Fic: Non-Linear Love Story - 4/6 (Doctor Who)
Title: Non-Linear Love Story (4/6)
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 3.5k
Warnings: Naughty things and sad things
Beta: vyctori
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: "Come with me." She's worth it, he thinks. They fit so well together and she already knows how to use a fire extinguisher.
There is sight and sound and none of it has any meaning.
It’s silent in his head, the silence of the dead and he thinks that might be where he is, with the dead.
His hand opens. His hand closes.
There’s nothing to touch.
Shapes move and lights change and the world cycles past. Sounds and noises form words he cares nothing about. Intensive care. Primary respiratory system failure. Extreme dehydration. Secondary respiratory system failure. Emergency situation.
Cellular rejuvenation.
Condition: Stable, unresponsive.
Life forms all about him, life in forms endlessly repeating his name without directing it at him. It’s madness. It’s eternity.
It’s exactly what he deserves.
His hand opens. His hand closes.
Simple repetition causes simple pain.
He has no concept of time, as he has no concept of space. All he knows is nothing, all he responds to is nothing.
That’s not true, only what the words say, what the words believe.
Something buzzes against his face and the words talk of cleaning, of shaving, of making him presentable.
There’s no point to it. He doesn’t respond beyond a slow blink.
His hand opens. His hand closes.
There’s something warm.
"Oh my god," she says. "Oh my god," she says again.
He doesn’t know what’s going on, could easily discover it if he cared. There’s heat and movement and contact and pressure and air. There’s motion and colour and shape.
"You’re going to be okay, I’m here now. Oh my god."
There’s a great deal of sound, a racket. There are other words, words he likes much less and this is what convinces him that he cares. He cares about the first words, the sound behind them. Almost, he reaches for the meaning behind them as well.
"No! You can’t make me leave ‘im! ‘M not goin’ anywhere, ‘m not hurtin’ ‘im and you can’t say that ‘m not helpin’ ‘im! Please, you have to let me try!"
The answering noise is pointless, speaks of pointless things.
"Wha- yeah, can’t you read? I’m family. Lookit this, says right here. ‘M family and ‘m not goin’ anywhere."
The racket fades, drifts away and frustration fills the air from afar. Something touches his face, touches a face that doesn’t feel like his. Something white and flat is waved in front of his eyes, but he’s not in the mood for sweets.
"Slightly-psychic paper. One of your better ideas, yeah? Yeah? ‘Cause you’re so impressive."
There’s pressure in his hand, resistance when his fingers squeeze. It’s soft and has only so much give.
"Yeah! Yeah, that’s right, I can admit it. You are impressive, an’ . . . Can’t you look at me?"
He sees pink and yellow.
His hand opens. His hand closes.
She’s still here.
"Doctor, please," she says. "Come back."
Noise comes and goes, joins and leaves. The voice that speaks for him shares words, shares moods. Anger, possessiveness, worry. Something softer, something hard.
"I need to use the loo, but I’ll only be a mo’. And I expect you to say somethin’ when I get back, yeah?"
Warmth leaves and a cacophony erupts. Noise and life and wonder. Time passing.
"What, what is it?"
Noise and life and wonder. Confusion.
"That’s a good sign, yeah? Can’t be random, his vitals doing all that stuff when I left. Look, watch this."
Warmth returns, holds tight. The cacophony erupts once more, sounds electric and organic alike. Noise and life and wonder.
"I told you! I told you! He’s knows I’m here!"
His hand stays shut.
She doesn’t pull away again.
"It’s complicated."
Soft sounds urge, question.
"In a department store basement on Earth, or at a power generator on Anlosia."
Soft sounds exclaim.
"Yeah, I know, sounds crazy. S’where we met, though. Guess I should say ‘when,’ but that’s kinda hard to explain."
Soft sounds fade into silence, hover in the background. A hand touches his face, lips press against his brow.
"Call it a non-linear love story."
His hand squeezes.
Hers has gone limp.
Weight and golden colour and warmth and breath, all pressing down on his chest amid the dark. Breath and sound that aren’t his, better known than his.
". . . .Mm."
