New Fic, Disheveled, Part 3, R, S2 - RotC
Jun. 22nd, 2006 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stDISHEVELED
By Rabid1st
Dr. Who...Ten/Rose
Word Count: 6800 - Part 3
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Rose/Ten, Rose/Nine
Warning: Adult situations, not work safe, fun and frolic-y at points and serious at others.
Spoilers: To S2 – Rise of the Cybermen
Beta Babes: Devil Bunny, Keswindhover, Jei and Lilith
Summary: This is Ten/Rose smutfic...of a sort...things are done differently and with the tongue...it gets wild...and that's all I'm saying...
Disclaimer: Nope, don’t own a thing. But I’m a nice person and I’m hardly worth suing. All characters and situations belong to the BBC and Dr. Who and Russell T. Davies, etc. I'm just borrowing them for the moment.
PART ONE
http://rabid1st.livejournal.com/81014.html#cutid1
PART TWO
http://rabid1st.livejournal.com/81708.html#cutid1
PART THREE
Rose only used nine of her full complement of twenty-six senses. Which the Doctor knew put her ahead of her contemporary humans by four or five. Traveling with him had reawakened her instinctive understanding of time and place as well as her latent clairvoyance. Still compared to his fifty or so senses she was practically senseless. And he longed to throw open the existential doors blocking her from comprehending all she was capable of experiencing. Most of all he wanted to enter one door at the far end of her consciousness. It glowed as bright as the sun. It called to him because he had no counterpart in his own mind.
Behind that door, safely locked away from her living memory, was the thing he had no name for but had once witnessed. The Doctor suspected, if he ever released the locks on this glowing door they would have sure and certain knowledge of Rose’s connection to all things. No other being he knew of had such knowledge. But then, no one could control the Time Vortex. Every Time Lord learned this simple truth. Or burned.
“But I can,” she’d said with the simplicity of a child. And she had.
She was a creator, his Rose, a bringer of life and death. He loved her for many things, not just for the core of power within her. But her capacity for compassionate destruction left him slightly in awe. She was like his TARDIS in a way, always a bit beyond his understanding. No, he wouldn’t open her doors on a whim. He wouldn’t dare.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“Don’t you know?” he replied.
Spilling away from her, he stretched. As smugly self-satisifed as any otter, he sank into their soft nest of pillows before pulling her closer. She was nude now and unabashed. Her satin smooth skin enchanted him. He brushed his fingertips up and down her spine.
“I think it’s worn off…the knowing. And anyway, you didn’t really let me in.”
She pushed up onto her elbow, hair cascading across her face as she regarded him. Impatient with the blinding curtain, she pushed the blonde mass out of her eyes. He cupped her cheek with his palm. Physically, he’d given her more than any human male would ever give her. He’d given her complete satisfaction. But he could still sense a longing in her.
“What?” he asked.
“Is this what your people do?”
He didn’t know what to say. His knowing hadn’t worn off. At the tips of his fingers, her mind was an open book to him, a graphic swirl of often conflicting passions. She could be wanton and straightlaced at the same time. Currently, she was sated and yet, unfulfilled. She wanted him to have his own experience, not just an echo of hers. The need to touch him at his very core was enough to make her reckless. She wanted to please him, pleasure him like one of his own kind. But he couldn’t allow it. No Gallifreyan had experienced sexual union in eons. Even if consummation were theoretically possible the dangers outweighed any other consideration. He couldn’t let her have her way.
“Something like…yes,” he said, carefully. He didn’t want to lie to her. Ever. But certainly not when she was bare to him, so fragile and so very dear. “During my lifetime, my people didn’t have intercourse as such. Hadn’t had it in…oh….” He frowned a little, pursing his lips as he considered how long it had been. “Hundreds of thousands of years.”
“That’s a long time.” She grinned at him, taking his hand in hers and drawing it away from her face. “Nobody ever fell in love?”
“Time Lords don’t fall in love,” he said. Then, darting a glance at her he added, “As a rule.”
“Hmmm,” she said, softly as she gently placed a kiss in his palm.
“We’re far too high minded.”
“Are you?” She didn’t sound like she believed him. In fact, she sounded smug.
The Doctor reflected on the wild arrogance of primitives as he cocked a brow at her, daring her to say anything more. She ducked her chin a little and smiled enigmatically. Chuckling, he yanked her to him, hugging her fiercely to his chest. She yielded, collapsing into his arms and molding her soft curves around his hard lines. Curling up like a kitten, she pillowed her head on his shoulder.
“Among my people conjugal union was considered...unwise,” he continued when she failed to say anything further to bait him. “It led to derision, clannish division. I was genetically engineered. So were my parents and my children. On Gallifrey our bloodlines were scientifically selected. Our offspring encoded and crafted in a laboratory. The ability to procreate naturally was…lost. Legend says, taken from us. A long, long time ago.”
Rose thought about this for a bit, absently tracing a finger under his shirt, circling through the smattering of unbelievably soft hair on his chest. He’d mentioned children before, in passing. But this was the first time he’d spoken of his birth or his parents. She wanted to know more.
The Doctor could feel the cnidocytes in his skin coiling to strike. They drew taut in response to her touch. The tightness in his chest made it very hard to breathe freely. He ached to fire into her, take her again. Take her over and over. He seemed to be insatiable when it came to Rose. Lust, he thought, the base desire. He could deal with lust, keep it in check. But this effervescence in his blood, this bone-melting and mind-scrambling emotion? Love. How could he deal with loving her? How did anyone deal with love? Even as the question formed in his mind he answered it...poetry and war. That was the Time Lord answer.
But there was also true union.
People consumated. People married. People mated.
He wanted to be that man on the street corner, hailing her a cab. He wanted to let her inside his mind. Would it be so wrong? Arousal and sexual fulfillment were delightful sensations. He could only imagine what consummation would be like. Rose longed to take the final step and so did he. Yet his cultural stricture against seeking a soul mate went so deep he grew nervous even contemplating it. And she was human. She might not survive the psychic onslaught.
“You seem to know what’s what,” she said several minutes later.
He took a deep breath and then spoke in an offhand way. “Well...I’ve done a lot of reading,” he said. Toying with a strand of her hair, he thought about what he might tell her. “Do you know how my...penetration let’s you see things? Feel things? How I share in it?” She nodded, tilting her neck so she could see him. “When we share what we feel…we’re coming very close to consummation. If what I’ve read is accurate my people didn’t just exchange bodily fluids during intercourse. We exchanged…information. Under the influence of the injected aphrodisiac, our females had visions and those visions guided both partners to a deeper spiritual knowledge.”
Now she did look worried. “But, I didn’t have visions. Not exactly. I just saw you, felt you.”
“You’re human. You’re not physically capable of…mating with a Time Lord. I need to control my responses. I can’t let go, Rose. The risk of injuring you is too great. Where you’re touching me?” He glanced down at her hand, resting under his shirt. “On my chest and neck? My entire torso really…is covered in cnidocytes. If I...when I release them...they'll connect our nervous systems. It frees my mind and lets me experience what you experience. But the toxin is so potent. I can easily inject eight to ten times the dose you’ve already had.” As he spoke several sharp points hit her bare arm.
She jerked back. “Oh, unfair,” she yelped but he only laughed and pounced. They rolled across the bed, tussling for a mutually satisfying position.
“You have no idea how good this feels,” he murmured, once he had her pinned and content beneath him. “Even such a tiny release. Being in your mind. I adore it.” He kissed her tenderly and then said, “It’s enough for me, truly.” He caught her gaze. “It’s more than I ever hoped to have.” Then, he bit lightly along her extended neck, sucking at her skin until she moaned in delight. By the time she started kissing him back with a wild abandon, he'd managed to convince himself there was no reason to worry about her stubborn streak.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Breaking through his barriers should have been impossible. And it nearly was. He had her under his command. And he was savoring every nuance of her reactions. She could feel him in her mind as she neared another climax. Her body obeyed him. He played it like a musical instrument. It quavered. Singing for him as it endured sublime, impossibly extended sensations.
But Rose wasn’t satisfied. Determined to end their one-sided love-making, she managed to untangle a small portion of her mind from the Doctor’s. Focusing solely on her desire to touch him, she slid around his awareness, fluidly, like she was swimming in warm water. She found her own hand and moved it over his. Surprised, he pulled back a little and she gained more independence. Her illusionary Doctor vanished and she was able to sense reality.
The room swam into focus. She could feel the bed beneath her, the cool air on her bare skin. The Doctor was lying next to her. She gathered her strength and rolled until she could straddle him. When she pressed up the room faded to black for a moment. She clawed into his chest and rode out the momentary vertigo. Wonder transformed his features. He was appalled and yet so very proud of her. Rose felt a burst of triumph and mentally transmitted her joy to him. A smile flickered across his face.
