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rabid1stWhat Wild Geese Know
by Rabid1st
Doctor Who AU
Doctor/Rose
Spoilers: A bit of S3, Last of the Time Lords
Betas: Keswindhover, Measi, Kathea & Caia
Rating: Mature +
Warning: Alien Gender Discussion
Summary: A post reunion story...taking off from the canon premise that the Doctor and Rose never had sex. All events through Last of the Time Lords apply.
Disclaimer: I do not own nor have any right to use these characters. I wrote this for my own amusement and the amusement of my friends and expect no compensation of any kind.
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
Desire too long suppressed carried Rose as far as her bedroom door. But as soon as she caught sight of the bed, her courage faltered. Determined not to give in to the chill of insecurity she turned back to seize the Doctor, kissing him with fierce intent. His ardent response warmed her up again. He clutched at her with such eagerness she lost her balance and they stumbled into the room in an awkward tangle of limbs. Rose aimed for the bed, but banged her elbow on the door frame and wobbled off target. The Doctor grunted an apology but neither of them bothered to check their forward momentum. Rose's foot snagged on something as they careened across the room. One of her carelessly discarded shoes. She glanced down at it in dismay as she lurched sideways.
“Steady,” the Doctor warned, catching her before she could fall. The break in the action allowed him to sweep a glance across the chaos in the room. A tiny frown marred his features. When his eyes fixed on his open luggage, he grimaced. “I should finish unpacking.”
“No! No, no.” Rose skirted around him, snapped the suitcase closed and quickly disposed of it by shoving it under the bed. As she tucked it away, she grumbled, “Why are you suddenly so domestic? I lived with you for years. You used to throw your clothes everywhere. Please...just...” She ran out of breath and nerve at the same time.
She couldn't do this alone, couldn't seduce him if he refused to cooperate, if he was busy folding underwear. Hoping to reignite his interest, she grasped him by his shirt front. He gasped when she twisted the fabric in one fisted hand and ran her other hand up under the hem. The texture of his skin entranced her. It felt smoother than P.J.'s baby fresh skin. It was like flower petals, creamy soft. She couldn't help lingering over his differences. The alien play of his muscles spoke to her on the most primal level, informing her of the wrongness of wanting this inhuman thing. And yet, she did want him.
His wide-eyed stare returned to her as she had that thought, holding steady on her face while she stroked his chest. She could sense him reading the surface of her mind, skimming her thoughts. It occurred to her to silently command him to remove his shirt. He obediently lifted his arms, pulling at the fabric in her fist. The rounded tips of her nails grazed his ribs when she let go. He hissed and closed his eyes, but drew the bunched cotton up over his head. As he cast the shirt aside, his resultant shiver told her he'd shuffled sex to the top of his priorities list again.
“Your luggage can wait,” she said, taking his hands and pulling him down with her as she tumbled into the bed. “I can't.”
“Why were we waiting?” he wondered, adjusting his body to distribute his weight evenly along her frame.
“We're not the brightest people in the universe?”
He chuckled against her ear, appreciating the humor. “Oh, I do love you, Rose Tyler,” he said.
A languid heat swirled low in her belly. Her heart lifted, knocking against her ribs, and for a moment she could think of nothing else but those words. He loved her. He'd said it again. She wanted him to keep on saying it, every day.
Dreaming of those days ahead, she drifted in airy contentment while his fingers fiddled busily with her blouse buttons. He was opening her blouse. The Doctor was unbuttoning her blouse. They were going to be naked together, skin-on-skin, in her bed. They were going to make love. It felt like one of those dreams where everything was so perfect it had to go wrong. She couldn't help thinking she would wake up any second and find she was still living alone. Oh, to have him inside, deep inside. She pushed that thought toward him as she licked and nuzzled her way around his bare shoulder. He tasted real enough. He tasted even better than he smelled, not salty like a man but spicy sweet.
“Perhaps we should reconsider breeding,” he suggested lightheartedly. “Our children are sure to be sadly inept creatures.”
Rose swallowed hard. So much for her happy dream. Children? Had they talked about children? He was alien, a different species. She'd barely passed her biology, but she was fairly certain different species couldn't reproduce. Except, she bit down on her lower lip, there were mules and such. And she'd seen a few odd hybrids at Torchwood. And the Doctor had once remarked on how humans spread across the galaxy, interbreeding with aliens. Which meant she could wake up tomorrow carrying the Doctor's child. Would that be so bad?
Yes. Yes, it would. What if there were complications? She could get sick while pregnant. The children could get sick. She wasn't ready to be a mum. They needed to discuss this. They would get to it right after they finished. She would sit him down and... Rose gave herself a mental slap. No, before...before the sex was when you talked about things like babies. She started shoving at him just as he folded open her blouse and turned his attentions to her nearest breast.
“Protection,” she grated out. Then, “Oh, God that feels good. No. No, hold up a second. Doctor?”
“Hmmm?” he hummed, the vibration augmenting the swirling sweep of his tongue around her nipple.
Her toes curled and she arched into the delicious sensation. For a murky second or so, her higher brain functions shut down. “Fuuh...oh, yes!” she gasped. She needed this so much; had denied the need for so long. No more denying it. Her arms refused to push him away. She clawed up his back, pulling him closer. Her fingers raked into his hair, holding him at his task. A wiser part of her ranted, “No. No. No,” even as she hooked one leg around his hips.
“Rose?” He'd stopped suckling. His voice, full of concern, penetrated the fog in her mind. “What is it? What's wrong?”
She gulped air like she was surfacing from a dive, and then scuttled out from under him. “Children,” she yelped, adrenaline clearing her head. “Babies.” Shaking an admonishing finger, she said, “No.”
“No?” he repeated, clearly bemused.
He shrugged and reached for her again but she huddled into the headboard, clutching her blouse closed, as if she expected him to assault her. Rising to his knees, he let his hands fall into his lap. Rose saw the confusion in his eyes and realized how extreme her reaction must look.
Drawing in a stabilizing breath, she let go of her blouse and said, “Look, it's not that I don't want to...someday.”
His frown told her he was struggling to understand. “Someday?” he drawled, uneasily searching her face, apparently needing more information.
She tried a light laugh but it came out scratchy and strained. “Someday. Yes. Not tonight.” Her mouth felt desert dry. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.
The Doctor was still watching her. He spoke carefully. “Okay,” he said.
Indicating her bedside table with a bob of her chin, Rose said, “All I have are condoms.”
His head jutted forward and he squinted. “Sorry?”
“In the drawer,” she said, waving a hand at it. “There's spermicide, but it's old, and I'm betting we can't use it anyway. I know you're sensitive to chemicals.”
“Spermicide?” he scoffed.
“It's just for emergencies,” she told him, embarrassed into defending herself. “Weren't you ever tempted?” He scowled at her. “All right, maybe you weren't, but...” she sighed, “I was. Once or twice. I'll get on the patch again. With the life I've been leading... and all of your warnings about breast cancer and hormone imbalance... I let my prescription lapse, but...”
Still looking puzzled, the Doctor edged toward the bedside table. He kept his face screwed up and his eyes locked on hers, as if careful study might give him some clue what the hell she was talking about. He pulled the indicated drawer open. As he peered into it, he made a choking noise. His jaw dropped, and then he collapsed, folding up like a deck chair in a high wind. Tumbling off the bed, he crumbled to the floor in a heap.
Rose cried out in alarm and crawled across to him. She touched his quaking shoulder. He didn't appear hurt. He was seated against the bed, facing away from it. His arms were crossed in front of him, resting on his raised knees. He had his head down, his face hidden in the crook of one elbow. Rose said his name, but he held up a hand to forestall any questions. It took her a moment to realize his shoulders were shaking with laughter.
“Alright,” she said, swinging her feet to the floor. “What's so funny?”
His muttered reply forced her to inch closer. Her concern evaporated when she heard him chortle, “Definitely not the brightest people in the universe.”
“Oi,” she nudged his hip with her toe. “Stop your sniggering.”
“Sorry,” he gasped. He lifted his head to look at her. His lips were pressed together and his eyes danced with suppressed glee. He held her gaze for a moment and then snorted out another guffaw. “It's just I should have mentioned--I can't wear those. It's too...” He snickered helplessly again, but noting her stern glare, finally managed to composed himself. “I don't have that sort of equipment. Sorry. You couldn't know.”
He couldn't wear condoms. What sort of equipment did he have? Rose let her gaze trace over his bare back and shoulder. She'd never seen him more vulnerable. He wouldn't be laughing if things were as serious as she was imagining, she was certain of that. But she needed to have some issues clarified.
“We can have children?”
“Oh, yes,” he said smiling beatifically. “Of course.”
“I don't want to get pregnant.”
He nodded, nut brown eyes sincere. “You won't. Well...you can't, can you? Not tonight. You're not even close to ovulating. You just finished your menstrual phase...three...no, four days ago. You're still firmly in the proliferative phase.”
She wasn't sure what a proliferative phase was. But he was right about the painters. “How can you possibly...?” she began.
Only to have him lift both brows at her and snort disparagingly. “Oh, come on! I can tell what you had for breakfast yesterday and where you went afterward. You visited the seashore and breathed in too much lorry exhaust on the way. I can distinguish the assorted ratios of essential oils in your shampoo. It's lovely by the way.”
“Thank you,” she said smugly. It was easy to forget they were arguing when he smiled at her that way.
“Quite right. And my point is...was...is," he sniffed, "anything as blatantly obvious as the vast hormonal changes needed for fertility would be...well, blatantly obvious to me.”
“You can tell when I can get pregnant?” she said, weighing his words.
“I have a very sensitive tongue,” he reminded her.
“Seems to me you know a little too much,” Rose said, crossing her arms. “Where I go? What I've been eating? If I've got eggs incubating. Especially with me knowing next to nothing about your inner workings. Why can't you wear the condoms?”
Rubbing a hand along his jaw, he squirmed a bit, staring past her shoulder into the middle distance.
“Just how different is different?”
Obviously reluctant to answer, he pursed his mouth, hissing air through his clenched teeth. “Not very. Well, not much. Somewhat. It's not like it's not, essentially, phallic. Or it will be...for you. But, I'm smaller than let's say, Mickey. Is he average? Or was Jack? Anyway, smaller than the average human male. Although...” he took a breath, considering as he ruffled the hair at the back of his head. “No, no sense denying it. There's a mechanism involved. So size doesn't really matter. Once everything descends, I'll need to...” he nodded vaguely in the direction of her navel, “that is, we will need to...join very quickly.”
This was sounding worse and worse to her. He was small. Tiny? And...there was a 'mechanism?' What the hell did that mean? One worry outweighed all the rest.
“How quick, exactly?” If he was quick, he could leave her completely unfulfilled. Of all the scenarios she'd imagined, she'd never envisioned one where he was small and quick.
“It's not quick. The act, itself, is not quick. The union,” he sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. The heel of one hand went to his temple as if he were nursing a migraine. She could tell he really didn't want to talk about this. Too bad. She needed to know.
“You need...that is, human females, need to build to a climax. That won't be a problem. But, I can't linger about after I'm ready. I'll need to be inside you or there will be consequences.”
Despite her concerns, Rose's eyes twinkled and she smirked at him. “Oh, that's a good line, that is. No changing your mind or there will be consequences. What are you going to do? Slip into a coma?” He gave her a solemn look. “Wait? You are joking, right?” Pinching the bridge of his nose, he groaned. “All right, you're not joking. So, once you're ready, if we don't...” she cleared her throat, “get down to business, then, you'll...? What?”
He let his head drop back until it was pillowed on the edge of the mattress. “It all depends on what happens next. If we have to run for our lives or something, then I'll be fine. There's a sort of adrenaline override. But, if you've just changed your mind, then, certain chemical reactions don't occur and I'll be incapacitated. That's why the female has to be the aggressor. So, there's no misunderstandings. We don't have sexual assault on Gallifrey. It's a biological impossibility. If I change my mind, I just clam up. But if you call it all off, last minute...my body temperature drops.”
