Fic: By Any Other Name, chapter 3
Title: By Any Other Name, Ch. 3/3
Author: meself, fid_gin
Beta: unfolded73
Pairing: It's Loved 'verse, so overall it's Ten II/Ten/Rose. This chapter is a bit of everything, and a whole lot of Rose/Rose.
Rating: NC17 for hot Rose-on-Rose action! Ye be warned.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: “How did it happen? The first time, I mean, when the Doctors…?”
Rose thought back, then looked down at her empty glass, almost surprised. “It was...well, it was after a couple glasses of wine actually.”
Notes: Well, here it is, the femslash what was the whole reason for the brainstorming and creation of this fic years and years ago. If that's not your bag, best steer clear.
So thanks, everyone, for sticking with me during this trying time of posting my first fic in years, which happens to be the finishing of a fic I'd started years ago, which happens to be for a fandom I'm no longer really even active in! I have no idea what the hell I was thinking, but it's been rough. It's also been more than a little awesome, both trying to get back into these characters' heads again, and working so closely with my old partner in crime again. I miss you babe. If you should ever need me to return the favour to beta something for you (hint hint, nudge nudge), just say the word.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Alcohol seemed like the only logical next step in the progression of their extremely stressful day. If the younger Rose would be hopping into yet another dimension the next day, not only did it seem fitting to send her off and thank her for her help with a celebratory meal and toast, but Rose could admit there was more than a bit of sorrow-drowning going on as well. For the Rose so recently reunited with the Doctor(s), because it meant losing him again and facing an uncertain and probably dangerous future. For the three of them left behind, it meant acknowledging sending her away, even though they knew that the light of their reunion awaited the end of her current bleak path.
“I don’t remember any of this,” Rose said out loud. Her younger self looked up from her picked-at plate of food and her third glass of wine. “I think back before I found you,” she said to the Doctors, “and all I can remember is darkness.” She shuddered slightly, the other Rose mirroring her and doing the same. “Will I remember? After she’s...I’m gone, and all this is over, will I remember all this then? Remember as her, I mean?”
The Doctor in brown’s eyes were kind and sad. “No. Even if the dimension transferal fugue weren’t permanent, which it is, I’d have to…” He stopped, and the older Rose knew he was remembering Donna.
“What, take my memories away?” The younger Rose’s cheeks were flushed, whether from anger or wine Rose couldn’t tell.
“Yes,” the Doctor answered finally. “I shouldn’t have to, but I would. I’m sorry.”
“You have to forget,” the Doctor now back in blue continued for him. “You have to run to me on that street, you have to watch me nearly die and regenerate and you can’t know what’s going to happen or stop the Dalek from shooting me. You have to let him take us -” he gestured to himself and both Roses, “- back to Norway. It all has to happen in precisely the right order, or…” He shrugged and took a rather large gulp of wine. “Or it won’t,” he finished, licking his lips.
There was silence around the table for some time as they all took in his words. “So she goes on,” Rose said, nodding to her other self. “Lonely, sick, starving, and we just continue on like nothing ever happened?”
“Rose-” her half-human Doctor started to say, but he was interrupted by the Time Lord seated next to him.
“Yes,” he said shortly. His face was blank. Resigned. “That’s what we do because we have to.” The subject was quickly changed. They shared stories and memories; the Doctors seemed to bring up every journey the four of them had ever taken together, back when they used to be two people: Woman Wept, the Gamestation, New Earth, Rome… whether because they were anxious to remind the Roses of happier times, or to steer the conversation firmly away from the direction it had been taking, the older Rose wasn’t sure.
For her, the rest of the meal lost its previous carefree atmosphere. She realised she was well past half-drunk, but she couldn’t help feeling dismissed by both of the Doctors’ comments. She knew more than anyone how important it was to preserve the timeline; this was her future they were talking about after all. Yet, through the haze of alcohol and the sad fog of empathy for her younger self, she couldn’t help thinking that, if the roles were somehow reversed at this time and it was her part-human Doctor who needed to be sent away to preserve the course of events, the Time Lord would somehow have found a way. The other man was that important to him. Here she was - the same Rose she used to be right before they were reunited - and aside from a quick fuck before he’d sent her off to find his two customary companions, he’d hardly interacted with her at all. With me, Rose’s mind screamed silently. This all happened to me, he treated me this way, I just don’t remember it.
She was starting to get a headache.
Lost in her thoughts, she only slightly noticed when the Doctors excused themselves to retire to the bedroom the three of them shared more often than not these days. The two women sat silently, sipping their drinks. Rose could not help staring at her younger self, wondering, trying to remember what could possibly be going on in her head. Was she sad? Angry? Anxious to go? Would it be okay to ask how their mum was doing? It was past-Jackie, so Rose knew exactly how she was doing in the younger Rose’s present: worried, and frustrated with her daughter for refusing to just ‘let that man go and move on.’ Still, it would be nice to hear it, though the Doctors almost certainly wouldn’t approve.
