Touching and Time: The Epilogue

[the_tenzo]

TITLE: Touching and Time
CHARACTERS: Ten/Rose, nothing but Ten/Rose
RATING: Oh, quite Adult.
SPOILERS: Journey's End spoilery like woah.
SUMMARY: What's that you say? Something happened at the end of Series 4 that might be able to resolve some UST? Interesting....
DISCLAIMER: Insert humorous note about how I don't own the characters nor make any money off them right here.
BETA: None for this. I take every ounce of blame.

A/N: Awww look everyone! It's my first smut! Please be gentle (~runs and hides~). Many fics have been written about all the ways that Rose and Alt!Ten would likely be all dysfunctional, and how hard their new relationship would be and how it wouldn't necissarily be happily ever after. This is not one of those fics. Smutty (but not filthy) schmoopy goodness, right here.

I also want to give a shout out to jaradel    , who reminded me (like the idiot that I am) that post-JE I need not go all AU in order to end this story the way I wanted to.

Are you reading this as a stand-alone?Here's what you need to know: Established in Touching Time, the Doctor (original recipe) can sense Time as one of his extra senses, and it happens that Rose due to the Bad Wolf has some exceptional Time. She is Time Lord catnip. Unfortunately, the Bad Wolf bit of her Time could possibly be quite dangerous should the Doctor go ahead and really experience her Time as he wants to. He has taken little sips and tastes, but dares not actually really go for it. He doesn't know what would happen, but it could be quite bad for him. He never tells Rose he loves her, though she knows he does, and he knows how she feels about him. But they can't be together, or the Doctor thinks they can't. Rose finally comes to accept that, more or less. So now....the epilogue.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Part 1: What is.

All those times she had said it.

I love you, you're my best friend.  I love you, but you drive me mad sometimes. I love you, thanks for the rescue. I love traveling with you, I love your magical ship, I love your great hair.

I love you, now fix everything and don't leave me here.

All those times, and he'd never said it back--she'd never let him. The Universe needed him and she needed to be by his side. Their negotiations were not yet complete when she found herself alone on a beach in Norway. It wasn't supposed to be like that. There was supposed to be a detente. A compromise. Feeling out each other's borderlands. There was supposed to be Time.

It's a funny old world when there's actually competition between "Does it need saying?" and "I love you." When a smile that's just slightly more gormless, a twinkle that's in the wrong eye, a voice that's just a half-step higher, a suit that's the wrong color, when these things actually matter to a girl who's become a woman and has held herself close and apart for years, waiting.

It's a funny old world, and it won't end if she says yes, if she lets go, renders to the Universe what is the Universe's and to herself what is hers. It won't end if she takes this strange man home, draws a final line in the sand and dares him to cross it.

"Do you have any can'ts, or shouldn'ts or never-evers for me now?" she asks as soon as they arrive back at her flat after a long journey full of family-friendly small talk. He looks at her quizzically, and for a few moments she thinks she has the wrong man, he doesn't remember, he is not who he says he is.

"I thought I already answered that," he says finally.

They stand by the door and it is still ajar for one final moment before it is he who reaches out and pushes it shut, leans against it, closes his eyes, places hands in pockets. She removes her jacket and hangs it on a coat rack, performs the million daily chores of coming and going, when all she really wants is to hear him say it again and again, his strange warm breath against her ear.

"Can I...?" She glides back to him where he remains unmoving, as if he's holding the door shut against something, and stands on her tip-toes, bringing her arms behind his neck. They stay that way for a long second, considering one another, neither closing their eyes to the other, drinking the sight in. But now her mouth is on his in that most human of ways, and this new body responds as if born for it. Perhaps it was. Maybe everything up to this moment was a preamble, simply action that would propel them both towards each other. And they do crash together, the unstoppable force and the immovable object, lips and tongues and teeth, bruising one another and forgetting to breathe.

She tastes him and it is like over-ripe fruit and sea salt and she can not get enough, dipping her tongue in to his mouth, running it along his jawline to behind his ear and the little cleft there that is smooth and musky and, she thinks, made just for her. His head falls back and hits the door and a moan percolates in his throat when she presses her body to his, stands on her toes as if she is going to scale him in order to close the last inch of distance between them. He is hypnotized by the feel of her body against his, how it moves with every kiss she places, how her hands dance through his hair and press him to her. It is, then, with a supreme act of will that he places his hands on her waist and, instead of savoring the ready access to honeyed skin, he moves her back from him, just slightly.

