Fic: Forever, Redux (1/1)
Title: Forever, Redux
Author: karenor
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Some hugging, vows of love, and some frankly fantastic sex would not magically heal him.
Disclaimer: BBC owns all. Including my soul. I'd like it back one day please. Maybe.
Betas: The ever fabulous rjrog77, principia_coh, and requialexa.
Author's Notes: Set in the Pocket!verse, so essentially a sequel to Master of his Domain, but all you need to know is that the Doctor and Rose had a cat called Pocket before Doomsday. Post-reunion. Slight angst/introspection. No spoilers (I'm unspoiled), this is just my vision (one of many) of how a reunion might go.
Rose stretched her limbs along the smooth sheets, warm where she’d lain, cool in the scant space between her and the Doctor. Her body was reluctant to come as fully awake as her mind and it ached as a result of last night, unaccustomed as she was to so much of last night’s sort of activity. But it was a good, delicious ache, and it reminded her of why she was so much happier this morning than she’d been on so many previous ones.
When-just yesterday-she’d returned to this universe, the right universe, she and the Doctor had had no inclination to continue dancing around their feelings for each other. After the years of separation, of desperate longing for one another, their habit of old-of pretending they were simply friends-quickly became nothing but memory.
With eyes only for each other, exchanging brilliant smiles between kisses, they’d tumbled together into the TARDIS, sought out the nearest bedroom and celebrated their reunion with several heavenly bouts of lovemaking.
Lovemaking. She smiled inwardly at the word. Never before had the term felt so apt. Never had she felt so worshipped by anyone, so treasured. With each caress, each movement of his body against hers, he’d been saying what he’d only said once aloud.
It was all she needed. It was more than enough…
He whispers the words into her hair after enveloping her in a hug so tight she can scarcely breathe. She scarcely wants to, for fear that these last few hours, her return to him, are all a fantasy. It wouldn’t be the first time her mind concocted such a reunion, only for her to wake up with the old ache in her heart suddenly raw all over again.
But she can feel the wind that whips around them, bitterly cold. She can hear, not far off, the sound of his companions chattering happily, now that they’ve thwarted the enemy and the day is saved. This doesn’t have the hazy confusion of dreams. The Doctor is solid. The strong arms encircling her have weight and dimension and warmth. His tears mingle with hers when they finally kiss. He loves her.
She finally opened her eyes, prepared to face the new day. The Doctor was on his back, apparently fascinated with the ceiling. He was still delightfully unclothed, the crisp white sheet clinging to his hips only just protecting his modesty. “Doctor?” she asked tentatively. At the sound of her voice, he shifted to his side to gaze at her, nothing but adoration visible in his eyes.
“Morning,” he said softly, reaching a hand out to trail over her sheet-covered side and hip.
She smiled in return. “Did you stay here all night?”
“Yes.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
“No. Well, only ten minutes or so after our last round.” He gave her a small sly smile, and then his face quickly sobered again. “I didn’t want-I was a bit…” he seemed to struggle with the next word, “…frightened.”
She wrinkled her brow, reached up her hand to smooth her hand along his cheek and jaw. “Frightened of what?” she whispered, the mood between them suddenly serious, intense.
“Sleeping?” He shrugged as well as he could in his position. “I don’t know. Dreaming. Losing you again.”
“To dreams? Worried this wasn’t real?” Her heart ached for him. Here she’d been enjoying blissful sleep, feeling the most content she’d been in almost as long as she could remember, and he’d been awake all night wrestling with his demons. He shared the fears she’d just about put to rest, but seemed even more reluctant to let them go.
“I’ve been swayed by phantoms before,” he said gravely.
“I’m not a phantom.”
“No,” he agreed and desperately hauled her to him, wrapping his long limbs around her and burying his head in her hair.
She might have been content to just be held like this forever, stroking her hands down his back soothingly, feeling his double heartbeat rumble through him and into her, his deep breaths stirring her hair and pushing their bodies even closer together. It was where she belonged, in his arms. But reality bled back in to intrude; they couldn’t stay so literally wrapped up in each other forever. Somewhere a phone was ringing.
She sighed and began to pry herself from his grasp.
“We don’t have to answer it,” he said, holding her all the tighter.
“We said we’d be available via mobile,” she reminded him, remembering the promise to their friends yesterday.
“We lied. Let’s not be available. Just for today.”
“It could be important. Alien invasion, the coming apocalypse or something.”
“So?” he answered, reminding her of when she’d said that to him in much the same tone years ago on that cold beach in Norway.
