Fic: The Sun in the Storm
Title: The Sun in the Storm
Author/Artist: wander_realtai
Characters/Pairings: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all characters contained within said series do not belong to me. Writing and creating art for this fandom is purely for fun and entertainment, and I make no money from it.
Summary: Sometimes, the Doctor dreams. Rose knows this.
Sometimes, he dreams.
Rose knows this, though of course, he would never admit it. Sleep, he would say. All you humans ever do is sleep and dream, dream and sleep. There is far too much to do, far too much to see to engage in such a hobby.
“What dreams,” the Doctor asked her once, “have you ever once had that can even remotely compare to what I've shown you?” And then he'd grinned, that mad Cheshire grin, a glimmer like a star dancing across the dark, endless expanse of his eyes.
She'd said something about being unable to function sufficiently to enjoy said wonders of the universe without that silly waste of time called sleep, and he'd snorted and mumbled something about human physiology and spun to the console to whack at it with that rubber mallet of his...
And she knows that even he must sleep sometimes, and when he does, he dreams, but that his dreams are nightmares. She wakes on occasion, an echo of something tearing at her heart, something her conscious mind cannot grasp, as she rises to wander the labyrinthine halls of the TARDIS. She pauses in the soft orange glow of a corridor, a glow that pulses within her breast and washes the walls of the ship with life, and hears a gasp, a sob, a choked scream muffled behind a closed door as he relives some horror or another in the solitude of his private quarters. She often thinks of stepping through that door, slipping silently to his side, running a hand through dark, sweat-streaked hair and whispering words of comfort, but she never does. She knows he would never allow it. The door stands, always, an ominous warning to Tread No Further.
She presses her hand to the door anyway, closing her eyes. Sometimes, she thinks she can touch his mind. A fantasy, of course. She doesn't have a psychic bone in her body.
She doesn't know how to help someone who experienced such things as he has. She's searched through books on PTSD and recovering from trauma and psychology for dummies when he's not looking (though she suspects he knows, because he's the Doctor, though he never, ever says anything about it) because she knows she's out of her depth. Words and words and words; empty, unpronounceable words and phrases like Acute Stress Response and Hypervigilance and Catecholamine Levels and Cortisol Suppression fill her mind, and she knows it is all drivel because the Doctor isn't human, doesn't have human physiology, doesn't think like a human, has a psychological makeup so completely different than a human's that she wonders why she ever thinks she can even know him. How is she to know what's normal for a Time Lord? She gets the impression from the precious little he speaks of his home and people that he was never normal for a Time Lord.
Tonight, she wakes, her heart pounding in her chest, a gasp frozen on her lips. Her skin prickles with something that is not heat and is not cold, but she doesn't remember why. She sits up, swings bare legs from the side of the bed, stuffs her feet into a pair of plush slippers and snatches her dressing gown from its haphazard place on the chair by the dresser. She walks, as she often walks. This time, though, she finds herself in the library.
The library is large, as the Doctor always says a library should be. Tall shelves line the walls, and there is even a ladder on wheels, and a secret passageway behind one of the shelves, never the same shelf twice. She's asked him before why he needs a secret passageway in his own ship, but he'd looked at her askance and told her that every library needs a secret passageway eventually, that it is like a right-of-passage for libraries, and then he'd grinned at the pun he'd made while she rolled her eyes. The books, she knows, are arranged by subject matter. Sometimes the Doctor re-arranges them when a whim hits, shelf by shelf, during those long hours that Rose is asleep and he is awake. There is a fireplace in one corner, made of pale stone, incongruous to her eyes-- she wonders rather inanely where the smoke goes, then wonders if it is real smoke. There are a number of battered but comfortable chairs and an overstuffed couch upholstered in a velvety, faded blue. The Doctor sits on the couch right now, lounges really, his trainer-clad feet propped on a coffee table. His head lolls to the side, his hand still on a book, resting in his lap. He is asleep, but not peaceful, his face shadowed and creased, his mouth quirking downward as his brow furrows deeply. A low, long moan ripples from his throat, and Rose moves quickly to his side, sitting carefully beside him. She reaches a hand out, hovers over his shoulder, not quite daring to touch him when he's like this. The door still looms, unseen but just as tangible, but this time, she crosses through it, because she is here, because she cannot bear to see him, to actually see him like this. She lays her hand, very gently, on his shoulder. She says nothing, just touches him. And she reaches out to him with her thoughts, closing her eyes, and imagines that she can touch his mind.
