Journal of impossible things part ii
Journal of Impossible Things, Part II, Nine/Rose, Adult
Double AU: Human Nature meets Beauty and the Beast. Rose is sent to work for the odd new doctor to pay off her mother's debt.
“If I haven't been listening to these stories for months, I would think you are mad. As it is, I think I might be the mad one.” 8084 words, this part 3771
(A/N: I do not claim any of this is even close to historically correct, but it's supposed to take place around the late 1700's, so it could be a real bodice-ripper)
In the morning she swore she could still feel the ghost of his lips, and remembered the gentle way he looked at her. She got dressed in her old clothes to not draw questions. She already decided she'd separate from John before they got into town- rumors had to have spread by now, but she wanted to protect what they had.
Halfway into their journey, Rose tried to explain this. John had been surly since they left the house, but she figured it was because she'd burnt the coffee.
“I think I'm going to take the long way 'round,” she said as they came to a smaller path. “It's one of my favorite walks.”
“Don't you want to get to your mother?” he asked.
“Yes, but-”
“You don't want to be seen with me. Afraid what they'll think of you, are you?”
“What?” Rose frowned at his attitude. “John, it's not like that.” He bristled.
“Better start calling me Dr. Smith again, or you'll arouse suspicion,” he said. “Don't want them to think you're a prostitute like your mum, right? And one with such low standards?”
Eyes wide, she moved to slap him, but he grabbed her wrist and flung it aside. “You better not. Wouldn't want you hurting yourself,” he said, but it sounded the opposite of his caring suggestion of last night.
Rose huffed, staring at him, waiting for him to take it back. “You must know nothing about me, Dr. Smith. Have a nice day in town,” she finally said, turning and hurrying down the longer path.
The walk gave her time to dry her eyes, wondering what on earth had gotten to him. What had she done? The day before had been so nice- and it had been so kind of him to let her come visit her mum, to trust her like that- she wondered if he was pushing her away for some reason.
Her issues with John flew from her mind when she was ushered into her old home by a worried Jenny, the caretaker of the salon.
“Oh Rose, thank God you are here! Your mother's been asking after you for a week, I'm afraid she's fallen ill...”
She rushed into the house to find her mum had quite the fever. The hours passed quickly as Rose tended to her mum, trying to cheer her up with stories of what she got up to with John. She exaggerated tales of his terrible housekeeping, but Jackie knew better. “What aren't you telling me, Rose?”
Smiling, she shrugged a little, and cuddled close to her mother. “He's quite the storyteller, is all. He made a story about a man called the Doctor, a man who can change his face and travel all through space. It's very fantastical, like something you'd read in a storybook. The Doctor meets all sorts of foes and beats them with his wit,” she said, smiling.
“That's lovely, dear. Why don't you tell me one of the stories?” Jackie smiled, seeming relieved that there was some pleasantness to Rose's new life.
“Okay. One day, the Doctor landed his great ship on the moon, but as soon as he landed, he knew something was wrong...” Rose didn't get very far into the story before Jackie was snoring softly.
Jackie, as it turned out, was not as sick as Jenny had worried- the both of them were prone to dramatics, though, and Rose would not be surprised if her mother just worried herself to death over Rose. Still, she decided to sleep there for the night, to make sure.
She worried about John as she drifted off. They'd fought but she wasn't mad - just worried and confused. What had gotten into him? Was it going to be made worse because she stayed with her mum? Rose's resolve grew when she thought that. If he couldn't trust her enough to stay with her mum one night when she was ill, after everything, he could suffer along without her. She felt the watch glowing hot in her pocket and took it out, stuffing it under her pillow grumpily.
“Why are you so angry?” she asked dream John by the open doors of the blue box. Try as she might, she never manged to peek around him to see it all- space, stars, time.
“I'm not. Open the watch - you'll see,” he promised before it all disappeared in the morning light.
The next morning she bid her ailing mother goodbye, knowing she had to get back before John sacked her. Her bravado from the night before had all but disappeared, and she missed him, wondering if he'd dreamt last night and she hadn't been there to take it down. Her mum would be fine, under Jenny's watchful eye. Jenny promised to send an update along within a week, and Rose took the shortcut to John's that she had once advised him of.
The closer she got to the house, the hotter her watch got. She took it out to look at it and felt compelled to open it, like dream John was always telling her to. But she'd tried that before, hadn't she? What a weird timepiece. She slipped it into her bag so it wouldn't bother her, and continued on. Her route looked like it would lead her right into the backyard, which she hadn't explored much- mostly because it was so overgrown.
