Time Out (1/1)
Reposted to include a cut.
Title: Time Out
Author: Anne Hedonia ( ahedonia)
Rating: R? Kinda?
Beta: jellybean728, who rocks my and everyone else’s socks off. Check your feet, you don’t have socks, do you? (Wait, you do? Uh… look, a thing! ::steals your socks:: ) See? Also thanks go to cartoon_red for a speedy Britpicking.
Disclaimer: If I owned ‘em, you’d know.
Summary/AN: Written for the Time in Flux ficathon at
doctor_rose_fic . The challenge? Rewrite your assigned episode so that Rose and the Doctor get together as a couple, without destroying canon so much that next episode couldn’t happen. I begged for a Nine ep and got Father’s Day, and all my issues with making that ep romantic got a nice, thorough working over. Still, what can’t be made better by shagging Nine, eh? Plus I got to address the one question about the ep I was most irked they never answered.
----------
It was weird not existing.
That was a noteworthy thought on its own. Really, things had to get pretty out of hand for the Doctor to remark on them as weird.
He figured he was probably just a puff of energy, a cloud of unused potential. He didn’t think he was dead. Wherever the Doctor might have thought he’d end up after he died, he was pretty sure this state of thinking-but-not-being wasn’t it. But he had an idea he knew what it meant.
He was going back at some point. Somehow the situation he’d left wasn’t resolved, but later would be.
In the meantime it was like a fever dream, a haze of confusion and half-seen images, perplexing bits of information assaulting him and then melting into new scenarios. It was just waiting, watching…though watching what, he wasn’t always sure.
He remembered how he came to be “here.” He remembered blocking everyone in the church from the Reapers, feeling the tremble and shriek of the people behind him. He’d glimpsed the shark-like rows of the Reaper’s teeth before the thing fell at him. He remembered a flash of feeling like his old self, after a day of feeling not so. The thrill of a last foolhardy act that could be the end of him but might not, which was what made it worth doing. Blanche DuBois may have relied on the kindness of strangers, but the Doctor relied on the Might Not.
He also knew he’d been showing someone else up, giving Rose Tyler what his perceived competitor never could: 900 indigestible years to help stall for time and give the human race another chance to survive.
Let Pete Tyler come up with a scheme to do that.Sheer adrenaline and a bit of mind-over-matter had kept him from pain as the razor teeth started to shred, ripping him to bits so fast there was barely time to register it at all. Not a bad way to go, actually, and he was one of the few beings in existence who’d actually had the opportunity to compare methods. He’d certainly died worse, that was a fact.
But his Time Lord brain had stayed true to form and parsed every millisecond of its expiration, every dying brain cell giving up the bounty of what it knew in a brilliant spark.
Basically his life had flashed before his eyes.
He was a little miffed, in retrospect. It was so cliché, so common. Certainly a Time Lord had a different end-of-life experience than the average Joe about to be hit by a bus?
Evidently not. Oh well.He’d settled in for what he assumed would be a very long show, but found his brain was specializing: it only showed him the recent parts of his life, the ones that had happened since he’d met Rose.
He didn’t mind reliving those.
A cloud of them drifted by, wonderful in their immediacy and clarity: a moment in 1860’s Cardiff when he caught himself staring at the sleek curve of her neck-it was the first time he’d seen her hair done up. Grinning proudly later as she told off that undertaker for copping a feel, her genteel clothing obviously not domesticating her in the slightest. Watching her eyes flash on Platform 1 as she demanded to know who he was and refused to bend to the bluster he was using to throw her off course. Seeing her stricken little form as she watched bits of her exploded world drift by the huge windows. Taking her hand and making it better.
He saw her staring at him clear-eyed over a Number 10 conference table as his pulse raced at her trust. Heard her small voice over a speaker absolving him as she faced death by Dalek. Felt her forearm resting securely on his shoulders as he sat in that chair on Satellite 5, a gesture that intimated it was a foregone conclusion they would never be parted.
If he’d had hearts, they would have clenched. If he’d had breath, it would have caught.
His visions turned to moments from his last day, the day he had just spent with her. His enjoyment level fell a bit, and the immediacy of the images didn't feel quite so much like a good thing.
++
He’s there again, glaring at the scruffy inside of Pete Tyler’s car as he scowls in the backseat, driving back to the flat of the man who is quite possibly the biggest threat to time and space now existing. He watches Rose ignore the reality and weight of what she’s done in favour of positively simpering over her dad.
Each possibility he thinks of that may have led to this outcome is worse than the last. Best case scenario: she didn’t listen to him, HIM. The idea that she flouted HIS instructions is so blasphemous as to be unreal.
He tries not to acknowledge the second-worst-case scenario: the idea that Rose dumped him for her dad the minute she got the chance. It’s not worth acknowledging because there’s nothing to be dumped from. The memory of her running to her father like she did should only inflame him for the paradox she was about to cause. If he was her boyfriend or… lover or whatever ,he’d have a right to be furious over her outrageous betrayal and insensitivity. If he was one of those things, that is.
But his stomach knots in pain at the worst idea of all: that she’s planned this from the beginning, and their camaraderie and connection has all been just a con to get what she wants. The very thought makes him burn with a shame and hurt that makes him want to die and never come back.
Even if it wasn’t a plan, she’ll clearly never want to leave this time period and travel with him again. He shakes his head and lets it fall into one hand.
Fury at himself for letting her do this threatens to crush him. How did he seriously justify this trip to himself? How did he ignore all he knew and tell himself she could handle this? How did he ignore the absolute fact that emotion would take over? What was he thinking? The corners of his scowling mouth tug impossibly farther down as he’s hit with a wave of shame-what was he thinking with?
She’s going to listen to him. He’s going to make her. The moment he gets her alone he’s going to… he has a sudden vision of grabbing her roughly by the upper arms. Then before he can stop them his thoughts are flying on to shoving back those jackets she's wearing, grabbing the t-shirt underneath and rendering it useless with a good rippi-oh dear. The Doctor’s face flushes red. Where did that thought come from? He does mean to get her attention but that…would be a bit much.
His jilted hearts appear to have their own agenda and some different ideas than his brain on how time alone with her would be best spent. He likes the ideas more than he wants to. Not the time, now.
He scrunches lower in his seat and tunes out the din of his own thoughts, and even more the sound of his car mates’ conversation.
---------
With Pete in the back room of the flat, the Doctor is more than ready to talk. Rose, however, won’t stop babbling about details of her father’s life: barmy money-making schemes she can’t possibly believe are valid and can’t POSSIBLY believe he cares about. It astonishes him that she’s not only avoiding this monumentally important issue, but she’s seriously not responding to the look on his face-he feels like his anger is a living thing, clawed and fanged and leaping out of his eyes.
