Fic: Winnowing (1/1)
Title: Winnowing
Author: karenor
Character/Pairing: Ten II/Rose
Rating: Hard R for smut and smutty concepts.
Summary: She tries desperately to separate the two of them, while he tries to convince her that he is the same man.
Disclaimer: BBC owns all. Including my soul. I'd like it back one day, please. Maybe.
Beta: requialexa went way above the call of duty for this one. She held my hand, gave me some great lines and made sure I didn’t shelve this. I owe her some internets. Alternately, if you don’t like it, it’s all her fault.
Author's Notes: Yes, this IS more post-JE emos and angst (so spoilers for S4). I can’t help it. Now with 100% more makeup sex!
Winnow
verb
1. to free grain from chaff by wind or driven air.
2. to fly with flapping wings; flutter.
He needs to see Rose’s face to come. They both get plenty of pleasure from other positions, but when it comes to finishing, he needs to see her. He’s tried explaining it to her in ways that were complimentary, but the truth, that he needs to make sure she isn’t a fantasy, that her body isn’t just that of one of the several girls he’d had when he was trying to get over her, isn’t something she needs to know. That handful of women, before he met Martha, again before he started travelling with Donna, had resembled Rose in body, in hair colour, but no one had her face. In the entire universe, multiverse, as far as he knows, there is only one Rose.
He’d taken them any way he could to preserve the fantasy, long enough to briefly ease the ache of the body that missed her so much.
So now, months into their exile to the parallel earth, when they made love, when his life here reached its very best points, he still needed the security of seeing her. To know, unequivocally, that it was her beneath him, against him, surrounding him.
But even that comfort, the beautiful familiarity of her face, sometimes wasn’t enough to push away his great chasm of guilt. Because making love to Rose was among the best things this life had to offer, but every time his body had release, he’d end up thinking not only about the times when he didn’t have Rose, but of him, on the other side, who’d never have her again.
Rose didn’t like to talk about him. They were the same man up until a few hours before the beach, after all, so if they were going to talk about the TARDIS times, it’d be anything before the split, anything up until he saw her there on that desolate street and they’d begun to run to each other, full tilt, with twin megawatt smiles. They didn’t talk about after. They didn’t talk about now, on the other side of the void.
He knew that where he felt guilt and sympathy (because he did know exactly what the other him was going through), Rose still carried huge amounts of anger. As far as she was concerned, that Doctor couldn’t be arsed to say he loved her (and they all knew how much he did), and chucked her out into a parallel world-left her without saying goodbye while she was distracted by something shiny.
Rose tried desperately to separate the two of them, while, at the same time, he was trying to convince her that he was the same man, the man she fell in love with. Despite this conundrum, Rose still knew him better than anyone, and trying to hide his thoughts from her was generally futile. They’d held an easy truce since they’d been tossed into this life together, and never had anything but the tiniest rows, each trying to preserve the comfort they found in one another. But there was only so long that could last.
Now, after he’d just exclaimed her name to the heavens, after pushing inside her a final time, he’d quickly rolled off her and to lie at her side.
“I need you to stop doing that,” she said after a moment.
“What?” he asked, still breathless.
“You’re feeling guilty. I can see it on your face.”
“I’m no… That’s not it exactly.” It wasn’t so simple, so maybe it wasn’t exactly a lie.
“If it makes you so unhappy Doctor, we don’t have to do this.” She rolled away, giving him her back.
“I’m not unhappy, Rose,” he said gently, smoothing a hand over her back. “I love this. You.”
“But you can’t stop thinking about him.” She huffed and flipped back around, facing him. “You know, call me silly, but I thought, for a few hours there, right at the beginning, that the two of you might share me. But that’s not what ended up happening. We’re sharing you.”
He blinked at her. Opened his mouth and tried to form a reply, but no words came.
She pressed on, “You’ve only one heart now, Doctor. And maybe I’m needy, but I need all of it. He left us; he doesn’t deserve your pity.”
“Rose,” he finally said. “He’s me.”
“He isn’t!” she insisted, sitting up. “Why should you feel guilty for loving me? He couldn’t. He chose not to. After everything.”
“Rose,” he repeated, sitting up and placing a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it away. “Look at me.”
She didn’t.
He clenched his jaw and stamped down the anger that the small rejections raised in him. He took a deep breath and spoke softly. “Try to understand, Rose, I know what it’s like to lose you.”
“You’re so concerned with how he’s feeling, the pain he’s going through,” she bit out, “Doctor, he left us. For all you know he could be off having the time of his life with Donna, laughing-”
He sucked in his breath loud enough to cut her off.
“Rose,” he said very carefully, unable to stop his voice from rising as he continued, “If you think for one minute he-he… we… I was the one up there without you. I had to carry on at Canary Wharf! I put you on the list of the dead! I mourned you. And now he’s going through it again! He’s miserable, Rose. I can’t just stop thinking it. Feeling guilty. Maybe normal humans can turn off their feelings. I can’t.”
He realized the irony of his words as they were torn from his mouth. It’s because the other him couldn’t express his feelings that Rose chose him, this him.
Rose recoiled from him at his tirade. She methodically slid from the bed and started searching for clothes.
“He wanted us to be happy,” she said coldly. “You could try it.”
