She keeps reminding herself of what Martha said—We’ll do what we have to, Rose, to keep John close, keep him safe. Surely the Doctor will understand. But as the days drag on, the tension simmers higher and higher, and it grows more and more difficult to tell John and the Doctor apart. It’s only a matter of time, Rose fears, before her restraint snaps, and the whole thing boils over.
He can’t say he’s imagined such things (because he hasn’t, would never; big dumb sexless space oaf, that’s him) but if he were to start, he might imagine that’s a sound Rose makes during arousal.
Not that he’d know. Or imagine. Because he doesn’t and he hasn’t.
(Warning: here there be smuts.)
***
CLANK.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!”
Halfway down the hall, the Doctor chuckles. “Need any help in there?”
Another clank, and he can just make out the sound of Rose swearing under her breath. “No,” she calls back.
“Really? Cos it sounds like you picked a fight with the wardrobe,” the Doctor teases, “and you’re losing.”
A loud Ka-CHUNK sounds in response. “I’m fine!” Rose insists stubbornly.
Shaking his head, the Doctor laughs. “What could you possibly be doing to cause that racket?” he asks, doubling back toward the wardrobe room.
“It’s not me, it’s this stupid busted thing,” says Rose’s voice, and the Doctor steps inside the room to see the outline of her body, silhouetted against the back of a folding-screen; from the looks of it, this stupid busted thing refers to the automatic lace-puller, attached to Rose’s silhouette by two shadow-strings. Normally cheerfully upright, the outline of the lace-puller is now slumped, wheezing a little, and yep, that’s the faintest hint of smoke rising from its vents.
The Doctor tsks. Only got a couple of centuries out of the thing. Typical rubbish Grishtal workmanship.
“Sure you don’t need help?” the Doctor asks.
“Not unless you know how to lace up a corset.”
“I’m sure I can figure it out,” he replies confidently, striding forward. “How hard can it be?”
Rose laughs. “I dunno, you might be—”
Without warning, the Doctor pushes the folding-screen aside to find Rose standing between a mirror and the auto-lacer, hair coiffed, corset half-laced and strings pulled taut, wearing nothing else but a pair of extremely anachronistic (not to mention extremely tiny) knickers. She’s staring at him over her shoulder, wide eyes growing wider, pink cheeks blooming pinker.
“—surprised,” she finishes breathlessly, and neither of them are laughing now.
Fortunately, the Doctor’s mind is a far more impressive machine than the auto-lacer, and its many many gears and cogs only falter for the briefest of moments. It’s nothing to be shocked by, after all. Rose or not, there’s nothing unusual about the display in front of him. It’s just a body. A human body. They’re all more or less the same. Skin, hair, curves. Undergarments. Surprisingly small undergarments that hide very little. Nothing to be startled about. Certainly nothing to bluster over.
“What are you wearing those for?” he blurts out, staring at the pants, and internally kicks himself.
The Doctor rolls his eyes. “No, I’m saying that if you’re gonna go through the effort to put on something historically accurate like that—” he says, gesturing to the corset, “—you might as well commit to the whole kit. You know. Bloomers and such.”
“What do you know about bloomers?” Rose laughs.
“I know modern-day pants are an anachronism.”
“And I know no one’s gonna be seeing them anyway. Well, except you now, I guess. Not totally sure you count, though,” she teases, looking the Doctor up and down.
“Gee, thanks,” the Doctor says wryly, watching as Rose struggles to pull her laces free of the auto-lacer’s vicelike grip. “I was gonna offer to help you with that, but now I’m thinking maybe I’ll just leave you to it.”
“No you won’t.”
“Oh no?” asks the Doctor, leaning lazily against a coral strut.
“Nope.” Rose shoots another look at him over her shoulder when he doesn’t move. “You’re too impatient for that.”
“Nah. See, patience is a skill, a discipline, acquired over trials and tribulations over the course of time. And me? I’ve been around for a bit. In fact,” the Doctor says smugly, crossing his arms, “I’d say I’ve had bouts of patience that lasted longer than you’ve been alive.”
Rose smiles at him, her gaze soft and warm, and really, it’s almost maddening, the instant effect that look has on him, the way it makes something go all honeyed in his chest. “Do you really want to stall your adventure just because your companion got trapped by the dressing-machine?” she asks sweetly. “Cos the whole stuck-in-the-car, waiting-cos-the-missus-ain’t-ready-yet bit sounds awfully domestic.”
The Doctor glares at her. Rose smiles at him beatifically, tongue trapped in her teeth. His eyes narrow. Her smile brightens.
Dammit.
“Next time,” he says, even as he grudgingly pushes off away from the strut, “we’re going somewhere and somewhen that does not require complicated underthings.”
“Fine by me,” replies Rose, watching in the mirror as the Doctor approaches the auto-lacer, scanning it with the sonic. Official diagnosis: it is, indeed, busted. “Wouldn’t have gone for the whole historical look anyway, ‘cept I remembered that run-in with the what-d’you-call-‘ems, Henry VIII’s fashion police,” Rose continues.
Chuckling, the Doctor adjusts the setting on the sonic, loosening the auto-lacer’s joints. “Those were just constables, I’m afraid. No fashion police, just coppers getting a little carried away enforcing local sumptuary laws, drunk on an ounce of power. Typical lower-level law enforcement.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t give you or Jack any trouble.”
“All right, sexist typical lower-level law enforcement.” Pulling the laces free from the machine, he turns to Rose. “Now, if you want to talk about literal fashion police—”
He tugs on the corset-laces and Rose stumbles back into him, gasping in surprise.
“Still earning those sea legs?” teases the Doctor.
“Git,” Rose laughs, pushing away. “Give a girl some warning, first!”
“Sort of thought this would give it away,” the Doctor says brightly, giving the laces another little tug.
Rose shoots a dirty look over his shoulder.
His responding grin is perfectly innocent. “I’m only trying to help.”
“Speaking of drunk on power,” Rose mutters, but she’s smiling when she says it, so the Doctor pays it no mind. This time, when the Doctor pulls on the laces, she doesn’t stumble, just rocks back a little. Inwardly, the Doctor grins at that. Her time aboard the TARDIS has earned her some decent sea-legs, after all.
Crossing the laces over each other, the Doctor threads them through the grommets, pulling them taut again, after. He repeats the pattern, pulling the laces snug each time, until he cinches a little tighter and Rose lets out a sharp breath in response.
“All right there?” he asks.
“S’fine,” she says, but in the mirror, she looks a little winded.
“I can loosen up.”
“It’s fine,” Rose repeats, straightening up a little. “Just—sometimes it sort of pushes the air out of your lungs, is all.”
The Doctor shrugs and sets back to work. Cross, weave, thread, pull.
Rose gasps.
Glancing up again, the Doctor frowns. “There’s no use in you getting all dolled-up if you can’t breathe.”
“I can breathe just fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“I don’t want you fainting in the middle of the opera.”
“Oh, god forbid I should miss the opera,” Rose teases.
“I mean it,” he says, and he starts lacing again. “You faint, I’m not lugging your dead weight around. Not with whatever massive frock you’re undoubtedly planning to wear over this.”
“Oh whatever, just take the dress off.”
Something goes funny in the Doctor’s stomach and he yanks the laces hard. Rose’s footing slips a little and she gasps, the sound just the littlest bit strangled this time. Before the Doctor has a chance to apologize, Rose shakes her head.
“Don’t stop,” she says, and is it him, or has her voice gone just a little bit breathy?
“Might as well get it over and done with,” she adds quickly.
Fair enough. He goes back to it, cross, weave, thread, pull, cross, weave, thread, pull, and the little sound that escapes Rose doesn’t sound like a gasp, so much as a—
Well. No. It sounds exactly like a gasp. Just not the sort of gasp one typically makes while one is getting dressed. He risks another look up at the mirror and oh no, no, that’s a mistake, because Rose isn’t looking him in the eye anymore, instead she’s staring into nothing, biting her lower lip so hard it’s gone white as her chest gently heaves, soft pink blooming over her décolletage. And if the Doctor didn’t know any better, he’d think he caught just the lightest whiff of pheromones dusting the air.
It suddenly occurs to the Doctor that his offer of help might have gotten him more than he bargained for.
He should stop, he thinks, before Rose cottons on that he’s cottoned on and things get awkward. Or, would that make it worse, if he stopped, and then Rose would know for certain that he knew? They’ve already established that he doesn’t really. Know, that is. About this sort of thing. Well, no, she knows he knows, but she doesn’t know how much he knows, and she still seems fairly convinced he doesn’t know anything at all. So.
So the surest way to maintain decorum is to play dumb, right? Play dumb, spare Rose’s blushes, preserve plausible deniability. Just be an idiot. Capital plan.
He crosses and weaves and threads and pulls again and Rose lets out another strangled noise and he can’t say he’s imagined such things (because he hasn’t, would never; big dumb sexless space oaf, that’s him) but if he were to start, he might imagine that’s a sound Rose makes during arousal.
Not that he’d know. Or imagine. Because he doesn’t and he hasn’t.
And he crosses and weaves, threads and pulls and crosses and weaves, threads and pulls again and she swallows back a pant and he accidentally looks up to see her in the mirror again, eyelashes fluttering, still biting that lower lip, biting so hard he’s surprised she hasn’t drawn blood, and her cheeks and ears have gone pink to match the blush of her chest, which, coincidentally, is getting more and more difficult for the Doctor to ignore, either due to its color or its motion or the fact that her breasts bloody damn well look like they’re about to escape this godsforsaken corset any second now—
Cross, weave, thread, yank and Rose stumbles backward again with the force of it, smacking into the Doctor with a bodily thud.
“Leverage!” he announces before either of them have a chance to react, because her face in the mirror and her body pulled against his are decidedly not helping things. “Need leverage to wrap up a task like this,” he adds, dropping the laces so he can grab Rose by the arms and walk her over to the nearest coral strut, blessedly out of the mirror’s view. “It’s all about the physics, see,” he continues, placing Rose’s hands on the strut. “Right amount of leverage, right amount of force; hang on and you’ll be sorted in a tic.”
He picks up the laces and pulls them again, pulls them tight and crosses and weaves and oh, oh no, oh this is even worse somehow than before, because now instead of Rose’s whole body rocking toward him, it’s just her hips and bum, inching back and forth with every tug of the strings, offering a graphic preview of what it would look like if—
Nope. Nope. Can’t think like that won’t think like that mustn’t think like that but it’s too late to change tactics now, just got to ignore the scent and the heat and the view and the sounds and her and move as quickly as possible, wrap this up before his stupid overactive senses pick up on anything else. Rose clings to the strut as he works, biting back her gasps from the sound of it, but the Doctor can still hear her breath trying to escape, can’t help but notice the trembling in her legs. He focuses intently on the work in front of him, fingers and hands working rapidly to finish, and if the laces miss a grommet or two—well, that’s not a flustered mistake. It’s a stylistic flourish. Yeah. He can work with that.
“Done,” he announces, and he’s very pleased with how even and calm his voice sounds despite everything rioting in his head, very pleased indeed. “The chore is complete; you have been properly cinched, tucked, and flattened in all the right places. The inability to properly breathe or move is now totally yours.”
“Thanks,” Rose laughs, and the Doctor pointedly ignores how shaky the sound is, the way she gulps for air.
“Need any help with anything else?” he asks, stepping back, hands firmly lodged in pockets. “Socks? Shoes? Hat?”
“Bloomers?” she jokes, turning to face him.
“What, and undo all my hard work? Should have thought about that before you put the corset on.”
“I’ll just pull ‘em on over top.”
“Rose,” replies the Doctor, all faux-scandalized mock-sternness. “Bloomers go on before the corset. Every time traveler knows that.”
Rolling her eyes, Rose crosses back to the mirror. “Well then, next time I’ll be sure to get your input before I get dressed,” she laughs shakily.
The Doctor watches her as she puts the finishing touches on her makeup. His eyes do not wander down the line of her shoulderblades or the exaggerated curve of her waist or the slope of her hips or the completely bare stretches of her legs, but stay firmly fixed on the reflection of her face in the mirror; the idea of a pre-clothing Rose is more intriguing than it has any right to be, but the Doctor pushes that to the side. It’s easy enough, now that the risk of imminent danger has passed.
She’s fine, now. He’s fine, always. Nothing happened, not really. Anyway they’re back in safe territory, where they belong. Even if it is secretly just a little bit satisfying to realize exactly what kind of effect he can have on her, if he so chooses.
He hides a grin. Luckily he, the Doctor thinks smugly, is not so easily affected.
“Unless you’ve got any other chores for me, I’ll leave you to it,” says the Doctor, stepping back. “But don’t take it easy just cos I’m not in here anymore. We’re still sticking to a strict schedule. Chop-chop.”
“You got it,” says Rose, lining her lips with lipstick. “Oh, and Doctor?” she calls, after he’s made it a few steps away.
He stops and turns. “What’s that?”
“Would you send Jack in here?”
His brow furrows in confusion, and once again, he resolutely ignores the view laid out in front of him. “Why?” he asks.
Finishing her lipstick, Rose meets his gaze in the mirror. “In case I need help with any other chores,” she says simply.
Shocked, the Doctor grasps for any kind of witty rejoinder, or any sense of anything really, any at all. But all he can do is turn and leave, before Rose sees him gaping like some kind of slack-jawed idiot.
Nope, he thinks furiously. Not affected at all.
***
The incident is all but forgotten by the time Rose has finished getting ready (having taken her time about it, too, and demonstrating absolutely no remorse whatsoever), and by the time Jack is finished getting ready (how in all the hells did he manage to take even longer than Rose, the Doctor wonders?), the incident has left his brain entirely. Now he’s just tapping his foot impatiently, glancing down at his wristwatch every so often as Rose and Jack gush at each other about oh, how very splendid they both look.
