An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Inspired by @lupine-nebula 's art.
Chapters: 1/1 (4416 words) Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler Characters: Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor (Doctor Who) Additional Tags: the night after Krop Tor, Episode: s02e08-09 The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, post satan pit, Hair Braiding, Gentle Romance, Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, nearly crossing the lines but not really, Mutual Pining, based on art, brief appearance of the Ninth Doctor in a flashback
Summary:
“Sleep, Rose. You go and catch your forty winks,” the Doctor whispered and added after swallowing loudly, nervously. “I’ll be here, I’ll keep the nightmares away.”
Rose suddenly felt exhausted after the happy rush of adrenaline and dopamine had flushed out of her blood. One moment she was elated, hugging the Doctor and laughing merrily, clinging to him with her feet in the air as he swayed, relieved to have escaped the terrors of the impossible planet; the next moment she was leaning onto one of the coral struts in the control room, barely able to keep her eyes open.
The Doctor, bless him, noticed. He didn’t notice immediately, of course, as it was in his character to be oblivious to all things obvious. It took him two minutes to realise that Rose wasn’t replying to his excited rambling about a place he was taking her to. When his ever-cheerful companion stayed silent about her opinion on the cuisine of Geverr, the continent of the planet he wanted to take her to, he looked at her intently.
Rose was standing, sagging, against the coral strut. Everything about her posture screamed exhaustion. The Doctor’s lips formed a sad smile when he saw the state his beloved companion was in. The smile vanished, however, when he realised that much, if not all, of this exhaustion was caused by him.
It was his fault that they ended up on Krop Tor. It was because of him that Rose had to go through the trauma of knowing the evil beyond human understanding and the Tardis’s reach. Because of him, she had to live through leaving the planet alone, scared and friendless, thinking her family and her home unreachable and him dead, forgotten beneath the remnants of what was a physics-defying planet once.
Rose went through all of these horrors because of his careless levity.
Well, there would be none of that.
No more.
The Doctor put the sequence on pause, then reversed his previous actions and deleted the coordinates, shifting the course to make the Tardis enter the Time Vortex instead, where they could stay, floating, while they were recuperating.
Safe and sound for the time being.
Then, he turned to Rose. The Doctor’s lips thinned at seeing her listless form, but he squared his shoulders and approached her.
“Rose?” he called softly.
She perked up, shoulders jumping slightly, then gave him a shadow of her usual smile. “Where are we heading to?” she asked as she tried to stand straight against the coral strut.
The Doctor pursed his lips. “Well, you’re certainly heading to bed,” he replied, his voice thick with emotions he was trying to hold back. “It’s time for the puny little humans to get some shuteye,” he said, trying to ease the tense atmosphere with a quip about humans’ love for sleep.
Rose let out a long exhale, closing her eyes.
“‘M not sure I could sleep after today,” she murmured. If he were human, he would have probably missed it.
The Doctor’s hearts squeezed painfully upon hearing fear hiding behind Rose’s exhausted words.
The experience of knowing what it was like to lose her, to be so agonisingly apart from her, was still fresh in his mind, and it caused him to almost cross the line he’d drawn months ago in their relationship.
Almost.
The Doctor pulled Rose to him suddenly, wrapping his arms around her in a fierce hug. He let out a relieved sigh when he felt Rose melting into the embrace.
Exhaustion and barely-hidden anxiety were still radiating off her, saturating the air around them with the smell of fear and defeat.
“It lied, Rose,” the Doctor told his companion, lowering his lips to her ear. “The beast itself was a lie, and all of its predictions were lies, too.”
He felt rather than heard Rose taking in a shuddering breath and glided his open palms over her sweat-drenched shirt soothingly.
“How did it know about where I was from, then? About Ida, Toby, Mr Jefferson…” she wondered, her voice muffled by the fabric of his suit.
The Doctor hushed Rose. “Do you trust me, Rose Tyler?”
The answer followed immediately. “You know I do, Doctor,” she replied firmly. “With everything I am.”
If his breath stopped for a second at his words, he didn’t pay attention to it.
“Then you have to trust me on this: the beast lied. It tapped into the magnetic field and manipulated each and every of your emotions. It was playing on your fears, not seeing your future.”
Rose stayed tense despite his reasoning, and the Doctor pulled her closer and cradled her in his arms again, trying to come up with something that would make him believe that the beast was merely taunting them, not predicting the future.
The Doctor himself was afraid of what the existence of the beast meant, of the unknown it left in its wake, of the premonitions it spewed.
