Tenses and Pronouns, Part One
This is third in a series featuring Ten II and Rose, following on from The Quiet Chamber and Flying Kites.
Thanks to platypus and nonelvis, who have patiently betaed this story and, as usual, helped me determine what needed to stay and what needed to go. A good editor is a writer's true ally.
Warning: Contains adult content in part two (which will be posted later this week).
...
The text message from a Torchwood colleague shattered the peace that Rose had found since her return from Norway.
Glad you're back! Call soonest. Tell Mickey his phone isn't working.
On the plane home, she had furiously asked her new, new, new Doctor about her separation from Mickey and Jack, and then she had let it go. It had been just over twenty-four hours, and she had already relegated two of her best mates to the back of her mind. Now, the words glowing on the tiny screen shouted at her that she was, once again, being terribly self-absorbed. Apparently, she had been more successful than she had hoped in keeping the Torchwood operatives who had picked them up in Norway from wondering about Mickey's absence. Had no one missed him, or did they all assume that he was cloistered away with the Tylers somewhere?
She resisted the urge to hurl the phone as far as she could. As she clicked to close the message window, her heart once again sank as she saw her call log display. Her last dialed number: the digits that had helped to summon the Doctor to the lost Earth. Before the metacrisis. Before he had walked away from her. Before he had whispered in her ear.
Her mouth went dry and she quickly snapped the phone closed.
In the busy Tyler kitchen, no one was paying any attention to her. Instead, the Doctor and Jackie hovered around her brother, who was perched on a stool in front of the kitchen island and refusing to cooperate with the proceedings. Eleanor, the Tylers' cook and Tony's informal nanny, leaned against the countertop and watched with a raised eyebrow.
"Tinned pears," the Doctor protested as Tony pushed the offending pile of mushy fruit to the edge of his plate. "Honestly. You might have better luck getting him to eat if you'd give him something a little less disgusting."
Yesterday, he had split into two men, saved the universe, broken her heart, and begun piecing it back together, and today, he was standing in the kitchen and snarking with her mum.
"Disgusting!" Tony parroted, reaching for his cup full of Vitex Junior.
Jackie thwacked the Doctor on the back of his head and took Tony's spoon. The Doctor put both hands on the back of his head and gave her an offended look. "She's always like this," he told Tony.
"Pears are good for him," Jackie said, scooping up a pear and attempting to force open Tony's pursed lips with the spoon, although he was far too old for that. "Tony! Open up. Mmm. Pears."
"I'd like to think I know a thing or two about nutrition, thank you very much," the Doctor harrumphed.
Tony hiccuped against the spoon, which resulted in a great deal of pear splatter on him, on Jackie, and, to the Doctor's horror, on the Doctor. He leapt up and began swatting around the bits of pear, careful not to actually touch them.
"Oh, be still," Rose said, and used a paper towel to clean up the shirt.
There was a dark spot on the bright red fabric of the Doctor's football jersey, which he eyed distastefully. "I can still smell it."
"Oh, don't look at me," Jackie said. She took advantage of Tony's open-mouthed contemplation of the Doctor and Rose to push some pears past his lips. He swallowed reflexively and gave his mother a look of heartfelt betrayal. She handed him the rest of the ham and cheese sandwich that Eleanor had cut out into a star shape using a cookie cutter. "You're a good boy, Tony."
Rose crumpled up the paper towel and flicked it at the bin, bouncing it off the edge. She bent to retrieve it and heard voices from the front of the house. When she straightened, Jackie was towing the Doctor out of the room. As usual, her mother's voice carried rather well through the large house. It was hardly eavesdropping if she had to cover her ears to keep from hearing.
"… can't wear football jerseys forever, and I knew getting you out to a decent shop would be too much to ask, so I just had Pete's tailor come here." There was an intervening murmur from the Doctor, too far away to hear, but she recognised the protest even without the accompanying words. Jackie continued. "That's why I didn't tell you!"
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Eleanor asked from behind her. Tony was happily eating the points off his star-shaped sandwich, oblivious to the drama.
"It's nothing," Rose said, knowing she was a bad liar.