But she wasn’t finished. She had some measure of control now. She could see him. Feel him, in her mind and beneath her. He knew what she was planning. A warning sparked in his eyes but she paid it no heed. If it killed her she wanted to do this. She wanted to savor his reaction when she did. His palm pressed against her bare belly as he resisted, physically holding her at bay. But he didn’t stop her psychically.
He could have stopped her. His mind was so much stronger than hers. But she knew why he didn’t. Yes, it was dangerous. Yes, it was forbidden. But he loved her. Despite his flat denials and aborted declarations she had no doubt of it. Rose knew he wanted her, wanted this. They both ached for consummation. They were on the knife’s edge of what was possible for their kind but she needed more and so did he. He couldn’t deny her.
She fumbled along his arm, until she could slip her fingers through his. Slowly she caressed some of his most sensitive skin. He groaned. His own noise, not an echo of hers and, grinning, she mimicked him. She’d come to understand how this simple act, weaving their fingers together, had erotic potential for him. His kind clasped hand. They only laced their fingers together like this during sex. No wonder it had startled him the first time she’d taken his hand this way.
She flashed back to that moment in the morgue as they were about to be absorbed into the Gelf. “I’m so glad I met you,” he’d gushed, genuine passion ignited by her unwitting caress. She thought of all the times since when he’d spread his fingers for her. Wiggled them enticingly, urging her to give him what amounted to an open-mouthed kiss. And she had complied, time and again, without even knowing what it meant for him.
She was through not knowing.
“Rose,” he said aloud and in her mind. “We can’t.” She squeezed his fingers and he swallowed the first part of another sentence managing only one word, “…dangerous.”
She licked his throat and he shuddered in response. His control vanished, winking out, and Rose fell into complete awareness. Her nerves sparked. There was a disagreeable tingling in her skin as if her whole body had been numb and was now waking. She could feel the Doctor’s fingers between hers, and his other hand pressing into her stomach. She was naked, slippery between her legs from her cycling climaxes and pleasantly sore inside from clenching tight. Her robe had been cast aside. The Doctor sprawled beneath her, wearing only his slacks. She rocked against him, spreading slick juices along his zipper. If he’d been human, he would have been straining and hard for her.
As it was he wasn’t immune to her charms. Squeezing her thighs together, she tightened her grip around his hips and leaned closer to him. His dark eyes focused on her. Her hair brushed over his lips, triggering a few dozen cnidocytes. They fired too fast to be seen but they left a light residue of fluid on his skin. Enchanted by the mini-ejaculations, Rose had an idea. She swept her nails in a swift zigzag pattern down his bare chest, triggering hundreds of tiny darts. They flared but she deftly avoided them. She didn’t want to be high. She just wanted to be free to hold him skin to skin.
The Doctor screamed. Rose jerked away from him, horrified. She watched in escalating panic as he convulsed like a man electrocuted. His long tormented wail burned red in her mind, slashing across her awareness. His jaw clenched as he quaked in agony beneath her. He clawed into the sheets. Too late she realized what she’d done. He wasn’t human. He didn’t need the same kind of release a man might. She’d inadvertently severed his connection to her. Cnidocytes firing into flesh connected them. Firing into nothing left him psychically vulnerable and alone. He’d hoped to be one with her and instead she’d amputated an essential part of him. Remorse made her reckless. Desperate to sooth, she pulled him into a kiss, her tongue sliding over his as she mentally pleaded.
Doctor, please…don’t…please I’ll do anything…please…let me help you.
The sound he made at the back of his throat had no earthly equivalent. His fingers found her hair, her back. He locked onto her, drove her to the mattress and smothered her with his body. Every remaining cnidocyte he had fired. It was too much. They both knew it but, in the grip of primordial desire, neither one of them could pull away. They were skin to skin. A hundred pinpricks of pain became blooming flowers of pleasure for her and then for him. Their helpless cries merged, harmonized. Their nervous systems fused. They became one.
It was better than sex.
Surely, it was sex.
And then it was horrifying.
A maelstrom of sensation hit Rose at the midbrain. Dark swirling currents, eddies, wind and rain and lightening strikes bombarded her fragile consciousness. Hallucinations rolled over her. Wave after wave of sensory data she couldn’t begin to comprehend assaulted her awareness. As she struggled to catalog the incoming information, input from the Doctor’s myriad senses, she realized she had no body of her own. Without form or substance she lost her bearings and tumbled into nothingness.
Somehow the Doctor stayed with her as the restless sea churned around them. She sensed him scrambling to keep up and set aside her panic. She thought only of reassuring him. There was no need to worry. She was stronger than he knew. She could weather this. He drew a breath and then another. She could feel the air in his lungs. She could feel what he felt because she was him. They were complete.
The darkness cleared. It went from night to day in a flash as if someone had thrown a switch just as Rose landed softly on apple-sweet grass.
Her first thought was for the Doctor. He was close. She couldn’t see him but she knew. They were blissfully content. She stood to look about and found herself on an endless undulating prairie. She was wearing a silken bed sheet toga but there were no bulls or bears or swans. There was only a stiff, southeasterly breeze. She recognized it as her lover, the Lord of Time. But time meant nothing here. It was little more than the wind at her back. Seconds and minutes, hours and days, hurried her steps toward the brink of a nearby cliff.
She did not fall. She would not fall. The Doctor would catch her if she tried. He would always keep her with him, keep her safe. There was no room for doubt here, deep inside each other, at the end of all things. Rose spun in a circle like a little girl. She opened her arms wide, taking in everything. The beauty. The bliss. The breeze.
As she tripped along the very edge of the abyss, the Doctor followed, still nothing more than the wind. They danced. Seconds and minutes, hours and days, swirled behind them, mere leaves in their wake. Beyond the cliff’s edge, far below them, was an endless sea. Rose knew it as the timeless realm, where nothing changed. When her Doctor died, truly and forever, it would swallow him. She might have called it heaven if she hadn’t once held all of creation inside her head.
The beloved zephyr tugged at her bed sheet toga, unfurling it and seeking skin. The air buffeting her had heft, as it did in a hand cupped out the window of a speeding car. She could catch the Doctor against her palm. She could stroke him as he stroked over her. He was embodied in the wind and the wind slipped cool fingers over her breasts, teasing her nipples to taut peaks. It entered her open mouth. It whipped her sheet away, sending it into the sky like a banner or a flock of birds. Bare, exposed, she braced her legs wide and threw back her head, laughing with her Doctor as he dragged his insubstantial fingers through her hair. The breeze kissed her. Caressed her. He penetrated her, making her rise up on her toes. And she shook and shuddered through endless cycles of pleasure until finally…finally…she left time behind and simply winked out of existence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rose woke slowly, edging toward conscious awareness as if she were climbing a rope. Up and up out of a deep, dark well. Gradually, the world became brighter. She breathed easier. The air grew sweeter all around her. She began to catalogue the messages pouring in from her assorted senses. Her muscles ached. But with a pleasant soreness, like she’d just had an invigorating massage. She could hear a fountain splashing merrily in the distance. Smell the fresh scents of water, newly turned earth and blooming flowers. Her whole being sang with a vibrant energy. She felt fully, completely alive.
She opened her eyes, blinked, closed them again and stretched languidly. Only then did she notice a slight chill. Eyes shut, she squirmed, sliding easily against the luxurious bed linen. Her nipples hardened under the silken glide of fine, soft sheets along her bare skin. Lifting her head a little, she peeked under the covers to confirm she was naked. Where was her gown? The last thing she remembered she’d been standing by the desk, leaning down to pick up the Doctor’s book.
And then….
He’d touched her. Kissed her. Oh…
Her gaze slipped sideways, coquettishly targeting the Doctor as he lounged on the bed beside her. He was still fully dressed, wearing his long coat even. Or, she thought, he’d dressed again. As the curtain across memory drew aside in her mind, she clearly recalled taking off his jacket, unbuttoning his shirt and running her hands, her palms, her nails over his bare skin. He’d writhed. She’d hurt him. The realization sat her bolt upright. The bed covers spilled to her lap and the Doctor reached out a steadying hand.
“Careful,” he cautioned. And then as if reading her mind added, “I’m okay. I’m fine.” In a tone of voice that sounded like he was dreading her answer, he asked, “What about you? How do you feel?”
How did she feel? She took a quick inventory and grinned. “Marvelous,” she croaked. Her hand went to her throat in surprise. She tried to speak again and managed to rasp, “Little parched.”
“Not surprising. You’ve been asleep for two days.” His brows rose as he said this, his concern evident. “Hang on a tick.”
He rolled away slightly, reaching out a hand to lift a glass of water off the bedside table. The glass was sweaty with condensation but there was lots of ice clinking around inside it. It hadn’t been sitting there for two days. The Doctor had been up and around. Probably he’d left her sleeping. Rose wondered how long he’d spent simply watching her. She modestly repositioned her sheet before taking the offered water. Her eyes cast sharp darts at the Doctor as she drank.
“Sip it slowly,” he ordered. She took care and they shared a few minutes of companionable silence. Finally, he grinned bashfully and remarked, “I suppose this is the point where I ask if it was good for you.”