The phone stopped its chirping.
“Or it could just be an invite to breakfast,” she conceded, relaxing into his embrace again. “I think we’ll be forgiven.”
He murmured his agreement into her skin after he lifted some locks of hair from the side of her neck. He began to plant delicate kisses there and she let out a different sort of sigh.
* * *
She ran her hairbrush through her hair a final time and examined her reflection in the mirror. The last time she sat here, performing the same action, she’d had no idea that she was about to be wrenched away from the Doctor. She’d been excited to see her mum, to give her the bezoolium trinket she’d picked up at that asteroid bazaar, to tell her wild tales to someone who hadn’t been around to share them. She’d slathered on her usual makeup without a clue that by day’s end she’d have cried most of it off.
Rose glanced down at her table of cosmetics, knowing without checking that the TARDIS would have kept them fresh for her, though by rights, they should be powdery and tacky by now. She picked up her mascara tube with fondness. They didn’t have this brand back on Pete’s world. Just one of the many things that was different.
She put the tube back down. No sense in making herself up today. They weren’t planning to leave the TARDIS, after all. And the time saved, could be better spent with the Doctor. A few minutes apart from him for a shower, even here on their ship where she knew they were safe, and she was already getting antsy. If her Torchwood-appointed shrink could see her now, he would use words like co-dependence and separation anxiety, but he wasn’t here. And he was something from that world she wouldn’t miss.
And it wouldn’t do well to dwell on what she would miss. No doubt, at this very moment, the Doctor was beating himself up with guilt for everything she’d lost. She didn’t have to add to his grief now, when they were celebrating their joy in each other, remembering and creating new-even better-memories to share.
Right now, all she wanted was to be with him. He’d suffered greatly while she’d been away. She wasn’t arrogant enough to think it was all due to her being torn from him, exiled seemingly forever in another universe, but she was realistic and intuitive enough to know that it played a large part in the grief he still carried behind his eyes. Some hugging, vows of love, and some frankly fantastic sex would not magically heal him. But it was a start to a long process she hoped she could share with him.
No doubt amplified by the TARDIS, his voice carried down the hall, calling for her, reinforcing the urge to quickly reduce the distance between them. She tossed her hairbrush down and stood, setting out towards the sound of his voice.
He was in the living room, and her breath caught just a bit as she took in the picture he made. She’d recently seen him completely unclothed, had shagged him, but he looked utterly naked sitting as he was on the couch in just a vest and trousers. Bare feet, long bare arms, bare neck and hair still wet from his own shower.
His feet were perched on edge of the coffee table, his legs bent at the knee and drawn up towards him as he studied something in his lap.
He looked up as she crossed the threshold and gave her a brilliant smile that faded a bit as he chastised her lightly. “There you are, thought I’d have to send a search party out for you.”
“It’s been fifteen minutes.”
“Too long,” he said firmly. “Come here.”
She crossed the remaining distance between them quickly intending to kiss him soundly, but stepped back with an “Oh” of surprise when she saw what his bent knees had been hiding. The Doctor was affectionately stroking the fluffy white cat that was sprawled across his lap.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Pocket. That’s Pocket, our cat?” She blinked, still thrown off balance by the appearance of the cat before she got her bearings and slid next to him on the sofa and hesitantly reached out a hand to pet her. Pocket mewed her discontent and burrowed further into the cradle the Doctor provided.
“Of course it’s Pocket. You think I’d get another cat?”
“I forgot,” she said quietly, surprised at herself.
“Not surprising. She’s easy to lose track of and doesn’t come out much any more. I don’t think Martha or Donna even knew she was on board.”
While he spoke, she thought back to the tiny kitten she’d snuck on board in the pocket of her denim jacket. The one she’d coddled and the Doctor only just tolerated. She’d forgotten. It never occurred to her that the Doctor would keep her. It had been several years for him. He’d been taking care of her all this time? While out saving the world on a regular basis? Why? He’d made it amply clear that he only kept the kitten around because it made her happy. That he was doing her a favour. She’d say, It’s your turn to do the washing up and he’d reply with Ah, but I let you keep the cat!
She smiled at the memory and then did lean over to kiss him.
“Thank you,” she said, trying to curb the emotion creeping into her voice.
“For what?”
“For looking after her.”
“Oh, I was hardly going to chuck her out. You cared about her. Besides, I don’t do much. She practically looks after herself. She’s very resourceful. She once…” he paused, seemed reluctant to continue.