Eleanor cocked her head slightly, her you aren't fooling anyone expression firmly in place. Rose had cried on her shoulder often enough, and for that matter, Eleanor had more security clearance than some members of the President's council. It wasn't lack of trust in the other woman that held her tongue. It was simply that she didn't know where to begin.
"Sorry," she said with a shrug. "Just been a long couple of days. I'm going to go and have a shower, okay?" She kissed the top of Tony's head and made her exit.
…
Upstairs in the guest room she used when she stayed with her mum and Pete, her eyes fell upon the unmade bed she had shared with the Doctor last night. One pillow lay halfway off the bed where she had thrown it playfully at him, and the blankets were rumpled where the two of them had curled up together in their sleep. In the corner of the room, the bags from Jackie's purchases in Bergen were still piled on her chair, with the shorts that the Doctor had slept in on top.
Out of long habit, she took her mobile out of her pocket and connected it to the charger on the dresser. It was a damned inconvenience to have a dead battery, even if she didn't particularly want to be reachable at the moment. What was she going to tell everyone about Mickey? She was tired, so tired, of being separated from the people she cared about without a choice in the matter.
In the privacy of the shower, she allowed herself a good, hard cry and then examined her situation with some more objectivity. Once, she'd grieved for Mickey when he'd chosen a new universe and a new life over her, but that had been selfish. She'd pushed him away far before then. Could she fault him for doing exactly what she had done? She hadn't been returning to her original universe for Mickey's sake, or Jack's, after all.
She wound her hair into a towel and put on a dressing gown before returning to the bedroom, where she wasn't surprised to see the Doctor sitting on the unmade bed, still in his scarlet jersey. He was squinting at a circuit board in his hand and parts of all kinds were strewn all around him.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
He looked up and smiled at her. It started with his eyes, somehow, and spread to his lips. Unbidden, she felt her own face respond. "An upgrade," he said.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and regarded the chaos that used to be her mobile. "How's that going, then?"
"It's a bit more challenging without the right equipment," he equivocated.
Despite herself, she laughed. "It's all right. I didn't want anyone to call me anyway."
His smile screwed up into a very familiar expression. On anyone else, she would have called it a pout. "I'm upgrading it. When I'm done, you'll be able to get a signal anywhere."
Anywhere had a different meaning now, of course. "In a lift?" she said, hoping she sounded teasing.
He put the circuit board down. "Anywhere you can go," he amended quietly.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. "Anywhere we can go," she corrected, and then went on, trying to put a little more brightness in her tone. "I don't know why you never had one. It would have been nice to call and say 'I'm in the dungeon, third cell on the left' or something. Or one of those little communicator things like on Star Trek."
"I'll get a mobile if you want," he offered, and then, considering, added, "Not an earpiece, though."
She stood up, took the towel off her head, and dropped it on the floor. "No one has those any more." She shuddered. "I'm glad. I'd never be able to look at one the same way. I guess nobody else can, either."
"That's a relief," the Doctor said, watching her smooth her damp hair back. "You know, I think a shower would be a good idea."
"Sure. Let me get my things out of there." She retrieved her discarded clothes, stuffing her knickers and bra in the middle of the pile.
The door clicked closed behind him, and after a moment, she heard the shower. She forcibly averted her attention from the idea of him bare under the water and moved to tidy up the cluttered room. She piled the pieces of her mobile on the dresser and made the bed, trying not to let her mind stray to their sleeping arrangements for the upcoming night. The potential for what they might share hung between them, but that newfound intimacy was still so fragile.
The shower squeaked as it cut off and Rose snapped back to attention. She dressed quickly and was stuffing her dirty clothes into the hamper when the door opened and the Doctor emerged in a puff of stream. He wore a towel tucked around his hips and another around his shoulders, leaving a strip of exposed abdomen where the towel didn't quite meet in front. She tried to look him in the eye, but her traitorous peripheral vision took in the pink paleness of his skin. Hair. His hair was safe, wasn't it? It was dark and damp on his scalp but still stuck up in places. Maybe that wasn't so safe, either.
He cleared his throat. "Do you mind if I -"
"Oh! Of course." She moved out of his way while he rustled through the bags on the chair to find something clean. "I'm just going to go and dry my hair."