The Doctor felt anger rise. The beast has targeted Rose especially. It didn’t offer fortune telling to others in the crew, only spoke of their lives’ stories, yet it deliberately bullied Rose with the promise of her soon death.
As if playing on the Doctor’s fear of losing her.
He was terrified of losing Rose Tyler.
And the beast could read that and use it against him easily in his vulnerable state.
The Doctor’s eyes widened. That was it! A clear, logical explanation that he himself almost believed in.
Almost, because a stubborn, more pessimistic and experienced part of him still demanded the Doctor to research the beast’s nature, its history, its objectives and weaknesses.
Only Rose didn’t need to know that.
He needed to calm her down, not to wind her up into a state of frenzy she was just getting out of.
His own anxiety and fretting over the beast’s existence were totally counterproductive.
The Doctor decided to start untangling the tight knot of negative emotions radiating off Rose.
“It played on our fears and insecurities, Rose,” he murmured, burying his nose in her hair, still stroking her back in a slow motion. “It used the weakened shields that every sentient being has installed in their minds, and it speculated from there on. It told no future, only the fears and the guilt of the past.”
The Doctor wanted to believe that.
He needed to believe that.
That the beast was twisting his own guilt for destroying his home planet and his own people, that it was triggering the Doctor’s fear of losing Rose, twisting it into a full-fledged phobia.
Well, the Doctor sniffed, and a resolute expression settled on his face. He wouldn’t allow the made-up creature from the supposed dawn of time to intimidate him and make Rose miserable anymore.
Rose’s hot, wet breaths made the collar of his shirt flutter. She was sniffling occasionally, but the Doctor couldn’t feel any tears falling down her cheeks. He realised that she was holding herself together for his sake. He closed his eyes, feeling defeated.
He was botching it all up.
He was making her feel worse instead of cheering her up. And it was his own bloody fault for making her feel like she had no right to fall apart in his presence, that she couldn’t show her fear or emotions clearly when he was near.
All because the Doctor was used to avoiding the domestics both in previous and the current regeneration.
More so in the current one, it seems, because Rose used to allow herself to cry in his company before.
Before, when she lost her dad. When she lost the ambiguous relationship she had going on with Mickey. When she witnessed somebody dying during their travels. When she woke up scared and crying at night, feeling guilty after the Dalek’s actions in 2012.
Nowadays, however, it seemed that she saved only the positive emotions for the Doctor to see and suffered on her own in her bedroom at nights.
Not even Jack or Mickey were there to support her.
The Doctor sucked on his teeth, irritated at himself for pushing his…he floundered mentally… friend away.
Friends. Yes. Friends, that’s who they were. The Doctor and Rose, the best friends, hug buddies, travelling companions.
No matter how much he wanted to overstep that line, they had to stay friends. Travel buddies.
Mates. Besties. There was definitely nothing romantic going on between the Doctor and Rose.
Not at all.
The Doctor huffed quietly, squeezed Rose’s sides a bit tighter, relishing in the feeling of her body being so close to him, of Rose trusting him to comfort her, to chase her fears away.
“Right!” he exclaimed, trying to disperse the cloud of melancholy that settled over them. He also wanted to pull himself out of the state of wishful thinking about his and Rose’s relationship.
“You - shower. I’ll take a quick wash up and change, too, and whip something up for us to eat,” before Rose could open her mouth and protest that she wasn’t hungry, he raised his open palm up and interrupted, “no arguments accepted. You humans need your calories to function.”
The Doctor finished his words with an encouraging smile.
Rose, however, didn’t say ‘no’. Instead, she gave him her teasing, tongue-touched smile and told him:
“Actually, I am surprised at you saying ‘change’. Have you got, like, a dozen brown pinstriped suits in your room? Or are you sitting in front of the futuristic laundromat in your undies, staring at your suit swishing and drying?”
The Doctor’s cheeks blushed, while his hearts swelled with pride and the overwhelming love for Rose. She was fighting back, again. Scared, tired, but never defeated, she did her best to lift his spirits while barely keeping her own up.
“Oi!” he cried, feigning insult. “I’ll have you know that I have an extensive wardrobe, I just prefer sets that are tested by time and space. Now, go! Before I change my mind and make you cook dinner for us. And I’ll demand a three-course-meal, too!”
Rose giggled, then squeezed the Doctor’s body in a hug once more and scampered away down the hall where her bedroom was located.
The Doctor closed his eyes and let out an exhausted sigh.
The evening would be pleasant enough.
The night, however, would surely bring many nightmares to both him and Rose.