“You get cold?”
“Very. Cold enough to incapacitate me.”
“Could you die?”
“No. No. I won't die. I'll just be a little...uncomfortable and...possibly...comatose. But, the salient point is you are in charge. I don't want you to worry about me.”
“See this,” Rose snapped, stabbing a finger at him. “This is important. 'I might slip into a coma during foreplay, Rose.' That's the sort of thing a woman likes to hear early on in a serious relationship, not last minute like this. What else don't I know?” He grimaced, glancing away. “Oh, ho! There is something, isn't there?”
“Could be,” he squeaked. Then, he mouthed a completely unintelligible word.
“What?”
“Children,” he said, loudly, cutting his glance in her direction. “Do you ever want...children?”
This is what she got for insisting on honest conversation. It came down to one question. Did she or didn't she? He'd lost his entire world, his family. She could give him a second chance at fatherhood. Did she want to have the Doctor's children? He was looking at her with those beautiful, old eyes. Looking back at him, she just knew. She wanted to have a child with a face like his.
“One day, yeah,” she said. “Right now I'm just not ready to stay home and...”
“Oh, I'd do all that,” he interrupted, flipping over to kneel before her. He took her hand in his, circling his thumb over the back of it. “I wouldn't expect you to give up your career. That's why I decided to be a writer. No nine to five. No cubicle. Don't you just love cubicles? They're like little mazes, something around every corner.” He used a finger to draw a simple labyrinth on her palm. She arched a brow. “No? Little mazes? Where was I? Oh, yes. I can work from home, stay with the children while you are off saving the Earth. Not that I won't help out now and again, if you need me, but...”
“You plan to stay home? Be all...domestic?”
“I'd love to,” he confessed, so pleased with the idea he popped up onto the bed beside her. “I've thought it all out. I know I should have talked it over with you, but I wasn't sure if you wanted children. You called them “terrors” once, you might recall. But they don't have to be. It's all in how they're treated. I'd want to educate them at home. They wouldn't fit in well with humans, not at first.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, dozens of reasons. Blood type. Telepathic convergence. And despite our not being very bright,” he said, bumping his shoulder into hers, “our children will, most probably, be off the charts when it comes to IQ. They won't know how to blend in until we teach them. I'll teach them what I know and you can teach them what I don't know. They'll soon be ready for the human world. You'll see.”
Struggling to accept his vision of their future family, Rose tried not to sound too skeptical. “So, you'll be Mr. Mom?”
“Don't sneer. I do have some experience. I've taken my turn in the crèche on Gallifrey. I've been a dad. And we wouldn't need to have a large family. We can stop at twelve or fifteen.”
Rose was just starting to relax, soothed by the contact with his buttery smooth skin, but this sent her reeling back. “Fifteen?” she yelped, wrenching her hand free of his grip. Scrambling to her feet, she stood to glare down on him as she repeated, “Fifteen?”
He hastened to lower the number. “Twelve? Nine? Any multiple of three, really,” he said, as if making her an offer. “What about six? Although...nine's not so very many. We could have a family cricket team. Are you any good with the bat?”
“I'm not given birth to a bloody cricket team!” Seeing him flinch, Rose took a deep, steadying breath, before she spoke again. “I know you've lost a lot. And God help me, I really do want to have your children. But I'm not about to be pregnant for the next decade. No way. Clear the thought from your mind.”
Looking sheepish, he tugged at an earlobe. “Ah...about that. Normal gestation for my species is two years.”
“Two y...?”
He interrupted before she could blow again. “Yes, but, on the plus side, as a positive, we have multiple births. Litters. Wait, not the best word. Several at once. Obviously, you couldn't do it all in one pregnancy. Not nine. Not with your uterine capacity.” He scratched his outer ear. “I don't think you will carry to term in any case, but if you did...”
“Doctor,” Rose growled, with as much patience as she could summon. “What are you babbling about?”
“Children. Babies. And I'm not babbling. I'm trying to tell you what you wanted to know. If we have children. We...You will have them in threes.”
“Triplets? What...every time?”
“Most likely, although any multiple of three is possible...six...nine.” He held up three fingers and explained, “Each of my gametes carries three strands of DNA. Fertilization triggers a three-way split, cellular division begins with the creation of each of the three sexes.” He ticked his fingers down as he said, “One male, one female and a regenerate.”
“Three?”
“Yes, three at a time. Any multiple of...”
“Sexes,” she barked, making him blink. “Three sexes? Male, Female and...a...a degenerate?”
“Regenerate,” he stressed. “Rhymes with degenerate but has the same root as regeneration. One who regenerates, neither male nor female.”
A cold shiver lifted the hair on Rose's forearms. “But you...? You...regenerate.”
He nodded and smiled and she found her mouth was suddenly very dry. This was too much to take in. She drew in breath to speak, but couldn't and turned away from him. They should go back to the living room. They should sit on the sofa and go over this. Perhaps if he drew her a chart or found a book on alien sexuality, she'd feel better about it. He could start from the beginning and explain it all, using words of one or two syllables. His fingers trailed along her forearm, but she shook him off and strode toward the hallway. When she reached the threshold, she found she didn't have the heart to retreat further and whirled to face him.
“You're not,” she swallowed before saying it, “male, then?”
“I don't have to be, no. I thought you knew.”
“No,” she declared, coloring the word with every ounce of her frustration. Things had been going so well. “No, I didn't know that.” Tears blurred her vision as she flailed one arm at him. “You look like a ruddy man to me. And I know you can change. Every single cell. But you've got...” she swished her hand down to gesture at his trouser front. “Only, I guess from what you've been telling me, you don't.” Clawing together great clumps of her hair, she tugged at them, completely flustered. He hadn't lied to her. She'd been stupid. So human, as he'd say. “If it's inside and...small. Is that why? Because it...you could go either way? Like, if you fell in love with Jack?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “I could have gone either way. I thought you understood...after the regeneration. I thought...the the way I looked outside didn't matter.”
Seeing both his hurt expression and his reasoning, Rose felt a wash of guilt. She shouldn't be angry. He'd told her he could look like anything, anyone. He hadn't really qualified it. Two heads. Or no head. Imagine me with no head. And don't say that's an improvement. The regeneration had frightened her. It had changed him so much. She'd thought she'd lost him, but she hadn't. He was still her Doctor, inside, where it mattered. Same man, he'd said, different everything. Same man. He'd wanted her to see him as a man, as a mate.
And she had. They'd been a couple for a long time now. But that was in his magical police box. Anything could happen traveling through time and space. Nothing could touch them in the TARDIS.
This was real life. They were talking about making a home together. They were talking about children. They weren't going to live in some future paradise. They were going to live here on Earth, where the people were unforgiving and judgmental. Sexless children would be isolated and mocked. Worse, they'd be pitied. And so would Rose, if her husband had two heads or no head...or breasts.
“You could be a woman, next time.” It was more a statement than a question. Her intellect didn't have trouble with this idea. Her sense of betrayal was more visceral than reasoned. “One day, if you got hurt and changed, you could...? I might end up married to a Sycorax or a...a pony.”
He flashed his infectious grin. “On the plus side, ponies are very good with children. Can't say that about the Sycorax, though.” Rose gurgled in frustration and he sobered, changing his tone to one of contrition. “We should have talked about this. I know,” he said. He cast his glance downward, studying his clasped hands. “Stupid, to think that....” He sighed and stood, bending to retrieve his shirt, before shuffling toward her. “I can stay in the other room, tonight and tomorrow,” he choked on the word, then lifting his chin repeated it, “Tomorrow, we can talk this out.”
Rose didn't want him to leave. She wasn't sure about much at the moment, but she was sure she didn't want him to leave. When he reached her side, she put a hand out, stopping him before he could maneuver through the door.
“You aren't stupid,” she told him. “You just, believed in me. That I wouldn't care about this.”
“But you do...so...?”
He edged close to the door frame to move past her, but she shifted in front of him. His gaze lifted and locked on hers. There was a question in his eyes. She opened her arms and very tenderly gathered him into a loose embrace. Him. But if he wasn't male...? But he was. On the outside, he felt, looked, sounded male. He was a man in the eyes of the world, her eyes...even his. This question of change was only hypothetical. He might change. He might not. Of course, that was probably why he had no name. Some of their children would have no names. Could she deal with that?
Probably. She loved him, desired him. She wanted a life with her Doctor. There was no one else in the universe for either of them. They completed one another. He murmured an agreement to her mental surrender, tentatively returning her hug. The light swirl of his fingers at the small of her back made her tremble. Her tensed muscles grew rubbery and she curled into him. A careless sweep of his fingertips could take her breath away. That had to be important when considering a partner.
She might not be gay, but if the Doctor woke up female she was pretty sure she'd still be putty in his hands. They'd just have to adjust to it. She knew he was waiting for her to reach a firm decision. He wasn't trying to seduce her, only comfort. But when he brushed his cheek along hers, her common sense evaporated like snowflakes on the tongue. His touch, like his smile, tended to fill her with confidence.
Her mum called them crazy. And perhaps they were, believing they could best anything together. This uncertainty she was feeling was no more frightening than some of the monsters they'd faced. Staring down death on an alien world, she'd looked to him and believed.
Chin resting on her shoulder, he whispered, “Can you trust me?”
She snuggled closer. She did trust him. How could she not, after all they'd been through? Trust had gotten them this far, a universe away from where they'd begun. But she couldn't simply ignore her doubts. Not if they were going to be married, have children. She needed to know what she was getting into with this life he'd never led.
“People can be cruel, Doctor.”
“I know,” he said, his lips feathering against her temple. “My people as well as yours.” He shifted his stance a little so he could see her face. “I have considered this, Rose. Our children will be half-human. They could be as alien to me as they are to you. That's quite...terrifying. But I have thought on a life with you for a very long time.”
“I've only just started thinking,” she said.
He sniffed, lifting his chin to conceded her the point. They were silent for a few heartbeats. Rose considered all he'd given up to be here. His way of life. His beloved TARDIS. He'd lost so much, had so very little left of the familiar. And now he had nothing but her. Aware of how nervous frank conversations made him, Rose still knew she had to explain her concerns.
“I love you. But...in bed, something this different? It's all a bit frightening.”
“I self-identify as male, Rose. I always have. It won't be so very different.”
He stroked her hair. Then, said something in an alien tongue. The strange words soothed her and, through their tenuous empathic connection, she could almost put meaning to them. She sighed and closed her eyes, striving to listen rather than hear. He was trying to reassure her, she was sure of it. The musical cadence of the language swished and drummed in her head like the pulse of distant surf.
“Is that a song?” she asked, letting her hands skate to his waist.
“It's a poem,” he replied in a husky undertone. “It is...oh, so very old.”
His bared chest felt as inhumanly plush as ever against her cheek. She didn't speak again until she could follow the pattern in the complex beating of his hearts. Once she had his rhythm, she loosened her embrace and stepped back.
“How is regeneration a gender?” she asked.
His hands slid down her arms to her elbows. Applying light pressure, he turned her toward the bed. Rose let him guide her across the room. They settled side by side on the very edge of the mattress.
“The ability to regenerate goes hand in hand with gender. A third of my people can regenerate naturally. We are simply born that way, physically elastic, unfixed in our bodies. We can become anything. In the beginning, we were the ones who could adapt to the rigors of time travel, become Time Lords. It's like some amphibians on your world being able to grow a new limb or change genders as needed. The background radiation didn't affect us.”
“Like it changed my cellular structure?”
“No, that wasn't the radiation. That was the TARDIS. Things are much safer now than they were in the beginning.”