Finally she caves. “Okay, look... I'll tell him you're not my boyfriend.”
He ignores the jolt in the stomach that remark gives him. “When we met, I said 'travel with me in space',” he says with forced evenness. “You said no. Then I said 'time machine'.”
She denies it, of course. Comes up with every justification her kind have ever had about changing events: it’s not that important, etc, etc. Meanwhile the back of his brain taunts him: You’ve been had. You, the Doctor, are just one more dirty old man gone stupid for a bit of attention and a pretty smile. Oldest story in the book, and you fell for it. Good thing you don’t have anyone to live this down to or you never would…
Still, he can keep up his end of the argument until she says…
“No, I get it! For once, YOU'RE not the most important man in my life.”
His eyes widen, fierce with disbelief. She’s saying it, then? Actually confirming it out loud?
Before he knows it he’s demanding his TARDIS key back and she’s giving it and he’s striding for the door and he doesn’t want it to go like this, but the fever of his humiliation is burning too hot to stop himself.
He hears her follow. “You don’t scare me,” she goads.
He wheels on her with a glare that has made armies retreat. “That makes you unique in the universe.”
She gapes. “Are you really that childish? You won’t even share me with my own father?”
“Not when that father shouldn’t even be here!” he thunders, advancing on her. “And no, I don’t share!”
“That’s not for you to say, is it?” she cries. “I’m not a thing to be shared or not shared. I’m not yours!”
He stalks forward, backing her up. She jolts when her shoulders hit the wall.
“You’re mine if I say you are,” he growls dangerously. She gasps in indignation. “Of all the--!”Something snaps and he shuts her up with a kiss, hard and furious and absolute. He hears her head bump the wall when he does so. His mind reels with the reality of what he’s doing-fantasies like this are never supposed to see the light of day-but suddenly he feels his claim on her must be asserted, and he won’t settle for any other method. Sod it, he thinks-if they really are parting ways, he’s got nothing to lose.
She’s stiff with surprise for only a moment before she presses into him. He thinks she’s kissing back, but frankly he’s mashing his mouth to hers so relentlessly he’s not sure he’d know. His hands clench around her forearms and twitch with the urge to feel everywhere, but he fights it. Her hands flutter indecisively around his shoulder blades before finally clasping his back. Her heart is pounding hard enough for him to feel it. He wonders if she can feel his, too.
Finally he pulls away, seeing her eyes glazed and half-lidded. She blinks, unconsciously leaning forward to continue. He evades her and brings his lips to her ear.
“Not mine? Should have no trouble doing without me, then,” he hisses.
He’s out the door before he can give in to the urge to soothe her shock.
He pauses outside to collect himself, embarrassed by his own trembling. He hears Pete ask if she’s having boyfriend trouble. He smirks grimly when Rose has nothing to say.
++
The non-existent Doctor remembered then that on the march back to the TARDIS he had been able to think of nothing but the encounter with Rose. Not surprising, his consciousness mused reasonably. Kissing the woman you’ve secretly craved since the day you met her was always a more compelling topic than some messy old apocalypse. Part of him had felt smug and validated, telling himself he had Rose in the palm of his hand. The other part of him had panicked that he’d just made sure she’d never speak to him again.
But at that moment, the cloud of Doctorness remembered, the apocalypse had grown tired of waiting its turn for his attention. The TARDIS had stopped being such, became just a cabinet that couldn’t take him anywhere.
He remembered rushing back, the paradox too severe to worry about anything but getting to her.
He remembered being in the church, and the sight of her with her father making him jealous and angry all over again.
He remembered busying himself with the problem, taking charge and giving orders, calming those in the wedding party, handling every aspect he could think of just to keep himself distracted from the subject of her.
He re-watched moment when she decided to stop being ignored.
++
He’s in another room of the church, closing and locking the windows when he hears her enter behind him.
“Anything I can do to help?” The uncertainty in her voice just annoys him all the more.
He slams a window shut and doesn’t turn around. “Yes, you can stay out of the way.”
He doesn’t have to look at her to know she’s sulking at that. He forces the window’s lock into place with satisfaction.
“You can’t keep treating me this way.”
“Treating you what way?”
“Don’t be an arse.” He turns, looking at her flatly. “I treat people according to the way they’ve treated me.”
Her mouth drops open. “What is that supposed to mean?”He’s feeling vicious and he knows he’ll hurt her… or worse. In a moment of clarity he determines he can’t lose control like last time. He’s not even sure how to explain or make up for last time-he can’t dig himself in deeper.
His stomach flips as imagines what “deeper” might entail.
His voice softens. “Nothing. You’ve made your choice, haven’t you? Just… go and enjoy it.”
Unsurprisingly, she keeps arguing. “What do you mean, choice? Between you and him?” He doesn’t respond, and she seems to find answer in that. “There is no choice, why… why do you have to make it like this?”
“I didn’t make anything like this!” he snaps. His tirade pours out unimpeded-he can't believe his control didn’t last an entire 15 seconds. “I’m not the one who batted her eyelashes and asked to be taken back to her daddy, only to throw all caution, common sense and instruction to the wind in search of what her greedy little heart wanted!”
She glares at him for a hurt beat, and then stalks up to him, eyes like ice.
“I’m not the one who dropped everything and said ‘your wish is my command’.”
His face flushes hot at her words. They glower for a long beat. She’s standing close in front of him; he can smell the sharp tang of her sweat. Thoughts of her sweat turn to thoughts of her skin, and he fights them back. It takes all the willpower he has to turn and go to the next window.
He can hear her follow. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” “Doesn’t matter. It still did.”Her voice trembles with anger. “So that’s it, then? You’re just… writin’ me off?”
“No less than you did me.” “What?!”His voice rises in volume and intensity as he speaks. “Didn’t find my instructions worth listening to? Didn’t find the gift I’d given you worthy of that courtesy? Didn’t find my company as scintillating as that of your dim-witted snake oil salesman of a dad?”
Rose’s face is so red it’s as though she’ll explode. She blusters till she can find words. “You...bleedin' wanker."
“What, am I not allowed to be angry when you’re about to go waltzing off with him?”
“I am not waltzing off with him! I don’t even know right now if I’m going to live long enough to go waltzing off with anybody!” Her fists fasten to her hips. “Have you even taken one moment to think about what seeing my dead dad for the first time might mean to me?”
He steps into her personal space. “Did you ever think what watching you forget me entirely and run to someone else might mean to me?”
Another glaring standoff, moments dragging into forever. His eyes drift to the fresh pink blotches on her cheeks. His hands clench and unclench. Control, he tells himself.
“Fine,” she announces finally. “There’s no arguing with the Doctor, is there? Since you’ve made up your mind what I’m going to do, I’ll just go do it.” His insides panic as she turns and strides to the door. “Have a nice life.”