Rose hugged the glass close, resting her chin on its rim as she solemnly considered his question. She raised her line of sight until it intersected his and said, “It was a bit different.”
The Doctor chewed this over for a moment before seeking specifics. “Are you sure you don’t mean indifferent?”
Rose smiled at this timorous suggestion. Any human male who’d given her one-tenth the ecstasy would be crowing for days. “No. It was just…different.”
“I see,” he said, sounding unhappy.
“Not bad,” she reassured him. “Surprising. You know like…” She spread one hand out, grasping for a way to qualify an experience that had gone so far beyond anything she could have imagined. She was still searching for a place to begin when a sudden violent urge hit her. “Bathroom,” she said, thrusting her glass at him.
“I beg your pard--,” he began even as he absently took the water from her.
But she was already up and out of the bed. Her knees threatened to buckle when her feet hit the floor. She made a mad grab for the headboard as the room swirled around her but she managed to re-master gravity. A quick scramble led her to her robe and she was off, tipping like a drunken sailor. Hastily covering her nakedness she staggered to the door.
“I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder, trying to ignore his snickering.
Once nature’s imperative had been satisfied she came cautiously back to their room. The Doctor hadn’t moved a millimeter. He had her glass held out and was still lying in the same spot. His long, lean legs were crossed at the knees. His coat was wrapped around him like a cape. Rose leaned against the doorframe to study him.
“What do you wanna know?” she asked.
“You said…not bad…but surprising?”
“It was like…I don’t know…” Pushing off from the wall, she walked toward him. “When you get up in the middle of the night and you don’t want to turn on the lights and disturb anyone so you make your way to the kitchen for a drink of milk in the pitch black…only you misjudge the jug and end up with orange juice…?”
The Doctor nodded. “Minor shock. Even if you like orange juice.” He dipped his chin a little to meet her eye squarely. “And do you?” He left his tongue at the roof of his mouth. It was visible through his parted lips as he waited for her to answer. But when she simply stared at him he couldn’t remain silent. “Like orange juice, I mean?” He continued all in a single breath. “I’m more of a tomato juice man myself but there really is no accounting for taste. I remember one time in the constellation Orion, I….”
She sat down on the edge of the bed beside him and placed a shushing finger against his lips. He stilled, falling instantly silent, but she could feel a vibration running through him as if he were a plucked harp string she’d caught between her fingertips.
“I love orange juice,” she said. “I could have it every morning before breakfast.” He smiled and she traced the line of his lips and then drew her finger around his chin and along his throat. Mouth open on a sighing grin, he let his head drop back. She stroked the flat of her palm down his arm, took the glass from his hand and had another sip of her water. “Was I really out for two days?”
“Just a tick over, actually,” he told her, keeping his head back and his eyes closed as if still savoring her touch. Then he tipped his chin down, meeting her gaze. “Perfectly normal, as I said before. The aphrodisiac is very potent. It keeps you happy but sedate. You really shouldn’t have pressed beyond…”
“Blimey, that’s inconvenient,” she interrupted. “Mickey must think you’ve murdered me.”
“We had a discussion,” the Doctor said. “I had to show him in here. Show him you were alright.”
“With me like this?” Rose squeaked, blushing red as she swept an arm down her gown-covered figure. “Or no, not even like this. Naked. Are you mad?”
“Mickey was.”
“I can’t believe you would just…”
“What was I supposed to do?” the Doctor countered, sharply. “Hope he wouldn’t notice you’d gone missing? He’s dense, I’ll grant you, but after twenty-four hours he got a little suspicious.”
“And what did you tell him? You didn’t tell him we…I mean…”
“I told him the truth.” She tensed and he rolled his eyes but clarified. “I told him you were hit with a heavy doze of neurotoxin. That I’d done what I could for you and you were sleeping it off.” Obviously feeling discontent, he looked away. “You don’t want him to know, do you? About this?”
She pressed her lips together, avoiding eye-contact and the question. Was she being childish, wanting to keep him all to herself? Not wanting to face a barrage of speculation from her friends and family? How long would it be before some asked her if she knew what she was doing, in a tone that clearly indicated they felt she didn't? After an awkward moment or two she asked, “Is this going to happen every time? Me, gone for days on end?”
“If you stimulate me, like you did, yes. What possessed you to do that? I told you it was dangerous. Why you never listen to a word I say, I’ll never…” He broke off mid-rant to cock his head at her. “You think there might be another time…a next time, then?”
She shot a quick, worried look at him. “Why? Don’t you?”
“Oh…I’d love to…” he began breathlessly before recalling himself, “I mean…you were very naughty and you don’t deserve to be given a second chance but…” He beamed brightly, humming just a little. “Yes…please…another time would be…” the sentence became a delighted sigh and he stared up at her unable to find words for his longing. “I…” He shook his head, returning to his concerns. “If you are absolutely positively sure you’re okay.”
“Better than ever,” Rose insisted. She sat her glass back into the condensation ring on the table. “Were you worried?”
“At first,” the Doctor admitted. His gaze focused beyond her, seeing again those moments just after she vanished from his mind.
Rose took his hand. She could tell it had frightened him, losing control and then losing her. “I’m alright,” she soothed.
“You shouldn’t have been able to do that. Break through my defenses. Go into my mind like that. But a door once opened works both ways, as someone once told me. And the…cnidocytes are really only part of it…I couldn’t stop…honestly, I couldn’t…once you triggered so many of them.”
“I know,” she said, softly. “I didn’t understand but I do now. I’ll be very careful next time, I promise.”
“Your heart rate slowed dramatically. Almost no pulse at all. I thought I’d…” he looked away again. Took a deep breath and released it. Eyes closed he compressed his lips into a pale line before going on in a light-hearted way. “But you seemed to be enjoying yourself. You were…right?” he murmured, tucking his chin into his shirt collar and targeting her with big brown otter eyes. “Enjoying it?”
“It was fantastic,” she said, before leaning close to kiss him.
He murmured illegible endearments against her lips until she broke away. “Tell me,” he urged.
“Don’t you know? Weren’t you with me? I could feel you there.”
“Your mind, Rose…is like…oh, how can I describe it in terms you might grasp? It shines, but only quick flashes in the dark like a koi in a muddy pond. I could sense you but I couldn’t seem to catch you.”
She nodded her understanding as she marshaled her thoughts. After chewing on her lower lip for a bit she said, “Alright, yeah. There was this…wind. At first, it came on like a storm, all around with no earth under me. I wasn’t falling. Not exactly. But I thought I might and that scared me. I could tell it worried you, though...my being scared. So I got myself under control and just treated it like an adventure. There were all sorts of things I didn't understand. Feelings and impressions. But then the darkness cleared away and I was standing on a cliff’s edge…on New Earth, I think. And it was the most perfect day, warm and blustery. You can’t imagine how sweet the sea-air smelled.”
“I love the sea-side,” he remarked. “We should go there more often.”
“We should,” she agreed, leaning into his arm.
“But your story…”
“I had this bed sheet wrapped around me,” She plucked at the silken cover beneath them. “The wind buffeted about, pushing and pulling at me. We danced. I thought it might push me over the edge but you seemed to whisper in my ear. You told me I was safe with the wind. It tugged on my sheet…this breeze…full of mischief. And after a little while I started to understand that it was you. I could feel your hands touching me. I thought if I held out my arms the wind would catch in the sheet, lift me straight up and carry me like a kite out over the sea.”
“And did it?”
She shook her head. And he shook his, bending toward her until their noses bumped mid-denial. “No, it stole my sheet. Left me naked on this...sort of prairie.”
The Doctor shifted, scooting his hips back, making room on the bed so she could settle into the curve of him. Sighing, she lounged along his body. He fit his arms around her, careful not to graze against her bare skin. Bracing up on an elbow, he studied her.
“We made love,” he said matter-of-factly, his slow articulation turning each word sticky like cotton candy.
“Yeah, you had your breezy way with me, alright.”
His eyes squinted as he purred into his laugh. “Heh, heh, heh,” he said, speaking his chuckle like he sometimes did.
“But afterward. Afterward…it was so...sweet. We were in this sort of…glen…and all your other selves were there, young men and old ones. I don’t know how I recognized them. But I did. I knew them all, even what they were like in life. There were more than thirteen…more than I could count, stretching into the distance.”
“Well, thirteen is an arbitrary number,” the Doctor said, waving a dismissive hand. “Just because no one has managed more than twelve regenerations…doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
“Your coat was spread on the grass under some trees and the breeze settled me ever-so gently on it. And Nine...your Ninth self broke out of the group to lay down next to me. And we talked…just talked for a very long time…about growing up and your parents. And a woman you thought was your mother…but she wasn’t.”
“Penelope,” he whispered. “She was a servant in the house where I spent my earliest years. Some of my first memories are of her. She died...when I was still quite young.”