He breathes in deeply, smells bitter exhaustion. Golden colour rises, weight readjusts.
" . . . hm . . . ?"
Weight lifts, warmth fades and the artificial cacophony returns from medical machinery.
". . . Are you really having a panic attack because I stopped using you as a pillow?"
"Yes."
His hand holds to hers.
She holds him just as tightly.
They’re going to walk the hospital grounds, she tells the nurses in the morning.
Untested legs refuse to move at first, refuse to support this long-limbed, solid body. She supports him instead, quietly slipping his dignity into her pocket along with his hearts.
"Nice jimjams," she says to him, helping to prop him up.
"Oi!" he protests easily, the syllable coming readily to these lips. For a minute, for this, for her, he forgets what he cannot bear to remember. It will return to him all too soon, he knows, but now there’s a task ahead, a goal in sight.
Moment to moment, he has to live now. No looking back. No stopping to think. Not just yet. Maybe not ever, but of course, he’s not thinking about that. He has enough to think about already.
She fits strangely under his arm, is the perfect height for him to lean on now, no longer the perfect height to kiss. The ground is far away and every step fools him into thinking he’s about to fall. Shoes have been procured from somewhere, hard boots instead of a gentleman’s footwear. They fit his feet and he lets her tie the laces. He’d do it himself, but she seems to think he’d fall on his face.
She’s probably right, but he’s not about to tell her that.
They maneuver through the halls and everyone seems to know her. Nurses beam at them, come up to them to praise his precious girl, to tell him how his little missus has lived at his bedside since the moment she had arrived.
"Mrs. Smith?" he tries to murmur into her ear but it comes out in a louder Northern burr.
She blushes and kisses these lips that he can’t quite seem to get used to. It requires some awkward bending of the neck on his part. "They would only let family in and we’re not exactly the same species," she explains.
"That all?" he asks, eyebrows raised, words feeling thick in his mouth.
Her blush deepens, yet she refuses to drop her gaze. "Are you implying something, Mr. Smith?"
"That you’re mine," he says and blinks. It’s not untrue, simply blunter than he used to be. He’s not sure what will come out of his mouth next.
She shrugs, the rise and fall of her shoulders distinct beneath his arm. "That’s a given," she replies, says it so simply that he assumes it must be true.
An unfamiliar pull of muscle occurs and he smiles with this face for the first time.
"Fantastic," he breathes, pressing a kiss to her hair.
She swings their hands between them.
He knows he still loves her.
"I need clothes," he’s forced to admit the third time they try to walk past the hospital exit discreetly.
"I still like you naked," she replies, only a weak tease behind the words. "You could always try that."
He rolls his eyes, catalogues the new expression for further study. He continues as if he hasn’t heard her. "Can’t sneak out of a hospital dressed in a hospital gown." It’s good for sneaking around inside of one, but he’s long had his fill of that. That’s the second time running he’s regenerated in a hospital, thinks it is. He doesn’t like it, needs out.
She starts to ask him again, "Are you sure-"
"Get me back to the TARDIS," he interrupts. "Get me back and I’ll be fine."
She looks up at him, looks further up at him than she’s ever done before - from his view of things, at least. She looks at him and he realizes he doesn’t know what he looks like. He doesn’t know the eyes she’s looking into, doesn’t entirely know the man he is now.
She seems to.
"Okay," she says, nodding, trusting him as naturally as ever.
Memories assail him as they walk, pummel at his defenses as he fights to ignore them. Increasingly, he has to stop, has to halt to breathe in a way he hasn’t needed since his first incarnation.
He feels so old and she looks so alive.
He focuses on her instead of himself, has the feeling that he’ll do this often in times to come. She looks at him with concern and he shakes his head, lies to her until he thinks she might believe him.
Eventually, he finds an outfit the same way he did last time, raids a locker after some young physician changes into his scrubs. He doesn’t recognize the man as matching his new build, only decides upon the victim of his theft when his companion’s eyes widen, when she stares at the black jeans and maroon jumper as if she knows them personally.
The clothes fit, yet he still feels disquietingly uncovered.
She seems to realize this, keeps her words soft and her helping arm steady as they make their way to the exit for the final time.
