"It's bloody beautiful," Rose said, unable to hide her smile. Living on Earth, she'd always dreamed of visiting the tropics, but had never gotten the chance: the cat needed an operation, the price of tickets to Bermuda had increased by seventy-five percent.

Staring out at the Hephaean beach, however, more than made up for a lifetime of not visiting Bermuda. The smooth, cloudless, sky seemed to go on forever, ("a quirk of the planet's curvature," he'd explained,) and thousands of tiny shells in vibrant, gemlike colors made up the sand under her feet. As for the incredibly clear water, Rose couldn't wait to dive into it.

"I thought you'd think so," the Doctor responded with a grin as he emerged from the Tardis.

Rose looked him up and down. "Doctor, you're not colorblind, are you?"

He shook his head, bare toes wiggling atop the shimmering sand. "No, why?"

"Because you're wearing a green and red Hawaiian-print shirt with blue and pink swim trunks," she replied, stifling a laugh.

The Doctor looked down at his outfit. "Yes, and? I rather like it."

Rose chuckled. He looked ridiculous and adorable at the same time. "In that case, then, so do I."

They stayed on the beach all day: making sandcastles, jumping over waves, and flagging down the iced-sweet vendor every time he passed by. (The iced-sweets came in little paper cups and turned one's tongue unexpected shades of purple or maroon, no matter the shade of the treat itself; Rose's favorite was a pale green variety that tasted like strawberries and cantaloupe.)

"I once visited a planet where the royal family's palace looked exactly like this," he'd said of a particularly ornate sandcastle, "only with more dribbly bits-" and he'd scooped up a handful of watery sand to show her, humming as he concentrated on getting a tower just right.

He launched into an exaggerated tirade when a wave splashed him unexpectedly, but taught her how to swim the backstroke once he'd gotten used to the water's coolness. At the day's end, when the sun slipped towards the water, turning the sky a brilliant orange streaked with gold, Rose burrowed into the warm sand. She sighed with pleasure; this was better than a spa! Something cool moved across her forehead.

"Don't move, you'll smudge it," the Doctor murmured. On a whim, he'd decided to doodle on her forehead with water.

Rose tried to identify the refreshing characters sweeping across her skin, but she didn't even recognize the script.

"High Gallifreyan," he explained cheerfully, as if reading her thoughts. "And then we'll go to dinner at the hotel- they do a lovely agrathia. It's sort of like fish and chips, but they use these enormous mussels instead of the fish, and the chips are made of a different type of fish, like a purple version of tilapia, deep-fried with herbs on- and then we can go dancing, or shopping for souvenirs, or-"

Rose smiled as she listened to him describe the many fascinating ways that they could spend their weekend off from saving the multiverse. Despite the excitement in his tone, his fingers traced over her skin with serene gentleness. I could almost pretend that he, you know… loves me, she thought.

The Doctor ended the word he'd been tracing with a spiral over her shoulder, his fingertips straying deliciously close to the edge of her breast. She moaned.

He broke the contact, his hand hovering just above her skin. "You don't have a sunburn, do you?

"Course not. I just…" Want you to shag the hell out of me, but I'm not going to say anything because it would be as awkward as hell if you felt differently. "…never mind. Let's go get alien fish and chips."

They did, after which they split a mint chocolate meringue cooled to the ideal temperature and consistency, then browsed an outdoor market under breathtakingly bright stars. The day felt positively unreal, Rose thought, curling up in one of the hotel room's soft beds. Across the room, the Doctor snored at the edge of hearing. It felt so odd to have a perfect experience without some dangerous event spoiling it. The rest of the weekend couldn't turn out so wonderfully, it just couldn't- no, don't be so pessimistic, Rose, she told herself.

As it turned out, though, she was right.