“She was human?" Rose said, barely making it a question. She knew. "Like me.”
“Very much like you, yes,” he said but he didn’t elaborate.
“It started to grow dark and cold after a bit. The wind swirled around, pushing at me, pressing against my back…growing more and more solid until it became you.”
“I was there, yes. I remember, holding you.”
“It was lovely…really. Your arms keeping me safe. Your kisses tangling in my hair.”
“And then,” the Doctor said, concluding the story. “You slept.”
As he spoke, he slid his palm under her robe and across her stomach. Rose thought she might faint from the intimate stroke. It was the first time he’d shown the slightest sign of passion since she’d come to. She shivered both hot and cold at once. And the Doctor drew her to his mouth, as if he might kiss her. But instead, he licked along her cheek to her ear and then back down her throat to the bare hollow near the ball of her shoulder. He swirled the flat of his tongue over her curves. No darts pierced her but she could still feel him stretching his way into her, pumping in and out as she clenched and grew slippery wet.
“Doctor,” she breathed every nerve in her body lighting up like Christmas.
He eased away from her, looking dazed. His tongue was a curl of pink against his teeth as he stared at her in open-mouthed, wide-eyed, wonder. His sigh stirred her hair. He seemed to be radiating love from every pore. It made Rose tingle all over. She felt herself falling again into the endless storm. It roared in her ears. But before the wind could steal her away the Doctor shut his eyes, severing their connection.
“Oh, none of that,” he chided, releasing her quickly and rolling to the far side of the bed. He stood and backed away. “You’ve just this moment woken up. We won’t be sending you under again for a good long while.” He wagged a finger at her. “I mean it, Rose Tyler, don’t you dare try to tempt me with your vixen ways. I’m immune to that sort of thing.” He tapped his chest. “Time Lord, remember?” Rose's giggle caused the corners of his mouth to turn up despite his best efforts to maintain a stern visage.
“Vixen?” she declared, biting down seductively on the hard syllables and then flashing her teeth at him. “I like that.” She moistened her lips. “Better than hamster at any rate.” Clutching her robe to her breast with one hand she picked up her water glass with the other and rattled the exposed ice cubes. “More please.”
“Not, yet,” the Doctor said. Moving with exaggerated care he gently extracted the glass from her grip. “Better let your systems adjust to the idea first.”
“M’k,” Rose said, knowing he was talking as much about their sexual encounter as he was about more water.
Coat tails swinging, he walked over to his desk and set the glass down on the blotter. Then hands shoved deep into his pants pockets, he headed for the door, calling over his shoulder as he went. “Get dressed and meet me in the control room. I want to show you something.”
Rose gave a tiny seductive growl as the door closed behind him. “Wouldn’t I just like to show you something, too?” she muttered.
There were things she hadn’t told him. Half-formed ideas she’d discovered in his mind. She didn’t understand them but she wanted to. She got up and padded across to the wardrobe, feet sinking ankle deep into the lush carpet. The room was an exquisite mix of their tastes, designed by the TARDIS for the purpose they’d just put it to. It could be their room now. Rose wondered briefly if she still had rooms of her own somewhere. Would the Doctor expect her to go back to them? She glanced at their bed, thinking about sleeping there every night, safe in his arms.
The thought brought a smile to her lips. The tiny flicker of movement in the wardrobe mirror caught her eye. She peered at her reflection, searching for some visible change in her appearance. She felt transformed. It seemed odd she should look the same as ever. But she did. Same bottle blond hair. Same brown eyes and upswept brows. Same wide mouth. And hamster cheeks. She grinned. He’d called her “A vixen.”
She dressed quickly, already needing to see him again, and bounced merrily down ramps and hallways to the console room. She didn’t think of Mickey once. Not until she saw him standing beside the Doctor. She fell back a few steps as both men glanced up. She had no idea what she was going to say. How she was going to tell Mickey about her new lover. The Doctor beamed. But Mickey scowled. Rose swallowed as he started across the room, firing questions as he came.
“There she is at long last. What happened to you, then? Do you have any idea how worried I was? And this one,” he jerked a thumb in the general direction of the Doctor, “wouldn't tell me anything but you're okay. I had to badger him to show me.”
“I…there was a…toxin.”
“So he said.” Mickey shot a venomous glare at the Doctor before turning back to Rose. “And that’s about all he would say.” He tapped his chest. “I want to know exactly what happened. What toxin? How’d you get it? Did you drink something…eat something? Were you stung? Bit?” Rose felt the heat rising in her cheeks. Stinging, biting...toxin...how had these painful terms become loaded with sensuality? “I thought I heard you scream but I couldn’t get anywhere in those stupid corridors. I kept running into walls.”
“I was…didn’t the Doctor tell you what happened?” She cast a pleading look across the room. And a claxon sounded deep in the TARDIS.
“Incoming,” the Doctor barked. “Rose, grab the wave stabilizer.” He indicated a lever with a stab of his finger. “Mickey, hold down that button.”
“What?” Mickey looked over his shoulder startled but Rose pushed by him, already obeying the Doctor’s command.
“Button. That button.” The Doctor pointed. “Hold it down.”
“Why?”
“Never mind why just do it,” the Doctor snapped, practically ricocheting off the walls. He zipped around the console, flipping switches and twisting dials, bounding vigorously from one spot to another. Grabbing Mickey by the wrist he drew him to the right panel. “Press this down,” he said, speaking slowly as if addressing an idiot. “Keep it down until I tell you to let go. It’s vitally important.” Mickey did as he was told. So did Rose, though she raised an inquiring brow at the Doctor as she held onto a lever she was fairly sure operated the external thermometer.
“Are we going to crash?” Mickey asked.
“Crash? No, no…well…probably not,” the Doctor said, his tone indicating there was some cause for concern. “Rose?” he called brightly from the far-side of the room. Straining, she could barely make him out beyond the pulsing rotor. He had a hand to the base of his skull and a pensive pout on his lips as he studied the monitor before him. “Do you recall that time we crashed into Sigma Epsilon instead of landing on Sigma Eighteen?”
“And you were arrested for endangering temporal bystanders?”
“And you were assigned to defend me,” he directed an inquiring glance at Mickey. “Can you imagine it? Rose Tyler as barrister?”
Mickey couldn’t. He snorted rudely. And Rose bristled. “Hey, he got off didn’t he?” she declared. Then she blushed at the unfortunate choice of phrase. Wincing, she closed her eyes.
The Doctor covered her lapse smoothly. “Actually I had to serve ten days but it could have been much worse. Tell Mickey about the trial…it was brilliant. You were brilliant. And...I imagine the story will keep his mind off other things...like crashing.”
Rose got the message. She opened her eyes again and shot a sidelong glance at Mickey, hoping he hadn’t seen her red cheeks in the bluish light. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. She’d never intended to get involved with the Doctor. And Mickey was still her friend. He’d always have a place in her heart…but not the first place…not any more.
“Yeah, well," she began shakily, "I did make a very good public defender, if I do say so myself."
“Tell him about the balloon animals,” the Doctor prompted.
“Balloon animals,” Rose said, bobbing her head as she focused her thoughts. “First there was this trial of sorts...because the Doctor would see the court system instead of accepting judgment. Oddest thing…with balloon animals…not really but like that…I don't know what they were supposed to be...representative of justice, I suppose. Just as valid as blindfolded virgins with swords when you think on it. Anyway, I had to do fractions and keep juggling these cubes while I argued his case…”
“And then there was the singing," the Doctor went on with an infectious laugh, "Harmonizing with those waiters. I never thought I'd keep a straight face all the way through.”
Mickey nodded, trying to follow the complex story while remaining mindful of his one finger on the all important button. The first reminiscence bled naturally into another about Barcelona. A tale about impudent flower sellers segued into one about Captain Jack and his ill-fated affair with a samurai warrior. The Doctor picked up the thread of a story whenever Rose ran out of steam. After a little while, she shoved her lever back into place and took a seat in the duct tape patched chair, bracing her feet against the console.
Eventually the Doctor joined her. He, too, put his feet up. Mickey wondered if they realized how closely they mirrored each other. Their bodies fell naturally into the same attitude. They giggled over the same things and touched from time to time. Her shoulder pressed into his. His hand caressed hers as he made some sweeping gesture. They finished one another’s sentences without hesitation. Anyone could see they were a couple, in love if not lovers. In their own little world, they'd forgotten all about him.
“…and that weird munchkin lady with the big eyes? Do you remember?” The Doctor exclaimed. “The way she looked at you? And then she opens her mouth and fire comes out.”
“I thought I was going to get frazzled,” Rose laughed.
She couldn’t believe how effortlessly they’d fallen back into their old pattern. How easy it was to sit next to the Doctor. She didn’t feel the slightest bit shy or awkward, chatting with him. Nothing had changed. He was still her Doctor, her very best friend. Even Mickey hadn’t noticed anything different about them. And he seemed to have gotten over his anger. Rose relaxed. Everything was going to be just fine.