The discarded football jersey was a bright red pile on the floor covering his blue trousers. She tried not to stare as she fished the hair dryer out of the drawer. The sound of the dryer covered up the sounds of the Doctor getting dressed, which was just as well. When she finished, she considered her face, free of makeup, in the mirror and applied a light touch of mascara. They were staying in, but she was still a little self-conscious.
When she returned to the bedroom, she found the Doctor dressed in something less shockingly colourful than before. He wore a pair of black shorts and a black t-shirt that bore the red-and-gold crest of the city of Bergen. His skin was strikingly pale against the dark fabric, and his legs were very hairy.
"Your mum wanted us downstairs for dinner," he said.
She sat down on the bed with a thump. "What am I going to tell everyone about Mickey?"
"What were you planning to tell them before?"
She looked up at him. His dynamic face had gone still, and the steady evenness of his calm betrayed his upset. Yes, she thought. He would be thinking of what she would have left behind if she had been successful in returning to her previous life on the TARDIS. "They all knew I didn't plan to come back," she said quietly. "Now I'm here and I don't know what to do."
He would have put his hands in his pockets in his usual defensive gesture, but the shorts he was wearing had no pockets and his hands only slid along the fabric. A brief look of annoyance crossed his face. "That makes two of us," he said, folding his arms in front of his chest instead.
She wished he'd sit down next to her, but he didn't, so she stood back up and went to stand in front of him. "Yeah, I know." She reached out and cupped his wrist. He relaxed at the touch, and she took the advantage to ease her fingers into the gap between his arms and tug one free. After that, it was easy. Their arms went around one another and she rested her head against his shoulder, feeling him lean his cheek against the top of her head. One of his hands stroked up and down her back.
"This isn't what I thought would happen," she said.
This provoked a half-laugh from him. "Well, I would hardly think so." His hand didn't stop moving.
"No, I mean - I didn't think I'd be here. I thought I'd be back in the TARDIS or - I thought I might die. I never thought that I'd end up with a normal life. Now I've got to think about what to say about Mickey, what to do with my mum, what to do with my flat and my job and everything else. I thought everyone else would have to deal with that sort of thing. It was always temporary, you know, and now it's not."
"I don't have much practice at putting everything back together. By the time that comes around I'm usually long gone. It's easier that way."
"That's why he's gone," she said.
"Yes."
They were quiet for several moments, holding one another, until the Doctor moved away enough to be able to look her in the eyes. "I love you," he said.
She lit up at him, felt the energy and wholeness surge within her chest, filling her so that her throat tightened and her eyes brimmed with tears. It took her two tries to respond. "I love you, too."
He traced a line down her cheek with one finger. "One day, I'd like for you to be able to tell me that without tears. It's enough to give me a complex."
She snuffled back a laugh. "Another one?"
He grinned. "Rose Tyler, are you saying I have issues?"
"Just a few." She was smiling back at him now. "It's okay. I do too."
"Whatever will we do with ourselves?" The finger still touching her cheek drew back into her hair, gathering with its mates to cup her head and tilt her backward. She was staring directly into his dark eyes and trying to translate the new expression she read there when he leaned in, closed his eyes, and touched his lips to hers.
They had kissed before, but the other times fell out of her mind as he moved across her mouth now. She felt the affection and longing and love and reverence and reciprocated it in her own heart. His head dipped to one side and his lips parted to take her lower one into his mouth, so lightly, just enough for her to feel the warmth and wet inside. She drew back a fraction, moistened her lips, and returned to caress him in turn. His mouth opened enough to allow her access to teeth and tongue but she held back, letting him keep control and maintain this gentle exploration. She could feel his fingers in her hair, and his other hand still moving up and down the small of her back.
"I could get lost in this," he murmured. "Just, like, this." He punctuated his words with more kisses, and she didn't want to separate from him enough to reply. The Doctor was kissing her and she couldn't agree with him more. She was lost.
"Isn't this the point where there's usually some interruption?" he asked against her mouth after a few nonverbal moments. "I remember something about dinner. Your mother, perhaps, banging on the door and wanting to know where we are. Or Tony?"
