FIC: "Equal and Opposite" 8/10, NC-17, Ten/Rose
Title: Equal and Opposite
Author: Amanda Rex, amandarex
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: NC-17, M
Spoilers: All of S1, S2, and S3 up to "The Lazarus Experiment"
Summary: As the Doctor discovered during the events of "The Runaway Bride", an excess of Huon particles can send you straight to the TARDIS, if you're not careful. What if Rose carried enough residual Huon energy after absorbing the Heart of the TARDIS in "The Parting of the Ways" to pull her through the Void and back to the Doctor?
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the laptop this was written on. You know it, I know it.
Warnings: This isn't the usual, happy reunion fic. Warnings for dark and unhappy moments.
Author's Notes: I would like to thank my wonderful beta reader for all of her time and support, dynapink. Couldn't do it without you. Concrit on this fic is welcome. I would also like to thank scifiangel, corruptinnocent, iwillrememberu, svanderslice, firefaery2, hannagreen20, calapine, megoddess2, ellenscult, blackadder72, calleigh-j, jen-chan13, effulgent-girl, misscam, isolus-gurl, eulalumel, monkeefan1 for their contributions to a thread I posted on time_and_chips, which helped me a great deal with chapter six of this fic.
Earlier parts: Teaser | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
They'd spent the rest of the day talking and reminiscing, arguing about one detail of their adventures or another and kissing until Rose felt a gentle swelling in her lips. Well, and doing a bit more than kissing, if the truth was to be told, but there were limits even to a Time Lord's physiology, it seemed.
She'd fought to stay awake until he convinced her to give in, humming a tuneless song in her ear until she drifted off. When she woke hours later, she could feel that he was gone from the bed even before she patted the area next to her to find it empty.
"Hello again," he said, and she sat up to find him sitting at the desk. He'd shoved her abandoned books and things to the side and covered the rest of its surface with papers. He was wearing only his glasses and the trousers from his suit, and was quite possibly the sexiest thing she'd ever seen.
"Are you working on-"
"Yes," he said quickly, setting his pen down and turning around in the chair. "Coming along fine, so far." He sounded very confident, but there was something under the surface that Rose couldn't quite put her finger on.
"Don't you need the TARDIS for this? Or isn't there at least a place where you'd have more room?" she asked, hoping that whatever oddness she'd sensed from him was just from being stuck at her tiny desk, separated from the tools he really needed.
"I didn't want to leave you."
She let his admission hang in the air between them, unanswered. She simply couldn't think of anything to say that felt like a worthy response. He'd stayed at her cramped desk, scribbling on papers in the dark, simply because that was where she was.
"Are you hungry?" she asked, looking for a subtle way to relocate him to a more sensible place to do his work.
"Kicking me out, Rose?" he teased.
"Kicking us both out," she retorted. "We have work to do, you know. There's got to be a better place for you than here, at that dodgy old desk."
He acquiesced, standing and gathering his papers, joking with her about her lack of hospitality. She threw off the sheet and shivered as the cool air hit her naked body. Her fluffy pink robe was, thankfully, just where she'd stashed it long ago, in the back of the wardrobe. She was just pulling it around herself when she realized he'd stopped talking, and she turned to find him watching her very closely.
"Rose," he began dangerously, "if you want us to get to business, you've picked a rather distracting way to begin." He left the papers behind and came to her, slipping his hands inside the robe as he bent to kiss her neck.
With great reluctance, she pushed him back, feeling horrible about the 'wounded puppy' look he treated her to.
"You have work to do, Doctor."
"I've been doing it," he protested. "I can do a lot of things at the same time."
"Then I suppose you can do that one thing very quickly if I leave you to it," she insisted. "I'll go make us something. It's not the end of the world."
"No," he said, too abruptly. "Not the end of the world at all." He cupped her chin and gave her a slow, searching kiss before he let her go.
She was still trying to figure out if he was hiding something from her as she padded through the corridors, relishing the nearly-unpleasant coolness of the metallic TARDIS floors against her bare feet.
"I missed you too," she whispered to the ship, trailing a hand down the wall as she walked. "I still had my key."
She rummaged through the cupboards when she arrived in the kitchen, looking with disgust on some of the things she found, and with exasperation at the rest. That is, until she found a pristine, boldly yellow bunch of bananas, after which she had to sit down and have a good, long laugh.
