"Here you are, Jackie. Rose's young man will take care of you." The Prentice Pariahs guided a mostly mobile Jackie into the seat next to him. "You'll watch her, won't you, love?" one of them said to him.

He looked at them, aghast. "Well, not reall—Hang on, is that coffee?" Because one of them had placed a silver pot down on the table next to Jackie's mug.

"Yeah," she affirmed. "Sober Jackie up a bit."

"Ah. Excellent. Yes, I'll watch her. How are you doing, Jackie?" he asked her, solicitously, reaching past her for the coffee pot. He smiled politely at the man who had slid into the seat across the table, eating a piece of cake. It was clearly the point in the evening where seating plans went out the window.

"She's in a bit of a bad way, isn't she?" he asked, nodding toward Jackie.

"Not at all," denied the Doctor, cheerfully. "Right as rain. You going to eat those little silver balls?"

The man stared at him. "What?"

"The little silver balls. On the cake," the Doctor clarified.

The man looked confused. "I—"

"Oh," said Jackie, blinking at the Doctor as if she'd just realized she'd been deposited next to him. "It's you. You're still here. I thought you'd be off in your spaceship by now."

The man across the table shouted laughter. "I thought I had mother-in-law problems. She thinks you're an alien."

"Bless her, she is in a bit of a bad way," said the Doctor. "Jackie, why don't you have some of this delicious cake?" He pushed a plate in front of her.

"Where's Rose?"

"She—"

"Never mind. I wanted to talk to you anyway." Jackie focused on him fuzzily.

"Talk to me?" The Doctor made a face. "You really are drunk. Since when do you want to talk to me?"

"She's never gonna leave you," Jackie announced.

The Doctor went still, watching her, hoping he looked casual, like he didn't really care. "What do you mean?"

"I thought it was a crush. Rose is young. You take her to all these exotic places. And look at you. Can't blame Rose one bit for having a crush on you. But it isn't a crush," Jackie reported, sadly. "She loves you."

"Does she? I mean, do you think so?" He thought he may have asked that a bit too quickly.

Jackie nodded, looking miserable. "It's the way she looks at you. Can't you tell? And she'll never leave you. You're it for her. You don't leave that. You don't… I mean, unless it's taken from you. I know, because I had that once, and then it… But she'll never leave you." Jackie smiled mistily, and then frowned. "And that's not fair, Doctor. Because you won't marry her, will you? Does your lot get married? And what about kids? What if Rose wants to have kids someday? Can she even have a baby with you? Will it be a freakish little alien baby?"

"She really hates you, mate, doesn't she?" asked the man, sympathetically.

The Doctor glared at him, turned his attention back to Jackie. Because he understood. He didn't need Jackie to list the reasons why everything with Rose was a potentially dangerous disaster for both of them. He knew all about that. And he wouldn't miss any of this time with her for the world. "Jackie, listen—"

"You need to promise me." She suddenly took his hands urgently.

"Promise you what?"

"You promised me once before that you would keep her safe. But that was just when you had her life in your hands. And now you've got something so much more important than just her life. Please don't break her heart."

The Doctor lowered his voice, spoke firmly and urgently, held Jackie's gaze. "Rose is the most precious thing to ever place its trust in me. I promise you I will never hurt her. Never. The only thing that could surpass your hatred of me if I hurt her is my hatred of myself if I hurt her. I promise you. I give you my word. Do you believe me?"

She looked up at him for a moment, then she beamed at the man across the table. "He's not a bad bloke, really. Loves my daughter a lot, clearly. Mind you, he's got a time machine, but has he ever offered to help me win the lottery? Nooooo—"

"Let's sober you up, Jackie," said the Doctor, heartily, pouring her more coffee. "Really," he said to the man across the table, who didn't look like he quite knew what to think. "She's hopeless—"

"Mum?" said Rose, in confusion.

"Oh! Rose!" Jackie turned to her, pleased. "It's okay. I've talked to him, and he loves you."

"Talked to who?"

"The Doctor."

Rose looked at him, shocked. "What?"

"Um." The Doctor scratched the back of his neck, feeling awkward. "Do you know what you're not going to like? Look! I'm drinking real coffee!"

Rose looked torn between pursuing the interesting topic of whether or not he loved her and stealing the coffee cup out of his hand. The deejay interrupted her, calling for everyone to take their seats so the groom could retrieve the garter.

Rose sat on the other side of him, primly taking the coffee cup away from him. "What's she babbling about?" she asked him, softly.

"Nothing, it's—Where'd you go?"

Second awkward subject change. Rose decided that could only mean that he had said he loved her. Or something close to it. Smiling at him, Rose allowed him the safer topic. "Oh, there's a plan, to make sure my cousin Louise catches the bouquet. She's engaged, so she's next up. Some of the girls needed a bit of convincing on that one."