Stepping over some brush and trying to be careful not to rip her dress, Rose stumbled a bit, coming up on the yard. She caught herself on what must have been part of a fence, and used it to drag herself over the pile of brambles. She grumbled to herself and looked up. A flash of blue caught her eye and she turned around to see that her bit of fence was a blue box, standing tall and proud, if covered in vines and dirt.
“The blue box,” she breathed, rushing back over to it, not sure if it meant the stories were real or if this was just the inspiration for them. But there was a door.
When she stepped inside, she felt overwhelmed and at home at the same time. It was bigger on the inside, but familiar to her, too- both from John's stories and her dreams. How had she known that it would be like this? She ran her hands along the coral, and laughed a little, hysterically. Her voice stirred something, the doors slamming shut, and an image of John appearing in front of her.
“Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9. If you're seeing this, you need to open the fob watch. My life could depend on it.”
“What?” Rose asked frantically, pulling the watch from her bag, feeling weak and woozy. “What? How are you talking to me? John?”
“Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9. If you're seeing this, you need to open the fob watch. My life could depend on it.”
“Bollocks,” Rose said, “You're no help.”
“Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9. If you're seeing this, you need to open the fob watch. My life could depend on it.”
Rose groaned and rushed to the other side of the room for more hints, but wasn't sure what she was looking for. She found long corridors leading into darkness and char marks and violent gouges on the walls. This was the blue box of the stories, and it had been through a war. It was all true.
She felt helpless- but- it was John standing there, telling her to open the watch, and this time she was awake. She trusted him. She had to do it. Holding the hot watch in her hand, she had a strange feeling of inevitability - and that if she opened this watch, maybe dream John could explain everything to her. He was always so consistent in her dreams. She wished he were there, and slid a nail under the lid of the watch, effortlessly opening it.
There was a bright light and a sound like a roaring fire, and she wasn't sure what happened next, because she fainted.
Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9 had finally stopped when Rose woke up, cursing herself. She scrambled up to the doors, only knowing she had to find John.
She ran into the house from the backdoor to find it empty. There were plates of food untouched on the dinner table in the nice dining room and candles melted down to the holder. The front door was open, and she raced out.
“Rose! Get back!” he yelled before she spotted him, fighting with an older man.
“Leave him alone for twenty-four hours and he angers the neighbors again,” she said to herself, looking around frantically until she spotted the umbrella holder by the front door. Lifting the ceramic improvised weapon, she ran towards where John was grappling with Paul, the barkeep, and starting to lose. “Oi! Get off him,” she called as a warning, but Paul barely gave her a glance. She hefted the thing over her head and cracked it over his back, dropping him to the ground.
She gasped for air, grinning at John and feeling a little manic.
“Fantastic, Rose! Now really, get behind me!” he grabbed her by the waist and pushed her away from Paul, who was starting to stir. He dropped to his knees and wrenched something off of Paul's belt, which bore a passing resemblance to a pistol.
“Are you going to shoot him?” Rose asked, watching as two more people appeared from the woods.
“Listen closely, Rose, and try to stay calm,” he whispered. “They're possessed. They found me- I've been trying to hide, but I knew it wouldn't last long. You opened the watch, didn't you? Good job. Now, take this, and press this button if any of them get close to you. We have to get them back to their ship.” He handed her an object she recognized from the Journal as the sonic screwdriver.
She pressed the button as a test, and two of the assailants fell to their knees in pain. “Rose!” he admonished, but was oddly grinning. Then he took her hand and ran, dragging her into the woods. The - aliens, she supposed - followed. “Perfect, it's not far,” John said, “are you okay?”
She gasped for air in response, nodding a little. “I think so!”
“Hide over there, Rose.”
“No, I want to help,” she said.
“You've done enough!” he barked, and pushed her again towards a copse of trees. “This needs to be me. It's okay. I have a plan.” Somehow, the words did not comfort her.
He entered their ship, leaving Rose no choice but to hide behind the trees he'd indicated. Soon, the four people ran after him, into the ship. It was quiet for a long moment and Rose itched to run after John, but she didn't have anything heavy to throw this time.