He fell back against the pillows grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I told you, I’m not unhappy, Rose!”
“How do you think I feel when I see pain on your face after we make love?”
“What would you have me do, gloat?” He sat up again, spurred upright by his frustration. "Oh, lucky me! I got the prize! The lovely Rose is all mine and that poor bastard, he's left with nothing! Is that what you want from me?"
She picked up one of his trainers. “You don’t GET it,” she yelled. “This is not about YOU!” Then she chucked the shoe at him.
He dodged it easily and gaped at her for a moment. “Then what is it a-?”
The bang of the bathroom door shutting cut him off. When he recovered from his shock at having things thrown at him and doors slammed against him, he jumped out of bed and yelled after her.
“Rose!” He tried the door. Locked. Oh when had his life become this? Fighting with the missus, yelling at a locked bathroom door. “Rose come out and talk to me.”
“No,” came the muffled response.
“Fine, talk to me through the door,” he tried, leaning his back against it.
“No.”
“Rose, I can’t… I’m not cut out for….” He ran a hand through his hair and kicked the door in exasperation. “Dammit, Rose, I don’t know how to do this. I’m a Time Lord.”
“Not anymore!” came the shout through the door.
Had she really just…? He turned around and glared at the closed door. He backed away from it, shaking his head to clear the hurt that was trying to swamp him.
He quickly grabbed clothes from the wardrobe and dresser and quietly said, “I’m showering downstairs,” not caring if she heard him or not.
He automatically went through the motions of washing himself and pulling on the clothes, trying desperately not to think of the past few minutes. He tallied equations, he listed all the planets of the huge Aptocerin system in alphabetical order, but he couldn’t keep his mind on track. He wanted to go up and fix things with Rose. He also wanted to go. Anywhere, away.
At the foot of the stairs, one foot raised to climb them, he deliberated for a few seconds before he swiftly turned away, grabbed their car keys from the kitchen counter and strode out into the midday sun, letting the front door slam behind him.
* * *
It was nearly dark when she finally found him. He’d stopped on a random barren road off the motorway and was sitting cross-legged on the roof of their car, gazing out toward the horizon at the dark storm clouds rolling in.
She sent her driver on, confident that she and the Doctor could sort this out. But he was feeling flighty, and that was a bad, bad sign. As she emerged from the car, she prayed that she didn’t end up soaked to the skin later, desperately trying to get a mobile signal to call for a ride. Well, at least the driver would know she’d been here.
She waited where the car had left her for a few moments before she cautiously approached the one the Doctor was atop. He hadn’t even looked in her direction as they’d pulled up.
“Doctor?” she queried from down by the driver-side door.
“Rose,” he acknowledged softly, with barely a movement of his head.
“What are you doing?” She said it as casually as you please, as if it was totally normal behaviour, to storm out on one’s… partner, drive 100 miles away, stop in the middle of nowhere and perch oneself on top of the car.
“I am,” he said in an equally casual voice-she was one of a very few people who would notice the bitter, tired edge to it, “contemplating my navel. Isn’t that what humans do? Contemplate their navels?”
“Mind if I join you?”
He didn’t answer, but she clambered onto the roof of the car anyway, mirroring his cross-legged pose. He’d been in the middle, but scooted to the edge when she began her climb; that was something, she supposed, him making room for her. Still, there wasn’t much room at all on the roof, what with his long legs and the size of a car practical for London. Her left knee pressed against his right intimately as she settled.
After a few moments, when it was clear he wasn’t going to offer anything, she spoke again.
“So,” she began, retaining her calm tone, “navels, is it? I’ve always sort of wondered about that. Why have you even got one?”
He slid his eyes towards her. “Really, Rose?” he asked, tightly.
She took a deep breath. “Right, so no small talk, then,” she said.
“How’d you find me?” He asked, looking into the wind.
“There’s a GPS tracker on the car.”
“Bloody Torchwood,” he grumbled.
“It’s because of Torchwood that we’re together now,” she pointed out.
“It’s because of them that I lost you in the first place,” he countered.
It was a fair point. She told him so. They were both quiet again. She wanted to apologize to him; she wanted him to apologize to her. She’d thought loving him before was confusing, this was… God, it wasn’t fair.
The silence stretched and the clouds got darker, heavier, obscuring the setting sun.
“Doctor, I’m-“
“I could build us something, you know,” he interrupted, speaking softly into the cooling air in front of them. “A ship. We could go somewhere, maybe not through time-there isn’t technology for that here-but… somewhere.” He gestured vaguely at the sky.
“I don’t care about that.”
He turned to look at her, surprised. Then he gave a small smile, probably remembering when her mum had said the same to Pete. He began to turn away again, but she stopped him with a hand on his jaw.
“I’m serious, Doctor,” she said, looking deeply into his eyes, willing him to believe her. “I don’t need that. It’s not why I fell in love with you.”
She heard him draw in a breath. She hadn’t spoken those words to him since the beach, the first time.
“Rose,” he tried, and his voice was so full of emotion that he had to stop. Her heart fluttered and ached at the same time. “Rose, I’m still a-“
“I know, you’re still a Time Lord. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, sliding his hand briefly to her cheek. “There’s something else you have to understand, though.” His eyes were serious, dark, and she found herself suddenly nervous. “I’m the Doctor. Your Doctor, that Doctor. The Ninth, the Tenth, the Tenth and a half, and all the ones before.”
