Author Notes:

A gift for my fellow Fangirl and Secret Santa recipient, LizAnn_5869. I hope you like it, hon. You offered me loads of brilliant suggestions and prompts to work from, and I produced quite a bit for several of them, but none that felt quite right. Then I looked over your prompt list again, under the category "Tropes I Like" and fake dating was right there! I added a dash of coffee shop AU and this was born.

Merry Christmas!

Many thanks, as always, to my wonderful betas, rose_nebula and mrsbertucci. You make me so much better. mrsbertucci is the Empress of Title-Creation: she came to my rescue once again with both the title for this fic and the name of Rose's coffee shop.

The Perfect Blend - Chapter 1

James Noble peered furtively past the swags of garland, fairy lights, and tinsel to the damp, snowy London evening beyond the coffee shop window.

Nothing. No one there.

He blew a shaky breath past his lips. It had been a narrow escape. He was safe for now, but really, it was only a matter of time before she found him.

He was doomed.

Running a hand through his wild, brown hair, he stepped into line and turned his attention to the menu above the counter, skimming over the bewildering selection of beverages with long, complicated titles and eccentric, festive flavours, piled high with whipped creams and syrups. Any other day he would have relished one of the sweet, creamy concoctions.

But today was different.

Today, he wanted to get back to basics.

Today he wanted to get away from drinks for overbearing people with expensive tastes and the need to impress. Today he wanted to take a break from extravagance and pretensions.

He snapped his glasses into place and scanned the menu board, searching in vain for a simple, uncomplicated coffee. It was a bloody coffee shop, for pity's sake! Pete's Coffee Dimension. Surely, they served regular coffee.

"Sir?"

He was dragged from his musings by the query and found himself goggling absently at the cashier in front of him. Somehow, while he hadn't been paying attention, he had ended up at the front of the line.

"I asked you what you would like to order…" She was watching him with slightly narrowed eyes, one dark brow tilted in an impatient arch. Even the tip of her blonde ponytail seemed to twitch impatiently. "If you need a little more time–" She glanced over his shoulder at the line of people behind him.

"No! No, no, no, no! That's fine. I'd like, erm…" His hand ruffled his hair again and his left foot jittered against the floor, as he glanced over his shoulder, out the shop window again and then back up at the menu board.

"Blimey, you all right there, mate?" The hint of a bemused smile curved the cashier's full lips. "You don't look like you should really have any more coffee…"

"No, quite right… Nor sugar." He snorted a strangled laugh and shook his head. "I erm… I just want–"

"A cuppa?"

His eyes widened in surprise. "Is that possible? I mean…" He gestured vaguely at the menu.

"Course! How about something light and simple. Darjeeling, perhaps?"

He felt the tension within him ease a little at the thought of a hot cup of tea. "Erm… yeah. Brilliant… With a splash of milk, if you don't mind."

"Sure thing. China or paper?"

"Erm…"

"Never mind. China it is. And your name for the order, please."

"Erm… The Doctor."

"The Doctor, hmmm? Interesting…" She quirked her brow again, but this time her brown eyes sparkled warmly at him. "Go on, then, Doctor. You take a seat over there," she nodded to a small, free table by the window, "and I'll bring your tea over once it's steeped, yeah?"

"How much do I owe you?"

"It's on me, mate," she offered with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Really? Oh... weeell, thank-you." Before heading to his table, he dug in the pocket of his coat and pulled out a large assortment of coins which he stuffed into the tip jar sitting by the cash register.

"Clara? Could you take over here for a bit, please," Rose Tyler asked her friend. "I need to take some tea to a customer."

The petite brunette smirked, her eyes glinting with mischief. "The Doctor, hmmm? He's quite good looking… for a bloke. Not your usual type, though."

"Shut up," Rose stuck her tongue out at Clara. "He's just a customer. He seems a little out of sorts, so I'm doing something nice for him. That all right? And besides, I don't have a type…"

"Whatever you say…" Clara shook her head and turned to take over at the cash register. "You go take your break."

"Thanks." Rose picked up the little teapot and cup, set them on a tray, and examined them with a critical eye. "Clara? Are the gingerbread biscuits ready to be served? You were icing them earlier, yeah?"

"Oh, now he's getting a biscuit, too. Oh, Rose, you have it bad."