"But I thought you didn't need the bouquet if you—"

"She doesn't need it. That's why she won't fight for it, and why they'll have to just give it to her."

"It's a bit mad, all this…ritual. Ceremony. It's empty. It doesn't mean anything. It's like…like names, right? What does any of this tell you? You don't even know why you're doing it. The bit with the cake, the cake that tastes awful, the throwing of the bouquet…" The Doctor watched idly as the bride sat on a chair in the middle of the dance floor, arranging her skirts around her.

"You're wrong about that," Rose told him, maybe more sharply than she had intended, because he looked at her in surprise. "It's very important. Maybe it's not important to you. But to us humans, we need ceremony. Some things, some concepts—" Rose gestured to the newlyweds on the dance floor –"are too much for us to express, without some grand gesture."

"And that's what all this is?" he asked, curiously. "A grand gesture?"

"Yes."

The Doctor looked back at the dance floor, where the bride was holding out her leg to the groom. "What's he going to do now?"

"Take off her garter."

The groom, with a dramatic flourish, flipped the skirt over his head and disappeared underneath it, causing the bride to giggle and the guests to applaud in bawdy delight.

The Doctor pulled out his glasses and put them on and leaned forward. "How's he taking it off?" he asked, in wonder.

Rose watched him, amused. "With his teeth."

"This gesture I approve of," the Doctor announced.

Rose laughed as the groom emerged with the garter triumphantly between his teeth. He tossed it into the crowd of waiting men.

The bride threw her bouquet with not much fanfare, and, according to Rose, all went as planned and it was caught by Louise.

"Although," remarked the Doctor, "if you'd want to make the gesture really meaningful, you'd give it to Emma." The Doctor nodded to where Emma was once again sitting rather shyly by herself.

"You're right," said Rose. "And you're sweet." She kissed the top of his head, ignoring the look on his face, as she stood. "Be right back." She went off to talk to Louise, and together they presented Emma with the bouquet. Emma beamed at the attention, and Rose, smiling, turned back to return to the Doctor. And she stopped. Because Jackie had passed out, directly onto the Doctor, slumped against him, her head on his shoulder. The Doctor was sitting stiffly, clearly hoping not to disturb her.

Rose felt strangely close to crying. How adorably domestic: her Doctor, in his tuxedo and incongruous trainers, drinking coffee even though she'd told him not to, with her mother passed out on his shoulder. Who would have predicted?

She cleared her head, walked over to him. "It's time to go home."

He brightened. "Really?"

She nodded and shook her mother awake. "Come on, Mum. Let's get you to the car."

Jackie blinked blearily and struggled to her feet. Between the two of them, they got her out to the car. Rose made to put her in the passenger seat but the Doctor shook his head.

"No way," he said. "She won't even appreciate the passenger seat. It's the back seat for her."

Jackie crawled into the back seat obediently and immediately passed out again.

Rose took off her shoes and tossed them toward the Doctor with a sigh of relief. "Thank God. My feet were killing me."

"Well, you looked beautiful," he told her, as he undid his bowtie.

She sent him a smile as she started the car. "Thanks," she said, and pulled away from the curb.

The Doctor watched her drive in the semi-darkness, street lights every once in a while gilding her hair silvery gold. He experienced a curious sensation of having too many words to say and yet not enough all at the same time.

"Can we stay here for the night?" she asked, after a bit. "I mean, twenty-first century London. I want to make sure she's alright tomorrow morning."

"Rose," he said.

His voice sounded strange. She slanted him a quizzical glance. "Isn't that okay?"

"Isn't what okay?"

"Staying here tonight."

"It's fine. Rose." He shifted in his seat. "What you were saying…About humans needing gestures…I'm not especially good at gestures…I mean, that is to say, not that I'm not good at them, just that I don't always remember the need for them…or your need for them, I guess I should say, more accurately—"

"Doctor—" she interrupted him.

"I have a gesture for you, Rose Tyler. When you said, before, when we were stuck on that rock and we thought we'd lost the TARDIS, when you mentioned the mortgage, the same mortgage, with the house with the windows and the doors and the carpets…I would get a mortgage with you, Rose Tyler. I would. I think you got the impression that I wouldn't, but, I mean, if I had to get a mortgage, if it ever came to that, it would have to be a mortgage with you. I could never get one otherwise."

He lapsed into silence, watching her. She kept her eyes on the road and blinked furiously. "You daft git," she said, finally.

He started. "What?"

"You don't make gestures when the other person's driving. Bloody hell." She sniffled and hastily wiped her hand over her eyes.

He gaped at her. "You're not upset, are you?"

