Language Lessons fic commentary part 1/4: Always
Another commentary from my fic commentary meme. glory_jean asked for commentary for as much of the Language Lessons series as I was willing to give. Since I don't have a whole lot to do today (or, well, I do, but I don't feel like doing it--who wants to do laundry on Labor Day?), I think I'll do the whole thing, just because I'm, you know, nice. *g*
So here we are, the commentary for "Always."
This started out as an attempt at a crack fic, believe it or not. I wanted to write a silly fic based around the phrase 'Take me, Time Lord,' which has always seemed like the STUPIDEST phrase Rose would say. Unless, of course, she was kidding. So I meant this to be crack!sex, with all the possible stereotypes I could think of. However, the best laid plans of mice and authors gang aft agley, to misquote Burns; the characters took over and, well, this is what happened instead.
Rose leaned back on the bed, arranging herself in the sexiest position she could manage, and looked up at the Doctor with a sultry expression. "Well?"
The Doctor's jaw closed, as though he'd just realised it had been hanging open. "You're-er-" he stumbled.
"I'm what?"
"N-naked," he said. "You're naked. On my bed. Which is not a bad thing," he hastened to add. "Not a bad thing at all. It’s a very, very good thing. I really can't complain about it at all. I mean, you! Naked! On my bed! But you're…I mean, this is a bit, erm…."
"New?" she asked, grinning.
He blinked, and somehow managed to look vaguely surprised. I really intended the surprise here to be surprise at what she said, not surprised at his realisation that he's seen her naked. Unfortunately, because I wasn't paying attention, it didn't exactly come across the way I intended. "I've seen you naked before."
"Not on your bed, though," she pointed out mischievously. "On my bed, in my bed, beside my bed, in the shower, in the control room, in the corridor, on the kitchen table-"
See, here's the crackiness coming through-or, well, trying to. I've come to the conclusion that I just don't write crackfic very well.
"Galley," he corrected her. "This is a ship, so it doesn't have a kitchen, it has a galley."
Really, she thought, she was going to have to do something about that pedantic streak. He shouldn't be thinking clearly enough to be able to correct her. "Mm, did that make me a galley slave?" she purred. She shifted, stretching, and had the distinct pleasure of watching his eyes widen.
And suddenly, Rose turns into Belle du Jour from Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Billie Piper is disgustingly good at that sexy purr. This is where the fic started to take on a life of its own. I ceased being an author and became a transcriber for the characters who knew exactly what they wanted to say.
"Er," he squeaked, his gaze very definitely not on her face. "No?"
"Pity." Slowly she rolled to her knees, then leant forward and crawled down the length of the bed towards him. His mouth was open again, and was that-yes, that was definitely a flush on his cheeks. She climbed to her knees again at the foot of the bed, reached out, and used his tie to pull him closer.
Can I just say, this image (of pulling David Tennant the Doctor to her by his tie and having him end up pressed against her-this is definitely an 'ogh, guh' moment for me.
His knees hit the bed, their bodies now pressing against each other, her bare skin against the scratchy wool of his suit. She loosened his tie, letting it dangle against his shirt, and slid her hands under his jacket, shoving it over his shoulders and down his arms. He let it drop behind him, apparently completely unaware of it.
More than pleased by the way things were progressing, Rose took hold of his hands and firmly placed them on her hips. They immediately moulded into place, his long fingers curling around to just barely brush the curves of her bottom.
"Erm, Rose," he said as she began working on his buttons. "Are you sure this is…I mean, do you really think it's appropriate…?"
"Oh, no," she assured him with a smile. "Completely inappropriate. The age difference, for one. Different species. You in a position of authority, since I'm basically dependent on you for everything." She opened the last button and pushed his shirt open, placing an open-mouthed kiss over his breastbone. He shivered, and she could feel his hardness against her through his trousers. "Nothing appropriate about it," she whispered into his chest. The soft hairs their quivered with her breath, and he shivered again, more strongly this time.
By now, I'd realised, aha! Rose is teasing him. See, I *told* you the characters took over.
"Rose-" he began in a strangled sort of voice.
"Mm?" She stretched upward and flicked her tongue in the hollow of his throat, where his double pulse fluttered like a wild bird caught in the hands.
Jen loved that phrase, and I really do too. I once *did* catch a wild bird in my hands-one had got into the house and was trapped by the dog, and I picked it up and held it as I carried it outside. That desperate so-fast-it's-almost-constant flutter is how I imagine a binary cardiac system would feel when its owner was turned on.