::::::
Rose was regretting her decision to go to bed with her hair wet yesterday night.
She was also regretting seeing nightmares the moment she managed to fall into a fitful sleep forty minutes after she actually crawled into her double bed. She’d put the sleeping time away until she felt her eyelids drooping as she took yet another relationship quiz from a magazine she had in a stack next to her vanity.
So, Rose fell asleep only to jump up on her bed, trembling violently, and to find that she was no longer alone.
Somebody - ‘ the Doctor, who else?!’ Rose sneered at her own silliness - was beside her the instant she sprang upright. His arms were wrapped around her upper body, and she felt him snuggling to her back with his chest. His cheek was pressed to hers, cooling her heated face slightly.
“It’s okay, Rose,” she heard the Doctor speak soothingly. “You’re on the Tardis, you’re safe, nothing can hurt you.”
She almost heard him think, “I’m here, too, you’re not alone.”
Rose’s shoulders fell as she felt the initiate ‘fight-or-flight’ reaction start to flush from her body. She felt drained again, and she slouched back, bracketed by the Doctor’s embrace.
Her exhaustion upon returning to the Tardis seemed superficial now. She felt like she had been hit by a car and trampled on by a machine that layered asphalt on the roads. Rose didn’t care about why the Doctor was in her room that night, she didn’t care about how they would dance around the issue in the morning.
She was mightily happy that the Doctor was near. Nightmares didn’t seem to hold any substantial power over her. The threats that were awaiting them from all of the corners of the universe couldn’t intimidate her in the Doctor’s presence.
The promises from hell melted like vapour when the Doctor was holding her hand.
Rose moaned and threw her head back, bumping into the Doctor’s neck. He let out a surprised sound but didn’t complain, settling against the headboard and pulling her with him.
They ended up under covers. The Doctor was leaning against the headboard with Rose lying between his legs with his arms wrapped around her, her head nestled on his chest. He was stroking her arms with the tips of his fingers, painting intricate patterns on her skin, breathing slowly and deeply to assist Rose with calming down.
“Sleep, Rose. You go and catch your forty winks. I know you didn’t sleep at the space base at all,” the Doctor whispered and added after swallowing loudly, nervously. “I’ll be here, I’ll keep the nightmares away.”
Her eyes, which were drooping before his words, finally fell closed, and the loud thoughts that assaulted her consciousness stubbornly despite her being tired finally swished away, chased by the Doctor’s reassuring words.
Rose felt him play with her hair soothingly, the tips of his fingers grazing the skin of her cheeks and her temples with feather-like touches, and then she knew no more.
::::::
“Ugh! I should’ve blow dried my hair yesterday,” Rose lamented as she witnessed her disastrous reflection in her vanity’s mirror. “I’ll never style them unless I wash them again.”
She threw the comb she was using to untangle her hair on the bed, barely avoiding hitting the Doctor with it.
The Doctor, who was still in her room, sitting on her now made bed.
Rose heard him exclaim about her sending dangerous missiles his way, but after seeing her pout in the mirror, he gave her a tender smile (boy, did her heart start beating out a samba at that) and walked over to stand behind her.
“Let me help you with that.”
Rose was too shocked to protest when the Doctor took another comb from the table and started untangling her hair, which dried in a messy, curly way overnight.
She didn’t think even the straightener could help her hair look neat at the roots. What did the Doctor think he could do to salvage her hairstyle?
Still, Rose couldn't pass the opportunity to have her hair played with. Jackie used to do her hair until Rose rebelled at twelve, demanding emancipation from her mother's care, being 'grown up'.
From there on, nobody really paid enough attention to her needs in a relationship. Jimmy was useless at all things sweet and romantic, and Mickey, bless him, was never overly touchy-feely from the start. He was never unkind, unlike Jimmy was, but he was far from being a romantic.
Jack, on the other hand, was unsurprisingly good with affectionate gestures. He knew of her painful crush on the Doctor, and he also was there to provide friendly support whenever the Time Lord’s aversion to domesticity couldn’t cover Rose’s need for human contact and comfort.
They’d spend many an evening, Jack and Rose, participating in relaxing rituals from both of their centuries and cultures. Dancing parties from Jack’s era, manicures and soap operas from Rose’s time; a spa treatment on the clouds in the 51st century with Jack’s special guest pass and a shopping trip to a thrift store not far from Rose’s home. Jack knew exactly when Rose needed some down time and a good cuddle. Rose knew precisely when Jack needed a distraction from the real world, and was there when his nights were assaulted by nightmares.