Literally all of time and space at their disposal, and the two of them are making googly-eyes at each other instead. How did the Doctor ever allow himself to become party to this?
“You hens done clucking?” he asks when fifteen minutes have gone by, with no end in sight.
“Oh, hush,” Jack tuts. “You’re just jealous no one’s mooning over you right now.”
“I’m plenty happy outside the moonlight, thanks.”
“You’d be even happier in it,” drawls Jack, swaggering his way. “C’mon Doc, when’s the last time you got gussied-up for anything?”
The Doctor gestures to his shirt. “Changed my jumper. What more do you want?”
“A suit every once in a while couldn’t hurt,” Rose calls out.
“A long walk on the beach, dinner for three and drinks to match wouldn’t hurt my feelings, either,” says Jack with a wink.
The Doctor glares at the two of them. “Good grief. There’s just no pleasing you two, is there?”
“Nope,” replies Rose, and she and Jack both laugh. The Doctor has every intention of continuing to glower at both of them, reducing them both to duly chastened quietude, but then Rose sidles up to him, threading her arm through his.
“Ready to go?” she asks, with that stupid pretty tongue-touched grin of hers.
Suddenly it’s difficult to pretend to be irritated anymore.
Later, of course, he doesn’t have to pretend at all.
“Sure, let’s go to the opera, says Jack,” the Doctor grumbles under his breath, sonic screwdriver whirring in one hand as he cards through coat after cloak after coat after cloak with the other. “I love the nineteenth century, says Jack. No one’s gonna try to abduct me there, says Jack!”
“S’pose that’s what we get for traveling with a Time Agent,” muses Rose, who does not seem even remotely bothered that they’ve spent an hour in the cloakroom instead of watching the opera. In fact, the Doctor has a sneaking suspicion she prefers it.
“S’pose that’s what we get for traveling with Jack,” he mutters darkly.
Busy digging in the pocket of a grand overcoat (which does not have bottomless pockets as far as the Doctor is aware, but has large enough pockets anyway), Rose spares him a knowing smile. “I think that was code for Actually, I quite like the fellow, he livens up the place.”
“Wasn’t aware the place needed livening-up.”
“Oh, come off it,” Rose teases gently. “You like him. It’s okay to admit it.”
The Doctor sniffs before moving onto the next cloak. Maybe he’ll be lucky enough to find the reservation in there; maybe the thirty-eighth time’s the charm. “He’s a scoundrel,” he insists.
“And let me guess: you happen to like nice men.”
Distracted, it takes the Doctor half a second to recognize the exchange. “Quoting Star Wars will get you nowhere, you know,” he says drily.
“Wasn’t quoting Star Wars.” Rose flashes a grin his way as she pats down another coat. “That was The Empire Strikes Back.”
“Close enough.”
“Close enough? Not by a long shot!” she laughs. “It’s easily the best of the three. The best by miles.”
“And it just happens to be the one with a surplus of Harrison Ford.”
“Well yeah, that’s definitely not a drawback, but that’s not all.” Rose pulls a small card out from the coat, holds it up, and frowns. “What’s the name of the hotel again?”
“The Grosvenor.”
Rose sighs and puts the card back where she found it before moving on. “Anyway,” she says, “it’s not just Harrison Ford. The Empire Strikes Back has the best story of the lot, by far. Daring chase scenes, massive clashes between good and evil, swelling music, epic romance—”
“Ahhh,” says the Doctor knowingly, rifling through a lady’s-purse. “Of course.”
“Of course, what?”
“Of course, romance.”
Rose doesn’t look up, too busy feeling her way through a cloak’s silk lining. “What about it?”
“Just not surprising, is all. Lots of humans like romance. In fact, I’d venture to say most of you do.”
“That a bad thing?”
He shakes his head, abandoning the purse in favor of a cloak. “No, not at all. Just means you lot are entirely predictable.”
“What, and you’re not?”
“…definitely heard something,” another voice is saying, drifting into the Doctor’s field of hearing along with the sounds of bootsteps advancing ever-closer, and he recognizes both sounds as those belonging to a pair of Time Pirates—Jack’s captors. Before either he or Rose have a chance to finish their thoughts, the Doctor grabs her about the waist, yanking her deep into the cloaks and coats with him and pulling them both to the floor. Rose’s lips part for a small yelp of surprise but the Doctor clamps his hand over her mouth before it has a chance to escape, holding her firm against him. Probably she thinks he’s gone a little batty—her hearing’s not as good as his, after all, so his actions must seem completely out of the blue—but she stills once the bootsteps reach earshot, once she understands.
The Doctor has scarcely half a second to whisk Rose’s skirts safely out of view behind the heavy cloaks before the two sets of boots reach the cloakroom entrance, footfalls thudding heavy and ominous over the floor.
“You sure?” asks the other Pirate. “I didn’t hear anything.”
Rose starts to slip against the Doctor (curse her silky-satin dress, the thing’s got no bloody sense of friction) but the Doctor anchors her to him before she has a chance to slide, to make any noise. A torch-beam shines into the cloakroom, traveling over the coats and cloaks and furs; one of the intruders steps inside and the Doctor can feel Rose holding her breath, her exhales no longer hitting his hand, her ribcage no longer expanding and contracting beneath his palm. Neither of them dares to move.
The Pirate stops. Between two of the coats, the Doctor can just barely make out that the bloke is glancing around, but not really taking anything in.
With a grunt, the Pirate switches off the torch, stowing it on his belt. “Must’ve imagined it.”
“Or it was rats,” the other Pirate supplies. “This period’s full of ‘em.”
“Everything isn’t always rats, Vigge,” sighs his partner, as if this is a particular sticking-point between them. “C’mon, let’s go find the others.”
The Doctor lets out a silent sigh of relief at the sound of departing boots. It’s bloody awkward hiding like this, his arms cinched around Rose while she’s sat in his lap, neither of them able to shift to anything more comfortable. The sooner they can get up, the better. Fortunately, fading footfalls let him know the guards are leaving, and he moves to shift Rose off his lap.
A third pair of boots approaches. Rose and the Doctor both freeze.
“Seen anything?” asks the third voice.
“Nothing yet. You’re sure they’re not still in the theatre?”
“Positive,” the third voice confirms. “The box seat’s empty; that Doctor-bloke and his bird are both gone.”
One of the Pirates swears beneath his breath. “We’ll have to scour every inch of the place, then.”
Peering between the coats, the Doctor can make out the three Pirates talking, discussing how best to search the opera house. Hopefully it’ll be a brief bit of chatter, the Doctor thinks, but as the conversation wears on, it quickly becomes apparent that it’s not destined to end any time soon.
Of course, thinks the Doctor exasperatedly. Why wouldn’t they pick this exact place and moment for a nice long chat? He’s only trapped behind a couple dozen fur-and-woolen cloaks with Rose plastered up against him, Rose getting increasingly warm and undoubtedly uncomfortable in his arms, neither of them able to move to improve the situation for fear of alerting the three very-much-armed Time Pirates. Of course, why wouldn’t the universe conspire against him like this?
Granted, in terms of Rose’s rising body temperature, it probably doesn’t help that the Doctor’s wrapped so snugly around her. But at this point, he’s honestly not sure what he can do. He can’t move his hand from her waist; he’s got her skirts pinned there, pressed between her bodice and his palm, and if he moves, he risks the skirts spilling into view. At least he had the presence of mind to shift his other hand away from her mouth, give her a little more space to breathe. But he did not, it appears, have the presence of mind to pay any attention to where that hand might settle afterward, and only now does he realize that his forearm has fallen to rest very gently against her chest, fingertips ghosting against her throat.
Alarm bells start ringing faintly in his head. He can’t shift that arm too much more; they’re surrounded by cloaks and any such movement would surely draw attention either through motion or sound. The only thing he can really do is perhaps lift away from her a little bit, let his hand float awkwardly in the liminal no-man’s-land where her breath lives. No longer touching, but still ridiculously close. Of course, once again, that brings up the issue of acknowledging that something is happening, and something is awkward, and you’ve officially Drawn Attention To It, and now there it is, stewing in the mortification of being recognized. Whereas if he pretends everything is normal—which it is, he tells himself stubbornly, because skin is just skin, doesn’t matter whether parts of it are bare and soft and hers—then no awkwardness need be experienced by either party involved.
Not that he’d know about any of that. Because he doesn’t, and even if he does, he certainly doesn’t think about it, or notice it, much like he’s definitely not noticing how Rose’s breathing has gone shallow, and her heartrate has sped up, and one of her hands is clenching in her skirt. Doubtful the Pirates can hear it—like Rose and any other human, their hearing can’t rival his—but the Doctor sure as hell can. He hears her swallow, too, and, close to her as he is, he smells it again, that unmistakable tinge of pheromones, soft and musky and faintly sweet. And he can’t help but notice (can’t help it, really) that despite her shallow breaths, her chest is still rising and falling, bringing her breasts into whispering contact with the inside of his arm and the corner of his palm. If she breathed any deeper, he’d surely get a handful.
The Doctor scolds himself for thinking such things, trying fiercely to rein himself back in, but the glance of her skin against his is near-electric, the feel of her pressed against him is overwhelming, the scent of her, intoxicating. Suddenly he’s forgetting why it’s a bad thing for the two of them to be trapped in here like this, pressed tightly together like the pages of a fresh book. His eyes fall to half-mast as they trace the elegant slope of her shoulder and neck, impossibly close to his mouth, begging to be kissed. And she’d love that, wouldn’t she? Love for him to press his lips to her skin, worshipping her, marking her, claiming her. He’s so close now his lips can feel the warmth of her flesh, burning the scant air between them, or maybe that’s just the oxygen molecules buzzing with excitement, like atmosphere before a lightning strike, and her pulse beneath his fingertips is thunderous—
The heavy thud of departing footsteps abruptly informs him that the conversation outside the cloakroom has ended, and the coast will soon be clear again. The Doctor draws a deep breath, catching himself.
He almost fell. He very much wanted to. It’s been such a long time. And with Rose—
The Doctor shuts down that line of thought before it can develop any further, giving himself the mental equivalent of a sharp slap to the face. He hasn’t got any idea what to do with Rose, not really. Yes, her body is giving off a multitude of signs that seem rather obvious, but that’s just what bodies do, sometimes. Mix the close proximity, a dash of friction, a whole heaping load of chemistry, and that’s what you get. Bodies reacting the way bodies do. Not his, of course, not without his express wishes, but that’s what human bodies do. Human reactions for human people. And Rose is nothing if not human.
That’s right. He put up that barrier for a reason, that wall between him and the world, that line drawn in the sand between him and Rose. They’ve skirted that line enough today, flirted with it more than enough. It’s time for him to take responsibility, get his head out of the clouds and stop playing games. Nothing good can come of them nudging the line any further, no matter how brightly Rose smiles at him, no matter how sweet her kisses may be. Not that he’ll ever find out about that last one.
He collects his wits and draws his barriers close. “Rose,” he says quietly. “We should really—”
“Yeah,” says Rose, voice clipped as she shifts off his lap to stand upright, and the Doctor resolutely does not think about how cold he is now, without her body clasped to his. After smoothing out her skirts, Rose reaches down to help him off the floor. Grinning, the Doctor accepts.
“All right?” he asks despite himself, but Rose doesn’t answer; instead she watches him as he stands, eyes searching his. The Doctor gets the instinct impression that he’s being evaluated, somehow. Appraised.
“Rose?” he prompts, and she shakes herself.
“Oh yeah, everything’s fine,” she says, and maybe he just imagined it all, because now she sounds perfectly normal.
“Yeah?” he asks anyway.
“Yeah. You know,” she says, turning to continue her search. “Just thinking about Jack.”
“Right,” says the Doctor, feeling, strangely, as if he was just kicked in the shins. “Of course.”
It only makes sense that Rose would be thinking of Jack right now. He was just kidnapped, after all. It’s only natural he’d be on her mind. For the kidnapping, and no other reason. Certainly nothing to do with flushed skin and pumping adrenaline and soft little noises and the buzzing potential energy of bodies pressed close in tight spaces. Those things wouldn’t make Rose think of Jack at all. Not even a little bit.
Not that such a thing would bother the Doctor. Because it wouldn’t.
***
The good news is, there’s plenty of good news: they’re able to locate a reservation for the proper hotel, thereby raising no eyebrows when the Doctor and Rose show up at the front desk requesting their room key, and like so many other sentient beings in the universe (really, he’s in good company), the desk clerk is fully taken in by the psychic paper, firmly believing that the Doctor and Rose are, in fact, Mr. and Mrs. Henri Flugenstaff; additionally, locating and breaking into the Pirates’ room is easy as rewiring a quantum rotor, and the rest of the hotel floor is blessedly empty when they do so, meaning no awkward encounters with nosy guests or suspicious staff.
The bad news is, once they enter the room, Jack’s captors (and more significantly, Jack) are nowhere to be found.
“Any idea where they went?” Rose asks.
“Not yet,” murmurs the Doctor, kneeling down to better inspect the faint traces of silvery powder on the carpet, almost invisible even to his keen eye. A reading from the sonic confirms his suspicions: the powder contains traces of Retro-Oganesson and Nihonium-3. Unmistakable evidence that the Time Pirates were here; no clues regarding where they went next.
“Might as well search the room for clues, right?” asks Rose.
