That was his jumper.

HIS jumper.

That she was WEARING.

He'd been minding his own business when she'd just breezed into the console room with it on, cheeky as you please.

"That's my jumper," he pointed out.

"Hmm?" asked Rose, looking up from her magazine. "Oh, yeah, it is."

She went back to reading and offered nothing else.

She DIDN'T SAY anything else.

The phrase "that's my jumper" CLEARLY implied that he was looking for an explanation as to why she was wearing it. An implication she either hadn't detected, or was ignoring. The Doctor was betting on the latter, and wanted to know why that was happening, too.

"WHY are you wearing my jumper?" he spelled out.

She looked up again as though she'd forgotten he was there. "Oh. Well, I was puttin' my clothes in to wash, and I hadn't much to wear in the meantime, and I saw this laid out to dry and thought it might do." She smiled. "Looked comfy."

He had his explanation. It wasn't helping.

Rose had sprawled herself on the jumpseat, magazine in her lap. The v-neck of the now-oversized jumper gaped low on her chest, hinting at cleavage. It reached all the way over her curved behind and hips to deposit the hem at the tops of her thighs and from there a pair of jeans took over. She'd pushed one of the sleeves up to her elbow and while the Doctor was fretting a bit about her stretching it out of shape, he was more fixated on the other sleeve that she let fall all the way down her arm to cover her hand so that only the fingers were showing.

It made her look small and dainty and child-like. It made her look cute as bloody hell. She'd been wearing the thing in front of him for maybe two minutes and in that time she'd come to inhabit it as though it was hers by divine right.

And it was causing the Doctor a baffling, worrisome down-low tickle.

The Doctor had heard that Western men on Earth appreciated seeing their women wearing their clothes, but he'd never really been clear on why. Now he was being handed a lesson. From across the room, it felt like he was protecting her. Like she was wrapped in his protection. Like she was wrapped in HIM. Like she'd gone and PURPOSELY WRAPPED HERSELF IN HIM and now the down-low tickle became a throb.

This had to stop.

"I hate to be a git, but I'd prefer you took that off." Well done, he thought. His voice had sounded normal and everything.

Rose looked up at him, considered this, shrugged, and began pulling his jumper over her head. The Doctor's whole system panicked.

"I didn't mean right HERE, I meant—"

But then he forgot what he meant, because the jumper cleared her head despite his objection and Rose was also wearing an undershirt.

HIS undershirt.

The sleeveless vest-type one, with the sides of the armholes much lower than any woman could get away with wearing in public unless she didn't mind showing off her entire bra, which wasn't going to be a problem in Rose's case because she wasn't wearing one.

She wasn't wearing one.

She wasn't WEARING ONE.

As she moved to shake her hair out, to undo the mussing the sweater had just given it, the shirt gave him glimpses of slim ribcage and the sides of softly jiggling breasts. Her nipples were protruding clearly against the thin fabric. The Doctor's breathing jolted into just-ran-a-10K mode, and his brain frantically clutched a passing tangent to shield him from other, more troublesome reactions: why were her nipples hard? She wasn't cold, she'd just been wearing a jumper. Was it the friction of the jumper moving over her nipples as she—okay the "friction on nipples"' tangent wasn't working. At least not to control unwanted reactions. To cause them, it was working a treat.

The undershirt was draped over those nipples and those breasts. Those bare nipples, those bare breasts. Somehow it was like having him draped over her breasts. Now the next time he put on that shirt he'd be thinking about how those bare, bare breasts had been touching the fabric, which by the transitive property meant those breasts would be touching his own chest and he was never washing that shirt again and...gods. Long leather jacket or no, he moved to stand behind the console.

"That's my undershirt," he stammered stupidly.

Rose paused. "You want me to take this off too?"

"NO! I mean—that is—we have an entire wardrobe, Rose, why d'you feel the need to nick my clothes while yours are washing?"

Rose looked disappointed—a bit pouty, even. "You don't like me wearin' your things?"

"It's not that..." Oh god, Rose, it isn't that at all... "It's just that...I mean..."

Hang on a tick...

The Doctor admitted—privately, at least—that one area to which his genius did not extend was women, but even he wasn't so dim he couldn't spot a setup—or at least suspect one—when it was laid on as thick as this.

The realization flooded him with jittery fear and unbearable anticipation. If he was right, that was. If he wasn't he'd probably die—from the feeling of how hard his dick was throbbing, if nothing else.

He was back to nipples. If she planned this, then what if that means her nipples were hard because she made them that way, to add to the effect? It certainly did add to the effect—if that had been her goal, then bra-vo. The thought of her standing in her room, or the laundry room before she'd come out, shirtless and touching her own nipples to make them hard, just to tempt him...the Doctor had to stop his hand as he unconsciously reached for himself at the thought.

He looked at Rose and from her expression realized he'd been silent a long time. "You don't want me wearin' your things," she concluded sullenly.

He wanted to say something, he really did. He wanted to recover from her challenge and volley, give back as good as he got, but she'd broadsided him so thoroughly that it just wasn't happening.

"Well, s'long as I'm givin' things back..."

Rose began to shimmy out of her jeans. The Doctor's mouth fell open helplessly, no words available, and stayed that way as she revealed she was also wearing his briefs. His clingy gray boxer briefs, which fit her like bicycle shorts. If she moved just the right way the front flap was going to gape open and he would get his proof she wasn't a natural blonde. And then he would die.

Another idea occurred; he ceased to breathe. If his clothes on her equated to himself on her...then where he was right now...

"You'll have this stuff back in just a mo'," she all but purred.

She sashayed down the ramp that led to the back of the ship—hips swaying, rear end tempting—till she disappeared through the doorway. A moment later his undershirt flew back through the doorway, uninhabited, to land on the grating about a meter away. The briefs followed almost immediately.

Now he was alone, the Doctor let his breathing gallop openly. His blood raced along with it, keeping pace. Somewhere on his ship Rose was naked.

NAKED.

NOT wearing his jumper.

His control snapped.

Screw fear. Screw propriety and Time Lord restraint. Bollocks to every reason he had ever concocted to say no to this. He had thought himself the most powerful being in the universe, but now he'd experienced being the object of a Tyler woman on a mission, he knew he'd met someone fully capable of besting him. The idea made him tremble.

Running was difficult in his current condition, but he couldn't bear to slow down. He couldn't wait one more second to be the thing rightfully draped over Rose Tyler.