Somebody shouts, raising a clamor about their missing belt.
"Run!" she yells and they stumble their way to freedom.
He holds her with one hand.
He touches a broken police box with the other.
He loses himself for a time, throws his mind against that of his timeship and wails a telepathic cry for the sake of hearing something, anything.
She can’t hear him, doesn’t even know what he’s doing.
Bent over the remains of the TARDIS console with no tears left to spend, he doesn’t know either. He doesn’t know, simply acts.
He shouts and he rages and he remembers, he remembers, damn it all, damn all of existence, he remembers what he has done. He curses Romana, heaps blame on the mastermind, on the last President of Gallifrey, on his friend. He heaps the blame and he tears it down again, claiming it for himself, taking these last shreds of his former life and attempting to define the man he’s become by them.
For a time, he goes mad.
She lets him.
When he comes back to her, exhaustion has numbed rage, blunted grief and waylaid self-directed fury. He tries to sit down and falls instead, the distance down so much larger than it once was.
She’s at his side before he can cry out, her arms around him before he can push her away. She tries to cradle him against her, tries to help him weep. He resists, pulls back.
"Everyone I loved," he tells her. "Everyone but you."
"I know," she says. "But maybe-"
"No."
She flinches without pulling away, takes the rebuke and moves closer.
It hurts because she’s only going to leave again.
They sit together amid rubble where they once danced. He waits, can only wait for her next act of abandonment. When she moves, when she starts to move, before she starts to move, he stops her, rises over her.
Wide eyes gaze up at him from the floor and he smells something else behind the fear, sees her cheeks flush as her lips part.
As consent goes, it’s dubious at best, but he takes it all the same. It’s permission enough for him to drive his knee between her legs, force her thighs apart and grind into her. He runs on instinct, mind pleading for escape. This is basic and simple and there is no thought here.
She doesn’t resist him, doesn’t freeze from fear or reject him, doesn’t push him away with the revulsion he deserves. It would barely have mattered if she had; his grip on her is enough to stop any escape, enough to terrify him. He’s not going to let go, he can’t, not now, not her.
Her tongue forces its way into his mouth, tastes differently than it once did. New taste buds. New ears, too, ears she pulls his head down by.
Consensual, he determines, and tugs her jeans and knickers halfway down her thighs. Her fingernails scrape his back through the stolen jumper, mark new flesh and drive him to look, drive him to see. He rears up, rids her of her top and, remembering the man he used to be, he bunches it up to tuck it behind her head.
He knows the marks on her shoulders, knows them with a raging possessiveness he fears will define him. Four to twelve days for a mark like that to fade, depending on the human skin. Four to twelve days, for her. They could have made love for the first time three days ago for all he knows. And it’s been years since he touched her last.
She tugs at the jumper and he complies hastily to take it off, his movements quick to shorten the time he has to release her for the task. He shoves at her jeans with his legs, hears two thumps and realizes she’s kicked her trainers off. His newly uncoordinated movements buy her time to remove her bra as he fumbles with his own fly, cursing the belt. She bends beneath him, straining, pushes his jeans down with her sock-clad feet.
He takes his rage and his loneliness and buries it between her thighs.
Pained, she yells, but he can’t pull out, can’t withdraw. Instinct forbids it; biology punishes it. He’s already begun to flare and fresh flesh is even more sensitive than the norm. Her face contorts and he tries to withdraw anyway.
Her legs wrap around him, his precious girl clinging against his body as he rises up, attempts to rise and retreat. "No," she gasps out as his arms shake from the effort of holding himself up, of pulling away from her. "No, you, stay."
He half-collapses on top of her, pants as she shivers beneath him. This is instinct, this is what Time Lords ignore. What they used to ignore. It’s instinct to cling, to hold, to entwine and resist parting. Needing to keep her with him, he flares, realizes that she knows or has at least been told of the pain of premature withdrawal.
After doing so much to protect him, she’s not going to physically harm him, not about to pull away. And so he fights release, struggles against the inevitable outcome of being enveloped by her. If he finds release, he releases her. So he won’t. He’s a madman to think it, a madman to attempt it, but he’s always been crazy.