All of these thoughts raced through Rose’s mind in minutes, as she continued to stare at her double.
“What?” the other Rose said finally, sounding annoyed, looking up at her.
“Doesn’t it, y’know, bother you? That he just said he’d erase your memory before sending you off if he had to?” The other Rose seemed so complacent; Rose was having a hard time reconciling it with the hurt she felt on her younger self’s behalf at the Doctor’s words.
The other woman shrugged. “It doesn’t feel great, but the Doctor knows what’s best.”
“But what do you want?” Rose asked. She was irritated with herself for not standing up for both of them, for how single-minded she’d been at that time and how she’d neglected her own health and well being.
“To get back to the Doctor,” other Rose answered, calmly and immediately. “To save the world. I know you remember that much.”
She did. She remembered the stars vanishing, the riots in the streets...the fear, the longing and the belief that everything would be okay if she could just find him. After having been back with him for so long, it was difficult to place herself back in that frame of mind again.
“So...does he sleep now? The first Doctor, or whatever you call him?”
“They didn’t leave to sleep,” Rose answered, finishing the dregs of her glass. The younger woman did the same, looking flustered. “They want us to follow them,” Rose added. “They didn’t say as much, but that’s what they’re hoping...expecting...I don’t know. We could, if you want…?” Her sentence became an inquiry, one which her double did not immediately answer.
“So,” the younger woman said after an uncomfortable silence in which Rose knew she was imagining the Doctors together in exactly the way they almost certainly were. “How did it happen? The first time, I mean, when the Doctors…?”
Rose thought back, then looked down at her empty glass, almost surprised. “It was...well, it was after a couple glasses of wine actually.”
The tension between them became almost palpable, and then she was lunging across the table, curling her fingers into the front of the younger Rose's leather jacket. Pulling her roughly forward, Rose smashed her mouth against that of her other self. The younger woman kissed her back hungrily, clamouring around the table, hands going to her shoulders, running up and down her arms, around her neck, in her hair, everywhere. She seemed to want this, to need this, as badly as Rose herself did.
Somehow they found their way back to her room, continuing to kiss as they both struggled to remove each other's jackets. Even through the haze of drink and growing arousal, she couldn't help but note every detail about how different it was kissing a woman rather than a man. The younger Rose's lips were soft, they seemed to melt under hers; her saliva was sweet and her tongue was gentle and inquisitive. It only served to amplify her desire, and the older Rose clutched at the other woman's ass, forcing their hips together instinctively and finding no pressure there, no growing erection like she was used to. Friction, she needed friction.
Grabbing one of the younger Rose's hands, she thrust it between her legs, grinding against it. The other girl responded, rubbing her fingers furiously against the seam of her trousers, but it still wasn't enough.
“Oh God,” the younger Rose panted, as if voicing her frustrations. “Fuck me. Can you?”
“I can try,” the older Rose growled, fumbling at the buttons of her younger self's black trousers and forcing them roughly down. “Lay down.”
The younger woman shimmied the rest of the way out of her trousers and underwear and laid back on their bed, looking awkward and unsure. Rose, on the other hand, felt positively predatory as she crawled over the supine form of her other self.
“I know you haven’t,” she started, punctuating her words with exploratory kisses to her younger self's smooth belly, “But I’ve still never done...” kiss, “anything like this...” top of the right thigh, “with...” gently spreading her legs, “a girl.” Rose stared for a moment, unable to resist the spectacle of herself from what was usually the Doctor's point of view: the soft, slightly unkempt strip of her pubic hair (sparking Rose’s memories of her dimensional jumps leaving little time for personal grooming), the open lips like petals and the glistening pink beneath. She knew exactly what to do, and the older Rose bent forward without another thought and tasted herself, licking the entire length of her before settling at her clit. Understanding that this was where to focus, lavishing the attention on the other woman which she herself usually enjoyed, she lapped eagerly, tasting the increasing moisture as the younger Rose moaned and writhed under her attention. It was almost too easy: she hardly felt like she needed to breathe at all as she licked, slipping first one and then two fingers inside the other woman's tight heat and fucking her as she'd promised. Fingering her slowly, she gently sucked her clitoris at the same pace until the younger woman dug her fingernails into her scalp and screamed as she came in her mouth.
The other Rose lay still, her chest rising and falling with her gradually slowing breath. “That was…” she said after several minutes. The sentence was unfinished, but Rose knew exactly what she was trying to say: amazing, and not half-weird. It had been for her as well.
