(no subject)
no matter how your heart is grieving, ten/rose, teen
He’d been almost positive she was a hallucination when this particular blonde suddenly appeared before him in her flowing blue Cinderella gown, head tilted and soft brown eyes sparkling beneath her mask., 1872
He’s dancing with her. He’s dancing with Rose. Or, at least, he’s doing his very best to imagine he is.
Time - linear, human time is a slippery thing aboard the TARDIS, but he thinks it must be a little over a year since he left her sobbing in a parallel Norway, since he told her, “you can’t”. So, she can’t. This can’t be his Rose, this Cinderella in his arms. It eases the ache a bit, though, if he pretends she might be his. Just for a little while. Just for tonight.
It was Donna’s idea that they come here, to Disney (the planet, not the theme park). He knows she’s trying to pull him out of his funk, requesting the happiest planet in the universe, and he’s endlessly grateful for her tolerance of this dark mood he’s been in. He has to admit, this planet’s deep-fried bananas are among the best, and their Space Mountain is far superior to any other. He knew Donna was truly concerned when she agreed to ride it with him.
After many hours of wild rides and sugary snacks (he will admit, too, that Donna made a valiant and educated attempt at distracting him), night fell and Donna insisted they attend this masquerade ball. He’d agreed grudgingly, secretly intending to wait an appropriate amount of time before conveniently losing Donna in the crowd and then returning to the TARDIS to mope in peace until she’d had enough dancing.
He’d been waiting at the edge of the dance floor, absentmindedly scanning the crowded ballroom for glimpses of peroxide blonde. It’s something he does without thinking now, no matter how unlikely the time or place, and he’s done it often enough that he can almost ignore the cold twist in his stomach every time he’s disappointed by another unfamiliar face.
He’d been almost positive she was a hallucination when this particular blonde suddenly appeared before him in her flowing blue Cinderella gown, head tilted and soft brown eyes sparkling beneath her mask.
Nervously fingering the silver charm around her neck, she’d said something about how they should definitely dance together, her words sounding more like a matter of fact than a question. His mind struggled to make sense of her even as his body accepted her invitation (he was dressed, implausibly, as Prince Charming, after all). But as achingly familiar as she was, this couldn’t be his Rose.
Still, one of his hands holds hers and the other maps the curve of her back, coasting down an impossible number of tiny round buttons to finally rest at her waist. She’s warm and soft and somehow very nearly right in his arms, and his eyes can’t help taking in the creamy, white skin of her shoulders and neck, the curve of her lips, the warmth in her gaze. He’s afraid to look too closely, to examine her face too carefully, for fear of breaking the illusion.
She won’t tell him her name, and when he asks what she’s doing here, she only gives him that teasing smile and a tale of a fairy godmother and evil stepsisters. He’s not exactly forthcoming himself, having somewhat misplaced the power of coherent speech, and she doesn’t press. Instead, he holds her, she holds him right back, and they move together across the crowded dance floor, the quiet between them making it that much easier to pretend.
He means to let go of her, very soon, but one dance turns into just one more, and another after that, and though he’s terrified to think about it too thoroughly, his mind floods with possible explanations for this, for her. Time is wibbly-wobbly and potentially paradoxically dangerous. He knows this, but here he is anyway, broken hearts hammering improbably in double-time. Surely she can feel it, the way he’s holding her.
He tries to focus only on the stroke of her thumb against his shoulder, her warm breath on his cheek, but the questions bleed through. He’s nearly positive he never came here with her, with his Rose. But… could he have? He’s quite sure there’s no Time Lord here but him. He’d feel it, feel himself here, if there were another of him. Reluctantly, he racks his brain, listens for echoes in timelines. There’s nothing there, and she either doesn’t know him or is doing a very good job of pretending.
Donna catches his eye as the slow passage of their waltz takes them near her, and even under her mask, he can tell she looks approving, looks pleased that she believes he’s allowing himself to dance with something more than memories. He swallows against a sharp pang of guilt and steers Cinderella in the other direction.
This must somehow be a Rose even if it can’t be his Rose. Her mask obscures much of her face, but his body insists it knows these hands, these arms, insists it already knows how to hold this woman, and he has to resist the impulse to pull her into a dizzying, bone-crushing hug, breathing her in and forgetting the rest of the universe, so much colder since she’s been gone. Wryly, he speculates it was only ever a short trip from wistful to delusional, at least for him.