"Do you care about dinner, or my mum?" she asked, and drew his lower lip into her mouth to suck lightly.
He shuddered and let her continue for a few moments, his arms tightening around her. "What I care about is … why did you have to make the bed?" The question dizzied her, and she didn't have a response in time. "I suppose it's easily enough unmade."
The series of mental images accompanying that supposition made her very aware that she was in close proximity to a conveniently located bed, being snogged almost senseless by a willing Doctor. However, the key word was "almost." She didn't want their first time to be rushed into the few minutes to spare before dinner. She detached herself from him by degrees, and while he didn't look surprised, he did look disappointed. "Remember when Mum didn't murder you for being in bed with me this morning?" she said, trying again to sound teasing and playful. "We'd better go downstairs for dinner."
"Can we - erm - can we wait a few minutes?" he asked a little unsteadily, looking at the ceiling rather than her. He half-sat on the bed and immediately lifted off of it like it was on fire.
Rose looked at the ceiling also, her face flaming, considering the reason for his request. "Sure," she said, and went to fiddle with the pieces of her mobile on the dresser.
…
Dinner was a family affair. As was typical for them, the Tylers never made it to the formal dining room and ate either standing up or sitting on stools around the kitchen island. Tony, who had already eaten his evening meal, sat on the floor and played with his toy train. Eleanor had prepared a peppery roast with potatoes and other root vegetables before discreetly retiring for the evening. Pete uncorked a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, probably something very fine, although neither Rose nor Jackie had developed a sense of good wine. The Doctor, to Rose's surprise, took a glass and engaged her not-quite-father in a lively discussion about the tannin and pyrazine content of the wine.
"I think about you every time someone says 'tannin,'" said Jackie. "I could have got you a glass of red wine instead of tea!"
The Doctor smiled and sipped his wine, and Rose was grateful that he didn't say anything rude about the quality of the wine that Jackie might have had in her flat back then. "I've missed your tea, Jackie."
Rose tried not to stare at his lips, which were darkened with the wine, and drank more of her own. The conversation over dinner stayed neutral and friendly, and had the slightly stilted air of what it might have been like to introduce a man to her parents. As she was, all over again.
She remained hyper-aware of the Doctor's presence throughout dinner, but to her surprise, later on, she looked up and found him absent. For a moment, her pulse quickened with a jolt of fear and the wine she had been drinking tasted bitter in her mouth. Without excusing herself, she put the glass down and went to look for him.
He was sitting on a low brick wall just outside, staring up into the sky and hugging his knees close to his chest. He looked so small with his limbs all tucked in, and she hesitated for a moment before approaching him.
"I was thinking," he said without turning his head. It sounded like the beginning of a statement, so she waited.
When he didn't continue, she sat on the wall next to him and prompted. "About what?"
"I haven't really been alone since - well. You know."
She swallowed back her disappointment and abruptly stood back up. "I'm sorry, I'll go."
"Rose, wait." His hand swung out and he touched her upper arm enough to stop her. "I didn't mean it like that. I was just thinking how strange it was." His eyes, so dark in the night, flicked back and forth from one of hers to the other. "Stay?"
"Okay," she said, and tried to smile. His return smile was genuine and impulsive, seeming pleased simply to be with her, and she felt her own become real. "Okay."
She leaned back, looking up at the sky as he had done. The night had grown misty so that even the moon was mostly obscured. His hand, which had lingered on her arm, drifted down to hers.
"I just needed some air," he said. "Too much wine, I think. I've got to find a balance now."
She didn't respond with something witty involving alcohol and her ability to take advantage of him, because she wasn't sure what was happening between them yet. The guest bed upstairs loomed importantly in a way that it hadn't the night before, and she felt as nervous as a virgin.
"You're staring," he observed, and she found that she had been. "I think I like that."
"Think?" she said.
"Oh, I do like that," he corrected, and his eyes dropped to watch her lips, which she licked without meaning to. "Rose," he said in a low tone, "is it late enough to say goodnight to everyone?"
"Tony's not even in bed," she said. "Are we - I mean - do you want to, uh …" She trailed off and made a helpless gesture with her free hand, not sure what she was asking.
He leaned in and kissed her speechless, and when he straightened, he said very quietly, "Yes."