“Right.” The Doctor sets the sonic against the carpet, following the path of silvery powder illuminated by the screwdriver’s ghostly blue glow. It guides him across the rug, around the bed, to the fireplace poking out from the wall opposite Rose. For her part, Rose is rifling through the items left behind on the writing-desk; given the general state of disarray of the desk, and the room, it’s clear that the Pirates left in a hurry, so there’s every chance they left something important behind. The Doctor takes just a second to appreciate the view, allowing himself a soft grin at Rose poking around for clues like a blonde little Sherlock Holmes.
“I hope he’s okay,” says Rose, peering beneath the inkwell.
The Doctor blinks. “Who?”
“Jack,” Rose replies, as if the answer is obvious.
The Doctor huffs. “He’s fine. Probably sliding out of their clutches as we speak.”
Laughing at that, Rose pulls open a desk-drawer. “Yeah, you’re right. He’s probably seducing his captors right about now.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“You say that like it’s not,” Rose laughs.
The Doctor grunts noncommittally, inspecting the inside of the fireplace.
“What was that?” asks Rose.
“Oh, nothing,” the Doctor hmphs. “Just, there it is again. Humans and romance.”
At that, Rose turns to face him, her eyebrow piqued. “And just what have you got against romance, anyway? Did romance offend you somehow, today?”
“It didn’t,” the Doctor lies cheerfully.
“There’s nothing wrong with liking any of that stuff, you know.”
“Oh, I’m aware.”
“Really? Cos it feels like you’re gonna launch into a lecture on silly apes and their silly feelings any minute now.”
“I never said feelings were silly.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The Doctor stops his search inside the fireplace so he can look at her. “Something on your mind, Rose?”
“No,” she replies stubbornly.
“Good,” says the Doctor, and he resumes his search.
“Just makes me glad Jack’ll be back soon.”
The Doctor’s nostrils flare and the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end as something hot slithers into the pit of his belly, smoldering there. “Don’t worry, we’ll find your boyfriend soon enough,” he replies, his voice tight.
“It’s just nice to have another human on the TARDIS, is all I mean,” Rose says, and the Doctor absolutely does not notice how she didn’t correct him on the boyfriend bit. “Cos you seem to think so much human stuff is stupid, and Jack doesn’t.”
“Oh, is Jack the gold standard now?”
“When it comes to feelings? Compared to you, yeah, he is.”
“Look, do you want to find him or not?” he asks, glaring at her. “Cos if you do, I’d advise more searching, less yammering.”
If the force of his glare affects Rose, she doesn’t show it. “Someone’s moody today,” she mutters before turning back to the desk.
“Not moody, just demonstrating a wide range of all those feelings you’re so fond of.”
“All the grumpy ones, maybe. And I’m not so fond of those.”
“And I suppose Jack’s never grumpy, then,” the Doctor says conversationally. “That it? No, not perfect Jack, of course not, never. Just the perfect blend of gentleman, boyfriend, and scoundrel, him. The ideal human mate!”
Rose shakes her head. “I’m sorry, the what-now?”
“It’s fine, Rose,” the Doctor says, forcing on a grin that’s surely strained. “You don’t need to explain yourself. You don’t owe me that. You don’t owe me anything. We’ll just find Jack, and then you two can run off and have your fun and your romance. All right?”
“Have my—what are you even talking about?” asks Rose, stalking up to him. “Where is all of this coming from?”
“Observation, mostly,” the Doctor says pleasantly.
“Right. I don’t know what you think you’ve observed, but—”
And suddenly both of them snap to attention at the sound of a key in the lock, the door-handle jiggling loudly in the quiet.
In the split-second that follows, the Doctor tries to think—run? Nowhere to run, they’re in a tiny hotel room; hide? But surely they’ve already been heard—but Rose’s brain must be working a little faster than his somehow, because before he’s even had a chance to react, she’s shoved him flat on the bed and she’s straddling him by the waist, ducking down to press a bruising kiss to his mouth.
The Doctor’s brain grinds to a halt.
She—they—she just—he—
He’s never had an experience where both of his hearts stopped for a good reason, before.
“Cleaning servi—oh, oh my!” gasps a voice by the door.
Rose sits back at the sound and through the fog currently short-circuiting his brain the Doctor manages to look over at the door, to see a middle-aged cleaning maid standing there, clutching her cleaning-cart and blushing furiously.
“Blimey!” she squeaks, shielding her eyes. “Begging your pardon, sir, ma’am, I thought you were out for the evening!”
“Not anymore, I’m afraid,” Rose laughs, which is just as well, because the Doctor is too busy reeling to find his voice (or even his thoughts) at the moment. At least his hands had enough sense to plant themselves on Rose’s waist so they’re not flailing about like a pair of nerve-addled bats.
“Still on the honeymoon,” Rose continues, flashing the maid a shy but winning grin. Her voice is just the littlest breathy and shaky and very convincing, so much so that even the Doctor could almost believe the two of them had just been—well.
“You know how it is,” Rose adds, coyly biting her lip.
“Aye, once upon a time I did, ma’am,” the maid chuckles. “I’ll see to it you’re not disturbed the rest of the evening.”
“Thanks,” Rose laughs breathily before pushing the Doctor back down on the bed, kissing him passionately as the maid closes the door behind her. Her lips part against his, warm and sweet and betraying just the slightest hint of moisture as—
As a loud click lets them know the door is locked once again, and then Rose immediately stops, breaking the kiss. Pulling back, she locks eyes with the Doctor, her cheeks almost as bright as the housekeeper’s. Several long seconds tick agonizingly by, marked only by the fluttering of Rose’s lashes, the gentle heaving of her chest.
Rose’s lips part, like she might say something (or like she might bend down and kiss him again, the Doctor almost hopes) but he must be looking at her with the universe’s most daft expression, mouth agape and eyes wide as saucers, because the next thing he knows, she’s lifting herself off of him, smoothing back her hair and resituating her dress.
The Doctor sits up after her, forcing himself to stop staring. What is he, some kind of idiot?
“Sorry,” Rose laughs, all traces of breathlessness gone.
“S’all right,” the Doctor’s mouth says for him; his brain is still catching up.
“Although you’ve got to admit,” Rose adds, resuming her investigation of the room as if absolutely nothing just happened, “as a diversion it was fairly effective.”
The Doctor scratches the back of his neck. “I’ve had worse.”
“And I’ve had better,” Rose teases, her tongue trapped between her teeth. “You’re a little rusty, Doctor.”
“Excuse me,” the Doctor huffs indignantly, “maybe I just need a little more advance notice than your average boy-toy.”
“Well, as an above-average boy-toy, I’m sure Jack would be happy to give you some pointers.”
And there it is again, that feeling of something hot sizzling in his chest. “And I’m sure he can go sod right off,” says the Doctor, surprising himself.
Rose shoots him a dirty look over her shoulder. “What’s gotten into you? What’s with this mood today, why are you so cross with Jack?”
“I’m not.”
“You are, you’ve been saying nasty little things about him all day.”
“I haven’t.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” says Rose, righting the frame of a crooked painting on the wall. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were acting jealous again.”
The hot feeling grows hotter. “I’ve got nothing to be jealous about,” insists the Doctor.
“’Course not,” mocks Rose. “Cos you’ve never gotten jealous about sharing me with another man, before.”
“Shouldn’t have to,” he mutters.
“What was that?”
“I said I shouldn’t have to,” the Doctor says loudly.
“What? Get jealous, or share me?”
The Doctor’s fists ball at his side. Either one, he doesn’t say.
“Whatever,” scoffs Rose, as if he’d gone ahead and spoken the words aloud. “Not like it makes any difference anyway.”
The hot feeling pulses in his chest and pounds in his ears and maybe it’s because of the kiss or maybe it’s because Rose already seems to have forgotten it or maybe it’s just because of this bloody damn day but that line in the sand is growing dangerously thin, all of a sudden, and before he gives himself the chance to think better of it, the Doctor is pushing off the bed and striding towards the door, grabbing a chair so he can wedge it beneath the door-handle before he stalks over to Rose.
“What?” she mocks. “Don’t want the maid to see us having a row? That too domestic for—”
The Doctor pins her to the wall, grasping her by the chin to pull her up for a punishing kiss. She gasps against his mouth and fuck, he wants to take advantage of that opening, he really does, wants to force her mouth open so his tongue can dart inside and really properly tease her, taste her, but he settles for prolonging the kiss, offering no quarter and no mercy until Rose has to pull back, panting for breath. She looks up at him with eyes wide from shock and—and gods, he hopes that’s not fear he sees, because that would kill him, it really would.
He doesn’t want to frighten her. He just wants her to see. Wants her to know.
But there’s still that goddamn line to preserve.
Drawing back a little, the Doctor braces himself with both hands against the wall, one on either side of Rose. “Tell me to stop,” he says quietly, even as he cages her in, even as every atom in his being is screaming for her.
Jaw set, defiant once again, Rose shakes her head No.
Oh. That’s not fear in her eyes. That’s not fear at all.
Relief washes the line away like the ocean at high tide and the Doctor lets himself fall.
He leans in and kisses her again, claiming her mouth with a fierceness that leaves no room for doubt. He might worry that he’s being too rough, too soon but Rose is giving as good as she gets, yanking him in by the lapels as she deepens the kiss. Her hands slip beneath his jacket to clutch him by the shoulders, her fingernails sharp even through the fabric of his jumper. His tongue brushes her plump lower lip and it’s a heady realization, that he can taste how much she wants this, how much she wants him. It’s enough to make him dizzy but he doesn’t stop, he wants more, his tongue plunging into her mouth, and the breathy little whimper that escapes her lets the Doctor know he was right—those delightful sounds Rose made earlier in the day were definitely due to arousal. And the sweet scent lingering in the air lets him know she’s wonderfully aroused right now, almost certainly wet with it.
Because of him. No one else. Just him.
Good.
Lips still on hers, the Doctor pulls up her skirts so both hands can sneak beneath, grabbing Rose by the hips and pulling her roughly into him. He has every intention of tearing off those ridiculous little knickers of hers but then she arches into him, her hands slipping beneath his jumper and nails dragging across his stomach and her chest pressed against his, and it’s all too much and it’s not nearly enough and his hips are grinding against hers as he hardens between them.
Dimly it occurs to the Doctor that Rose does not seem nearly as shocked by all of this as he might have imagined—indeed, he’s shocked himself with this pure impetuous driving animal need—and he wonders if, on some level, Rose maneuvered things to this conclusion.
Well. He smiles against her lips. Two can play that game.
He hitches one of her legs over his waist and thrusts into her, the friction and the heat almost unbearably delicious even despite all the layers in the way, and Rose must think so, too, because she’s panting against the Doctor’s mouth, her nails scratching lines of fire down his back. She lets out another strained whimper and fuck, he’s not going to last, not even with his trousers on, not if she keeps making those needy little noises while rutting against his cock like that.
So he repositions, wedging a thigh between hers to maintain the friction she needs while one hand travels up to palm one of the breasts that’s been positively fucking begging for his touch all day long. He can just feel the peak of her nipple through her corset and dress, stiffening sharply as he circles it with his thumb, and Rose bites down on his lower lip, sending a jolt of pleasure straight down to his cock. Rose reaches for his belt buckle but the Doctor stops her, grabbing her by the wrist and pinning it back to the wall.
“Not yet,” he growls softly. “Not until I say so.”
She’s glassy-eyed with surprise but he doesn’t give her an opportunity to respond, rips down the neckline of her dress instead so he can cup and tease her bare breasts with his free hand while his other holds her wrist tight against the wall. Rose breaks their kiss, eyes pinched tight in concentration as she rides his thigh, sweat beading and glistening on her breasts and her brow, and the Doctor realizes she’s about to climax, right here, right now, just like this.
Positively brimming with pride (and isn’t that a first, in this incarnation) the Doctor presses a kiss to her jaw, tracing a line up to her ear, lips ghosting the shell of it. “Come for me, Rose,” he murmurs, his voice as husky and deep as he’s ever heard it, and she shudders. He lifts his hand to cup her cheek, his thumb teasing her swollen lower lip. “Come for me, love.”
Her teeth graze his thumb as she bites down on the cry that tries to escape her, her arms shaking and hips stuttering, her legs clenching tight against his thigh. The Doctor can feel the aftershocks ripping through her and he holds her tight, relishing the movement and heat of her body against his, the knowledge that he’s the one doing this to her, that all of this is because of him. Not Jack, not Ricky, not Adam or Jimmy or any other stupid pretty boy who might be sharp enough to fall in love with Rose but could never be good enough to deserve her. Of course, neither is he, but he’s at least clever enough to recognize that, and to do everything he can to make up for it; he may not always have the right words but his mouth can still say what his voice can’t, offering praise along with his hands and his tongue and all of him, really.
Those little men will never see Rose the way he does. The Doctor almost pities them for it.
(Only almost.)
Panting, Rose pushes a strand of sweat-slicked hair out of her face. “You, erm,” she says between breaths, flashing the Doctor a lazy blissful smile. “You gonna let me touch you, now?”
He’s still got her wrist pinned to the wall. He lets go.
“Take off your clothes, please,” he tells her.
Biting her lip, Rose obeys, pushing her torn dress down over her hips, her eyes fixed on his. She wriggles the dress past her thighs to reveal those tiny knickers of hers, completely soaked through and now thoroughly ruined. The sight and smell of those ruined knickers ignites a small flame of male satisfaction the Doctor wasn’t even aware he possessed, something he might have wrinkled his nose at once upon a time, but now, watching Rose pop open the front of her corset, peeling off the knickers after—now he rather likes the feeling, knowing that he can make Rose feel like this, that she trusts him like this. That he’s earned her trust, and this privilege.
There’s only the faintest hint of shyness from Rose once she’s naked beneath the Doctor’s gaze, but it’s enough to make his hearts swell almost uncomfortably behind his ribs, so the Doctor dips down to press his mouth to hers, softly, to kiss any lingering doubt away.
