and blinked in surprise at the small, grinning woman who was gesturing at the Doctor while she asked her impertinent question. Romana sighed. "I wouldn't have him for a gift," she said.

"Good," said the girl. Then, she walked over, stole the Doctor's hat, and put it on her own head.

"What do you want now?" asked the Doctor, then realized the girl was someone different. "Hello, who are you, then?"

"A friend," she said, her eyes huge and bright.

The Doctor nodded. "It's not often I'm greeted by friends I don't recognize." He trilled those 'r's as he talked and Romana rolled her eyes. Even she knew what was going on, and the Doctor had more than 500 years on her. How could he be so brilliant and so dangerous and yet so utterly naive? "How did you find me?"

The girl smiled, and her smile was mischief and fondness all at once. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are ever dreamt of in your philosophy," she said, her voice rather dreamy and distant.

Then, while Romana watched in horror and undisguised fascination, the girl sat herself down in the Doctor's lap. He blinked those terrifying eyes at her, looking completely nonplussed. She laughed, a merry, fairy bell twinkle and then, there was really no other description for it, she snogged the hell out of him.

A man laughed uproariously. Romana glanced in his direction and he smiled at her, a broad, charming, flirtatious smile that made her feel quite a lot more like a school-girl than a Lord President of the Time Lords. "Sorry about that," he said. "My friend has the cooties."

"Cooties?" she demanded, wondering if the Universe had always been this weird and she hadn't noticed or if it had gone mad because she had done something impossible this morning, in this instance catching up to the Doctor when he didn't want to be found. "I thought cooties were a disease that kept Earth children separated by gender."

The man took the seat next to her and smirked gleefully. "Maybe this is what happens when adults get it?" he suggested.

"You're mad," she explained, then looked warily at the Doctor. He was still busy... good grief, she thought humans had to breathe. "You're all mad," she added.

"Very dreadfully mad," the man agreed and held out a hand. "Captain Jack Harkness," he said.

The girl in the Doctor's lap came up for air long enough to say, "Stop it," to Romana's new table mate. Then she threaded her hands through the Doctor's dark, shiny curls, wriggled herself around to get more comfortable, and went back to her interrupted... erm... conversation.

"What is this about?" Romana asked suspiciously. "She's here to distract the Doctor and you're here to kidnap me?"

Captain Jack shrugged. "If you like. Then, you can kidnap me." His green eyes twinkled with delicious invitation. "I have handcuffs," he offered, in a low, suggestive drawl.

Romana just stared at him. "What are you?" she asked finally, noting that the Captain was extremely strange, his time lines folded in on themselves at least six different ways.

He reached over and tilted her head into the light with a touch that sent shivers of something unidentifiable racing down her spine. "Justified and ancient," he said. "And you're beautiful and lonely."

She had never been this disarmed in her lives. This man, this gorgeous, arrogant, strange alien had, with the touch of his hand and the smile in his eyes, erased ten million years of evolution and brought her down to the human earth of desire and wanting with him. She suddenly knew why the Doctor was still indulging in that bizarre tableau, even though this was all happening in a public restaurant. She was grateful that the place was mostly deserted, really, and that the natives were never fussy about public displays of affection. In fact, they encouraged...

Then, it all stopped, thinking, wondering, annoyance, everything. The man stood over her and kissed her, kissed her like she was air to his drowning. She melted into him, disdain and superiority and even dignity forgotten. He was a consummate professional, no doubt about it. A single soft whimper escaped her when his skillful tongue parted her lips. She sighed and let herself go.

When he pulled away from her, at last, she had to blink and check the time traces around her to make sure the Universe was still there. "There's more where that came from, if you want, sweetheart," he offered, a suggestion of all manner of wonderful wickedness in his open and salacious gaze.

"I..." She cleared her throat to get her voice back to normal. "I should think not," she said stiffly, trying to straighten her clothing. It was honestly a wonder every scrap of fabric hadn't been burned off of her in the heat of his tempting grin.

"Have you tried the candy?" he offered, holding up a bag of the local chocolate.

She snorted delicately. "I know better, thanks."

He started to say something but was stopped when the Doctor's young companion reappeared. Ace gaped at the older Time Lord, eyes absolutely huge, and then a broad, brilliant grin sprang into being on her face. "Whooo, hoo, go Professor!"

