About a year ago, Caedmonfaith began writing a fic based on a prompts I gave her. This is my incredibly silly way of saying thank-you.

Special thanks to Moirana for the quick beta work!

Twelve out of Ten

"Okay," Rose giggled, taking a quick swig from her glass. "Next question!"

The Doctor pouted. "What? Noooo…" he groaned, voice pitching up into a near wail. "That's enough. This game should end. I think it can end." He leveled her a look of great dignity and importance as he reached up to adjust the red paper cup he'd been balancing on his head for hours ("Look, Rose! It's a fez!" "Of course it is, Doctor. 'S very nice.") only to misjudge the length of his arm, knocking the cup clean off his head and into the bowl of punch instead.

Rose exploded into another round of uncontrolled laughter.

The Doctor didn't know who deserved the most of his wounded pride – Rose or the cup.

Jack pulled a new card from the small pile in front of him. "Right! Right! Shhhhh," he managed in between his own laugh. "No giggling. This is a serious quiz!"

"Yes, important!" Rose nodded, filling up her glass with a slightly unsteady hand. "Very important."

"You're only saying that because Jack keeps giving you the points!"

"That's 'cause I keep being right!"

Jack tutted. "C'mon, kids! No fighting." He paused. "Not unless it involves naked wrestling."

"Harkness!" the Doctor groaned.

"Oh, sorry," he replied, not sounding at all sorry. "Did I say that one out loud?"

Rose waved her hand, and the Doctor had to duck in order not to have his eye poked out by her pencil. "Just give us the question."

Jack nodded, clearing his throat. "'Name one person—"

"Ha! That I can do!" the Doctor crowed.

"Ahem. 'Name one person your significant other has found attractive during your time together and the reason why they found them so'."

The Doctor flushed. "That's not fair! I want a different set of questions – these are obviously rigged."

"Got it!" Rose exclaimed, tongue sneaking out between her teeth as she grinned.

"Not fair!" the Doctor moaned again.

Jack gripped the small slip of paper she'd thrust into his face. "'Reinette Poisson'? Really Doctor? The mistress of Louis XV?"

Rose nodded. "She was blonde." She leaned forward with the gravitas of a spy attempting to deliver a secret message. A very drunken spy, but a spy all the same. "He has a type – always had a thing for blondes."

"I do not!"

"Reinette, Lynda-with-a-y, Astrid, an' don't think I didn't notice that thick-Lucy was blonde too."

Jack blinked. "'Thick-Lucy'?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Oh!" Another thought seemed to struck her, and Rose beamed. "And me! I'm blonde!"

The Doctor nodded. "You do. But you're the only 'type' I have, Rose Tyler."

Her hand reached up to stroke his bowtie in a slow caress. "Really?"

"In all my years travelling through time and space, I never met anyone else who could compare."

"Oh! This is better than my soaps."

"Harkness!"

"Sorry." Jack cleared his throat. "Well, I guess that's zero points for Rose this round. What's your answer then, Doctor?"

He frowned, glancing down at the woman resting her head on his shoulder. "Adam? I'm pretty certain you had a crush on him."

"You weren't together then, Doctor."

He shrugged. "I was pretty much Rose's since she took my hand and told me we would fight together against the Gelth. We might not have been together officially, but I was hers."

"Oh!" Rose whimpered, eyes soft.

"Fine. You might get a point for that one," Jack said, "if you can tell me why she found him attractive."

The Doctor hummed. "He was…a bit pretty, I guess. And he had those sideburns. She always had a thing for sideburns."

"What?" Rose squeaked. "I liked him because he reminded me of you – all clever and tryin' to be impressive. 'Sideburns'? Really, Doctor? Where'd you get that stupid idea from?"

"Mickey had them too!"

"Pretty with sideburns!" Jack howled, his laughter coming out in such violet bursts he could barely breathe. "You! Pretty! With sideburns!"

The Doctor scowled as his hair fell into his eyes, giving him the intimidating air of a pouty five-year-old. "What's so funny with that?"

Jack managed several deep breaths, calming himself enough to be able to splutter out a full sentence. "'Pretty with sideburns'? Your last regeneration fit that description to a 't'. You can't tell me that was a coincidence now."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." That was his story and he was sticking to it, and if his cheeks were close to spontaneously combust, then that was his business.

Rose gaped up at him and he couldn't help but notice how incredibly wide her eyes were. "Did you really…?"

"What?"

She paused, glancing at the point sheet where Jack had been moving to add another point to his tally. "Noooooo. No points for him! He got it wrong!"

"Well, he sort of had a point with Adam, didn't he?"

"Not really. I never really found him attractive. Not like-" She flushed, biting her lip.

Jack lit up. "Oh, no, no, no. You've got to tell me now! There was someone, wasn't there?"

The Doctor, with all the subtleness of a drunken giraffe, leaned forward.

"We were in Pompeii, yeah? An we met this man during the adventure. It was nothing improper, or anythin' – he had a wife and kids and everythin'. But I couldn't help but notice that he was fit, all right? Like, properly fit. A silver fox."

The Doctor gaped. "You had a crush on Caecilius?!"

Rose rolled her eyes. "'Course not, you silly man." She grinned. "But he was a bit easy on the eyes."

Centuries and a regeneration later, Rose was trailing her finger over her husband's new face.

It was a face she could not help but find remarkably attractive, beautifully lined and with thick silver locks to frame it.

It was also oddly familiar.

She couldn't help but feel as though she'd seen that face before.

"Do you like it?"

"Of course I do. It's you."

The Doctor grinned, and Rose could feel her stomach flip at the mere sight of it. Oh, this face was going to be a killer for her resolve. "Yes, but do you like it?"

"Yeah," she whispered, her tongue thick in her mouth. "Yeah."

His grin widened, eyes crinkling and oh she was lost. "Good," he replied. "I chose it just for you."

Fin