“Good girl,” he murmurs afterward, and smiles as Rose’s cheeks and ears flush pink. “Now get on the bed.”
The moment she does, the Doctor grasps her by the hips and slides her bum to the edge, pinning her down against the mattress as he presses a hungry kiss to her mouth. Impatient, Rose pushes at his jacket and he shrugs out of it, but he doesn’t make any effort to remove the rest of his clothing, his hands gliding up the insides of her thighs instead. His fingers tease her until she’s wet again, gloriously wet and gasping and clinging to him as she fucks his hand. He dips down to kiss the expanse of neck and shoulder that were tormenting him earlier and stops beneath her ear, lips caressing the soft skin there.
For a brief moment, the Doctor just breathes her in, inebriating himself on the smell of her. Then he latches on, giving her skin a good hard suck. Rose cries out, thighs clenching around his hand. Drawing back, the Doctor can see the mark he left behind, petal-pink blossoming in the shape of his mouth, and it shocks him how much he likes to see that, the visual evidence that he’s claimed her, that she’s his. He wants to taste more of her, he thinks, let his mouth explore and lick and nip and tug until she’s begging for mercy—
“Doctor,” Rose pants, but with a start he realizes she isn’t begging, she’s demanding, hooking her legs around his waist and pulling him down, into her. She rolls her hips against his aching cock and all other thoughts and plans fly right out the window as he realizes he’s bound to spontaneously combust if he doesn’t give her exactly what she wants and fuck her right now. In a second his belt is unlatched and trousers and pants shoved out of the way and he’s pushing into her with one smooth slick thrust, groaning at the hot wet clench of her muscles around him. He draws back and pushes in again, and again, and again, brow knit tight and mouth falling open because it’s good, it’s too good, it’s too much, he’s losing himself, drowning in her, and dying never felt so sublime.
“You’re mine,” he gasps, surprising himself, but Rose doesn’t look surprised at all, she just nods, glassy-eyed and breathless as he fucks her. “You’re mine,” he says again, kissing her fiercely as his hands pull her hips into his, harder, faster, more.
She nods again.
“Say it.”
“I am, I’m yours,” she chokes out, clenching around him, and his grip on her tightens. He’s hurtling toward the edge, spurred on by her words and her heat and her everything else but now there’s guilt chiming in too, because what the fuck is wrong with him, why would he say that, why would he make her say that, why would he make her do any of this, why the fuck would he allow her to give herself to him when he’s nothing but a broken wretched old man, and she deserves so much more—
“Hey,” says Rose, and his thoughts must be written across his face because suddenly her hands are cupping his jaw, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t do that,” she says between gasps. “Don’t wander off. Stay with me. Be here with me.”
His lips part but Rose doesn’t let any words out, stoppers his mouth with hers. “Just let us have this,” she pants against his lips. “Please. Please. My Doctor.”
Something in him snaps and he buries his face in her neck, muffling his cries as he empties into her. His head floods pleasantly with bliss but he’s just coherent enough to slide a hand between them, urging Rose along. Rose follows soon after, muscles convulsing around him, nipples sharp even through his jumper, and the Doctor feels a twinge of regret that he didn’t finish undressing, that he isn’t feeling her skin properly sliding against his. Rose must be feeling the same way; even as her hips stutter and slow, she’s sliding her hands back beneath his jumper, exploring every expanse of skin she can reach.
The Doctor sighs with something that feels suspiciously like contentment.
“I am, you know,” he says quietly.
She doesn’t reply; he half-wonders if she’s already fallen asleep, somehow.
“Yours,” he adds, voice soft.
Rose’s arms tighten around him in a hug, her heart fluttering against both of his.
She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to.
He knows.
***
Apparently Jack knows it, too.
“That dress didn’t tear itself,” the Doctor overhears him whispering to Rose after they sneak out of the Pirates’ ship. “Not to mention you smell like all the sex.”
“Oh my god, shut up,” Rose replies, laughing.
“I will not! Tell me everything!”
“If you don’t behave, I will hurt you.”
“Ooh, promise?”
“I will put you in time-out,” Rose amends, mouth twitching with the effort to hold back a smile, “and I will hide the sonic so that those,” she adds, pointing to the shackles clamped over both of his wrists, “never come off again.”
Jack shoots her a sly grin. “But then how would you two ever get to use them?”
The Doctor feels a flush creeping up the back of his neck as Rose’s eyes widen, her mouth dropping open. “Pervert!” she shrieks, and Jack crows in laughter as he takes off running down the road, Rose chasing after him. It’s a good thing they’re out in the country now—they’d wake up the neighborhood, shouting and laughing and carrying on like that in the city. But eventually they settle for huddling together, arm-in-arm, as they whisper and snicker all the way back to the TARDIS.
The Doctor maintains some space, trailing a little ways after, so the humans can have their fun and their—he smiles a little—their feelings. It’s actually nice, he thinks, seeing Rose so giddy and full of joy, seeing her laugh and smile like that, even with someone else. She’s far too bright and loving and big-hearted to be kept to one person, he realizes. She deserves to share herself with whomever she wishes, not to be hoarded like gold in the fist of a grumpy old miser. Rose deserves to love freely, and to be loved freely, in return.
(They’re definitely going to make use of those shackles, though.)
***
dedicated to @galiifreyrose @yellowsuedeshoes @saecookie @aintfraidanoghosts for being such wonderful terrible influences <3 <3 <3
He only has himself to blame for this; it’s a trap of his own design, after all, tenderly constructed to torture him in the most exquisite fashion.
(To be fair, she’d said she didn’t understand Jane Austen’s appeal. And what better way to sway her incorrect opinion than by taking her straight to the source?)
Naturally, Rose has taken to the Regency period with the same enthusiasm and joy she applies to any of their adventures throughout space and time, in this universe or the other, donning the gowns and learning the dances and accepting the attentions of all of her would-be suitors with her usual sunbeam smile. But the smile is a little different when her path crosses the Doctor’s, when the dance brings them together, palms whispering against each other, hands almost-touching arms and sides, eyelashes fluttering at the unspoken intimacy of shared breaths. Her eyes lock with his and her lips part and his pulse skips a beat or five and it’s utterly maddening, the softness of her smile and the plump promise of her lips and being so close to her without properly being able to touch. After days of careful rules and polite distance and pesky chaperones and oh-so-much goddamn propriety, the Doctor’s restraint is stretching thin, pulled taut with the need to feel her.
(“It’s all about the yearning,” he’d told her, but he hadn’t expected to be quite so bloody right about it.)
Suddenly he’s seizing Rose by the hand, sliding off her glove so he can feel her palm properly against his, palm pressed to palm the way it should be, and then he’s pulling her from the gala, away from society’s stifling mores and prying eyes. He fucks her against the wall in a nearby drawing-room, driving into her with such force that he’d be worried he was hurting her, except she’s giving as good as she gets. She swears under her breath and her hands clench beneath his jackets, nails biting into his skin, and he fucks her harder, panting, grasping her hips hard enough to bruise. Clenching deliciously around him, Rose pulls him down by the tie, pressing a bruising kiss to his mouth. Tongue sliding slickly over hers, the Doctor yanks down her neckline, ripping the bodice of her dress in his need to touch her breasts, to touch her.
This was the hardest gd choice but 2 I = hehehehhehehehehehe
[Rose x Ten | Edging | Lingerie]
“Fuck off,” Rose groans, chest heaving, head rolling back against the Doctor’s chest as he lessens the pressure of his fingers on her clit.
She’d been so close. So fucking close.
The Doctor hums in consideration, the sound deep and resonant against Rose’s back. “Rude,” he murmurs into her ear, fingers withdrawing from her knickers altogether, and Rose bites back a whine at the loss. “I think what you meant to say was, Please, Doctor, may I have some more?”
Rose worries her lower lip. It’s tempting, so very tempting, to just surrender, tell him exactly what he wants to hear, in the hopes that this time, he’ll give her what she wants. Her poor throbbing clit is positively aching for relief, her entire body screaming with the need for release, and she’s not half-tempted to flip them both over, shove down his trousers and pants and ride him just like that, her lacey knickers soft and slick and wet and gliding between her clit and his cock and driving them both mad until he’s the one gasping and panting and begging for sweet mercy, please.
“All you have to do,” says the Doctor, his breath ghosting deliciously over her skin, “is ask, like a good girl.”
Heart racing, legs trembling with need, Rose stays silent; she wants to come like a fish wants water but she’ll be damned before she lets the Doctor out-stubborn her.
The Doctor chuckles. “All right,” he says, voice heavy with amusement. Clever fingers slip back beneath her knickers to resume their work, circling closer and closer to where Rose is slick and aching with want. She shivers at the sudden whisper of his lips against her ear; she can feel his mouth turning up in a grin, can sense the quiet wickedness of it.
(A shag-or-die fic; please check tags for potential warnings. <3)
***
“Welp,” says the Doctor appraisingly, glancing all about the room. Rose watches as he catalogs everything from the vaulted ceilings above them to the intricately-patterned gold-paneled walls surrounding them to the rich marble floors beneath them, polished so thoroughly they might as well be mirrors. Withdrawing the sonic, he scans the ceiling and walls and floor, even the lanterns hanging in the corners, their yellow light flickering cheerfully between filigreed panes. His attention lands on the bed, last, scanning over the velvet midnight-blue drapes and golden tassels, the four posts towering high above, the plush pillows and silk brocade lying atop the mattress below.
“It’s got buckets of atmosphere,” the Doctor concludes, and to Rose’s horror, he starts untying the belt to his ceremonial robe. “Shall we get this over with, then?”
“Are you sure we’ve got to?” asks Rose, nervously worrying her lip between her teeth. “I mean…are they really gonna be able to tell, if we’ve…?”
The Doctor pauses, eyebrow piqued. Waiting for her to continue.
Sighing in frustration, Rose rolls her eyes, fidgeting in her robe as she begs her cheeks not to flush.
“Had sex?” she says, and tries not to choke on the words.
“They’re not watching us, if that’s what you mean. The fertility rite is sacred, to be observed only by the physical participants and the gods above.”
“Oh, is that all?” Rose laughs weakly.
“But they do supposedly have their methods of checking, yes. Nothing too invasive,” the Doctor continues, clasping his hands behind his back. “Again, it’s a highly sacred ceremony; they consider your body to be, quite literally, a temple, therefore performing any kind of invasive procedure would be akin to defiling the temple, which is a crime punishable by death. Thus high priests and priestesses are typically chosen from a pool of candidates whose senses are highly attuned to hormones and pheromones.”
Rose fiddles with her earring. “So what, they can smell if I’ve shagged someone?”
“More or less.”
“And if I haven’t? If we don’t?”
Tugging on one ear, the Doctor averts his gaze. “Difficult to say, exactly, but the outcome would be…less than ideal, to be certain. Refusal to engage in the rite would be a crime akin to blasphemy or heresy. And societies like this don’t respond to that sort of thing very nicely.”
“So there goes our chance of saving the queen, is what you’re saying,” Rose murmurs. “Why didn’t you look into all this before you signed us up for the weird secret fertility-death-cult?”
“That would be because it is, as you so accurately described it, a secret fertility-death-cult,” the Doctor replies pleasantly.
Rose glares at him. “You know, if you were any other bloke, I would’ve thought you got me into this on-purpose.”
“Good thing I’m not any other bloke, then,” the Doctor says cheerfully, hands moving back to untie his robe.
Rose’s pulse thunders madly in her ears. “Wait!” she calls out, smacking her hands over his. “They’re only checking me, right?”
“Right. You’re the temple, the holy vessel—the sacred figure, as it were.”
“Okay. So what if I just like…touched myself, instead?” she asks, cringing even as the words leave her mouth.
“Touched yourself?” the Doctor asks. Looking down at her hands, clenched atop his but still very much touching each other, he frowns. “How would that help?”
“No, I mean like—like masturbating,” Rose says, her cheeks absolutely scalding.
“Well, it depends. Which do you find less awkward, sex with your best mate or masturbating in front of your best mate?”
“I don’t know! It’s all awkward, isn’t it? Being forced to shag someone?” Rose blurts out, wrapping her arms round her midsection protectively. “What about everyone else who joined up with us—are they all going through the same thing right now? Have they got to do the fertility thing, too?”
“Well, yes, but I imagine they’re doing so voluntarily.” The Doctor tilts his head, suddenly thoughtful. “In fact, they all seemed rather eager about it.”
Groaning, Rose turns away to flop down on the bed, burying her face in the duvet. A dip in the mattress lets her know the Doctor has sat next to her; her cheeks flush even more, if that’s possible, and she wishes that the bed would swallow her whole.
“You know, any other bloke might consider all of this a blow to his ego,” the Doctor teases.
Rose laughs curtly, the sound muffled by the duvet.
“Would it help if I turned out the lights?”
Begging her stupid body to please stop flushing, Rose slowly sits up in the bed. “The lights aren’t the issue, Doctor.”
“Then, if you don’t mind me asking, what is? I was given to understand you had a fairly easygoing attitude about this sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Sexual intercourse,” the Doctor replies.
Now Rose’s laughter is verging on the hysterical. “That doesn’t mean I want to shag just anyone!”
“We’re not talking about just any old anyone, though. We’re talking about me.”
Rose buries her face in her hands, wishing this was all some stupid horrible dream, willing herself to wake up. Any time now would be great.
“It’s just sex, Rose,” says the Doctor.
“Oh, is that all?” Rose asks exasperatedly.
“It is. It’s just bodies and fluids and friction.”
“Oh, great,” Rose mutters. “That makes it so much better.”