Unexpectedly, he growled and wrapped his arms around her, and suddenly she was on her back on the bed with him lying atop her, his bare chest against her breasts, his mouth on her own throat. He ground his hips into her and she gasped, "This wasn't in the plan."
No. No, it wasn't. Author is definitely putting her words into character's mouth here. Dominant!Doctor. Ogh-guh!
"Neither was you teasing me quite that effectively," he said against her ear before he bit her earlobe gently. She had to hold in a squeak as warmth rushed straight from that point through her body and between her thighs.
"Well, how was I to know?" she asked breathlessly. "I asked you about your fantasies. I want you to tease me, you said. I've only been back for two weeks; I've got a bit of a learning curve yet."
And another Ogh-guh! moment here: delving into the Doctor's fantasies. Hm. I should write more about those….
"Maybe that's why it worked so well," he murmured. He pushed himself up so he knelt over her, yanking his shirt down his arms (How to Turn On Your Beta, lesson one: the Doctor yanking his clothes off with fire in his eyes.) and tossing it over the edge of the bed. His eyes had gone very, very dark, and there was an intensity in them that sent electricity right up her spine. "I'm still not used to having you here, so any sort of teasing has a much stronger effect on me than it otherwise would."
I've really no idea how she came back. This was pre-JE, though, so it's a Doomsday fixit, not a JE fixit.
His hands were busy undoing his belt and unfastening his trousers, and she found she couldn't tear her eyes away (Well, duh! Who could?) as he pulled the rest of his clothing off and kicked it to the floor. Finally as naked as she, he lowered himself over her and captured her lips for a long, deep, toe-curling kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck, hands twining in his hair as she arched upwards, revelling in the sensation of his bare skin against hers, his hard cock sandwiched between their bellies.
"How long before I can tease you with impunity, then?" she asked, when he finally drew away. "When will you be used to having me here?"
He tilted his head, considering. "Oh, a decade or so," he said after a moment. "Maybe two. Though, you know," he added thoughtfully, "we haven't really gone about this scientifically at all. One attempt at teasing me, naked, on my bed, doesn't give us enough of a sample. We may have to try it in different places. Or different levels of nakedness. Will the effect be the same if you wear black lace lingerie? Or red satin? Or even leather-there's a place on Caerolon Six that does a huge business in made-to-order lingerie for different species; we could go there and try-"
Aw, Ten. How I love thee. Ten!Babble is so much fun to write.
She put a finger over his lips, cutting him off mid-babble. "Shut up and take me, Time Lord," she ordered, grinning and rolling her hips up into his.
Now, see, I did get the phrase in there. Though here, she's clearly playing with that phrase; it's not meant to be serious. Well, the wish is serious; the phrasing itself is not.
He grinned back, though there was more than a hint of heat in it, and reached down to pull her knee up against his hip as he shifted so their bodies were lined up properly. "What," he said, his voice a good half-octave lower, "like this?" And slid into her in one easy stroke.
Time stopped for a moment as their bodies adjusted to each other. Rose discovered her eyes had closed and opened them, taking in the sight of his beloved face so near to her, his eyes closed, brow furrowed, mouth very slightly open. His freckles stood out sharply against his pale skin, and his lips were red and swollen from kissing her.
He was beautiful. Her heart felt as though it were swelling in her chest, almost painfully full of love. She'd been back for two weeks, and it still felt like a dream.
His eyes opened, and he looked down at her with those incredible, warm, dark eyes. "Rose," he whispered, and in that one word, in the gentle caress his voice gave to her name, she could hear all the things that he'd never been able to say to her.
She thought with sudden, crystalline clarity: Two hearts doesn't only mean he loves more-it means he can be twice as hurt, too. Of their own accord, her hands came up to bracket his face, and he turned to kiss her palm, his gaze never leaving hers. "I know," she said in response to what he couldn't say. "I've always known."
That thought, about him being twice as hurt, occurred suddenly to me as I was writing this, and I had to put it down here. Kills me dead, that realisation. And I think it kills Rose dead, too-which is why she had to reassure him that she knows very well that he loves her; he doesn't have to say the words.