"Okay," she breathes. "I’m ready now, it’s alright." Her hands stroke his back, an exploratory touch. It’s her first time all over again. "God, you got bigger."
He inhales her scent and fights against the need to move. It’s not a need he’s ever won out against, but for her, he’s willing to try.
She rocks her hips against his and in the gap of a heartsbeat, he’s already lost.
If he can’t keep her with him, he’ll have to claim her instead. He does, grinding into her, biting, sucking, touching her in ways these hands should be clumsy with and yet aren’t. There’s nothing gentle in him now, nothing so soft or tender as a naïve, romantic fool.
She holds to him, legs squeezing, inner walls clenching and just like that, he’s gone.
He lets go of her hand.
She stays where she is.
Post-coital repair work is not the staple of a normal relationship, he’s almost certain. It’s a small and tiny fact, utterly insignificant, yet it vaguely reassures him. Not domestic, this.
He doesn’t know why it’s so important to him yet, simply knows that domestic is to be avoided at all costs.
Mrs. Smith, he thinks, watching her add to the pile of scrap metal and ruined gadgetry. He rolls his eyes at the thought, rolls his eyes instead of shuddering. It’s not what he wants and more than that, it doesn’t suit her at all.
She’s wincing as she moves, trying not to let him see. He knows because he’s not stupid and because he has eyes. It’s equally obvious that she doesn’t want to discuss it, isn’t going to rebuke him for his act of savagery. Another obvious detail that has him thinking is the blatant newness of his body, her reactions to it.
He wonders.
Thoughts of her are welcome distractions, as unsettling as they might be. There are things he doesn’t ask her, doesn’t press her for. He doesn’t want to know how long he was catatonic, has a vague idea from the condition of his TARDIS, his abused third heart. He nearly asks why she took so long to come for him, only to realize he never learned the name of that hospital, didn’t pay attention to his surroundings as he left. It’s his own fault; he can’t say it’s much of a surprise.
The repair work goes slowly, slowly by his standards. He improvises and wracks his mind and cannibalizes parts from pieces of machinery he’d forgotten he’d had. They rebuild the main structure, sweep and lift and clear away the once-beautiful remains of the console room.
Together, they haul in grating from the storage rooms below to set over the holes in the floor. He likes it, he decides. He tells her what he plans to do with his TARDIS, how he plans to fix his timeship; at no point does she look surprised with what he proposes.
When his unused hands begin to protest, he tells her to take a break, tells her because he knows she won’t. Taking what an idiot would call a leap of faith - it’s not a leap, only a walk, and he hasn’t got a shred of faith for even a step - he heads deeper into his ship, inspects damage and wanders.
He finds it in the Wardrobe, nearly trips on it with his too-long legs. It’s black and solid and when he throws it around his shoulders, the weight presses at him. It’s perfect and hard and for the first time in this body, he starts to feel less vulnerable.
Or so he’ll claim.
When he returns to the console room, he finds her attempting to untangle a Gordian knot of wiring from the pile of broken parts. She startles when she sees him, does something to the mess of components that sends it into a sparking fit.
"You stupid ape," he remarks without meaning to, bluntness spilling out and leaving him with no sense of embarrassment at all. He wouldn’t have called her that, before.
She bites her lip but he sees her smile anyway.
He rolls his eyes.
Smile fading, she seems to understand, sets her task down. She takes a step towards him, takes another, takes another until she’s run into the waiting circle of his arms. She breathes him in, presses her cheek against the leather and sighs, murmuring his name.
This is who he has to be, he understands now. He’s the man who started her cycle, who reached into her timeline to entwine it with his. He can find her now, start for her what he’s already lived through. He’s waited so long, decides to wait longer, a little while longer. He needs to know who he is first, needs to find himself before he can find her. And he’s frightened.
"I don’t want to hurt you," he tells her hair.
"I love you, too," she tells his jacket unabashedly, her arms around his neck. "So much. Let me do that."
He doesn’t think he could stop her. "Your wish is my command. Just be careful what you wish for."
"You," she says without hesitation. She touches his face, fingertips tracing cheek and nose and ears.
Her parting kiss is half-farewell, half-lament.
