Vintage
Adult content. Follows Tenses and Pronouns in The Journey After series at some unspecified point in time. Thanks again to platypus and nonelvis for their beta work.
…
"Something's always bothered me," the Doctor said, swirling his glass of port.
Pete raised an eyebrow over his own glass, his expression neither open nor closed, and tapped his cigar on the crystal ashtray. They were sitting in Pete's study, away from the rest of the family, indulging in stereotypical male bonding over a pair of excellent Cuban cigars and a bottle of Quinta do Noval vintage port from 1982. As unlikely as it was, the Doctor had come to enjoy this quiet time together.
He continued. "How did you know to save Rose? You appeared out of nowhere and snatched her out of midair without even looking surprised about it."
Like any good businessman, Pete didn't rush into a response, pausing instead with a deliberate sip of his port. "At the time," he finally answered, "I wouldn't have had an answer for you. Jacks and Mickey and I were waiting, not sure if we'd see anything happen when the breach was sealed on our end, and then I had this … compulsion. I hit the button and there she was. I thought that maybe it was some connection that we had. I didn't dwell on it too much, really, after. It wasn't the strangest thing that had happened to me that day." His gaze shifted to the gold band on his left hand.
The Doctor caught the nuance. "You didn't have an answer at the time? What about now?"
"There was an accident when we were first developing the Dimension Cannon, just before Tony was born. Darden was giving me a progress report, going through the configuration and startup sequence. We couldn't get anywhere, of course - the breach was very well-sealed. At any rate, the machine sort of … backfired all around us. I can't explain all the technical details. You'd have to ask him for that." He inhaled shakily. "I'm telling you all of this second-hand because I don't remember any of it, although I've seen the CCTV footage often enough."
"It backfired?" the Doctor asked, feeling anger course through his entire body. "Do you have any idea what that could have done?"
"Oh yes," Pete said dryly. "Later, Darden said 'like a bug on a windscreen', but it didn't smash us flat and it didn't open a breach. What it did do …" He paused again and took a long puff on his cigar. "For a few minutes, we both had complete awareness of our own timeline. That's as much sense as we've been able to determine from the recorded footage and the event logs from the machine. Afterward, we weren't particularly coherent."
The Doctor cursed. "Your brain can't handle that sort of information. What were you thinking to ever let anyone near that machine again? You let Rose jump?"
"Have you ever tried to stop her from doing something she wanted to do?" Pete asked sardonically. "I'm quite aware of the limitations of my feeble human brain, thank you. There was one researcher who wanted to keep us around, to see if we made any useful predictions, but fortunately she was overruled." His face went hard. "She doesn't work with us anymore. At any rate, after they scanned us, they decided the only thing they could do to save us was to wipe our memories of the entire incident. We've got a pill for that. I lost twenty-four hours, but I also kept my mind intact, and I'm perfectly happy to make that trade."
"Quite sensible," the Doctor said, feeling his anger drop away. His mouth had gone dry at the idea, and his thoughts were not with Pete anymore. All that knowledge in a brain not designed to hold it. He snapped back when the other man continued.
"On the recording, you can hear me reciting some numbers over and over again. They're the coordinates of the lever room two seconds before the breach closed. We can only assume that there was a loop created during the accident." The Doctor bit back a mirthless laugh, and Pete looked a bit startled. "What?"
"Oh, just admiring the symmetry of it," the Doctor said. "It's quite elegant. I can't very well be upset with you for doing something daft with the Cannon if you had to do it to prevent a paradox that would have affected two universes." He looked sharply at Pete, remembering another paradox. "You seem to have a tendency to do that."
"Sorry?"
The Doctor wondered if it was Rose's story to tell, or if she already had, but before he could continue, Jackie Tyler opened the door and waved her hands.
"Do you want to kill yourselves with those things?" she asked tartly, glaring at the cigar in Pete's hand. "It's bad enough that you smoke them, but could you open a window?" She did, and the breeze coming in from the cool evening was wonderful.
The Doctor, feeling contrary, put his cigar between his lips and inhaled deeply.
"You're old enough to know better," Jackie said, snatching it out of his hand. "Isn't that what you say when you're feeling superior to the rest of us?"
"I'm not - give me that!"