It was going to be a long evening.
Part Two
Thanks to platypus and nonelvis, who have patiently betaed this story and, as usual, helped me determine what needed to stay and what needed to go. A good editor is a writer's true ally.
Warning: Contains adult content in part two (which will be posted later this week).
...
The text message from a Torchwood colleague shattered the peace that Rose had found since her return from Norway.
Glad you're back! Call soonest. Tell Mickey his phone isn't working.
On the plane home, she had furiously asked her new, new, new Doctor about her separation from Mickey and Jack, and then she had let it go. It had been just over twenty-four hours, and she had already relegated two of her best mates to the back of her mind. Now, the words glowing on the tiny screen shouted at her that she was, once again, being terribly self-absorbed. Apparently, she had been more successful than she had hoped in keeping the Torchwood operatives who had picked them up in Norway from wondering about Mickey's absence. Had no one missed him, or did they all assume that he was cloistered away with the Tylers somewhere?
She resisted the urge to hurl the phone as far as she could. As she clicked to close the message window, her heart once again sank as she saw her call log display. Her last dialed number: the digits that had helped to summon the Doctor to the lost Earth. Before the metacrisis. Before he had walked away from her. Before he had whispered in her ear.
Her mouth went dry and she quickly snapped the phone closed.
In the busy Tyler kitchen, no one was paying any attention to her. Instead, the Doctor and Jackie hovered around her brother, who was perched on a stool in front of the kitchen island and refusing to cooperate with the proceedings. Eleanor, the Tylers' cook and Tony's informal nanny, leaned against the countertop and watched with a raised eyebrow.
"Tinned pears," the Doctor protested as Tony pushed the offending pile of mushy fruit to the edge of his plate. "Honestly. You might have better luck getting him to eat if you'd give him something a little less disgusting."
Yesterday, he had split into two men, saved the universe, broken her heart, and begun piecing it back together, and today, he was standing in the kitchen and snarking with her mum.
"Disgusting!" Tony parroted, reaching for his cup full of Vitex Junior.
Jackie thwacked the Doctor on the back of his head and took Tony's spoon. The Doctor put both hands on the back of his head and gave her an offended look. "She's always like this," he told Tony.
"Pears are good for him," Jackie said, scooping up a pear and attempting to force open Tony's pursed lips with the spoon, although he was far too old for that. "Tony! Open up. Mmm. Pears."
"I'd like to think I know a thing or two about nutrition, thank you very much," the Doctor harrumphed.
Tony hiccuped against the spoon, which resulted in a great deal of pear splatter on him, on Jackie, and, to the Doctor's horror, on the Doctor. He leapt up and began swatting around the bits of pear, careful not to actually touch them.
"Oh, be still," Rose said, and used a paper towel to clean up the shirt.
There was a dark spot on the bright red fabric of the Doctor's football jersey, which he eyed distastefully. "I can still smell it."
"Oh, don't look at me," Jackie said. She took advantage of Tony's open-mouthed contemplation of the Doctor and Rose to push some pears past his lips. He swallowed reflexively and gave his mother a look of heartfelt betrayal. She handed him the rest of the ham and cheese sandwich that Eleanor had cut out into a star shape using a cookie cutter. "You're a good boy, Tony."
Rose crumpled up the paper towel and flicked it at the bin, bouncing it off the edge. She bent to retrieve it and heard voices from the front of the house. When she straightened, Jackie was towing the Doctor out of the room. As usual, her mother's voice carried rather well through the large house. It was hardly eavesdropping if she had to cover her ears to keep from hearing.
"… can't wear football jerseys forever, and I knew getting you out to a decent shop would be too much to ask, so I just had Pete's tailor come here." There was an intervening murmur from the Doctor, too far away to hear, but she recognised the protest even without the accompanying words. Jackie continued. "That's why I didn't tell you!"
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Eleanor asked from behind her. Tony was happily eating the points off his star-shaped sandwich, oblivious to the drama.
"It's nothing," Rose said, knowing she was a bad liar.