John burst from the doors of the ship, bellowing. “Run for your life, Rose!” She jumped up and ran towards him, only to have him grab her hand and again drag her the other way down the path. Seconds later they were thrown off their feet by an enormous explosion, rocking the woods. A few trees crashed down around them and John rolled over, shielding her with his body as they both caught their breath.
“Hello, Rose. I'm the Doctor. But I bet you figured that out already, you clever girl.”
“Might have done,” she mumbled, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him down for a kiss. The fire started to catch but she didn't want to let go, not yet. His mouth tasted like time and want, lips sliding across hers, finally, sweetly. She sighed, turning his kiss frantic, and Rose's body burned like the trees around them.
“Rose, get up. This is getting dangerous,” John- the Doctor- finally said, wrenching himself away from her, and pulling himself up. She laughed, still feeling a little hysterical, and let him help her to the house. He shut the door behind her.
“You look exhausted,” he said.
“Oh, I'm fine, just discovered that you travel through space and time in that shed that's in the backyard, and then saved you from some aliens that I've lived next to for eighteen years,” Rose said, falling into her usual seat at the kitchen table.
“You should go to bed.”
Rose didn't like the look in his eye. This Doctor, in the stories- he always ran away. She was not going to let him run from her.
“No. I want to know the rest. Why did you lie to me?”
The Doctor sat, too. “I was lying to myself as well,” he said. “Those aliens who possessed your neighbors, they are Time Lord poachers. I hid my Time Lord self inside that watch to keep myself safe. I knew that they had somehow heard I was the last Time Lord- and they wanted to claim me before anyone else did, before I got back all my strength from the Time War.”
He suddenly looked as exhausted as he felt. “And to be honest, I was glad for the break. To be someone else.”
“You didn't forget entirely,” Rose said, glancing at her stack of papers, wondering what would happen to it now. If she could keep it= if he would leave. “If I haven't been listening to these stories for months, I would think you are mad. As it is, I think I might be the mad one.”
“You are, a bit, to still be here.”
“I saw your ship. Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9.”
“I figured. Thank you. John would have been dead without you. Me, too. Time Lords wouldn't usually tuck themselves away like that without someone else to watch over them.”
“But there is no one else,” she finished, and he looked pained. “Good thing you've got me.”
“Yeah.” He smiled a bit. “Go to bed, Rose.”
“Come with me,” she asked, tugging on his hand. He complied easily enough, looking too tired to argue. Her heart broke for him- this lonely man she'd been hearing about for months, suddenly a reality instead of a metaphor. He sat on the bed and watched her take her shoes off with mild interest. She knelt before him then, unlacing his own.
“You don't have to be alone,” she said, easing the shoes off and looking up at him. “You don't have to run.”
He hummed indistinctly, pulling her up and wrapping his arms around her, laying his cheek on her stomach. She ran her hands over his shorn hair, sighing to finally feel his arms around her, to know him like this. She slid down to sit on his knee, holding his head to her chest now. They sat like that for a quiet moment, the Doctor breathing heavily as though fighting back pain.
“I can't stay,” he said finally.
“Hush,” Rose said, not wanting to hear it, to have another new reality break this fragile one she already loved so much. “Let's rest. You can be unreasonable and brash in the morning.” She scooted back onto her duvet, patting the space beside her and, resigned, the Doctor joined her.
Rose woke hours later before the dawn, the Doctor's long arms wrapped around her loosely. He looked at peace for once, and she knew then that she was not letting him leave without her. She didn't want to wake him, but she also couldn't lay there with her worries hovering over them. They were safe from the poachers, but now everything was going to change.
She wiggled out of the bed, managing not to disturb him, and put a fresh dress on. Feeling melancholy, she went about her morning motions, putting the coffee on and finding a fresh piece of paper.
She was doodling on the sheet with her coffee when the Doctor appeared, his shirt half-opened and a genuine smile on his face. Rose felt her face flush at the sight, warmth pooling in her belly. What a difference a good night's sleep could make.
“Oh, good, you're ready to dictate,” he said. Rose scrambled for her supplies as he fetched himself a mug of coffee.
“There is a woman, far too young and beautiful for me,” he began, settling into the chair across from her. She blushed. “She has haunted my dreams for many months, flitting in and out of the darkest moments of my life, making them that much brighter with her golden hair and uncontrollable cheek.”