The Doctor draws in a long breath, as if he’s drawing deep from the well of his patience. Rose half-expects him to say some silly snide or flippant thing; she jumps when he pulls her hands back from her face, instead.
“Rose,” he says, and in any other circumstances—fuck, in any other circumstances, the way he’s looking at her, gaze soft, stupid kissable mouth open and questioning, would make her stomach flutter, her heartrate hammer to match. “There are multiple ways we could go about this, you know,” he tells her. “Methods that don’t involve vaginal penetration.”
Rose’s ears burn like they’re on fire. “Please stop talking now.”
“I’m just saying, I’m quite dexterous, in multiple senses of the word. Orally and manually talented, if you take my meaning.”
“I really wish I didn’t.”
“Just let me know what sort of stimulation works best for you, and I’ll make it happen. You can guide me along the way, direct me towards your pleasure; I’m a very fast learner, as you know, and I’m confident I can bring you to a very enjoyable orgasm.”
“Oh my god,” Rose groans. “Please stop saying words like vaginal and penetration and orgasm. This is bad enough as it is.”
Huffing in frustration, the Doctor pushes off the bed. “Blimey. I’m just trying to make this easier, Rose. Easier for both of us!”
“It’s not about whether or not it’s easy,” Rose argues. “Easy isn’t the question. Easy isn’t the problem. It’s…”
The Doctor stares at her, eyes wide, brow furrowed in confusion. And just—
God, Rose just can’t bring herself to say it.
Because it isn’t just the horrid awkwardness of this whole contrived situation. Even if this giant weight weren’t looming ominously over them, Rose can’t—she just can’t think about him like that. She’s not allowed to. She won’t let herself. Because the Doctor is above all of that, isn’t he? He’s nearly immortal, practically a demi-god, virtually unreachable, functionally untouchable. The Doctor cares for her—of course he does, Rose knows that, she’s not stupid—and they hold hands and they share adventures and they share their lives, to a degree, but that’s it. She can’t ask for more. She can’t even think about asking for more. That would make her selfish, and stupid, and silly, wouldn’t it? It would be like a moth striving to kiss the sun. Wouldn’t it?
Rose may not know much about mythology, but she knows enough to realize what happens to demi-gods and the unlucky mortals who love them.
“It’s just wrong,” Rose says quietly.
The Doctor’s expression cools. “Wrong,” he repeats, voice flat.
“I don’t mean like that. I mean like—having sex because other people are making you, that’s wrong,” Rose quickly amends. “Sex should be something that people do, because they want to. It should—it should mean something.”
The Doctor watches her, his face inscrutable.
“I mean—I know that’s not how it works for everyone,” Rose adds, thinking of Jack and his easy flirtation, that megawatt grin that guarantees a good time to anyone willing and able within a ten-mile-radius. “And that’s fine, for them. But that’s not how it works for me. I can’t just separate sex from my feelings. I can’t just turn it all on and off like that.”
“I understand that, Rose, and in any other circumstances, I wouldn’t push you on this—wouldn’t even dream of it—”
“Then why are you doing it now?” Rose demands.
Scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably, the Doctor averts his gaze, looking uncertain and, dare Rose think it, the slightest bit worried.
“Doctor,” Rose says, suspicious now, “What aren’t you telling me?”
“I don’t want to add undue pressure to the situation,” the Doctor says carefully, “any more than I already have.”
Rose shakes her head. “What does that mean? What are you talking about?”
The Doctor doesn’t answer, his mouth pinched in discomfort, his gaze firmly fixed on the floor.
Huffing in irritation, Rose pushes off the bed. “Look, we’ll find another way to save the queen, yeah?” she says, walking toward the exit. “For now, let’s just—”
“Stop,” the Doctor bites out, grabbing her by the arm.
Rose obeys, only because she’s surprised at the firmness of his grip. “What are you doing?” she asks. “Let’s just leave, Doctor. Please.”
“We can’t,” he says, but he won’t meet her gaze when he says it. “I’m sorry, Rose. We can’t.”
“Why not? What are they gonna do, if we try?”
“It’s like I said earlier,” the Doctor tells her, slowly. “Refusal to engage in the rite is a crime, akin to blasphemy or heresy. And it is punished as such.”
Rose thinks on those words—uncommon words, to her, blasphemy and heresy, it takes a moment for her to properly place them—but after a moment, she remembers school lessons about witch hunts in the Middle Ages, about horror stories from the Inquisition, about Joan of Arc, burned at the stake. Visions of hangman’s nooses and guillotines and deep, dark lakes fill her mind.
The blood rushes from her head, leaving her feeling very swimmy, all of a sudden. “So what,” Rose laughs weakly, “if I don’t do this, they’ll kill us?”
“Not us, Rose,” the Doctor says quietly, looking up at her with pleading eyes. “You.”
An odd ringing sound fills her ears as his words sink in, and the sudden desperation behind them.
Rose shakes herself. “That’s stupid. Don’t be stupid. You’d never let that happen. We can just—”
“We can’t though. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There’s no way out,” the Doctor replies, frantically running both hands through his hair. Rose wishes he wouldn’t; it’s unbearably sexy, all wild and rumpled like that, and that is not the sort of thing she needs to be thinking right now. “I checked earlier, with the sonic; we’re sealed in, and those seals are deadlocked,” he continues. “The doors can only be opened from the outside. And outside of this room, the temple and the surrounding grounds are patrolled by guards and their beasts. There’s no way to escape, no way to leave until the priests and the guards fetch us in the morning. And their weapons—you saw what they can do, you saw it firsthand. One hit would be enough to kill this body, and that’s saying something. But that’s not the end of the world; it’s unfortunate, uncomfortable, but I’d just regenerate.”
“What do you mean, just regenerate?” Rose demands. “Nothing just about it!”
“But you—you’d never be able to survive that weapon, Rose. You’d be dead in an instant. I’d be powerless to stop it.” The look on his face wills her—begs her—to understand. “I’m sorry.”
Her knees suddenly weak, Rose sinks to the floor and sits, rather than let herself fall.
“Why?” she asks, from very far away.
The Doctor sighs. “The same reason any group like this puts their members through the ringer: they’re looking for absolute dedication. Absolute dedication, total obedience, unquestioning, unwavering loyalty, to the gods, and to their priests. They want to make certain they can say jump, and we’ll pull out the trampoline, no matter what, whether they’re watching us or not. But ultimately, Rose, it doesn’t matter why.”
He kneels to the floor opposite Rose, taking both of her hands in his. “I’m so sorry I dragged you into this,” he tells her earnestly. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve learned more beforehand; I should have known. I shouldn’t have rushed into this so blindly. And I know you want to try to fight back anyway, and…”
The Doctor swallows loudly. “And if that’s what you really want to do, then we will,” he tells. “I’ll do everything in my considerable power to get you out of here, to save you. But you’ve got to know that I can’t make any guarantees. Not this time.”
“Are you totally sure this isn’t some silly plot that Jack cooked up?” Rose jokes feebly.
“I’m sorry, Rose. I know it’s a rubbish choice. But it’s still your choice.” He drinks in a deep inhale. “And whatever you choose…that’s what we’ll do. Okay?”
Rose’s hands feel very clammy in his. “What about the queen, though?”
“Don’t think about her right now. Right now, I need you to think about you.”
Gaze drawn to the floor, Rose tries to think. Almost anything would be better than forced intimacy with an otherwise uninterested and unwilling partner; anything would be better than making things awkward or strange or strained with the Doctor. It would be different if he’d expressed an interest in anything beyond holding hands and slightly-too-long hugs and the occasional platonic cuddle on a cold night out or sleepy night in. But he doesn’t need anything more than that, because he’s not some hormone-addled human enslaved to the driving need of his baser instincts. He doesn’t want intimacy, of the physical kind or otherwise. And the thought of pushing him to do something he doesn’t want or need, straining their friendship in the process, makes Rose feel sick.
And it’s probably not any easier for him, she realizes. The Doctor has likely already calculated every potential scenario. He must have done. And if he’s truly convinced that they can’t safely escape, if he’s run every possible equation and all of them have come up bleak…
Well. At least this explains his weird bullshit cavalier attitude earlier. He really wasn’t trying to pressure her. He was trying to convince her that it was all easy lighthearted fun. Trying to coax her into it, despite any discomfort he may personally have, despite any of his own misgivings, so he didn’t have to tell her just how thin the line is, that her life is hanging from.
(Just how afraid is he, she wonders, of losing her?)
“This is stupid,” Rose announces. “We shouldn’t be stuck in a position like this.”
“I know,” says the Doctor, mouth pinched in discomfort. “But I could always,” he starts to say, and stops, considering. “Would it help if I—”
Rose looks up at him, biting her lip.
“I could make you forget, after,” the Doctor says, his tone carefully neutral.
Something twists deep in Rose’s chest. “No. I don’t want that.”
“I’m just saying—”
“No,” Rose says again, louder this time. “God, Doctor. That’s even worse!”
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Rose. I’m so sorry. I’m really so sorry. If there’s anything I can do, to make it up to you, to make it easier—”
She shakes her head sharply, cutting him off. “Just—tell me we’ll still be best mates, afterward,” she tells him. “Say it and mean it.”
“Of course we will,” he says, his voice soft, and god, Rose can’t decide if the stupid prettiness of him is making this situation any better, or so much worse. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
“As if any of this is easy.”
The Doctor smiles at her. “Oh, but it is. As easy as we want it to be,” he replies, that cheerful mask of his sliding back into place like it never slipped at all, and he springs up from the floor, offering a hand to help Rose up. “After all, like I said earlier, it’s just fluids and friction, Rose. Just bodies,” he says, punctuating the word by drawing Rose up and close, the motion so sudden it makes her gasp, “drawn to each other like gravity.”
The instant switch in tone is almost enough to give Rose whiplash, but not enough to keep her from flushing warm everywhere they’re touching. “Just like gravity?” she manages to say, desperately trying not to notice he’s pulled her hips into his.
“Just like gravity!” he confirms, one hand grabbing her by the waist. “It’s a force of attraction, you see,” he continues, while his other hand reorients itself around her fingers, “which exists between any two masses.”
And just like that, they’re dancing, now, just the two of them, silly and carefree and not a thing wrong with the world. “Of course, traditionally the term refers to mass and its relationship with the nearest orbital body, but it can also refer to two bodies pulled together,” the Doctor continues, spinning Rose and drawing her back in, “by an irresistible—one could even argue magnetic—force.”
“Never knew you were such a romantic,” Rose laughs, steadfastly ignoring how warm she feels at this close proximity, how she can feel his double heartsbeat tapping steadily against her own.
“Well, there’s a lot you don’t know about me, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor says with a wink, and that is precisely enough to distract Rose from realizing that he has stooped to leverage an arm under her legs so he can scoop her up, bridal-style. Rose shrieks as he draws her up and close, scrabbling to ensure her robe hasn’t flown open to reveal anything (as if he won’t be seeing it all in a few moments anyway, but she’d at least like it all to be exposed on her terms). “For example,” says the Doctor, beaming at her as he carries her toward the bed, “I am, in fact, deceptively strong.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yes. Positively riddled with manly muscles, this body is.”
“Only the manliest of muscles,” Rose laughs.
“Indeed, so very manly, that you’ll soon be rendered utterly immune to its irresistible charms,” the Doctor tells her, stopping at the edge of the bed. “Devastated by the pristine gorgeousness of this positively godlike form.”
Rose instinctively loops her arms about his neck, only to look up and realize that, goodness, his face is close to hers, isn’t it? Certainly close enough for a kiss, if they both wanted. Which she doesn’t, Rose reminds herself. Because that’s not what this is about. It’s just a silly adventure, hardly different from any of their usual antics. And one day, they’ll laugh about all this together.
Because that’s all this is. Just a load of dangerous silliness. Like any other day, for them.
“Devastated, huh?” Rose laughs breathlessly. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”
“Oh, I know you will,” says the Doctor with another wink, setting her down on the bed. “Now,” he says, stepping back, withdrawing the sonic again, “where did we land, on the lights situation?”
Biting her lip, Rose wonders how he’d react if she asked him to leave the lights on; all jokes aside, she really doesn’t mind the idea of being devastated by this gorgeous body of his. “Erm. Off, I think,” she answers, internally kicking herself.
Nodding, the Doctor aims the sonic at the nearest lantern, dimming it and all the others in the room until their synthetic flames flicker a subdued amber hue, casting the room into semi-darkness. Once Rose’s eyes adjust, many of the details in the room are now obscured for her, but she still can easily make out the Doctor’s motions as he pockets the sonic and unties his robe. Rose quickly averts her eyes, no matter how much they may long to linger, as she sheds her own robe, dropping it off the side of the bed, feeling more naked and exposed than she ever has in her entire life, lights off or no.
“Come on. Budge up,” the Doctor says, bumping her knee with his, and Rose scoots back on the mattress to make room. The Doctor pulls up the duvet after her—for modesty’s sake, she supposes—and she wriggles her way down in. The Doctor climbs in next to her and she turns on her side, facing him.
“All right,” says the Doctor cheerfully. “How do you want me?”
Rose stutters in surprise, and thank god the Doctor dimmed the lights, because she doesn’t think she could bear for him to see just how utterly bright-red her cheeks are flaming right now. “Wow,” she says. “Right down to business, huh?”
“I’m sorry, would you prefer to engage in a bit of pillow talk, first?”
“Erm,” says Rose, her mind going blank.
“Sweet talk?”
“Er.”
His voice drops a register. “Dirty talk?”
“How about we don’t talk at all,” Rose says quickly.
“But then how else are we supposed to communicate? Isn’t communication supposed to be key for this sort of thing, isn’t that what all of your trashy mags are always wittering on about?”