Eleanor cocked her head slightly, her you aren't fooling anyone expression firmly in place. Rose had cried on her shoulder often enough, and for that matter, Eleanor had more security clearance than some members of the President's council. It wasn't lack of trust in the other woman that held her tongue. It was simply that she didn't know where to begin.
"Sorry," she said with a shrug. "Just been a long couple of days. I'm going to go and have a shower, okay?" She kissed the top of Tony's head and made her exit.
…
Upstairs in the guest room she used when she stayed with her mum and Pete, her eyes fell upon the unmade bed she had shared with the Doctor last night. One pillow lay halfway off the bed where she had thrown it playfully at him, and the blankets were rumpled where the two of them had curled up together in their sleep. In the corner of the room, the bags from Jackie's purchases in Bergen were still piled on her chair, with the shorts that the Doctor had slept in on top.
Out of long habit, she took her mobile out of her pocket and connected it to the charger on the dresser. It was a damned inconvenience to have a dead battery, even if she didn't particularly want to be reachable at the moment. What was she going to tell everyone about Mickey? She was tired, so tired, of being separated from the people she cared about without a choice in the matter.
In the privacy of the shower, she allowed herself a good, hard cry and then examined her situation with some more objectivity. Once, she'd grieved for Mickey when he'd chosen a new universe and a new life over her, but that had been selfish. She'd pushed him away far before then. Could she fault him for doing exactly what she had done? She hadn't been returning to her original universe for Mickey's sake, or Jack's, after all.
She wound her hair into a towel and put on a dressing gown before returning to the bedroom, where she wasn't surprised to see the Doctor sitting on the unmade bed, still in his scarlet jersey. He was squinting at a circuit board in his hand and parts of all kinds were strewn all around him.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
He looked up and smiled at her. It started with his eyes, somehow, and spread to his lips. Unbidden, she felt her own face respond. "An upgrade," he said.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and regarded the chaos that used to be her mobile. "How's that going, then?"
"It's a bit more challenging without the right equipment," he equivocated.
Despite herself, she laughed. "It's all right. I didn't want anyone to call me anyway."
His smile screwed up into a very familiar expression. On anyone else, she would have called it a pout. "I'm upgrading it. When I'm done, you'll be able to get a signal anywhere."
Anywhere had a different meaning now, of course. "In a lift?" she said, hoping she sounded teasing.
He put the circuit board down. "Anywhere you can go," he amended quietly.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. "Anywhere we can go," she corrected, and then went on, trying to put a little more brightness in her tone. "I don't know why you never had one. It would have been nice to call and say 'I'm in the dungeon, third cell on the left' or something. Or one of those little communicator things like on Star Trek."
"I'll get a mobile if you want," he offered, and then, considering, added, "Not an earpiece, though."
She stood up, took the towel off her head, and dropped it on the floor. "No one has those any more." She shuddered. "I'm glad. I'd never be able to look at one the same way. I guess nobody else can, either."
"That's a relief," the Doctor said, watching her smooth her damp hair back. "You know, I think a shower would be a good idea."
"Sure. Let me get my things out of there." She retrieved her discarded clothes, stuffing her knickers and bra in the middle of the pile.
The door clicked closed behind him, and after a moment, she heard the shower. She forcibly averted her attention from the idea of him bare under the water and moved to tidy up the cluttered room. She piled the pieces of her mobile on the dresser and made the bed, trying not to let her mind stray to their sleeping arrangements for the upcoming night. The potential for what they might share hung between them, but that newfound intimacy was still so fragile.
The shower squeaked as it cut off and Rose snapped back to attention. She dressed quickly and was stuffing her dirty clothes into the hamper when the door opened and the Doctor emerged in a puff of stream. He wore a towel tucked around his hips and another around his shoulders, leaving a strip of exposed abdomen where the towel didn't quite meet in front. She tried to look him in the eye, but her traitorous peripheral vision took in the pink paleness of his skin. Hair. His hair was safe, wasn't it? It was dark and damp on his scalp but still stuck up in places. Maybe that wasn't so safe, either.
He cleared his throat. "Do you mind if I -"
"Oh! Of course." She moved out of his way while he rustled through the bags on the chair to find something clean. "I'm just going to go and dry my hair."