END THIS PART
PART FOUR
By Rabid1st
Dr. Who...Ten/Rose
Word Count: 6800 - Part 3
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Rose/Ten, Rose/Nine
Warning: Adult situations, not work safe, fun and frolic-y at points and serious at others.
Spoilers: To S2 – Rise of the Cybermen
Beta Babes: Devil Bunny, Keswindhover, Jei and Lilith
Summary: This is Ten/Rose smutfic...of a sort...things are done differently and with the tongue...it gets wild...and that's all I'm saying...
Disclaimer: Nope, don’t own a thing. But I’m a nice person and I’m hardly worth suing. All characters and situations belong to the BBC and Dr. Who and Russell T. Davies, etc. I'm just borrowing them for the moment.
PART ONE
http://rabid1st.livejournal.com/81014.html#cutid1
PART TWO
http://rabid1st.livejournal.com/81708.html#cutid1
PART THREE
Rose only used nine of her full complement of twenty-six senses. Which the Doctor knew put her ahead of her contemporary humans by four or five. Traveling with him had reawakened her instinctive understanding of time and place as well as her latent clairvoyance. Still compared to his fifty or so senses she was practically senseless. And he longed to throw open the existential doors blocking her from comprehending all she was capable of experiencing. Most of all he wanted to enter one door at the far end of her consciousness. It glowed as bright as the sun. It called to him because he had no counterpart in his own mind.
Behind that door, safely locked away from her living memory, was the thing he had no name for but had once witnessed. The Doctor suspected, if he ever released the locks on this glowing door they would have sure and certain knowledge of Rose’s connection to all things. No other being he knew of had such knowledge. But then, no one could control the Time Vortex. Every Time Lord learned this simple truth. Or burned.
“But I can,” she’d said with the simplicity of a child. And she had.
She was a creator, his Rose, a bringer of life and death. He loved her for many things, not just for the core of power within her. But her capacity for compassionate destruction left him slightly in awe. She was like his TARDIS in a way, always a bit beyond his understanding. No, he wouldn’t open her doors on a whim. He wouldn’t dare.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
“Don’t you know?” he replied.
Spilling away from her, he stretched. As smugly self-satisifed as any otter, he sank into their soft nest of pillows before pulling her closer. She was nude now and unabashed. Her satin smooth skin enchanted him. He brushed his fingertips up and down her spine.
“I think it’s worn off…the knowing. And anyway, you didn’t really let me in.”
She pushed up onto her elbow, hair cascading across her face as she regarded him. Impatient with the blinding curtain, she pushed the blonde mass out of her eyes. He cupped her cheek with his palm. Physically, he’d given her more than any human male would ever give her. He’d given her complete satisfaction. But he could still sense a longing in her.
“What?” he asked.
“Is this what your people do?”
He didn’t know what to say. His knowing hadn’t worn off. At the tips of his fingers, her mind was an open book to him, a graphic swirl of often conflicting passions. She could be wanton and straightlaced at the same time. Currently, she was sated and yet, unfulfilled. She wanted him to have his own experience, not just an echo of hers. The need to touch him at his very core was enough to make her reckless. She wanted to please him, pleasure him like one of his own kind. But he couldn’t allow it. No Gallifreyan had experienced sexual union in eons. Even if consummation were theoretically possible the dangers outweighed any other consideration. He couldn’t let her have her way.
“Something like…yes,” he said, carefully. He didn’t want to lie to her. Ever. But certainly not when she was bare to him, so fragile and so very dear. “During my lifetime, my people didn’t have intercourse as such. Hadn’t had it in…oh….” He frowned a little, pursing his lips as he considered how long it had been. “Hundreds of thousands of years.”
“That’s a long time.” She grinned at him, taking his hand in hers and drawing it away from her face. “Nobody ever fell in love?”
“Time Lords don’t fall in love,” he said. Then, darting a glance at her he added, “As a rule.”
“Hmmm,” she said, softly as she gently placed a kiss in his palm.
“We’re far too high minded.”
“Are you?” She didn’t sound like she believed him. In fact, she sounded smug.
The Doctor reflected on the wild arrogance of primitives as he cocked a brow at her, daring her to say anything more. She ducked her chin a little and smiled enigmatically. Chuckling, he yanked her to him, hugging her fiercely to his chest. She yielded, collapsing into his arms and molding her soft curves around his hard lines. Curling up like a kitten, she pillowed her head on his shoulder.
“Among my people conjugal union was considered...unwise,” he continued when she failed to say anything further to bait him. “It led to derision, clannish division. I was genetically engineered. So were my parents and my children. On Gallifrey our bloodlines were scientifically selected. Our offspring encoded and crafted in a laboratory. The ability to procreate naturally was…lost. Legend says, taken from us. A long, long time ago.”
Rose thought about this for a bit, absently tracing a finger under his shirt, circling through the smattering of unbelievably soft hair on his chest. He’d mentioned children before, in passing. But this was the first time he’d spoken of his birth or his parents. She wanted to know more.
The Doctor could feel the cnidocytes in his skin coiling to strike. They drew taut in response to her touch. The tightness in his chest made it very hard to breathe freely. He ached to fire into her, take her again. Take her over and over. He seemed to be insatiable when it came to Rose. Lust, he thought, the base desire. He could deal with lust, keep it in check. But this effervescence in his blood, this bone-melting and mind-scrambling emotion? Love. How could he deal with loving her? How did anyone deal with love? Even as the question formed in his mind he answered it...poetry and war. That was the Time Lord answer.
But there was also true union.
People consumated. People married. People mated.
He wanted to be that man on the street corner, hailing her a cab. He wanted to let her inside his mind. Would it be so wrong? Arousal and sexual fulfillment were delightful sensations. He could only imagine what consummation would be like. Rose longed to take the final step and so did he. Yet his cultural stricture against seeking a soul mate went so deep he grew nervous even contemplating it. And she was human. She might not survive the psychic onslaught.
“You seem to know what’s what,” she said several minutes later.
He took a deep breath and then spoke in an offhand way. “Well...I’ve done a lot of reading,” he said. Toying with a strand of her hair, he thought about what he might tell her. “Do you know how my...penetration let’s you see things? Feel things? How I share in it?” She nodded, tilting her neck so she could see him. “When we share what we feel…we’re coming very close to consummation. If what I’ve read is accurate my people didn’t just exchange bodily fluids during intercourse. We exchanged…information. Under the influence of the injected aphrodisiac, our females had visions and those visions guided both partners to a deeper spiritual knowledge.”
Now she did look worried. “But, I didn’t have visions. Not exactly. I just saw you, felt you.”
“You’re human. You’re not physically capable of…mating with a Time Lord. I need to control my responses. I can’t let go, Rose. The risk of injuring you is too great. Where you’re touching me?” He glanced down at her hand, resting under his shirt. “On my chest and neck? My entire torso really…is covered in cnidocytes. If I...when I release them...they'll connect our nervous systems. It frees my mind and lets me experience what you experience. But the toxin is so potent. I can easily inject eight to ten times the dose you’ve already had.” As he spoke several sharp points hit her bare arm.
She jerked back. “Oh, unfair,” she yelped but he only laughed and pounced. They rolled across the bed, tussling for a mutually satisfying position.
“You have no idea how good this feels,” he murmured, once he had her pinned and content beneath him. “Even such a tiny release. Being in your mind. I adore it.” He kissed her tenderly and then said, “It’s enough for me, truly.” He caught her gaze. “It’s more than I ever hoped to have.” Then, he bit lightly along her extended neck, sucking at her skin until she moaned in delight. By the time she started kissing him back with a wild abandon, he'd managed to convince himself there was no reason to worry about her stubborn streak.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Breaking through his barriers should have been impossible. And it nearly was. He had her under his command. And he was savoring every nuance of her reactions. She could feel him in her mind as she neared another climax. Her body obeyed him. He played it like a musical instrument. It quavered. Singing for him as it endured sublime, impossibly extended sensations.
But Rose wasn’t satisfied. Determined to end their one-sided love-making, she managed to untangle a small portion of her mind from the Doctor’s. Focusing solely on her desire to touch him, she slid around his awareness, fluidly, like she was swimming in warm water. She found her own hand and moved it over his. Surprised, he pulled back a little and she gained more independence. Her illusionary Doctor vanished and she was able to sense reality.
The room swam into focus. She could feel the bed beneath her, the cool air on her bare skin. The Doctor was lying next to her. She gathered her strength and rolled until she could straddle him. When she pressed up the room faded to black for a moment. She clawed into his chest and rode out the momentary vertigo. Wonder transformed his features. He was appalled and yet so very proud of her. Rose felt a burst of triumph and mentally transmitted her joy to him. A smile flickered across his face.
But she wasn’t finished. She had some measure of control now. She could see him. Feel him, in her mind and beneath her. He knew what she was planning. A warning sparked in his eyes but she paid it no heed. If it killed her she wanted to do this. She wanted to savor his reaction when she did. His palm pressed against her bare belly as he resisted, physically holding her at bay. But he didn’t stop her psychically.