When she'd recovered, she twisted two bananas free of the bunch and laid them aside, putting the rest back. After a bit more searching, she found a few things she was familiar enough with to consider them edible. She was just trying to figure out how to balance it all in her arms when she caught herself just staring at the counter, her mind wandering to other things.
Something about everything that was happening, that the Doctor was trying to make happen, was still bothering her. She honestly couldn't put words to it, but it was driving her mad regardless. The Doctor seemed confident, but he'd had moments of letting that appearance drop, as well.
Not to mention, he'd been working on this all along. He said he'd been trying to open a single breach to bring her back, but hadn't managed to do it. Yet, he seemed so sure that they could accomplish it now. She didn't understand why it didn't all add up.
She piled the food she'd dug up on her folded arms and set off, taking a deep breath to steel her against whatever it was that the Doctor had left out of what he'd told her. She realized she was walking slowly, subconsciously dawdling, and she intentionally sped up her pace. If there was something he was choosing to hide from her, she needed to know what it was.
She found him bent over a display, his scrawled-on papers sitting nearby and his hair noticeably more rumpled. He didn't appear to notice her at first, muttering something to the screen as he scratched the back of his neck.
She leaned against the railing nearby, trying not to disturb him, but the amount of time she was able to balance the food she'd brought had evidently come to an end as one of the bananas fell to the floor.
His head snapped up and he looked down at the banana, then up at her. A slow grin took over his face.
"Shame to bruise a banana, you know. Lots of lovely potassium in there."
She smiled back at him in spite of herself. She'd meant to be very serious with him now that she'd had some time to think, but it was very difficult to do when this overwhelming feeling of relief at being back with him was still so new.
"I'm sure it's fine. I'll have that one," she told him, but he plucked it from the floor, peeled it, and began to eat.
"Doctor," she began, not quite knowing where to start, but finally deciding to just jump in. "I know you've been working on this for awhile, but I don't understand how you happen to be so close to making it work now, just when we need to use what you've worked out to bring Martha back."
"Clever girl," the Doctor answered. "Knew that wouldn't hold you for long."
"So...what then? You really aren't that close? Can you do it at all?"
"I didn't lie to you, Rose. I do think I can do it." He seemed as though he wanted to say something more, but was stopping himself. His lips were crushed together and he kept looking away from her.
"Why didn't you do it, then? Bring me back before now?"
"Rose, it's-I wasn't sure. Not sure enough. There was danger. There always is, with something like this. I didn't have all the details, and the details I did have, well, they don't make this a certain thing. Something could go wrong. Something could still go wrong."
"But Martha-"
"Martha would rather I try it than leave her in a world where she's alone. She's got no one. She might not even remember who she is. Worse, there may well already be a Martha Jones there. She'll fall through the cracks in that world, one way or another. That's not what happened to you. You had your family. Mickey the idiot," the Doctor added, finally injecting a bit of levity into the conversation.
"But not you."
"No, but I couldn't ask you what you wanted, either. I might have been able to scoop you out, draw you back here, without getting you killed. I had no way of knowing how much time had passed for you. The universes move at their own rates. You could have moved on, been married, had children of your own. I might have ripped you away from that without your permission. I-I couldn't take the chance, no matter how much I-"
"How could you not know?" she asked.
He looked at the floor, the walls, anywhere but at her.
"I have a terrible feeling about this, Doctor," she said, unable to stop herself.
"I can't promise that something won't go wrong," he said, earnestly looking at her. "I can't lie to you, Rose. I can only tell you that Martha would want us to try."
"What are the chances that everything comes off all right?" she asked, feeling some strange responsibility to ask the questions Martha couldn't ask for herself.
"They're good," the Doctor began, speaking more slowly now, and she guessed that he was trying to simplify things for her, an obvious necessity when he was the only being in the universe capable of understanding what they were setting out to do. "It's not certain. The only thing that would be certain, of course, is-" he continued, stopping himself and stammering a bit, as though he'd begun to say something he meant to leave out.
"Is what? What's the only way you know it would work, Doctor?"
"It's nothing. I have a different plan where there's an excellent chance of-"
"What are you not telling me?" she demanded, her stomach twisting with apprehension. When he said it, just moments after she'd insisted, she realized she'd known all along.
"I could switch you back. An exchange. That's the only guarantee we've got."