The discarded football jersey was a bright red pile on the floor covering his blue trousers. She tried not to stare as she fished the hair dryer out of the drawer. The sound of the dryer covered up the sounds of the Doctor getting dressed, which was just as well. When she finished, she considered her face, free of makeup, in the mirror and applied a light touch of mascara. They were staying in, but she was still a little self-conscious.
When she returned to the bedroom, she found the Doctor dressed in something less shockingly colourful than before. He wore a pair of black shorts and a black t-shirt that bore the red-and-gold crest of the city of Bergen. His skin was strikingly pale against the dark fabric, and his legs were very hairy.
"Your mum wanted us downstairs for dinner," he said.
She sat down on the bed with a thump. "What am I going to tell everyone about Mickey?"
"What were you planning to tell them before?"
She looked up at him. His dynamic face had gone still, and the steady evenness of his calm betrayed his upset. Yes, she thought. He would be thinking of what she would have left behind if she had been successful in returning to her previous life on the TARDIS. "They all knew I didn't plan to come back," she said quietly. "Now I'm here and I don't know what to do."
He would have put his hands in his pockets in his usual defensive gesture, but the shorts he was wearing had no pockets and his hands only slid along the fabric. A brief look of annoyance crossed his face. "That makes two of us," he said, folding his arms in front of his chest instead.
She wished he'd sit down next to her, but he didn't, so she stood back up and went to stand in front of him. "Yeah, I know." She reached out and cupped his wrist. He relaxed at the touch, and she took the advantage to ease her fingers into the gap between his arms and tug one free. After that, it was easy. Their arms went around one another and she rested her head against his shoulder, feeling him lean his cheek against the top of her head. One of his hands stroked up and down her back.
"This isn't what I thought would happen," she said.
This provoked a half-laugh from him. "Well, I would hardly think so." His hand didn't stop moving.
"No, I mean - I didn't think I'd be here. I thought I'd be back in the TARDIS or - I thought I might die. I never thought that I'd end up with a normal life. Now I've got to think about what to say about Mickey, what to do with my mum, what to do with my flat and my job and everything else. I thought everyone else would have to deal with that sort of thing. It was always temporary, you know, and now it's not."
"I don't have much practice at putting everything back together. By the time that comes around I'm usually long gone. It's easier that way."
"That's why he's gone," she said.
"Yes."
They were quiet for several moments, holding one another, until the Doctor moved away enough to be able to look her in the eyes. "I love you," he said.
She lit up at him, felt the energy and wholeness surge within her chest, filling her so that her throat tightened and her eyes brimmed with tears. It took her two tries to respond. "I love you, too."
He traced a line down her cheek with one finger. "One day, I'd like for you to be able to tell me that without tears. It's enough to give me a complex."
She snuffled back a laugh. "Another one?"
He grinned. "Rose Tyler, are you saying I have issues?"
"Just a few." She was smiling back at him now. "It's okay. I do too."
"Whatever will we do with ourselves?" The finger still touching her cheek drew back into her hair, gathering with its mates to cup her head and tilt her backward. She was staring directly into his dark eyes and trying to translate the new expression she read there when he leaned in, closed his eyes, and touched his lips to hers.
They had kissed before, but the other times fell out of her mind as he moved across her mouth now. She felt the affection and longing and love and reverence and reciprocated it in her own heart. His head dipped to one side and his lips parted to take her lower one into his mouth, so lightly, just enough for her to feel the warmth and wet inside. She drew back a fraction, moistened her lips, and returned to caress him in turn. His mouth opened enough to allow her access to teeth and tongue but she held back, letting him keep control and maintain this gentle exploration. She could feel his fingers in her hair, and his other hand still moving up and down the small of her back.
"I could get lost in this," he murmured. "Just, like, this." He punctuated his words with more kisses, and she didn't want to separate from him enough to reply. The Doctor was kissing her and she couldn't agree with him more. She was lost.
"Isn't this the point where there's usually some interruption?" he asked against her mouth after a few nonverbal moments. "I remember something about dinner. Your mother, perhaps, banging on the door and wanting to know where we are. Or Tony?"
"Do you care about dinner, or my mum?" she asked, and drew his lower lip into her mouth to suck lightly.