"Wait," he pants, his eyes still closed.

"What?" She places a hand palm-down on his chest, to steady herself but also to feel the one heart beating there. She has done this many times now, to reassure herself that he really is the man who could love her.

"Are you okay? With this?" He opens his eyes and they are full and nearly black with desire, but bright as lanterns in the darkening room. His hands are still on her waist, still have not moved up, to touch the skin so easily found there, nor down to caress her curves and find her center. He guides her away from the door, removes his jacket and hangs it next to hers.

"Why wouldn't it be okay?" She is still standing where he has placed her, while he stalks over to a sofa and sits. He clenches and unclenches his left hand and she can see that the muscles in his neck are taught, displaying his single pulse for her to easily see.

"I could understand if it's too soon."

Same man, she tells herself. They look the same, they think the same, and of course they would think like this. He would think like this. "I've been waiting four years to see you again."

She toes her shoes off and pads near to where he sits on the couch, looking down at him, taking measure of how his knees splay this way and that, how his arms lay pale against the dark forest green upholstery, how he folds his lanky body up. He brings a hand down and pulls one shoelace and then the other, murmuring, "Three years, two hundred and six days, thirteen hours, fortynine point eight four seconds." He removes a trainer and places it off to one side. "Give or take a few nanoseconds."

"Time," she says.

He slowly removes the other shoe. "Time. Your Time."

"What's the best that could happen?" She moves a step closer.

He carefully places the shoe next to its mate, looks up to her with lamp-like eyes, his whole face lifted in to an open smile. "It could be wonderful."

Now she is grinning too, closing the distance between them with two light steps and straddling him on the couch, their smiles mirroring one another, their foreheads meeting. He wraps his arms around her and kisses the apple of her cheek. "Can," he breathes against her and then moves to inhale the scent at her throat, which is faintly of jasmine and the ocean. "Should." He takes her bottom lip lightly between his teeth and then fully covers her mouth with his, his hands now seeking flesh anywhere he can find it, moving clothes out of the way, pressing the pads of his fingers in to the small of her back, his thumbs tracing arabesques on her stomach. "Always," he moans when she begins to run her lips down his chin to his Adams apple.

His body is tight and lean under the cotton of his shirt and she begins to pull it from his trousers, aching to know if the oblique muscles of his hips would feel like they did in her dreams. She'd had to look up in a book what they were called, so often did she wake to the feel of them still burned in to her hands. Taking advantage of her position above him she simultaneously plunges again in to the warm hunger of his mouth and settles down in to his lap, as they both make their own low sounds of delight. His hands are almost large enough to completely encircle her, and he encourages her movements, kneading and driving her further downward. The demand implicit in this sends a thrill from the top of her head to the pit of her stomach, where a knot of warmth forms, and begins to spread outward before becoming an almost unbearable heat.

More than anything, more than his mouth now finding new and unexplored areas of her neck, more than his hands sliding under her jumper and over her breasts, it is his obvious lust that she finds most driving her own desire. He wants her so adamantly, becoming more vocal with his encouragement as she moves her hips to enjoy his hardness. This out of control version of him is wildly erotic, more so than she ever could have hoped to dream of. She sinks further down on to him, and even through all the layers of clothes they are still wearing, the resistance she finds there seems like a miracle, the blossoming at her center almost painful and she cries out his name, for the first time in all the long years of wanting to. His arms tighten around her and bring her against him so that on the last syllable, he feels the vibrations in his own chest, rattling his own single heart. With a swift and fluid movement, he snatches her jumper and pulls it over her head, and she not only doesn't resist but brings her arms up and tugs at the sleeves, casting it off as quick as possible so they can come back together. He ducks his head down and begins to lap up the dew that has formed in the cleft between her breasts and she runs a hand through his hair, perhaps grabbing and tugging it more than she intended. At the sound of his pleasure at her salty-sweet taste, she again swivels her hips, rising up slightly and coming back down, biting her bottom lip to keep from alerting all of London to how badly she wants this man inside her. He too pauses from where he is working his hands under her behind, and his mouth under her breast as she does this and his hips buck up slightly, though in the position he's in, it's awkward.