“I know that.”
“Let me finish,” he gently chided. “I’m all those, and I’m the one you fell in love with. He said I was different, but, barring a few choice expressions I seem to have picked up from Donna, here’s the only way that I am: I am not going to leave you. Not for your own good, not for anyone’s.”
And there it was-what they hadn’t said earlier. She’d couched it all in anger at his guilt, but the crux of it was all this time that he’d been wanting her to believe he was the same man-and that was exactly what she’d been afraid to believe.
He was watching her as his message sank in, and at the same moment, they moved towards each other. He framed her face in his hands and brought his lips to hers as the first drops of rain fell from the sky. His kiss was warm and tender and perfect, but their movements were awkward, what with their positions on the roof. He released her face with a small growl and brought his arms around her, hauling her into his lap.
He dove back for her lips immediately, deepening the kiss quickly, his tongue stroking hers in a maddening rhythm. She clung to him in their precarious position, her fingers clutching to the dampening shirt at his shoulders. They nearly toppled as she tried to press even closer to him but he caught them with a hand flung out behind him, barely breaking their kiss.
“Impressive,” she murmured against his lips.
“Told you, I’ve got the moves.”
She began to kiss her agreement, but then his hand slipped in the increasing rain, and she went sprawling atop him, and they barely escaped a messy fall off the roof.
“I think,” he panted beneath her, “we should move this into the car?”
“Mmm,” she agreed, kissing him quickly before sliding the length of her body against his as she let herself down on to the car’s bonnet.
He scrambled after her as she made her way to the pavement. She was reaching for the door handle to the backseat when he caught up with her. He grabbed her, slid his hands up to her breasts beneath her wet shirt and kissed her neck quickly, before spinning her around and pressing her against the car door with his body. He attacked her mouth again as he lifted her up against him, aligning their bodies, moving against her and she whimpered into his kiss.
He began tugging at her clothes as the rain pummelled them. He wrenched his mouth from hers, breathing heavily, dark eyes blinking against the rain. “Clothes…” he mumbled, reaching for the buttons on her blouse.
“Car,” she said, “…rain.” He’d one hand inside her shirt, shoving at her bra, the other hand supporting her bum as he pushed his hips against hers, which left her with only just enough brain power to know they couldn’t finish this out in the rain.
“Wha?”
“Car,” she repeated and watched him turn his head to look down the road. Deserted, as it’d been the whole time. She grabbed his jaw and planted a quick kiss there before she explained. “This car. Need you. Inside. Now.”
He nodded slowly, comprehension dawning on him. “Right,” he said, releasing her and reaching for the door handle.
* * *
He’s not sure quite how they managed it. He dove into the back seat first, ripping at his wet clothes even as he settled his back against the far door. He managed to unbutton his shirt and shove his trousers out of the way before he drew up his knees to give Rose room, as she climbed in after him, slamming the door shut against the rain. His mouth grew dry as he watched her squirm in the dim light, peeling off her wet blouse, struggling with her clinging jeans.
In seconds, though, she was clad only in her bra, and he silently praised her ingenuity and flexibility as she climbed over him. He helped her remove her last garment and she impatiently flung it aside as she brought her lips to his, plunged her tongue within, devouring him for several breathless moments. But soon her kiss softened as together they shifted and twisted, finding the most comfortable position. And then she slid on to him, sucking in a gasp as she took him entirely within her.
They paused then, still. He slid his gaze from where they were joined, up to her face, barely lit by the low light of the storm outside and obscured further by the rapidly fogging windows of the car.
“Rose,” he said, reverently, imbuing his tone with the absolute awe that he felt at the magnitude of her love for him. “I-” he began to whisper but she gently shushed him and grabbed his hands, kissing them lightly before guiding them over her damp skin to her hips.
And then she started to rock against him, and it was his turn to gasp. Her movements were slow and shallow and not enough but it didn’t matter. The imperfection of this coupling only made it feel all the more real, made him feel all the more grounded. His mind wasn’t filled with the past and hurt and times without her. And this, sharing this moment-making love in a cramped car in the rain after their first real fight since they’d been back together-was absolutely perfect.
His body had its own agenda, though, and he couldn’t help thrusting strongly up into her, straining for more friction, only just mindful of the low ceiling of the car. She moaned above him and leaned forward, ghosting her lips over his briefly, covering his whole torso with her feverish skin before bracing herself on his shoulders and speeding up her pace, grinding her hips against his, sliding her wet heat back and forth against him deliciously.
With the change in angle and tempo and freedom of movement, the timbre of what had been slow intense lovemaking shifted into high gear but only gained in intensity. In this hot bubble of the car, their sweat mingling with the rainwater on their skin, their pants and moans loud even against the torrent outside, they might have been the only two beings in the whole universe.
Rose breathed out his name desperately, and he suddenly found himself very, very close. He held on to her tightly, biting his lip in concentration, as they continued to move together, hoping to hold back for her sake and for his-not wanting this to end. Again his name was torn from her throat as she keened above him, slamming her hips into his. He felt her clench tightly around him as the rhythm of her hips faltered, then slowed, then stopped.