The last doesn’t sound like taunting-it sounds perfectly serious.
He’s leapt forward and grabbed her arm before he’s even registered the decision to act. He spins her around. She gasps but then covers her surprise immediately with defiance. Her eyes flash but momentarily flick downward to his lips; he feels a spark of self-satisfaction.
“So,” he growls, low and threatening, “you’re not the girl who comes when I click my fingers?”
She shakes her head rebelliously. He leans close until he can taste her breath. “D'you want to bet?”
Her eyes go wide when he rips open her jeans button, forces down the zip and thrusts his hand inside, his fingers finding their target on the first try. She jolts hard and her mouth falls open on a cry. His own adrenaline is making him shake while he feels a smug pride: if the first touch was that electric, she was already excited.
His hand quickly sets up a rhythm. She’s too surprised to hide anything, too shocked to protest. He knows that won’t last forever. He’s already determined he’s not letting her regain her composure.
He takes a fast step forward to back her up against a table for stability; her hands flail for the sides and grip the edges. He changes the strokes to circling and her eyes roll back, losing the thread entirely. She fights to regain it but his fingers dip inside to bring up some moisture and she bites her lip against another cry. Suddenly there are voices from down the hall, too far away to hear their words distinctly but closer than expected. He sees her eyes flick to the door and her look of sudden fear, then watches it dissolve in a wash of craving and pleasure.
Seeing this happen makes him harder than iron.She reaches for him but he pushes her hand back to the table; she relents without much effort. She weaves her face toward his, trying to kiss him but he buries his face in her neck instead. He feasts on the taste of her skin, feeling himself as feral as he’s ever been.
Minutes elapse and his fingers keep up a feverish pace inside her knickers and she’s squirming and straining and swallowing the noises she wants to make. He realises this and pounces on it: “They’re going to hear you,” he purrs in her ear. “You’re going to come and when you do you’re going to scream and the whole church is going to know that you were coming because of me.” He can tell absolutely that his words are inflaming her, her eyes clenched shut and her pink cheeks glowing and his hand sloppy wet. He leans in until his lips brush the shell of her ear, his voice husking, low and deliberate. “You are coming harder than you ever have because of me.”
Her scream erupts in a glorious outburst; excitement sparks ruthlessly through the Doctor’s belly and limbs. She clamps her mouth shut but still can’t keep back all of her whimpers and wails as she convulses. The voices in the hall change slightly, becoming questioning. Rose collapses back against the table as though every muscle in her body has abandoned her. A beat later and the hall voices go back to their former tone.
Panting, she slowly raises her eyes to meet his. A long moment passes between them, until the Doctor
unceremoniously yanks his hand out of her clothes and exits, leaving Rose trembling against a table in half-fastened jeans.
++
Non-Existent Doctor felt ruefully sorry for his former self, up at the church pulpit talking to the frightened wedding party about the Reaper situation while totally unable to concentrate. He’d felt weak and shaky-not to mention awash in frustration-for a good half hour after the encounter with Rose. The feel and the sound and the smell of her had clung to his memory and made staying in the moment something only accomplished with conscious effort.
All that time he’d been pressed up against Rose in the other room, he’d felt something hot burning his chest through the lining of his jacket. At the time he’d been rather too…distracted to investigate, but once on his own he’d checked and found it was the TARDIS key, glowing like an ember. He’d immediately realised the possibility of drawing the ship back. Telling the assembled guests about it seemed to make them feel only marginally better, in a shell-shocked kind of way. For once he wasn’t offended; he was feeling a lot the same himself.
He didn’t recognize the situation he was in any better than they did.
++
He’s sitting on the pulpit steps near the pulsating ghost of the TARDIS, watching Pete look out the window. He knows Pete’s studying the car that keeps appearing, screeching around that turn and then vanishing. There’s a furrow in Pete’s brow, but it’s not part of the stupefied gaze of someone who can’t believe what he’s seeing. It’s the look of a person gathering evidence and assembling the pieces. The respect he feels for Pete is grudging.
A moment later Rose re-enters the sanctuary. The Doctor tries not to perk up too obviously, watching her carefully for signs she’s angry or hurt or…anything. She doesn’t look around for him, instead going straight for Pete. He ignores the pang he feels as it occurs to him he wouldn’t have to wonder what they’re talking about if he snuck over and listened.
He reaches a place from which to spy just as Pete says he knows he’s meant to be dead. His tone isn’t even near panic, and he doesn’t pose it as a question. In fact there’s nothing in his voice to suggest he hasn’t completely accepted it. He says it’s obvious that’s the reason Rose is here, at this particular moment, it was certainly not a coincidence and really, Rose, that wasn’t a very good lie. Did you take your old dad for feeble?
It’s asked with a smile and Rose gives a gasp-laugh full of tears and starts to apologise, though both Pete and the Doctor know she doesn’t have to. The Doctor is sure Rose recognizes the joke too but can’t stop herself, it seems, and the Doctor can’t stand the tone she takes with her father, so…not desperate, but just…holding nothing back. Keeping nothing of herself for herself. He’s never seen her do that with him, because as far as he can tell she never has.
Watching Rose hold onto herself in the face of all possible circumstances is one of his favourite things to watch, one of the most beautiful phenomena in the universe.
He suddenly pities Pete Tyler for not getting to see it. Then he blinks to himself, his non-hostile feelings for Pete being quite the surprise.
But the Doctor is not the only one spying, it turns out. Jackie chooses that moment to turn up, voice amplified to full shriek.
“Her dad? How are you her dad? How old were you, twelve?”
The Doctor rolls his eyes as the argument continues. He swears he’s not getting involved… until Pete chooses to prove his point by handing the baby to Rose: “Oh, for God's sake, look! It's the SAME Rose!”
The Doctor runs out of his hiding place, yelling and too late. The second Rose’s hands touch her infant self, an ungodly screech behind him tells him a Reaper has materialised within the building. He grabs the baby to prevent it getting worse, hands her to Jackie, then turns to face the nightmare currently flapping leathery wings at him.
“Everyone! Behind me!” he yells. He watches the others gather, and in doing so sees something significant: Rose jumps forward to help fight. Pete pulls Rose firmly behind him.
The Doctor’s manic grin appears for the first time all day. That’s it-that’s the Maybe Not.
Right, then. He looks up at the Reaper’s gaping maw. Back in a tic.
++
He realised then he’d forgotten that insight-the moment when he’d realised Pete would do what was needed to solve the paradox.
He mused over it as his consciousness seemed to drift back into the church itself. He could see how people were reacting, post Reaper. How devastated they looked. How devastated Rose looked, he couldn’t help noticing. But that would be sorted soon, he thought. His location had to mean he was getting closer to being back.