Regaining control of himself, stopping and panting and doing some complicated equations in his head to distract himself momentarily, he brings his hands fully under her very round, very pleasing, very warm rump and lifts her up off of his lap just a bit, just enough to relieve some pressure. There are other things to attend to in this, their first discovery of each other as proper lovers. Her hands are twined at the back of his neck and in one smooth motion, he stands from the couch and she finds herself several feet off the floor and being carried through the now extremely dark flat. She squeals and wraps her legs around him, smiles in to his shoulder, and finds herself lowered on to her bed. It is still neatly made from the morning she left to defend the Universe.

Part 2: What Was.

Every species favors some of its senses over others. Some can smell layers of meaning in each scent, while others taste one another in greeting. If Rose, as she squirmed and mewled under his hand, was any indication, Humans thrived on touch. Time Lords naturally found Time to be the most important, most meaningful sense. But a part-Time-Lord-part-Human would just have to find out for himself which was better.

He laid next to where he had placed her on the bed and propped himself up on an elbow. She played her fingers along the bottom of his shirt and skimmed them along the inside of his waistband until he brushed them lightly away. He could still sense her Time, as he--or the other him--had always been able to. That faculty remained unchanged. But he was finding the purely physical need to touch with hands and lips and tongue was for the first time legitimately competing with the desire to reach out to her Time and bring his together with it.

Without the full power of a Time Lord, he was sure that the potential dangers of dancing with the Wolf were eliminated. He'd thought of little else amid the meaningless chit-chat  of the journey back from Norway. He'd flexed his senses, tested them, observed Rose's Time from afar and noted the differences. He'd finally concluded that receiving the sensual best of both worlds, Time Lord and Human, may be consolation enough for being stuck on one world, in one time, with a breathtakingly short lifespan. Now, he thought, he may never leave this flat again.

He placed a hand palm down on her bare stomach and watched her respond. The few short moments between when he had set her down and when he settled beside her, and again placed his hand on her, served to inflame her hunger to be touched even more, and her soft little belly quivered at the merest brush of his hand against it. She opened her eyes and found him gazing at her as he traced complicated patterns on her bare stomach, swiping every so often just a millimeter under her bra, or fluttering a whole hand over a breast with just the barest contact.

"So, Doctor," she said, her voice purring.

"So," he replied warmly. "I just wanted to get a good look at you." He smiled a small little smile that made a dimple pop on his right cheek. "And to touch you. That feels rather good. Better, actually, than...what I was. I mean, the Human part of me enjoys it more." At that he brushed a knuckle over one of her nipples. She squirmed and grabbed the fabric of his shirt.

"It's customary," she panted, "among us Humans, to actually do it rather than talk about it."

"Oh, I think I'll do it too, don't worry. But this body, this experience, it's so new. I want to share everything with you, I want you to know what it's like." He ghosted a hand over her other breast and she tightened her grip on his shirt and began to pull.

"You would, wouldn't you?" she growled and brought her other hand over to make it clear that his shirt was coming off immediately. She threw it off to the side and it took a few things off the bedside table with a clatter as it fell to the floor. She ran both hands up and down his chest, savoring the feel of his skin, his hair, his single pulse pounding faster than his chatty demeanor would indicate.

"And your smell," he continued, undaunted. "The TARDIS was never the same without your smell in it." He brought his head down and began to run kisses under he breasts and then down her belly, around her belly button and then lower. He inhaled deeply at every breath, and finally unbuttoned the top button of her trousers and ran his tongue just there, at the top of her knickers. "And your taste," he said as he brought his head up again to look her in the eye. "You have no idea how amazing you taste, all the little chemicals that make you you, in perfect conjunction." He closed his eyes and ran his tongue over his own lips, taking in every last trace of her there, and at the same time bringing his free hand to rest on her pelvis. Her hips rose to meet him and in one strong quick movement, he ran a knuckle straight down to her very center. She cried out, not his name or any other actual word, just a moan of pleasure. "And I love to hear you like that."