“So, some of your people can change and some can't?”
“Yes. The poem is about that.”
“Can you translate it?”
He shook his head. “My language is too complex. Especially the poetic forms.” Crossing a foot over his knee, he began toying with the laces on his trainer. “But the gist of it, the central theme, is about changing. It was written in response to a lover's fears, the same fears you have.” He quickly unlaced the shoe and tossed it aside. “The part I was quoting says there are no names for things, no form, no pattern or map to guide the hearts. We are all without stars until we know what we love,” he kept his chin down, but smiled as he quietly added, “or whom.”
Rose winced. All of her lonely nights came flooding back to haunt her, nights without stars, without him. A pang of longing twisted in her chest. She knew what she loved. She loved being with him, only that. She'd planned to spend her whole life with him, but she'd never expected to get anything in return, not a kiss, certainly not children. All those nights, she'd prayed for one more chance to see him. Just to see him. Now, here he was, eager to share everything with her, and she was treating him like a stranger. She touched his wrist, met and held his liquid, dark gaze as he turned to face her.
He waited for her nod of permission, and then reverently placed a palm against her cheek. Her lips parted slightly around a contented sigh as he skimmed the curve of her jaw. His other hand rose, combing into her hair. Thumbs framing her face, he tilted her head to the side and gently kissed her. His lips were feather soft and sweet. Again and again, he put his mouth to hers, caressing her, savoring her. He kissed her eyelids and the tip of her nose and the furrow between her brows. He kissed her neck and shoulders, but he kept returning to her lips.
When he transferred his hummingbird sips to the slight valley of her cleavage, she swallowed and said, “Yes. Alright. You win.”
He smiled against her skin. Easing her blouse off her shoulder, he exposed, and then lightly cupped one breast. As he began nibbling around her nipple, Rose wondered what had become of his earlier shyness.
“But...see here, Doctor, you can't just...suck on...Oh! Stop!” He immediately obeyed, raising his line of sight to meet her eye. She blew out a breath and said, “We're not making babies. Not until I get used to the idea.”
“Whatever you say, Rose,” he said meekly.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I'm in charge, yeah?”
“You are definitely in charge.”
She snorted. She supposed she was as “in charge” as any one could be in the middle of a loving seduction. Squirming into her, he wrapped his arms around her waist. Then, he stretched out along the bed, pulling her down on top of him. Her hair splashed over their faces. She shook it aside and glared at him with mock fierceness.
“We're just getting started here.”
“Yes, Rose.”
“And you have to do what I say? If I tell you to stop...?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he agreed, grinning up at her.
Staring into his guileless eyes, Rose couldn't help but return his smile. “You have no shame.”
“None,” he admitted, beaming wider still. He held her gaze as he toyed with her hair, separating one shiny ribbon from the rest and curling it around his fingers. She watched his expression darken, the bright sun of his grin setting behind his own storm clouds of doubt. “Should I?” he asked, searching her face. “Should we be ashamed?”
Rose's throat clenched. Her first instinct was to deny it. But all of her worries were linked to shame. Maybe this was the only question they needed to answer. Would she be ashamed to walk down the street beside him if he looked too young for her? Too feminine? Too old? Just as well to ask if he should be ashamed of loving her? He'd changed so much since the days when he'd thoughtlessly called her a 'stupid ape.' But there was no denying he was from a highly advanced species. Yet, he wasn't afraid to link his future to a simple shop girl, a primative from a backward planet. Would she be ashamed to be the mother of his children if they were just like him?
She thought of him fearlessly bouncing into the fray with some alien foe. Their children would be amazing, too, brave and bright. She thought of her mother's constant nagging. Jackie had certainly been afraid of what the Doctor offered. She'd been embarrassed by his odd ways. But Rose never had. The Doctor had thrust her into the spotlight before presidents and queens and madmen and she'd held her head high, proud of him, always.
His lips were thin, but from above his lower one looked full and delicious apple sweet. She tasted it with the tip of her tongue. Let that be her answer. She would never be ashamed of loving him. Come what may, he was what she needed. He shivered as she bit down lightly on the lip, her teeth stretching it a little. She shifted her weight onto her elbows, teasing him with the satiny glide of her breasts across his chest. He surrendered to her, head tipping to expose his throat. She kissed it. His eyes closed and his hand slipped from the small of her back to the swell of her bottom. When he squeezed, Rose pressed up on all fours, arching into his grip. Her tongue plundered his mouth, lapping in and out until he groaned. Oh, he was hers now. She slithered lower, her fingers attacking his trouser button and zip.
“Tell me,” she ordered, “when you first wanted this.”
His lashes parted slightly and he glanced down at her. Though his eyes were narrowed, his pupils were so wide he looked high on something. He gasped as his zipper grated down and his hands lost their grip on her. Rose insinuated her fingers into his open fly, folding fabric aside to caress the sensitive skin just below his hip bones.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
“In...at...in your home, when you grabbed me, forced me inside...Rose?” He shuddered. “I'm so cold.”
“When we met?” Surprised, she stopped her sensuous petting. “The day after?”
“Yes.”
“All that time?”
“Ye...yes...”
Straddling his thighs, she bent low to lick his taut stomach, leaving a wet line just above his slipping trousers. He liked that, she could tell by his mewling cry and the way he arched into her. Meeting his eye again, she asked, “When was it the worst for you?”
His mouth worked but he seemed incapable of answering her. She settled back, giving him time. He quivered all over and, at last, managed to say, “After I lost you.”
She didn't move, just held his gaze until she could speak without a catch in her voice. “For me, too,” she said. “I missed you so much. Every night...I...”
Crying out, he came up off the bed, quick as a striking snake. He seized her shoulders in both hands, yanking her forward into a bruising kiss. Everything Rose thought she knew about Time Lord sex changed again as he tumbled her to her back. There was nothing submissive about the demanding thrust of his tongue. Apparently, he responded to mental suggestion. All she'd done was bring her desires to mind. To think, this could have happened in the TARDIS, if only she'd known what to do to encourage him. She pushed another daring image at him and he slithered to the floor, growling low in his throat as he began to lick her in long, wet slurps.
His eyes glittered with a predatory light, but Rose met his gaze without any trace of fear. This was a fantasy come true and she was definitely in charge of it. He worked his way over every exposed inch of her, along her throat, around her nipples and across her abdomen. It tickled as much as it tantalized, making her squirm. With an impatient little hiss, he climbed onto the bed again. One of his hands cupped around her neck, gripping her at the nape. His other hand shoved roughly at her slacks. The soft cloth bunched at her knees. Before she had time to do more than yip in surprise, he had wriggled around and put his face between thighs.
“Is this what you thought about?” he asked, his cool exhalation teasing her most sensitive spots, “On those lonely nights?”
She lifted her pelvis to meet his lips, silently begging for what she'd never truly dreamed of having. The splayed fingers of his left hand slid up her belly to her breastbone. Pressing her down, he tasted her. No, he fed on her, indulging himself as much as he gratified her. He milked every ounce of pleasure from the pleasuring. No one had ever enjoyed her so wholeheartedly. The few men of her limited experience hadn't been anywhere near as orally fixated. The Doctor cherished every sip and swallow.
He made love to her with his mouth. His teeth tugged. His relentless tongue darted in and out of her increasingly slicker folds. It flickered and flitted over the throbbing pearl within them. She clenched around his fingers as he twisted two up into her core. He knew what he was doing. No one was this good by chance. He'd been reading. Or he'd been with a woman before. But he had never, she was certain, loved anyone with this much abandon.
“You're velvety smooth inside, my Rose,” he told her between sweeps of his tongue.
Oh, my Doctor. Oh, God, yes...every night...I...I...just you...only you.
She couldn't even muster a coherent thought. She was going to break in his hands. He rubbed briskly back and forth, quick and firm. It was all too much to bear, his mouth, his tongue, his touch and those slim fingers inside her, pumping deep. She whimpered, shoulders jerking. Her hips lifted, rocking convulsively, as she twisted her head from side to side. She pounded the back of her skull into the bed. An exquisite tension built in her limbs and her gut. Her muscles drew as tight as the skin on a drum. She writhed. Whimpered. And came hard against the grinding palm of his hand. With her all the way, completely aware of her cresting climax, he knew what was about to happen before she did. His mouth settled over hers, muffling her howl of ecstasy.
He reeked of her juices, his chin and cheeks wet with them, but she didn't care. She murmured in delight and languidly kissed him. “Mmmm,” she hummed, enjoying their intermingled flavors. He parted her lips with his, giving her his tongue.
They lingered over deep kisses, sucking and stroking one another. She helped him remove his last stitch of clothing. The brush of his thighs against hers, made Rose hungry again. He shivered, clutching her closer, nuzzling her breast. She shifted to look down along their intertwined bodies. Small wonder he was cold, he was completely exposed. Threading an arm between them, she found his sex and cradled it gently. It was small and wet and seemed fragile to her. She circled her thumb, caressing it. It had subtle curves and ridges. Her fingers were fascinated by the liquid slickness. Her hand got very slippery, very quickly.
There was no warning at all when the Doctor fainted. He simply lost his grip on her and apparently on everything else. Collapsing, he spasmed, his eyes rolling back in his head until they showed only slits of white. Shocked by the severity of his reaction, Rose shot to her knees and grabbed his shoulders, before remembering what he'd said about needing to be inside her immediately. His skin was getting cooler and he didn't appear to be breathing. She pushed aside a twinge of disappointment, focusing only on him. There would be no questioning this. He needed her. Hoping intimate union would rouse him, she straddled his hips, reaching between them to guide his member to where she pulsed hot. He was phallic enough to fit naturally into her.
The extremely lubricated, elegantly curved nature of his sex allowed it to slide in easily. But it seemed to cling within her, lodging, almost as if it were molding to her interior walls. A sharp gasp escaped her and her body whipped upright in response to a bulbous nudge of her g-spot. It happened again, like the shock of knocking her funny bone, only without the pain. Electric sparks pinged under her nipples. She arched her back to see the place where they were joined. He was definitely swelling inside her, and vibrating.
The Doctor's slender shaft wasn't nearly so accommodating now. It seemed to be made up of all sorts of knobs, each of them knuckling into one of her nerve endings. The probing made her want to ride him until she was slick with sweat. It made her breasts throb. She didn't want to start without him, but she couldn't help swiveling her hips, squirming to get more of him, take him deeper. She'd just found a lovely position when she felt a very odd pulse. Almost like a musical note. It reminded her of Close Encounters, when the space ship started signaling. This means something, she thought, and almost laughed out loud. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Alien sex with a third gender. And she'd been worried about how it would all look to other people.
Just like in the movie, the blaring vibrations kept coming. They couldn't have been very loud but they seemed to have window shattering intensity. She tried to adjust to the full body sensation as it lanced through her veins. Her mind wanted to give up on processing all of this weird stimulation. Her body wanted release. Thankfully, the Doctor came around. His hands locked about her waist, keeping her still, and at just the right angle for a truly exquisite series of pulses. She lifted her head. His eyes were open, clear and staring toward the ceiling. The peaceful expression on his face stole every objection from her mind. It looked as if he were gazing upon paradise.
“That feels...” she began. “It's...”
“Perfect,” he breathed. His line of sight dipped down to briefly intersect hers as he asked, “Do you hear it?”
Hear it? It was like breath to her. There was only sound and release. Sound and release. The vibrating had worked its way from her blood to her bones. Her marrow was singing. Notes. Sound. Music. A rhythmic melody throbbed through her core. It quaked in her gut, like a car was passing by with the bass turned way too loud. There were high notes, too, violins in her heartstrings. He pulled her down to his mouth and kissed her, evoking her full range. She had range, like a cello. This was the most amazing thing she'd ever felt.
She came again, gasping, “Yes, yes, I can. I hear it.”