She nodded, wiping her mouth, unsure how to proceed. To her relief, the other woman spoke first.
“Do you still have…” Once again, she didn’t need to finish her sentence; Rose knew exactly to what she was referring. It had been on her own mind since they had stumbled into this room: the collection of sex toys in her bedside table that she and the Doctors frequently enjoyed together. The other Rose only knew of the one, of course, which had been hers back when she was on the TARDIS - her trusty pink vibrator, that very same one which she would go on to use on the part-human Doctor near the beginning of their sexual relationship. The younger Rose had no way of knowing that, in their time and travels since it had become the three of them, they had built up quite an impressive collection.
Her hands nearly trembling with excitement, Rose opened the nightstand and selected a likely candidate, one which they’d not had the opportunity to try out yet. Purchased on another planet whose inhabitants shared a very similar physiology to that of humans, the alien material was nearly iridescent while the smooth shape was undeniably phallic.
She handed it to the other Rose, who considered it for several seconds, turning it over. “It’s beautiful,” she said finally with a small, cheeky smile, biting her lip. Do I always look so sexy when I do that, Rose wondered, and resolved to do it consciously more often.
They returned to kissing slowly as she wriggled out of the last of her clothing, enjoying the softness of their naked bodies sliding together as she allowed the younger Rose to maneuver her onto her back and move over her. Their eyes locked, the other Rose’s expression was somewhere between amusement and arousal as she eased their toy between Rose’s spread legs and slid the cool length of it through her slit. She gasped at the pressure against her clit, all too fleeting, and could feel how wet she was.
“Ready?” the other Rose asked. Rose nodded. She heard a hum as the toy was turned on, and then felt the other woman angle it and slide it inside of her. As it always was, the feeling was overwhelming: vibration, inside and against all the right places, coming and going as the younger woman fucked her slow but hard just like she liked it. She wasn’t going to last long, she never did like this, and Rose gave herself over to it, raising her hips off the bed to meet the other Rose’s thrusts. The other woman pressed soft kisses across her chest, taking her nipple into her mouth and sucking even as she quickened her pace down below. Moaning encouragement, the younger Rose changed the angle, and Rose found herself coming suddenly, too hard even to make a noise. It seemed to go on and on as the other Rose continued to move the vibrator inside of her, slowing until her shaking finally ceased.
“I wish you could stay,” Rose said dreamily when she could speak again, running her fingers over the curve of the other woman’s hip.
“I don’t,” the other Rose said curtly. Rose’s hand froze, and the younger woman sat back.
“It’s uneven this way, isn’t it? Feels weird sayin’ that, that three would be more balanced than four, but it is. Me being here throws it off somehow, because the Doctors love you and you love them, and I don’t fit in with that. You don’t love me, you miss being me, or maybe you miss something about this time right before you found him.” She paused, swept a strand of hair away from her face. “I’m not like the other Doctor - he was created right next to you guys, in your timeline. He’s part of that. Thing is, my Doctor is still out there somewhere, waiting for me. He needs me. I think you’re the only one who doesn’t get that.”
Rose was taken aback. It was true, she hadn’t thought of that, that it wasn’t just her timeline she was thinking of mucking about with, but the Doctor’s. And it was true that seeing herself as she used to be made her feel many things: wistful, nostalgic for a simpler time and envious of what was still to come for her...but love wasn’t one of them.
“Seeing you three, what you’ve become to each other, it’s given me something to hope for for the first time in a long time. I mean, yeah I’ve hoped for the Doctor, but I never dreamed this,” the other Rose continued. “And...I can’t wait,” she finished with a little laugh.
“It looks perfect,” Rose found herself saying in what she imagined to be a very old, wise voice, “but it’s a lot of work.”
Younger Rose rolled her eyes. “Every relationship is work. I think you take all this for granted. I’ll be sure to work on that, when I’m you.”
Some time later, after they had drifted into sleep, the Doctor, used to being the only creature on his TARDIS that didn’t rest, wandered past Rose’s room on the way to his workshop and paused to take in the two women sleeping in a beautiful tangle of naked limbs and blonde hair. He stood for several minutes, considering the strange parallels of the situation Rose now found herself in, and that which he lived every day, before continuing silently on his way.
***
“I’ve still got that somewhere,” the older Rose said, nodding toward the notebook her double held. Her face took on a faraway expression. “I seriously can’t remember where. S’a trip down memory lane I never wanted to make, you know?”
Rose scribbled her notes, not looking up. “I keep wanting to leave myself some kind of a note to, I dunno, lift my spirits or something. But I won’t,” she said quickly at the Doctors’ simultaneous eyebrow raises.
