(no subject)
son of gallifrey, Eleven/Rose (PG)
A gentle hum of warm, quiet joy spreads through this body's cells and he feels like he is floating among the stars (a sensation he is not unfamiliar with, but it had never felt quite like this) even as he finally cries. 1, 300
A/N: A scene from their life in Narnia; a companion of sorts to daughter of eve.
Eventually, he talks. He whispers and mumbles and spills his secrets into her empty hands. He dares to walk into memories that once a upon a time he had run from; that is how much he fears them, but he faces them anyways. The Doctor isn't sure why he does. She holds him while he mourns and drops kisses into his unruly hair as he summons the strength for heartbreaking confessions. Rose listens, warm and alive and so very much there, and does not tell him it is okay that Rory is gone, has never existed to begin with, and Amy will live with an aching heart without ever knowing why.
She lets his tears wet her shoulder and holds these brittle pieces of him together by the sheer miracle of being Rose.
Her brown eyes glow with a love so bright he forgets that stars even exist. "I would have done it too," she says and he looks at her, wild horror stark on his pale face. Rose reminds him, defiant, that hadn't she done something similar once? Because he is the Doctor and she is Rose and Rory was Rory and isn't that, at the very least, okay? And, she adds gently, they have done their fair share of the impossible too. A gentle hum of warm, quiet joy spreads through this body's cells and he feels like he is floating among the stars (a sensation he is not unfamiliar with, but it had never felt quite like this) even as he finally cries.
Later he realizes that it feels a bit like being forgiven somehow, but she distracts him from that thought by pointing at a young fawn in the distance. "Do you think it can talk too?"
"Rose," he admonishes, "That was very rude." He does his best to look dignified in his bow-tie and bracers (in her private opinion, she loves them because they are very good for hooking her fingers into). It had taken her half a day to talk him out of the tweed, but really, she finds he looks younger somehow. Lighter. It has nothing at all to do with regeneration's gift of a new face and new clothes and everything to do with how his eyes are smiling for once.
Narnia suits him, she thinks, because it reminds him with magic and wonder that there are still things he doesn't know. In fact, he has launched into a rambling lecture on deer and vocal chords and science (there must be some sort of nanogen at work, he insists). She takes this time to relearn his features, frame by frame, tracing the lines of his profile as they lie here in the grass. His monologue is interrupted by a giant sneeze and she dissolves into giggles as he glares at the menacing blades of green-green grass.
"It's all this foreign pollen!" His voice falls just this side of whining and she laughs helplessly at the half-offended, half-baffled expression he makes. Frantically, he shakes his head as he is racked by a series of sneezes and sometime during this manages to bang into her forehead. She cries out and lunges for him, limber and graceful from the beginnings of Torchwood training. A ridiculous tickle war ensues and the small, brown doe darts into the trees, no doubt rolling her eyes at what a pair of odd humans considers fun. They roll around happily, sun in their skin and earth in their bones, filled with each other's joy, and laugh until the day grows old.
When they are walking home, he suddenly stops beside her and she lags a step, a bit out of practice with his abrupt halts and starts (and all those tricky bits in between). His hand tightens reflexively around her fingers though, so she doesn't even have the time to think the rest of that through. "Oh! Oh, what was it! Oh, oh, oh! Think, brain, think!" She watches as his brow furrows, deep lines appearing in its wake, and the way his lips part in true Doctor-ish-ly form. A hand rips through his hair haphazardly, tugging in frustration, and his mouth is going kilometers a second. "Something obvious, something magnificent and brilliant, oh COME ON," he cries.
"Doctor?" She says his name hesitantly, savoring the syllables, the sounds. It is certain sort of pleasure just to say his name.
"I cannot believe I've gone and forgotten it." He sounds crestfallen and a bit stunned that his mighty Time Lord mind could ever fail him, but then he looks at her. He looks at her and doesn't say a thing. Rose lets him because he has yet to let go of her hand once tonight. Enlightenment strikes and it is the same infectious grin he has always used to convince her of the impossible - he doesn't need it anymore, since she is willing to jump headfirst into anything as long as he is there, but it is still nice to see.