“Push it into me,” he pleaded. “Into...into my mind.”
Musical shagging. She laughed breathlessly at the idea, joyfully pulsating all over. Her Doctor was a virtuoso. No wonder he compared sex to dancing. He moved in time with her, writhing and bridging up to deepen the tones. His instrument played hers. She clawed into his shoulders, holding on as he bucked beneath her. This was sex, wholly recognizable, if completely alien. He was definitely fucking her. But he needed her to push the music into him, maybe he couldn't find release without her help. Maybe they needed to be united by the music.
Head hanging low, each breath rasping in her throat, Rose envisioned herself as a cathedral, filled with glorious sound. Push through the doors, she thought, let the singing envelope him. The music was climbing toward crescendo again. It reminded her of the time they'd gone to Vienna for the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The maestro himself had conducted, poorly at first, and then with mounting majesty. The theater had filled with a cyclone of swirling notes as the chorus and orchestra competed for dominance. The music built to a thundering, intertwining climax near the end of Ode to Joy. The force of sound had almost lifted her from her seat. As her own climax surged to an apex, she focused her mind and leaned on the Doctor's mental doors, pushing through to share her release with him.
He opened effortlessly to her thrust and she fell forward into a pool of brilliant light. He was there with her, beyond all physical boundaries. Their music swelled around them. It was more stirring, more evocative than Beethoven. But even more amazing, it was familiar. Rose remembered it. She'd been inside him once before, just like this, but with the golden glow of the Vortex penetrating her. It had linked them, somehow, and there were these same angelic voices.
There was a singing.
That's right. I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.
She could hear everything in the ethereal melody. All that is. All that was. All that ever would be. She could hear what he heard. The music of the spheres. Their love song turned the clockwork of creation. It kept the universe harmonious.
The final notes echoed as the music slowly subsided. It faded with the light. Rose came back to her body completely sated. Gravity took hold, unexpectedly, and her trembling arms failed her. She collapsed forward onto the Doctor's damp chest. The strands of his hair were wet next to her nose. He was dripping sweat. He never perspired. Never breathed heavily, but she heard him gasping in air. They were both gasping and alive and she could feel the sticky warmth of his spent seed inside her. A tremor shook his frame.
Worry for him moved her when nothing else on Earth could have. She didn't have the strength to lift her head, but she turned it and stammered, “D-do-doctor?” He quivered again. It took her a moment to realize he was chuckling to himself.
Panting as he laughed, he struggled to speak. “Tha-that was...was it, yeah?” he managed to ask her. “Heaven?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, patting his shoulder reassuringly as she relaxed again. “That was heaven.”
“I never believe it was...really there,” he confessed in a sleepy whisper.
She stifled a yawn. “We'll go back in a day or two,” she promised him, “and you can get a better look around.”
Lethargy stole over them as Rose let her consciousness slip under the cozy blanket of perfect contentment. She felt safe in his arms; she loved what she loved without worry or regret. They'd suffered, but were unrepentant. The world would move on. Time was fleeting. They had only a few short years, the span of her lifetime, to explore heaven. She didn't want to waste one moment, not when they'd finally found their way home.
THE END
by Rabid1st
Doctor Who AU
Doctor/Rose
Spoilers: A bit of S3, Last of the Time Lords
Betas: Keswindhover, Measi, Kathea & Caia
Rating: Mature +
Warning: Alien Gender Discussion
Summary: A post reunion story...taking off from the canon premise that the Doctor and Rose never had sex. All events through Last of the Time Lords apply.
Disclaimer: I do not own nor have any right to use these characters. I wrote this for my own amusement and the amusement of my friends and expect no compensation of any kind.
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
Desire too long suppressed carried Rose as far as her bedroom door. But as soon as she caught sight of the bed, her courage faltered. Determined not to give in to the chill of insecurity she turned back to seize the Doctor, kissing him with fierce intent. His ardent response warmed her up again. He clutched at her with such eagerness she lost her balance and they stumbled into the room in an awkward tangle of limbs. Rose aimed for the bed, but banged her elbow on the door frame and wobbled off target. The Doctor grunted an apology but neither of them bothered to check their forward momentum. Rose's foot snagged on something as they careened across the room. One of her carelessly discarded shoes. She glanced down at it in dismay as she lurched sideways.
“Steady,” the Doctor warned, catching her before she could fall. The break in the action allowed him to sweep a glance across the chaos in the room. A tiny frown marred his features. When his eyes fixed on his open luggage, he grimaced. “I should finish unpacking.”
“No! No, no.” Rose skirted around him, snapped the suitcase closed and quickly disposed of it by shoving it under the bed. As she tucked it away, she grumbled, “Why are you suddenly so domestic? I lived with you for years. You used to throw your clothes everywhere. Please...just...” She ran out of breath and nerve at the same time.
She couldn't do this alone, couldn't seduce him if he refused to cooperate, if he was busy folding underwear. Hoping to reignite his interest, she grasped him by his shirt front. He gasped when she twisted the fabric in one fisted hand and ran her other hand up under the hem. The texture of his skin entranced her. It felt smoother than P.J.'s baby fresh skin. It was like flower petals, creamy soft. She couldn't help lingering over his differences. The alien play of his muscles spoke to her on the most primal level, informing her of the wrongness of wanting this inhuman thing. And yet, she did want him.
His wide-eyed stare returned to her as she had that thought, holding steady on her face while she stroked his chest. She could sense him reading the surface of her mind, skimming her thoughts. It occurred to her to silently command him to remove his shirt. He obediently lifted his arms, pulling at the fabric in her fist. The rounded tips of her nails grazed his ribs when she let go. He hissed and closed his eyes, but drew the bunched cotton up over his head. As he cast the shirt aside, his resultant shiver told her he'd shuffled sex to the top of his priorities list again.
“Your luggage can wait,” she said, taking his hands and pulling him down with her as she tumbled into the bed. “I can't.”
“Why were we waiting?” he wondered, adjusting his body to distribute his weight evenly along her frame.
“We're not the brightest people in the universe?”
He chuckled against her ear, appreciating the humor. “Oh, I do love you, Rose Tyler,” he said.
A languid heat swirled low in her belly. Her heart lifted, knocking against her ribs, and for a moment she could think of nothing else but those words. He loved her. He'd said it again. She wanted him to keep on saying it, every day.
Dreaming of those days ahead, she drifted in airy contentment while his fingers fiddled busily with her blouse buttons. He was opening her blouse. The Doctor was unbuttoning her blouse. They were going to be naked together, skin-on-skin, in her bed. They were going to make love. It felt like one of those dreams where everything was so perfect it had to go wrong. She couldn't help thinking she would wake up any second and find she was still living alone. Oh, to have him inside, deep inside. She pushed that thought toward him as she licked and nuzzled her way around his bare shoulder. He tasted real enough. He tasted even better than he smelled, not salty like a man but spicy sweet.
“Perhaps we should reconsider breeding,” he suggested lightheartedly. “Our children are sure to be sadly inept creatures.”
Rose swallowed hard. So much for her happy dream. Children? Had they talked about children? He was alien, a different species. She'd barely passed her biology, but she was fairly certain different species couldn't reproduce. Except, she bit down on her lower lip, there were mules and such. And she'd seen a few odd hybrids at Torchwood. And the Doctor had once remarked on how humans spread across the galaxy, interbreeding with aliens. Which meant she could wake up tomorrow carrying the Doctor's child. Would that be so bad?
Yes. Yes, it would. What if there were complications? She could get sick while pregnant. The children could get sick. She wasn't ready to be a mum. They needed to discuss this. They would get to it right after they finished. She would sit him down and... Rose gave herself a mental slap. No, before...before the sex was when you talked about things like babies. She started shoving at him just as he folded open her blouse and turned his attentions to her nearest breast.
“Protection,” she grated out. Then, “Oh, God that feels good. No. No, hold up a second. Doctor?”
“Hmmm?” he hummed, the vibration augmenting the swirling sweep of his tongue around her nipple.
Her toes curled and she arched into the delicious sensation. For a murky second or so, her higher brain functions shut down. “Fuuh...oh, yes!” she gasped. She needed this so much; had denied the need for so long. No more denying it. Her arms refused to push him away. She clawed up his back, pulling him closer. Her fingers raked into his hair, holding him at his task. A wiser part of her ranted, “No. No. No,” even as she hooked one leg around his hips.
“Rose?” He'd stopped suckling. His voice, full of concern, penetrated the fog in her mind. “What is it? What's wrong?”
She gulped air like she was surfacing from a dive, and then scuttled out from under him. “Children,” she yelped, adrenaline clearing her head. “Babies.” Shaking an admonishing finger, she said, “No.”
“No?” he repeated, clearly bemused.
He shrugged and reached for her again but she huddled into the headboard, clutching her blouse closed, as if she expected him to assault her. Rising to his knees, he let his hands fall into his lap. Rose saw the confusion in his eyes and realized how extreme her reaction must look.
Drawing in a stabilizing breath, she let go of her blouse and said, “Look, it's not that I don't want to...someday.”
His frown told her he was struggling to understand. “Someday?” he drawled, uneasily searching her face, apparently needing more information.
She tried a light laugh but it came out scratchy and strained. “Someday. Yes. Not tonight.” Her mouth felt desert dry. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.
The Doctor was still watching her. He spoke carefully. “Okay,” he said.
Indicating her bedside table with a bob of her chin, Rose said, “All I have are condoms.”
His head jutted forward and he squinted. “Sorry?”
“In the drawer,” she said, waving a hand at it. “There's spermicide, but it's old, and I'm betting we can't use it anyway. I know you're sensitive to chemicals.”
“Spermicide?” he scoffed.
“It's just for emergencies,” she told him, embarrassed into defending herself. “Weren't you ever tempted?” He scowled at her. “All right, maybe you weren't, but...” she sighed, “I was. Once or twice. I'll get on the patch again. With the life I've been leading... and all of your warnings about breast cancer and hormone imbalance... I let my prescription lapse, but...”
Still looking puzzled, the Doctor edged toward the bedside table. He kept his face screwed up and his eyes locked on hers, as if careful study might give him some clue what the hell she was talking about. He pulled the indicated drawer open. As he peered into it, he made a choking noise. His jaw dropped, and then he collapsed, folding up like a deck chair in a high wind. Tumbling off the bed, he crumbled to the floor in a heap.
Rose cried out in alarm and crawled across to him. She touched his quaking shoulder. He didn't appear hurt. He was seated against the bed, facing away from it. His arms were crossed in front of him, resting on his raised knees. He had his head down, his face hidden in the crook of one elbow. Rose said his name, but he held up a hand to forestall any questions. It took her a moment to realize his shoulders were shaking with laughter.
“Alright,” she said, swinging her feet to the floor. “What's so funny?”
His muttered reply forced her to inch closer. Her concern evaporated when she heard him chortle, “Definitely not the brightest people in the universe.”
“Oi,” she nudged his hip with her toe. “Stop your sniggering.”
“Sorry,” he gasped. He lifted his head to look at her. His lips were pressed together and his eyes danced with suppressed glee. He held her gaze for a moment and then snorted out another guffaw. “It's just I should have mentioned--I can't wear those. It's too...” He snickered helplessly again, but noting her stern glare, finally managed to composed himself. “I don't have that sort of equipment. Sorry. You couldn't know.”
He couldn't wear condoms. What sort of equipment did he have? Rose let her gaze trace over his bare back and shoulder. She'd never seen him more vulnerable. He wouldn't be laughing if things were as serious as she was imagining, she was certain of that. But she needed to have some issues clarified.
“We can have children?”
“Oh, yes,” he said smiling beatifically. “Of course.”
“I don't want to get pregnant.”