Her hand slips to the back of his neck, fingers gently stroking, and he lets himself wonder, just for a moment, if she’d take him home, allow him to pretend for just a few hours longer. If she’d let him unfasten every tiny button of her gown, if she’d let her body know his in a way his Rose’s never did. He’s immediately appalled at himself, and he knows he needs to let her go. Just as he’s reached this terrible conclusion, the clock strikes midnight and her steps falter.
“I need to go,” she tells him apologetically, making no move to leave his arms. If anything, she takes half a step closer. If anything, she melts into his embrace just a fraction more.
He braces himself under a fresh wave of loss. Don’t go, he thinks. But she’s not his. “Quite right,” he offers instead, forcing his face to smile. “Midnight.” His hand wants to tug at his hair, but that would require removing it from her waist, would require letting her go moments before he has to.
“Yeah, s’midnight.” She bites her lip. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” He feels as if his lungs aren’t working properly.
“Unless - well… it wouldn’t have to be midnight, if you had a time machine.” Her voice offers this bizarre condition as a throwaway, as a joke, but her eyes are dark and desperately hopeful. “I used to know a bloke who had one,” she offers by way of explanation.
He stops breathing. “Rose?” he whispers. The name tumbles from his lips without conscious thought. His body flashes cold and hot and he’s suddenly aware that he’s clutching at her hard enough to leave bruises.
“Are you-” she breathes.
“Yes,” he interrupts, his mind spinning. She’s trembling in his arms, or maybe that’s him. Maybe it's both of them.
She shakes her head furiously. “No, but are you really - are you my Doctor, are you the right one - is this the right time?”
She’s been searching for a while. She’s had a few disappointments, a few dangerously close calls. Their words tumble together as they cling to each other, as they confirm details, double-check whens and wheres and whos and determine yes, this is safe, yes, they’re the right ones. He’s a little frightened to imagine what he would have done if they hadn’t been, and from the look in her eyes, she feels the same.
The second they’re sure, he crushes her against him the way he’s been wanting to, the way he’s been missing for so long, and the part of his brain still capable of thought points out that he really never spent enough time memorizing the fantastic feel of her when he had the chance.
As soon as he can bear to, he pulls away enough to divest her of her mask, drinks her in, memorizes every tiny change in her face. Now that he allows himself to look closely, he can see she looks exhausted under her wide, teary smile.
She assures him that she won’t turn into a pumpkin and he promises never to send her to any universe where he isn’t, ever again. It’s an easy thing to agree to, especially as he’s still not sure how he managed to do it the first time. She rather expertly dodges the question of how exactly she came to be here, telling him it doesn’t matter, because she won’t need to do it again.
She teases him for his costume, and he laughs, shakes his head. “Donna’s idea -” he begins and then stops short at the look in Rose’s eyes. “No, it’s not like that - I couldn’t - Rose, she’ll love you,” he assures her.
And then, well. He’s absolutely not letting go of her, and she doesn’t have anywhere she needs to be but here, so they dance, into the wee hours. They dance while he thinks about how much time he spent, Before, holding her at arm’s length, and vows to spend far more time just holding her in his arms.
Holding her body against his, breathing her in, he wants more, and somehow it doesn’t terrify him the way it used to. There’s plenty of time for that later, though. Or, at least that’s what he tries to tell her, mumbles it against her mouth moments after her lips find his. Rose disagrees. Her mouth is insistent and her fingers are impatient and his resolve is crumbled embarrassingly quickly by her hot breath on his lips when she whispers, “Please, now.”
Hand in hand, giggling like children, they make it out of the ballroom, but not back to the TARDIS, and he silently acknowledges that yes, he’s imagined their first time might be up against some wall, somewhere.
There’s no time for buttons, as it turns out, and instead, they wrestle with her voluminous skirts, struggling to bring their bodies as close together as possible. She laughs out loud at the look of triumph on his face when he finally finds her under mountains of tulle.
It’s quick and clumsy and brilliant, and much louder than he’d intended. As they collapse against each other afterwards, both still catching their breath, he wonders exactly how long is a polite amount of time to wait before suggesting they try it again.
Eventually, they make their way back to the TARDIS. She drops his hand to wrap her arm around his waist, and he leans down to kiss the crown of her head, watching the way the fading moonlight makes her hair shine. He thinks it won’t be a hard habit to break, searching for blonde heads in crowds, searching for that one girl who fits an abandoned glass slipper. He has eyes only for this blonde, and he doesn’t ever intend to let her out of his sight again.