The girl attached to his lips started at this and finally, finally broke away from the Doctor to look into his dazed and baffled blue eyes. Romana spared a thought to wonder why the girl hadn't withered into nothing under the intensity of that gaze, but could only assume that she had a weapon of equal potency in her kiss.

"Now do you believe me, about the chocolates?" asked the Captain, not looking at the couple on the other side of the table. His eyes still caressed carelessly along the length of Romana's body and she was beginning to wonder if maybe she couldn't just... no.

"Yes, I believe you," said the girl and then, as if she couldn't resist it at all, she caught the Doctor's lips again.

Romana sighed, exasperated. "So you fed your companion half a box of those chocolates, I suppose?"

The Captain shrugged, his wonderful lips twitching mischievously. "She wouldn't believe me."

"Then why isn't she all over you?"

The Captain smirked, this time. "Fidelity," he said, flippantly. "But you're welcome to be all over me, if you like. Or I'll be all over you."

"You need a cold shower, mate," said Ace.

"Tell be about it," the Captain agreed. There was a piercing beep from his wrist and he looked down, then glowered at it. "Boss calling," he replied to the questioning glances from the women not otherwise occupied. "I think it's time I took her home. Can I come see you later tonight?"

With something that was very probably genuine regret, Romana told him that she would be gone before tonight got here.

"Shame," he replied, cupped her cheek and hair with his large, skillful fingers, and brushed at her ear in a way that made her wonder why Time Lords bothered to ignore such delightful suggestions. He leaned over again and, before she could find it within her to protest (not that it wouldn't have taken her ten years to do) brushed her lips with a kiss that felt like an apology. He then looked over at the couple and let out a piercing wolf whistle.

The Doctor and the girl both started, then glowered at the Captain. Romana thought his long great coat might have started smoldering a little, but that might just have been his own extreme... stop it.

"Well?" asked the girl, still not getting up from the Doctor's lap.

"Fantastic," the Doctor breathed, and lightly brushed a lock of her hair out of her face.

The girl laughed with delight and buried her face in the Time Lord's neck. The Captain shook his head, and pulled something that looked like a tambourine from his pocket. Very gently, he detached the girl from the Doctor's arms, while the Doctor glared at him ferociously, and the girl refused to release the hand tangled in the Doctor's lurid waistcoat. The Captain shrugged, whacked the girl across the back of the head with the instrument, and slung her over his shoulder, all in an unexpected rush of movement that even the Doctor couldn't stop.

When the Doctor rose from his seat, suddenly a towering figure to fill the room even with his very small stature, the Captain sighed. "I have to take her back home. I won't be able to do that if she's paying attention to you. And you, apparently, never learn."

Romana laughed. The Doctor heard her and looked at her with chagrin and dismay. She put her hand over her mouth but couldn't stop the laughing. The Doctor shook himself and pulled the scraps of his dignity back together, straightening and, apparently trying to pretend he had absolutely nothing to do with what just happened.

"What was it?" Ace asked Romana.

"The local chocolate is laced with a bit of an aphrodesiac," the Lord President lectured. "Not enough to compel immediate performance, but certainly enough to tempt. That's why they're called kissing candies."

"Oh. I thought they were like Earth chocolate kisses."

The Captain winced and looked utterly defeated. "No. That's why I offered one to your lovely friend. And she's put me off, and I'm crushed for life."

The Doctor cleared his throat before Romana could start feeling sorry for the strange human. "You should keep your companion under stricter supervision," he declared in firm, commanding tones. "It can't be good for her to go throwing herself at strangers and behaving so... irregularly."

"So you didn't enjoy that at all?" the Captain baited him. "You were just going along with it for her benefit?"

"Well, of course," the Doctor said, indignantly. He straightened his waist coat and then his jacket and pointedly ignored the Captain's teasing smile.

The Captain shook his head with despair, returned the Doctor's hat, and readjusted his burden. "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" he muttered and headed for the door.

Ace stood there and looked at the Doctor, hands on her hips, her eyes dancing. "Professor," she said with wholly faked indignation, "you've got a love bite on your neck. Cover the damn thing up."

Romana looked up at exactly the right instant to see a wonder of the Universe - the Defender of Time was blushing.