His stomach lurches and his flimsy single heart races as he parses those two impossible words – 'Bad Wolf' – written in bright red, kitschy faux-Chinese font, between 'Spring Rolls – 3 For 1' and 'Firecracker Pork.'

(Ten, during Day of the Doctor). It's like he's listening to something. Someone. Sometimes he mutters to himself, a little bit, like he's carrying on a conversation the rest of them aren't privy to.

"Well then, Rose Tyler." He skips the 'Lieutenant' altogether, which is improper and ought to be annoying, but Rose can't find it in her to care, because the weight he puts on her name makes it sound so much more important than any rank designation ever could. (Star Trek fusion).

This can't be right. Absolutely can't be. Because the Doctor is one-hundred-percent certain that he would remember shagging Rose Tyler. And he doesn't.

"Do you know just how unlikely this is?" He sounds thoughtful, and the words roll off his tongue slowly, leisurely, like he's analyzing the taste of each one as he pronounces it.

"Over nine hundred years, remember? I think you can assume that at some point I've picked up a bit of colorful language."

Sometimes, she catches him looking at her, out of the corner of her eye, and thinks 'maybe.' (The Doctor and Rose, a few days after The Christmas Invasion).

"Tinned pineapple? You fantasized about preserved fruit?"

John opens the door of his sister's flat to a man in a bow tie who's looking for Harry's ex-wife. The day just keeps getting stranger after that.

"I'm dangerous, Rose," he growls at her, and there's blood at the corner of his mouth, on the lapel of his suit, dripping from his wrist. (Vampire AU).

They just stand there for a beat – frozen, dazedly, in the strange domestic tableau – until Rose takes it upon herself to break the silence. "I didn't know you had to shave," she says lamely.

He tries not to go back to the places he took Susan. (or, the Doctor and memory – things remembered, and things forgotten).

They stay at her mum's for a while, after Mickey leaves. (Ten/Rose, post-Age of Steel).

"My faith in you is not the issue here. It's your track record with fire."

Then she freezes, because there's someone sitting at the kitchen table, and it's someone she knows. (Donna/Lee reunion, with bonus Ten/Rose).