“God,” she whispered shakily against his lips, “I love you so much.”
Her breathless declaration sent him spiralling over the edge and only seconds after her he was coming spectacularly as he thrust within her one last time and the world exploded behind his tightly shut eyes. On the surface he knew it was basically the exact same physiological reaction he’d experienced earlier that day (had it only been hours since then?): desire, erection, friction, orgasm. But it felt entirely different. This release was more than physical. Rose loved him, said so when he was at his most bare and vulnerable. Twice. And though their problems were far from sorted, he felt lighter than he had in months-in his whole existence in this particular body, he supposed.
He opened his eyes to see her looking down at him, both of them reluctant to move, to disentangle themselves, despite their more than slightly uncomfortable positions.
He smiled brilliantly at her.
“Now that’s what I like to see afterwards, Doctor.”
He blinked. He hadn’t even though about it in his bliss, the smile was automatic. It helped that there was nowhere to hide here, but he had no desire to look away after his orgasm had rushed through him, to hide his emotion from her as he’d been doing of late. He slid his hand contentedly over the moist soft skin of her back before venturing words.
“Are we,” he asked a bit unsteadily after a moment, “okay then?”
She considered, “How do you feel?”
“Pretty spectacular,” he answered with a dry laugh.
She gave him a small smile, but tensed above him. “I don’t mean…” she waved her hand in the air around them, “this.”
He caught her hand and kissed it, echoing her earlier action. “It was just us here in this… rather small back seat, Rose. I promise you.”
“Good.” She didn’t sound completely convinced.
“Rose, but I can’t promise you I’ll never… ”
“I know,” she said, kissing him and sliding off his body, gasping softly as they separated. She shifted into a proper sitting position and began reaching for her clothes. “I can’t promise you either that I’ll… or that I won’t…”
He watched her struggle for words before pulling her towards him again and kissing her softly, but thoroughly.
“We’ll give it time, yeah?” she said with a bit of a shy smile when they pulled away.
“That depends.”
Her brow creased. “On what?”
“Are you going to attempt bodily harm on me with articles of my own clothing every time you get mad at me?”
She gaped, frozen in place with her wet blouse in her hand.
“I’ll have to hide my ties,” he said contemplatively as he refastened his trousers.
She laughed, the lilting sound music to his ears.
But his head was still spinning from the events of the past several hours. It was less than an hour ago that he’d thought their relationship hopelessly doomed. Even when she found him, he thought it was to send him packing. That he wasn’t good enough for her, or she’d never accept his limitations, or that maybe she’d never accept the spectre of the other Doctor in their lives.
“Rose,” he said, quite seriously, a wave of doubt passing over him, “you believe me don’t you?”
“About the ties?” she asked, still giggling.
“No. About… the rest. That I love you; that I’ll try to be what you need. That I’m never going to leave you.”
She ducked her head, sliding her shirt over her bare skin.
“Rose?”
“You told me before that you wouldn’t,” she whispered, the sound barely audible over the pounding rain.
“I know.”
“Then how-?”
“One heart,” he grinned. “Less hang-ups.”
She raised a sceptical eyebrow at him.
“In time,” he qualified, nodding slightly, “I’ll have fewer hang-ups in time.”
She smiled softly at him, cupped his cheek and kissed him gently.
“I believe you,” she said.
His heart soared. For as long as he’d known her, it never took more than a few words from Rose Tyler to bring him joy. Now, with only a few important words shared between them, he felt full of hope. He knew somehow that they’d make it work, they’d find real, lasting happiness, just like he knew they would. It was all he wanted. One life, spent with her.
“Doctor?” she asked softly, interrupting his thoughts.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about the shoe.”
“How sorry?” he teased.
By way of answer she slowly closed the distance between them and then pulled him the last few inches by the edges of his shirt to kiss him passionately. He revelled in the feel of her still mostly naked body against the bare skin of his chest, and groaned against her mouth, wanting her all over again. Her hands slid up into his wet hair as she continued to snog him breathless. He pulled away, his mind briefly cursing the limitations of human lungs, stamina, and body temperature regulation, before regrettably telling her they had to stop.
“Rose, forgive me for sounding utterly conventional, but could we… maybe… find somewhere warm and dry?”
She nodded, pulling back. “With a bed too?” she suggested… suggestively.
“With oooh, a fireplace, maybe? And warm cocoa, NO! Food! I’m starving, Rose, and if we’re going to-”
“Let’s go home, Doctor.”
“Home’s two hours away,” he complained.
She said nothing, only snatched up the rest of her clothing and clambered over the seats, giving him a lovely view of her naked backside. She settled into the passenger seat and began making herself moderately presentable.
“Well?” she asked looking back at him when he hadn’t moved.
He swallowed, unexpectedly distracted by her nudity.
“Right,” he said, doing up several of the buttons of his shirt. He calmly exited the back seat and stepped out into the rain for a second before sliding into the driver’s seat next to Rose.
He buckled his seatbelt, started the car, and then reached for the button to roll down the window, heedless of the water that seeped in to the car, to take a deep unsteady breath of cool air.
“Drive fast,” she said.
He obeyed, quickly turning the car around, steering it out of the storm, and on towards the home he shared with her.
He was, after all, mostly rubbish at denying Rose anything she wanted.