His eyes brightened suspiciously, and he closed them, sliding his arms around her and burying his face in her hair as he began to move. She held him tight as he whispered in her ear, musically liquid phrases that she suspected were his native tongue, rocking together in a rhythm that was both familiar and unfamiliar. The mood had shifted in the space of a heartbeat, Rose noticed dimly, but she didn't care. It was enough that she had him again, that he was there, in her arms and in her body. She ran a hand down his spine and back up, caressing, encouraging, loving.
"N'hilla," he whispered, his voice tight with emotion.
OK, confession time: driving a lover so far beyond himself that he starts speaking in his native tongue, which he knows you don't understand, is unbelievably hot to me. That's where this section came from-and the whole concept of the Language Lessons series.
As though that word was the trigger, Rose felt the deep ripples of her orgasm begin to roll through her, as powerful and inexorable as the tide. She tilted her head back, half-gasping, half-whimpering, as the sensations passed through her in waves of pleasure. "Doctor," she panted, arching into him. "Please."
"N'hilla, Nish'ala," he said, and she could hear how close he was. "N'hilla."
Originally, I had a whole phrase in here (which I've completely forgotten, of course). G said that it felt like too much-I didn't trasnslate all of it, and so it threw her out of the story, wondering what all the rest of it meant. She was right; it reads much better this way-and didn't lock me into a phrase whose meaning I'd forgotten!
Several people have asked me where I get the Gallifreyan from. I've no idea. I knew I wanted it to sound attractive and flowing, and I've had a little bit of practice coming up with fake-foreign words, being a fantasy writer (unpublished as yet, but still), so I just combined letters until they looked right, and read them out loud to make sure they sounded good. Pronunciation guide: Vowels are pronounced as they would be in Spanish, so n'hilla is more or less nheela, and Nish'ala is NEESH-a-la.
"N'hilla," she whispered back, not knowing what it meant, only knowing it was important.
He gave a short, sharp, gutteral cry and thrust deep into her suddenly. His body quivered against her, and she had the feeling he was on the edge of losing control. She stroked soothing fingers over his shoulders. "I've got you," she said. "Let go, Doctor. I've got you." She paused, and then, wondering again what it was she was saying, repeated, "N'hilla."
He growled something she couldn't make out and raised himself up so he could look her in the eye. She gasped at what she saw there: not the soft deep love she'd seen before, but something intense, dark, and almost feral. As if the Oncoming Storm had suddenly appeared in their bed, powerful and possessive and terrifying. (Ugh. Sentence fragment. I keep meaning to fix that.) He braced his hands on either side of her and changed his rhythm, pounding into her with rough, desperate need. She met his gaze, held it, watching as the tension in his body increased, his muscles taut and hard, his teeth clenched….
Until at last his face contorted and he arched, a cry wrenched from his throat as he pulsed inside her. Rose released the breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, panting as she watched him shudder through his orgasm. Her womb throbbed in sympathetic pleasure as he thrust raggedly a few more times before collapsing, exhausted, over her. She enfolded him in her arms and legs, stroked his hair, and held him. He held her just as tightly, his cheek pressed to hers as he caught his breath. Finally he raised his head and she let her hold on him slacken as he gently pulled away to lie beside her. She curled up beside him, head on his shoulder, legs entwined with his, content to just be with him.
After a moment, he said, "When did the TARDIS start translating Gallifreyan for you?" He sounded genuinely curious, if a little breathless still.
And this is so Ten, too: Less than a minute after the most mind-blowing orgasm he's had in years, and he's already asking questions.
"She didn’t," Rose replied. "I just…repeated what you said. It sounded…" She paused, then finished, rather lamely, "important."
"Oh, it was," he said gravely. "It was the most important thing I've ever said to you."
She raised her head to look at him. "What does it mean, then?"
He smiled tenderly, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. "It means always," he said.
A mixture of emotions-surprise, delight, love, tenderness-spread through her, and she smiled back. "N'hilla, Doctor," she said.
He kissed her gently. "N'hilla, Rose."
This was where the fic originally ended, but it didn't quite seem right. It was a little too abrupt. I added the last bit, and it just seemed much more complete.
She lay her head back on his shoulder, snuggling into him. After a moment, she said, "Doctor?"
"Hmm?"
"Were you serious about the lingerie shops on that planet? Because I've got some ideas…."
Startled, he laughed, and she grinned. "Tomorrow," he promised, running a hand up and down her back. "Sleep now, my Rose."