She laughed a little. “Doctor, stop-”
“Quiet, I am dictating.” She giggled a little but his dark look shut her up. She squirmed in her seat. “Last night, I slept with my head on her breast and had nothing but the sweetest dreams. For the first time in this body I slept soundly- dreaming of her. Her mouth-” she chanced a look at him, to find he was leaning forward, one hand clutched tightly around his mug and the other halfway across the table, as though he'd made to grab her and changed his mind. “kissing me, absolving me of my wrongdoings and loss. Her body, making me forget my names-”
Rose's hip banged painfully into the table in her haste to get around it. He watched her, surprise stilling his reaction, and what, did he expect her to be able to sit through that? She threw herself at him, forcing his chair to fall back against the wall as she straddled him. He caught them with a hand on the table and another at her waist, stilling her, and meeting her lips with a furious kiss. She gasped and he took his chance, sliding his tongue into her warm mouth, groaning.
“Doctor,” she sighed when she had to take a breath, and he traced kisses down her neck.
“Thank you, Rose,” he murmured, sliding his hand under her dress. “Let me take you to bed.”
“Yes,” she gasped, but stayed on his lap, kissing him on his mouth, his cheeks, his prominent ears.
He stood then, lifting her easily into his arms and taking the short walk back to her bed, even as she sucked on a spot under his ear. The Doctor dropped her onto the bed, and she giggled, bouncing, before sitting up and throwing her dress over her head and across the room. She watched as he gazed at her naked body, feeling shy but emboldened by his stare. Impatiently, Rose reached out to begin taking his shirt off the rest of the way, while the Doctor finally snapped to attention and worked on his trousers. They were naked and under the covers so quickly she'd later accuse him of time travel.
“Doctor, I've wanted you for ages,” she said, gasping as he bit at her collarbone gently.
“Oh, Rose. Me too,” he propped himself over her, hand skimming down over a breast, pausing to thumb at her nipple before continuing down to her hip. She moaned throatily and his hand quickly found its way back to her breast. She slammed her eyes shut, moaning again, never having been touched so thoroughly and effectively before. “You're beautiful,” he whispered, nuzzling at her neck as he continued touching, like he wanted to feel every inch of her skin. Rose felt dizzy as she tried to return the favor, feeling the strong cords of muscle under her hands as they skimmed down his back and up his sides, favoring his strong shoulders.
“Please,” she whispered, unsurprised at how wet and ready she was for this. The Doctor slid his length between her thighs, causing her to clutch at his back. Finally, he was finally going to have her- and in the next moment he slid inside, joining them together. His groan echoed against the walls and he dropped his face into the crook of her neck.
He murmured nonsense, something about constellations and oh, god, as he pulled out and then pushed in again. She was nearly silent at first, surprised and overwhelmed by how right it felt, toes curling from the pleasure. His hips canted back and his next thrust was more forceful. She cried out then, and he chuckled something that sounded like 'that's better.' He set up a pace that more than worked for Rose and she began meeting his hips with hers, desperately moving, trying to find that perfect rhythm.
His hand snuck between them and she gasped in question when she felt his fingers pressing into the spot right above where they met. “Doctor!” she cried out, coming around him after just one more circle of his fingers, scraping her nails down his back as he followed her into his own orgasm.
She panted into the pillow, shuddering as the Doctor's hands traveled aimlessly over her body.
When Rose was finally able to speak again, she pushed her hair out of her face and looked at the Doctor, to find him with his eyes closed, face flushed, looking more appealing than perhaps he ever had. She kissed a bead of sweat from his neck, getting his attention.
“So, what else happened in this dream?”
“Dream? … Oh,” he suddenly looked a little shy. “I asked you to come with me. Away from here.”
“What did I say?”
“You tell me,” he said, running a hand gently over her cheek.
“Of course I said yes, are you mad?” she grinned. “I want nothing more than to go on adventures with you. You wouldn't be able to leave without me.”
He sat up, an exuberant smile on his face. “Yes! Fantastic, Rose, get dressed!”
“What, now?” she asked, laughing a little and pulling the sheets up to cover her chest.
“Yes, now! I am going to show you the death of a star - it's glorious. And then the birth of one! And then we can go see the future, if you want- the universe is yours.” She loved the look on his face- so hopeful and so unlike the man she'd seen defeated yesterday.
She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him down, kissing him slowly and wetly, until he sank back onto the bed and took hold of her hips again. Grinning, Rose slid away and grabbed her dress, leaving him looking aroused and confused, but happy. “Let's go then, Doctor! Show me the universe.”
They dressed and ran from the house hand in hand, disappearing into the blue box.