FIN
Author: karenor
Character/Pairing: Ten II/Rose
Rating: Hard R for smut and smutty concepts.
Summary: She tries desperately to separate the two of them, while he tries to convince her that he is the same man.
Disclaimer: BBC owns all. Including my soul. I'd like it back one day, please. Maybe.
Beta: requialexa went way above the call of duty for this one. She held my hand, gave me some great lines and made sure I didn’t shelve this. I owe her some internets. Alternately, if you don’t like it, it’s all her fault.
Author's Notes: Yes, this IS more post-JE emos and angst (so spoilers for S4). I can’t help it. Now with 100% more makeup sex!
Winnow
verb
1. to free grain from chaff by wind or driven air.
2. to fly with flapping wings; flutter.
He needs to see Rose’s face to come. They both get plenty of pleasure from other positions, but when it comes to finishing, he needs to see her. He’s tried explaining it to her in ways that were complimentary, but the truth, that he needs to make sure she isn’t a fantasy, that her body isn’t just that of one of the several girls he’d had when he was trying to get over her, isn’t something she needs to know. That handful of women, before he met Martha, again before he started travelling with Donna, had resembled Rose in body, in hair colour, but no one had her face. In the entire universe, multiverse, as far as he knows, there is only one Rose.
He’d taken them any way he could to preserve the fantasy, long enough to briefly ease the ache of the body that missed her so much.
So now, months into their exile to the parallel earth, when they made love, when his life here reached its very best points, he still needed the security of seeing her. To know, unequivocally, that it was her beneath him, against him, surrounding him.
But even that comfort, the beautiful familiarity of her face, sometimes wasn’t enough to push away his great chasm of guilt. Because making love to Rose was among the best things this life had to offer, but every time his body had release, he’d end up thinking not only about the times when he didn’t have Rose, but of him, on the other side, who’d never have her again.
Rose didn’t like to talk about him. They were the same man up until a few hours before the beach, after all, so if they were going to talk about the TARDIS times, it’d be anything before the split, anything up until he saw her there on that desolate street and they’d begun to run to each other, full tilt, with twin megawatt smiles. They didn’t talk about after. They didn’t talk about now, on the other side of the void.
He knew that where he felt guilt and sympathy (because he did know exactly what the other him was going through), Rose still carried huge amounts of anger. As far as she was concerned, that Doctor couldn’t be arsed to say he loved her (and they all knew how much he did), and chucked her out into a parallel world-left her without saying goodbye while she was distracted by something shiny.
Rose tried desperately to separate the two of them, while, at the same time, he was trying to convince her that he was the same man, the man she fell in love with. Despite this conundrum, Rose still knew him better than anyone, and trying to hide his thoughts from her was generally futile. They’d held an easy truce since they’d been tossed into this life together, and never had anything but the tiniest rows, each trying to preserve the comfort they found in one another. But there was only so long that could last.
Now, after he’d just exclaimed her name to the heavens, after pushing inside her a final time, he’d quickly rolled off her and to lie at her side.
“I need you to stop doing that,” she said after a moment.
“What?” he asked, still breathless.
“You’re feeling guilty. I can see it on your face.”
“I’m no… That’s not it exactly.” It wasn’t so simple, so maybe it wasn’t exactly a lie.
“If it makes you so unhappy Doctor, we don’t have to do this.” She rolled away, giving him her back.
“I’m not unhappy, Rose,” he said gently, smoothing a hand over her back. “I love this. You.”
“But you can’t stop thinking about him.” She huffed and flipped back around, facing him. “You know, call me silly, but I thought, for a few hours there, right at the beginning, that the two of you might share me. But that’s not what ended up happening. We’re sharing you.”
He blinked at her. Opened his mouth and tried to form a reply, but no words came.
She pressed on, “You’ve only one heart now, Doctor. And maybe I’m needy, but I need all of it. He left us; he doesn’t deserve your pity.”
“Rose,” he finally said. “He’s me.”
“He isn’t!” she insisted, sitting up. “Why should you feel guilty for loving me? He couldn’t. He chose not to. After everything.”
“Rose,” he repeated, sitting up and placing a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it away. “Look at me.”
She didn’t.
He clenched his jaw and stamped down the anger that the small rejections raised in him. He took a deep breath and spoke softly. “Try to understand, Rose, I know what it’s like to lose you.”
“You’re so concerned with how he’s feeling, the pain he’s going through,” she bit out, “Doctor, he left us. For all you know he could be off having the time of his life with Donna, laughing-”
He sucked in his breath loud enough to cut her off.
“Rose,” he said very carefully, unable to stop his voice from rising as he continued, “If you think for one minute he-he… we… I was the one up there without you. I had to carry on at Canary Wharf! I put you on the list of the dead! I mourned you. And now he’s going through it again! He’s miserable, Rose. I can’t just stop thinking it. Feeling guilty. Maybe normal humans can turn off their feelings. I can’t.”
He realized the irony of his words as they were torn from his mouth. It’s because the other him couldn’t express his feelings that Rose chose him, this him.
Rose recoiled from him at his tirade. She methodically slid from the bed and started searching for clothes.
“He wanted us to be happy,” she said coldly. “You could try it.”