He nodded, nut brown eyes sincere. “You won't. Well...you can't, can you? Not tonight. You're not even close to ovulating. You just finished your menstrual phase...three...no, four days ago. You're still firmly in the proliferative phase.”
She wasn't sure what a proliferative phase was. But he was right about the painters. “How can you possibly...?” she began.
Only to have him lift both brows at her and snort disparagingly. “Oh, come on! I can tell what you had for breakfast yesterday and where you went afterward. You visited the seashore and breathed in too much lorry exhaust on the way. I can distinguish the assorted ratios of essential oils in your shampoo. It's lovely by the way.”
“Thank you,” she said smugly. It was easy to forget they were arguing when he smiled at her that way.
“Quite right. And my point is...was...is," he sniffed, "anything as blatantly obvious as the vast hormonal changes needed for fertility would be...well, blatantly obvious to me.”
“You can tell when I can get pregnant?” she said, weighing his words.
“I have a very sensitive tongue,” he reminded her.
“Seems to me you know a little too much,” Rose said, crossing her arms. “Where I go? What I've been eating? If I've got eggs incubating. Especially with me knowing next to nothing about your inner workings. Why can't you wear the condoms?”
Rubbing a hand along his jaw, he squirmed a bit, staring past her shoulder into the middle distance.
“Just how different is different?”
Obviously reluctant to answer, he pursed his mouth, hissing air through his clenched teeth. “Not very. Well, not much. Somewhat. It's not like it's not, essentially, phallic. Or it will be...for you. But, I'm smaller than let's say, Mickey. Is he average? Or was Jack? Anyway, smaller than the average human male. Although...” he took a breath, considering as he ruffled the hair at the back of his head. “No, no sense denying it. There's a mechanism involved. So size doesn't really matter. Once everything descends, I'll need to...” he nodded vaguely in the direction of her navel, “that is, we will need to...join very quickly.”
This was sounding worse and worse to her. He was small. Tiny? And...there was a 'mechanism?' What the hell did that mean? One worry outweighed all the rest.
“How quick, exactly?” If he was quick, he could leave her completely unfulfilled. Of all the scenarios she'd imagined, she'd never envisioned one where he was small and quick.
“It's not quick. The act, itself, is not quick. The union,” he sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. The heel of one hand went to his temple as if he were nursing a migraine. She could tell he really didn't want to talk about this. Too bad. She needed to know.
“You need...that is, human females, need to build to a climax. That won't be a problem. But, I can't linger about after I'm ready. I'll need to be inside you or there will be consequences.”
Despite her concerns, Rose's eyes twinkled and she smirked at him. “Oh, that's a good line, that is. No changing your mind or there will be consequences. What are you going to do? Slip into a coma?” He gave her a solemn look. “Wait? You are joking, right?” Pinching the bridge of his nose, he groaned. “All right, you're not joking. So, once you're ready, if we don't...” she cleared her throat, “get down to business, then, you'll...? What?”
He let his head drop back until it was pillowed on the edge of the mattress. “It all depends on what happens next. If we have to run for our lives or something, then I'll be fine. There's a sort of adrenaline override. But, if you've just changed your mind, then, certain chemical reactions don't occur and I'll be incapacitated. That's why the female has to be the aggressor. So, there's no misunderstandings. We don't have sexual assault on Gallifrey. It's a biological impossibility. If I change my mind, I just clam up. But if you call it all off, last minute...my body temperature drops.”
“You get cold?”
“Very. Cold enough to incapacitate me.”
“Could you die?”
“No. No. I won't die. I'll just be a little...uncomfortable and...possibly...comatose. But, the salient point is you are in charge. I don't want you to worry about me.”
“See this,” Rose snapped, stabbing a finger at him. “This is important. 'I might slip into a coma during foreplay, Rose.' That's the sort of thing a woman likes to hear early on in a serious relationship, not last minute like this. What else don't I know?” He grimaced, glancing away. “Oh, ho! There is something, isn't there?”
“Could be,” he squeaked. Then, he mouthed a completely unintelligible word.
“What?”
“Children,” he said, loudly, cutting his glance in her direction. “Do you ever want...children?”
This is what she got for insisting on honest conversation. It came down to one question. Did she or didn't she? He'd lost his entire world, his family. She could give him a second chance at fatherhood. Did she want to have the Doctor's children? He was looking at her with those beautiful, old eyes. Looking back at him, she just knew. She wanted to have a child with a face like his.
“One day, yeah,” she said. “Right now I'm just not ready to stay home and...”
“Oh, I'd do all that,” he interrupted, flipping over to kneel before her. He took her hand in his, circling his thumb over the back of it. “I wouldn't expect you to give up your career. That's why I decided to be a writer. No nine to five. No cubicle. Don't you just love cubicles? They're like little mazes, something around every corner.” He used a finger to draw a simple labyrinth on her palm. She arched a brow. “No? Little mazes? Where was I? Oh, yes. I can work from home, stay with the children while you are off saving the Earth. Not that I won't help out now and again, if you need me, but...”
“You plan to stay home? Be all...domestic?”
“I'd love to,” he confessed, so pleased with the idea he popped up onto the bed beside her. “I've thought it all out. I know I should have talked it over with you, but I wasn't sure if you wanted children. You called them “terrors” once, you might recall. But they don't have to be. It's all in how they're treated. I'd want to educate them at home. They wouldn't fit in well with humans, not at first.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, dozens of reasons. Blood type. Telepathic convergence. And despite our not being very bright,” he said, bumping his shoulder into hers, “our children will, most probably, be off the charts when it comes to IQ. They won't know how to blend in until we teach them. I'll teach them what I know and you can teach them what I don't know. They'll soon be ready for the human world. You'll see.”
Struggling to accept his vision of their future family, Rose tried not to sound too skeptical. “So, you'll be Mr. Mom?”
“Don't sneer. I do have some experience. I've taken my turn in the crèche on Gallifrey. I've been a dad. And we wouldn't need to have a large family. We can stop at twelve or fifteen.”
Rose was just starting to relax, soothed by the contact with his buttery smooth skin, but this sent her reeling back. “Fifteen?” she yelped, wrenching her hand free of his grip. Scrambling to her feet, she stood to glare down on him as she repeated, “Fifteen?”
He hastened to lower the number. “Twelve? Nine? Any multiple of three, really,” he said, as if making her an offer. “What about six? Although...nine's not so very many. We could have a family cricket team. Are you any good with the bat?”
“I'm not given birth to a bloody cricket team!” Seeing him flinch, Rose took a deep, steadying breath, before she spoke again. “I know you've lost a lot. And God help me, I really do want to have your children. But I'm not about to be pregnant for the next decade. No way. Clear the thought from your mind.”
Looking sheepish, he tugged at an earlobe. “Ah...about that. Normal gestation for my species is two years.”
“Two y...?”
He interrupted before she could blow again. “Yes, but, on the plus side, as a positive, we have multiple births. Litters. Wait, not the best word. Several at once. Obviously, you couldn't do it all in one pregnancy. Not nine. Not with your uterine capacity.” He scratched his outer ear. “I don't think you will carry to term in any case, but if you did...”
“Doctor,” Rose growled, with as much patience as she could summon. “What are you babbling about?”
“Children. Babies. And I'm not babbling. I'm trying to tell you what you wanted to know. If we have children. We...You will have them in threes.”
“Triplets? What...every time?”
“Most likely, although any multiple of three is possible...six...nine.” He held up three fingers and explained, “Each of my gametes carries three strands of DNA. Fertilization triggers a three-way split, cellular division begins with the creation of each of the three sexes.” He ticked his fingers down as he said, “One male, one female and a regenerate.”
“Three?”
“Yes, three at a time. Any multiple of...”
“Sexes,” she barked, making him blink. “Three sexes? Male, Female and...a...a degenerate?”
“Regenerate,” he stressed. “Rhymes with degenerate but has the same root as regeneration. One who regenerates, neither male nor female.”
A cold shiver lifted the hair on Rose's forearms. “But you...? You...regenerate.”
He nodded and smiled and she found her mouth was suddenly very dry. This was too much to take in. She drew in breath to speak, but couldn't and turned away from him. They should go back to the living room. They should sit on the sofa and go over this. Perhaps if he drew her a chart or found a book on alien sexuality, she'd feel better about it. He could start from the beginning and explain it all, using words of one or two syllables. His fingers trailed along her forearm, but she shook him off and strode toward the hallway. When she reached the threshold, she found she didn't have the heart to retreat further and whirled to face him.
“You're not,” she swallowed before saying it, “male, then?”
“I don't have to be, no. I thought you knew.”
“No,” she declared, coloring the word with every ounce of her frustration. Things had been going so well. “No, I didn't know that.” Tears blurred her vision as she flailed one arm at him. “You look like a ruddy man to me. And I know you can change. Every single cell. But you've got...” she swished her hand down to gesture at his trouser front. “Only, I guess from what you've been telling me, you don't.” Clawing together great clumps of her hair, she tugged at them, completely flustered. He hadn't lied to her. She'd been stupid. So human, as he'd say. “If it's inside and...small. Is that why? Because it...you could go either way? Like, if you fell in love with Jack?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “I could have gone either way. I thought you understood...after the regeneration. I thought...the the way I looked outside didn't matter.”
Seeing both his hurt expression and his reasoning, Rose felt a wash of guilt. She shouldn't be angry. He'd told her he could look like anything, anyone. He hadn't really qualified it. Two heads. Or no head. Imagine me with no head. And don't say that's an improvement. The regeneration had frightened her. It had changed him so much. She'd thought she'd lost him, but she hadn't. He was still her Doctor, inside, where it mattered. Same man, he'd said, different everything. Same man. He'd wanted her to see him as a man, as a mate.
And she had. They'd been a couple for a long time now. But that was in his magical police box. Anything could happen traveling through time and space. Nothing could touch them in the TARDIS.
This was real life. They were talking about making a home together. They were talking about children. They weren't going to live in some future paradise. They were going to live here on Earth, where the people were unforgiving and judgmental. Sexless children would be isolated and mocked. Worse, they'd be pitied. And so would Rose, if her husband had two heads or no head...or breasts.
“You could be a woman, next time.” It was more a statement than a question. Her intellect didn't have trouble with this idea. Her sense of betrayal was more visceral than reasoned. “One day, if you got hurt and changed, you could...? I might end up married to a Sycorax or a...a pony.”
He flashed his infectious grin. “On the plus side, ponies are very good with children. Can't say that about the Sycorax, though.” Rose gurgled in frustration and he sobered, changing his tone to one of contrition. “We should have talked about this. I know,” he said. He cast his glance downward, studying his clasped hands. “Stupid, to think that....” He sighed and stood, bending to retrieve his shirt, before shuffling toward her. “I can stay in the other room, tonight and tomorrow,” he choked on the word, then lifting his chin repeated it, “Tomorrow, we can talk this out.”
Rose didn't want him to leave. She wasn't sure about much at the moment, but she was sure she didn't want him to leave. When he reached her side, she put a hand out, stopping him before he could maneuver through the door.
“You aren't stupid,” she told him. “You just, believed in me. That I wouldn't care about this.”
“But you do...so...?”
He edged close to the door frame to move past her, but she shifted in front of him. His gaze lifted and locked on hers. There was a question in his eyes. She opened her arms and very tenderly gathered him into a loose embrace. Him. But if he wasn't male...? But he was. On the outside, he felt, looked, sounded male. He was a man in the eyes of the world, her eyes...even his. This question of change was only hypothetical. He might change. He might not. Of course, that was probably why he had no name. Some of their children would have no names. Could she deal with that?
Probably. She loved him, desired him. She wanted a life with her Doctor. There was no one else in the universe for either of them. They completed one another. He murmured an agreement to her mental surrender, tentatively returning her hug. The light swirl of his fingers at the small of her back made her tremble. Her tensed muscles grew rubbery and she curled into him. A careless sweep of his fingertips could take her breath away. That had to be important when considering a partner.