Jack could do domestic better than any man in her life could, that’s for sure.
He was a space Casanova, of course, but human nonetheless, used to the slow days of everyday life, knowledgeable of comforts needed to humans on regular occasions.
The Doctor, however, even the New New one, didn’t seem to be too keen on whatever Jack and Rose did during their human decompression time.
It was, well…too human. Too slow and lazy for his liking.
Yet playing with a girl's hair, let alone styling it, couldn’t be any more domestic.
Romantic, too.
“Um…,” Rose hesitated, looking at the Doctor’s carefree face in the mirror. “Are you…,” she paused again, the words glued to the tip of her tongue - what if she scared him away?
The Doctor, however, didn’t reply, too engrossed in his new ‘project’.
Rose closed her eyes, still not believing what was happening to her. She wondered if she was sleeping still, if this was a dream she was seeing, recovering from a sleepless night and the terrors of the black hole above her head.
She pinched the inside of her forearm slightly and hissed when it hurt.
Not a dream, then.
Huh.
Rose decided not to question the Doctor’s sudden splurge of affection. She felt like both her and the Doctor deserved some comfort after the events of the previous days.
She only thought that the Doctor’s need for comfort would be filled to the brim after she woke up, still held protectively in his arms. It seemed that she hadn’t moved all night, which indicated the degree of her exhaustion clearly. The fact that the Doctor stayed static and didn’t run away after midnight to tinker with the Tardis or some of his latest projects onboard shook Rose to the core. She knew him. He didn’t like staying still. He never went searching for domestics on his own volition, not even on Krop Tor.
Yet after last night and him coming to her room to keep the nightmares at bay for several hours straight, it seemed that the balance beam of the tightrope of their precarious relationship tipped sideways.
The ‘more than mates’ sideways.
And there was nothing Rose could do at that moment but take the Doctor’s behaviour in stride and enjoy it while it lasted.
She wasn’t sure it would.
With that thought, Rose relaxed her shoulders and butted into the gentle sensation of the Doctor’s careful, nimble fingers cording through her tangled hair. He was murmuring something under his breath, concentrated, and Rose had to bite down a giggle that threatened to escape when she noticed that the tip of his tongue was stuck out a little bit.
The Doctor was fully engrossed in the art of hair taming.
Rose closed her eyes and nearly purred when the last knot got untangled, and the Doctor combed his fingers through her now mostly smooth hair.
The curls, untouched by the hair drier and not defeated by bleach, framed her makeup-free face.
Not the look she loved, honestly. Made her feel too young and too vulnerable, bare to the world to see with all of her imperfections.
The only people who were allowed to see Rose au naturel were a small circle. Her mum, her best friend Shareen, Mickey, Jack and…well, the Doctor, of course. No matter how careful and crafty Rose thought she was with wearing make-up at all times, there were occasions when the Doctor caught her unaware.
At night, searching for a midnight snack in the galley. Or the first time, in the med bay, after she had badly burned one of her arms and broke another and had to wear it in a plaster for several hours. It led to Rose asking for help with make-up and dirt removal from the Doctor himself ( “Jeopardy-friendly, you are!” ).
Her blue-eyed, no-nonsense hero. How scared she was of his judgement! She was trembling inside, afraid of his opinion on her ‘untuned’ face, unsure of herself after hundreds of dozens of human faults in his speeches about humans.
Imagine how surprised she was when the Doctor’s reaction was vastly different from what she’d imagined.
His face, usually so stern and impassive, was now much, much softer. His blue eyes, usually careful and a bit impassive at first sight, were now widened a little, his mouth slackened a bit in surprise. On anyone else such an expression would look stupid, however, the Doctor looked astonished.
Rose felt her cheeks being flooded with blood, painting them dark red no doubt. Certainly, the Doctor wasn’t astonished by her. He was gobsmacked by seeing her without her ‘war paint’ on. She was merely a human, and a very average one at that, not at all beauty contest worthy.
The Doctor raised his other hand to her face, grazing her cheekbones with his fingertips. It came away stained with mascara. Rose wondered if she could sue the advertisers who insisted that their products were waterproof. ‘What a load of crap’, Rose cringed. It all melted away the moment any kind of liquid fell onto her skin.
And now the Doctor was a witness to her horrific appearance.
Only it didn’t look like he was horrified at all.
“I forget sometimes,” he started, voice strangely low and quiet, “how young you actually are.” Rose felt her cheeks go darker at his reaction, and she was caught between shrugging his words off and defending her ability to be a grown up. The Doctor, meanwhile, shook his head, looking impressed suddenly. “You hide it so well.”