“She what?” Rose gently prodded.
He let his feet slip from the table to floor. “She once survived a whole year on her own. When the TARDIS was… hijacked.”
He’d spent a year without the TARDIS? Someone stole it from him? She’d seen what a few hours of being cut off from his ship had done to him; she couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d gone through in a whole year. A million questions ran through her head, but all she could ask was, “Hijacked? Who could do-”
“It doesn’t matter now. I’ll tell you that story some other time, all right?” He looked away, ahead of him, thumbed the edge of his nose. “Did you want to watch a film? Because we could-”
She recognized his need for avoidance just then and wanted to help distract him, so she lifted a protesting Pocket from his lap and placed her in her own, cutting him off as he had done to her. “She’s gotten so big. Hardly fit in my pockets now.” She gave him a bright teasing smile and, as she suspected it would, his mood quickly altered.
He turned a matching smile on her and beamed, “Well she could probably fit in mine, you know.” He reached to rub the cat behind the ears and she quieted.
“She didn’t used to squirm when I pet her. Or hide from others on the TARDIS, Doctor.” No, they’d often found the kitten curled up on the jump seat when they’d come home after an adventure, or sometimes on the console itself, seeking its pulsating warmth. More than once, she’d found her on her bed in the mornings, or would nearly miss stepping on her when she’d been underfoot in the kitchen or wardrobe room.
“She’s missed you too. She didn’t understand your… leaving; she was just a wee thing. She thought you were gone forever. It was hard on her. Just give her some time. She's really happy to see you. Aren’t you, Pocket?” He tapped the cat affectionately on the nose.
Rose twisted a bit so she could see Pocket’s expression. The cat stared back at her begrudgingly. “Is that right?” Rose cooed at her soothingly, petting the soft fur of her back, “Do you just need to get to know me again?”
Pocket meowed an unintelligible response (making Rose wonder briefly if the TARDIS could understand catspeak and simply refused to translate) and hopped off her lap to settle in the corner of the couch away from both of them. She gave Rose another pointed look and then began to bathe herself, ignoring her human companions.
Rose let out a sigh.
“Well, I need to know you again,” the Doctor said.
She looked up at him sharply, confused. What did he mean by that?
He slid one hand to her thigh and the other into her hair and pulled her towards him. He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “I mean biblically.”
* * *
The TARDIS hum was always slightly different when they were in the vortex. A little softer, a little more even. She sounded content. Like she was home. The sound reverberated through the walls, a gentle lullaby perfectly in time with the Doctor’s soft snores.
In the few weeks that had passed since she’d been back in his life, it was the first time she’d seen him sleep.
They’d had a tough day, after all. They’d spent some time in a dank prison, escaped, deposed not one but two corrupt despots, ensuring a grand victory for the oppressed people of that tiny planet, and yet, somehow, still ended up running for their lives. They’d arrived back at the TARDIS breathless and sweating, had tea, showered, and then got themselves breathless and sweaty all over again.
Not a bad life.
Her musings were interrupted by soft swish of the door to the bedroom-once hers and now theirs-opening. No one came through and no one else was on board, so there was only one reasonable explanation: Pocket. It was the first time she’d ventured in here since… she’d been a kitten. Rose could see nothing from her angle, lying cuddled against the Doctor, but the soft mew that soon came from the floor at her side of the bed confirmed it.
So as not to wake him, she gently eased herself away from the Doctor to peer over the edge of the bed. Pocket was studying Rose intently; the cat’s bright blue eyes seemed to be assessing her.
“What is it?” Rose whispered to the cat.
Pocket answered with a questioning meow. She looked, if a cat possibly could, a little sheepish.
Rose smiled and then leaned back and patted the bed in invitation. Pocket immediately leaped onto it and offered herself for petting. Rose snuggled herself back against the Doctor, his arms automatically coming around her, even in sleep; her free hand coming out to pet Pocket who soon was contentedly snuggled against her.
She smiled at the picture of domesticity the three of them must make, and how the Doctor might still balk on general principle if she voiced the thought aloud. He’d never admit he was quite a soft touch when it came to these things. Before, he’d tried to give her the family he thought she wanted, when he’d set up her mum with Pete.
And he had the best intentions, of course. He wanted her safe and happy. But Rose had never needed safe; and happy was with him. He loved her. And while she’d never stop missing what she’d given up, the Doctor and Pocket were family enough for her.
She was happy.
“Rose,” he mumbled sleepily against her, “Are you purring?”