"I don't even know him! 'Sides, can't have a cuppa without a biscuit, can you?"

"Well, he's out of luck. They're not quite ready yet. The icing hasn't had time to set properly. They're supposed to be for tomorrow." Something in Rose's expression must have affected her, because the next thing Rose knew, Clara had changed her tune: "Oh, go on, then. Take one. One, mind."

"Thanks, Clara," Rose grinned, rushing to the kitchen to snag one of the pretty gingerbread stars. She laughed. Sometimes it was hard to tell that Rose was the one who owned Pete's Coffee Dimension and Clara was the employee. But the two girls had known each other from Powell Estate for years and had discovered they worked together exceptionally well.

Plating the biscuit, she added it to the tray and carried the lot over to where The Doctor was seated. He was leaning on his elbows, his face in his hands, a picture of misery. "Hey there." Rose spoke softly, not wanting to startle him.

The Doctor lifted his head and offered her a strained but genuine smile. Rose felt her insides turn to jelly as his sad, chocolate eyes met hers.

"Here you go, then." She placed the teapot and cup on the table. Setting the biscuit next to them, she added, "And you can't have a cuppa without one of these. Clara just made them fresh and her gingerbread is second to none!"

"Thank-you! It looks delicious, but you shouldn't have."

"Oi! No arguments. You put enough change in the tip jar to pay for the next three customers, never mind a single biscuit. Besides, you looked like you could use one."

"You aren't wrong…" The Doctor picked up the teapot and poured out a cup of tea.

Rose stood beside the table, biting her lower lip in eager anticipation as he took his first sip. She had learned from her mum how to make the very best cuppa and hoped this particular pot was somehow imbued with Jackie Tyler's tea-making magic. She wasn't disappointed.

"Blimey, that's good!" the Doctor closed his eyes as he swallowed the first small mouthful. "Tea! That's just what I needed!" he enthused. "A good cup of tea! Nothing quite like that super-heated infusion of free-radicals and tannin."

Rose simply stared at him for a moment, nonplussed. "Well, that's a first." She chuckled. "Never heard tea described exactly that way before! I take it that's a good thing?"

"Oh, yes! The perfect blend!" He then snapped one of the biscuit-star's arms off with his teeth. "Not to mention," he added, crumbs spraying from his lips, "the numerous health-benefits of ginger!"

Rose smiled, warmed through by his enthusiastic, if eccentric, response. "Well… enjoy." She turned to go back to work at the service counter when he spoke again.

"Best thing to happen to me all day, and that's no lie!"

"You did seem a little out of sorts…" she ventured, turning back to him.

He grumbled with a shake of his head. "It's my ex, Jeanne Poisson."

"I'm sorry. Break-ups are always sticky, aren't they?"

He nodded. "Sticky doesn't cover it! She's more than sticky. She's like Super Glue. She just won't take no for an answer and it's been over a year since I've properly seen her! And today, on the last day of classes before the holidays, she shows up at my office at the Uni." He gestured with his thumb in the direction of campus. "I thought I was done for! I just barely escaped without her seeing me. Fortunately, I know all the service hallways like the back of my hand. (I never would have made it by the conventional routes.) Even so, I swear I could hear her heels clicking on the pavement behind me. So, I ducked into your lovely establishment and found refuge… and the best cuppa in London!"

With these last words, he beamed at Rose, who settled into the chair opposite him, continuing to worry her lower lip between her teeth. "Is she really that bad?" she asked, her eyes wide and fixed on him, dying to hear the rest of his story.

"Oh, yes! Though, not if you ask Aunt Sylvia." He rolled his eyes, dramatically. "She loves her. She's just dying to have her (and her considerable fortune) become a part of our family. Mind you, she's the only one. Gramps and my cousin, Donna, agree she's toxic."

"If she's so toxic, I'm surprised you were ever attracted to her at all," Rose blurted. She backtracked quickly. "Sorry… that wasn't very polite…"

"Nah, don't worry. I was an idiot, not thinking entirely with my head. She was beautiful and exciting, and I was in the final months of my previous Ph.D. She was finishing up law school."

"Wait! Your previous Ph.D.? You're so young!" He looked to be in his late twenties, only a few years older than her, Rose thought. "How many Ph.D.'s do you have?"