He takes her hand.
"Run!"
<-- | -->
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 3.5k
Warnings: Naughty things and sad things
Beta: vyctori
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: "Come with me." She's worth it, he thinks. They fit so well together and she already knows how to use a fire extinguisher.
There is sight and sound and none of it has any meaning.
It’s silent in his head, the silence of the dead and he thinks that might be where he is, with the dead.
His hand opens. His hand closes.
There’s nothing to touch.
Shapes move and lights change and the world cycles past. Sounds and noises form words he cares nothing about. Intensive care. Primary respiratory system failure. Extreme dehydration. Secondary respiratory system failure. Emergency situation.
Cellular rejuvenation.
Condition: Stable, unresponsive.
Life forms all about him, life in forms endlessly repeating his name without directing it at him. It’s madness. It’s eternity.
It’s exactly what he deserves.
His hand opens. His hand closes.
Simple repetition causes simple pain.
He has no concept of time, as he has no concept of space. All he knows is nothing, all he responds to is nothing.
That’s not true, only what the words say, what the words believe.
Something buzzes against his face and the words talk of cleaning, of shaving, of making him presentable.
There’s no point to it. He doesn’t respond beyond a slow blink.
His hand opens. His hand closes.
There’s something warm.
"Oh my god," she says. "Oh my god," she says again.
He doesn’t know what’s going on, could easily discover it if he cared. There’s heat and movement and contact and pressure and air. There’s motion and colour and shape.
"You’re going to be okay, I’m here now. Oh my god."
There’s a great deal of sound, a racket. There are other words, words he likes much less and this is what convinces him that he cares. He cares about the first words, the sound behind them. Almost, he reaches for the meaning behind them as well.
"No! You can’t make me leave ‘im! ‘M not goin’ anywhere, ‘m not hurtin’ ‘im and you can’t say that ‘m not helpin’ ‘im! Please, you have to let me try!"
The answering noise is pointless, speaks of pointless things.
"Wha- yeah, can’t you read? I’m family. Lookit this, says right here. ‘M family and ‘m not goin’ anywhere."
The racket fades, drifts away and frustration fills the air from afar. Something touches his face, touches a face that doesn’t feel like his. Something white and flat is waved in front of his eyes, but he’s not in the mood for sweets.
"Slightly-psychic paper. One of your better ideas, yeah? Yeah? ‘Cause you’re so impressive."
There’s pressure in his hand, resistance when his fingers squeeze. It’s soft and has only so much give.
"Yeah! Yeah, that’s right, I can admit it. You are impressive, an’ . . . Can’t you look at me?"
He sees pink and yellow.
His hand opens. His hand closes.
She’s still here.
"Doctor, please," she says. "Come back."
Noise comes and goes, joins and leaves. The voice that speaks for him shares words, shares moods. Anger, possessiveness, worry. Something softer, something hard.
"I need to use the loo, but I’ll only be a mo’. And I expect you to say somethin’ when I get back, yeah?"
Warmth leaves and a cacophony erupts. Noise and life and wonder. Time passing.
"What, what is it?"
Noise and life and wonder. Confusion.
"That’s a good sign, yeah? Can’t be random, his vitals doing all that stuff when I left. Look, watch this."
Warmth returns, holds tight. The cacophony erupts once more, sounds electric and organic alike. Noise and life and wonder.
"I told you! I told you! He’s knows I’m here!"
His hand stays shut.
She doesn’t pull away again.
"It’s complicated."
Soft sounds urge, question.
"In a department store basement on Earth, or at a power generator on Anlosia."
Soft sounds exclaim.
"Yeah, I know, sounds crazy. S’where we met, though. Guess I should say ‘when,’ but that’s kinda hard to explain."
Soft sounds fade into silence, hover in the background. A hand touches his face, lips press against his brow.
"Call it a non-linear love story."
His hand squeezes.
Hers has gone limp.
Weight and golden colour and warmth and breath, all pressing down on his chest amid the dark. Breath and sound that aren’t his, better known than his.
". . . .Mm."
He breathes in deeply, smells bitter exhaustion. Golden colour rises, weight readjusts.