He fell back against the pillows grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I told you, I’m not unhappy, Rose!”
“How do you think I feel when I see pain on your face after we make love?”
“What would you have me do, gloat?” He sat up again, spurred upright by his frustration. "Oh, lucky me! I got the prize! The lovely Rose is all mine and that poor bastard, he's left with nothing! Is that what you want from me?"
She picked up one of his trainers. “You don’t GET it,” she yelled. “This is not about YOU!” Then she chucked the shoe at him.
He dodged it easily and gaped at her for a moment. “Then what is it a-?”
The bang of the bathroom door shutting cut him off. When he recovered from his shock at having things thrown at him and doors slammed against him, he jumped out of bed and yelled after her.
“Rose!” He tried the door. Locked. Oh when had his life become this? Fighting with the missus, yelling at a locked bathroom door. “Rose come out and talk to me.”
“No,” came the muffled response.
“Fine, talk to me through the door,” he tried, leaning his back against it.
“No.”
“Rose, I can’t… I’m not cut out for….” He ran a hand through his hair and kicked the door in exasperation. “Dammit, Rose, I don’t know how to do this. I’m a Time Lord.”
“Not anymore!” came the shout through the door.
Had she really just…? He turned around and glared at the closed door. He backed away from it, shaking his head to clear the hurt that was trying to swamp him.
He quickly grabbed clothes from the wardrobe and dresser and quietly said, “I’m showering downstairs,” not caring if she heard him or not.
He automatically went through the motions of washing himself and pulling on the clothes, trying desperately not to think of the past few minutes. He tallied equations, he listed all the planets of the huge Aptocerin system in alphabetical order, but he couldn’t keep his mind on track. He wanted to go up and fix things with Rose. He also wanted to go. Anywhere, away.
At the foot of the stairs, one foot raised to climb them, he deliberated for a few seconds before he swiftly turned away, grabbed their car keys from the kitchen counter and strode out into the midday sun, letting the front door slam behind him.
* * *
It was nearly dark when she finally found him. He’d stopped on a random barren road off the motorway and was sitting cross-legged on the roof of their car, gazing out toward the horizon at the dark storm clouds rolling in.
She sent her driver on, confident that she and the Doctor could sort this out. But he was feeling flighty, and that was a bad, bad sign. As she emerged from the car, she prayed that she didn’t end up soaked to the skin later, desperately trying to get a mobile signal to call for a ride. Well, at least the driver would know she’d been here.
She waited where the car had left her for a few moments before she cautiously approached the one the Doctor was atop. He hadn’t even looked in her direction as they’d pulled up.
“Doctor?” she queried from down by the driver-side door.
“Rose,” he acknowledged softly, with barely a movement of his head.
“What are you doing?” She said it as casually as you please, as if it was totally normal behaviour, to storm out on one’s… partner, drive 100 miles away, stop in the middle of nowhere and perch oneself on top of the car.
“I am,” he said in an equally casual voice-she was one of a very few people who would notice the bitter, tired edge to it, “contemplating my navel. Isn’t that what humans do? Contemplate their navels?”
“Mind if I join you?”
He didn’t answer, but she clambered onto the roof of the car anyway, mirroring his cross-legged pose. He’d been in the middle, but scooted to the edge when she began her climb; that was something, she supposed, him making room for her. Still, there wasn’t much room at all on the roof, what with his long legs and the size of a car practical for London. Her left knee pressed against his right intimately as she settled.
After a few moments, when it was clear he wasn’t going to offer anything, she spoke again.
“So,” she began, retaining her calm tone, “navels, is it? I’ve always sort of wondered about that. Why have you even got one?”
He slid his eyes towards her. “Really, Rose?” he asked, tightly.
She took a deep breath. “Right, so no small talk, then,” she said.
“How’d you find me?” He asked, looking into the wind.
“There’s a GPS tracker on the car.”
“Bloody Torchwood,” he grumbled.
“It’s because of Torchwood that we’re together now,” she pointed out.
“It’s because of them that I lost you in the first place,” he countered.
It was a fair point. She told him so. They were both quiet again. She wanted to apologize to him; she wanted him to apologize to her. She’d thought loving him before was confusing, this was… God, it wasn’t fair.
The silence stretched and the clouds got darker, heavier, obscuring the setting sun.
“Doctor, I’m-“
“I could build us something, you know,” he interrupted, speaking softly into the cooling air in front of them. “A ship. We could go somewhere, maybe not through time-there isn’t technology for that here-but… somewhere.” He gestured vaguely at the sky.
“I don’t care about that.”
He turned to look at her, surprised. Then he gave a small smile, probably remembering when her mum had said the same to Pete. He began to turn away again, but she stopped him with a hand on his jaw.
“I’m serious, Doctor,” she said, looking deeply into his eyes, willing him to believe her. “I don’t need that. It’s not why I fell in love with you.”
She heard him draw in a breath. She hadn’t spoken those words to him since the beach, the first time.
“Rose,” he tried, and his voice was so full of emotion that he had to stop. Her heart fluttered and ached at the same time. “Rose, I’m still a-“
“I know, you’re still a Time Lord. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, sliding his hand briefly to her cheek. “There’s something else you have to understand, though.” His eyes were serious, dark, and she found herself suddenly nervous. “I’m the Doctor. Your Doctor, that Doctor. The Ninth, the Tenth, the Tenth and a half, and all the ones before.”