War blood fire ScreamingSCREAMING! death so many dead black abyss emptiness in the mind where once all his people dwelt end it must end it must end it now, now, NOW!
A deep, shuddering breath from that beautiful, alien man snaps her back to the present, trembling. She doesn't understand what she did or how she did it. She breathes deeply and exhales, and her breath shimmers gold in the gently flickering light of the room.
She whispers in his ear. “Doctor.” She wraps her voice in layers of melodious strains of peace, of love, of whispers that say you're safe here and see, I'm with you and breathe again for me, and she does not know she does it, that the song is pulled from somewhere hidden deep within herself and destined always to be forgotten. She moves among his dreams, touching the darkness and terror, the burning, boiling mass of destruction, and it all fades into a shimmer of sunlight.
The tormented lines of his face soften. She slowly moves her hand from his shoulder to cup his cheek, the way he used to do to her, when he wore black leather and a harsh humor and that unexplainable Northern accent (“Lots of planets have a North!”). His eyes are still closed, but a touch of a smile plays at his lips, and she wonders if he has woken.
He breathes her name, and the change that cascades over his face is like a sunrise. He breathes deeply, and his whole body shudders, and he sighs her name again.
And then his eyes open, turn to her.
“Rose?” he questions softly. She jerks her hand from his face, and thinks that she just imagines the fleeting shadow of disappointment that crosses his features at the loss of contact.
“Sorry,” she mumbles. “'S'just... I wandered in here. Didn't know you were here... you were having a nightmare...”
“A nightmare?” He furrows his brow. “I suppose I was... that happens. It's all right, though. Just a dream--” And then he stops and gazes at her, unconsciously leaning in close, as if he suddenly just remembered something. His breath tickles her face as he murmurs, “Oh...”
“What is it, Doctor?” she whispers, caught in his magnetic stare.
He doesn't answer for a moment, regarding her with inscrutable eyes, and then he is raising a long elegant hand, and gently brushing a lock of yellow hair from her face. She shivers at the caress, the lightest of touches, and closes her eyes.
“How did you do that?” he asks softly.
She trembles beneath the feathery glide of his fingers as they touch her face. “Do-what? Doctor...”
He is looking in her eyes, seeing too much, too deeply, and she isn't sure she likes the expression in them. It frightens her and thrills her, pulses and flickers in her mind with a double heartbeat and ancient fire, and suddenly something inside her that is also ageless, burning like the sun, rises to meet him.
“My Doctor,” she whispers, and something dangerous and fierce and possessive flares in his eyes as both of his hands rise to cup her face. “Please. Don't be angry. I jus' thought... I wanted to...” She takes a deep breath. “You were so upset. I just wanted to help you.”
“Rose.” Her name is a breath caressing her face as the Doctor, still cradling her face in his hands, leans closer so their mouths hover a hair's breadth apart. He closes his eyes tightly as he seems to war within himself for a moment, and then his lips are pressed to hers, closed and then slightly open, grazing gently. She parts her lips and he takes her in a full kiss, tongue gliding into her mouth, tasting and probing, and she is so stunned that she can only lean into it. He takes his time, exploring her mouth with infinite tenderness. He tastes of some exotic spice that she can't name, the tingle of some energy she doesn't understand, as though his very cells are composed of starlight and eternity and the songs of a thousand worlds.
He leans back then and stares at her, a strange look in his eyes. No, she thinks. Please don't regret this, Doctor. But she cannot find her voice.
He leans in again, and this time rests his forehead against hers. She realizes that she is not the only one at a loss for words, and a touch of a smile plays at her lips as she wonders when she'll ever see her Doctor at a loss for words again. She breathes him in, because she can do nothing else, not here like this with him, not when they have somehow become so intertwined in.
He dreams, she knows. And sometimes, she walks in his dreams.