Pete laughed, but he stubbed out his own cigar at Jackie's dark look and drank the rest of the port in a long gulp. The Doctor was doubly irritated now, thinking of the years that the port had spent aging, intended to be savoured, not downed like some cheap shot in a pub. It was, he realized, older than Rose. He stopped flailing after Jackie and returned to his glass, taking a long, appreciative sip.
"Tell me sometime," Pete said quietly, rising from his chair. The Doctor, thinking he rather owed Pete Tyler any story he wanted to hear, nodded.
"Come on then," Jackie said, with a coquettish look up through her eyelashes at her husband. He gave her the same grin he flashed in all the Vitex adverts and set down his glass before following her out of the study.
The Doctor topped off his glass and put his feet up on Pete's desk, feeling a bit unhinged after Pete's story. Not the least of his distress was the thought that the accident could have been repeated with Rose in Pete's place, and what would it have done to her to have her whole timeline in her head again? Torchwood's amnesia pill would never have sufficed for the awakened memories of the Vortex in her mind.
He put down the mostly-full glass, recklessly disregarding the use of a coaster and the fate of such a lovely port, and set off in search of Rose. He wanted to see her, touch her, be reassured by her, now.
He took the stairs two at a time and threw open the door to the guest room that they used when they stayed over. She looked up at his abrupt appearance and immediately asked, "What's wrong?" The book she had been reading fell to the ground as she stood up and met him halfway.
He wrapped her in his arms, pulling her close against him. "It's nothing. I just needed to see you."
"Not nothing," she murmured against his shoulder. "You're upset."
"I'll be fine. Please - just stay like this."
She did, and it soothed him to be close to her. When his heart slowed and he felt the panic ease, he separated from her enough to see her face. She looked worried, which was probably reasonable considering the way he'd burst into the room.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Nothing, really."
She raised an eyebrow and waited. Despite his good intentions, his gob betrayed him. "Pete and I were talking about how he knew to save you before the breach closed."
"Oh," she said. She didn't ask, and he assumed she already knew. As closely as she had been involved with the Dimension Cannon, she would have known of the accident and the results. She might even have been there. He shuddered.
"That could have been you."
"There were always risks."
"Rose -"
"Don't. I knew what could happen. I did it anyway."
"It wouldn't have been like it was for Pete," he said, surprised at how quickly his earlier anger returned. "You wouldn't have been able to take a pill and fix it! It would have consumed you. You'd have burned, and I wouldn't have been there to save you this time."
"I'm the only one who took risks?" Her voice was louder than before, and she wrenched away from his embrace. "Doctor, I saw you. I kept missing you, and then I thought I was at the right place at the right time and you died. You drowned! I thought you'd regenerate, that you'd be all right no matter what."
She choked back a sob and he took a step forward to take her in his arms again, wanting more than anything to comfort her. Before he reached her, she waved him back with tears in her eyes.
"Don't. All that time I was here without you, I kept thinking about that night we fought over Sarah Jane, when you said you had to live on alone. I was angry, because I wanted to be special. No, don't." She held up an unsteady hand when he started to speak. "Then I was stuck here and I kept thinking about you being alone. More than anything, I wanted you to be all right. Then I saw - oh, God, you were covered with a sheet, and all I could see was your arm and your hand, and you were so still and no one was with you. It wasn't the first time -" She sobbed outright, then regained her composure. "There were other times I knew you were dead, but it was the first time I saw it."
He stayed quiet and still after she finished her outburst, and he felt guilt and remorse settle over him. He remembered killing the Racnoss vividly, and his disassociation as he had watched all of the water flowing, and flowing, and flowing. Without Donna's shout, he would surely have watched until it swirled around him and was too late. He couldn't pretend it was a heroic sacrifice. For a few moments, he simply hadn't cared. That hadn't been his fate, but it could so easily have been. Oh, Donna.
"I'd do it all over again," Rose said softly. All of the energy had left her, and she looked like she might collapse.
Tentatively, he took a step toward her, and when she didn't object, he took the others. She flung her arms around him and squeezed him nearly breathless. He held her in turn as if she were fragile. When her grip eased and she slumped against his body, he gently lifted her and set her down on the bed, crouching on all fours above her so that their eyes were level.