On to Chapter 8, because I was physically incapable of leaving it there for the day.
Author: Amanda Rex, amandarex
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: NC-17, M
Spoilers: All of S1, S2, and S3 up to "The Lazarus Experiment"
Summary: As the Doctor discovered during the events of "The Runaway Bride", an excess of Huon particles can send you straight to the TARDIS, if you're not careful. What if Rose carried enough residual Huon energy after absorbing the Heart of the TARDIS in "The Parting of the Ways" to pull her through the Void and back to the Doctor?
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the laptop this was written on. You know it, I know it.
Warnings: This isn't the usual, happy reunion fic. Warnings for dark and unhappy moments.
Author's Notes: I would like to thank my wonderful beta reader for all of her time and support, dynapink. Couldn't do it without you. Concrit on this fic is welcome. I would also like to thank scifiangel, corruptinnocent, iwillrememberu, svanderslice, firefaery2, hannagreen20, calapine, megoddess2, ellenscult, blackadder72, calleigh-j, jen-chan13, effulgent-girl, misscam, isolus-gurl, eulalumel, monkeefan1 for their contributions to a thread I posted on time_and_chips, which helped me a great deal with chapter six of this fic.
Earlier parts: Teaser | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
They'd spent the rest of the day talking and reminiscing, arguing about one detail of their adventures or another and kissing until Rose felt a gentle swelling in her lips. Well, and doing a bit more than kissing, if the truth was to be told, but there were limits even to a Time Lord's physiology, it seemed.
She'd fought to stay awake until he convinced her to give in, humming a tuneless song in her ear until she drifted off. When she woke hours later, she could feel that he was gone from the bed even before she patted the area next to her to find it empty.
"Hello again," he said, and she sat up to find him sitting at the desk. He'd shoved her abandoned books and things to the side and covered the rest of its surface with papers. He was wearing only his glasses and the trousers from his suit, and was quite possibly the sexiest thing she'd ever seen.
"Are you working on-"
"Yes," he said quickly, setting his pen down and turning around in the chair. "Coming along fine, so far." He sounded very confident, but there was something under the surface that Rose couldn't quite put her finger on.
"Don't you need the TARDIS for this? Or isn't there at least a place where you'd have more room?" she asked, hoping that whatever oddness she'd sensed from him was just from being stuck at her tiny desk, separated from the tools he really needed.
"I didn't want to leave you."
She let his admission hang in the air between them, unanswered. She simply couldn't think of anything to say that felt like a worthy response. He'd stayed at her cramped desk, scribbling on papers in the dark, simply because that was where she was.
"Are you hungry?" she asked, looking for a subtle way to relocate him to a more sensible place to do his work.
"Kicking me out, Rose?" he teased.
"Kicking us both out," she retorted. "We have work to do, you know. There's got to be a better place for you than here, at that dodgy old desk."
He acquiesced, standing and gathering his papers, joking with her about her lack of hospitality. She threw off the sheet and shivered as the cool air hit her naked body. Her fluffy pink robe was, thankfully, just where she'd stashed it long ago, in the back of the wardrobe. She was just pulling it around herself when she realized he'd stopped talking, and she turned to find him watching her very closely.
"Rose," he began dangerously, "if you want us to get to business, you've picked a rather distracting way to begin." He left the papers behind and came to her, slipping his hands inside the robe as he bent to kiss her neck.
With great reluctance, she pushed him back, feeling horrible about the 'wounded puppy' look he treated her to.
"You have work to do, Doctor."
"I've been doing it," he protested. "I can do a lot of things at the same time."
"Then I suppose you can do that one thing very quickly if I leave you to it," she insisted. "I'll go make us something. It's not the end of the world."
"No," he said, too abruptly. "Not the end of the world at all." He cupped her chin and gave her a slow, searching kiss before he let her go.
She was still trying to figure out if he was hiding something from her as she padded through the corridors, relishing the nearly-unpleasant coolness of the metallic TARDIS floors against her bare feet.
"I missed you too," she whispered to the ship, trailing a hand down the wall as she walked. "I still had my key."
She rummaged through the cupboards when she arrived in the kitchen, looking with disgust on some of the things she found, and with exasperation at the rest. That is, until she found a pristine, boldly yellow bunch of bananas, after which she had to sit down and have a good, long laugh.