“‘No Doctor,’ that’s all it can say,” the Doctor in brown insisted. “You can’t remember any of this.”
“I don’t,” the Rose standing next to him said, her voice quiet.
“Good,” he said loftily, giving her an almost imperceptible nod.
Young Rose tucked the note pad in her jacket and turned first to the brown-suited Doctor - her Doctor, for whom she’d fought to get back to since that day on Bad Wolf Bay...since the moment the lever had slipped, actually. “It’s not goodbye,” she said, her voice choked.
“It’s see you soon,” he answered, smiling sadly before pulling her into a hug. She saw the older Rose wince only slightly when she met the Doctor’s lips with hers and kissed him properly, the way she had the previous day, and the way she’d always wished she’d been able to when they said goodbye in Norway.
Then she turned to the Doctor in blue - the mysterious stranger who wore the love of her life’s face. “I don’t know what to say,” she started cautiously, very aware of the last time she’d spoken those words to this man, or a man just like him, in farewell. “You scare me a little,” she said, truthfully.
“Thanks,” he said, nonplussed.
“But I know,” she continued over him, “that somehow, you’re the Doctor. Just...be patient with me, yeah?” Not saying, hoping he understood, that she was speaking both to him, and to the him waiting to be born in whatever universe she was heading towards; the man she would have to learn to love all over again. Placing a chaste kiss on his cheek, she tried not to see the hurt in his eyes that she didn’t kiss him as she had the Time Lord, but it was just too soon for her. Then before she’d even completed that thought, she found herself pulling him forward by his suit lapels and kissing him properly, catching an odd, knowing look pass between Rose and the Doctor in brown as she did so. Kissing him was just like kissing the Doctor, and nothing like kissing the Doctor at the same time - his lips were hot, and he kissed her back ferociously, bending her backwards. She found herself once more desperately eager to have this new man in her life, to have them both the way the other Rose did and didn’t seem, to her, to appreciate nearly enough, because at that moment the possibilities seemed endless.
When the kiss finally ended, she stepped to herself last on slightly wobbly knees. “Take care of these boys.” The older Rose nodded.
“You too.”
Quickly, fluidly, the young Rose wound her arms around the other woman’s neck and kissed her a long goodbye, dimly aware of the Doctors watching intently feet away. When she felt the other woman’s tongue touch her lips, she opened her mouth to receive it. She could feel a lot of things about this moment, Rose realized - sadness at leaving her Doctor(s) again, envy for this other Rose, fear at whatever waited for her on the other side of the dimensional wall. But strangely, where she could have felt all of these things, she found herself flooded only with hope.
She pressed the yellow button the moment they parted, and the three familiar figures before her vanished.
***
Until she checked her notes, it was just another standard jump with the dimension cannon, if there was such a thing.
Rose realized immediately from her surroundings - the large, sterile office and the glass walls - that she was home this time, which meant Mickey must have turned the homing beacon on: something they had agreed would not be done except under the most urgent of circumstances. “Why’d you bring me back?” she asked, turning to where she instinctively knew he’d be standing in front of the wall of monitors. “What is it, is it Mum?”
“Sorry, babe, but I thought you’d wanna see this,” he said, not tearing his eyes away from the screens. Rose stared intently at the many lines and numbers as she approached behind him, her brow furrowed as she attempted to make any sense of them. “Whatever happened on your last jump’s making the time lines go bonkers.” Mickey finally turned to look at her as she moved to stand beside him. “What did happen, d’you…?”
“Don’t remember,” Rose answered. “If I did find him there’d be…”
She’d removed her notebook from her pocket as she spoke, and a slight variation in her notes this time caught her eye and made her pause: Attempt seven - no Doctors. The plural confused her, but what Mickey said next drove it out of her mind.
“They’re converging.” He nodded toward the screen. “The timelines. At several points. It’s gotta be him, don’t it?” He glanced over at her. “It’s good to see you, by the way.”
“Yeah, you as well,” she said, not looking at him, staring at the screen. “Might as well get started,” she said, tapping the screen. “Here...what is that, 2009?”
“Yeah, we sent scouts,” Mickey answered, sounding pleased that he’d obviously arrived at the same conclusion. “It’s just London, nothing that unusual that we saw - except some kind of new weight loss drug making the rounds, big results but no research to back it up, could be worth looking into.”
“Aliens targeting overweight people? Nothing changes,” Rose said, amused, moving back into position and retrieving her yellow button. “Right, I”ll check in after the next few jumps. And tell Mum: no following me, got it?”
“Yeah, sure,” Mickey said, giving a broad smile that did not reach his eyes. “Good luck,” she heard him say as she hit the button, and then all was darkness.