He watched Pete telling Rose what he had to do. He watched Rose clinging to him and sobbing-her reaction quite natural, really.
He didn’t feel an ounce of the jealousy or anger he once did.
He shouldn’t have doubted her. Aside from, oh, starting the apocalypse, Rose had done exactly what he’d always lo-… well, celebrated her for: she’d let her empathy lead the way and gave everyone a chance. Of course she should have listened to him, but of course she couldn’t let Pete die. Of course he shouldn’t have taken her back. But it was just one more day at the races for them, wasn’t it?
He saw it all with such breathtaking clarity he felt a bitter remorse for having missed it.
And for…having acted on what he felt.He saw a little girl in love with a fairy tale. He saw her lost hero worship looking for a home. He saw a hurt soul fighting recklessly to keep an undreamt-of wholeness. He saw now that she had not been ignoring the impossible reality of what she’d done-her frantic justifications had been because she could think of nothing else.
She’d known instinctively that Pete was a man she could be proud of, that she could respect. They shared the same values, the same ones he was demonstrating now: the openness to quickly accept a reality he’d never experienced, the cleverness to work out the solution to a completely unfamiliar problem. The moral compass that led him to a choice for the good of everyone, regardless of what it might cost him. The cool grace with which he was accepting a death sentence. The Doctor Cloud flashed back onto an earlier moment: Wouldn’t’ve missed it for the world… He knew that if he had eyes they’d be welling.
She wouldn’t have suffered Pete this long if he’d been a fool. Rose’s aim was ever true.
He saw that there was room in her heart for the two of them. The space he fit wasn’t even the same shape as her father’s.
It was bigger.He thought ruefully what a laugh it was that he’d had to become cloudy in order to see things clearly.
He realized Pete had just charged out into the street; he heard tires screech and a sickening thump.
He's suddenly aware that he's walking, with actual legs, toward the church entryway.
His hand lands gently upon her shoulder. She doesn’t look back.
“Go to him. Quick,” he says. And he means it.
---------
He’s surprised and grateful when she takes his hand on the way back to the TARDIS. Once inside, though, he keeps his distance across the control room, having no idea how to proceed.
“How are you?” he asks finally.She hides the tears in her voice with joking. “Well as can be expected, I guess. I mean, knew how the story was going to end, didn’t I?”
“Don’t make light of it.”
“Feels a lot better than makin’ heavy of it.”The silence falls again. It’s much more companionable than the Doctor expects or feels he deserves. He catches her eye and they look at each other, then don’t, and then do again. He makes a start toward her, but at the slightest hint of surprise in her eyes he can’t move anymore.
“Rose,” he despairs, “I’ve been a monster.”
“No,” she says slowly, “a monster is what you were eaten by. It’s quite simple to tell the difference.”
“I’m not joking,” he accuses.
“Nor’m I,” she says evenly. “Look, I’ll not have you smacking yourself around for this. If there was anything I hadn’t wanted to happen between us it bloody well wouldn’t’ve.” Her face is stony serious for a moment, then slips into half a grin. “Do we understand each other?”
He nods and returns the other half of the grin. He knows Jackie Tyler’s girl could say that and back it up. “Fair enough,” he agrees, but a beat later he can’t help himself: “I just…I never meant for it to happen like that. Well, I never meant for it to happen, but in my mind it was…bloody hell, here I am telling you it was in my mind…”
Somewhere in the time he’s been babbling Rose has approached and is now standing mere centimetres from him. His breath catches as the smell of her skin and hair and her wonderful, wonderful self in general permeates his senses again. His pulses race guiltily with what he remembers. She traces a finger over his chest.
“How did you mean for it to happen?” she asks, in the dead-sexiest whisper he’s ever heard.
Instantly he has her face in his hands and is covering it with kisses, everywhere and anywhere. Her nose, her brows, her eyelids, her cheeks-not an inch will go unworshipped. It has never felt so good to pour out his emotion, and he lets it all go, fingers in her soft hair and face soon burrowing into her neck, kissing and smiling like a loon despite himself. He’s obviously surprised her; she starts giggling softly then launches into full-fledged gleeful laughter. She throws her arms around his neck and squeals as he ducks to throw his shoulder into her tummy and pick her up in a fireman’s carry.
“Cancel all future plans,” he declares, feeling lighter than he has in centuries. “This will take a while.”
---------
The Doctor has had his fair share of disproportionate luck in his day. And of misfortune, or course, but he'd be lying if he didn't admit to knowing he was still quite the jammy git.
This beats everything lucky he has ever had happen.The feel of her around him is indescribable. Pushing into her while she pushes back so eagerly, moaning softly and the very fact that she makes noises is amazing to him. He couldn’t have forced a sound out if he tried, so gobsmacked is he at the heavenly satisfaction of her and the warm softness of her body underneath him and the fact that she not only lets him do this but she wants him to and he is so not worthy of it all he feels like weeping.
There is no excuse for him even wanting this, and yet he’s getting it.
And he doesn’t just mean the sex. “I’m yours,” Rose moans.
“What?” he gasps. “Rose, no, you’re not-“
“I am,” she pants. She starts to laugh, in a way the Doctor knows is good. “I always was. Always will be. Oh Doctor-“
She loses her way then and grabs his arse, pushing harder as her mouth becomes a little round “o” of astonished bliss. And the previously-unfulfilled build-up of the day asserts itself, causing a fierce pleasure to wash through him, rendering him mindless and lost to everything but the feel of his nerve ends thrilling and it’s good, so good, so good, oh dear sweet precious Rose it’s so bloody good.
---------
Rose thrusts her head back hard into the pillow, the sounds coming from her near to sobbing. The Doctor keeps on until she’s finished, then pulls back and rests his head against her thigh with a smug chuckle.
“Stop! I surrender!” Rose cries. She can hardly breathe and the Doctor has never been prouder. “I’ve been paid back, honestly! You’re going to kill me.”
“Oh, all right. For now.” Rose groans and the Doctor smiles at her fondly. He decides he likes this stage of the proceedings, when his need for her is eased and he’s feeling more in control, not so desperately at her mercy. Being so impressive, this is where he likes to be.
"I still don't see why you feel you need to make it up to me for 'forcing' me into 'lewd' behaviour today which you didn't force me into and which I thoroughly enjoyed," she pants, "especially when your solution is more lewd behaviour. Blimey, what's my debt going to be for nearly destroying the world?"
"I have a payment plan in mind. You may want to start some endurance training."
Rose turns on her side and grabs a pillow with an exhausted sigh. “You’re just a sex maniac.”
“Takes one to know one.” He grins and ducks as the pillow comes at his head.
He washes over with happiness and promises himself he will never try to grip her so tightly again.