He shuddered and let her continue for a few moments, his arms tightening around her. "What I care about is … why did you have to make the bed?" The question dizzied her, and she didn't have a response in time. "I suppose it's easily enough unmade."
The series of mental images accompanying that supposition made her very aware that she was in close proximity to a conveniently located bed, being snogged almost senseless by a willing Doctor. However, the key word was "almost." She didn't want their first time to be rushed into the few minutes to spare before dinner. She detached herself from him by degrees, and while he didn't look surprised, he did look disappointed. "Remember when Mum didn't murder you for being in bed with me this morning?" she said, trying again to sound teasing and playful. "We'd better go downstairs for dinner."
"Can we - erm - can we wait a few minutes?" he asked a little unsteadily, looking at the ceiling rather than her. He half-sat on the bed and immediately lifted off of it like it was on fire.
Rose looked at the ceiling also, her face flaming, considering the reason for his request. "Sure," she said, and went to fiddle with the pieces of her mobile on the dresser.
…
Dinner was a family affair. As was typical for them, the Tylers never made it to the formal dining room and ate either standing up or sitting on stools around the kitchen island. Tony, who had already eaten his evening meal, sat on the floor and played with his toy train. Eleanor had prepared a peppery roast with potatoes and other root vegetables before discreetly retiring for the evening. Pete uncorked a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, probably something very fine, although neither Rose nor Jackie had developed a sense of good wine. The Doctor, to Rose's surprise, took a glass and engaged her not-quite-father in a lively discussion about the tannin and pyrazine content of the wine.
"I think about you every time someone says 'tannin,'" said Jackie. "I could have got you a glass of red wine instead of tea!"
The Doctor smiled and sipped his wine, and Rose was grateful that he didn't say anything rude about the quality of the wine that Jackie might have had in her flat back then. "I've missed your tea, Jackie."
Rose tried not to stare at his lips, which were darkened with the wine, and drank more of her own. The conversation over dinner stayed neutral and friendly, and had the slightly stilted air of what it might have been like to introduce a man to her parents. As she was, all over again.
She remained hyper-aware of the Doctor's presence throughout dinner, but to her surprise, later on, she looked up and found him absent. For a moment, her pulse quickened with a jolt of fear and the wine she had been drinking tasted bitter in her mouth. Without excusing herself, she put the glass down and went to look for him.
He was sitting on a low brick wall just outside, staring up into the sky and hugging his knees close to his chest. He looked so small with his limbs all tucked in, and she hesitated for a moment before approaching him.
"I was thinking," he said without turning his head. It sounded like the beginning of a statement, so she waited.
When he didn't continue, she sat on the wall next to him and prompted. "About what?"
"I haven't really been alone since - well. You know."
She swallowed back her disappointment and abruptly stood back up. "I'm sorry, I'll go."
"Rose, wait." His hand swung out and he touched her upper arm enough to stop her. "I didn't mean it like that. I was just thinking how strange it was." His eyes, so dark in the night, flicked back and forth from one of hers to the other. "Stay?"
"Okay," she said, and tried to smile. His return smile was genuine and impulsive, seeming pleased simply to be with her, and she felt her own become real. "Okay."
She leaned back, looking up at the sky as he had done. The night had grown misty so that even the moon was mostly obscured. His hand, which had lingered on her arm, drifted down to hers.
"I just needed some air," he said. "Too much wine, I think. I've got to find a balance now."
She didn't respond with something witty involving alcohol and her ability to take advantage of him, because she wasn't sure what was happening between them yet. The guest bed upstairs loomed importantly in a way that it hadn't the night before, and she felt as nervous as a virgin.
"You're staring," he observed, and she found that she had been. "I think I like that."
"Think?" she said.
"Oh, I do like that," he corrected, and his eyes dropped to watch her lips, which she licked without meaning to. "Rose," he said in a low tone, "is it late enough to say goodnight to everyone?"
"Tony's not even in bed," she said. "Are we - I mean - do you want to, uh …" She trailed off and made a helpless gesture with her free hand, not sure what she was asking.
He leaned in and kissed her speechless, and when he straightened, he said very quietly, "Yes."
It was going to be a long evening.
Part Two