She half-laughed. "No. Quite the opposite of that, believe me." She looked at him then and smiled brilliantly. "Thank you for the gesture."

He smiled back, pleased, picked up her hand and intertwined it with his and kissed at her knuckles. He would have been content to nuzzle her hand for the rest of time, except that she said, "I need my hand back."

"For what?"

"To drive," she told him, as she pulled it free and downshifted.

"See? I don't like cars. I've had enough of travelling in cars. You drive in the TARDIS, you can do anything you like with your hands. No more cars for us, Rose."

"Fine. No more cars. What are the things you'd like to do with your hands when you're driving the TARDIS?"

"Welllll," he drawled, thoughtfully, and then glanced over his seat at her mother. "I'm not quite sure she's sleeping."

"She's sleeping," she assured him, dryly.

"Nevertheless, I'm rather fond of this regeneration. I'll tell you what I'd like to do with my hands later."

"Do you promise?"

"Cross my hearts."

Rose chuckled as she pulled the car into the estate, then she and the Doctor wrestled her mother up and into the flat. Rose undressed her mum and put her to bed, and then undressed herself, gratefully peeling off the red lace dress and uncoiling into sweatpants and a T-shirt. She was glad that she was past the phase where she worried about the Doctor seeing her when she was dressed to something less than the nines.

She walked out of her bedroom into the living room, where the Doctor had turned out all the lights and was sitting on the couch watching television.

She stood in the doorway and watched him for a minute. "You don't need to stay, you know. You can sleep in the TARDIS."

He didn't look away from the television. "You're staying here, aren't you? To watch your mother?"

"Yeah," she affirmed.

"Then I'll stay here." He paused. "The couch is fine. I'm not tired, anyway."

She moved into the room. He'd gone back to the TARDIS to change, and was back in brown pinstripes. Only to the Doctor was a suit comfortable loungewear. She cuddled next to him on the couch. He lifted his arm automatically to fit her more snugly against him.

"What're you watching?" she asked.

"This man can tell me how to make a fortune out of my very own home for a minimal time investment, if I just send him a bit of money for his book. You humans and your get-rich-quick schemes. Adorable." He planted a kiss on the top of her head.

"Yeah, too bad we don't all have sonic screwdrivers that work at every cash point in time and space."

"Not my fault I'm more advanced than you."

"Yeah." She sat, listening to the double rhythm of his hearts under her ear, watching the inane infomercial. How could he have no attention span at all and yet patiently watch this? She thought of his gesture, in the car, of her mother saying to her at the wedding, He loves you. She turned her nose into him, breathed for a second. "Doctor," she said.

"Hmm."

"You know what you were saying? About gestures?"

"What about them?"

"You had one for me. I have one for you."

"What's that?"

She stood, held his eyes. He looked at her expectantly, lifted his eyebrows a bit.

And then she took her T-shirt off.

"Oh," he said, on an outrush of breath.

She pushed off her sweatpants and knickers, stepped away from them. He drank her in.

Then he said, "Your mother—"

She put her hands on her hips. Even naked, his Rose was quite forbidding when he'd done something wrong. "That's what you're thinking about? My mother?"

He paused. "No," he amended. "No, quite right. Not at all. Let's go back in time. Can we go back in time? You said, 'I have one for you,' and then I said, 'What's that?' and then I said…"

She walked over to him, smiling, and deposited herself on his lap. He'd gone casual, for him--no tie, which was a bit disappointing after the fantasies she'd had about his tie. But she undid the one button he'd negligently buttoned on his jacket and pushed it off him, then pressed her lips to his. "You said, 'Rose, you're beautiful,'" she said against his mouth.

"You're magnificently beautiful," he concurred, breathlessly. "Wait a second." He reached for the coat that was now behind him, fumbled for the sonic screwdriver, and, before she could ask him what he was doing with that, he pointed it at the lamp, lighting it. "Better," he said. "I need to see."

"See--?"

"Hold on." He held up a hand to silence her, tipping his head and studying her breasts critically. "I take it back. You're not beautiful. There isn't a word in this paltry language of yours for what you are."

She smiled at him, then unbuttoned his shirt and frowned at the shirt underneath it. "Can we agree that you wear fewer layers from now on?" she asked.

"You're…" He trailed off.

She traced her finger over his lips. "My Doctor," she whispered, staring into his eyes for a moment. And then she grinned. "Are you actually at a loss for words?"

"I was wrong," he said, in amazement

"I'll be sure to note the time," she assured him, indulgently. "What were you wrong about?"

"I thought my life was good before."

She leaned her forehead against his and threaded her fingers into his hair. "Do you know what you say now?"

"Tell me," he whispered.

"Absolutely nothing," she whispered back.

And then Rose showed the Doctor what life was really like at its pinnacle. Its zenith. Its best.