He can only hope she will never let him go.
Title: Time Out
Author: Anne Hedonia ( ahedonia)
Rating: R? Kinda?
Beta: jellybean728, who rocks my and everyone else’s socks off. Check your feet, you don’t have socks, do you? (Wait, you do? Uh… look, a thing! ::steals your socks:: ) See? Also thanks go to cartoon_red for a speedy Britpicking.
Disclaimer: If I owned ‘em, you’d know.
Summary/AN: Written for the Time in Flux ficathon at
doctor_rose_fic . The challenge? Rewrite your assigned episode so that Rose and the Doctor get together as a couple, without destroying canon so much that next episode couldn’t happen. I begged for a Nine ep and got Father’s Day, and all my issues with making that ep romantic got a nice, thorough working over. Still, what can’t be made better by shagging Nine, eh? Plus I got to address the one question about the ep I was most irked they never answered.
----------
It was weird not existing.
That was a noteworthy thought on its own. Really, things had to get pretty out of hand for the Doctor to remark on them as weird.
He figured he was probably just a puff of energy, a cloud of unused potential. He didn’t think he was dead. Wherever the Doctor might have thought he’d end up after he died, he was pretty sure this state of thinking-but-not-being wasn’t it. But he had an idea he knew what it meant.
He was going back at some point. Somehow the situation he’d left wasn’t resolved, but later would be.
In the meantime it was like a fever dream, a haze of confusion and half-seen images, perplexing bits of information assaulting him and then melting into new scenarios. It was just waiting, watching…though watching what, he wasn’t always sure.
He remembered how he came to be “here.” He remembered blocking everyone in the church from the Reapers, feeling the tremble and shriek of the people behind him. He’d glimpsed the shark-like rows of the Reaper’s teeth before the thing fell at him. He remembered a flash of feeling like his old self, after a day of feeling not so. The thrill of a last foolhardy act that could be the end of him but might not, which was what made it worth doing. Blanche DuBois may have relied on the kindness of strangers, but the Doctor relied on the Might Not.
He also knew he’d been showing someone else up, giving Rose Tyler what his perceived competitor never could: 900 indigestible years to help stall for time and give the human race another chance to survive.
Let Pete Tyler come up with a scheme to do that.Sheer adrenaline and a bit of mind-over-matter had kept him from pain as the razor teeth started to shred, ripping him to bits so fast there was barely time to register it at all. Not a bad way to go, actually, and he was one of the few beings in existence who’d actually had the opportunity to compare methods. He’d certainly died worse, that was a fact.
But his Time Lord brain had stayed true to form and parsed every millisecond of its expiration, every dying brain cell giving up the bounty of what it knew in a brilliant spark.
Basically his life had flashed before his eyes.
He was a little miffed, in retrospect. It was so cliché, so common. Certainly a Time Lord had a different end-of-life experience than the average Joe about to be hit by a bus?
Evidently not. Oh well.He’d settled in for what he assumed would be a very long show, but found his brain was specializing: it only showed him the recent parts of his life, the ones that had happened since he’d met Rose.
He didn’t mind reliving those.
A cloud of them drifted by, wonderful in their immediacy and clarity: a moment in 1860’s Cardiff when he caught himself staring at the sleek curve of her neck-it was the first time he’d seen her hair done up. Grinning proudly later as she told off that undertaker for copping a feel, her genteel clothing obviously not domesticating her in the slightest. Watching her eyes flash on Platform 1 as she demanded to know who he was and refused to bend to the bluster he was using to throw her off course. Seeing her stricken little form as she watched bits of her exploded world drift by the huge windows. Taking her hand and making it better.
He saw her staring at him clear-eyed over a Number 10 conference table as his pulse raced at her trust. Heard her small voice over a speaker absolving him as she faced death by Dalek. Felt her forearm resting securely on his shoulders as he sat in that chair on Satellite 5, a gesture that intimated it was a foregone conclusion they would never be parted.
If he’d had hearts, they would have clenched. If he’d had breath, it would have caught.
His visions turned to moments from his last day, the day he had just spent with her. His enjoyment level fell a bit, and the immediacy of the images didn't feel quite so much like a good thing.
++
He’s there again, glaring at the scruffy inside of Pete Tyler’s car as he scowls in the backseat, driving back to the flat of the man who is quite possibly the biggest threat to time and space now existing. He watches Rose ignore the reality and weight of what she’s done in favour of positively simpering over her dad.
Each possibility he thinks of that may have led to this outcome is worse than the last. Best case scenario: she didn’t listen to him, HIM. The idea that she flouted HIS instructions is so blasphemous as to be unreal.
He tries not to acknowledge the second-worst-case scenario: the idea that Rose dumped him for her dad the minute she got the chance. It’s not worth acknowledging because there’s nothing to be dumped from. The memory of her running to her father like she did should only inflame him for the paradox she was about to cause. If he was her boyfriend or… lover or whatever ,he’d have a right to be furious over her outrageous betrayal and insensitivity. If he was one of those things, that is.
But his stomach knots in pain at the worst idea of all: that she’s planned this from the beginning, and their camaraderie and connection has all been just a con to get what she wants. The very thought makes him burn with a shame and hurt that makes him want to die and never come back.
Even if it wasn’t a plan, she’ll clearly never want to leave this time period and travel with him again. He shakes his head and lets it fall into one hand.
Fury at himself for letting her do this threatens to crush him. How did he seriously justify this trip to himself? How did he ignore all he knew and tell himself she could handle this? How did he ignore the absolute fact that emotion would take over? What was he thinking? The corners of his scowling mouth tug impossibly farther down as he’s hit with a wave of shame-what was he thinking with?
She’s going to listen to him. He’s going to make her. The moment he gets her alone he’s going to… he has a sudden vision of grabbing her roughly by the upper arms. Then before he can stop them his thoughts are flying on to shoving back those jackets she's wearing, grabbing the t-shirt underneath and rendering it useless with a good rippi-oh dear. The Doctor’s face flushes red. Where did that thought come from? He does mean to get her attention but that…would be a bit much.
His jilted hearts appear to have their own agenda and some different ideas than his brain on how time alone with her would be best spent. He likes the ideas more than he wants to. Not the time, now.
He scrunches lower in his seat and tunes out the din of his own thoughts, and even more the sound of his car mates’ conversation.
---------
With Pete in the back room of the flat, the Doctor is more than ready to talk. Rose, however, won’t stop babbling about details of her father’s life: barmy money-making schemes she can’t possibly believe are valid and can’t POSSIBLY believe he cares about. It astonishes him that she’s not only avoiding this monumentally important issue, but she’s seriously not responding to the look on his face-he feels like his anger is a living thing, clawed and fanged and leaping out of his eyes.