Double AU: Human Nature meets Beauty and the Beast. Rose is sent to work for the odd new doctor to pay off her mother's debt.
“If I haven't been listening to these stories for months, I would think you are mad. As it is, I think I might be the mad one.” 8084 words, this part 3771
(A/N: I do not claim any of this is even close to historically correct, but it's supposed to take place around the late 1700's, so it could be a real bodice-ripper)
In the morning she swore she could still feel the ghost of his lips, and remembered the gentle way he looked at her. She got dressed in her old clothes to not draw questions. She already decided she'd separate from John before they got into town- rumors had to have spread by now, but she wanted to protect what they had.
Halfway into their journey, Rose tried to explain this. John had been surly since they left the house, but she figured it was because she'd burnt the coffee.
“I think I'm going to take the long way 'round,” she said as they came to a smaller path. “It's one of my favorite walks.”
“Don't you want to get to your mother?” he asked.
“Yes, but-”
“You don't want to be seen with me. Afraid what they'll think of you, are you?”
“What?” Rose frowned at his attitude. “John, it's not like that.” He bristled.
“Better start calling me Dr. Smith again, or you'll arouse suspicion,” he said. “Don't want them to think you're a prostitute like your mum, right? And one with such low standards?”
Eyes wide, she moved to slap him, but he grabbed her wrist and flung it aside. “You better not. Wouldn't want you hurting yourself,” he said, but it sounded the opposite of his caring suggestion of last night.
Rose huffed, staring at him, waiting for him to take it back. “You must know nothing about me, Dr. Smith. Have a nice day in town,” she finally said, turning and hurrying down the longer path.
The walk gave her time to dry her eyes, wondering what on earth had gotten to him. What had she done? The day before had been so nice- and it had been so kind of him to let her come visit her mum, to trust her like that- she wondered if he was pushing her away for some reason.
Her issues with John flew from her mind when she was ushered into her old home by a worried Jenny, the caretaker of the salon.
“Oh Rose, thank God you are here! Your mother's been asking after you for a week, I'm afraid she's fallen ill...”
She rushed into the house to find her mum had quite the fever. The hours passed quickly as Rose tended to her mum, trying to cheer her up with stories of what she got up to with John. She exaggerated tales of his terrible housekeeping, but Jackie knew better. “What aren't you telling me, Rose?”
Smiling, she shrugged a little, and cuddled close to her mother. “He's quite the storyteller, is all. He made a story about a man called the Doctor, a man who can change his face and travel all through space. It's very fantastical, like something you'd read in a storybook. The Doctor meets all sorts of foes and beats them with his wit,” she said, smiling.
“That's lovely, dear. Why don't you tell me one of the stories?” Jackie smiled, seeming relieved that there was some pleasantness to Rose's new life.
“Okay. One day, the Doctor landed his great ship on the moon, but as soon as he landed, he knew something was wrong...” Rose didn't get very far into the story before Jackie was snoring softly.
Jackie, as it turned out, was not as sick as Jenny had worried- the both of them were prone to dramatics, though, and Rose would not be surprised if her mother just worried herself to death over Rose. Still, she decided to sleep there for the night, to make sure.
She worried about John as she drifted off. They'd fought but she wasn't mad - just worried and confused. What had gotten into him? Was it going to be made worse because she stayed with her mum? Rose's resolve grew when she thought that. If he couldn't trust her enough to stay with her mum one night when she was ill, after everything, he could suffer along without her. She felt the watch glowing hot in her pocket and took it out, stuffing it under her pillow grumpily.
“Why are you so angry?” she asked dream John by the open doors of the blue box. Try as she might, she never manged to peek around him to see it all- space, stars, time.
“I'm not. Open the watch - you'll see,” he promised before it all disappeared in the morning light.
The next morning she bid her ailing mother goodbye, knowing she had to get back before John sacked her. Her bravado from the night before had all but disappeared, and she missed him, wondering if he'd dreamt last night and she hadn't been there to take it down. Her mum would be fine, under Jenny's watchful eye. Jenny promised to send an update along within a week, and Rose took the shortcut to John's that she had once advised him of.
The closer she got to the house, the hotter her watch got. She took it out to look at it and felt compelled to open it, like dream John was always telling her to. But she'd tried that before, hadn't she? What a weird timepiece. She slipped it into her bag so it wouldn't bother her, and continued on. Her route looked like it would lead her right into the backyard, which she hadn't explored much- mostly because it was so overgrown.