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and she sighed happily. N'hilla, she thought, feeling peace steal over her as she drifted off. Always.
Of course I had to end with fluff. This is me, after all….
Part 2, Precious, coming soon.
So here we are, the commentary for "Always."
This started out as an attempt at a crack fic, believe it or not. I wanted to write a silly fic based around the phrase 'Take me, Time Lord,' which has always seemed like the STUPIDEST phrase Rose would say. Unless, of course, she was kidding. So I meant this to be crack!sex, with all the possible stereotypes I could think of. However, the best laid plans of mice and authors gang aft agley, to misquote Burns; the characters took over and, well, this is what happened instead.
Rose leaned back on the bed, arranging herself in the sexiest position she could manage, and looked up at the Doctor with a sultry expression. "Well?"
The Doctor's jaw closed, as though he'd just realised it had been hanging open. "You're-er-" he stumbled.
"I'm what?"
"N-naked," he said. "You're naked. On my bed. Which is not a bad thing," he hastened to add. "Not a bad thing at all. It’s a very, very good thing. I really can't complain about it at all. I mean, you! Naked! On my bed! But you're…I mean, this is a bit, erm…."
"New?" she asked, grinning.
He blinked, and somehow managed to look vaguely surprised. I really intended the surprise here to be surprise at what she said, not surprised at his realisation that he's seen her naked. Unfortunately, because I wasn't paying attention, it didn't exactly come across the way I intended. "I've seen you naked before."
"Not on your bed, though," she pointed out mischievously. "On my bed, in my bed, beside my bed, in the shower, in the control room, in the corridor, on the kitchen table-"
See, here's the crackiness coming through-or, well, trying to. I've come to the conclusion that I just don't write crackfic very well.
"Galley," he corrected her. "This is a ship, so it doesn't have a kitchen, it has a galley."
Really, she thought, she was going to have to do something about that pedantic streak. He shouldn't be thinking clearly enough to be able to correct her. "Mm, did that make me a galley slave?" she purred. She shifted, stretching, and had the distinct pleasure of watching his eyes widen.
And suddenly, Rose turns into Belle du Jour from Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Billie Piper is disgustingly good at that sexy purr. This is where the fic started to take on a life of its own. I ceased being an author and became a transcriber for the characters who knew exactly what they wanted to say.
"Er," he squeaked, his gaze very definitely not on her face. "No?"
"Pity." Slowly she rolled to her knees, then leant forward and crawled down the length of the bed towards him. His mouth was open again, and was that-yes, that was definitely a flush on his cheeks. She climbed to her knees again at the foot of the bed, reached out, and used his tie to pull him closer.
Can I just say, this image (of pulling David Tennant the Doctor to her by his tie and having him end up pressed against her-this is definitely an 'ogh, guh' moment for me.
His knees hit the bed, their bodies now pressing against each other, her bare skin against the scratchy wool of his suit. She loosened his tie, letting it dangle against his shirt, and slid her hands under his jacket, shoving it over his shoulders and down his arms. He let it drop behind him, apparently completely unaware of it.
More than pleased by the way things were progressing, Rose took hold of his hands and firmly placed them on her hips. They immediately moulded into place, his long fingers curling around to just barely brush the curves of her bottom.
"Erm, Rose," he said as she began working on his buttons. "Are you sure this is…I mean, do you really think it's appropriate…?"
"Oh, no," she assured him with a smile. "Completely inappropriate. The age difference, for one. Different species. You in a position of authority, since I'm basically dependent on you for everything." She opened the last button and pushed his shirt open, placing an open-mouthed kiss over his breastbone. He shivered, and she could feel his hardness against her through his trousers. "Nothing appropriate about it," she whispered into his chest. The soft hairs their quivered with her breath, and he shivered again, more strongly this time.
By now, I'd realised, aha! Rose is teasing him. See, I *told* you the characters took over.
"Rose-" he began in a strangled sort of voice.
"Mm?" She stretched upward and flicked her tongue in the hollow of his throat, where his double pulse fluttered like a wild bird caught in the hands.
Jen loved that phrase, and I really do too. I once *did* catch a wild bird in my hands-one had got into the house and was trapped by the dog, and I picked it up and held it as I carried it outside. That desperate so-fast-it's-almost-constant flutter is how I imagine a binary cardiac system would feel when its owner was turned on.