" . . . hm . . . ?"
Weight lifts, warmth fades and the artificial cacophony returns from medical machinery.
". . . Are you really having a panic attack because I stopped using you as a pillow?"
"Yes."
His hand holds to hers.
She holds him just as tightly.
They’re going to walk the hospital grounds, she tells the nurses in the morning.
Untested legs refuse to move at first, refuse to support this long-limbed, solid body. She supports him instead, quietly slipping his dignity into her pocket along with his hearts.
"Nice jimjams," she says to him, helping to prop him up.
"Oi!" he protests easily, the syllable coming readily to these lips. For a minute, for this, for her, he forgets what he cannot bear to remember. It will return to him all too soon, he knows, but now there’s a task ahead, a goal in sight.
Moment to moment, he has to live now. No looking back. No stopping to think. Not just yet. Maybe not ever, but of course, he’s not thinking about that. He has enough to think about already.
She fits strangely under his arm, is the perfect height for him to lean on now, no longer the perfect height to kiss. The ground is far away and every step fools him into thinking he’s about to fall. Shoes have been procured from somewhere, hard boots instead of a gentleman’s footwear. They fit his feet and he lets her tie the laces. He’d do it himself, but she seems to think he’d fall on his face.
She’s probably right, but he’s not about to tell her that.
They maneuver through the halls and everyone seems to know her. Nurses beam at them, come up to them to praise his precious girl, to tell him how his little missus has lived at his bedside since the moment she had arrived.
"Mrs. Smith?" he tries to murmur into her ear but it comes out in a louder Northern burr.
She blushes and kisses these lips that he can’t quite seem to get used to. It requires some awkward bending of the neck on his part. "They would only let family in and we’re not exactly the same species," she explains.
"That all?" he asks, eyebrows raised, words feeling thick in his mouth.
Her blush deepens, yet she refuses to drop her gaze. "Are you implying something, Mr. Smith?"
"That you’re mine," he says and blinks. It’s not untrue, simply blunter than he used to be. He’s not sure what will come out of his mouth next.
She shrugs, the rise and fall of her shoulders distinct beneath his arm. "That’s a given," she replies, says it so simply that he assumes it must be true.
An unfamiliar pull of muscle occurs and he smiles with this face for the first time.
"Fantastic," he breathes, pressing a kiss to her hair.
She swings their hands between them.
He knows he still loves her.
"I need clothes," he’s forced to admit the third time they try to walk past the hospital exit discreetly.
"I still like you naked," she replies, only a weak tease behind the words. "You could always try that."
He rolls his eyes, catalogues the new expression for further study. He continues as if he hasn’t heard her. "Can’t sneak out of a hospital dressed in a hospital gown." It’s good for sneaking around inside of one, but he’s long had his fill of that. That’s the second time running he’s regenerated in a hospital, thinks it is. He doesn’t like it, needs out.
She starts to ask him again, "Are you sure-"
"Get me back to the TARDIS," he interrupts. "Get me back and I’ll be fine."
She looks up at him, looks further up at him than she’s ever done before - from his view of things, at least. She looks at him and he realizes he doesn’t know what he looks like. He doesn’t know the eyes she’s looking into, doesn’t entirely know the man he is now.
She seems to.
"Okay," she says, nodding, trusting him as naturally as ever.
Memories assail him as they walk, pummel at his defenses as he fights to ignore them. Increasingly, he has to stop, has to halt to breathe in a way he hasn’t needed since his first incarnation.
He feels so old and she looks so alive.
He focuses on her instead of himself, has the feeling that he’ll do this often in times to come. She looks at him with concern and he shakes his head, lies to her until he thinks she might believe him.
Eventually, he finds an outfit the same way he did last time, raids a locker after some young physician changes into his scrubs. He doesn’t recognize the man as matching his new build, only decides upon the victim of his theft when his companion’s eyes widen, when she stares at the black jeans and maroon jumper as if she knows them personally.
The clothes fit, yet he still feels disquietingly uncovered.
She seems to realize this, keeps her words soft and her helping arm steady as they make their way to the exit for the final time.
Somebody shouts, raising a clamor about their missing belt.