When she'd recovered, she twisted two bananas free of the bunch and laid them aside, putting the rest back. After a bit more searching, she found a few things she was familiar enough with to consider them edible. She was just trying to figure out how to balance it all in her arms when she caught herself just staring at the counter, her mind wandering to other things.
Something about everything that was happening, that the Doctor was trying to make happen, was still bothering her. She honestly couldn't put words to it, but it was driving her mad regardless. The Doctor seemed confident, but he'd had moments of letting that appearance drop, as well.
Not to mention, he'd been working on this all along. He said he'd been trying to open a single breach to bring her back, but hadn't managed to do it. Yet, he seemed so sure that they could accomplish it now. She didn't understand why it didn't all add up.
She piled the food she'd dug up on her folded arms and set off, taking a deep breath to steel her against whatever it was that the Doctor had left out of what he'd told her. She realized she was walking slowly, subconsciously dawdling, and she intentionally sped up her pace. If there was something he was choosing to hide from her, she needed to know what it was.
She found him bent over a display, his scrawled-on papers sitting nearby and his hair noticeably more rumpled. He didn't appear to notice her at first, muttering something to the screen as he scratched the back of his neck.
She leaned against the railing nearby, trying not to disturb him, but the amount of time she was able to balance the food she'd brought had evidently come to an end as one of the bananas fell to the floor.
His head snapped up and he looked down at the banana, then up at her. A slow grin took over his face.
"Shame to bruise a banana, you know. Lots of lovely potassium in there."
She smiled back at him in spite of herself. She'd meant to be very serious with him now that she'd had some time to think, but it was very difficult to do when this overwhelming feeling of relief at being back with him was still so new.
"I'm sure it's fine. I'll have that one," she told him, but he plucked it from the floor, peeled it, and began to eat.
"Doctor," she began, not quite knowing where to start, but finally deciding to just jump in. "I know you've been working on this for awhile, but I don't understand how you happen to be so close to making it work now, just when we need to use what you've worked out to bring Martha back."
"Clever girl," the Doctor answered. "Knew that wouldn't hold you for long."
"So...what then? You really aren't that close? Can you do it at all?"
"I didn't lie to you, Rose. I do think I can do it." He seemed as though he wanted to say something more, but was stopping himself. His lips were crushed together and he kept looking away from her.
"Why didn't you do it, then? Bring me back before now?"
"Rose, it's-I wasn't sure. Not sure enough. There was danger. There always is, with something like this. I didn't have all the details, and the details I did have, well, they don't make this a certain thing. Something could go wrong. Something could still go wrong."
"But Martha-"
"Martha would rather I try it than leave her in a world where she's alone. She's got no one. She might not even remember who she is. Worse, there may well already be a Martha Jones there. She'll fall through the cracks in that world, one way or another. That's not what happened to you. You had your family. Mickey the idiot," the Doctor added, finally injecting a bit of levity into the conversation.
"But not you."
"No, but I couldn't ask you what you wanted, either. I might have been able to scoop you out, draw you back here, without getting you killed. I had no way of knowing how much time had passed for you. The universes move at their own rates. You could have moved on, been married, had children of your own. I might have ripped you away from that without your permission. I-I couldn't take the chance, no matter how much I-"
"How could you not know?" she asked.
He looked at the floor, the walls, anywhere but at her.
"I have a terrible feeling about this, Doctor," she said, unable to stop herself.
"I can't promise that something won't go wrong," he said, earnestly looking at her. "I can't lie to you, Rose. I can only tell you that Martha would want us to try."
"What are the chances that everything comes off all right?" she asked, feeling some strange responsibility to ask the questions Martha couldn't ask for herself.
"They're good," the Doctor began, speaking more slowly now, and she guessed that he was trying to simplify things for her, an obvious necessity when he was the only being in the universe capable of understanding what they were setting out to do. "It's not certain. The only thing that would be certain, of course, is-" he continued, stopping himself and stammering a bit, as though he'd begun to say something he meant to leave out.
"Is what? What's the only way you know it would work, Doctor?"
"It's nothing. I have a different plan where there's an excellent chance of-"
"What are you not telling me?" she demanded, her stomach twisting with apprehension. When he said it, just moments after she'd insisted, she realized she'd known all along.
"I could switch you back. An exchange. That's the only guarantee we've got."
On to Chapter 8, because I was physically incapable of leaving it there for the day.