FIN
Author: karenor
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Some hugging, vows of love, and some frankly fantastic sex would not magically heal him.
Disclaimer: BBC owns all. Including my soul. I'd like it back one day please. Maybe.
Betas: The ever fabulous rjrog77, principia_coh, and requialexa.
Author's Notes: Set in the Pocket!verse, so essentially a sequel to Master of his Domain, but all you need to know is that the Doctor and Rose had a cat called Pocket before Doomsday. Post-reunion. Slight angst/introspection. No spoilers (I'm unspoiled), this is just my vision (one of many) of how a reunion might go.
Rose stretched her limbs along the smooth sheets, warm where she’d lain, cool in the scant space between her and the Doctor. Her body was reluctant to come as fully awake as her mind and it ached as a result of last night, unaccustomed as she was to so much of last night’s sort of activity. But it was a good, delicious ache, and it reminded her of why she was so much happier this morning than she’d been on so many previous ones.
When-just yesterday-she’d returned to this universe, the right universe, she and the Doctor had had no inclination to continue dancing around their feelings for each other. After the years of separation, of desperate longing for one another, their habit of old-of pretending they were simply friends-quickly became nothing but memory.
With eyes only for each other, exchanging brilliant smiles between kisses, they’d tumbled together into the TARDIS, sought out the nearest bedroom and celebrated their reunion with several heavenly bouts of lovemaking.
Lovemaking. She smiled inwardly at the word. Never before had the term felt so apt. Never had she felt so worshipped by anyone, so treasured. With each caress, each movement of his body against hers, he’d been saying what he’d only said once aloud.
It was all she needed. It was more than enough…
He whispers the words into her hair after enveloping her in a hug so tight she can scarcely breathe. She scarcely wants to, for fear that these last few hours, her return to him, are all a fantasy. It wouldn’t be the first time her mind concocted such a reunion, only for her to wake up with the old ache in her heart suddenly raw all over again.
But she can feel the wind that whips around them, bitterly cold. She can hear, not far off, the sound of his companions chattering happily, now that they’ve thwarted the enemy and the day is saved. This doesn’t have the hazy confusion of dreams. The Doctor is solid. The strong arms encircling her have weight and dimension and warmth. His tears mingle with hers when they finally kiss. He loves her.
She finally opened her eyes, prepared to face the new day. The Doctor was on his back, apparently fascinated with the ceiling. He was still delightfully unclothed, the crisp white sheet clinging to his hips only just protecting his modesty. “Doctor?” she asked tentatively. At the sound of her voice, he shifted to his side to gaze at her, nothing but adoration visible in his eyes.
“Morning,” he said softly, reaching a hand out to trail over her sheet-covered side and hip.
She smiled in return. “Did you stay here all night?”
“Yes.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
“No. Well, only ten minutes or so after our last round.” He gave her a small sly smile, and then his face quickly sobered again. “I didn’t want-I was a bit…” he seemed to struggle with the next word, “…frightened.”
She wrinkled her brow, reached up her hand to smooth her hand along his cheek and jaw. “Frightened of what?” she whispered, the mood between them suddenly serious, intense.
“Sleeping?” He shrugged as well as he could in his position. “I don’t know. Dreaming. Losing you again.”
“To dreams? Worried this wasn’t real?” Her heart ached for him. Here she’d been enjoying blissful sleep, feeling the most content she’d been in almost as long as she could remember, and he’d been awake all night wrestling with his demons. He shared the fears she’d just about put to rest, but seemed even more reluctant to let them go.
“I’ve been swayed by phantoms before,” he said gravely.
“I’m not a phantom.”
“No,” he agreed and desperately hauled her to him, wrapping his long limbs around her and burying his head in her hair.
She might have been content to just be held like this forever, stroking her hands down his back soothingly, feeling his double heartbeat rumble through him and into her, his deep breaths stirring her hair and pushing their bodies even closer together. It was where she belonged, in his arms. But reality bled back in to intrude; they couldn’t stay so literally wrapped up in each other forever. Somewhere a phone was ringing.
She sighed and began to pry herself from his grasp.
“We don’t have to answer it,” he said, holding her all the tighter.
“We said we’d be available via mobile,” she reminded him, remembering the promise to their friends yesterday.
“We lied. Let’s not be available. Just for today.”
“It could be important. Alien invasion, the coming apocalypse or something.”
“So?” he answered, reminding her of when she’d said that to him in much the same tone years ago on that cold beach in Norway.
