“Austen, Austen, Austen,” Rose mumbled, scanning the stacks of unorganized books in the library. “He doesn’t even have Pride and Prejudice?”

She kept looking until something caught her eye. She flipped through it. “’Ey, what’s this?”


“What’s this?” Rose challenged, holding up a flimsy flower-patterned book, a slightly peeved look on her face.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “How should I know? You barely showed it to me,” he said dismissively, continuing to tinker with the console.

Rose scoffed and raised the book. “Recognize it?”

The Doctor squinted and then put on his glasses, looking closer. “I can’t see it that well, bring it here,” he motioned. “It must be pretty important to have gotten you all worked up.”

She walked slightly closer to him, holding out the book. It was old and blue, with purple embroidered flowers on it. The Doctor shrugged. “Looks normal enough to me, but I don’t seem to recognize it.”

Rose smiled, but for some reason this smile worried the Doctor. “Let me refresh your memory.”

She began to read. “Dear Journal—I think Grandfather quite fancies the Queen. Love, Susan.”

The Doctor stood there, unable to say anything other than form a gargled version of the word “What?”

“The Doctor and I have a relationship that one would consider abnormal, I think. Jamie.”

“What?” the Doctor spurted out this time, but Rose cut him off, continuing to read.

“I think the Doctor and I have more in common than our brilliant intellects. I should act on that, and he should too. Sincerely, Zoe.”

“She was fifteen, for God’s sake!” the Doctor exclaimed, and Rose cracked a small smile, but persevered.

“I think I am in love with the Doctor. Sarah Jane.” Rose paused after reading that one, swallowed, and then continued.

“I have asked the Doctor to show me the ways of normal sexuality. After some convincing, he agreed. I look forward to it. Leela.”

“She took that the wrong way, let me tell you,” the Doctor said, making excuses, but nothing stopped Rose from reading the book.

“I believe the Doctor and I have taken the next step in our relationship. I’m not sure how I feel about this, especially after reading the first part of this book, but I think after careful analyzing I’ll make up my mind. From, Romana,” Rose said, mimicking a proper tone. The Doctor tensed up while she read it, but when she moved on he was back to normal and frantically protesting.

“I think the Doctor fancies me. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. Signed, Adric.”

“Okay, that was so not true,” the Doctor interjected. Rose refused to look up and simply continued to read.

“’The Doctor kissed me today and it was totally hot. Hugs and kisses, Peri,’” Rose quoted, raising her voice a few shrill octaves. The Doctor winced.

“I think that our relationship has moved beyond that of mentor and student. Ace,” Rose read, with some horror concealed in her voice. She glanced up at him, raising an accusing eyebrow. He shook his head, deciding to not even try to stop her.

“I found this journal while on the Doctor’s ship and decided to add my own two cents. The Doctor kissed me passionately earlier, and I see from this journal that he is a very passionate man. He simply pushed me against a tree—” Rose was cut off by the Doctor snatching the book away from her.

“Oi, that’s private!” he said, and put the book on the console behind him.

“What are you, an intergalactic pimp?” Rose questioned, a disbelieving look on her face. “Is this your journal of conquests?” 

The Doctor shrugged awkwardly, and then mumbled, “I never meant it to be that way, but things…happened.”

“Yeah, right, just how everything seems to ‘happen’ to you,” Rose said, rolling her eyes and folding her arms.

“Well, yeah.”

She glared at him. “I can’t believe it! Just…” she trailed off.

The Doctor decided to ask the question that had been bugging him ever since Rose entered the room with that book. “Why does it bother you so much?”

Rose stopped fidgeting and glanced at him, and then stared down at her feet. “Just…it’s kind of…weird.”

“Weird that I have a romantic life? I told you’ve I’ve danced before, Rose,” he said, and raised an eyebrow. “And I can tell you, they wrote that of their own accord. Whatever I did, it wasn’t just notches on a bedpost.”

“I can’t believe it,” Rose whispered, looking away, pouting.

“Can’t believe what?” the Doctor asked. “Why has this bothered you so much?”

“And you know, the thing of it is,” Rose continued, not answering the Doctor’s question, “They all say how great it was.”

“Well, you’ll notice that none of them got insanely jealous. They wrote in the same book for God’s sake!” the Doctor pointed out, motioning to the book. Rose looked slightly bemused, and then shook her head.

“I’m not…I’m not jealous,” she said, her pout growing more severe. The Doctor sighed. “I just…”

She took a few steps closer to him and he looked at her confused, bracing himself. He was worried she was going to completely overreact and smack him, just like her mother would. She hadn’t shown signs of being that way, but you never know.

But instead of hitting him or yelling at him, she grabbed him by the lapels and pushed her mouth to his. He was surprised at first, but quickly gave in, getting lost in the kiss. After a few seconds, however, he pushed her away. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Rose…”

“Well, they all said it was great. I just wanted to see what it was like,” Rose pouted, and he sighed. “It’s not fair otherwise.”

He sighed again and leaned against the console, taking her hand in his. “Rose, I didn’t mean to go anywhere in that direction with any of those people. Most of what they wrote was simply observations that they got wrong, and I only kissed Peri to do a genetic transfer, nothing more. And with Grace, I had amnesia, so that gets me off the hook.”

Rose shrugged, but her pout seemed to recede. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I did get a little jealous.”

“A little?” he said, giving a small laugh. He held on to her hand tighter. “Rose, there’s only one person I’ve ever wanted to kiss just because I wanted to,” he said.

“Romana?” she asked timidly, but was smiling. He shook his head.

“You.” He brought his lips to hers for the second time, straightening up and taking her by the waist. The kiss was perfect—frantic but tender, and he could feel Rose’s smile against his lips.

“Me too,” she agreed when they parted.

He smiled at her, and then looked at the book. “Now burn that thing before it causes anymore trouble.”

She laughed and kissed him again.


Rose knew from experience that the TARDIS disliked any fire on board, so she refused to burn the book. Instead, she decided that it had a much better use.

After she had changed into her cloud pajamas she flopped on to her bed and took out her special pink sparkly pen from the drawer on her night table. On the top of the night table laid the blue embroidered book that she had managed to sneak away. She uncapped her pink sparkly pen and turned to a blank page in the journal. 

Dear Diary, she wrote and then smiled.

Today I kissed the Doctor and it was amazing.

Love,

Rose