Author: meself, fid_gin
Beta: unfolded73
Pairing: It's Loved 'verse, so overall it's Ten II/Ten/Rose. This chapter is a bit of everything, and a whole lot of Rose/Rose.
Rating: NC17 for hot Rose-on-Rose action! Ye be warned.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all hail the BBC
Summary: “How did it happen? The first time, I mean, when the Doctors…?”
Rose thought back, then looked down at her empty glass, almost surprised. “It was...well, it was after a couple glasses of wine actually.”
Notes: Well, here it is, the femslash what was the whole reason for the brainstorming and creation of this fic years and years ago. If that's not your bag, best steer clear.
So thanks, everyone, for sticking with me during this trying time of posting my first fic in years, which happens to be the finishing of a fic I'd started years ago, which happens to be for a fandom I'm no longer really even active in! I have no idea what the hell I was thinking, but it's been rough. It's also been more than a little awesome, both trying to get back into these characters' heads again, and working so closely with my old partner in crime again. I miss you babe. If you should ever need me to return the favour to beta something for you (hint hint, nudge nudge), just say the word.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Alcohol seemed like the only logical next step in the progression of their extremely stressful day. If the younger Rose would be hopping into yet another dimension the next day, not only did it seem fitting to send her off and thank her for her help with a celebratory meal and toast, but Rose could admit there was more than a bit of sorrow-drowning going on as well. For the Rose so recently reunited with the Doctor(s), because it meant losing him again and facing an uncertain and probably dangerous future. For the three of them left behind, it meant acknowledging sending her away, even though they knew that the light of their reunion awaited the end of her current bleak path.
“I don’t remember any of this,” Rose said out loud. Her younger self looked up from her picked-at plate of food and her third glass of wine. “I think back before I found you,” she said to the Doctors, “and all I can remember is darkness.” She shuddered slightly, the other Rose mirroring her and doing the same. “Will I remember? After she’s...I’m gone, and all this is over, will I remember all this then? Remember as her, I mean?”
The Doctor in brown’s eyes were kind and sad. “No. Even if the dimension transferal fugue weren’t permanent, which it is, I’d have to…” He stopped, and the older Rose knew he was remembering Donna.
“What, take my memories away?” The younger Rose’s cheeks were flushed, whether from anger or wine Rose couldn’t tell.
“Yes,” the Doctor answered finally. “I shouldn’t have to, but I would. I’m sorry.”
“You have to forget,” the Doctor now back in blue continued for him. “You have to run to me on that street, you have to watch me nearly die and regenerate and you can’t know what’s going to happen or stop the Dalek from shooting me. You have to let him take us -” he gestured to himself and both Roses, “- back to Norway. It all has to happen in precisely the right order, or…” He shrugged and took a rather large gulp of wine. “Or it won’t,” he finished, licking his lips.
There was silence around the table for some time as they all took in his words. “So she goes on,” Rose said, nodding to her other self. “Lonely, sick, starving, and we just continue on like nothing ever happened?”
“Rose-” her half-human Doctor started to say, but he was interrupted by the Time Lord seated next to him.
“Yes,” he said shortly. His face was blank. Resigned. “That’s what we do because we have to.” The subject was quickly changed. They shared stories and memories; the Doctors seemed to bring up every journey the four of them had ever taken together, back when they used to be two people: Woman Wept, the Gamestation, New Earth, Rome… whether because they were anxious to remind the Roses of happier times, or to steer the conversation firmly away from the direction it had been taking, the older Rose wasn’t sure.
For her, the rest of the meal lost its previous carefree atmosphere. She realised she was well past half-drunk, but she couldn’t help feeling dismissed by both of the Doctors’ comments. She knew more than anyone how important it was to preserve the timeline; this was her future they were talking about after all. Yet, through the haze of alcohol and the sad fog of empathy for her younger self, she couldn’t help thinking that, if the roles were somehow reversed at this time and it was her part-human Doctor who needed to be sent away to preserve the course of events, the Time Lord would somehow have found a way. The other man was that important to him. Here she was - the same Rose she used to be right before they were reunited - and aside from a quick fuck before he’d sent her off to find his two customary companions, he’d hardly interacted with her at all. With me, Rose’s mind screamed silently. This all happened to me, he treated me this way, I just don’t remember it.
She was starting to get a headache.
Lost in her thoughts, she only slightly noticed when the Doctors excused themselves to retire to the bedroom the three of them shared more often than not these days. The two women sat silently, sipping their drinks. Rose could not help staring at her younger self, wondering, trying to remember what could possibly be going on in her head. Was she sad? Angry? Anxious to go? Would it be okay to ask how their mum was doing? It was past-Jackie, so Rose knew exactly how she was doing in the younger Rose’s present: worried, and frustrated with her daughter for refusing to just ‘let that man go and move on.’ Still, it would be nice to hear it, though the Doctors almost certainly wouldn’t approve.