He’d been almost positive she was a hallucination when this particular blonde suddenly appeared before him in her flowing blue Cinderella gown, head tilted and soft brown eyes sparkling beneath her mask., 1872
He’s dancing with her. He’s dancing with Rose. Or, at least, he’s doing his very best to imagine he is.
Time - linear, human time is a slippery thing aboard the TARDIS, but he thinks it must be a little over a year since he left her sobbing in a parallel Norway, since he told her, “you can’t”. So, she can’t. This can’t be his Rose, this Cinderella in his arms. It eases the ache a bit, though, if he pretends she might be his. Just for a little while. Just for tonight.
It was Donna’s idea that they come here, to Disney (the planet, not the theme park). He knows she’s trying to pull him out of his funk, requesting the happiest planet in the universe, and he’s endlessly grateful for her tolerance of this dark mood he’s been in. He has to admit, this planet’s deep-fried bananas are among the best, and their Space Mountain is far superior to any other. He knew Donna was truly concerned when she agreed to ride it with him.
After many hours of wild rides and sugary snacks (he will admit, too, that Donna made a valiant and educated attempt at distracting him), night fell and Donna insisted they attend this masquerade ball. He’d agreed grudgingly, secretly intending to wait an appropriate amount of time before conveniently losing Donna in the crowd and then returning to the TARDIS to mope in peace until she’d had enough dancing.
He’d been waiting at the edge of the dance floor, absentmindedly scanning the crowded ballroom for glimpses of peroxide blonde. It’s something he does without thinking now, no matter how unlikely the time or place, and he’s done it often enough that he can almost ignore the cold twist in his stomach every time he’s disappointed by another unfamiliar face.
He’d been almost positive she was a hallucination when this particular blonde suddenly appeared before him in her flowing blue Cinderella gown, head tilted and soft brown eyes sparkling beneath her mask.
Nervously fingering the silver charm around her neck, she’d said something about how they should definitely dance together, her words sounding more like a matter of fact than a question. His mind struggled to make sense of her even as his body accepted her invitation (he was dressed, implausibly, as Prince Charming, after all). But as achingly familiar as she was, this couldn’t be his Rose.
Still, one of his hands holds hers and the other maps the curve of her back, coasting down an impossible number of tiny round buttons to finally rest at her waist. She’s warm and soft and somehow very nearly right in his arms, and his eyes can’t help taking in the creamy, white skin of her shoulders and neck, the curve of her lips, the warmth in her gaze. He’s afraid to look too closely, to examine her face too carefully, for fear of breaking the illusion.
She won’t tell him her name, and when he asks what she’s doing here, she only gives him that teasing smile and a tale of a fairy godmother and evil stepsisters. He’s not exactly forthcoming himself, having somewhat misplaced the power of coherent speech, and she doesn’t press. Instead, he holds her, she holds him right back, and they move together across the crowded dance floor, the quiet between them making it that much easier to pretend.
He means to let go of her, very soon, but one dance turns into just one more, and another after that, and though he’s terrified to think about it too thoroughly, his mind floods with possible explanations for this, for her. Time is wibbly-wobbly and potentially paradoxically dangerous. He knows this, but here he is anyway, broken hearts hammering improbably in double-time. Surely she can feel it, the way he’s holding her.
He tries to focus only on the stroke of her thumb against his shoulder, her warm breath on his cheek, but the questions bleed through. He’s nearly positive he never came here with her, with his Rose. But… could he have? He’s quite sure there’s no Time Lord here but him. He’d feel it, feel himself here, if there were another of him. Reluctantly, he racks his brain, listens for echoes in timelines. There’s nothing there, and she either doesn’t know him or is doing a very good job of pretending.
Donna catches his eye as the slow passage of their waltz takes them near her, and even under her mask, he can tell she looks approving, looks pleased that she believes he’s allowing himself to dance with something more than memories. He swallows against a sharp pang of guilt and steers Cinderella in the other direction.
This must somehow be a Rose even if it can’t be his Rose. Her mask obscures much of her face, but his body insists it knows these hands, these arms, insists it already knows how to hold this woman, and he has to resist the impulse to pull her into a dizzying, bone-crushing hug, breathing her in and forgetting the rest of the universe, so much colder since she’s been gone. Wryly, he speculates it was only ever a short trip from wistful to delusional, at least for him.