"Oh, OH RUN, RUN," he screams (not with fear, no, but with anticipation, with summer and hope sparkling in his voice) and he drags her halfway through the forest before he relents and comes to a stop.
She feels his hand slipping from hers and she almost protests, but he's behind her in an instant, long fingers pressed urgently over her eyes, cool palms cupping her flushed cheeks. "It would be nice to know why we are running for our lives next time," she comments wryly, words breathy from the pace he had set. There are leaves stuck in her hair where dark roots are growing darker. To be fair, a few strands off her head are dangling among leaves on a tree branch somewhere.
"In a minute. And it wasn't precisely for our lives, but we would have - oh, never mind. Hush please."
They stand still and silent - doing something neither of them particularly like. They wait. Time passes.
He draws his hands away and breathes into the shell of her ear. "Look up, Rose Tyler."
She sees a tree of stars. Shining, incandescent balls of light dot the red leaves and she stands in complete and total awe. "What is that?"
"What does it look like?" For his smugness he gets a not-so-light tap in the stomach, compliments of her elbow, and he concedes the point to her.
"Really, what is it?" If she wasn't so amazed, she'd be irritated with him, but she doesn't have the heart for it.
"A tree of stars. No, really," he rushes to say the last part at her small sound of disbelief. "This is Narnia, after all. Inexplicable things happen all the time."
"What, like a police box that's bigger on the inside?"
"No. That's just because the TARDIS is a spectacular work of Time Lord technology. This is more like miracles."
His hands are new and warm on the curve of her waist, his nose longer and his chin bonier; not the same, but not wrong either. He buries his face into the crook of her neck and it is like gears shifting, sorrows melting, until her heart has formed a perfect-Doctor shaped space for him to click into. "Miracles, Rose," he repeats and even though he never says them, she rather thinks that his entire body is bent into three silent words all around her.
A gentle hum of warm, quiet joy spreads through this body's cells and he feels like he is floating among the stars (a sensation he is not unfamiliar with, but it had never felt quite like this) even as he finally cries. 1, 300
A/N: A scene from their life in Narnia; a companion of sorts to daughter of eve.
Eventually, he talks. He whispers and mumbles and spills his secrets into her empty hands. He dares to walk into memories that once a upon a time he had run from; that is how much he fears them, but he faces them anyways. The Doctor isn't sure why he does. She holds him while he mourns and drops kisses into his unruly hair as he summons the strength for heartbreaking confessions. Rose listens, warm and alive and so very much there, and does not tell him it is okay that Rory is gone, has never existed to begin with, and Amy will live with an aching heart without ever knowing why.
She lets his tears wet her shoulder and holds these brittle pieces of him together by the sheer miracle of being Rose.
Her brown eyes glow with a love so bright he forgets that stars even exist. "I would have done it too," she says and he looks at her, wild horror stark on his pale face. Rose reminds him, defiant, that hadn't she done something similar once? Because he is the Doctor and she is Rose and Rory was Rory and isn't that, at the very least, okay? And, she adds gently, they have done their fair share of the impossible too. A gentle hum of warm, quiet joy spreads through this body's cells and he feels like he is floating among the stars (a sensation he is not unfamiliar with, but it had never felt quite like this) even as he finally cries.
Later he realizes that it feels a bit like being forgiven somehow, but she distracts him from that thought by pointing at a young fawn in the distance. "Do you think it can talk too?"
"Rose," he admonishes, "That was very rude." He does his best to look dignified in his bow-tie and bracers (in her private opinion, she loves them because they are very good for hooking her fingers into). It had taken her half a day to talk him out of the tweed, but really, she finds he looks younger somehow. Lighter. It has nothing at all to do with regeneration's gift of a new face and new clothes and everything to do with how his eyes are smiling for once.