Stepping over some brush and trying to be careful not to rip her dress, Rose stumbled a bit, coming up on the yard. She caught herself on what must have been part of a fence, and used it to drag herself over the pile of brambles. She grumbled to herself and looked up. A flash of blue caught her eye and she turned around to see that her bit of fence was a blue box, standing tall and proud, if covered in vines and dirt.
“The blue box,” she breathed, rushing back over to it, not sure if it meant the stories were real or if this was just the inspiration for them. But there was a door.
When she stepped inside, she felt overwhelmed and at home at the same time. It was bigger on the inside, but familiar to her, too- both from John's stories and her dreams. How had she known that it would be like this? She ran her hands along the coral, and laughed a little, hysterically. Her voice stirred something, the doors slamming shut, and an image of John appearing in front of her.
“Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9. If you're seeing this, you need to open the fob watch. My life could depend on it.”
“What?” Rose asked frantically, pulling the watch from her bag, feeling weak and woozy. “What? How are you talking to me? John?”
“Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9. If you're seeing this, you need to open the fob watch. My life could depend on it.”
“Bollocks,” Rose said, “You're no help.”
“Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9. If you're seeing this, you need to open the fob watch. My life could depend on it.”
Rose groaned and rushed to the other side of the room for more hints, but wasn't sure what she was looking for. She found long corridors leading into darkness and char marks and violent gouges on the walls. This was the blue box of the stories, and it had been through a war. It was all true.
She felt helpless- but- it was John standing there, telling her to open the watch, and this time she was awake. She trusted him. She had to do it. Holding the hot watch in her hand, she had a strange feeling of inevitability - and that if she opened this watch, maybe dream John could explain everything to her. He was always so consistent in her dreams. She wished he were there, and slid a nail under the lid of the watch, effortlessly opening it.
There was a bright light and a sound like a roaring fire, and she wasn't sure what happened next, because she fainted.
Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9 had finally stopped when Rose woke up, cursing herself. She scrambled up to the doors, only knowing she had to find John.
She ran into the house from the backdoor to find it empty. There were plates of food untouched on the dinner table in the nice dining room and candles melted down to the holder. The front door was open, and she raced out.
“Rose! Get back!” he yelled before she spotted him, fighting with an older man.
“Leave him alone for twenty-four hours and he angers the neighbors again,” she said to herself, looking around frantically until she spotted the umbrella holder by the front door. Lifting the ceramic improvised weapon, she ran towards where John was grappling with Paul, the barkeep, and starting to lose. “Oi! Get off him,” she called as a warning, but Paul barely gave her a glance. She hefted the thing over her head and cracked it over his back, dropping him to the ground.
She gasped for air, grinning at John and feeling a little manic.
“Fantastic, Rose! Now really, get behind me!” he grabbed her by the waist and pushed her away from Paul, who was starting to stir. He dropped to his knees and wrenched something off of Paul's belt, which bore a passing resemblance to a pistol.
“Are you going to shoot him?” Rose asked, watching as two more people appeared from the woods.
“Listen closely, Rose, and try to stay calm,” he whispered. “They're possessed. They found me- I've been trying to hide, but I knew it wouldn't last long. You opened the watch, didn't you? Good job. Now, take this, and press this button if any of them get close to you. We have to get them back to their ship.” He handed her an object she recognized from the Journal as the sonic screwdriver.
She pressed the button as a test, and two of the assailants fell to their knees in pain. “Rose!” he admonished, but was oddly grinning. Then he took her hand and ran, dragging her into the woods. The - aliens, she supposed - followed. “Perfect, it's not far,” John said, “are you okay?”
She gasped for air in response, nodding a little. “I think so!”
“Hide over there, Rose.”
“No, I want to help,” she said.
“You've done enough!” he barked, and pushed her again towards a copse of trees. “This needs to be me. It's okay. I have a plan.” Somehow, the words did not comfort her.
He entered their ship, leaving Rose no choice but to hide behind the trees he'd indicated. Soon, the four people ran after him, into the ship. It was quiet for a long moment and Rose itched to run after John, but she didn't have anything heavy to throw this time.
John burst from the doors of the ship, bellowing. “Run for your life, Rose!” She jumped up and ran towards him, only to have him grab her hand and again drag her the other way down the path. Seconds later they were thrown off their feet by an enormous explosion, rocking the woods. A few trees crashed down around them and John rolled over, shielding her with his body as they both caught their breath.