“I know that.”
“Let me finish,” he gently chided. “I’m all those, and I’m the one you fell in love with. He said I was different, but, barring a few choice expressions I seem to have picked up from Donna, here’s the only way that I am: I am not going to leave you. Not for your own good, not for anyone’s.”
And there it was-what they hadn’t said earlier. She’d couched it all in anger at his guilt, but the crux of it was all this time that he’d been wanting her to believe he was the same man-and that was exactly what she’d been afraid to believe.
He was watching her as his message sank in, and at the same moment, they moved towards each other. He framed her face in his hands and brought his lips to hers as the first drops of rain fell from the sky. His kiss was warm and tender and perfect, but their movements were awkward, what with their positions on the roof. He released her face with a small growl and brought his arms around her, hauling her into his lap.
He dove back for her lips immediately, deepening the kiss quickly, his tongue stroking hers in a maddening rhythm. She clung to him in their precarious position, her fingers clutching to the dampening shirt at his shoulders. They nearly toppled as she tried to press even closer to him but he caught them with a hand flung out behind him, barely breaking their kiss.
“Impressive,” she murmured against his lips.
“Told you, I’ve got the moves.”
She began to kiss her agreement, but then his hand slipped in the increasing rain, and she went sprawling atop him, and they barely escaped a messy fall off the roof.
“I think,” he panted beneath her, “we should move this into the car?”
“Mmm,” she agreed, kissing him quickly before sliding the length of her body against his as she let herself down on to the car’s bonnet.
He scrambled after her as she made her way to the pavement. She was reaching for the door handle to the backseat when he caught up with her. He grabbed her, slid his hands up to her breasts beneath her wet shirt and kissed her neck quickly, before spinning her around and pressing her against the car door with his body. He attacked her mouth again as he lifted her up against him, aligning their bodies, moving against her and she whimpered into his kiss.
He began tugging at her clothes as the rain pummelled them. He wrenched his mouth from hers, breathing heavily, dark eyes blinking against the rain. “Clothes…” he mumbled, reaching for the buttons on her blouse.
“Car,” she said, “…rain.” He’d one hand inside her shirt, shoving at her bra, the other hand supporting her bum as he pushed his hips against hers, which left her with only just enough brain power to know they couldn’t finish this out in the rain.
“Wha?”
“Car,” she repeated and watched him turn his head to look down the road. Deserted, as it’d been the whole time. She grabbed his jaw and planted a quick kiss there before she explained. “This car. Need you. Inside. Now.”
He nodded slowly, comprehension dawning on him. “Right,” he said, releasing her and reaching for the door handle.
* * *
He’s not sure quite how they managed it. He dove into the back seat first, ripping at his wet clothes even as he settled his back against the far door. He managed to unbutton his shirt and shove his trousers out of the way before he drew up his knees to give Rose room, as she climbed in after him, slamming the door shut against the rain. His mouth grew dry as he watched her squirm in the dim light, peeling off her wet blouse, struggling with her clinging jeans.
In seconds, though, she was clad only in her bra, and he silently praised her ingenuity and flexibility as she climbed over him. He helped her remove her last garment and she impatiently flung it aside as she brought her lips to his, plunged her tongue within, devouring him for several breathless moments. But soon her kiss softened as together they shifted and twisted, finding the most comfortable position. And then she slid on to him, sucking in a gasp as she took him entirely within her.
They paused then, still. He slid his gaze from where they were joined, up to her face, barely lit by the low light of the storm outside and obscured further by the rapidly fogging windows of the car.
“Rose,” he said, reverently, imbuing his tone with the absolute awe that he felt at the magnitude of her love for him. “I-” he began to whisper but she gently shushed him and grabbed his hands, kissing them lightly before guiding them over her damp skin to her hips.
And then she started to rock against him, and it was his turn to gasp. Her movements were slow and shallow and not enough but it didn’t matter. The imperfection of this coupling only made it feel all the more real, made him feel all the more grounded. His mind wasn’t filled with the past and hurt and times without her. And this, sharing this moment-making love in a cramped car in the rain after their first real fight since they’d been back together-was absolutely perfect.
His body had its own agenda, though, and he couldn’t help thrusting strongly up into her, straining for more friction, only just mindful of the low ceiling of the car. She moaned above him and leaned forward, ghosting her lips over his briefly, covering his whole torso with her feverish skin before bracing herself on his shoulders and speeding up her pace, grinding her hips against his, sliding her wet heat back and forth against him deliciously.
With the change in angle and tempo and freedom of movement, the timbre of what had been slow intense lovemaking shifted into high gear but only gained in intensity. In this hot bubble of the car, their sweat mingling with the rainwater on their skin, their pants and moans loud even against the torrent outside, they might have been the only two beings in the whole universe.
Rose breathed out his name desperately, and he suddenly found himself very, very close. He held on to her tightly, biting his lip in concentration, as they continued to move together, hoping to hold back for her sake and for his-not wanting this to end. Again his name was torn from her throat as she keened above him, slamming her hips into his. He felt her clench tightly around him as the rhythm of her hips faltered, then slowed, then stopped.