The phone stopped its chirping.
“Or it could just be an invite to breakfast,” she conceded, relaxing into his embrace again. “I think we’ll be forgiven.”
He murmured his agreement into her skin after he lifted some locks of hair from the side of her neck. He began to plant delicate kisses there and she let out a different sort of sigh.
* * *
She ran her hairbrush through her hair a final time and examined her reflection in the mirror. The last time she sat here, performing the same action, she’d had no idea that she was about to be wrenched away from the Doctor. She’d been excited to see her mum, to give her the bezoolium trinket she’d picked up at that asteroid bazaar, to tell her wild tales to someone who hadn’t been around to share them. She’d slathered on her usual makeup without a clue that by day’s end she’d have cried most of it off.
Rose glanced down at her table of cosmetics, knowing without checking that the TARDIS would have kept them fresh for her, though by rights, they should be powdery and tacky by now. She picked up her mascara tube with fondness. They didn’t have this brand back on Pete’s world. Just one of the many things that was different.
She put the tube back down. No sense in making herself up today. They weren’t planning to leave the TARDIS, after all. And the time saved, could be better spent with the Doctor. A few minutes apart from him for a shower, even here on their ship where she knew they were safe, and she was already getting antsy. If her Torchwood-appointed shrink could see her now, he would use words like co-dependence and separation anxiety, but he wasn’t here. And he was something from that world she wouldn’t miss.
And it wouldn’t do well to dwell on what she would miss. No doubt, at this very moment, the Doctor was beating himself up with guilt for everything she’d lost. She didn’t have to add to his grief now, when they were celebrating their joy in each other, remembering and creating new-even better-memories to share.
Right now, all she wanted was to be with him. He’d suffered greatly while she’d been away. She wasn’t arrogant enough to think it was all due to her being torn from him, exiled seemingly forever in another universe, but she was realistic and intuitive enough to know that it played a large part in the grief he still carried behind his eyes. Some hugging, vows of love, and some frankly fantastic sex would not magically heal him. But it was a start to a long process she hoped she could share with him.
No doubt amplified by the TARDIS, his voice carried down the hall, calling for her, reinforcing the urge to quickly reduce the distance between them. She tossed her hairbrush down and stood, setting out towards the sound of his voice.
He was in the living room, and her breath caught just a bit as she took in the picture he made. She’d recently seen him completely unclothed, had shagged him, but he looked utterly naked sitting as he was on the couch in just a vest and trousers. Bare feet, long bare arms, bare neck and hair still wet from his own shower.
His feet were perched on edge of the coffee table, his legs bent at the knee and drawn up towards him as he studied something in his lap.
He looked up as she crossed the threshold and gave her a brilliant smile that faded a bit as he chastised her lightly. “There you are, thought I’d have to send a search party out for you.”
“It’s been fifteen minutes.”
“Too long,” he said firmly. “Come here.”
She crossed the remaining distance between them quickly intending to kiss him soundly, but stepped back with an “Oh” of surprise when she saw what his bent knees had been hiding. The Doctor was affectionately stroking the fluffy white cat that was sprawled across his lap.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Pocket. That’s Pocket, our cat?” She blinked, still thrown off balance by the appearance of the cat before she got her bearings and slid next to him on the sofa and hesitantly reached out a hand to pet her. Pocket mewed her discontent and burrowed further into the cradle the Doctor provided.
“Of course it’s Pocket. You think I’d get another cat?”
“I forgot,” she said quietly, surprised at herself.
“Not surprising. She’s easy to lose track of and doesn’t come out much any more. I don’t think Martha or Donna even knew she was on board.”
While he spoke, she thought back to the tiny kitten she’d snuck on board in the pocket of her denim jacket. The one she’d coddled and the Doctor only just tolerated. She’d forgotten. It never occurred to her that the Doctor would keep her. It had been several years for him. He’d been taking care of her all this time? While out saving the world on a regular basis? Why? He’d made it amply clear that he only kept the kitten around because it made her happy. That he was doing her a favour. She’d say, It’s your turn to do the washing up and he’d reply with Ah, but I let you keep the cat!
She smiled at the memory and then did lean over to kiss him.
“Thank you,” she said, trying to curb the emotion creeping into her voice.
“For what?”
“For looking after her.”
“Oh, I was hardly going to chuck her out. You cared about her. Besides, I don’t do much. She practically looks after herself. She’s very resourceful. She once…” he paused, seemed reluctant to continue.