"Run!" she yells and they stumble their way to freedom.
He holds her with one hand.
He touches a broken police box with the other.
He loses himself for a time, throws his mind against that of his timeship and wails a telepathic cry for the sake of hearing something, anything.
She can’t hear him, doesn’t even know what he’s doing.
Bent over the remains of the TARDIS console with no tears left to spend, he doesn’t know either. He doesn’t know, simply acts.
He shouts and he rages and he remembers, he remembers, damn it all, damn all of existence, he remembers what he has done. He curses Romana, heaps blame on the mastermind, on the last President of Gallifrey, on his friend. He heaps the blame and he tears it down again, claiming it for himself, taking these last shreds of his former life and attempting to define the man he’s become by them.
For a time, he goes mad.
She lets him.
When he comes back to her, exhaustion has numbed rage, blunted grief and waylaid self-directed fury. He tries to sit down and falls instead, the distance down so much larger than it once was.
She’s at his side before he can cry out, her arms around him before he can push her away. She tries to cradle him against her, tries to help him weep. He resists, pulls back.
"Everyone I loved," he tells her. "Everyone but you."
"I know," she says. "But maybe-"
"No."
She flinches without pulling away, takes the rebuke and moves closer.
It hurts because she’s only going to leave again.
They sit together amid rubble where they once danced. He waits, can only wait for her next act of abandonment. When she moves, when she starts to move, before she starts to move, he stops her, rises over her.
Wide eyes gaze up at him from the floor and he smells something else behind the fear, sees her cheeks flush as her lips part.
As consent goes, it’s dubious at best, but he takes it all the same. It’s permission enough for him to drive his knee between her legs, force her thighs apart and grind into her. He runs on instinct, mind pleading for escape. This is basic and simple and there is no thought here.
She doesn’t resist him, doesn’t freeze from fear or reject him, doesn’t push him away with the revulsion he deserves. It would barely have mattered if she had; his grip on her is enough to stop any escape, enough to terrify him. He’s not going to let go, he can’t, not now, not her.
Her tongue forces its way into his mouth, tastes differently than it once did. New taste buds. New ears, too, ears she pulls his head down by.
Consensual, he determines, and tugs her jeans and knickers halfway down her thighs. Her fingernails scrape his back through the stolen jumper, mark new flesh and drive him to look, drive him to see. He rears up, rids her of her top and, remembering the man he used to be, he bunches it up to tuck it behind her head.
He knows the marks on her shoulders, knows them with a raging possessiveness he fears will define him. Four to twelve days for a mark like that to fade, depending on the human skin. Four to twelve days, for her. They could have made love for the first time three days ago for all he knows. And it’s been years since he touched her last.
She tugs at the jumper and he complies hastily to take it off, his movements quick to shorten the time he has to release her for the task. He shoves at her jeans with his legs, hears two thumps and realizes she’s kicked her trainers off. His newly uncoordinated movements buy her time to remove her bra as he fumbles with his own fly, cursing the belt. She bends beneath him, straining, pushes his jeans down with her sock-clad feet.
He takes his rage and his loneliness and buries it between her thighs.
Pained, she yells, but he can’t pull out, can’t withdraw. Instinct forbids it; biology punishes it. He’s already begun to flare and fresh flesh is even more sensitive than the norm. Her face contorts and he tries to withdraw anyway.
Her legs wrap around him, his precious girl clinging against his body as he rises up, attempts to rise and retreat. "No," she gasps out as his arms shake from the effort of holding himself up, of pulling away from her. "No, you, stay."
He half-collapses on top of her, pants as she shivers beneath him. This is instinct, this is what Time Lords ignore. What they used to ignore. It’s instinct to cling, to hold, to entwine and resist parting. Needing to keep her with him, he flares, realizes that she knows or has at least been told of the pain of premature withdrawal.
After doing so much to protect him, she’s not going to physically harm him, not about to pull away. And so he fights release, struggles against the inevitable outcome of being enveloped by her. If he finds release, he releases her. So he won’t. He’s a madman to think it, a madman to attempt it, but he’s always been crazy.