All of these thoughts raced through Rose’s mind in minutes, as she continued to stare at her double.
“What?” the other Rose said finally, sounding annoyed, looking up at her.
“Doesn’t it, y’know, bother you? That he just said he’d erase your memory before sending you off if he had to?” The other Rose seemed so complacent; Rose was having a hard time reconciling it with the hurt she felt on her younger self’s behalf at the Doctor’s words.
The other woman shrugged. “It doesn’t feel great, but the Doctor knows what’s best.”
“But what do you want?” Rose asked. She was irritated with herself for not standing up for both of them, for how single-minded she’d been at that time and how she’d neglected her own health and well being.
“To get back to the Doctor,” other Rose answered, calmly and immediately. “To save the world. I know you remember that much.”
She did. She remembered the stars vanishing, the riots in the streets...the fear, the longing and the belief that everything would be okay if she could just find him. After having been back with him for so long, it was difficult to place herself back in that frame of mind again.
“So...does he sleep now? The first Doctor, or whatever you call him?”
“They didn’t leave to sleep,” Rose answered, finishing the dregs of her glass. The younger woman did the same, looking flustered. “They want us to follow them,” Rose added. “They didn’t say as much, but that’s what they’re hoping...expecting...I don’t know. We could, if you want…?” Her sentence became an inquiry, one which her double did not immediately answer.
“So,” the younger woman said after an uncomfortable silence in which Rose knew she was imagining the Doctors together in exactly the way they almost certainly were. “How did it happen? The first time, I mean, when the Doctors…?”
Rose thought back, then looked down at her empty glass, almost surprised. “It was...well, it was after a couple glasses of wine actually.”
The tension between them became almost palpable, and then she was lunging across the table, curling her fingers into the front of the younger Rose's leather jacket. Pulling her roughly forward, Rose smashed her mouth against that of her other self. The younger woman kissed her back hungrily, clamouring around the table, hands going to her shoulders, running up and down her arms, around her neck, in her hair, everywhere. She seemed to want this, to need this, as badly as Rose herself did.
Somehow they found their way back to her room, continuing to kiss as they both struggled to remove each other's jackets. Even through the haze of drink and growing arousal, she couldn't help but note every detail about how different it was kissing a woman rather than a man. The younger Rose's lips were soft, they seemed to melt under hers; her saliva was sweet and her tongue was gentle and inquisitive. It only served to amplify her desire, and the older Rose clutched at the other woman's ass, forcing their hips together instinctively and finding no pressure there, no growing erection like she was used to. Friction, she needed friction.
Grabbing one of the younger Rose's hands, she thrust it between her legs, grinding against it. The other girl responded, rubbing her fingers furiously against the seam of her trousers, but it still wasn't enough.
“Oh God,” the younger Rose panted, as if voicing her frustrations. “Fuck me. Can you?”
“I can try,” the older Rose growled, fumbling at the buttons of her younger self's black trousers and forcing them roughly down. “Lay down.”
The younger woman shimmied the rest of the way out of her trousers and underwear and laid back on their bed, looking awkward and unsure. Rose, on the other hand, felt positively predatory as she crawled over the supine form of her other self.
“I know you haven’t,” she started, punctuating her words with exploratory kisses to her younger self's smooth belly, “But I’ve still never done...” kiss, “anything like this...” top of the right thigh, “with...” gently spreading her legs, “a girl.” Rose stared for a moment, unable to resist the spectacle of herself from what was usually the Doctor's point of view: the soft, slightly unkempt strip of her pubic hair (sparking Rose’s memories of her dimensional jumps leaving little time for personal grooming), the open lips like petals and the glistening pink beneath. She knew exactly what to do, and the older Rose bent forward without another thought and tasted herself, licking the entire length of her before settling at her clit. Understanding that this was where to focus, lavishing the attention on the other woman which she herself usually enjoyed, she lapped eagerly, tasting the increasing moisture as the younger Rose moaned and writhed under her attention. It was almost too easy: she hardly felt like she needed to breathe at all as she licked, slipping first one and then two fingers inside the other woman's tight heat and fucking her as she'd promised. Fingering her slowly, she gently sucked her clitoris at the same pace until the younger woman dug her fingernails into her scalp and screamed as she came in her mouth.
The other Rose lay still, her chest rising and falling with her gradually slowing breath. “That was…” she said after several minutes. The sentence was unfinished, but Rose knew exactly what she was trying to say: amazing, and not half-weird. It had been for her as well.