Unexpectedly, he growled and wrapped his arms around her, and suddenly she was on her back on the bed with him lying atop her, his bare chest against her breasts, his mouth on her own throat. He ground his hips into her and she gasped, "This wasn't in the plan."
No. No, it wasn't. Author is definitely putting her words into character's mouth here. Dominant!Doctor. Ogh-guh!
"Neither was you teasing me quite that effectively," he said against her ear before he bit her earlobe gently. She had to hold in a squeak as warmth rushed straight from that point through her body and between her thighs.
"Well, how was I to know?" she asked breathlessly. "I asked you about your fantasies. I want you to tease me, you said. I've only been back for two weeks; I've got a bit of a learning curve yet."
And another Ogh-guh! moment here: delving into the Doctor's fantasies. Hm. I should write more about those….
"Maybe that's why it worked so well," he murmured. He pushed himself up so he knelt over her, yanking his shirt down his arms (How to Turn On Your Beta, lesson one: the Doctor yanking his clothes off with fire in his eyes.) and tossing it over the edge of the bed. His eyes had gone very, very dark, and there was an intensity in them that sent electricity right up her spine. "I'm still not used to having you here, so any sort of teasing has a much stronger effect on me than it otherwise would."
I've really no idea how she came back. This was pre-JE, though, so it's a Doomsday fixit, not a JE fixit.
His hands were busy undoing his belt and unfastening his trousers, and she found she couldn't tear her eyes away (Well, duh! Who could?) as he pulled the rest of his clothing off and kicked it to the floor. Finally as naked as she, he lowered himself over her and captured her lips for a long, deep, toe-curling kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck, hands twining in his hair as she arched upwards, revelling in the sensation of his bare skin against hers, his hard cock sandwiched between their bellies.
"How long before I can tease you with impunity, then?" she asked, when he finally drew away. "When will you be used to having me here?"
He tilted his head, considering. "Oh, a decade or so," he said after a moment. "Maybe two. Though, you know," he added thoughtfully, "we haven't really gone about this scientifically at all. One attempt at teasing me, naked, on my bed, doesn't give us enough of a sample. We may have to try it in different places. Or different levels of nakedness. Will the effect be the same if you wear black lace lingerie? Or red satin? Or even leather-there's a place on Caerolon Six that does a huge business in made-to-order lingerie for different species; we could go there and try-"
Aw, Ten. How I love thee. Ten!Babble is so much fun to write.
She put a finger over his lips, cutting him off mid-babble. "Shut up and take me, Time Lord," she ordered, grinning and rolling her hips up into his.
Now, see, I did get the phrase in there. Though here, she's clearly playing with that phrase; it's not meant to be serious. Well, the wish is serious; the phrasing itself is not.
He grinned back, though there was more than a hint of heat in it, and reached down to pull her knee up against his hip as he shifted so their bodies were lined up properly. "What," he said, his voice a good half-octave lower, "like this?" And slid into her in one easy stroke.
Time stopped for a moment as their bodies adjusted to each other. Rose discovered her eyes had closed and opened them, taking in the sight of his beloved face so near to her, his eyes closed, brow furrowed, mouth very slightly open. His freckles stood out sharply against his pale skin, and his lips were red and swollen from kissing her.
He was beautiful. Her heart felt as though it were swelling in her chest, almost painfully full of love. She'd been back for two weeks, and it still felt like a dream.
His eyes opened, and he looked down at her with those incredible, warm, dark eyes. "Rose," he whispered, and in that one word, in the gentle caress his voice gave to her name, she could hear all the things that he'd never been able to say to her.
She thought with sudden, crystalline clarity: Two hearts doesn't only mean he loves more-it means he can be twice as hurt, too. Of their own accord, her hands came up to bracket his face, and he turned to kiss her palm, his gaze never leaving hers. "I know," she said in response to what he couldn't say. "I've always known."
That thought, about him being twice as hurt, occurred suddenly to me as I was writing this, and I had to put it down here. Kills me dead, that realisation. And I think it kills Rose dead, too-which is why she had to reassure him that she knows very well that he loves her; he doesn't have to say the words.
His eyes brightened suspiciously, and he closed them, sliding his arms around her and burying his face in her hair as he began to move. She held him tight as he whispered in her ear, musically liquid phrases that she suspected were his native tongue, rocking together in a rhythm that was both familiar and unfamiliar. The mood had shifted in the space of a heartbeat, Rose noticed dimly, but she didn't care. It was enough that she had him again, that he was there, in her arms and in her body. She ran a hand down his spine and back up, caressing, encouraging, loving.