“Hello, Rose. I'm the Doctor. But I bet you figured that out already, you clever girl.”
“Might have done,” she mumbled, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him down for a kiss. The fire started to catch but she didn't want to let go, not yet. His mouth tasted like time and want, lips sliding across hers, finally, sweetly. She sighed, turning his kiss frantic, and Rose's body burned like the trees around them.
“Rose, get up. This is getting dangerous,” John- the Doctor- finally said, wrenching himself away from her, and pulling himself up. She laughed, still feeling a little hysterical, and let him help her to the house. He shut the door behind her.
“You look exhausted,” he said.
“Oh, I'm fine, just discovered that you travel through space and time in that shed that's in the backyard, and then saved you from some aliens that I've lived next to for eighteen years,” Rose said, falling into her usual seat at the kitchen table.
“You should go to bed.”
Rose didn't like the look in his eye. This Doctor, in the stories- he always ran away. She was not going to let him run from her.
“No. I want to know the rest. Why did you lie to me?”
The Doctor sat, too. “I was lying to myself as well,” he said. “Those aliens who possessed your neighbors, they are Time Lord poachers. I hid my Time Lord self inside that watch to keep myself safe. I knew that they had somehow heard I was the last Time Lord- and they wanted to claim me before anyone else did, before I got back all my strength from the Time War.”
He suddenly looked as exhausted as he felt. “And to be honest, I was glad for the break. To be someone else.”
“You didn't forget entirely,” Rose said, glancing at her stack of papers, wondering what would happen to it now. If she could keep it= if he would leave. “If I haven't been listening to these stories for months, I would think you are mad. As it is, I think I might be the mad one.”
“You are, a bit, to still be here.”
“I saw your ship. Emergency Protocol 64-Apple-9.”
“I figured. Thank you. John would have been dead without you. Me, too. Time Lords wouldn't usually tuck themselves away like that without someone else to watch over them.”
“But there is no one else,” she finished, and he looked pained. “Good thing you've got me.”
“Yeah.” He smiled a bit. “Go to bed, Rose.”
“Come with me,” she asked, tugging on his hand. He complied easily enough, looking too tired to argue. Her heart broke for him- this lonely man she'd been hearing about for months, suddenly a reality instead of a metaphor. He sat on the bed and watched her take her shoes off with mild interest. She knelt before him then, unlacing his own.
“You don't have to be alone,” she said, easing the shoes off and looking up at him. “You don't have to run.”
He hummed indistinctly, pulling her up and wrapping his arms around her, laying his cheek on her stomach. She ran her hands over his shorn hair, sighing to finally feel his arms around her, to know him like this. She slid down to sit on his knee, holding his head to her chest now. They sat like that for a quiet moment, the Doctor breathing heavily as though fighting back pain.
“I can't stay,” he said finally.
“Hush,” Rose said, not wanting to hear it, to have another new reality break this fragile one she already loved so much. “Let's rest. You can be unreasonable and brash in the morning.” She scooted back onto her duvet, patting the space beside her and, resigned, the Doctor joined her.
Rose woke hours later before the dawn, the Doctor's long arms wrapped around her loosely. He looked at peace for once, and she knew then that she was not letting him leave without her. She didn't want to wake him, but she also couldn't lay there with her worries hovering over them. They were safe from the poachers, but now everything was going to change.
She wiggled out of the bed, managing not to disturb him, and put a fresh dress on. Feeling melancholy, she went about her morning motions, putting the coffee on and finding a fresh piece of paper.
She was doodling on the sheet with her coffee when the Doctor appeared, his shirt half-opened and a genuine smile on his face. Rose felt her face flush at the sight, warmth pooling in her belly. What a difference a good night's sleep could make.
“Oh, good, you're ready to dictate,” he said. Rose scrambled for her supplies as he fetched himself a mug of coffee.
“There is a woman, far too young and beautiful for me,” he began, settling into the chair across from her. She blushed. “She has haunted my dreams for many months, flitting in and out of the darkest moments of my life, making them that much brighter with her golden hair and uncontrollable cheek.”