She might not be gay, but if the Doctor woke up female she was pretty sure she'd still be putty in his hands. They'd just have to adjust to it. She knew he was waiting for her to reach a firm decision. He wasn't trying to seduce her, only comfort. But when he brushed his cheek along hers, her common sense evaporated like snowflakes on the tongue. His touch, like his smile, tended to fill her with confidence.
Her mum called them crazy. And perhaps they were, believing they could best anything together. This uncertainty she was feeling was no more frightening than some of the monsters they'd faced. Staring down death on an alien world, she'd looked to him and believed.
Chin resting on her shoulder, he whispered, “Can you trust me?”
She snuggled closer. She did trust him. How could she not, after all they'd been through? Trust had gotten them this far, a universe away from where they'd begun. But she couldn't simply ignore her doubts. Not if they were going to be married, have children. She needed to know what she was getting into with this life he'd never led.
“People can be cruel, Doctor.”
“I know,” he said, his lips feathering against her temple. “My people as well as yours.” He shifted his stance a little so he could see her face. “I have considered this, Rose. Our children will be half-human. They could be as alien to me as they are to you. That's quite...terrifying. But I have thought on a life with you for a very long time.”
“I've only just started thinking,” she said.
He sniffed, lifting his chin to conceded her the point. They were silent for a few heartbeats. Rose considered all he'd given up to be here. His way of life. His beloved TARDIS. He'd lost so much, had so very little left of the familiar. And now he had nothing but her. Aware of how nervous frank conversations made him, Rose still knew she had to explain her concerns.
“I love you. But...in bed, something this different? It's all a bit frightening.”
“I self-identify as male, Rose. I always have. It won't be so very different.”
He stroked her hair. Then, said something in an alien tongue. The strange words soothed her and, through their tenuous empathic connection, she could almost put meaning to them. She sighed and closed her eyes, striving to listen rather than hear. He was trying to reassure her, she was sure of it. The musical cadence of the language swished and drummed in her head like the pulse of distant surf.
“Is that a song?” she asked, letting her hands skate to his waist.
“It's a poem,” he replied in a husky undertone. “It is...oh, so very old.”
His bared chest felt as inhumanly plush as ever against her cheek. She didn't speak again until she could follow the pattern in the complex beating of his hearts. Once she had his rhythm, she loosened her embrace and stepped back.
“How is regeneration a gender?” she asked.
His hands slid down her arms to her elbows. Applying light pressure, he turned her toward the bed. Rose let him guide her across the room. They settled side by side on the very edge of the mattress.
“The ability to regenerate goes hand in hand with gender. A third of my people can regenerate naturally. We are simply born that way, physically elastic, unfixed in our bodies. We can become anything. In the beginning, we were the ones who could adapt to the rigors of time travel, become Time Lords. It's like some amphibians on your world being able to grow a new limb or change genders as needed. The background radiation didn't affect us.”
“Like it changed my cellular structure?”
“No, that wasn't the radiation. That was the TARDIS. Things are much safer now than they were in the beginning.”
“So, some of your people can change and some can't?”
“Yes. The poem is about that.”
“Can you translate it?”
He shook his head. “My language is too complex. Especially the poetic forms.” Crossing a foot over his knee, he began toying with the laces on his trainer. “But the gist of it, the central theme, is about changing. It was written in response to a lover's fears, the same fears you have.” He quickly unlaced the shoe and tossed it aside. “The part I was quoting says there are no names for things, no form, no pattern or map to guide the hearts. We are all without stars until we know what we love,” he kept his chin down, but smiled as he quietly added, “or whom.”
Rose winced. All of her lonely nights came flooding back to haunt her, nights without stars, without him. A pang of longing twisted in her chest. She knew what she loved. She loved being with him, only that. She'd planned to spend her whole life with him, but she'd never expected to get anything in return, not a kiss, certainly not children. All those nights, she'd prayed for one more chance to see him. Just to see him. Now, here he was, eager to share everything with her, and she was treating him like a stranger. She touched his wrist, met and held his liquid, dark gaze as he turned to face her.
He waited for her nod of permission, and then reverently placed a palm against her cheek. Her lips parted slightly around a contented sigh as he skimmed the curve of her jaw. His other hand rose, combing into her hair. Thumbs framing her face, he tilted her head to the side and gently kissed her. His lips were feather soft and sweet. Again and again, he put his mouth to hers, caressing her, savoring her. He kissed her eyelids and the tip of her nose and the furrow between her brows. He kissed her neck and shoulders, but he kept returning to her lips.
When he transferred his hummingbird sips to the slight valley of her cleavage, she swallowed and said, “Yes. Alright. You win.”
He smiled against her skin. Easing her blouse off her shoulder, he exposed, and then lightly cupped one breast. As he began nibbling around her nipple, Rose wondered what had become of his earlier shyness.
“But...see here, Doctor, you can't just...suck on...Oh! Stop!” He immediately obeyed, raising his line of sight to meet her eye. She blew out a breath and said, “We're not making babies. Not until I get used to the idea.”
“Whatever you say, Rose,” he said meekly.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I'm in charge, yeah?”
“You are definitely in charge.”
She snorted. She supposed she was as “in charge” as any one could be in the middle of a loving seduction. Squirming into her, he wrapped his arms around her waist. Then, he stretched out along the bed, pulling her down on top of him. Her hair splashed over their faces. She shook it aside and glared at him with mock fierceness.
“We're just getting started here.”
“Yes, Rose.”
“And you have to do what I say? If I tell you to stop...?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he agreed, grinning up at her.
Staring into his guileless eyes, Rose couldn't help but return his smile. “You have no shame.”
“None,” he admitted, beaming wider still. He held her gaze as he toyed with her hair, separating one shiny ribbon from the rest and curling it around his fingers. She watched his expression darken, the bright sun of his grin setting behind his own storm clouds of doubt. “Should I?” he asked, searching her face. “Should we be ashamed?”
Rose's throat clenched. Her first instinct was to deny it. But all of her worries were linked to shame. Maybe this was the only question they needed to answer. Would she be ashamed to walk down the street beside him if he looked too young for her? Too feminine? Too old? Just as well to ask if he should be ashamed of loving her? He'd changed so much since the days when he'd thoughtlessly called her a 'stupid ape.' But there was no denying he was from a highly advanced species. Yet, he wasn't afraid to link his future to a simple shop girl, a primative from a backward planet. Would she be ashamed to be the mother of his children if they were just like him?
She thought of him fearlessly bouncing into the fray with some alien foe. Their children would be amazing, too, brave and bright. She thought of her mother's constant nagging. Jackie had certainly been afraid of what the Doctor offered. She'd been embarrassed by his odd ways. But Rose never had. The Doctor had thrust her into the spotlight before presidents and queens and madmen and she'd held her head high, proud of him, always.
His lips were thin, but from above his lower one looked full and delicious apple sweet. She tasted it with the tip of her tongue. Let that be her answer. She would never be ashamed of loving him. Come what may, he was what she needed. He shivered as she bit down lightly on the lip, her teeth stretching it a little. She shifted her weight onto her elbows, teasing him with the satiny glide of her breasts across his chest. He surrendered to her, head tipping to expose his throat. She kissed it. His eyes closed and his hand slipped from the small of her back to the swell of her bottom. When he squeezed, Rose pressed up on all fours, arching into his grip. Her tongue plundered his mouth, lapping in and out until he groaned. Oh, he was hers now. She slithered lower, her fingers attacking his trouser button and zip.
“Tell me,” she ordered, “when you first wanted this.”
His lashes parted slightly and he glanced down at her. Though his eyes were narrowed, his pupils were so wide he looked high on something. He gasped as his zipper grated down and his hands lost their grip on her. Rose insinuated her fingers into his open fly, folding fabric aside to caress the sensitive skin just below his hip bones.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
“In...at...in your home, when you grabbed me, forced me inside...Rose?” He shuddered. “I'm so cold.”
“When we met?” Surprised, she stopped her sensuous petting. “The day after?”
“Yes.”
“All that time?”
“Ye...yes...”
Straddling his thighs, she bent low to lick his taut stomach, leaving a wet line just above his slipping trousers. He liked that, she could tell by his mewling cry and the way he arched into her. Meeting his eye again, she asked, “When was it the worst for you?”
His mouth worked but he seemed incapable of answering her. She settled back, giving him time. He quivered all over and, at last, managed to say, “After I lost you.”
She didn't move, just held his gaze until she could speak without a catch in her voice. “For me, too,” she said. “I missed you so much. Every night...I...”
Crying out, he came up off the bed, quick as a striking snake. He seized her shoulders in both hands, yanking her forward into a bruising kiss. Everything Rose thought she knew about Time Lord sex changed again as he tumbled her to her back. There was nothing submissive about the demanding thrust of his tongue. Apparently, he responded to mental suggestion. All she'd done was bring her desires to mind. To think, this could have happened in the TARDIS, if only she'd known what to do to encourage him. She pushed another daring image at him and he slithered to the floor, growling low in his throat as he began to lick her in long, wet slurps.
His eyes glittered with a predatory light, but Rose met his gaze without any trace of fear. This was a fantasy come true and she was definitely in charge of it. He worked his way over every exposed inch of her, along her throat, around her nipples and across her abdomen. It tickled as much as it tantalized, making her squirm. With an impatient little hiss, he climbed onto the bed again. One of his hands cupped around her neck, gripping her at the nape. His other hand shoved roughly at her slacks. The soft cloth bunched at her knees. Before she had time to do more than yip in surprise, he had wriggled around and put his face between thighs.
“Is this what you thought about?” he asked, his cool exhalation teasing her most sensitive spots, “On those lonely nights?”
She lifted her pelvis to meet his lips, silently begging for what she'd never truly dreamed of having. The splayed fingers of his left hand slid up her belly to her breastbone. Pressing her down, he tasted her. No, he fed on her, indulging himself as much as he gratified her. He milked every ounce of pleasure from the pleasuring. No one had ever enjoyed her so wholeheartedly. The few men of her limited experience hadn't been anywhere near as orally fixated. The Doctor cherished every sip and swallow.
He made love to her with his mouth. His teeth tugged. His relentless tongue darted in and out of her increasingly slicker folds. It flickered and flitted over the throbbing pearl within them. She clenched around his fingers as he twisted two up into her core. He knew what he was doing. No one was this good by chance. He'd been reading. Or he'd been with a woman before. But he had never, she was certain, loved anyone with this much abandon.
“You're velvety smooth inside, my Rose,” he told her between sweeps of his tongue.
Oh, my Doctor. Oh, God, yes...every night...I...I...just you...only you.
She couldn't even muster a coherent thought. She was going to break in his hands. He rubbed briskly back and forth, quick and firm. It was all too much to bear, his mouth, his tongue, his touch and those slim fingers inside her, pumping deep. She whimpered, shoulders jerking. Her hips lifted, rocking convulsively, as she twisted her head from side to side. She pounded the back of her skull into the bed. An exquisite tension built in her limbs and her gut. Her muscles drew as tight as the skin on a drum. She writhed. Whimpered. And came hard against the grinding palm of his hand. With her all the way, completely aware of her cresting climax, he knew what was about to happen before she did. His mouth settled over hers, muffling her howl of ecstasy.
He reeked of her juices, his chin and cheeks wet with them, but she didn't care. She murmured in delight and languidly kissed him. “Mmmm,” she hummed, enjoying their intermingled flavors. He parted her lips with his, giving her his tongue.