He could have stopped her. His mind was so much stronger than hers. But she knew why he didn’t. Yes, it was dangerous. Yes, it was forbidden. But he loved her. Despite his flat denials and aborted declarations she had no doubt of it. Rose knew he wanted her, wanted this. They both ached for consummation. They were on the knife’s edge of what was possible for their kind but she needed more and so did he. He couldn’t deny her.
She fumbled along his arm, until she could slip her fingers through his. Slowly she caressed some of his most sensitive skin. He groaned. His own noise, not an echo of hers and, grinning, she mimicked him. She’d come to understand how this simple act, weaving their fingers together, had erotic potential for him. His kind clasped hand. They only laced their fingers together like this during sex. No wonder it had startled him the first time she’d taken his hand this way.
She flashed back to that moment in the morgue as they were about to be absorbed into the Gelf. “I’m so glad I met you,” he’d gushed, genuine passion ignited by her unwitting caress. She thought of all the times since when he’d spread his fingers for her. Wiggled them enticingly, urging her to give him what amounted to an open-mouthed kiss. And she had complied, time and again, without even knowing what it meant for him.
She was through not knowing.
“Rose,” he said aloud and in her mind. “We can’t.” She squeezed his fingers and he swallowed the first part of another sentence managing only one word, “…dangerous.”
She licked his throat and he shuddered in response. His control vanished, winking out, and Rose fell into complete awareness. Her nerves sparked. There was a disagreeable tingling in her skin as if her whole body had been numb and was now waking. She could feel the Doctor’s fingers between hers, and his other hand pressing into her stomach. She was naked, slippery between her legs from her cycling climaxes and pleasantly sore inside from clenching tight. Her robe had been cast aside. The Doctor sprawled beneath her, wearing only his slacks. She rocked against him, spreading slick juices along his zipper. If he’d been human, he would have been straining and hard for her.
As it was he wasn’t immune to her charms. Squeezing her thighs together, she tightened her grip around his hips and leaned closer to him. His dark eyes focused on her. Her hair brushed over his lips, triggering a few dozen cnidocytes. They fired too fast to be seen but they left a light residue of fluid on his skin. Enchanted by the mini-ejaculations, Rose had an idea. She swept her nails in a swift zigzag pattern down his bare chest, triggering hundreds of tiny darts. They flared but she deftly avoided them. She didn’t want to be high. She just wanted to be free to hold him skin to skin.
The Doctor screamed. Rose jerked away from him, horrified. She watched in escalating panic as he convulsed like a man electrocuted. His long tormented wail burned red in her mind, slashing across her awareness. His jaw clenched as he quaked in agony beneath her. He clawed into the sheets. Too late she realized what she’d done. He wasn’t human. He didn’t need the same kind of release a man might. She’d inadvertently severed his connection to her. Cnidocytes firing into flesh connected them. Firing into nothing left him psychically vulnerable and alone. He’d hoped to be one with her and instead she’d amputated an essential part of him. Remorse made her reckless. Desperate to sooth, she pulled him into a kiss, her tongue sliding over his as she mentally pleaded.
Doctor, please…don’t…please I’ll do anything…please…let me help you.
The sound he made at the back of his throat had no earthly equivalent. His fingers found her hair, her back. He locked onto her, drove her to the mattress and smothered her with his body. Every remaining cnidocyte he had fired. It was too much. They both knew it but, in the grip of primordial desire, neither one of them could pull away. They were skin to skin. A hundred pinpricks of pain became blooming flowers of pleasure for her and then for him. Their helpless cries merged, harmonized. Their nervous systems fused. They became one.
It was better than sex.
Surely, it was sex.
And then it was horrifying.
A maelstrom of sensation hit Rose at the midbrain. Dark swirling currents, eddies, wind and rain and lightening strikes bombarded her fragile consciousness. Hallucinations rolled over her. Wave after wave of sensory data she couldn’t begin to comprehend assaulted her awareness. As she struggled to catalog the incoming information, input from the Doctor’s myriad senses, she realized she had no body of her own. Without form or substance she lost her bearings and tumbled into nothingness.
Somehow the Doctor stayed with her as the restless sea churned around them. She sensed him scrambling to keep up and set aside her panic. She thought only of reassuring him. There was no need to worry. She was stronger than he knew. She could weather this. He drew a breath and then another. She could feel the air in his lungs. She could feel what he felt because she was him. They were complete.
The darkness cleared. It went from night to day in a flash as if someone had thrown a switch just as Rose landed softly on apple-sweet grass.
Her first thought was for the Doctor. He was close. She couldn’t see him but she knew. They were blissfully content. She stood to look about and found herself on an endless undulating prairie. She was wearing a silken bed sheet toga but there were no bulls or bears or swans. There was only a stiff, southeasterly breeze. She recognized it as her lover, the Lord of Time. But time meant nothing here. It was little more than the wind at her back. Seconds and minutes, hours and days, hurried her steps toward the brink of a nearby cliff.
She did not fall. She would not fall. The Doctor would catch her if she tried. He would always keep her with him, keep her safe. There was no room for doubt here, deep inside each other, at the end of all things. Rose spun in a circle like a little girl. She opened her arms wide, taking in everything. The beauty. The bliss. The breeze.
As she tripped along the very edge of the abyss, the Doctor followed, still nothing more than the wind. They danced. Seconds and minutes, hours and days, swirled behind them, mere leaves in their wake. Beyond the cliff’s edge, far below them, was an endless sea. Rose knew it as the timeless realm, where nothing changed. When her Doctor died, truly and forever, it would swallow him. She might have called it heaven if she hadn’t once held all of creation inside her head.
The beloved zephyr tugged at her bed sheet toga, unfurling it and seeking skin. The air buffeting her had heft, as it did in a hand cupped out the window of a speeding car. She could catch the Doctor against her palm. She could stroke him as he stroked over her. He was embodied in the wind and the wind slipped cool fingers over her breasts, teasing her nipples to taut peaks. It entered her open mouth. It whipped her sheet away, sending it into the sky like a banner or a flock of birds. Bare, exposed, she braced her legs wide and threw back her head, laughing with her Doctor as he dragged his insubstantial fingers through her hair. The breeze kissed her. Caressed her. He penetrated her, making her rise up on her toes. And she shook and shuddered through endless cycles of pleasure until finally…finally…she left time behind and simply winked out of existence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rose woke slowly, edging toward conscious awareness as if she were climbing a rope. Up and up out of a deep, dark well. Gradually, the world became brighter. She breathed easier. The air grew sweeter all around her. She began to catalogue the messages pouring in from her assorted senses. Her muscles ached. But with a pleasant soreness, like she’d just had an invigorating massage. She could hear a fountain splashing merrily in the distance. Smell the fresh scents of water, newly turned earth and blooming flowers. Her whole being sang with a vibrant energy. She felt fully, completely alive.
She opened her eyes, blinked, closed them again and stretched languidly. Only then did she notice a slight chill. Eyes shut, she squirmed, sliding easily against the luxurious bed linen. Her nipples hardened under the silken glide of fine, soft sheets along her bare skin. Lifting her head a little, she peeked under the covers to confirm she was naked. Where was her gown? The last thing she remembered she’d been standing by the desk, leaning down to pick up the Doctor’s book.
And then….
He’d touched her. Kissed her. Oh…
Her gaze slipped sideways, coquettishly targeting the Doctor as he lounged on the bed beside her. He was still fully dressed, wearing his long coat even. Or, she thought, he’d dressed again. As the curtain across memory drew aside in her mind, she clearly recalled taking off his jacket, unbuttoning his shirt and running her hands, her palms, her nails over his bare skin. He’d writhed. She’d hurt him. The realization sat her bolt upright. The bed covers spilled to her lap and the Doctor reached out a steadying hand.
“Careful,” he cautioned. And then as if reading her mind added, “I’m okay. I’m fine.” In a tone of voice that sounded like he was dreading her answer, he asked, “What about you? How do you feel?”
How did she feel? She took a quick inventory and grinned. “Marvelous,” she croaked. Her hand went to her throat in surprise. She tried to speak again and managed to rasp, “Little parched.”
“Not surprising. You’ve been asleep for two days.” His brows rose as he said this, his concern evident. “Hang on a tick.”
He rolled away slightly, reaching out a hand to lift a glass of water off the bedside table. The glass was sweaty with condensation but there was lots of ice clinking around inside it. It hadn’t been sitting there for two days. The Doctor had been up and around. Probably he’d left her sleeping. Rose wondered how long he’d spent simply watching her. She modestly repositioned her sheet before taking the offered water. Her eyes cast sharp darts at the Doctor as she drank.
“Sip it slowly,” he ordered. She took care and they shared a few minutes of companionable silence. Finally, he grinned bashfully and remarked, “I suppose this is the point where I ask if it was good for you.”