Narnia suits him, she thinks, because it reminds him with magic and wonder that there are still things he doesn't know. In fact, he has launched into a rambling lecture on deer and vocal chords and science (there must be some sort of nanogen at work, he insists). She takes this time to relearn his features, frame by frame, tracing the lines of his profile as they lie here in the grass. His monologue is interrupted by a giant sneeze and she dissolves into giggles as he glares at the menacing blades of green-green grass.
"It's all this foreign pollen!" His voice falls just this side of whining and she laughs helplessly at the half-offended, half-baffled expression he makes. Frantically, he shakes his head as he is racked by a series of sneezes and sometime during this manages to bang into her forehead. She cries out and lunges for him, limber and graceful from the beginnings of Torchwood training. A ridiculous tickle war ensues and the small, brown doe darts into the trees, no doubt rolling her eyes at what a pair of odd humans considers fun. They roll around happily, sun in their skin and earth in their bones, filled with each other's joy, and laugh until the day grows old.
When they are walking home, he suddenly stops beside her and she lags a step, a bit out of practice with his abrupt halts and starts (and all those tricky bits in between). His hand tightens reflexively around her fingers though, so she doesn't even have the time to think the rest of that through. "Oh! Oh, what was it! Oh, oh, oh! Think, brain, think!" She watches as his brow furrows, deep lines appearing in its wake, and the way his lips part in true Doctor-ish-ly form. A hand rips through his hair haphazardly, tugging in frustration, and his mouth is going kilometers a second. "Something obvious, something magnificent and brilliant, oh COME ON," he cries.
"Doctor?" She says his name hesitantly, savoring the syllables, the sounds. It is certain sort of pleasure just to say his name.
"I cannot believe I've gone and forgotten it." He sounds crestfallen and a bit stunned that his mighty Time Lord mind could ever fail him, but then he looks at her. He looks at her and doesn't say a thing. Rose lets him because he has yet to let go of her hand once tonight. Enlightenment strikes and it is the same infectious grin he has always used to convince her of the impossible - he doesn't need it anymore, since she is willing to jump headfirst into anything as long as he is there, but it is still nice to see.
"Oh, OH RUN, RUN," he screams (not with fear, no, but with anticipation, with summer and hope sparkling in his voice) and he drags her halfway through the forest before he relents and comes to a stop.
She feels his hand slipping from hers and she almost protests, but he's behind her in an instant, long fingers pressed urgently over her eyes, cool palms cupping her flushed cheeks. "It would be nice to know why we are running for our lives next time," she comments wryly, words breathy from the pace he had set. There are leaves stuck in her hair where dark roots are growing darker. To be fair, a few strands off her head are dangling among leaves on a tree branch somewhere.
"In a minute. And it wasn't precisely for our lives, but we would have - oh, never mind. Hush please."
They stand still and silent - doing something neither of them particularly like. They wait. Time passes.
He draws his hands away and breathes into the shell of her ear. "Look up, Rose Tyler."
She sees a tree of stars. Shining, incandescent balls of light dot the red leaves and she stands in complete and total awe. "What is that?"
"What does it look like?" For his smugness he gets a not-so-light tap in the stomach, compliments of her elbow, and he concedes the point to her.
"Really, what is it?" If she wasn't so amazed, she'd be irritated with him, but she doesn't have the heart for it.
"A tree of stars. No, really," he rushes to say the last part at her small sound of disbelief. "This is Narnia, after all. Inexplicable things happen all the time."
"What, like a police box that's bigger on the inside?"
"No. That's just because the TARDIS is a spectacular work of Time Lord technology. This is more like miracles."
His hands are new and warm on the curve of her waist, his nose longer and his chin bonier; not the same, but not wrong either. He buries his face into the crook of her neck and it is like gears shifting, sorrows melting, until her heart has formed a perfect-Doctor shaped space for him to click into. "Miracles, Rose," he repeats and even though he never says them, she rather thinks that his entire body is bent into three silent words all around her.