They lingered over deep kisses, sucking and stroking one another. She helped him remove his last stitch of clothing. The brush of his thighs against hers, made Rose hungry again. He shivered, clutching her closer, nuzzling her breast. She shifted to look down along their intertwined bodies. Small wonder he was cold, he was completely exposed. Threading an arm between them, she found his sex and cradled it gently. It was small and wet and seemed fragile to her. She circled her thumb, caressing it. It had subtle curves and ridges. Her fingers were fascinated by the liquid slickness. Her hand got very slippery, very quickly.
There was no warning at all when the Doctor fainted. He simply lost his grip on her and apparently on everything else. Collapsing, he spasmed, his eyes rolling back in his head until they showed only slits of white. Shocked by the severity of his reaction, Rose shot to her knees and grabbed his shoulders, before remembering what he'd said about needing to be inside her immediately. His skin was getting cooler and he didn't appear to be breathing. She pushed aside a twinge of disappointment, focusing only on him. There would be no questioning this. He needed her. Hoping intimate union would rouse him, she straddled his hips, reaching between them to guide his member to where she pulsed hot. He was phallic enough to fit naturally into her.
The extremely lubricated, elegantly curved nature of his sex allowed it to slide in easily. But it seemed to cling within her, lodging, almost as if it were molding to her interior walls. A sharp gasp escaped her and her body whipped upright in response to a bulbous nudge of her g-spot. It happened again, like the shock of knocking her funny bone, only without the pain. Electric sparks pinged under her nipples. She arched her back to see the place where they were joined. He was definitely swelling inside her, and vibrating.
The Doctor's slender shaft wasn't nearly so accommodating now. It seemed to be made up of all sorts of knobs, each of them knuckling into one of her nerve endings. The probing made her want to ride him until she was slick with sweat. It made her breasts throb. She didn't want to start without him, but she couldn't help swiveling her hips, squirming to get more of him, take him deeper. She'd just found a lovely position when she felt a very odd pulse. Almost like a musical note. It reminded her of Close Encounters, when the space ship started signaling. This means something, she thought, and almost laughed out loud. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Alien sex with a third gender. And she'd been worried about how it would all look to other people.
Just like in the movie, the blaring vibrations kept coming. They couldn't have been very loud but they seemed to have window shattering intensity. She tried to adjust to the full body sensation as it lanced through her veins. Her mind wanted to give up on processing all of this weird stimulation. Her body wanted release. Thankfully, the Doctor came around. His hands locked about her waist, keeping her still, and at just the right angle for a truly exquisite series of pulses. She lifted her head. His eyes were open, clear and staring toward the ceiling. The peaceful expression on his face stole every objection from her mind. It looked as if he were gazing upon paradise.
“That feels...” she began. “It's...”
“Perfect,” he breathed. His line of sight dipped down to briefly intersect hers as he asked, “Do you hear it?”
Hear it? It was like breath to her. There was only sound and release. Sound and release. The vibrating had worked its way from her blood to her bones. Her marrow was singing. Notes. Sound. Music. A rhythmic melody throbbed through her core. It quaked in her gut, like a car was passing by with the bass turned way too loud. There were high notes, too, violins in her heartstrings. He pulled her down to his mouth and kissed her, evoking her full range. She had range, like a cello. This was the most amazing thing she'd ever felt.
She came again, gasping, “Yes, yes, I can. I hear it.”
“Push it into me,” he pleaded. “Into...into my mind.”
Musical shagging. She laughed breathlessly at the idea, joyfully pulsating all over. Her Doctor was a virtuoso. No wonder he compared sex to dancing. He moved in time with her, writhing and bridging up to deepen the tones. His instrument played hers. She clawed into his shoulders, holding on as he bucked beneath her. This was sex, wholly recognizable, if completely alien. He was definitely fucking her. But he needed her to push the music into him, maybe he couldn't find release without her help. Maybe they needed to be united by the music.
Head hanging low, each breath rasping in her throat, Rose envisioned herself as a cathedral, filled with glorious sound. Push through the doors, she thought, let the singing envelope him. The music was climbing toward crescendo again. It reminded her of the time they'd gone to Vienna for the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The maestro himself had conducted, poorly at first, and then with mounting majesty. The theater had filled with a cyclone of swirling notes as the chorus and orchestra competed for dominance. The music built to a thundering, intertwining climax near the end of Ode to Joy. The force of sound had almost lifted her from her seat. As her own climax surged to an apex, she focused her mind and leaned on the Doctor's mental doors, pushing through to share her release with him.
He opened effortlessly to her thrust and she fell forward into a pool of brilliant light. He was there with her, beyond all physical boundaries. Their music swelled around them. It was more stirring, more evocative than Beethoven. But even more amazing, it was familiar. Rose remembered it. She'd been inside him once before, just like this, but with the golden glow of the Vortex penetrating her. It had linked them, somehow, and there were these same angelic voices.
There was a singing.
That's right. I sang a song and the Daleks ran away.
She could hear everything in the ethereal melody. All that is. All that was. All that ever would be. She could hear what he heard. The music of the spheres. Their love song turned the clockwork of creation. It kept the universe harmonious.
The final notes echoed as the music slowly subsided. It faded with the light. Rose came back to her body completely sated. Gravity took hold, unexpectedly, and her trembling arms failed her. She collapsed forward onto the Doctor's damp chest. The strands of his hair were wet next to her nose. He was dripping sweat. He never perspired. Never breathed heavily, but she heard him gasping in air. They were both gasping and alive and she could feel the sticky warmth of his spent seed inside her. A tremor shook his frame.
Worry for him moved her when nothing else on Earth could have. She didn't have the strength to lift her head, but she turned it and stammered, “D-do-doctor?” He quivered again. It took her a moment to realize he was chuckling to himself.
Panting as he laughed, he struggled to speak. “Tha-that was...was it, yeah?” he managed to ask her. “Heaven?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, patting his shoulder reassuringly as she relaxed again. “That was heaven.”
“I never believe it was...really there,” he confessed in a sleepy whisper.
She stifled a yawn. “We'll go back in a day or two,” she promised him, “and you can get a better look around.”
Lethargy stole over them as Rose let her consciousness slip under the cozy blanket of perfect contentment. She felt safe in his arms; she loved what she loved without worry or regret. They'd suffered, but were unrepentant. The world would move on. Time was fleeting. They had only a few short years, the span of her lifetime, to explore heaven. She didn't want to waste one moment, not when they'd finally found their way home.
THE END
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spoilery (for this chapter) silly fanart
Date: 2008-03-25 12:20 am (UTC)grudginggracious permission.Re: spoilery (for this chapter) silly fanart
Date: 2008-03-25 12:29 am (UTC)Re: spoilery (for this chapter) silly fanart
From:You and me both, Suze
From:Re: You and me both, Suze
From:Re: spoilery (for this chapter) silly fanart
From:Lucky you
From:Re: spoilery (for this chapter) silly fanart
From:Re: spoilery (for this chapter) silly fanart
From:Re: spoilery (for this chapter) silly fanart
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 01:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 01:13 am (UTC)Thank you for the kind words. They mean a lot to me with this chapter...as I did an extensive rewrite on it.
Rae
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 01:14 am (UTC)... ... ...
(Roxy's brain has ceased functioning and will return with a comment once coherency returns. until then, she will be sitting with her mouth open, eyes unfocused with a wee bit of drool adding some sparkle to her chin.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 01:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-26 02:57 am (UTC)I'm just tickled to hear that you kept checking to see if I'd updated. And I'm also thrilled that you found the connection they have meaningful and beautiful. It was also rather weird...I know...especially with the gender issues and the whole idea of how alien it all was. There's a lot going on in this chapter...but then...there's a lot going on in the other ones, too.
I know what you mean about 3 at a time...and the Doctor is all devil-may-care about it, too. I do think she will deliver smaller babies than normal so that it won't be so very bad for her. But still...I don't think she'll fill out that cricket team...probably she'll call a halt at six. Maybe even three.
Thank you for your lovely feedback.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 01:42 am (UTC)And this is where I started to lose it.
"He interrupted before she could blow again. “Yes, but, on the plus side, as a positive, we have multiple births. Litters. Wait, not the best word. Several at once. Obviously, you couldn't do it all in one pregnancy. Not nine. Not with your uterine capacity.”"
And that is where I completely lost it. My neighbors want to know who's trying to murder me but really, it was only me laughing so hard that I was shrieking.
Wow, musical sex! That was very creative and sexy in a strange alien sort of way - which I suppose is kind of the point.
Great job!
Um, you can buy sex toys that plug into your iPod? O.O I'm thinking that's one way that Polka music could make a resurgence ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 02:50 am (UTC)But really...it wasn't so much that he has an IPenis...but that he produces harmonic vibrations in Rose...and she shares them with him. So, I'm not going to give up my copyrights in favor of the IToys just yet. :grin:
Anyway, you liked it and I'm glad. And you guffawed...which makes me dance around in glee. I wanted it to be awkward and laughable, the way first time sex often is...but in an alien way. I didn't manage to do that so well at first. Luckily, one of my betas got a bit squicked and made me readdress the alien parts so they became more lyrical and less alarming. Mostly, I toned down how angry and betrayed Rose might feel and focused instead on the real issue at hand...would she through his offer of a life together away...because he was alien.
Thank you so much for sharing your "losing it," I need to know I made someone happy.
Rae
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 02:24 am (UTC)You know, I'm having trouble putting to words how this story makes me feel. I almost want to cry from how beautiful and sweet it is. It's like wanting to weep with emotion upon hearing a heartbreakingly beautiful piece of music, you know? My heart feels too full. It just resonates...which I suppose fits with the musicality of this particular chapter.
I adore the way you write the Doctor and Rose. They're not perfect. They have difficult and awkward moments. But you don't doubt for one second that they love each other more than life itself.
As in Disheveled, they have to come to terms with their basic differences in sexuality and culture, but because they love each other so much and are willing to work on it, they find their way through the rough parts to savor the wonderful ones.
It's interesting...there's both an incredible vulnerability about this Doctor and amazing strength. He *knows* what he wants with Rose and after wasting time, then losing her to another universe, he's not going to let that happen again. I can see this being a natural extension of the current canon - he was broken by what happened and now that he has a second chance, he's not going to let it go to waste.
Rose, in addition to being a few years older, is also more mature. Despite what the Doctor might want, she doesn't just play along, being the sexual aggressor without understanding why. Then she accepts some pretty startling differences with barely a stumble...because she loves him, and wants to make it work. Obviously, they will still have things to talk about (Triplets? Every time?? Yikes!), but I have complete faith in them.
The sex itself...I suspected something along the lines of how the Doctor's "mechanism" worked (I read a similar story in Beauty and the Beast fandom many eons ago, which had been based on the fact that most animals have internal phalluses that descend only upon copulation) and knew that despite Rose's concerns about him being "tiny and quick", it wouldn't really be a problem. XD
And I looooooooooooove SO much the idea of this shared musical experience as part of sex. Probably it's because I'm such a music geek myself and see music as such a basic unifier of all peoples (love the Close Encounters reference, btw!). And, quite simply, it's beautiful. The whole sequence is described in such gorgeous detail that even though the process is quite alien, I had no trouble picturing the entire thing.
Their love song turned the clockwork of creation. It kept the universe harmonious.
Love that line.
“Tha-that was...was it, yeah?” he managed to ask her. “Heaven?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, patting his shoulder reassuringly as she relaxed again. “That was heaven.”
“I never believed it was...really there,” he confessed in a sleepy whisper.
And that part, too. I just makes me want to cry again! *happy sniff*
Oh, and since I don't think I mentioned it before, I adore the poem you quoted. I've never heard it before, but I'm definitely going to have to look up more of Mary Oliver's works.
Putting this right into my mems, 'cause I know I'm going to want to read it again and again.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 02:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 02:24 am (UTC)"It fade with the light. " Should be faded?
I really love how you have Rose and the Doctor continually misunderstand each other, but they work it out because they love and trust one another.