"Oh, I'm working on my third, right now. Genius me! Hence the name, The Doctor. It's what my friends call me. Started off as a joke, but it stuck."

"You think you're so impressive," Rose chided good-naturedly.

"Weeell, I am so impressive." Rose should have been put off by his claim, but he spoke as though he was simply stating a truth, not boastful at all. "I really am classified as a genius. I have a permanent faculty and research position at the Uni, as well as being a sort-of student."

"Oh…" Rose suddenly felt small next to him. She hadn't even completed her A-levels, and here she was ostensibly flirting with a university professor (and multiple-time doctorate genius.) As if she would ever stand a chance. Still, he was rather nice to look at: tall and slim, the tan coat and brown pin-stripe suit enhancing his large, dark eyes and soft, haphazard peaks of brown hair. He had some really great hair…

She was brought out of her musings by the sound of his voice: "I've always been very clever. Just not about choosing girlfriends," he muttered around another bite of gingerbread and a gulp of tea. "I'm a bit stupid around girls!"

"Don't say that!" Rose hurt for him.

"It's the truth. I don't have a great track record… not that the track is particularly long." He tugged on his ear and his cheeks flushed pink.

Rose instinctively reached across the table to cover his hand with hers. A sudden tension flared between them as Rose realized how forward she'd been, and she hesitantly retracted her hand from his, moving it away in fits and starts, clinging to some ridiculous delusion that she was being stealthy and he might not notice that she'd touched him in the first place.

"So, right, erm…" He glanced down at the teapot, picking it up to refill his cup. There was an awkward few moments of silence before he spoke again. With a sigh, he lifted his eyes to Rose's. "It was like she had me under some kind of spell. It felt like she could read into my soul and see how lonely I was, and then… weeell, then she kissed me, and it was brilliant. Blimey! All I could think was Jeanne Poisson, this posh, popular girl had kissed sad, geeky, old me."

"Gosh, I know how that feels," Rose commiserated, thinking of her dangerous obsession with wannabe Estate-born rock star, Jimmy Stone. She'd quit school and broken her mum's heart for him, leaving home to move in with the wanker. But for a short time, before reality had set in, it had felt like she'd been on top of the world.

"At first, we had so much fun," the Doctor's words mirrored Rose's thoughts, "but it didn't take long for me to realize she wasn't right for me. She was demanding, wanting expensive gifts, and always dragging me to exclusive clubs. Not my thing. Not even a little bit. And she was always wanting to know exactly what I was doing when she wasn't around. She was very controlling. I was miserable."

"Didn't you try to break it off?"

"Multiple times. I still am! She just will not accept the fact that I'm not interested and certainly not the right man for her. I'd thought when she went back to France to work in her mum's law firm, that would be it. I figured we were going our separate ways. But she kept texting me and trying to video-chat. I kept telling her it was over, and eventually had to change my mobile number."

"And did that help?"

"For a while. But she ferreted out my new one. I suspect Aunt Sylvia gave it to her," his fist clenched, "but, I suppose it could have been anyone at work, acting innocently enough."

"And now she's back…"

"And now she's back. Last text I got was that she wanted to surprise me. Well, count me surprised!"

"I'm sorry you had to go through that." Rose's hand fluttered in the direction of his again, and she had to restrain herself from touching him.

"I am too." He tossed back his last mouthful of tea and crammed the remains of the biscuit into his mouth. "Well, I've bored you long enough. Thanks so much for listening to me moan. You've been brilliant! But I best be off. I think the coast is clear for now. Besides, it looks as though you're needed at the counter." He nodded toward the ever-growing line of people dropping in for a post-work coffee before venturing out to shop for the holidays.

"Oh, shit, I nearly forgot!" She giggled. "Some barista, I am, yeah? Listen, I gotta run. Hope you'll come back. I'd love to chat again… Doctor!" Rose flushed as the flirty words erupted from her mouth.

"Oh, for a cup of tea like that, you'll never be able to keep me away!" He offered her a broad smile and called out, "And Happy Christmas!" before slipping out the front door of the shop.

"Happy Christmas!" Rose waved after him, returning to work with a skip in her step and doing her best to ignore Clara's pointed looks and cheeky, knowing grin.