Title: Silly
Summary: Pure, unadulterated Ten/Rose fluff with little plot
Rating: PG for about one reference to an adult concept
Word count: 1243
Characters/pairings: Ten, Rose
Disclaimer: I own NOTHING. Well, maybe the concept.
Author's notes: This is my first ever attempt at fluff (I like action and DIALOGUE, curse it!) so this is mostly written just to see if I can. Spoilers, I suppose, for anything after the Season Two finale.

Rose liked the Doctor.

Well, a lot more than that, she loved him, which she thought she had proved adequately by finding her way through the wall between the worlds to get back to him. Their reunion had been so overtly sweet that Donna had merely stood by, smiling foolishly for two minutes before coming to herself and telling them to get a room. Which had led, rather excitingly, to them sleeping together.

Not necessarily in a sexual way (although that happened too and was very nice) but in a homely (domestic, even) sort of snuggling-together-in-the-same-bed way. It wasn't always technically sleep, per ce. The Doctor liked to constantly point out that he didn't need hardly the outrageous amounts of sleep that humans did and that that time could be better spent doing useful things like fixing the TARDIS and traveling and why are you looking at me like that, Rose? Despite this, the fact still remained that nine times out of ten, the Doctor didn't choose to do 'useful' things but instead came to lie awake beside Rose while she slept.

But this led to the one thing that Rose didn't like about the whole arrangement, although, admittedly, she thought it was silly, and a bit trivial for her to be so annoyed by it. The Doctor, after all, despite his physical appearance, was an alien and functioned differently biologically. This had become patently clear to her back when he had regenerated from her old, moody Doctor to her new, bouncy one but the differences manifested in other ways as well. One such difference was his ability to, well, not breathe for a while, or something. He'd rushed the explanation out when she'd asked for one and it hadn't made any sense at all, especially not blurted out at high speed. But the actual function had come in useful, back on a planet where he'd managed to insult the leader accidentally and had been sentenced to death by hanging through slow strangulation. Rose had frantically bargained with the leader but was unable to stop them from hanging the Doctor upon which he'd merely looked bemused, severed the rope calmly with his sonic screwdriver and used the resulting confusion to escape with Rose.

The difference that Rose was thinking about now, however, as she lay in her bed in the TARDIS, looking up at the ceiling that somehow contrived to give her a view of space, was the Doctor's lower body temperature. It was easily 15 degrees lower. Generally, it didn't bother her; in fact it was rather nice to hold his cooler hand in her warmer one. It was comforting and even felt safe somehow. But his temperature did make him horrendously prone to extremely cold feet. And he would always insist on putting on jimjams, grinning all the while, joking that he should try running around and saving the world in these again—worked so well last time—even got to do some nifty sword fighting. Rose would joke with him and laugh along and brace herself. She felt horrible about it but she couldn't help it: his feet were dreadfully cold.

The worst part was that he never seemed to notice her twitch or her sudden intake of breath and she couldn't bring herself to complain about something so petty.

"You'll never guess why the TARDIS was making that noise," said the Doctor as he entered her room, his voice rousing her from her partial drowse. She raised herself onto her elbows to look at him.

"Will I honestly never guess or is this a roundabout way of asking me to?" said Rose, smiling at him.

"I dunno, actually," said the Doctor as he pulled on his pajama top, his voice going slightly muffled as the shirt went over his head. "20 Questions?"

Rose considered. "Maybe not. I still don't understand how the TARDIS works at all."

"Are you sure? It was something you could potentially get to through 20 Questions."

"What, really, a physical object?"

"Yes."

"That I can get to through 20 Questions?"

"Yup. Oh, and I can tell you already, it's not Mineral," he added, leaning back against her dressing table and looking altogether too pleased with himself.

Rose arched an eyebrow. "Animal?!"

"No."

"Vegetable, then?"

"Yes."

Rose laughed. "What, there was a plant growing down there? Wouldn't surprise me but—"

"No, not quite. Look, can I just tell you?"

Rose looked at the Doctor who was bouncing a little with impatience.

"All r—"

"It was a pear. An entire pear!"

"Seriously? How'd it get there?"

"No idea! My assumption is Donna—"

"But why would she be tossing pears about?"

"Well…that's where the theory falls apart," said the Doctor, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed. "And I'm certainly not going to accuse Donna of anything without evidence."

"Clever," said Rose. "Actually, um, wait, bit of a question for you."

The Doctor paused in the action of lifting up the sheet. "Ask away."

"Any chance of—well, silly question, really," said Rose, feeling rather silly herself. "Can you, well, sort of…change your external temperature? Ability-wise?"

The Doctor gave her a look of bewilderment. "No…but what for? Why would I—unless…it doesn't…does the alien thing bother you?" He actually looked a little upset, which made Rose wish she had never asked.

"No! Of course n—well not entirely—it's not like that!"

The Doctor waited, looking expectant. When she stayed silent, he smiled slightly. "D'you want me to play 20 Questions?"

"No, it's all right—do you honestly want to know?"

"You have piqued my interest!"

"Right, well…it is a bit a to do with the alien stuff but only sort of," she hurried to reassure him. She sighed. "It's just…your feet."

"My feet?" asked the Doctor, looking at them.

"With your lower body temperature…they're freezing."

"Oh, really, just that?!" said the Doctor, springing to his feet off the bed. "You had me worried! I can fix that." He ran out of the room, leaving Rose mildly confused as to what had just happened.

About two minutes later, he literally slid back into the room, this time sporting an enormous pair of stripy woolen socks.

"Snap!" he said, a grin stretched across his face. "Problem solved!" Running a little, he slid again towards the bed, misjudged the distance and barged directly into the edge, toppling over onto it. "Brilliant," he said, smiling up at her. "I'll have to do this more often.

Rose was giggling helplessly. "Do!" she managed to say. "And get me a pair too!" The Doctor shuffled along the bed until he was more or less level with Rose, waited until she stopped giggling and kissed her.

"I love you," he said later as he finally clambered under the covers, something he had been saying almost compulsively since he first had managed to blurt it out upon Rose's return.

"I love you too."

"Good. Oh, right, and I was thinking: we should go to Lurnlo next. Lovely beaches! Well…there is a little bit of a poisonous lobster infestation but other than th—"

"Doctor? Can we talk about this tomorrow? You may not need sleep b—"

"Well, technically speaking, there isn't really conventional time inside the TARDIS so the concept of tomorrow—"

"Doctor?"

"Right! …sorry. Night, Rose. Oh, well, that doesn't apply either, no sun, no division of night and day—"

"Goodnight, Doctor."

"Night."

FIN