Rose’s hackles were about to rise when the Doctor clammed up as suddenly as he fell into a wistful mood. He gave her a kind smile, and his eyes were smiling along with his lips. Rose smiled back, glad to see the Doctor genuinely happy. Even if it was at her expense.
So, she replied with a tight-lipped, awkward smile and allowed him to wash the soot and the run-off makeup from her face as she kept her arm in the burn-healer (“Advanced tissue regenerator, Rose!”) and enjoyed the unusual bout of attention given to her.
Rose was rudely awakened from her reminiscence by the Doctor shaking her shoulders slightly.
“Wha’?” she drawled, narrowing her eyes a bit angrily.
“I asked,” the Doctor chuckled and tugged on a lock on her hair affectionately, “have you got any hair ties?”
Then, immediately, he added another question.
“Or do you call it a hair bobble? An elastic band? Hm…” he scratched his chin with his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully.
Rose rolled her eyes and smiled but stretched over her vanity to reach for the tin of bobbles. She pushed the lid open and showed its contents to the Doctor. He hummed in approval, then took the comb yet again and proceeded to part her hair in two sections.
Rose was watching with growing fascination at the Doctor’s quick, precise movements as he arranged her hair into two braids, plaiting her hair neatly and tying the ends with two thin clear hair ties. In just a few short minutes her hair was taken away from her face, not annoying her anymore. The Doctor beamed in the mirror’s reflection, awaiting praise for his deed, and Rose was quick to thank him profusely.
She felt him place his hands on her shoulders and squeeze them lightly in reply to her thanks.
A few wisps of hair fell out of the braids, too short for the hairstyle, and Rose tugged them down so that they were framing her face instead of sticking out wildly. She then reached for her mascara tube only to be stopped by the Doctor’s hand.
“Rose. You look beautiful without all of that, you know that, don’t you?” he asked, sounding sincere.
The fact of him tugging on his ear spoke volumes of his nervousness.
Her lips formed a sweet smile. Secretly, she was elated at the Doctor considering her beautiful in her jim jams and her face bare.
Out loud, she said:
“For a human?” she smirked at the grimace that appeared on his face when she reminded him of that comment from long ago.
“I’m just joking, silly. Thank you. But I don’t…I don’t feel confident without it outside, yeah?” she confessed, fiddling with her shirt’s hem. “And you did promise me the best pancakes in Canada, didn’t you? And the sweetest maple syrup?” Rose added playfully, trying to sort out the slight awkwardness that arose at the Doctor’s compliment.
The mention of something sweet didn’t fail to make the Doctor lighten up. He bounced on his heels and grinned happily at her suggestion.
“You bet I’ll keep my promises up!” he exclaimed and turned around sharply to the door. He almost went out and closed the door behind him when he returned, sticking his head into the doorway.
“And don’t take too long! I know you, Rose Tyler, you’ll be putting your…war paint on for hours and hours if it weren’t for a deadline. I give you…” he trailed, creating a long, intriguing pause, “ten minutes. Ten minutes, that’s it, and or I’m off without you!”
Rose searched for something to throw at the Doctor, finding a small package of wet wipes on the vanity table, and threw it at his giggling form as he disappeared from the view behind the door. She shook her head, smiling. Of course he wouldn’t leave her, she knew he was bluffing.
Still, she thought as she coated her lashes with mascara and put hoop earrings on, it would only be fair to indulge the Doctor’s desire to ‘go-go-go’ after he indulged her need for extensive comforting that night.
With that thought, Rose stood from the vanity, smacking her lips at her reflection, spreading the lip gloss evenly, and went on to choose something comfortable to wear for a hearty meal of pancakes.
She checked her phone on the way to the console room, finding a new message from her mum, who was wondering assertively when Rose would grace her with her appearance at the estates. Rose grimaced. She wasn’t doing a good job of being a good daughter, wasn’t she? She needed to visit her mum more frequently. It was a long time since they’d last visited Jackie, and despite the message being short and not revealing much, it looked like her mother had something to share with her.
Rose sighed and pocketed her phone. It seemed like a trip home was an order, and the Doctor would have to deal with domestics a bit more that day.
Rose bit her lip and shrugged to herself, entering the console room and seeing the Doctor dance around the controls while piloting the ship. He seemed so enthusiastic…
She’d tell him later, Rose decided, after he’d been plied with sugar and carbs at the cafe. No big deal. They were due for a visit anyway.
The end.