Finally she caves. “Okay, look... I'll tell him you're not my boyfriend.”
He ignores the jolt in the stomach that remark gives him. “When we met, I said 'travel with me in space',” he says with forced evenness. “You said no. Then I said 'time machine'.”
She denies it, of course. Comes up with every justification her kind have ever had about changing events: it’s not that important, etc, etc. Meanwhile the back of his brain taunts him: You’ve been had. You, the Doctor, are just one more dirty old man gone stupid for a bit of attention and a pretty smile. Oldest story in the book, and you fell for it. Good thing you don’t have anyone to live this down to or you never would…
Still, he can keep up his end of the argument until she says…
“No, I get it! For once, YOU'RE not the most important man in my life.”
His eyes widen, fierce with disbelief. She’s saying it, then? Actually confirming it out loud?
Before he knows it he’s demanding his TARDIS key back and she’s giving it and he’s striding for the door and he doesn’t want it to go like this, but the fever of his humiliation is burning too hot to stop himself.
He hears her follow. “You don’t scare me,” she goads.
He wheels on her with a glare that has made armies retreat. “That makes you unique in the universe.”
She gapes. “Are you really that childish? You won’t even share me with my own father?”
“Not when that father shouldn’t even be here!” he thunders, advancing on her. “And no, I don’t share!”
“That’s not for you to say, is it?” she cries. “I’m not a thing to be shared or not shared. I’m not yours!”
He stalks forward, backing her up. She jolts when her shoulders hit the wall.
“You’re mine if I say you are,” he growls dangerously. She gasps in indignation. “Of all the--!”Something snaps and he shuts her up with a kiss, hard and furious and absolute. He hears her head bump the wall when he does so. His mind reels with the reality of what he’s doing-fantasies like this are never supposed to see the light of day-but suddenly he feels his claim on her must be asserted, and he won’t settle for any other method. Sod it, he thinks-if they really are parting ways, he’s got nothing to lose.
She’s stiff with surprise for only a moment before she presses into him. He thinks she’s kissing back, but frankly he’s mashing his mouth to hers so relentlessly he’s not sure he’d know. His hands clench around her forearms and twitch with the urge to feel everywhere, but he fights it. Her hands flutter indecisively around his shoulder blades before finally clasping his back. Her heart is pounding hard enough for him to feel it. He wonders if she can feel his, too.
Finally he pulls away, seeing her eyes glazed and half-lidded. She blinks, unconsciously leaning forward to continue. He evades her and brings his lips to her ear.
“Not mine? Should have no trouble doing without me, then,” he hisses.
He’s out the door before he can give in to the urge to soothe her shock.
He pauses outside to collect himself, embarrassed by his own trembling. He hears Pete ask if she’s having boyfriend trouble. He smirks grimly when Rose has nothing to say.
++
The non-existent Doctor remembered then that on the march back to the TARDIS he had been able to think of nothing but the encounter with Rose. Not surprising, his consciousness mused reasonably. Kissing the woman you’ve secretly craved since the day you met her was always a more compelling topic than some messy old apocalypse. Part of him had felt smug and validated, telling himself he had Rose in the palm of his hand. The other part of him had panicked that he’d just made sure she’d never speak to him again.
But at that moment, the cloud of Doctorness remembered, the apocalypse had grown tired of waiting its turn for his attention. The TARDIS had stopped being such, became just a cabinet that couldn’t take him anywhere.
He remembered rushing back, the paradox too severe to worry about anything but getting to her.
He remembered being in the church, and the sight of her with her father making him jealous and angry all over again.
He remembered busying himself with the problem, taking charge and giving orders, calming those in the wedding party, handling every aspect he could think of just to keep himself distracted from the subject of her.
He re-watched moment when she decided to stop being ignored.
++
He’s in another room of the church, closing and locking the windows when he hears her enter behind him.
“Anything I can do to help?” The uncertainty in her voice just annoys him all the more.
He slams a window shut and doesn’t turn around. “Yes, you can stay out of the way.”
He doesn’t have to look at her to know she’s sulking at that. He forces the window’s lock into place with satisfaction.
“You can’t keep treating me this way.”
“Treating you what way?”
“Don’t be an arse.” He turns, looking at her flatly. “I treat people according to the way they’ve treated me.”
Her mouth drops open. “What is that supposed to mean?”He’s feeling vicious and he knows he’ll hurt her… or worse. In a moment of clarity he determines he can’t lose control like last time. He’s not even sure how to explain or make up for last time-he can’t dig himself in deeper.
His stomach flips as imagines what “deeper” might entail.
His voice softens. “Nothing. You’ve made your choice, haven’t you? Just… go and enjoy it.”
Unsurprisingly, she keeps arguing. “What do you mean, choice? Between you and him?” He doesn’t respond, and she seems to find answer in that. “There is no choice, why… why do you have to make it like this?”
“I didn’t make anything like this!” he snaps. His tirade pours out unimpeded-he can't believe his control didn’t last an entire 15 seconds. “I’m not the one who batted her eyelashes and asked to be taken back to her daddy, only to throw all caution, common sense and instruction to the wind in search of what her greedy little heart wanted!”
She glares at him for a hurt beat, and then stalks up to him, eyes like ice.
“I’m not the one who dropped everything and said ‘your wish is my command’.”
His face flushes hot at her words. They glower for a long beat. She’s standing close in front of him; he can smell the sharp tang of her sweat. Thoughts of her sweat turn to thoughts of her skin, and he fights them back. It takes all the willpower he has to turn and go to the next window.
He can hear her follow. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” “Doesn’t matter. It still did.”Her voice trembles with anger. “So that’s it, then? You’re just… writin’ me off?”
“No less than you did me.” “What?!”His voice rises in volume and intensity as he speaks. “Didn’t find my instructions worth listening to? Didn’t find the gift I’d given you worthy of that courtesy? Didn’t find my company as scintillating as that of your dim-witted snake oil salesman of a dad?”
Rose’s face is so red it’s as though she’ll explode. She blusters till she can find words. “You...bleedin' wanker."
“What, am I not allowed to be angry when you’re about to go waltzing off with him?”
“I am not waltzing off with him! I don’t even know right now if I’m going to live long enough to go waltzing off with anybody!” Her fists fasten to her hips. “Have you even taken one moment to think about what seeing my dead dad for the first time might mean to me?”
He steps into her personal space. “Did you ever think what watching you forget me entirely and run to someone else might mean to me?”
Another glaring standoff, moments dragging into forever. His eyes drift to the fresh pink blotches on her cheeks. His hands clench and unclench. Control, he tells himself.
“Fine,” she announces finally. “There’s no arguing with the Doctor, is there? Since you’ve made up your mind what I’m going to do, I’ll just go do it.” His insides panic as she turns and strides to the door. “Have a nice life.”
