A/N: So earlier I realised, I've done hallowe'en stories, Christmas and even April Fool's, but I'd never done Valentine's. So I thought this basic idea up about 7pm, got on the comp at 9pm and it was done by 11:30pm. Please enjoy!

Canon is pre-series 4.

Parallel Valentine

It was the 12th February 2007, and Rose was working late in Torchwood again.

Her dad had insisted when he'd called her two hours ago not to worry and that she should go home, but she had insisted in return that she had to finish the paperwork else it would be utter carnage on Monday morning. So as a consequence, she was utterly alone in Torchwood at 10pm that night, struggling to concentrate on the forms she was filling out.

At 11pm, she decided to go and get a coffee. She just had a hundred or so forms left to go but she needed a bit of a caffeine boost. She went to the staff room and got an instant coffee from the machine into a dodgy polystyrene cup that had no top, so she slowly and carefully manoeuvred her way back to her office, trying desperately not to spill it.

She finally made it to her desk, put down the coffee and breathed a sigh of relief, kicking back in the chair. Then she noticed... there was a single rose lying on the top of the paperwork that definitely had not been there before.

Frowning slightly, she picked it up. It had a note attached.

'A rose for a Rose x' was all it said.

Her frown deepened. Who could've sent her this? Who was still in the building now? Was it Mickey? Maybe it was that weird-looking guy from the fifth floor who kept 'accidentally' bumping into her in the corridors?

She had utterly no interest in looking for a man, though. Her heart was only with one man, and one man only, and that was never going to change she knew. She put down the rose, picked up a pen and went to continue with her paperwork.

But to her complete surprise, she found every single one had been filled out in her absence.

A day later on February the 13th, and Rose was in the living room with her parents in the mansion watching the parallel version of Harry's Hill's TV Burp – Harry Hall's TV Fart. She was feeling a little miserable, in all honesty. It was Valentine's Day tomorrow. She'd always had someone to give her something, Mickey had never forgot and the Doctor had treated her extra specially the two times Valentine's Day had occurred in linear time in the TARDIS. She had always goaded him about that, laughing and joking that he was her Valentine and making him turn as red as the boxes of presents that he gave her.

She really, really missed him.

She bidded good night to her parents very early, wanting to take a bath before bed. She got to her room and grabbed a towel from the pile, making into the bathroom. She wasn't really paying attention as she reached for the tap, so much so when she realised the water was already pouring into water she jumped in alarm.

The bath was already filled to the perfect temperature, scatted with rose petals and mixed with scented oils, the bottles that had been used placed strategically on the rim of the tub next to a radio that was extremely new. Her pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers were folded and pressed and placed on the side, ready to be used.

She looked around the bathroom in alarm, but there was no one there. This was just getting a bit freaky, now. Someone had managed to get into her bedroom, her bathroom...

Oh well, she thought. She'd have a bath before she worried about that.

As she had suspected, on Valentine's Day she got a cliché card from the floor five guy who somehow thought buying a joke Valentine's card saying, 'You're not a great catch but you'll do!' to give to the woman he had a crush on was the way he would be able to get laid. She had wondered for a brief moment whether he might be the one with the rose and the bath... But very quickly decided that would've been far too romantically strenuous for him when he offered her a half-eaten Mars bars at lunch break through a mouthful of caramel that sprayed into her face when he talked.

Her Mum had given her Valentine's Day card too, which was sweet of her and it really did help that she had enclosed a £10 note and written, 'Go and find yourself something very chocolaty. Mum x' in the card. So after work she dropped into Tescos and got a few things to munch on that night.

She still had no idea who had given her the rose and done the bath, though. Mickey was still working overseas as a field operative with Jake, so there was no chance it was either of them. It was truly a mystery, and as a result she couldn't help but wonder if this secret admirer was going to do anything for her tonight. She really hoped so. Not that anything would come of it, but she really did need a bit of love right now. For a fleeting moment she had wondered whether it could be the Doctor... But then she quickly realised that was impossible and she had drifted into fantasy land.