Rose hugged the glass close, resting her chin on its rim as she solemnly considered his question. She raised her line of sight until it intersected his and said, “It was a bit different.”
The Doctor chewed this over for a moment before seeking specifics. “Are you sure you don’t mean indifferent?”
Rose smiled at this timorous suggestion. Any human male who’d given her one-tenth the ecstasy would be crowing for days. “No. It was just…different.”
“I see,” he said, sounding unhappy.
“Not bad,” she reassured him. “Surprising. You know like…” She spread one hand out, grasping for a way to qualify an experience that had gone so far beyond anything she could have imagined. She was still searching for a place to begin when a sudden violent urge hit her. “Bathroom,” she said, thrusting her glass at him.
“I beg your pard--,” he began even as he absently took the water from her.
But she was already up and out of the bed. Her knees threatened to buckle when her feet hit the floor. She made a mad grab for the headboard as the room swirled around her but she managed to re-master gravity. A quick scramble led her to her robe and she was off, tipping like a drunken sailor. Hastily covering her nakedness she staggered to the door.
“I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder, trying to ignore his snickering.
Once nature’s imperative had been satisfied she came cautiously back to their room. The Doctor hadn’t moved a millimeter. He had her glass held out and was still lying in the same spot. His long, lean legs were crossed at the knees. His coat was wrapped around him like a cape. Rose leaned against the doorframe to study him.
“What do you wanna know?” she asked.
“You said…not bad…but surprising?”
“It was like…I don’t know…” Pushing off from the wall, she walked toward him. “When you get up in the middle of the night and you don’t want to turn on the lights and disturb anyone so you make your way to the kitchen for a drink of milk in the pitch black…only you misjudge the jug and end up with orange juice…?”
The Doctor nodded. “Minor shock. Even if you like orange juice.” He dipped his chin a little to meet her eye squarely. “And do you?” He left his tongue at the roof of his mouth. It was visible through his parted lips as he waited for her to answer. But when she simply stared at him he couldn’t remain silent. “Like orange juice, I mean?” He continued all in a single breath. “I’m more of a tomato juice man myself but there really is no accounting for taste. I remember one time in the constellation Orion, I….”
She sat down on the edge of the bed beside him and placed a shushing finger against his lips. He stilled, falling instantly silent, but she could feel a vibration running through him as if he were a plucked harp string she’d caught between her fingertips.
“I love orange juice,” she said. “I could have it every morning before breakfast.” He smiled and she traced the line of his lips and then drew her finger around his chin and along his throat. Mouth open on a sighing grin, he let his head drop back. She stroked the flat of her palm down his arm, took the glass from his hand and had another sip of her water. “Was I really out for two days?”
“Just a tick over, actually,” he told her, keeping his head back and his eyes closed as if still savoring her touch. Then he tipped his chin down, meeting her gaze. “Perfectly normal, as I said before. The aphrodisiac is very potent. It keeps you happy but sedate. You really shouldn’t have pressed beyond…”
“Blimey, that’s inconvenient,” she interrupted. “Mickey must think you’ve murdered me.”
“We had a discussion,” the Doctor said. “I had to show him in here. Show him you were alright.”
“With me like this?” Rose squeaked, blushing red as she swept an arm down her gown-covered figure. “Or no, not even like this. Naked. Are you mad?”
“Mickey was.”
“I can’t believe you would just…”
“What was I supposed to do?” the Doctor countered, sharply. “Hope he wouldn’t notice you’d gone missing? He’s dense, I’ll grant you, but after twenty-four hours he got a little suspicious.”
“And what did you tell him? You didn’t tell him we…I mean…”
“I told him the truth.” She tensed and he rolled his eyes but clarified. “I told him you were hit with a heavy doze of neurotoxin. That I’d done what I could for you and you were sleeping it off.” Obviously feeling discontent, he looked away. “You don’t want him to know, do you? About this?”
She pressed her lips together, avoiding eye-contact and the question. Was she being childish, wanting to keep him all to herself? Not wanting to face a barrage of speculation from her friends and family? How long would it be before some asked her if she knew what she was doing, in a tone that clearly indicated they felt she didn't? After an awkward moment or two she asked, “Is this going to happen every time? Me, gone for days on end?”
“If you stimulate me, like you did, yes. What possessed you to do that? I told you it was dangerous. Why you never listen to a word I say, I’ll never…” He broke off mid-rant to cock his head at her. “You think there might be another time…a next time, then?”
She shot a quick, worried look at him. “Why? Don’t you?”
“Oh…I’d love to…” he began breathlessly before recalling himself, “I mean…you were very naughty and you don’t deserve to be given a second chance but…” He beamed brightly, humming just a little. “Yes…please…another time would be…” the sentence became a delighted sigh and he stared up at her unable to find words for his longing. “I…” He shook his head, returning to his concerns. “If you are absolutely positively sure you’re okay.”
“Better than ever,” Rose insisted. She sat her glass back into the condensation ring on the table. “Were you worried?”
“At first,” the Doctor admitted. His gaze focused beyond her, seeing again those moments just after she vanished from his mind.
Rose took his hand. She could tell it had frightened him, losing control and then losing her. “I’m alright,” she soothed.
“You shouldn’t have been able to do that. Break through my defenses. Go into my mind like that. But a door once opened works both ways, as someone once told me. And the…cnidocytes are really only part of it…I couldn’t stop…honestly, I couldn’t…once you triggered so many of them.”
“I know,” she said, softly. “I didn’t understand but I do now. I’ll be very careful next time, I promise.”
“Your heart rate slowed dramatically. Almost no pulse at all. I thought I’d…” he looked away again. Took a deep breath and released it. Eyes closed he compressed his lips into a pale line before going on in a light-hearted way. “But you seemed to be enjoying yourself. You were…right?” he murmured, tucking his chin into his shirt collar and targeting her with big brown otter eyes. “Enjoying it?”
“It was fantastic,” she said, before leaning close to kiss him.
He murmured illegible endearments against her lips until she broke away. “Tell me,” he urged.
“Don’t you know? Weren’t you with me? I could feel you there.”
“Your mind, Rose…is like…oh, how can I describe it in terms you might grasp? It shines, but only quick flashes in the dark like a koi in a muddy pond. I could sense you but I couldn’t seem to catch you.”
She nodded her understanding as she marshaled her thoughts. After chewing on her lower lip for a bit she said, “Alright, yeah. There was this…wind. At first, it came on like a storm, all around with no earth under me. I wasn’t falling. Not exactly. But I thought I might and that scared me. I could tell it worried you, though...my being scared. So I got myself under control and just treated it like an adventure. There were all sorts of things I didn't understand. Feelings and impressions. But then the darkness cleared away and I was standing on a cliff’s edge…on New Earth, I think. And it was the most perfect day, warm and blustery. You can’t imagine how sweet the sea-air smelled.”
“I love the sea-side,” he remarked. “We should go there more often.”
“We should,” she agreed, leaning into his arm.
“But your story…”
“I had this bed sheet wrapped around me,” She plucked at the silken cover beneath them. “The wind buffeted about, pushing and pulling at me. We danced. I thought it might push me over the edge but you seemed to whisper in my ear. You told me I was safe with the wind. It tugged on my sheet…this breeze…full of mischief. And after a little while I started to understand that it was you. I could feel your hands touching me. I thought if I held out my arms the wind would catch in the sheet, lift me straight up and carry me like a kite out over the sea.”
“And did it?”
She shook her head. And he shook his, bending toward her until their noses bumped mid-denial. “No, it stole my sheet. Left me naked on this...sort of prairie.”
The Doctor shifted, scooting his hips back, making room on the bed so she could settle into the curve of him. Sighing, she lounged along his body. He fit his arms around her, careful not to graze against her bare skin. Bracing up on an elbow, he studied her.
“We made love,” he said matter-of-factly, his slow articulation turning each word sticky like cotton candy.
“Yeah, you had your breezy way with me, alright.”
His eyes squinted as he purred into his laugh. “Heh, heh, heh,” he said, speaking his chuckle like he sometimes did.
“But afterward. Afterward…it was so...sweet. We were in this sort of…glen…and all your other selves were there, young men and old ones. I don’t know how I recognized them. But I did. I knew them all, even what they were like in life. There were more than thirteen…more than I could count, stretching into the distance.”
“Well, thirteen is an arbitrary number,” the Doctor said, waving a dismissive hand. “Just because no one has managed more than twelve regenerations…doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
“Your coat was spread on the grass under some trees and the breeze settled me ever-so gently on it. And Nine...your Ninth self broke out of the group to lay down next to me. And we talked…just talked for a very long time…about growing up and your parents. And a woman you thought was your mother…but she wasn’t.”
“Penelope,” he whispered. “She was a servant in the house where I spent my earliest years. Some of my first memories are of her. She died...when I was still quite young.”
“She was human?" Rose said, barely making it a question. She knew. "Like me.”