The last doesn’t sound like taunting-it sounds perfectly serious.
He’s leapt forward and grabbed her arm before he’s even registered the decision to act. He spins her around. She gasps but then covers her surprise immediately with defiance. Her eyes flash but momentarily flick downward to his lips; he feels a spark of self-satisfaction.
“So,” he growls, low and threatening, “you’re not the girl who comes when I click my fingers?”
She shakes her head rebelliously. He leans close until he can taste her breath. “D'you want to bet?”
Her eyes go wide when he rips open her jeans button, forces down the zip and thrusts his hand inside, his fingers finding their target on the first try. She jolts hard and her mouth falls open on a cry. His own adrenaline is making him shake while he feels a smug pride: if the first touch was that electric, she was already excited.
His hand quickly sets up a rhythm. She’s too surprised to hide anything, too shocked to protest. He knows that won’t last forever. He’s already determined he’s not letting her regain her composure.
He takes a fast step forward to back her up against a table for stability; her hands flail for the sides and grip the edges. He changes the strokes to circling and her eyes roll back, losing the thread entirely. She fights to regain it but his fingers dip inside to bring up some moisture and she bites her lip against another cry. Suddenly there are voices from down the hall, too far away to hear their words distinctly but closer than expected. He sees her eyes flick to the door and her look of sudden fear, then watches it dissolve in a wash of craving and pleasure.
Seeing this happen makes him harder than iron.She reaches for him but he pushes her hand back to the table; she relents without much effort. She weaves her face toward his, trying to kiss him but he buries his face in her neck instead. He feasts on the taste of her skin, feeling himself as feral as he’s ever been.
Minutes elapse and his fingers keep up a feverish pace inside her knickers and she’s squirming and straining and swallowing the noises she wants to make. He realises this and pounces on it: “They’re going to hear you,” he purrs in her ear. “You’re going to come and when you do you’re going to scream and the whole church is going to know that you were coming because of me.” He can tell absolutely that his words are inflaming her, her eyes clenched shut and her pink cheeks glowing and his hand sloppy wet. He leans in until his lips brush the shell of her ear, his voice husking, low and deliberate. “You are coming harder than you ever have because of me.”
Her scream erupts in a glorious outburst; excitement sparks ruthlessly through the Doctor’s belly and limbs. She clamps her mouth shut but still can’t keep back all of her whimpers and wails as she convulses. The voices in the hall change slightly, becoming questioning. Rose collapses back against the table as though every muscle in her body has abandoned her. A beat later and the hall voices go back to their former tone.
Panting, she slowly raises her eyes to meet his. A long moment passes between them, until the Doctor
unceremoniously yanks his hand out of her clothes and exits, leaving Rose trembling against a table in half-fastened jeans.
++
Non-Existent Doctor felt ruefully sorry for his former self, up at the church pulpit talking to the frightened wedding party about the Reaper situation while totally unable to concentrate. He’d felt weak and shaky-not to mention awash in frustration-for a good half hour after the encounter with Rose. The feel and the sound and the smell of her had clung to his memory and made staying in the moment something only accomplished with conscious effort.
All that time he’d been pressed up against Rose in the other room, he’d felt something hot burning his chest through the lining of his jacket. At the time he’d been rather too…distracted to investigate, but once on his own he’d checked and found it was the TARDIS key, glowing like an ember. He’d immediately realised the possibility of drawing the ship back. Telling the assembled guests about it seemed to make them feel only marginally better, in a shell-shocked kind of way. For once he wasn’t offended; he was feeling a lot the same himself.
He didn’t recognize the situation he was in any better than they did.
++
He’s sitting on the pulpit steps near the pulsating ghost of the TARDIS, watching Pete look out the window. He knows Pete’s studying the car that keeps appearing, screeching around that turn and then vanishing. There’s a furrow in Pete’s brow, but it’s not part of the stupefied gaze of someone who can’t believe what he’s seeing. It’s the look of a person gathering evidence and assembling the pieces. The respect he feels for Pete is grudging.
A moment later Rose re-enters the sanctuary. The Doctor tries not to perk up too obviously, watching her carefully for signs she’s angry or hurt or…anything. She doesn’t look around for him, instead going straight for Pete. He ignores the pang he feels as it occurs to him he wouldn’t have to wonder what they’re talking about if he snuck over and listened.
He reaches a place from which to spy just as Pete says he knows he’s meant to be dead. His tone isn’t even near panic, and he doesn’t pose it as a question. In fact there’s nothing in his voice to suggest he hasn’t completely accepted it. He says it’s obvious that’s the reason Rose is here, at this particular moment, it was certainly not a coincidence and really, Rose, that wasn’t a very good lie. Did you take your old dad for feeble?
It’s asked with a smile and Rose gives a gasp-laugh full of tears and starts to apologise, though both Pete and the Doctor know she doesn’t have to. The Doctor is sure Rose recognizes the joke too but can’t stop herself, it seems, and the Doctor can’t stand the tone she takes with her father, so…not desperate, but just…holding nothing back. Keeping nothing of herself for herself. He’s never seen her do that with him, because as far as he can tell she never has.
Watching Rose hold onto herself in the face of all possible circumstances is one of his favourite things to watch, one of the most beautiful phenomena in the universe.
He suddenly pities Pete Tyler for not getting to see it. Then he blinks to himself, his non-hostile feelings for Pete being quite the surprise.
But the Doctor is not the only one spying, it turns out. Jackie chooses that moment to turn up, voice amplified to full shriek.
“Her dad? How are you her dad? How old were you, twelve?”
The Doctor rolls his eyes as the argument continues. He swears he’s not getting involved… until Pete chooses to prove his point by handing the baby to Rose: “Oh, for God's sake, look! It's the SAME Rose!”
The Doctor runs out of his hiding place, yelling and too late. The second Rose’s hands touch her infant self, an ungodly screech behind him tells him a Reaper has materialised within the building. He grabs the baby to prevent it getting worse, hands her to Jackie, then turns to face the nightmare currently flapping leathery wings at him.
“Everyone! Behind me!” he yells. He watches the others gather, and in doing so sees something significant: Rose jumps forward to help fight. Pete pulls Rose firmly behind him.
The Doctor’s manic grin appears for the first time all day. That’s it-that’s the Maybe Not.
Right, then. He looks up at the Reaper’s gaping maw. Back in a tic.
++
He realised then he’d forgotten that insight-the moment when he’d realised Pete would do what was needed to solve the paradox.
He mused over it as his consciousness seemed to drift back into the church itself. He could see how people were reacting, post Reaper. How devastated they looked. How devastated Rose looked, he couldn’t help noticing. But that would be sorted soon, he thought. His location had to mean he was getting closer to being back.