She was panting under his hand, which remained constantly moving, never staying in any one location long enough to fully satisfy her. He could tell she was growing frustrated, and he was surprised to find that he liked that immensely. There may have been a bit of a wicked smile flickering over his face. He unzipped her trousers and pulled the fabric apart to expose her lacy knickers. They'd done a bit of laundry while waiting to be picked up in Norway, but were these really what she helped save the Universe in? That was a notion so unbearably erotic, he thought he might climax on the spot and ruin the rest of the evening he had planned.

Her breath was ragged and her body now seemed to move without any purpose, seeking his blindly.

"Are you quite finished with your soliloquy?" she panted.

In answer, he tugged her trousers down further and she lifted her hips so he could pull them off her completely. Matching bra and knickers, very aesthetically pleasing. Since he was down there anyway, he took one of her little feet in his hand and brought it to his mouth, running his tongue and lips along the instep. She giggled, a very low, round, wonderful sound. "I wasn't quite done," he said against the inside of her ankle. "These human senses, they're quite overwhelming." He punctuated ever word with a kiss placed ever higher up her calf. "But the Time Lord senses, I've got them as well." He was up to the back of her knee, pausing to concentrate on the dewy musk he found there. "Though I'm afraid...." Moving up her thigh. "I'm afraid that you won't get that much...." His tongue darted up the damp fabric of her knickers and she shuddered and gathered the duvet in her hands. "You won't get much out of those."

She was unable to say anything for a long moment, her eyes squeezed shut, her teeth on her bottom lip, and her chest rising and falling. "I'm getting plenty," she finally whispered hoarsely. "Really." She appeared to collect herself somewhat and opened her eyes to find him hovering over her, hands placed on either side of her hips, eyes black, and he was trembling slightly but visibly. "You do whatever you want to do. But one question."

He licked his lips slowly, the tip of his tongue just barely peeking out of the corners of his mouth. "What's that?" His voice was also becoming ragged.

"Why are you still wearing clothes?" She ran her hand down his chest, tripping her nails lightly over each nipple as she did, and then urged him up over her more so she could begin to undo his trousers. As her hands worked the clasp and the zip, she felt his arms begin to tremble more as he pressed himself over her, and she took the opportunity to grab his hips and in a quick movement topple him over and reverse their positions. He did not protest. Nor did he protest when she grabbed the waistbands of both his trousers and pants and pulled them down, stopping so he could raise his hips to facilitate the procedure. Up until that point she had not touched his erection with her hands, but now she made sure to stroke its length once as she removed his clothing and then again when she came back to sitting up. She seemed fairly happy with it, which was a relief to him in a way that only Human males feel relieved. Such bewildering, irrational thoughts entered his mind--aggressive, sensual thoughts of invading and pillaging and taking.

The light from the street outside cast a bluish glow through the room now and with Rose sitting astride him, her mussed hair was like a halo, and her skin took on a translucent glow. She was like a being from another world, and in a way, she was one. She reached behind her back and unhooked her bra, letting it fall down her arms before discarding it on to the floor. Her breasts were perfect. He'd never understood the human preoccupation with overly large breasts on their women, though he supposed there must be some sort of evolutionary advantage. Her breasts seemed to be made for his hands and his mouth, her nipples a rosey-golden color and hard. He reached out to cup one and she sighed and leaned in to him. He could feel on his bare legs how hot and ready for him she was and he brought his hand down to pluck ineffectually at her knickers.

"Off," was all he was able to get out before she lightly stroked him again and he lost his train of thought.

Dutifully she rocked to the side and removed them, and he didn't really pay attention to the mechanics or the specifics of what was happening because the only important thing was that it was happening, and that her dark curls were brushing against his leg and that she was lowering herself to run her tongue up his length slowly, leaving a trail of ice in its wake.

When she sat up over him again, she placed a hand on his stomach, felt the fluttering there, and whispered, "Time. I want you to."

And there was no doubt she was fully opening her Time to him, to touch and explore and bring his together with. He could feel its beautiful heat, it's melancholy of all the years of waiting, the terrible Bad Wolf always a nimbus around the edges, dangerous and alluring. His own Time was a little strange, ragged and torn, complicated patterns came together but made no sense, a complete contrast to the impossible perfection of hers. As he brought his tattered Time together with hers and the rest of the Universe fell away and the rest of time dilated, he knew that she had at last guided him to her, that they were one being in Touch and in Time. This is the meaning, this is the end point, and the beginning, this is all things and nothing.