Rose quirks an eyebrow in surprise. “You’ve read my trashy mags?”
“A few of them, sure.” He shrugs against the bedclothes. “You sleep a lot. I get bored. And some of them have remarkably insightful social commentary.”
“Maybe I should just masturbate after all,” Rose mutters.
“If you like,” says the Doctor, shrugging again. “It’s up to you.”
Rose picks at the duvet. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you have a preference? Between…”
“Involvement versus observation?”
Rose’s pulse roars in her ears, threatening to drown out all other sound. “Yeah. I mean…just doesn’t seem fair, if I’m the only one getting anything out of this. You know?”
He smiles, the expression almost tender. “Don’t worry about me, Rose. I’ll be fine.”
“Besides,” he continues, chipper once more, “I am getting something out of it: the knowledge that, one way or the other, Rose Tyler is about to have a very pleasant orgasm.”
Rose rolls her eyes. “How is it so easy for you to talk about this, all of a sudden? Is it a regeneration thing? I feel like the other you would have chewed through his own leg first.”
“That was different,” the Doctor replies. “That was a defensive measure against you insulting my manliness—have I mentioned it, before, just how very manly I am?”
“A time or two,” Rose chuckles.
“But this, what we’re doing here? It’s just science. We’re proposing theories and conducting experiments in an effort to generate a specific outcome. Granted, it’s a little more personal than usual, involving components and variables that are typically considered rather private, but at the end of the day, it’s just another brand of science. That’s all.”
“Right,” replies Rose, chewing her lower lip. Science. That makes sense. That makes it a little easier. Doesn’t it? “So we’re just—we’re just like, doing science together, yeah? Just using bodies instead of beakers, or whatever.”
“Exactly,” he says, with a smile, and Rose forces herself not to look at his mouth.
Science, she reminds herself. It’s just science.
Rose draws in a deep, calming breath. “Okay,” she says, letting the breath slowly out. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do some science.”
She edges closer to the Doctor in the bed, and he follows suit, until the two of them are just scant inches apart. In the semi-dark, Rose can just make out the contours and plains of his face, his eyebrows lightly drawn together, his eyes half-shuttered, his mouth so very, very close to hers. Once again, Rose wonders if she should kiss him. Wonders if he wants her to.
“Erm,” says the Doctor, clearing his throat. “So,” he tries again, his voice just a bit uncertain, now; it’s like the bravado-façade has slipped a little, now that they’ve made it this far, now that they’re so very close. “You never did say. Earlier. How you wanted to do this.”
“Oh, yeah.” Breath hitching in her throat, Rose closes her eyes. Maybe this will be easier if she can’t see him at all. “Erm,” she says. “I guess…you should touch me?”
For several long moments, nothing happens. But then a rustle of the bedclothes lets Rose know that the Doctor is moving in, the mattress shifting with his weight, pulling her closer to him. Their bodies pressed together now, Rose feels more of his skin on hers than she’s ever felt before, and her body is warming to him rapidly, in a way that’s got nothing to do with the duvet covering them. Because despite everything else, at the end of the day it’s still the Doctor, it’s still him, and her stupid body doesn’t care that this is a horrible situation contrived out of a cheap romance novel; all her body knows is that he’s close, closer than he’s ever been before, and he smells so good, and his skin is touching hers and it’s new and it’s awkward but it feels wonderful and already her body wants more.
Reaching up, the Doctor’s hand ghosts along her jawline, uncertain, soon retreating to the safe territory of her shoulder. “How would you like me to touch you?” the Doctor asks quietly.
God, she wants to kiss him. God, she wants to kiss him so badly.
She thinks about guiding the Doctor’s hand immediately between her legs, but doesn’t know if that’s too much, too soon. Probably they should start out slow, right? But what does slow mean, in this situation? Does slow mean she should start by touching herself?
(Shouldn’t slow start with both of them wanting this?)
Rose starts to reach down, to stroke herself, but that would mean sliding her hand between the two of them, and that would mean touching his naked skin, touching him, and she doesn’t know if that’s allowed, and the thought of it is a little overwhelming at the moment anyway. So she turns over in the bed, facing away from the Doctor, the better to touch herself without worrying about whether she accidentally comes into contact with him, too.
“Maybe just,” she says, feeling very strange about all of this, “hold me, for now.”
She hears him nod, his hair rasping against the pillow, and the Doctor loops an arm around her waist, spooning her. Her bum nestled against his pelvis, Rose is suddenly very aware of the size and shape of him, and fuck, even though he’s perfectly calm and settled behind her, just that hint of contact is enough to make her nipples stiffen, make moisture well up between her legs. Embarrassment and guilt try to crawl their way up her throat but Rose tamps them both down—it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, she tells herself. This is good. This is helping her get wet. She can use this.
Sliding her hand down between her legs, Rose strokes her inner thighs with a featherlight touch, teasing herself first. Rubbing in gentle circles, she inches her way upward, her fingers glancing against her lips. She imagines it’s the Doctor’s hand instead, drawing closer and closer to her clit, and she feels herself slicken and swell with anticipation.
She pictures his fingers drawing upward, slipping between her lips, delving in to find her wet and wanting, and her hips buck involuntarily at the thought, as she caresses herself the way she imagines the Doctor would, teasing and stroking and just a little more pressure, just a little bit more friction. It feels shameful, almost, thinking of the Doctor while she does this (she usually tries so hard not to, she tries so hard), but he more or less told her it was all up to her, didn’t he? How much he was involved? How much, and in what way? And besides, how is she supposed to not think about him when he’s holding her so close, and they’re both naked, and his hand is clenching against her stomach, and he smells so fucking good?
Biting down on her lip so hard she’s surprised she doesn’t draw blood, Rose buries her face in her pillow, swallowing her arousal and shame. She’s properly wet, now, and positively throbbing between her legs, but as good as this feels, it isn’t enough. Her body is begging for more, more pressure, more friction, more contact, more him. And he asked her, he did, he asked her how she’d like to be touched—
Steeling herself, Rose reaches up to grab the Doctor’s hand, shifting it from her stomach to her breast. She feels him tense behind her, but he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t resist, his hand cupping her gently. Chest heaving with exertion and anticipation, Rose guides him upward, until his hand covers her breast completely, her nipple scraping against his palm. She thinks she hears him swallow (so much for all that suave indifference he was projecting earlier) before he moves in, his face pressed to the back of her neck. He kneads her breast, catching her nipple between his long, elegant fingers, sending little shocks of pleasure shooting straight between her legs. The sensation is enough to make her arch her back, her thighs tensing, muscles clenching slickly with want.
“Fuck,” Rose gasps, surprising herself, but if the Doctor minds, he doesn’t say; if anything, it seems to spur him on, his touch growing firmer, and if Rose didn’t know any better, she’d think he was pressing his lips to her neck. Her hand sliding back down, Rose seeks out her clit straightaway, stroking herself harder, now, her hips rocking to match. “Fuck,” she bites out again, as something winds taut deep inside her, as tension coils tighter and tighter, and she gives up any semblance of composure as the Doctor grasps her breast and she fucks herself with her fingers, rutting harder and harder against her hand and the Doctor until she’s so wet she’s coated the insides of her thighs, and she imagines him hardening behind her, imagines him thrusting in response, and—
And oh, oh fuck, she’s not imagining that part, she’s not imagining it at all. He’s hard against her arse, fully hard, rocking against her, and not a second after she realizes it, the Doctor seems to realize it, too. “Ah—I’m sorry,” he whispers breathlessly against her neck, and he freezes behind her. “Rose, I didn’t mean to—I’m—”
“Don’t stop,” Rose chokes, arching back against the Doctor until his hand abandons her breast in favor of grasping her by the hip, a low groan tearing out of him. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, Rose knows; it’s just friction, it’s just science, it’s just bodies reacting the way bodies do when pressure and movement and warmth and hormones are involved, but she’s too far gone to think clearly about any of that now, and with each thundering bleat of her pulse in her ears and between her legs all she can think about is how very much she wants him to fuck her, and now. “Don’t stop,” she says again, her hand flying up to grasp him by the back of the head, fingers clenching in his hair, and he stifles a moan against her neck, his hips pushing into her as if they’ve got a mind of their own. “Please don’t stop,” Rose pleads, and he doesn’t (thank god he doesn’t) and he thrusts forward again, his cock trapped between her upper thighs, stroking firmly against her slick and swollen clit.
“Rose,” he says helplessly, fingers digging into her hip as he thrusts. His other arm snakes between Rose and the mattress so his free hand can stroke her breasts, teasing her nipples while she ruts against his cock. By now she’s so slippery-wet that he could probably enter her with no resistance, none at all, but instead his fingers plunge between her legs, stroking her clit. She cries out, clenching deliciously. The Doctor buries his face against her neck as she fucks his fingers, his cock thrusting wetly between her thighs and her folds, hitting her with every stroke.
Nearly overwhelmed with sensory stimulation, with the smell of sweat and the slick sounds of sex and the feel of the Doctor moving against her, it isn’t long before Rose feels her climax begin to build, coiling tighter and tighter with each stroke and thrust. Panting for air, Rose grabs a handful of the Doctor’s hair, her nails raking over his scalp, and he inhales sharply, hissing against her skin.
“Please, Rose,” he gasps between the searing, openmouthed kisses he presses to her neck, his thrusts growing shallow and quick, “please…”
She cries out as the tension inside her snaps, muscles contracting violently and flooding her body with pleasure. The Doctor follows soon after, spurting between her thighs, his groans muffled into her skin. The two of them slow to a halt, hearts racing, breaths ragged, and the Doctor removes his hand from between her legs, slumping against her after. They lie like that for a long few moments, each of them catching their breath as the sweat cools on their skin.
“Fuck,” the Doctor eventually announces, utterly winded. “Just…fuck.”
Rose laughs shakily. “Yeah. That was, uh…”
She searches her mind for suitable words, any words, really, but her brain has gone pleasantly blank, filled with nothing but that blissful post-sex buzz.
“…yeah,” she finishes, laughing.
“Indeed,” he pants against her neck.
“Just. Wow.”
“Yes. An apt summary.”
“A hell of a religious rite.”
The Doctor tenses at that. “Rose, I’m sorry. I really didn’t—”
“Don’t apologize,” Rose says quietly, grabbing his hand before he has a chance to move away. “Don’t you dare.”
He hums unhappily into her skin. “You’re far too forgiving.”
“I’m not. I’m exactly the amount of forgiving I want to be.”
The sound he makes suggests he doesn’t entirely believe her.
“By which I mean,” Rose says, “as long as we’re fine, I’m fine. Cos—cos we’re okay, right?” she asks, glancing over her shoulder. “You and me?”
“Of course we are. This just isn’t how I would have liked all this to happen, is all. It isn’t how I would have planned it. You know?”
“I know,” Rose tells him.
Then, after a second, the Doctor’s words properly register with her.
“Wait,” Rose says, mind racing as she sits up in the bed, rewinding the last few moments. “What do you mean, how you would have planned it?” she asks, staring down at him.
The Doctor shrugs, and is she imagining it, or did his eyes flicker down to her naked breasts just now? “For starters,” he says, “typically you don’t have the threat of imminent death involved in this sort of situation, do you?”
“No, I meant—have you thought about this, before?” Rose asks, hardly daring to hope. “Like, you’ve imagined it? Us having sex?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Well, yes,” he admits, as if it were obvious. “Haven’t you?”
Rose can barely believe what she’s hearing right now. “I mean, yeah,” she stammers, something deep in her chest warming nicely at the confession. “I mean, sort of. I mean, I tried not to, I never thought you’d—”
And that’s when the irritation kicks in. “You git!” she shouts, swatting at his shoulder. “Why didn’t you ever say anything? That would have made this whole situation so much easier!”
“Not like you ever said anything either!” the Doctor shoots back accusingly, rubbing his shoulder where she smacked it. “Why are you so surprised, anyway? We flirt constantly!”
“You flirt with everyone! We both do!”
“Yes, but it’s different with you,” he insists. Then, looking the slightest bit unsure of himself, he adds, “Isn’t it?”
She hates how right he is. “Of course it is,” Rose huffs in annoyance. “Don’t be stupid.”
The corner of his mouth quirks in a smile. “Speaking of pillow talk, I think yours could use a little work.”
Rose glares at him. He smiles beatifically up at her, all boyish charm and stupid cheekiness and post-sex-glow.
She hmphs. She also hates how pretty he is. Just for the record.
“And if your trashy mags have taught me anything,” the Doctor continues, tugging on her arm, “it’s that post-coital sessions typically involve a good cuddle.”
With faux-reluctance, Rose inches back down in the bed, sliding back beneath the covers—facing the Doctor, this time. “Would’ve thought you’d skittered away, by now,” she says wryly. “Would’ve thought this bit was too domestic for you.”
“Nah. Besides, exceptions can be made for cuddles.”
“Of course,” Rose laughs, her tongue peeking out to moisten her lower lip. Drawn to the motion, the Doctor’s eyes flicker to her mouth for just a second before darting back away.
Huh. So she’s not the only one who’s been looking. She’s really not.
(How did she never notice any of this, before?)
“So, erm,” she says tentatively, because they’ve come this far, haven’t they? “What did you imagine? When you thought about…”
He meets her gaze evenly, and fuck, he’s gorgeous like this, with his mussed hair and his knowing smile and his distracting nakedness lurking just beneath the duvet. Very distracting nakedness, she thinks.
“…us?” Rose asks.
Blinking in surprise, the Doctor quickly glances away. “Nothing all that specific,” he tells her, and is he the one blushing now? “Didn’t want to cross any lines, do anything inappropriate, of course.”
“Not even in the safety of your own head?”