She nodded, wiping her mouth, unsure how to proceed. To her relief, the other woman spoke first.
“Do you still have…” Once again, she didn’t need to finish her sentence; Rose knew exactly to what she was referring. It had been on her own mind since they had stumbled into this room: the collection of sex toys in her bedside table that she and the Doctors frequently enjoyed together. The other Rose only knew of the one, of course, which had been hers back when she was on the TARDIS - her trusty pink vibrator, that very same one which she would go on to use on the part-human Doctor near the beginning of their sexual relationship. The younger Rose had no way of knowing that, in their time and travels since it had become the three of them, they had built up quite an impressive collection.
Her hands nearly trembling with excitement, Rose opened the nightstand and selected a likely candidate, one which they’d not had the opportunity to try out yet. Purchased on another planet whose inhabitants shared a very similar physiology to that of humans, the alien material was nearly iridescent while the smooth shape was undeniably phallic.
She handed it to the other Rose, who considered it for several seconds, turning it over. “It’s beautiful,” she said finally with a small, cheeky smile, biting her lip. Do I always look so sexy when I do that, Rose wondered, and resolved to do it consciously more often.
They returned to kissing slowly as she wriggled out of the last of her clothing, enjoying the softness of their naked bodies sliding together as she allowed the younger Rose to maneuver her onto her back and move over her. Their eyes locked, the other Rose’s expression was somewhere between amusement and arousal as she eased their toy between Rose’s spread legs and slid the cool length of it through her slit. She gasped at the pressure against her clit, all too fleeting, and could feel how wet she was.
“Ready?” the other Rose asked. Rose nodded. She heard a hum as the toy was turned on, and then felt the other woman angle it and slide it inside of her. As it always was, the feeling was overwhelming: vibration, inside and against all the right places, coming and going as the younger woman fucked her slow but hard just like she liked it. She wasn’t going to last long, she never did like this, and Rose gave herself over to it, raising her hips off the bed to meet the other Rose’s thrusts. The other woman pressed soft kisses across her chest, taking her nipple into her mouth and sucking even as she quickened her pace down below. Moaning encouragement, the younger Rose changed the angle, and Rose found herself coming suddenly, too hard even to make a noise. It seemed to go on and on as the other Rose continued to move the vibrator inside of her, slowing until her shaking finally ceased.
“I wish you could stay,” Rose said dreamily when she could speak again, running her fingers over the curve of the other woman’s hip.
“I don’t,” the other Rose said curtly. Rose’s hand froze, and the younger woman sat back.
“It’s uneven this way, isn’t it? Feels weird sayin’ that, that three would be more balanced than four, but it is. Me being here throws it off somehow, because the Doctors love you and you love them, and I don’t fit in with that. You don’t love me, you miss being me, or maybe you miss something about this time right before you found him.” She paused, swept a strand of hair away from her face. “I’m not like the other Doctor - he was created right next to you guys, in your timeline. He’s part of that. Thing is, my Doctor is still out there somewhere, waiting for me. He needs me. I think you’re the only one who doesn’t get that.”
Rose was taken aback. It was true, she hadn’t thought of that, that it wasn’t just her timeline she was thinking of mucking about with, but the Doctor’s. And it was true that seeing herself as she used to be made her feel many things: wistful, nostalgic for a simpler time and envious of what was still to come for her...but love wasn’t one of them.
“Seeing you three, what you’ve become to each other, it’s given me something to hope for for the first time in a long time. I mean, yeah I’ve hoped for the Doctor, but I never dreamed this,” the other Rose continued. “And...I can’t wait,” she finished with a little laugh.
“It looks perfect,” Rose found herself saying in what she imagined to be a very old, wise voice, “but it’s a lot of work.”
Younger Rose rolled her eyes. “Every relationship is work. I think you take all this for granted. I’ll be sure to work on that, when I’m you.”
Some time later, after they had drifted into sleep, the Doctor, used to being the only creature on his TARDIS that didn’t rest, wandered past Rose’s room on the way to his workshop and paused to take in the two women sleeping in a beautiful tangle of naked limbs and blonde hair. He stood for several minutes, considering the strange parallels of the situation Rose now found herself in, and that which he lived every day, before continuing silently on his way.
***
“I’ve still got that somewhere,” the older Rose said, nodding toward the notebook her double held. Her face took on a faraway expression. “I seriously can’t remember where. S’a trip down memory lane I never wanted to make, you know?”
Rose scribbled her notes, not looking up. “I keep wanting to leave myself some kind of a note to, I dunno, lift my spirits or something. But I won’t,” she said quickly at the Doctors’ simultaneous eyebrow raises.
