the stars are burning, Rose/Ten, R
She hears drums sometimes., 487
A/N: Also inspired by "Drumming Song" by Florence + The Machine
She hears drums sometimes.
She doesn't tell him at first, keeps it to herself, but it doesn't take long for him to notice when she winces and presses her palms to her forehead.
She tells him it's nothing, it's just a headache, it'll go away, but he doesn't believe her.
It's a while before he finds out about the drumming, when he walks in on her in the console room, curled up on the jumpseat with her hands clapped over her ears, eyes squeezed shut and whispering to herself
drums, I can hear the drums
over and over again.
His blood runs cold as he stares at her and she looks up, startled, when she notices his presence.
Drumming? The question is quiet, the word catching in his throat, as if giving voice to his fear will suddenly make it all too terribly real.
Again she tells him it's nothing, that it's not all the time, only when she's tired, but as she pushes off the seat and walks down the corridor to her room, all he can feel is a sinking weight in his stomach.
He thinks back to Floor 500, remembers her stepping from the TARDIS, a golden, glowing goddess, so powerful and so fragile. He'd pulled the energy from her, sacrificed himself to save her, but he's faced with the thought now that he didn't get all of it, that the storm still rages within her. That she still holds the power of the Wolf in her veins.
It terrifies him.
Her mouth curls into a sneer on a burning planet when a child runs to her for protection and she brushes him aside like he's nothing more than a mosquito, buzzing round and round her head.
A distress call comes in on the monitor and she ignores it, pushing the screen to the side with a dismissive flick of her wrist and a roll of her eyes.
Her craving for him approaches insatiable and she drags him into her bed night after night, urging him faster, harder, deeper, wanting him to be rough with her, wanting him to hurt her. Her nails dig into his flesh and her teeth nip at his shoulder, leaving marks behind, and her eyes shine gold as she comes.
The Wolf is consuming her.
He finds her in a shadowed corner of the console room, noticing something dark and wet on her arms, sliding down her skin and dripping to the floor. He kneels down beside her and she looks up at him with tear-filled eyes, her irises brown with no trace of the golden glow he's come to detest.
The stars are burning. They're under my skin, I can feel them, they burn, Doctor, they burn and they hurt.
He realizes the dark substance is blood.
She hears the drums all the time now.
He knows what he has to do.
He doesn't know if he can.