He watched Pete telling Rose what he had to do. He watched Rose clinging to him and sobbing-her reaction quite natural, really.
He didn’t feel an ounce of the jealousy or anger he once did.
He shouldn’t have doubted her. Aside from, oh, starting the apocalypse, Rose had done exactly what he’d always lo-… well, celebrated her for: she’d let her empathy lead the way and gave everyone a chance. Of course she should have listened to him, but of course she couldn’t let Pete die. Of course he shouldn’t have taken her back. But it was just one more day at the races for them, wasn’t it?
He saw it all with such breathtaking clarity he felt a bitter remorse for having missed it.
And for…having acted on what he felt.He saw a little girl in love with a fairy tale. He saw her lost hero worship looking for a home. He saw a hurt soul fighting recklessly to keep an undreamt-of wholeness. He saw now that she had not been ignoring the impossible reality of what she’d done-her frantic justifications had been because she could think of nothing else.
She’d known instinctively that Pete was a man she could be proud of, that she could respect. They shared the same values, the same ones he was demonstrating now: the openness to quickly accept a reality he’d never experienced, the cleverness to work out the solution to a completely unfamiliar problem. The moral compass that led him to a choice for the good of everyone, regardless of what it might cost him. The cool grace with which he was accepting a death sentence. The Doctor Cloud flashed back onto an earlier moment: Wouldn’t’ve missed it for the world… He knew that if he had eyes they’d be welling.
She wouldn’t have suffered Pete this long if he’d been a fool. Rose’s aim was ever true.
He saw that there was room in her heart for the two of them. The space he fit wasn’t even the same shape as her father’s.
It was bigger.He thought ruefully what a laugh it was that he’d had to become cloudy in order to see things clearly.
He realized Pete had just charged out into the street; he heard tires screech and a sickening thump.
He's suddenly aware that he's walking, with actual legs, toward the church entryway.
His hand lands gently upon her shoulder. She doesn’t look back.
“Go to him. Quick,” he says. And he means it.
---------
He’s surprised and grateful when she takes his hand on the way back to the TARDIS. Once inside, though, he keeps his distance across the control room, having no idea how to proceed.
“How are you?” he asks finally.She hides the tears in her voice with joking. “Well as can be expected, I guess. I mean, knew how the story was going to end, didn’t I?”
“Don’t make light of it.”
“Feels a lot better than makin’ heavy of it.”The silence falls again. It’s much more companionable than the Doctor expects or feels he deserves. He catches her eye and they look at each other, then don’t, and then do again. He makes a start toward her, but at the slightest hint of surprise in her eyes he can’t move anymore.
“Rose,” he despairs, “I’ve been a monster.”
“No,” she says slowly, “a monster is what you were eaten by. It’s quite simple to tell the difference.”
“I’m not joking,” he accuses.
“Nor’m I,” she says evenly. “Look, I’ll not have you smacking yourself around for this. If there was anything I hadn’t wanted to happen between us it bloody well wouldn’t’ve.” Her face is stony serious for a moment, then slips into half a grin. “Do we understand each other?”
He nods and returns the other half of the grin. He knows Jackie Tyler’s girl could say that and back it up. “Fair enough,” he agrees, but a beat later he can’t help himself: “I just…I never meant for it to happen like that. Well, I never meant for it to happen, but in my mind it was…bloody hell, here I am telling you it was in my mind…”
Somewhere in the time he’s been babbling Rose has approached and is now standing mere centimetres from him. His breath catches as the smell of her skin and hair and her wonderful, wonderful self in general permeates his senses again. His pulses race guiltily with what he remembers. She traces a finger over his chest.
“How did you mean for it to happen?” she asks, in the dead-sexiest whisper he’s ever heard.
Instantly he has her face in his hands and is covering it with kisses, everywhere and anywhere. Her nose, her brows, her eyelids, her cheeks-not an inch will go unworshipped. It has never felt so good to pour out his emotion, and he lets it all go, fingers in her soft hair and face soon burrowing into her neck, kissing and smiling like a loon despite himself. He’s obviously surprised her; she starts giggling softly then launches into full-fledged gleeful laughter. She throws her arms around his neck and squeals as he ducks to throw his shoulder into her tummy and pick her up in a fireman’s carry.
“Cancel all future plans,” he declares, feeling lighter than he has in centuries. “This will take a while.”
---------
The Doctor has had his fair share of disproportionate luck in his day. And of misfortune, or course, but he'd be lying if he didn't admit to knowing he was still quite the jammy git.
This beats everything lucky he has ever had happen.The feel of her around him is indescribable. Pushing into her while she pushes back so eagerly, moaning softly and the very fact that she makes noises is amazing to him. He couldn’t have forced a sound out if he tried, so gobsmacked is he at the heavenly satisfaction of her and the warm softness of her body underneath him and the fact that she not only lets him do this but she wants him to and he is so not worthy of it all he feels like weeping.
There is no excuse for him even wanting this, and yet he’s getting it.
And he doesn’t just mean the sex. “I’m yours,” Rose moans.
“What?” he gasps. “Rose, no, you’re not-“
“I am,” she pants. She starts to laugh, in a way the Doctor knows is good. “I always was. Always will be. Oh Doctor-“
She loses her way then and grabs his arse, pushing harder as her mouth becomes a little round “o” of astonished bliss. And the previously-unfulfilled build-up of the day asserts itself, causing a fierce pleasure to wash through him, rendering him mindless and lost to everything but the feel of his nerve ends thrilling and it’s good, so good, so good, oh dear sweet precious Rose it’s so bloody good.
---------
Rose thrusts her head back hard into the pillow, the sounds coming from her near to sobbing. The Doctor keeps on until she’s finished, then pulls back and rests his head against her thigh with a smug chuckle.
“Stop! I surrender!” Rose cries. She can hardly breathe and the Doctor has never been prouder. “I’ve been paid back, honestly! You’re going to kill me.”
“Oh, all right. For now.” Rose groans and the Doctor smiles at her fondly. He decides he likes this stage of the proceedings, when his need for her is eased and he’s feeling more in control, not so desperately at her mercy. Being so impressive, this is where he likes to be.
"I still don't see why you feel you need to make it up to me for 'forcing' me into 'lewd' behaviour today which you didn't force me into and which I thoroughly enjoyed," she pants, "especially when your solution is more lewd behaviour. Blimey, what's my debt going to be for nearly destroying the world?"
"I have a payment plan in mind. You may want to start some endurance training."
Rose turns on her side and grabs a pillow with an exhausted sigh. “You’re just a sex maniac.”
“Takes one to know one.” He grins and ducks as the pillow comes at his head.
He washes over with happiness and promises himself he will never try to grip her so tightly again.
He can only hope she will never let him go.