“‘No Doctor,’ that’s all it can say,” the Doctor in brown insisted. “You can’t remember any of this.”
“I don’t,” the Rose standing next to him said, her voice quiet.
“Good,” he said loftily, giving her an almost imperceptible nod.
Young Rose tucked the note pad in her jacket and turned first to the brown-suited Doctor - her Doctor, for whom she’d fought to get back to since that day on Bad Wolf Bay...since the moment the lever had slipped, actually. “It’s not goodbye,” she said, her voice choked.
“It’s see you soon,” he answered, smiling sadly before pulling her into a hug. She saw the older Rose wince only slightly when she met the Doctor’s lips with hers and kissed him properly, the way she had the previous day, and the way she’d always wished she’d been able to when they said goodbye in Norway.
Then she turned to the Doctor in blue - the mysterious stranger who wore the love of her life’s face. “I don’t know what to say,” she started cautiously, very aware of the last time she’d spoken those words to this man, or a man just like him, in farewell. “You scare me a little,” she said, truthfully.
“Thanks,” he said, nonplussed.
“But I know,” she continued over him, “that somehow, you’re the Doctor. Just...be patient with me, yeah?” Not saying, hoping he understood, that she was speaking both to him, and to the him waiting to be born in whatever universe she was heading towards; the man she would have to learn to love all over again. Placing a chaste kiss on his cheek, she tried not to see the hurt in his eyes that she didn’t kiss him as she had the Time Lord, but it was just too soon for her. Then before she’d even completed that thought, she found herself pulling him forward by his suit lapels and kissing him properly, catching an odd, knowing look pass between Rose and the Doctor in brown as she did so. Kissing him was just like kissing the Doctor, and nothing like kissing the Doctor at the same time - his lips were hot, and he kissed her back ferociously, bending her backwards. She found herself once more desperately eager to have this new man in her life, to have them both the way the other Rose did and didn’t seem, to her, to appreciate nearly enough, because at that moment the possibilities seemed endless.
When the kiss finally ended, she stepped to herself last on slightly wobbly knees. “Take care of these boys.” The older Rose nodded.
“You too.”
Quickly, fluidly, the young Rose wound her arms around the other woman’s neck and kissed her a long goodbye, dimly aware of the Doctors watching intently feet away. When she felt the other woman’s tongue touch her lips, she opened her mouth to receive it. She could feel a lot of things about this moment, Rose realized - sadness at leaving her Doctor(s) again, envy for this other Rose, fear at whatever waited for her on the other side of the dimensional wall. But strangely, where she could have felt all of these things, she found herself flooded only with hope.
She pressed the yellow button the moment they parted, and the three familiar figures before her vanished.
***
Until she checked her notes, it was just another standard jump with the dimension cannon, if there was such a thing.
Rose realized immediately from her surroundings - the large, sterile office and the glass walls - that she was home this time, which meant Mickey must have turned the homing beacon on: something they had agreed would not be done except under the most urgent of circumstances. “Why’d you bring me back?” she asked, turning to where she instinctively knew he’d be standing in front of the wall of monitors. “What is it, is it Mum?”
“Sorry, babe, but I thought you’d wanna see this,” he said, not tearing his eyes away from the screens. Rose stared intently at the many lines and numbers as she approached behind him, her brow furrowed as she attempted to make any sense of them. “Whatever happened on your last jump’s making the time lines go bonkers.” Mickey finally turned to look at her as she moved to stand beside him. “What did happen, d’you…?”
“Don’t remember,” Rose answered. “If I did find him there’d be…”
She’d removed her notebook from her pocket as she spoke, and a slight variation in her notes this time caught her eye and made her pause: Attempt seven - no Doctors. The plural confused her, but what Mickey said next drove it out of her mind.
“They’re converging.” He nodded toward the screen. “The timelines. At several points. It’s gotta be him, don’t it?” He glanced over at her. “It’s good to see you, by the way.”
“Yeah, you as well,” she said, not looking at him, staring at the screen. “Might as well get started,” she said, tapping the screen. “Here...what is that, 2009?”
“Yeah, we sent scouts,” Mickey answered, sounding pleased that he’d obviously arrived at the same conclusion. “It’s just London, nothing that unusual that we saw - except some kind of new weight loss drug making the rounds, big results but no research to back it up, could be worth looking into.”
“Aliens targeting overweight people? Nothing changes,” Rose said, amused, moving back into position and retrieving her yellow button. “Right, I”ll check in after the next few jumps. And tell Mum: no following me, got it?”
“Yeah, sure,” Mickey said, giving a broad smile that did not reach his eyes. “Good luck,” she heard him say as she hit the button, and then all was darkness.