“Nope. Not even then.” He sighs. “Very few explicitly wicked thoughts in this brain, I’m afraid. I guess I’m just a saint.”
“Uh-huh. What about now, though?”
“What about it?”
Rose licks her lips again, and he’s definitely blushing, this time. “You a saint right now?”
The Doctor hesitates, gaze fixed on her mouth.
“It’s okay,” Rose teases. “We’re still doing the sacred rite, remember? So this is just like a confession.”
He chuckles. “A confession. All right.”
“Tell me what you’re imagining, Doctor.”
“Shall I confess all my wicked thoughts to you?”
Rose leans in a little closer. “Please do.”
“Well,” he says, Adam’s apple bobbing. “At some point, I’d imagine we need to finish dismantling this little cult we’ve stumbled onto.”
“True.”
“And save the queen.”
“Yes,” replies Rose patiently. “And?”
“And in the meantime,” the Doctor says, his gaze soft and dark and locked on hers, “I’d imagine a kiss is in order.”
“Yeah?” Rose breathes, a thrill running through her from head to toe. “Would I kiss you, or would you kiss me?”
“Oh, I’d kiss you, probably.”
“Probably?”
“Definitely,” he says, and he closes the distance between them, pressing his lips to hers.
Rose hums happily against his mouth, her hands landing lightly on his chest. His skin is soft beneath her palms, and even though he’s still cooler than she is, she swears she feels him warming, his heartrates speeding up at her touch. His mouth opens, deepening the kiss, and Rose’s tongue darts out to taste him, glancing against the swell of his lower lip as they part. He watches her through half-mast eyes, after, a soft smile playing across his lips. Something about it is enough to make Rose’s heart trip over itself, just a little.
“So, erm,” Rose says, grinning at him, “how did that compare to your imagination? As good as?”
“Better, I think,” the Doctor replies, with a grin to match hers. “But I’ll need to collect a larger data sample, just to be sure.”
“For science,” Rose laughs.
“For science,” he agrees, and he kisses her again.
***
thanks/blame goes to @galiifreyrose & @saecookie for encouraging/inspiring/enabling me, thank you darlings ( ˘ ³˘)❤
(Aka the obligatory post-GitF fic, for anyone else who ever wondered what might have taken place between a trip to France and an adventure in a parallel universe.)
This time, Rose smiled as she stepped outside into the city. The planet Hohm looked much the same as it had a few days prior—clear blue skies, three moons shining overhead, colorful pennants waving lazily in the breeze, white buildings practically glowing in the sun—but there seemed to be a little extra pep in everyone’s step, as the people and horse-people bustled about their business. Maybe Rose was just imagining it, but she didn’t think so.
“So,” she said, a grin spreading across her face as she turned to Dyana and Vareem. The two of them grinned at her in return, standing tall and proud in their elegant ceremonial Council robes; it was a look they were both well-suited-for, Rose thought. “Ready for your next adventure?” she asked.
“Yes,” replied Dyana firmly, as Vareem said, “Not even a little bit,” and they both burst out laughing.
“At least we look the part,” Vareem chuckled, plucking at her robes. “That counts for something, right?”
Rose laughed. “Absolutely. That, and confidence, and cleverness, and a good heart. Luckily, you two have got all four in spades.”
“Oh, stop,” said Vareem. “You’re making me blush!”
“And if all else fails, you can always take the Doctor’s advice and just walk about like you own the place,” Rose told them. “Cos, I guess you sort of do, now?”
“And it’s about time we left you to it,” piped up the Doctor’s voice; Rose turned to see him waltzing lazily in her direction, Mickey following close after. “Wouldn’t you say?”
Dyana frowned. “You’re not leaving already?”
“Of course we are,” the Doctor said pleasantly. “We’ve done about all the damage we can do round here, best leave it in the hands of the experts now. Besides, you’ll be far too busy to notice us being gone, what with your planet to rule and your people to help and your rotten system of oppression to dismantle.”
“And don’t forget about the Championship, while you’re at it,” added Mickey. “Might want to consider taking a sledgehammer to that thing.”
“Actually,” Vareem replied hesitantly, “we’re thinking we might keep it.”
Mickey’s eyes widened in alarm and Rose and the Doctor both stared at her, nonplussed. “Come again?” asked the Doctor, eyebrow arching sharply.
“Look, much as I hate to admit it, the Council was right about one thing,” said Dyana. “There’s a lot of money in the Championship. The Council was a bunch of greedy prigs about it all, but that money could really help our people—boost our economy, lift the town out of poverty, get everyone back on their feet.”
“And make technology available to everyone who wants it,” Vareem interjected.
“Besides, the idea of the Championship isn’t bad—it’s just the way the Council ran it,” Dyana continued.
Mickey and the Doctor didn’t look convinced, but Rose was patient. She nodded at Dyana and Vareem, urging them to continue.
“See, this time around, no one’s gonna be forced into anything. It’s all voluntary. You pay to get in, or you sponsor someone else getting in, or you pay to watch it all live,” Dyana explained. “And there’s no deadly weapons, no bride-prizes, no killing. Just people competing against other people. Just regular sports, really.”
Vareem nodded. “The groundwork’s already all laid out. A couple of easy adjustments and you’ve got something that’s, y’know, actually fun for everyone involved. We’ll just recenter the event on showcasing everyone’s athletic skills, just for the prestige of it.”
Mickey’s face lit up at that. “So it really is your planet’s version of the Olympics!” he laughed. “That’s pretty awesome!”
“It is indeed,” added the Doctor, beaming. “Well done, you two! Really well done.”
Dyana and Vareem both laughed, Vareem shaking her head, smiling shyly. But Dyana quieted down before too long, her expression growing thoughtful. “Seriously, though,” she said, her voice deep with sincerity. “Thank you all, for everything you did for us.”
“Absolutely,” Vareem chimed in. “Thank you so much!”
“Rose, you especially,” Dyana added, taking Rose’s hands in hers. “Just—thank you.”
“What are you thanking me for?” Rose laughed. “I hardly did anything!”
“Not true,” Dyana told her firmly. “See, my sister and I had been planning things for ages, yeah, but when she—after—”
She swallowed, eyes clenching shut, and Vareem grasped her shoulder, humming in sympathy.
“After my sister was killed,” Dyana started again, and her voice only shook a little, “I was just...lost. I didn’t know what to do, except go on with the plans we’d made. I felt like I owed it to her, to try. I mean, she died trying to make things better for the two of us. For everyone in the city, really. So if I couldn’t carry on for me, I could at least do it for her, you know? But I was just going through the motions. It didn’t feel like anything was possible, without her. I’d lost hope. Truly.”
She squeezed Rose’s hands, tears welling up in her eyes. “Then I met you, and I saw how hard you fought for everything, no matter how bad things seemed to be, no matter how helpless or hopeless. You kept pushing on. You never gave up. Not ever.”
She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “You helped me have hope again, Rose.”
Feebly, Rose started to protest—she didn’t deserve such praise, really she didn’t—but her gaze flickered to the Doctor to the Doctor’s just briefly, and she was surprised to see him softer than usual, somehow, a warm grin playing across his face. Like he knew something, maybe, that Rose didn’t.
Like maybe Dyana was right.
Rose’s smile deepened, and she felt a prickle of moisture behind her own eyes. “Thank you,” she said quietly, squeezing Dyana’s hands in return.
“I just thought you were sort of neat,” Vareem interjected and the three of them laughed again.
Brushing away her unshed tears, Rose lunged for Dyana and Vareem, looping her arms about both of them in a snug embrace. “You’re both brilliant, you know that, right?” she asked, hugging them both fiercely. “You’re gonna do great things here. You’re gonna make your sister proud.”
Both women hugged her back, just as tightly. “I really hope so,” said Dyana.
“Well, I just so happen to know so,” piped up the Doctor, “because I’m fairly certain we’re about to enter Hohm’s New Enlightenment, more or less.”
“Hey, now!” protested Mickey. “Are we allowed to say things like that?”
“Oh no, not at all,” the Doctor replied. “Anyhoo! Time to hit the open road, put the pedal to the metal, we’re burnin’ daylight here. Time’s a-wastin’.” The Doctor clapped his hands in illustration. “Let’s get this show on the road. Chop chop!”
Mickey and the Doctor both turned toward the TARDIS, but before she had a chance to move away, Dyana reached out to Rose for another hug. Rose happily accepted, squeezing tightly.
“That Doctor bloke’s hopelessly in love with you,” Dyana whispered in her ear. “You know that, right?”
Rose’s mouth fell open in response. Dyana pulled back with a saucy little wink. Rose’s cheeks flushed hotly in a way that had nothing to do with the sun beaming overhead.
“Stay out of trouble, yeah?” Dyana added, grinning cheekily.
Stepping back, Rose laughed. “No promises,” she said, hands spread wide as she stepped closer to the TARDIS.
“That’s my girl!” Dyana called out, and Vareem blew her a kiss as the TARDIS doors closed.
**
“That’s it, then?” Mickey asked once they’d entered the Vortex, after the central column stopped grinding and the TARDIS calmed to its usual soothing hum. “We just pop in, have a bit of an adventure, then boom, we’re done, off to the next thing?”
“That’s it,” said the Doctor happily. He bounded round the console as he pressed a button here, threw a lever there. “All round the universe, anywhere and everywhere and everywhen and everything in-between.”
“Never a dull moment, huh?”
“Not with Rose and the Doctor!” the Doctor replied.
“And Mickey,” added Rose, laughing as she climbed up the stairs to the console.
“If you insist,” said the Doctor, and Mickey rolled his eyes. “Now the only question is: what next?”
Rose made a show of pretending to consider as she rounded the console, slowly approaching Mickey. “What, or where, or when?” she asked the Doctor, her tongue peeking out between her teeth.
“Any and all of the above,” said the Doctor, grinning. “Astrion’s still on the table, you know. Or Kabos Prime. Or ancient Egypt! Ooh, ancient Egypt. Who doesn’t love a good sarcophagus every now and then?”
Laughing, Rose nudged Mickey’s shoulder with hers. “Remember your Egypt phase, when you first saw Indiana Jones? This’d be right up your alley, I reckon!”
“Well, yeah,” said Mickey thoughtfully. “But what about you, babe?”
“What about me?”
Mickey shrugged. “You said one day, remember? One day, and then you were going home. Back to the Estate.” He crossed his arms, leaning back on the railing. “You still wanna go home?”
It took a second for the words to sink in, for Rose to remember. Her grin faltering just a little bit, Rose glanced over at the Doctor, before she had a chance to think better of it. Normally he might be fussing about the console right now, making a show of being busy while he pretended not to overhear such a conversation. But now, his hands were still, his attention focused solely on her, his face carefully impassive. Neutral. Watching. Waiting.
(Some things, Sarah Jane had told her, are worth getting your heart broken for.
Rose wondered if those words had been meant for the Doctor, as well.)
She smiled.
“Nah, we can always squeeze in another trip or two, or three,” Rose told Mickey, after a moment. “I’m not in any rush,” she said casually, looking at the Doctor.
The Doctor grinned at her, that soft, quiet grin, again, same as the one she saw before. She thought she might see something loosen in him, just a little bit.
“Quite right, too,” he replied softly.
“All right, cool,” said Mickey, blissfully oblivious to the exchange that had just taken place. “So, ancient Egypt, then? I’d love to see the pyramids. Or a real-live pharaoh, even!”
“Excellent!” the Doctor laughed. He flipped a few switches and the central column lit up, starting its telltale grind and groan. “Ancient Egypt it is, then! You lot ready?”
“Ready!” called Mickey.
“Ready?” the Doctor asked Rose.
She beamed at him. “Ready.”
“Fantastic,” said the Doctor. He pulled a lever on the console and the central column glowed golden, churning; the TARDIS shook and groaned all around them, sailing on the waves of the Vortex, on and out to the next adventure.
“Yeah, about that,” said the Doctor, his nose scrunching up in thought. “Did I mention I’m having something of an identity crisis today?”
A rewrite; dedicated to the absolutely wonderful @davinasgirlfriend . <3
* * *
- Chapter 5 -
Wrung out from crying until her tears ran dry and only choking sobs remained, Rose didn’t hear the soft thump-thump-thumping overhead until perhaps the third thump or so.
Bleary-eyed, Rose pushed back from the mattress, glancing up hopefully—was it her mum somehow, was it Jackie trying to communicate with her? Had the Doctor returned?—but her mother hadn’t moved, and there was no Doctor to be seen. Instead, Rose’s eyes traveled upward until she saw a black-tipped finger pressed to the glass of the observation window, tapping weakly. Rose followed the line of the finger down to the arm, to the body, up to the neck and the head, where a pale face stared at her from the hospital bed, past cables and cords and an oxygen-mask.
Sniffling, Rose scrubbed the heel of her palm across her face, wiping the tears away. “Sorry, mate,” she mumbled. “You’re probably trying to rest, aren’t you? I’ll keep the noise down.”
The patient shook his head, slowly. He tapped the window again.
Rose frowned. “Is something wrong?” she asked. “D’you need something? Should I go get Saito?”
Another slow shake of the head, and Rose watched as the patient’s arm moved, his finger pointing. Rose followed the line of sight over her shoulder to see cabinets, a counter, a sink, a faucet...
A faucet, dripping water. Ah.
“Sure, no problem,” she said, hastily dragging her jacket-sleeve across her face to break up the itchy-dry layer of tears and makeup that had crusted on her cheeks. God, she probably looked a mess. “Gotta be pretty thirsty, yeah? Let’s get you a glass or something.”
It was difficult to tell with the mask over his face, but Rose thought she saw the patient smiling a little bit. Flashing him a watery grin of her own, Rose pocketed her forgotten sandwich and turned to search the cabinets, to see if they had any paper cups or anything she could use. “Be over in a tic,” she called to the other room. “Just got to get a cup or something, and a mask, too. Okay?”