"Okay," she breathes. "I’m ready now, it’s alright." Her hands stroke his back, an exploratory touch. It’s her first time all over again. "God, you got bigger."
He inhales her scent and fights against the need to move. It’s not a need he’s ever won out against, but for her, he’s willing to try.
She rocks her hips against his and in the gap of a heartsbeat, he’s already lost.
If he can’t keep her with him, he’ll have to claim her instead. He does, grinding into her, biting, sucking, touching her in ways these hands should be clumsy with and yet aren’t. There’s nothing gentle in him now, nothing so soft or tender as a naïve, romantic fool.
She holds to him, legs squeezing, inner walls clenching and just like that, he’s gone.
He lets go of her hand.
She stays where she is.
Post-coital repair work is not the staple of a normal relationship, he’s almost certain. It’s a small and tiny fact, utterly insignificant, yet it vaguely reassures him. Not domestic, this.
He doesn’t know why it’s so important to him yet, simply knows that domestic is to be avoided at all costs.
Mrs. Smith, he thinks, watching her add to the pile of scrap metal and ruined gadgetry. He rolls his eyes at the thought, rolls his eyes instead of shuddering. It’s not what he wants and more than that, it doesn’t suit her at all.
She’s wincing as she moves, trying not to let him see. He knows because he’s not stupid and because he has eyes. It’s equally obvious that she doesn’t want to discuss it, isn’t going to rebuke him for his act of savagery. Another obvious detail that has him thinking is the blatant newness of his body, her reactions to it.
He wonders.
Thoughts of her are welcome distractions, as unsettling as they might be. There are things he doesn’t ask her, doesn’t press her for. He doesn’t want to know how long he was catatonic, has a vague idea from the condition of his TARDIS, his abused third heart. He nearly asks why she took so long to come for him, only to realize he never learned the name of that hospital, didn’t pay attention to his surroundings as he left. It’s his own fault; he can’t say it’s much of a surprise.
The repair work goes slowly, slowly by his standards. He improvises and wracks his mind and cannibalizes parts from pieces of machinery he’d forgotten he’d had. They rebuild the main structure, sweep and lift and clear away the once-beautiful remains of the console room.
Together, they haul in grating from the storage rooms below to set over the holes in the floor. He likes it, he decides. He tells her what he plans to do with his TARDIS, how he plans to fix his timeship; at no point does she look surprised with what he proposes.
When his unused hands begin to protest, he tells her to take a break, tells her because he knows she won’t. Taking what an idiot would call a leap of faith - it’s not a leap, only a walk, and he hasn’t got a shred of faith for even a step - he heads deeper into his ship, inspects damage and wanders.
He finds it in the Wardrobe, nearly trips on it with his too-long legs. It’s black and solid and when he throws it around his shoulders, the weight presses at him. It’s perfect and hard and for the first time in this body, he starts to feel less vulnerable.
Or so he’ll claim.
When he returns to the console room, he finds her attempting to untangle a Gordian knot of wiring from the pile of broken parts. She startles when she sees him, does something to the mess of components that sends it into a sparking fit.
"You stupid ape," he remarks without meaning to, bluntness spilling out and leaving him with no sense of embarrassment at all. He wouldn’t have called her that, before.
She bites her lip but he sees her smile anyway.
He rolls his eyes.
Smile fading, she seems to understand, sets her task down. She takes a step towards him, takes another, takes another until she’s run into the waiting circle of his arms. She breathes him in, presses her cheek against the leather and sighs, murmuring his name.
This is who he has to be, he understands now. He’s the man who started her cycle, who reached into her timeline to entwine it with his. He can find her now, start for her what he’s already lived through. He’s waited so long, decides to wait longer, a little while longer. He needs to know who he is first, needs to find himself before he can find her. And he’s frightened.
"I don’t want to hurt you," he tells her hair.
"I love you, too," she tells his jacket unabashedly, her arms around his neck. "So much. Let me do that."
He doesn’t think he could stop her. "Your wish is my command. Just be careful what you wish for."
"You," she says without hesitation. She touches his face, fingertips tracing cheek and nose and ears.
Her parting kiss is half-farewell, half-lament.
He takes her hand.
"Run!"
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