"You're so stubborn," he whispered, and he bent to capture her lips.
"Yuck," she said, turning away.
"Well, that's not exactly what I was hoping to hear." He leaned down for another kiss but she wriggled away again.
"You've had a cigar."
"Yes, I did, but we just had a fight and I thought - well, isn't make-up sex part of being human?"
"You taste like an ashtray."
The Doctor sighed, and Rose gave a theatrical cough. "I've never said one word about your morning breath," he informed her.
"My morning breath?"
"Oi! You started it." He gave up and rolled onto his side, putting one leg over hers and sliding an arm underneath her neck. She shifted until they were both comfortable and he kissed her shoulder.
"This would normally be when I should apologise," the Doctor said, "but I'm at a bit of a loss here considering that I didn't actually do anything."
"You would have."
"If I'm going to be in trouble for every infinite possibility that could have occurred, we're going to be having a lot of make-up sex."
"Not if you keep smoking cigars."
"Will you promise me that you won't do something that daft again?" he asked.
"Be more specific." Rose snuggled closer.
"The Dimension Cannon."
"No," she said after a moment of contemplation. "I won't. If you're in danger or I'm separated from you again, I'll promise that I'll try to stay positive and think through what I'm going to do, but not that I'll just sit and wait. That's not going to happen." She sighed. "I also know that you're going to try and protect me from as much as you can, even if that means you make decisions for me."
"I said I wouldn't -"
"Yeah, you did, and I think you mean it, up until the point where I'm in danger and you think you can help by locking me away. I know you, remember?"
"I am sorry I smoked the cigar," he said contritely, changing the subject. "Could I make it up to you by sharing the remainder of a lovely bottle of port?"
"You could."
Back in Pete's study, he poured Rose a glass, but she took only a sip before setting it down. She picked up his half-smoked cigar from earlier. "Light it," she said. When he only looked at her in confusion, she restated her request.
"I thought you didn't like me to -"
"It's not for you," she said, hopping up and sitting on Pete's desk, holding the cigar out to him. "I thought I'd give it a try."
His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he complied, and he watched with amusement as she sucked on the end of it and coughed little clouds of smoke. "That's awful," she asserted, putting it out in the ashtray. "I don't know why you do it."
"I hardly ever do," he said. "It's an acquired taste."
"So you had to do it more than once, and that's what I don't get," she said, and actually swished the port around in her mouth before swallowing. Somewhere in Portugal, a hard-working winemaker was swearing. "But I have a theory. Come here." When he did, she took his face in both her hands and pulled him down for a kiss. "Oh, that works."
"What?"
"Shut it." She kissed him again - really, a genuine snog, if he had to label it appropriately. Her tongue traced across his teeth, and he was breathless, pressing her into the desk. His hands climbed under her pyjama top and up her back, reminding him that she wasn't wearing a bra. That second floor bed suddenly seemed a long, long way away.
More snogging and awkward fumbling with Rose's pyjamas and his trousers followed before he was inside her, her bum on Pete's desk and her legs wrapped around him. The desk drawers clanked as they moved, and as they approached the end, a glass half-full of port slid off the desk and shattered. Neither one of them could stop, and Rose had a fistful of his hair by then.
Rose said "yes" repeatedly, which seemed to be a bit belated considering the liberties he was taking at the time. He liked it, although his own vocal cords seemed to have seized up completely so that all he could do was groan and grunt. When Rose came, her grip on his hair intensified and she buried her face into his neck. Her whole body shuddered and he couldn't help following her soon after, trying not to cry out his own pleasure and rouse the whole household.
"Oh my God," Rose said, unlatching her legs from around him. "I can't believe we just did that."
The Doctor, still catching his breath, separated from her and surveyed the damage. One toppled ashtray, one broken glass, and a spreading red stain on the carpet. "Watch your feet," he cautioned. "There's glass."
"I heard," she said, chagrined.
"I wasn't sure you were paying attention." He flashed her a grin.
She laughed and carefully slid down off the desk, fishing her knickers and pyjama bottoms from the chair and pulling them back on. He did up his trousers. Neither one of them had taken off anything else. It was, he thought, the least naked sex they'd ever had.
"Know how to get a red wine stain off an oriental rug?" she asked.