Soon it was 11pm, and nothing had happened. Her Mum and Dad had gone to bed hours ago in a whirl of teenage giggles and kisses. They'd spent Valentine's Day together how it should be done, and were probably going to spend the night in the normal way too while Rose would be alone.

She did feel a little disheartened that her secret admirer hadn't come back for the day that really mattered, but at least she had something. So she counted her blessings, packing up all of her sweets and other fattening things, put them in the cupboard and headed to bed.

But to her complete surprise, when she got there, there was a sign taped to the door.

'Please knock'it said.

She completely ignored the instruction, and opened the door...

"Petal angel!" the Doctor yelled happily, lying back on her bed in his brown suit with his legs and arms moving up and down, gleefully making a rose petal angel in the millions scattered onto the bed.

"Doctor?" she practically shrieked.

"Rose!" he realised, jolting up and staring at her with wide eyes. "I told you to knock!"

"What are you... I mean..." she was stumbling over her words, utterly stumped for vocabulary. "You're... I mean... You're..."

"Yes?" the Doctor wondered, grinning.

She dropped her jumper and stepped forward towards the bed, her eyes wide as she reached out to his chest...

And her hand hit his solid form, feeling his two hearts beating away in his chest.

"Oh god, you're real," she croaked. "How... How are you real?"

"Well I'm in the TARDIS at the moment actually, in a trance on my bed. I'm burning up a sun at double the strength of last time so I could project myself to be solid through a slight tiny slither of a gap that opened up. I've got about two celestial hours until I fade, which will be around 7am tomorrow morning." He indicated some kind of watch strapped around his wrist showing some alien symbols.

"A sun?" Rose asked seriously. "You're not destroyin' a galaxy just for me, are you?"

"Oh, no one'll miss it," the Doctor assured her. "I managed a few test runs earlier..."

"You left me the rose and the bath?" Rose realised.

He nodded, suddenly looking a little embarassed. "Um, yeah. Oh, and these are for you too." He reached behind him and brought out a bottle of champagne and a box of chocolate.

She stared at him for a moment. Her hand was still on his chest. When she didn't take them he just shrugged and put them back on the covers, then turned to look up at her again. Then suddenly she launched forward and hugged him as tightly as she could, unable to stop the tears of joy from rolling down her cheeks.

He just laughed and held her tightly in return as they embraced each other for a good while until he drew back, and saw her crying for the first time.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong? Am I that disappointing?" he wondered, grinning.

"No, no, everything's perfect," she told him seriously, smiling through her tears of joy. "I'm just... I'm so glad you're here."

"I aim to please," he told her, still with that beautiful grin.

She laughed, and then with absolutely no thought process in her brain whatsoever, she leant forward and kissed him deeply on the lips.

It took her a few seconds to realise what she was doing. She suddenly jumped back as though his lips were on fire, staring at him with utter shock, horror and just pure embarrassment.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said quickly, scrambling to her feet. "I just did that accidentally, I didn't think..."

He smiled gently and caught her arm before she could run away. "Don't apologise," he told her. "Because I didn't try to stop you."

She stared at him, the wind utterly knocked out of her. "What?"

"How about we get open that champagne, nom a few chocolates and see where the night goes?" the Doctor suggested helpfully.

"Wait..." Rose began, staring at him. "Are you suggestin'...?"

"I'm just prodding you in the right direction here," the Doctor told her, laughing.

"Wait... What's goin' on here?" she asked seriously.

"Look, Rose..." the Doctor began, getting to his feet in front of her and cupping her cheeks in both hands. "I'm not very good at this kind of thing but I'm going to give it a crack. You being here in this parallel world was not what I thought we'd end up like at all, but it's been good in that I've had a chance to think, to plan what I was going to say to you when I saw you again. I spent a long time just lying on your bed in the TARDIS staring at the ceiling, and I reached a conclusion. I love you. I have always loved you. And I know it's ridiculous. I'm a 900-year-old alien and you're a 20-year-old woman and frankly it's even worse than Catherine Zeta-Jones' situation but somehow that doesn't even matter. Maybe I can't definitely promise you that we'll ever be together again but I am going to try absolutely everything I can, if you'll try too. I promise one day one of us will solve it, and this is going to be a part of that promise..."