Her hand slips to the back of his neck, fingers gently stroking, and he lets himself wonder, just for a moment, if she’d take him home, allow him to pretend for just a few hours longer. If she’d let him unfasten every tiny button of her gown, if she’d let her body know his in a way his Rose’s never did. He’s immediately appalled at himself, and he knows he needs to let her go. Just as he’s reached this terrible conclusion, the clock strikes midnight and her steps falter.
“I need to go,” she tells him apologetically, making no move to leave his arms. If anything, she takes half a step closer. If anything, she melts into his embrace just a fraction more.
He braces himself under a fresh wave of loss. Don’t go, he thinks. But she’s not his. “Quite right,” he offers instead, forcing his face to smile. “Midnight.” His hand wants to tug at his hair, but that would require removing it from her waist, would require letting her go moments before he has to.
“Yeah, s’midnight.” She bites her lip. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” He feels as if his lungs aren’t working properly.
“Unless - well… it wouldn’t have to be midnight, if you had a time machine.” Her voice offers this bizarre condition as a throwaway, as a joke, but her eyes are dark and desperately hopeful. “I used to know a bloke who had one,” she offers by way of explanation.
He stops breathing. “Rose?” he whispers. The name tumbles from his lips without conscious thought. His body flashes cold and hot and he’s suddenly aware that he’s clutching at her hard enough to leave bruises.
“Are you-” she breathes.
“Yes,” he interrupts, his mind spinning. She’s trembling in his arms, or maybe that’s him. Maybe it's both of them.
She shakes her head furiously. “No, but are you really - are you my Doctor, are you the right one - is this the right time?”
She’s been searching for a while. She’s had a few disappointments, a few dangerously close calls. Their words tumble together as they cling to each other, as they confirm details, double-check whens and wheres and whos and determine yes, this is safe, yes, they’re the right ones. He’s a little frightened to imagine what he would have done if they hadn’t been, and from the look in her eyes, she feels the same.
The second they’re sure, he crushes her against him the way he’s been wanting to, the way he’s been missing for so long, and the part of his brain still capable of thought points out that he really never spent enough time memorizing the fantastic feel of her when he had the chance.
As soon as he can bear to, he pulls away enough to divest her of her mask, drinks her in, memorizes every tiny change in her face. Now that he allows himself to look closely, he can see she looks exhausted under her wide, teary smile.
She assures him that she won’t turn into a pumpkin and he promises never to send her to any universe where he isn’t, ever again. It’s an easy thing to agree to, especially as he’s still not sure how he managed to do it the first time. She rather expertly dodges the question of how exactly she came to be here, telling him it doesn’t matter, because she won’t need to do it again.
She teases him for his costume, and he laughs, shakes his head. “Donna’s idea -” he begins and then stops short at the look in Rose’s eyes. “No, it’s not like that - I couldn’t - Rose, she’ll love you,” he assures her.
And then, well. He’s absolutely not letting go of her, and she doesn’t have anywhere she needs to be but here, so they dance, into the wee hours. They dance while he thinks about how much time he spent, Before, holding her at arm’s length, and vows to spend far more time just holding her in his arms.
Holding her body against his, breathing her in, he wants more, and somehow it doesn’t terrify him the way it used to. There’s plenty of time for that later, though. Or, at least that’s what he tries to tell her, mumbles it against her mouth moments after her lips find his. Rose disagrees. Her mouth is insistent and her fingers are impatient and his resolve is crumbled embarrassingly quickly by her hot breath on his lips when she whispers, “Please, now.”
Hand in hand, giggling like children, they make it out of the ballroom, but not back to the TARDIS, and he silently acknowledges that yes, he’s imagined their first time might be up against some wall, somewhere.
There’s no time for buttons, as it turns out, and instead, they wrestle with her voluminous skirts, struggling to bring their bodies as close together as possible. She laughs out loud at the look of triumph on his face when he finally finds her under mountains of tulle.
It’s quick and clumsy and brilliant, and much louder than he’d intended. As they collapse against each other afterwards, both still catching their breath, he wonders exactly how long is a polite amount of time to wait before suggesting they try it again.
Eventually, they make their way back to the TARDIS. She drops his hand to wrap her arm around his waist, and he leans down to kiss the crown of her head, watching the way the fading moonlight makes her hair shine. He thinks it won’t be a hard habit to break, searching for blonde heads in crowds, searching for that one girl who fits an abandoned glass slipper. He has eyes only for this blonde, and he doesn’t ever intend to let her out of his sight again.