The Doctor sighed. "I miss my sonic screwdriver."
…
"Something's always bothered me," the Doctor said, swirling his glass of port.
Pete raised an eyebrow over his own glass, his expression neither open nor closed, and tapped his cigar on the crystal ashtray. They were sitting in Pete's study, away from the rest of the family, indulging in stereotypical male bonding over a pair of excellent Cuban cigars and a bottle of Quinta do Noval vintage port from 1982. As unlikely as it was, the Doctor had come to enjoy this quiet time together.
He continued. "How did you know to save Rose? You appeared out of nowhere and snatched her out of midair without even looking surprised about it."
Like any good businessman, Pete didn't rush into a response, pausing instead with a deliberate sip of his port. "At the time," he finally answered, "I wouldn't have had an answer for you. Jacks and Mickey and I were waiting, not sure if we'd see anything happen when the breach was sealed on our end, and then I had this … compulsion. I hit the button and there she was. I thought that maybe it was some connection that we had. I didn't dwell on it too much, really, after. It wasn't the strangest thing that had happened to me that day." His gaze shifted to the gold band on his left hand.
The Doctor caught the nuance. "You didn't have an answer at the time? What about now?"
"There was an accident when we were first developing the Dimension Cannon, just before Tony was born. Darden was giving me a progress report, going through the configuration and startup sequence. We couldn't get anywhere, of course - the breach was very well-sealed. At any rate, the machine sort of … backfired all around us. I can't explain all the technical details. You'd have to ask him for that." He inhaled shakily. "I'm telling you all of this second-hand because I don't remember any of it, although I've seen the CCTV footage often enough."
"It backfired?" the Doctor asked, feeling anger course through his entire body. "Do you have any idea what that could have done?"
"Oh yes," Pete said dryly. "Later, Darden said 'like a bug on a windscreen', but it didn't smash us flat and it didn't open a breach. What it did do …" He paused again and took a long puff on his cigar. "For a few minutes, we both had complete awareness of our own timeline. That's as much sense as we've been able to determine from the recorded footage and the event logs from the machine. Afterward, we weren't particularly coherent."
The Doctor cursed. "Your brain can't handle that sort of information. What were you thinking to ever let anyone near that machine again? You let Rose jump?"
"Have you ever tried to stop her from doing something she wanted to do?" Pete asked sardonically. "I'm quite aware of the limitations of my feeble human brain, thank you. There was one researcher who wanted to keep us around, to see if we made any useful predictions, but fortunately she was overruled." His face went hard. "She doesn't work with us anymore. At any rate, after they scanned us, they decided the only thing they could do to save us was to wipe our memories of the entire incident. We've got a pill for that. I lost twenty-four hours, but I also kept my mind intact, and I'm perfectly happy to make that trade."
"Quite sensible," the Doctor said, feeling his anger drop away. His mouth had gone dry at the idea, and his thoughts were not with Pete anymore. All that knowledge in a brain not designed to hold it. He snapped back when the other man continued.
"On the recording, you can hear me reciting some numbers over and over again. They're the coordinates of the lever room two seconds before the breach closed. We can only assume that there was a loop created during the accident." The Doctor bit back a mirthless laugh, and Pete looked a bit startled. "What?"
"Oh, just admiring the symmetry of it," the Doctor said. "It's quite elegant. I can't very well be upset with you for doing something daft with the Cannon if you had to do it to prevent a paradox that would have affected two universes." He looked sharply at Pete, remembering another paradox. "You seem to have a tendency to do that."
"Sorry?"
The Doctor wondered if it was Rose's story to tell, or if she already had, but before he could continue, Jackie Tyler opened the door and waved her hands.
"Do you want to kill yourselves with those things?" she asked tartly, glaring at the cigar in Pete's hand. "It's bad enough that you smoke them, but could you open a window?" She did, and the breeze coming in from the cool evening was wonderful.
The Doctor, feeling contrary, put his cigar between his lips and inhaled deeply.
"You're old enough to know better," Jackie said, snatching it out of his hand. "Isn't that what you say when you're feeling superior to the rest of us?"
"I'm not - give me that!"