A wonderful ending. I'm looking forward to reading more of your work. ^.^
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-26 02:50 am (UTC)http://rabid1st.livejournal.com/145925.html
I was definitely struggling when I tried to write the sex from his POV. For one thing, he passes out. For another, we all have a pretty good idea what Rose will be like in bed...true we could get his alien perspective on it...but he wouldn't be as forthcoming, as visceral as she is. In his POV he simply announces that whole gender thing...and Rose has a meltdown which the reader can't completely understand...then, the Doctor has to fix it somehow...and he's not likely to be able to fix it.
Also, unless he went into some very odd soliloquies, we would have absolutely no idea what HE was like in bed. I suppose we could switched POV mid-stream, but that might be even more jarring. So, while it would have been nice to get the Doctor's perspective on the events...and it would have given the piece a more consistant pace...I still stand by the decision to make the sex from Rose's POV.
I'm glad you liked all of the misunderstandings and I am thrilled you enjoyed the ending. Thanks so much for the feedback. I hope I continue to supply a good read for you.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 02:27 am (UTC)Sorry, I'm not very eloquent right now. I think I have to go have a sit down...
*steers you to a chair* :grin:
Date: 2008-03-27 02:49 am (UTC)Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 02:28 am (UTC)I have to tell you how much I've enjoyed this entire story. It is just so extremely well written. My favorite thing is how you take these small, spare, gorgeous sentences (She had a place for keys.) and make them mean so much. Absolutely breathtaking. (And I know it's from the first chapter, but I needed it here to illustrate my praise as a whole.)
“Three sexes? Male, Female and...a...a degenerate?” Okay, and this? Made me laugh out loud. You can just hear Rose in it. Brilliant.
And to sum up: I liked it. The end.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-27 03:01 am (UTC)And I adore it when someone is fascinated by the idea of a place for the keys, because it goes with the whole idea of how strange this is for him. When we switch to the Rose POV we lose some of the simple elegance of the Doctor's POV...but we get a greater understanding of the simple dynamics of the alien sex. When we are with the Doctor...my hope is that the reader understands how much his life is changing...and that while Rose's reactions will seem bigger...the actually life alteration is about the same for both of them.
Thank you again for sharing what you loved about the fic. As always, it is delightful to hear from you.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 02:28 am (UTC)And I love your details about procreation and that sort. It is so fascinating to see where the muses take all of us. I really loved it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-27 03:05 am (UTC)And, look how I ramble, let me just say thank you for your lovely words and for leaving feedback. It means so much to me.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 02:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-27 03:07 am (UTC)Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 02:49 am (UTC)If perfection could be a piece of fanfiction, then this is it. Really it was just perfect. From Rose's fears and doubts to the Doctor's to the conversations about children and gender. And then the act of them finally coming together was absoultely beautiful. The idea of musical lovemaking and how you snagged it from that little line in TPotW and built on it was inspired.
As always I sit in awe of you. Thank you for gifting us with such a lovely fic.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-27 03:27 am (UTC)Like Rose is quite clear about wanting to stay with him in that scene where he asks her how long she'll stay...forever. She also says "Everyone leaves home sometime" when he remarks on her attachment to her mum in TIP. Yet, he doesn't process that he is more important to her than anything...until she comes back from Pete's World and tells him again. Then, he is angry because he can't believe she's sure...but he quickly gets over it...because really...the idea is in his mind already. They keep trying to separate us but they never, ever will. I think it must be hard for the Doctor to even get his mind around the idea that Rose has far more emotional intelligence than he has...even though he makes no bones about being in awe of her in several places.
Anyway, I'm rambling here. What I wanted to say was how wonderful it is to hear that you really connected to this fic. Thanks for giving me feedback to treasure.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 03:06 am (UTC)That was awesome! I think the temperature in my apartment went up at least 20 degrees. WOW!!
This was a fantastic story - I'd love to read an epilogue or a spin-off of it - hear Jackie and Mickey's reactions and Rose and the Doctor dealing with their sets of children.
What happened to the TARDIS, btw? Did it break in the crossing of the void? Is that why Rose and the Doctor will be living in Rose's apartment in Pete's world?
As I said, I'd love to read more. Thanks for the wonderful story!!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 03:19 am (UTC)As for where the TARDIS is...in my mind, he had to leave her behind so that one day he could get back to our universe. The TARDIS is his anchor in real time, since he and Rose are going to be living in Pete's World. And part of why he was afraid to go to her was this very thing...he didn't want to let go of everything else. But finally, he had to, because he loves Rose. So, his courage is just as moving as hers. We just don't deal with every aspect...I didn't think it was necessary to explain the particulars...because the main thing to understand is he will be living HER life. They won't be traveling through time in his magic machine.
Glad you enjoyed the story so much. And I'm very gratified to hear that the temperature went up in your apartment. Thanks for sharing your experience and wishes for more story in this universe with me.
Rae
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 11:03 am (UTC)As you say, making love leaves a person very vulnerable, emotions run high and all of our fears tend to be magnified. The Doctor was very twitchy in the first few chapters...as this is all very scary for him, too. But he had thought this all out for some time and he had a number of advantages on Rose. He knew his own biology and hers and how it would all work. He had come to a firm decision about what he wanted and only had to fear that she would reject him. He knew all along that they could have been sexual...as he'd been with a woman and knew what to do.
All in all, Rose handles this pretty well. I think because she, too, had already made some decisions. She had intended to stay with him in the TARDIS, forever. She hadn't really expected to get anything like a normal life with him. So, it was hard for her to really complain that their life wasn't going to be normal. And, while she hadn't actually processed the idea of him being a woman or a pony...it had to have been lurking in the back of her mind. She's not really stupid. She just had other things to consider when he regenerated...him being so different and yet, the same.
Thanks ever so much for leaving me such fantastic feedback. It made my day.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 03:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-26 02:59 am (UTC)Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 03:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-26 03:10 am (UTC)So I thought...maybe they are named that so they can be male or female...but there are Time Lords named...Borusa and Romana...Time Lords with names...so that led me quite easily to a third gender. It also fits in quite well with the whole idea of the the Master "having a beard" line from Children in Need. Because then...it fits...he has no gender...and the Doctor doesn't believe he is submissive to Mrs. Saxon.
And yes, in the end...it doesn't matter to him that he has given up everything he knows for her...nor does it matter to her that she is taking a very personal risk in accepting an alien into her Earthly life. They just love one another and that's all that matters.
As for the world working that way...well...I think it does if you have the sort of relationship that the Doctor and Rose have...they don't just wish or hope for the best...the work toward understanding one another and they have a very good give and take when it comes to compromise. In a lot of relationships, one person gives more than another...finding someone you can work with is, I think, the secret to a lasting love. And the Doctor and Rose...they work well with one another...they are the sort of couple that really does make it. And afterall...50% of marriages DON'T end in divorce...odds are that at least a few of them must be happy, too.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 03:30 am (UTC)And I kind of want, well, more...!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-27 02:53 am (UTC)As for more...maybe...I certainly like the idea of the Doctor living a normal life with Rose. I think it has all sorts of possibilities.
Thanks again for the supportive comments. I always look forward to hearing from you.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 03:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 03:46 am (UTC):grin:
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 03:54 am (UTC)This is a place holder comment until I can pull my brain together enough to write an actual intelligent comment. Probably sometime tomorrow after I reread several times with moderate pauses to clean up after the explosions.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 09:58 pm (UTC)My initial reaction to this chapter was to love it to death! Alien sex that's sexy being handled with humor and great characterization from the foreplay issues straight through to the musical finale and far surpasses most everything else I've read, topped off with mind-bending gender issues and multiples of three in a way that makes sense = automatic win.
But then I reread all three chapters together and something felt off and when I reread 3 by itself I realized... For me it feels like you tried to stuff too much into this chapter/story. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the idea of the three genders and how that would work for them raising kids and I'd be hugely excited if you expanded upon/continued that somewhere. And it does flow from the conversation they're having. However, for me it detracts from the story you seemed to set out to tell.
It's an issue with a huge amount of potential and it seriously overshadows the whole bit about him needing to feel safe and relaxed to perform. He comes down from what has to be a very stressful conversation for him so quickly. ... Yeah, I don't know. I hope this makes at least some sense outside my head. Summarizing: I would rather have seen the 3's addressed in a 4th chapter or it's own story.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:You are not rambling...and I think your beta instincts
From:Re: You are not rambling...and I think your beta instincts
From:Well, now we are just chatting.
From:And isn't that the great part of LJ? ;-)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 04:02 am (UTC)I love how Rose's thought process about whether it would be okay to get pregnant that night lasted exactly a sentence. Very realistic, as was her panic and confusion over the Doctor's alienness. (I'd be adverse to the idea of raising a cricket team, too.) And yet, in the end, she loves him no matter what and can't even turn him out of her room. This is the Doctor and Rose presented beautifully.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-27 03:13 am (UTC)And my feeling that he should return the favor (and would) is what led to this entire fic. I don't honestly believe the Doctor would shirk from giving up his lifestyle for a life with Rose. He's been exiled on Earth before...he got restless...but then...he didn't have children and a wife like Rose Tyler. I simply cannot escape the fact that he 1) made that offer of buying a house in TIP and 2) told Joan that he could give her everything John Smith could in time...so he could give her children and a home and love.
Finally, thank you so much for saying nobody writes alien sex like me. I'm very happy to hear that you enjoyed the process of this fic.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 04:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 10:53 am (UTC)Yeah...the gender thing was at the heart of this fic...the idea that there was a real biological reason for all of that love not finding complete fulfillment in the physical. And, truthfully, I really want to explore this set up a bit more. I think the Doctor would be a real delight (and completely delighted himself) if he ended up living the life with Rose.
I'm happy you felt the ending was fantastic. Thanks again for sharing your reactions with me, they make me feel better about my admittedly odd imagination. ;->
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 05:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 10:50 am (UTC):snicker:
I am happy to have floored you with the musical extravaganza. I always go into the smut with a simple idea and then it all kind of gets away with me. Here, I was thinking about the three gender idea, how the Gallifreyan's genetically engineered regeneration out of this simple biological accident. This would explain how they were able to gift the Master with regeneration after he took a new body. Anyway, I got to considering the third gender's sexual mechanisms and the usual mental connections and I remembered Rose saying she'd heard "singing" in PotW...and off I went.
As I've said, I really do start out to write PWP and then my conceptual imagination gets the better of me. My beta Kes says I go overboard with the thinking...but she was okay with the amount of explaining in this chapter.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 05:39 am (UTC)"She could hear everything in the ethereal melody. All that is. All that was. All that ever would be. She could hear what he heard. The music of the spheres. Their love song turned the clockwork of creation. It kept the universe harmonious." -- Music...incredible, unbelievable, alien sex! So strange, but it all flows together. Loved it!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 10:43 am (UTC)You liked it.
And I'm thrilled. Thanks for sharing the love with me.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 06:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 10:38 am (UTC)Here...he is the one doing the changing. All she has to do is get used to the idea of him in her world. And I think we all have to get used to that with romantic partners. We all have to fit into another person's family and life and get over the weird ways we bring from our own past.
Thanks every so much for calling my ideas fresh and believable. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your impressions of the fic with me.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 06:41 am (UTC)Thank you
From all of us Whos down in Whoville.
<3
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 10:30 am (UTC)I'm thrilled to have prodded you into commenting with my story. Thank you for sharing your reactions with me. I do tend to write very unusual interactions but I also try to make them go down as easily as possible. I think your summing up of "This is the weirdest most delightful thing...ever" about hits the exact spot on the feeling I want to leave a reader with. So, thank you for sharing that with me.
And you appreciated the Whovian reference. You are the first one to remark on it. I thought I would get lots of groans and a few tomatoes thrown at me for that one...but I guess the movie carried the day for me.
Rae