“She what?” Rose gently prodded.
He let his feet slip from the table to floor. “She once survived a whole year on her own. When the TARDIS was… hijacked.”
He’d spent a year without the TARDIS? Someone stole it from him? She’d seen what a few hours of being cut off from his ship had done to him; she couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d gone through in a whole year. A million questions ran through her head, but all she could ask was, “Hijacked? Who could do-”
“It doesn’t matter now. I’ll tell you that story some other time, all right?” He looked away, ahead of him, thumbed the edge of his nose. “Did you want to watch a film? Because we could-”
She recognized his need for avoidance just then and wanted to help distract him, so she lifted a protesting Pocket from his lap and placed her in her own, cutting him off as he had done to her. “She’s gotten so big. Hardly fit in my pockets now.” She gave him a bright teasing smile and, as she suspected it would, his mood quickly altered.
He turned a matching smile on her and beamed, “Well she could probably fit in mine, you know.” He reached to rub the cat behind the ears and she quieted.
“She didn’t used to squirm when I pet her. Or hide from others on the TARDIS, Doctor.” No, they’d often found the kitten curled up on the jump seat when they’d come home after an adventure, or sometimes on the console itself, seeking its pulsating warmth. More than once, she’d found her on her bed in the mornings, or would nearly miss stepping on her when she’d been underfoot in the kitchen or wardrobe room.
“She’s missed you too. She didn’t understand your… leaving; she was just a wee thing. She thought you were gone forever. It was hard on her. Just give her some time. She's really happy to see you. Aren’t you, Pocket?” He tapped the cat affectionately on the nose.
Rose twisted a bit so she could see Pocket’s expression. The cat stared back at her begrudgingly. “Is that right?” Rose cooed at her soothingly, petting the soft fur of her back, “Do you just need to get to know me again?”
Pocket meowed an unintelligible response (making Rose wonder briefly if the TARDIS could understand catspeak and simply refused to translate) and hopped off her lap to settle in the corner of the couch away from both of them. She gave Rose another pointed look and then began to bathe herself, ignoring her human companions.
Rose let out a sigh.
“Well, I need to know you again,” the Doctor said.
She looked up at him sharply, confused. What did he mean by that?
He slid one hand to her thigh and the other into her hair and pulled her towards him. He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “I mean biblically.”
* * *
The TARDIS hum was always slightly different when they were in the vortex. A little softer, a little more even. She sounded content. Like she was home. The sound reverberated through the walls, a gentle lullaby perfectly in time with the Doctor’s soft snores.
In the few weeks that had passed since she’d been back in his life, it was the first time she’d seen him sleep.
They’d had a tough day, after all. They’d spent some time in a dank prison, escaped, deposed not one but two corrupt despots, ensuring a grand victory for the oppressed people of that tiny planet, and yet, somehow, still ended up running for their lives. They’d arrived back at the TARDIS breathless and sweating, had tea, showered, and then got themselves breathless and sweaty all over again.
Not a bad life.
Her musings were interrupted by soft swish of the door to the bedroom-once hers and now theirs-opening. No one came through and no one else was on board, so there was only one reasonable explanation: Pocket. It was the first time she’d ventured in here since… she’d been a kitten. Rose could see nothing from her angle, lying cuddled against the Doctor, but the soft mew that soon came from the floor at her side of the bed confirmed it.
So as not to wake him, she gently eased herself away from the Doctor to peer over the edge of the bed. Pocket was studying Rose intently; the cat’s bright blue eyes seemed to be assessing her.
“What is it?” Rose whispered to the cat.
Pocket answered with a questioning meow. She looked, if a cat possibly could, a little sheepish.
Rose smiled and then leaned back and patted the bed in invitation. Pocket immediately leaped onto it and offered herself for petting. Rose snuggled herself back against the Doctor, his arms automatically coming around her, even in sleep; her free hand coming out to pet Pocket who soon was contentedly snuggled against her.
She smiled at the picture of domesticity the three of them must make, and how the Doctor might still balk on general principle if she voiced the thought aloud. He’d never admit he was quite a soft touch when it came to these things. Before, he’d tried to give her the family he thought she wanted, when he’d set up her mum with Pete.
And he had the best intentions, of course. He wanted her safe and happy. But Rose had never needed safe; and happy was with him. He loved her. And while she’d never stop missing what she’d given up, the Doctor and Pocket were family enough for her.
She was happy.
“Rose,” he mumbled sleepily against her, “Are you purring?”
FIN