Pete laughed, but he stubbed out his own cigar at Jackie's dark look and drank the rest of the port in a long gulp. The Doctor was doubly irritated now, thinking of the years that the port had spent aging, intended to be savoured, not downed like some cheap shot in a pub. It was, he realized, older than Rose. He stopped flailing after Jackie and returned to his glass, taking a long, appreciative sip.
"Tell me sometime," Pete said quietly, rising from his chair. The Doctor, thinking he rather owed Pete Tyler any story he wanted to hear, nodded.
"Come on then," Jackie said, with a coquettish look up through her eyelashes at her husband. He gave her the same grin he flashed in all the Vitex adverts and set down his glass before following her out of the study.
The Doctor topped off his glass and put his feet up on Pete's desk, feeling a bit unhinged after Pete's story. Not the least of his distress was the thought that the accident could have been repeated with Rose in Pete's place, and what would it have done to her to have her whole timeline in her head again? Torchwood's amnesia pill would never have sufficed for the awakened memories of the Vortex in her mind.
He put down the mostly-full glass, recklessly disregarding the use of a coaster and the fate of such a lovely port, and set off in search of Rose. He wanted to see her, touch her, be reassured by her, now.
He took the stairs two at a time and threw open the door to the guest room that they used when they stayed over. She looked up at his abrupt appearance and immediately asked, "What's wrong?" The book she had been reading fell to the ground as she stood up and met him halfway.
He wrapped her in his arms, pulling her close against him. "It's nothing. I just needed to see you."
"Not nothing," she murmured against his shoulder. "You're upset."
"I'll be fine. Please - just stay like this."
She did, and it soothed him to be close to her. When his heart slowed and he felt the panic ease, he separated from her enough to see her face. She looked worried, which was probably reasonable considering the way he'd burst into the room.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Nothing, really."
She raised an eyebrow and waited. Despite his good intentions, his gob betrayed him. "Pete and I were talking about how he knew to save you before the breach closed."
"Oh," she said. She didn't ask, and he assumed she already knew. As closely as she had been involved with the Dimension Cannon, she would have known of the accident and the results. She might even have been there. He shuddered.
"That could have been you."
"There were always risks."
"Rose -"
"Don't. I knew what could happen. I did it anyway."
"It wouldn't have been like it was for Pete," he said, surprised at how quickly his earlier anger returned. "You wouldn't have been able to take a pill and fix it! It would have consumed you. You'd have burned, and I wouldn't have been there to save you this time."
"I'm the only one who took risks?" Her voice was louder than before, and she wrenched away from his embrace. "Doctor, I saw you. I kept missing you, and then I thought I was at the right place at the right time and you died. You drowned! I thought you'd regenerate, that you'd be all right no matter what."
She choked back a sob and he took a step forward to take her in his arms again, wanting more than anything to comfort her. Before he reached her, she waved him back with tears in her eyes.
"Don't. All that time I was here without you, I kept thinking about that night we fought over Sarah Jane, when you said you had to live on alone. I was angry, because I wanted to be special. No, don't." She held up an unsteady hand when he started to speak. "Then I was stuck here and I kept thinking about you being alone. More than anything, I wanted you to be all right. Then I saw - oh, God, you were covered with a sheet, and all I could see was your arm and your hand, and you were so still and no one was with you. It wasn't the first time -" She sobbed outright, then regained her composure. "There were other times I knew you were dead, but it was the first time I saw it."
He stayed quiet and still after she finished her outburst, and he felt guilt and remorse settle over him. He remembered killing the Racnoss vividly, and his disassociation as he had watched all of the water flowing, and flowing, and flowing. Without Donna's shout, he would surely have watched until it swirled around him and was too late. He couldn't pretend it was a heroic sacrifice. For a few moments, he simply hadn't cared. That hadn't been his fate, but it could so easily have been. Oh, Donna.
"I'd do it all over again," Rose said softly. All of the energy had left her, and she looked like she might collapse.
Tentatively, he took a step toward her, and when she didn't object, he took the others. She flung her arms around him and squeezed him nearly breathless. He held her in turn as if she were fragile. When her grip eased and she slumped against his body, he gently lifted her and set her down on the bed, crouching on all fours above her so that their eyes were level.
"You're so stubborn," he whispered, and he bent to capture her lips.