"N'hilla," he whispered, his voice tight with emotion.
OK, confession time: driving a lover so far beyond himself that he starts speaking in his native tongue, which he knows you don't understand, is unbelievably hot to me. That's where this section came from-and the whole concept of the Language Lessons series.
As though that word was the trigger, Rose felt the deep ripples of her orgasm begin to roll through her, as powerful and inexorable as the tide. She tilted her head back, half-gasping, half-whimpering, as the sensations passed through her in waves of pleasure. "Doctor," she panted, arching into him. "Please."
"N'hilla, Nish'ala," he said, and she could hear how close he was. "N'hilla."
Originally, I had a whole phrase in here (which I've completely forgotten, of course). G said that it felt like too much-I didn't trasnslate all of it, and so it threw her out of the story, wondering what all the rest of it meant. She was right; it reads much better this way-and didn't lock me into a phrase whose meaning I'd forgotten!
Several people have asked me where I get the Gallifreyan from. I've no idea. I knew I wanted it to sound attractive and flowing, and I've had a little bit of practice coming up with fake-foreign words, being a fantasy writer (unpublished as yet, but still), so I just combined letters until they looked right, and read them out loud to make sure they sounded good. Pronunciation guide: Vowels are pronounced as they would be in Spanish, so n'hilla is more or less nheela, and Nish'ala is NEESH-a-la.
"N'hilla," she whispered back, not knowing what it meant, only knowing it was important.
He gave a short, sharp, gutteral cry and thrust deep into her suddenly. His body quivered against her, and she had the feeling he was on the edge of losing control. She stroked soothing fingers over his shoulders. "I've got you," she said. "Let go, Doctor. I've got you." She paused, and then, wondering again what it was she was saying, repeated, "N'hilla."
He growled something she couldn't make out and raised himself up so he could look her in the eye. She gasped at what she saw there: not the soft deep love she'd seen before, but something intense, dark, and almost feral. As if the Oncoming Storm had suddenly appeared in their bed, powerful and possessive and terrifying. (Ugh. Sentence fragment. I keep meaning to fix that.) He braced his hands on either side of her and changed his rhythm, pounding into her with rough, desperate need. She met his gaze, held it, watching as the tension in his body increased, his muscles taut and hard, his teeth clenched….
Until at last his face contorted and he arched, a cry wrenched from his throat as he pulsed inside her. Rose released the breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, panting as she watched him shudder through his orgasm. Her womb throbbed in sympathetic pleasure as he thrust raggedly a few more times before collapsing, exhausted, over her. She enfolded him in her arms and legs, stroked his hair, and held him. He held her just as tightly, his cheek pressed to hers as he caught his breath. Finally he raised his head and she let her hold on him slacken as he gently pulled away to lie beside her. She curled up beside him, head on his shoulder, legs entwined with his, content to just be with him.
After a moment, he said, "When did the TARDIS start translating Gallifreyan for you?" He sounded genuinely curious, if a little breathless still.
And this is so Ten, too: Less than a minute after the most mind-blowing orgasm he's had in years, and he's already asking questions.
"She didn’t," Rose replied. "I just…repeated what you said. It sounded…" She paused, then finished, rather lamely, "important."
"Oh, it was," he said gravely. "It was the most important thing I've ever said to you."
She raised her head to look at him. "What does it mean, then?"
He smiled tenderly, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. "It means always," he said.
A mixture of emotions-surprise, delight, love, tenderness-spread through her, and she smiled back. "N'hilla, Doctor," she said.
He kissed her gently. "N'hilla, Rose."
This was where the fic originally ended, but it didn't quite seem right. It was a little too abrupt. I added the last bit, and it just seemed much more complete.
She lay her head back on his shoulder, snuggling into him. After a moment, she said, "Doctor?"
"Hmm?"
"Were you serious about the lingerie shops on that planet? Because I've got some ideas…."
Startled, he laughed, and she grinned. "Tomorrow," he promised, running a hand up and down her back. "Sleep now, my Rose."
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and she sighed happily. N'hilla, she thought, feeling peace steal over her as she drifted off. Always.
Of course I had to end with fluff. This is me, after all….
Part 2, Precious, coming soon.