“God,” she whispered shakily against his lips, “I love you so much.”
Her breathless declaration sent him spiralling over the edge and only seconds after her he was coming spectacularly as he thrust within her one last time and the world exploded behind his tightly shut eyes. On the surface he knew it was basically the exact same physiological reaction he’d experienced earlier that day (had it only been hours since then?): desire, erection, friction, orgasm. But it felt entirely different. This release was more than physical. Rose loved him, said so when he was at his most bare and vulnerable. Twice. And though their problems were far from sorted, he felt lighter than he had in months-in his whole existence in this particular body, he supposed.
He opened his eyes to see her looking down at him, both of them reluctant to move, to disentangle themselves, despite their more than slightly uncomfortable positions.
He smiled brilliantly at her.
“Now that’s what I like to see afterwards, Doctor.”
He blinked. He hadn’t even though about it in his bliss, the smile was automatic. It helped that there was nowhere to hide here, but he had no desire to look away after his orgasm had rushed through him, to hide his emotion from her as he’d been doing of late. He slid his hand contentedly over the moist soft skin of her back before venturing words.
“Are we,” he asked a bit unsteadily after a moment, “okay then?”
She considered, “How do you feel?”
“Pretty spectacular,” he answered with a dry laugh.
She gave him a small smile, but tensed above him. “I don’t mean…” she waved her hand in the air around them, “this.”
He caught her hand and kissed it, echoing her earlier action. “It was just us here in this… rather small back seat, Rose. I promise you.”
“Good.” She didn’t sound completely convinced.
“Rose, but I can’t promise you I’ll never… ”
“I know,” she said, kissing him and sliding off his body, gasping softly as they separated. She shifted into a proper sitting position and began reaching for her clothes. “I can’t promise you either that I’ll… or that I won’t…”
He watched her struggle for words before pulling her towards him again and kissing her softly, but thoroughly.
“We’ll give it time, yeah?” she said with a bit of a shy smile when they pulled away.
“That depends.”
Her brow creased. “On what?”
“Are you going to attempt bodily harm on me with articles of my own clothing every time you get mad at me?”
She gaped, frozen in place with her wet blouse in her hand.
“I’ll have to hide my ties,” he said contemplatively as he refastened his trousers.
She laughed, the lilting sound music to his ears.
But his head was still spinning from the events of the past several hours. It was less than an hour ago that he’d thought their relationship hopelessly doomed. Even when she found him, he thought it was to send him packing. That he wasn’t good enough for her, or she’d never accept his limitations, or that maybe she’d never accept the spectre of the other Doctor in their lives.
“Rose,” he said, quite seriously, a wave of doubt passing over him, “you believe me don’t you?”
“About the ties?” she asked, still giggling.
“No. About… the rest. That I love you; that I’ll try to be what you need. That I’m never going to leave you.”
She ducked her head, sliding her shirt over her bare skin.
“Rose?”
“You told me before that you wouldn’t,” she whispered, the sound barely audible over the pounding rain.
“I know.”
“Then how-?”
“One heart,” he grinned. “Less hang-ups.”
She raised a sceptical eyebrow at him.
“In time,” he qualified, nodding slightly, “I’ll have fewer hang-ups in time.”
She smiled softly at him, cupped his cheek and kissed him gently.
“I believe you,” she said.
His heart soared. For as long as he’d known her, it never took more than a few words from Rose Tyler to bring him joy. Now, with only a few important words shared between them, he felt full of hope. He knew somehow that they’d make it work, they’d find real, lasting happiness, just like he knew they would. It was all he wanted. One life, spent with her.
“Doctor?” she asked softly, interrupting his thoughts.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about the shoe.”
“How sorry?” he teased.
By way of answer she slowly closed the distance between them and then pulled him the last few inches by the edges of his shirt to kiss him passionately. He revelled in the feel of her still mostly naked body against the bare skin of his chest, and groaned against her mouth, wanting her all over again. Her hands slid up into his wet hair as she continued to snog him breathless. He pulled away, his mind briefly cursing the limitations of human lungs, stamina, and body temperature regulation, before regrettably telling her they had to stop.
“Rose, forgive me for sounding utterly conventional, but could we… maybe… find somewhere warm and dry?”
She nodded, pulling back. “With a bed too?” she suggested… suggestively.
“With oooh, a fireplace, maybe? And warm cocoa, NO! Food! I’m starving, Rose, and if we’re going to-”
“Let’s go home, Doctor.”
“Home’s two hours away,” he complained.
She said nothing, only snatched up the rest of her clothing and clambered over the seats, giving him a lovely view of her naked backside. She settled into the passenger seat and began making herself moderately presentable.
“Well?” she asked looking back at him when he hadn’t moved.
He swallowed, unexpectedly distracted by her nudity.
“Right,” he said, doing up several of the buttons of his shirt. He calmly exited the back seat and stepped out into the rain for a second before sliding into the driver’s seat next to Rose.
He buckled his seatbelt, started the car, and then reached for the button to roll down the window, heedless of the water that seeped in to the car, to take a deep unsteady breath of cool air.
“Drive fast,” she said.
He obeyed, quickly turning the car around, steering it out of the storm, and on towards the home he shared with her.
He was, after all, mostly rubbish at denying Rose anything she wanted.
FIN