"Yuck," she said, turning away.
"Well, that's not exactly what I was hoping to hear." He leaned down for another kiss but she wriggled away again.
"You've had a cigar."
"Yes, I did, but we just had a fight and I thought - well, isn't make-up sex part of being human?"
"You taste like an ashtray."
The Doctor sighed, and Rose gave a theatrical cough. "I've never said one word about your morning breath," he informed her.
"My morning breath?"
"Oi! You started it." He gave up and rolled onto his side, putting one leg over hers and sliding an arm underneath her neck. She shifted until they were both comfortable and he kissed her shoulder.
"This would normally be when I should apologise," the Doctor said, "but I'm at a bit of a loss here considering that I didn't actually do anything."
"You would have."
"If I'm going to be in trouble for every infinite possibility that could have occurred, we're going to be having a lot of make-up sex."
"Not if you keep smoking cigars."
"Will you promise me that you won't do something that daft again?" he asked.
"Be more specific." Rose snuggled closer.
"The Dimension Cannon."
"No," she said after a moment of contemplation. "I won't. If you're in danger or I'm separated from you again, I'll promise that I'll try to stay positive and think through what I'm going to do, but not that I'll just sit and wait. That's not going to happen." She sighed. "I also know that you're going to try and protect me from as much as you can, even if that means you make decisions for me."
"I said I wouldn't -"
"Yeah, you did, and I think you mean it, up until the point where I'm in danger and you think you can help by locking me away. I know you, remember?"
"I am sorry I smoked the cigar," he said contritely, changing the subject. "Could I make it up to you by sharing the remainder of a lovely bottle of port?"
"You could."
Back in Pete's study, he poured Rose a glass, but she took only a sip before setting it down. She picked up his half-smoked cigar from earlier. "Light it," she said. When he only looked at her in confusion, she restated her request.
"I thought you didn't like me to -"
"It's not for you," she said, hopping up and sitting on Pete's desk, holding the cigar out to him. "I thought I'd give it a try."
His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he complied, and he watched with amusement as she sucked on the end of it and coughed little clouds of smoke. "That's awful," she asserted, putting it out in the ashtray. "I don't know why you do it."
"I hardly ever do," he said. "It's an acquired taste."
"So you had to do it more than once, and that's what I don't get," she said, and actually swished the port around in her mouth before swallowing. Somewhere in Portugal, a hard-working winemaker was swearing. "But I have a theory. Come here." When he did, she took his face in both her hands and pulled him down for a kiss. "Oh, that works."
"What?"
"Shut it." She kissed him again - really, a genuine snog, if he had to label it appropriately. Her tongue traced across his teeth, and he was breathless, pressing her into the desk. His hands climbed under her pyjama top and up her back, reminding him that she wasn't wearing a bra. That second floor bed suddenly seemed a long, long way away.
More snogging and awkward fumbling with Rose's pyjamas and his trousers followed before he was inside her, her bum on Pete's desk and her legs wrapped around him. The desk drawers clanked as they moved, and as they approached the end, a glass half-full of port slid off the desk and shattered. Neither one of them could stop, and Rose had a fistful of his hair by then.
Rose said "yes" repeatedly, which seemed to be a bit belated considering the liberties he was taking at the time. He liked it, although his own vocal cords seemed to have seized up completely so that all he could do was groan and grunt. When Rose came, her grip on his hair intensified and she buried her face into his neck. Her whole body shuddered and he couldn't help following her soon after, trying not to cry out his own pleasure and rouse the whole household.
"Oh my God," Rose said, unlatching her legs from around him. "I can't believe we just did that."
The Doctor, still catching his breath, separated from her and surveyed the damage. One toppled ashtray, one broken glass, and a spreading red stain on the carpet. "Watch your feet," he cautioned. "There's glass."
"I heard," she said, chagrined.
"I wasn't sure you were paying attention." He flashed her a grin.
She laughed and carefully slid down off the desk, fishing her knickers and pyjama bottoms from the chair and pulling them back on. He did up his trousers. Neither one of them had taken off anything else. It was, he thought, the least naked sex they'd ever had.
"Know how to get a red wine stain off an oriental rug?" she asked.
The Doctor sighed. "I miss my sonic screwdriver."