Amaranthine: Rose
Rated: T
Features: Rose Tyler, the Tenth Doctor
Pairings: Doctor/Rose
A/N: This is a bit from my new 'verse, Amaranthine, which is a Warehouse 13 AU. There will be several other vignettes and short stories from the viewpoints of other characters as well as a longer story which will link them all together. I hope.
"Do you understand now?" He's kneeling in front of her, disconcerting brown eyes wide and earnest, his hands on her knees. Rose's gaze slides away from his face; it's too weird, looking at him, seeing different eyes than the ones she has come to love. But the Warehouse sings inside her, calm and joyous and certain and it's impossible to be afraid-after everything she's seen, after everything they've done.
"I'm the same man," he continues. "Always, Rose. I'm the same man. Just-the packaging changes a bit." A wry smile pulls the corners of his mouth up. "That's your fault, by the way." She doesn't answer but the incredulous look she gives him turns his smile into a full-blown grin. "I saw the way you looked at Jack and even that Adam bloke, and really, Rose-you could do so much better. But you like them foxy and I want to be able to touch you without getting slapped by some woman like your mum. Ergo-" One hand lifts from her knee and makes a gesture encompassing this new man, this new Doctor.
One thing hasn't changed; the Doctor isn't good with silence. He runs a hand through his hair-actual hair longer than the just-barely-beyond-a-soldier's-buzz that he had worn and everything is so incongruous that Rose is half-expecting her mum to burst through the door demanding an explanation-and rocks back a bit on the balls of his feet. "Rose." It's a plea and a command. "Say something. Please. I-I'm sorry that I frightened you, but I'm not sorry that it happened. And I'd do it again, in a heartbeat. You would have died, Rose, and between you and me-there's never a choice. Not ever."
It's as close to a declaration as she's likely to get. She knows, oh, she's always known and she desperately wants to respond in kind but her thoughts are moving faster than she could possibly say. In the end Rose lets her hands do the talking. She reaches up tentatively and lays her palm along his cheek. She absolutely does not note the way his eyes close and his head tilts subtlety into the contact, or the way he sighs when her other hand frames his other cheek, or the way his hands wrap around her wrists to hold them in place when he opens his eyes and finds her studying him with silent, intense certainty.
"Rose." Her name rolls of his lips like it always has, like it's something precious and she is something precious and it's involuntary, really, the way she closes the gap between them and silences whatever was to follow with a kiss. The song of the Warehouse swells in her head and he surges up to meet her, all of his hesitation gone in the face of her acceptance.
"Hello," Rose says when the need for oxygen asserts itself.
"Hello," the Doctor replies. His smile is different but the same effervescent joy radiates out from it and his eyes are different but the same love lurks within them. And she is different now too, bound to the Warehouse in ways that not even the Regents can fully explain or even understand, but at the heart of all things they remain who they always have been-the Doctor and Rose Tyler. And that is as it should be.
Features: Rose Tyler, the Tenth Doctor
Pairings: Doctor/Rose
A/N: This is a bit from my new 'verse, Amaranthine, which is a Warehouse 13 AU. There will be several other vignettes and short stories from the viewpoints of other characters as well as a longer story which will link them all together. I hope.
"Do you understand now?" He's kneeling in front of her, disconcerting brown eyes wide and earnest, his hands on her knees. Rose's gaze slides away from his face; it's too weird, looking at him, seeing different eyes than the ones she has come to love. But the Warehouse sings inside her, calm and joyous and certain and it's impossible to be afraid-after everything she's seen, after everything they've done.
"I'm the same man," he continues. "Always, Rose. I'm the same man. Just-the packaging changes a bit." A wry smile pulls the corners of his mouth up. "That's your fault, by the way." She doesn't answer but the incredulous look she gives him turns his smile into a full-blown grin. "I saw the way you looked at Jack and even that Adam bloke, and really, Rose-you could do so much better. But you like them foxy and I want to be able to touch you without getting slapped by some woman like your mum. Ergo-" One hand lifts from her knee and makes a gesture encompassing this new man, this new Doctor.
One thing hasn't changed; the Doctor isn't good with silence. He runs a hand through his hair-actual hair longer than the just-barely-beyond-a-soldier's-buzz that he had worn and everything is so incongruous that Rose is half-expecting her mum to burst through the door demanding an explanation-and rocks back a bit on the balls of his feet. "Rose." It's a plea and a command. "Say something. Please. I-I'm sorry that I frightened you, but I'm not sorry that it happened. And I'd do it again, in a heartbeat. You would have died, Rose, and between you and me-there's never a choice. Not ever."
It's as close to a declaration as she's likely to get. She knows, oh, she's always known and she desperately wants to respond in kind but her thoughts are moving faster than she could possibly say. In the end Rose lets her hands do the talking. She reaches up tentatively and lays her palm along his cheek. She absolutely does not note the way his eyes close and his head tilts subtlety into the contact, or the way he sighs when her other hand frames his other cheek, or the way his hands wrap around her wrists to hold them in place when he opens his eyes and finds her studying him with silent, intense certainty.
"Rose." Her name rolls of his lips like it always has, like it's something precious and she is something precious and it's involuntary, really, the way she closes the gap between them and silences whatever was to follow with a kiss. The song of the Warehouse swells in her head and he surges up to meet her, all of his hesitation gone in the face of her acceptance.
"Hello," Rose says when the need for oxygen asserts itself.
"Hello," the Doctor replies. His smile is different but the same effervescent joy radiates out from it and his eyes are different but the same love lurks within them. And she is different now too, bound to the Warehouse in ways that not even the Regents can fully explain or even understand, but at the heart of all things they remain who they always have been-the Doctor and Rose Tyler. And that is as it should be.