Part 3: What Will Be.
This is what they will do and be.

She will move against him, hands feeling his single perfect heart pounding in his chest, knees planted either side of his hips. He will close his eyes and feel the room, the world, the Universe disappear, and he will open himself to her in return and hope against hope that she feels a fraction of what he is feeling. He will surrender control and ride the hot winds of their integrated Time, stretching backwards to the beginning of all things and forwards to the end, and then back around again.

When she has enjoyed the feeling of him still and warm inside her, she will begin to rock back and forth, slowly so as to savor the feeling of every little vein and pulse point, imagining the hot blood feeding his desire, and loving his loss of control. To him, she appears to become golden with an internal light, the Wolf no longer fearsome but strong and beautiful and eternal, foolishly created from a fabric of purest love. She will see him open his eyes and sweep his gaze over her and she will not feel self-conscious, but will see herself the way he sees her.

He will bring his hands to her hips, rest them there just to feel her muscles slide back and forth under her skin as she again almost leaves him but at the last moment slides to subsume him again. He may grab her then, goad her on, let her know of his need, or he may simply bring his hands under her and bring his legs up so she can lean back against his thighs, and he may just watch her there, watch the point where they join together, and see their Time running fast together there too.  He wants to see her with his eyes, and smell the perfume of their union, hear her moan and cry his name, dip his fingers in to her folds and taste her desire. He wants to touch every part of her with every part of him, and he will. This is what they will do.

She will lean back, grasp her ankles with her hands and throw her head back so that her breasts sit up, full and round. He will run his hands over them, pluck at her nipples, bring a finger down under them and feel their weight, as she once again rocks back and off of him and then slowly enfolds him again. He will lift his hips to meet hers, he will move his Time to mingle with hers, he will touch the slick, wet spot where they come together, not being able to tell for a moment what is her and what is him. He will feel what she needs him to do without her saying, and he will cover the place where they join with his long fingers and press lightly there, doubling his pleasure as well as hers. She will lean back further, moan deeply in her throat, and he will make sounds that seem to be ripped from his chest with no involvement from his brain.

She will feel the dilation and contraction of Time around them, feel that perhaps they have been together this way for centuries, forever, or that this is a prediction, this hasn't happened yet, might never happen. It is a possibility, or a certainty, or a memory. She may feel that merged together in this way there is nothing else to do in her life, nothing more to experience. He will be hot like he never was before, and he will want her, lust after her, have these too-human failings, and fall in love with her every second of every day until the end. She will press herself against his fingers, and down on to his sex, and squeeze her eyes shut to see tiny white stars. She will feel him throb inside of her and be able to hold back no longer, will take his wrists in her hands and pin them on either side of his head, where his large eyes are shut and his mouth hangs sensuously open. She will lean over him and let him lift up and pound in to her, no longer controlling his loss of control. She will let him feel this human sensation of taking and giving simultaneously. This is what they will be.

When she releases her weight from his hips and invites him to feel everything, as much as he can, he will feel like he is taking her rather than sharing, and it will be frightening and inescapable. As he relinquishes control to flow through their merged Time he will thrust and buck against her and care nothing for anything else. He will hear her cry his name a last time, feel her flow hot against his thighs, her muscles clenching him, and he will no longer be able to be polite. With all of his strength he will break the bonds she has made at his wrists with her little human hands, grab her hips and roll to cover her with his body. He will spread her legs wide and pull her to where he kneels before her, will enter her again roughly and enjoy the sight of her mouth forming an "O" and her eyelids fluttering. He will take, and he will feel like he is about to explode and he will suddenly understand what it is to touch. It will be his turn to cry her name, guttural and primal and strange to his ears. She will encourage him, encourage this invasion, wrap her legs around his hips, grab the duvet in uncontrolled spasms, pound the wall behind her head to drive him even deeper in to her.

They will mingle their sweat, mingle the few dozen square feet of their skin, mingle their Time. He will release in to her and mingle their lives.

He will understand what it is to be human. She will be his teacher. This is what they will do and be. Can. Should. Always.