“Very much like you, yes,” he said but he didn’t elaborate.
“It started to grow dark and cold after a bit. The wind swirled around, pushing at me, pressing against my back…growing more and more solid until it became you.”
“I was there, yes. I remember, holding you.”
“It was lovely…really. Your arms keeping me safe. Your kisses tangling in my hair.”
“And then,” the Doctor said, concluding the story. “You slept.”
As he spoke, he slid his palm under her robe and across her stomach. Rose thought she might faint from the intimate stroke. It was the first time he’d shown the slightest sign of passion since she’d come to. She shivered both hot and cold at once. And the Doctor drew her to his mouth, as if he might kiss her. But instead, he licked along her cheek to her ear and then back down her throat to the bare hollow near the ball of her shoulder. He swirled the flat of his tongue over her curves. No darts pierced her but she could still feel him stretching his way into her, pumping in and out as she clenched and grew slippery wet.
“Doctor,” she breathed every nerve in her body lighting up like Christmas.
He eased away from her, looking dazed. His tongue was a curl of pink against his teeth as he stared at her in open-mouthed, wide-eyed, wonder. His sigh stirred her hair. He seemed to be radiating love from every pore. It made Rose tingle all over. She felt herself falling again into the endless storm. It roared in her ears. But before the wind could steal her away the Doctor shut his eyes, severing their connection.
“Oh, none of that,” he chided, releasing her quickly and rolling to the far side of the bed. He stood and backed away. “You’ve just this moment woken up. We won’t be sending you under again for a good long while.” He wagged a finger at her. “I mean it, Rose Tyler, don’t you dare try to tempt me with your vixen ways. I’m immune to that sort of thing.” He tapped his chest. “Time Lord, remember?” Rose's giggle caused the corners of his mouth to turn up despite his best efforts to maintain a stern visage.
“Vixen?” she declared, biting down seductively on the hard syllables and then flashing her teeth at him. “I like that.” She moistened her lips. “Better than hamster at any rate.” Clutching her robe to her breast with one hand she picked up her water glass with the other and rattled the exposed ice cubes. “More please.”
“Not, yet,” the Doctor said. Moving with exaggerated care he gently extracted the glass from her grip. “Better let your systems adjust to the idea first.”
“M’k,” Rose said, knowing he was talking as much about their sexual encounter as he was about more water.
Coat tails swinging, he walked over to his desk and set the glass down on the blotter. Then hands shoved deep into his pants pockets, he headed for the door, calling over his shoulder as he went. “Get dressed and meet me in the control room. I want to show you something.”
Rose gave a tiny seductive growl as the door closed behind him. “Wouldn’t I just like to show you something, too?” she muttered.
There were things she hadn’t told him. Half-formed ideas she’d discovered in his mind. She didn’t understand them but she wanted to. She got up and padded across to the wardrobe, feet sinking ankle deep into the lush carpet. The room was an exquisite mix of their tastes, designed by the TARDIS for the purpose they’d just put it to. It could be their room now. Rose wondered briefly if she still had rooms of her own somewhere. Would the Doctor expect her to go back to them? She glanced at their bed, thinking about sleeping there every night, safe in his arms.
The thought brought a smile to her lips. The tiny flicker of movement in the wardrobe mirror caught her eye. She peered at her reflection, searching for some visible change in her appearance. She felt transformed. It seemed odd she should look the same as ever. But she did. Same bottle blond hair. Same brown eyes and upswept brows. Same wide mouth. And hamster cheeks. She grinned. He’d called her “A vixen.”
She dressed quickly, already needing to see him again, and bounced merrily down ramps and hallways to the console room. She didn’t think of Mickey once. Not until she saw him standing beside the Doctor. She fell back a few steps as both men glanced up. She had no idea what she was going to say. How she was going to tell Mickey about her new lover. The Doctor beamed. But Mickey scowled. Rose swallowed as he started across the room, firing questions as he came.
“There she is at long last. What happened to you, then? Do you have any idea how worried I was? And this one,” he jerked a thumb in the general direction of the Doctor, “wouldn't tell me anything but you're okay. I had to badger him to show me.”
“I…there was a…toxin.”
“So he said.” Mickey shot a venomous glare at the Doctor before turning back to Rose. “And that’s about all he would say.” He tapped his chest. “I want to know exactly what happened. What toxin? How’d you get it? Did you drink something…eat something? Were you stung? Bit?” Rose felt the heat rising in her cheeks. Stinging, biting...toxin...how had these painful terms become loaded with sensuality? “I thought I heard you scream but I couldn’t get anywhere in those stupid corridors. I kept running into walls.”
“I was…didn’t the Doctor tell you what happened?” She cast a pleading look across the room. And a claxon sounded deep in the TARDIS.
“Incoming,” the Doctor barked. “Rose, grab the wave stabilizer.” He indicated a lever with a stab of his finger. “Mickey, hold down that button.”
“What?” Mickey looked over his shoulder startled but Rose pushed by him, already obeying the Doctor’s command.
“Button. That button.” The Doctor pointed. “Hold it down.”
“Why?”
“Never mind why just do it,” the Doctor snapped, practically ricocheting off the walls. He zipped around the console, flipping switches and twisting dials, bounding vigorously from one spot to another. Grabbing Mickey by the wrist he drew him to the right panel. “Press this down,” he said, speaking slowly as if addressing an idiot. “Keep it down until I tell you to let go. It’s vitally important.” Mickey did as he was told. So did Rose, though she raised an inquiring brow at the Doctor as she held onto a lever she was fairly sure operated the external thermometer.
“Are we going to crash?” Mickey asked.
“Crash? No, no…well…probably not,” the Doctor said, his tone indicating there was some cause for concern. “Rose?” he called brightly from the far-side of the room. Straining, she could barely make him out beyond the pulsing rotor. He had a hand to the base of his skull and a pensive pout on his lips as he studied the monitor before him. “Do you recall that time we crashed into Sigma Epsilon instead of landing on Sigma Eighteen?”
“And you were arrested for endangering temporal bystanders?”
“And you were assigned to defend me,” he directed an inquiring glance at Mickey. “Can you imagine it? Rose Tyler as barrister?”
Mickey couldn’t. He snorted rudely. And Rose bristled. “Hey, he got off didn’t he?” she declared. Then she blushed at the unfortunate choice of phrase. Wincing, she closed her eyes.
The Doctor covered her lapse smoothly. “Actually I had to serve ten days but it could have been much worse. Tell Mickey about the trial…it was brilliant. You were brilliant. And...I imagine the story will keep his mind off other things...like crashing.”
Rose got the message. She opened her eyes again and shot a sidelong glance at Mickey, hoping he hadn’t seen her red cheeks in the bluish light. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. She’d never intended to get involved with the Doctor. And Mickey was still her friend. He’d always have a place in her heart…but not the first place…not any more.
“Yeah, well," she began shakily, "I did make a very good public defender, if I do say so myself."
“Tell him about the balloon animals,” the Doctor prompted.
“Balloon animals,” Rose said, bobbing her head as she focused her thoughts. “First there was this trial of sorts...because the Doctor would see the court system instead of accepting judgment. Oddest thing…with balloon animals…not really but like that…I don't know what they were supposed to be...representative of justice, I suppose. Just as valid as blindfolded virgins with swords when you think on it. Anyway, I had to do fractions and keep juggling these cubes while I argued his case…”
“And then there was the singing," the Doctor went on with an infectious laugh, "Harmonizing with those waiters. I never thought I'd keep a straight face all the way through.”
Mickey nodded, trying to follow the complex story while remaining mindful of his one finger on the all important button. The first reminiscence bled naturally into another about Barcelona. A tale about impudent flower sellers segued into one about Captain Jack and his ill-fated affair with a samurai warrior. The Doctor picked up the thread of a story whenever Rose ran out of steam. After a little while, she shoved her lever back into place and took a seat in the duct tape patched chair, bracing her feet against the console.
Eventually the Doctor joined her. He, too, put his feet up. Mickey wondered if they realized how closely they mirrored each other. Their bodies fell naturally into the same attitude. They giggled over the same things and touched from time to time. Her shoulder pressed into his. His hand caressed hers as he made some sweeping gesture. They finished one another’s sentences without hesitation. Anyone could see they were a couple, in love if not lovers. In their own little world, they'd forgotten all about him.
“…and that weird munchkin lady with the big eyes? Do you remember?” The Doctor exclaimed. “The way she looked at you? And then she opens her mouth and fire comes out.”
“I thought I was going to get frazzled,” Rose laughed.
She couldn’t believe how effortlessly they’d fallen back into their old pattern. How easy it was to sit next to the Doctor. She didn’t feel the slightest bit shy or awkward, chatting with him. Nothing had changed. He was still her Doctor, her very best friend. Even Mickey hadn’t noticed anything different about them. And he seemed to have gotten over his anger. Rose relaxed. Everything was going to be just fine.
END THIS PART
PART FOUR