She laughed a little. “Doctor, stop-”
“Quiet, I am dictating.” She giggled a little but his dark look shut her up. She squirmed in her seat. “Last night, I slept with my head on her breast and had nothing but the sweetest dreams. For the first time in this body I slept soundly- dreaming of her. Her mouth-” she chanced a look at him, to find he was leaning forward, one hand clutched tightly around his mug and the other halfway across the table, as though he'd made to grab her and changed his mind. “kissing me, absolving me of my wrongdoings and loss. Her body, making me forget my names-”
Rose's hip banged painfully into the table in her haste to get around it. He watched her, surprise stilling his reaction, and what, did he expect her to be able to sit through that? She threw herself at him, forcing his chair to fall back against the wall as she straddled him. He caught them with a hand on the table and another at her waist, stilling her, and meeting her lips with a furious kiss. She gasped and he took his chance, sliding his tongue into her warm mouth, groaning.
“Doctor,” she sighed when she had to take a breath, and he traced kisses down her neck.
“Thank you, Rose,” he murmured, sliding his hand under her dress. “Let me take you to bed.”
“Yes,” she gasped, but stayed on his lap, kissing him on his mouth, his cheeks, his prominent ears.
He stood then, lifting her easily into his arms and taking the short walk back to her bed, even as she sucked on a spot under his ear. The Doctor dropped her onto the bed, and she giggled, bouncing, before sitting up and throwing her dress over her head and across the room. She watched as he gazed at her naked body, feeling shy but emboldened by his stare. Impatiently, Rose reached out to begin taking his shirt off the rest of the way, while the Doctor finally snapped to attention and worked on his trousers. They were naked and under the covers so quickly she'd later accuse him of time travel.
“Doctor, I've wanted you for ages,” she said, gasping as he bit at her collarbone gently.
“Oh, Rose. Me too,” he propped himself over her, hand skimming down over a breast, pausing to thumb at her nipple before continuing down to her hip. She moaned throatily and his hand quickly found its way back to her breast. She slammed her eyes shut, moaning again, never having been touched so thoroughly and effectively before. “You're beautiful,” he whispered, nuzzling at her neck as he continued touching, like he wanted to feel every inch of her skin. Rose felt dizzy as she tried to return the favor, feeling the strong cords of muscle under her hands as they skimmed down his back and up his sides, favoring his strong shoulders.
“Please,” she whispered, unsurprised at how wet and ready she was for this. The Doctor slid his length between her thighs, causing her to clutch at his back. Finally, he was finally going to have her- and in the next moment he slid inside, joining them together. His groan echoed against the walls and he dropped his face into the crook of her neck.
He murmured nonsense, something about constellations and oh, god, as he pulled out and then pushed in again. She was nearly silent at first, surprised and overwhelmed by how right it felt, toes curling from the pleasure. His hips canted back and his next thrust was more forceful. She cried out then, and he chuckled something that sounded like 'that's better.' He set up a pace that more than worked for Rose and she began meeting his hips with hers, desperately moving, trying to find that perfect rhythm.
His hand snuck between them and she gasped in question when she felt his fingers pressing into the spot right above where they met. “Doctor!” she cried out, coming around him after just one more circle of his fingers, scraping her nails down his back as he followed her into his own orgasm.
She panted into the pillow, shuddering as the Doctor's hands traveled aimlessly over her body.
When Rose was finally able to speak again, she pushed her hair out of her face and looked at the Doctor, to find him with his eyes closed, face flushed, looking more appealing than perhaps he ever had. She kissed a bead of sweat from his neck, getting his attention.
“So, what else happened in this dream?”
“Dream? … Oh,” he suddenly looked a little shy. “I asked you to come with me. Away from here.”
“What did I say?”
“You tell me,” he said, running a hand gently over her cheek.
“Of course I said yes, are you mad?” she grinned. “I want nothing more than to go on adventures with you. You wouldn't be able to leave without me.”
He sat up, an exuberant smile on his face. “Yes! Fantastic, Rose, get dressed!”
“What, now?” she asked, laughing a little and pulling the sheets up to cover her chest.
“Yes, now! I am going to show you the death of a star - it's glorious. And then the birth of one! And then we can go see the future, if you want- the universe is yours.” She loved the look on his face- so hopeful and so unlike the man she'd seen defeated yesterday.
She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him down, kissing him slowly and wetly, until he sank back onto the bed and took hold of her hips again. Grinning, Rose slid away and grabbed her dress, leaving him looking aroused and confused, but happy. “Let's go then, Doctor! Show me the universe.”
They dressed and ran from the house hand in hand, disappearing into the blue box.