He suddenly dug into his inside jacket pocket, and pull out a small felt box. Rose saw it coming before it happened, her heart suddenly beating so hard and so fast she thought it might burst out of her chest. He dropped to one knee in front of her, held up the box and opened it to reveal an absolutely beautiful and glorious shining diamond ring inside.

"I think this is how it goes," he began, struggling not to laugh at the expression on her face. "Rose Tyler, will you marry me?"

"Oh god yes!" she burst out, yanking the ring from the box and sliding it onto her finger. It fitted perfectly. He got to his feet and laughed happily before they met in a huge hug and a loving kiss, never letting go.

"I'll marry you when we're back in the same world," he told her seriously. "It will happen."

"I believe you," she told him, head buried in his shoulder. "I miss you so much."

"I know, I miss you too," the Doctor said gently, brushing away her hair from her eyes. "Now let's open that champagne."

The time was 6:57am, and the Doctor and Rose hadn't slept. Neither of them were tired. They were in Rose's double bed, snuggled up together with their clothes on the floor, Rose's head resting on his chest so she could hear his dual hearts beating as he had his arm around her shoulders, holding her close. The champagne bottle was now lying sideways on the floor with two empty glasses on the beside tables, the box of chocolates upside-down on the covers. They'd been with each other all night, never more than a metre away, telling each other about what had happened since they'd saw each other last and breaking up the conversations with a little exercise in-between. As the clock ticked ever closer to 7 o'clock, Rose was holding onto him tighter than ever.

"I've met Shakespeare," the Doctor told her. "Discovered the lost play."

"And this was with Martha, yeah?" Rose asked.

He nodded. "Did I tell you she had a crush on me?"

"You're property of me, now," she told him, laughing. "She can get her hands off."

The Doctor smiled gently, turning to kiss her forehead before he checked his alien watch. "Two minutes."

"Will you come back?" she asked anxiously.

"Eventually," he told her. "If I can find the right type of sun and a tear in close proximity... I was extremely lucky this time. Can't see that happening for a little while, but I'll never stop looking. I promise."

"I'm gonna try and get the dimension cannon working," Rose told him. "Maybe I can get back through... Though, you know on Krop Tor, when I asked about black holes being gateways and you said 'not that one'? Will looking for good black holes work? I mean, if the techies can get somethin' made for me?"

He paused to consider that for a moment. "Don't try and go through it. Call me if you find a good one when you're in close proximity, I should be able to receive it and I'll analyse it to see if it's safe. I'll look too." He turned his head to gaze at her seriously. "I'll find you again, one day. That's my promise. Even if it takes a hundred years."

"How about two hundred years?" Rose asked cheekily, tongue between her teeth.

"Ah, stretching it a bit," he supposed with a shrug, and then grinned stupidly before raising his alien watch again. "One minute."

She snuggled closer to him, kissing him again. He held onto her tighter. He'd never felt more comfortable in his life. They fitted together absolutely perfectly.

He checked his watch after a moment. "Twenty seconds. I suppose it's good bye..."

"No, it's not," Rose said instantly. "It's not a good bye."

"Fine," the Doctor said, still grinning. "It's a see you later. I'll see you later."

"See you later."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"Ten seconds," he announced.

She reached up and began to kiss him gently, her eyes closed. He kissed in return... and then suddenly she probably looked very silly as she was kissing thin air.

She opened her eyes. He was gone. Faded away. She felt like she should cry, but she really wasn't going to. She simply turned over onto her back, raising her hand in the air to look at her brand new ring.

She was engaged, and when she was back in his world they were going to get married. She had no idea when, no idea how, it could be one day or 100 years for all she knew, but she had something to look forward to now. Something in the future. Something so glorious.

She grinned, drawing close a teddy bear and closing her eyes, dropping off to sleep instantly.

The End