The patient didn’t reply, but that was all right; despite how deeply bone-tired she was, it was honestly a little bit of a relief for Rose to give her restless hands something to do, and it was a huge relief that the patient, while in tenuous condition, was still alive. That gave Rose hope for her mum. Gave her a lot of hope.
Busy searching the cabinets, she didn’t notice the flatline crawling across a screen in the other room.
***
Miranda’s body watched him, waiting. Expectant.
The Doctor slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he mostly meant it. “I can’t help you.”
Its eyelids fluttered in time with the lights flickering overhead. “Can’t help?” Miranda’s body asked, its voice dropping a register. “Or won’t?”
“The semantics of it are hardly relevant at this juncture, but honestly, it’s a mixture of both,” the Doctor replied, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Even if I wanted to help you get back home—and that’s a big if, considering that I’m not generally inclined to help murderers get what they want (and yes, in this case the semantics are relevant, because regardless of your motivations, you are, in fact, a bunch of murderers), but anyway—even if I wanted to help, I couldn’t. The holes between realities are sealed once again. There’s no way back.”
“Liar,” the body growled.
“Afraid not. Not this time.”
“But the box—”
“The TARDIS is gone,” the Doctor replied curtly. “Believe me, I’m not all that pleased about it, either.”
“Liar!” Its face crumpled into an ugly grimace as it pointed an inkstained hand at the Doctor. “We smell it, we smell the magic on you!”
The Doctor’s hand closed around the lump of coral in his pocket. “I’m telling you, I can’t get you across the Void again, magic box or not. But I’m sure we can work something else out.”
“No.”
“Oh, come on, now! It can’t all be death and destruction and chaos. There’s got to be another way. There always is, if you look hard enough.”
“No,” the corpse spat. “Home, or your friends die. There is no other way. No other way. None.”
“Good grief, you’re hopeless!” the Doctor said, pacing in exasperation. “No other way. What utter nonsense! How did you survive when you first arrived here, eh? You didn’t just start snapping up bodies first thing, did you? There must have been some kind of transitional period, some way you survived before you started hijacking human bodies.”
“Hardly anything left,” Miranda’s body told him. “What little survived, lived in the dark, and the damp. In warmth, and the cracks and depths of things.”
“Sounds delightful. Why didn’t you just stay put? Why’d you get the humans involved?”
“Burned,” said the corpse, twitching with the memory of it. “Suffocated. Had to flee.” It shivered, lips twitching. “Even now, it hurts us, scorching, eating away. Had to run.”
It fixed its oily-black gaze on the Doctor. “Still running.”
**
Rose adjusted her mask one last time and pulled on a pair of medical gloves with a satisfying smack before sliding into the other room with a cupful of water and a heavy sigh. Whatever the Doctor was working on, she hoped he’d figure out everything soon, not just for the sake of her mum and the others, but because Rose was starting to feel like she might drop the floor at any moment.
She was so, so tired.
“There you go, mate,” Rose said gently, steadying the patient’s trembling hand as he slipped up his oxygen mask to sip from the cup. “I know they’ve got you hooked into fluids and things, but I bet you’re still parched. And nothing beats a cold glass of water, yeah?”
Wordlessly, the patient nodded, glassy black eyes fixed on Rose.
“So I don’t think we’ve met before,” she said after he was done drinking, because the silence in the room was—well, she couldn’t quite put a word to the wrongness of it. It felt almost oppressive, somehow. “Are you new to UNIT?” she asked.
The patient nodded again.
“Well, this is a hell of a new job orientation, isn’t it?” said Rose, smiling wanly. “Sorry your welcome committee’s so rotten. We don’t normally chuck newbies straight into killer alien territory. We usually try to wait a reasonable amount of time. Like at least three weeks.”
With a jerk, the patient chuckled, his chuckle devolving immediately into a cough. Rose winced on his behalf, moved to help fit the oxygen mask back in place over his nose and mouth. But the patient feebly pushed her hands away, opening his mouth to speak. Only a ragged whisper emerged.
“Come again?” asked Rose.
“Jared,” the patient rasped through fluid-filled lungs. “Name. Yours?”
“Agent—I mean, Rose,” said Rose, internally kicking herself. “Rose Tyler.”
She held out her hand for Jared to shake, and he took it. Rose forced herself not to wince at the weakness of his grip or the heat of his skin, burning even through the medical glove. “Nice to meet you, Jared.”
“Mother?” asked Jared, tilting his head toward Jackie in the other room.
Sighing, Rose nodded, watching her mum through the window. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “That’s my mum. She’s in the same state you are. Well, sort of. I mean, she’s still—you know. She—”
“Looks much better?” Jared coughed.
“I was going to say something at least a little more tactful than that,” Rose replied, and Jared laughed again, stifling a cough against his hand. Rose handed him the water cup again and he sipped at it, his face pinched in pain.
“You sure you don’t need me to go get Saito?” Rose asked, and held up the oxygen-mask, ready to slide it back into place.
Jared shook his head and pushed the mask away. “Just wanted water. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” Rose replied, yawning.
“Tired?” asked Jared.
“You’ve got no idea.” Rose frowned. “Or maybe you do. I think you’re a little worse off than me, at the mo.”
“A little bit,” Jared chuckled, his chuckles subsiding back into a horrid, violent cough. Concerned, Rose reached for his oxygen-mask again, but he slapped her hands away—forcefully, this time.
“No,” Jared rasped. “No more.”
Rose frowned. “Are you sure you don’t—”
“No more.”
“But you need oxygen, Saito said—”
“No,” snapped Jared. “We don’t want it!”
Rose’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Jared’s sudden sharpness discomfited her, set alarm bells ringing vaguely at the back of her head, distressingly loud in the quiet room. But she couldn’t quite put a finger on it, couldn’t quite place what felt so wrong.
(Of course it made sense, Rose tried to reason through the exhaustion-fog clouding her head, that Jared might be angry or irritable—she could only imagine how angry she would be, if an unknown killer contagion was slowly eating her from the inside out. But that didn’t explain why he would turn down medical treatment, though—and why wasn’t Saito anywhere to be seen? And why was it so bloody quiet in there?)
Eyes flickering round the room, Rose’s gaze landed on the monitors next to Jared’s bed. Several of the cables sat dangling, unplugged from the wall, rendered mute and useless for the purpose of monitoring Jared’s vitals. But maybe Jared had just grown tired of the incessant beeps and chimes, Rose tried to reason to herself. That seemed understandable enough.
Either that, Rose thought with a mounting sense of dread, or Jared simply didn’t want anyone to monitor his vital signs.
Now the alarms ringing in her head were positively screeching.
“Sure thing,” Rose replied, forcing an easy and casual smile on her face as she set down the cup and backed away, slowly, under Jared’s wide-eyed and glassy glare. “I’ll just leave you to it, shall I…?”
She turned to open the door, then paused, her exhausted brain working overtime to catch up.
“Hang on,” she said. “Did you say we just now?”
A glance over at Jared revealed a slow smile crawling across charcoal-black teeth.
“Oops,” he said, softly.
**
“Yes, but what burned, what suffocated?” the Doctor demanded. “What’s eating away at you? None of this makes any sense—it’s like you’re talking about something huge, huge but somehow invisible, just these massive environmental changes forcing you to evacuate, but then why hasn’t anyone else noticed it? I looked over the reports and nothing’s changed in UNIT headquarters in the last twenty-four hours, nothing except—”
He stopped pacing. Except for reports of fresh paint, he remembered. Fresh paint, because of the—
“Mold,” he said slowly, disbelieving.
He turned to face Miranda’s body again, mind racing furiously with the realization, and it was like water rushing into a canyon, filling in the gaps of the story.
“You’re mold,” the Doctor said, louder now.
The corpse did not respond.
“That’s got to be it, hasn’t it?” asked the Doctor, growing more excited by the second. “It said in the reports, this building got a sudden case of mold. Black mold! And they tried to get rid of it, they must have done—and the chemicals they’d use, those would burn, and then the caretakers would paint over the stain—of course!” the Doctor shouted, hands running through his hair as his thoughts raced wildly inside. “Of course, you’d try to escape the burn of the bleach and the suffocation of the paint, but where else would you think to go, where else would suit you, what else is warm and cozy and damp and made up of oh-so-much water? Well, the human body’s just a perfect candidate, isn’t it? And it makes total sense, if you think about it—so many of the symptoms correlate with mold-related conditions like histoplasmosis or aspergillosis! Cos naturally, if you want to transform your human host into a forever-home, not just one you occupy telepathically, but one you inhabit physically, one you live in, you’ve got to make some significant changes to the chemical makeup, haven’t you? Changes that make a human body compatible with sentient mold!”
The Doctor whooped out loud, quite pleased with himself. “Ha! Telepathic killer mold from outer space—now that’s a new one, even for me! New new Doctor, indeed!”
“Now you know our secret. So help us,” Miranda’s body hissed, stalking toward the Doctor. “You must. This is what you do. This is who you are.”
“Yeah, about that,” said the Doctor, his nose scrunching up in thought. “Did I mention I’m having something of an identity crisis today?”
Grinning like the madman he was, the Doctor turned on his heel and sprinted away.
Behind him, Miranda opened her mouth wide and screamed.
**
Jared’s face twisted in a snarl as he sprang up from the bed, shrieking out an ear-splitting screech. But his lips and tongue didn’t move and it wasn’t Jared’s voice anymore, it wasn’t any one voice at all, it had to be a dozen at least, all of them screeching as one. The scream rose and wailed like a siren or some kind of shrill-roaring monster, rattling the hospital instruments and vibrating the glass in the observation window and striking like a dentist’s drill to the teeth. Eyes watering in pain, hands clamped instinctively over her ears, Rose doubled over, crying out against the scream.
**
Betrayal, Miranda’s body silently told its brethren as it shrieked, its call echoing in the halls with a sound like metal screaming against metal or the piercing howl of the winds in a tornado. Betrayal. Liar. Deceit.
Vengeance? came the reply, many voices clamoring as one. Stalk? Take? Kill?
Kill the mother. Kill the child, Miranda’s body demanded.
Take them all.
**
“New rules,” Rose heard Jared hiss over the ringing in her ears.
Rose dove for the door handle but there was a flurry of sound and movement behind her and suddenly a black-fingered hand cut an arc through her field of vision, Jared’s arm lunging from behind to loop around her neck in a chokehold. Without looking, without thinking, Rose grabbed Jared’s wrist and bicep and dropped to the floor, yanking him over her shoulder and flinging him down in front of her with a mighty thwack. Leaping over Jared’s body, Rose wrenched open the door and slammed it shut behind her, swiping the psychic paper over the cardreader to override the controls and lock Jared inside.
Through the observation window, she watched Jared as he rolled over and slowly rose from the floor, tapping a blackened fingertip against the glass of the observation window. It was good stuff, thick and embedded with wire—Jared was hardly the first hostile being UNIT had had the pleasure of hosting in its medbay, after all—and there was no way he’d be able to break through. He seemed to realize the same thing rather quickly, his gaze traveling from the wire in the window down to Rose.
Rose wondered if she’d ever felt such a piercing hateful glare. She shuddered.
“Tricky,” Jared spat out along with a mouthful of black blood. Or his body did, anyway; Rose was fairly certain Jared wasn’t in there anymore. “Not enough to save you, though.”
Lights flickered overhead and something buzzed in Rose’s ears. She ignored it. “I like my odds,” she told Jared’s body.
Jared’s eyes flashed. “You shouldn’t.”
“Who are you?” Rose asked. “Cos it’s pretty clear you’re not Jared anymore. So who are you? And why are you doing all of this? What do you want?”
“What does anyone or anything want? In this whole wide universe? More than anything else?”
“Hard liquor and a long nap?” Rose suggested drily.
“Life,” Jared’s body hissed. “To live. To survive. To thrive. No matter the cost.”
“But that cost is us, isn’t it?” asked Rose, glancing down at Jackie, still prone and unconscious on her cot. “The people here. Our bodies, our lives.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The Jared-thing shook its head wordlessly.
“You’re hurting my mother,” said Rose, her voice hard. “Killing her.”
“Yes,” Jared’s body replied, flecks of its oil-spill spit peppering the window between them. “We seek, we listen, we hear. We follow the song. If the song invites us, if a door is opened, who are we to refuse?”
“You can always say no,” Rose shot back.
“We cannot,” said Jared’s body, and Rose could have sworn she saw something sad in its deep black eyes. “We hollow, we inhabit, or we perish. Die screaming. All of us. Each and every one. Fathers and mothers and children alike. All of us, dead.”
Sympathy welled up in Rose’s chest. Shaking her head, she stepped away from the window. “I’m sorry about that. I really am. But you can’t just kill people.”
Jared’s body cocked its head in an approximation of thoughtfulness. “Can’t we, though?”
Then, leaning forward, it whispered, “Haven’t you?”
Rose didn’t flinch. “I’m not gonna let you take my mum,” she said firmly. “And I’m not gonna let you hurt anyone else.”
A humorless smile stretched Jared’s lips thin. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Anyone else—like your magic-friend, you mean? Or your leaders, or your healer? Better hurry, if you want to help them.”
“Why?” Rose asked, dread growing cold in the pit of her stomach.
Mind racing, heart hammering in her throat, Rose turned and sprinted away.
“Run!” Jared’s body shrieked after her, its voice rising and screeching and ricocheting off the walls around them as its fists pounded against the window. “Run! Run! Run!”
**
Sprinting back down the stairs, back through the hall, the Doctor skidded to a stop outside the cafeteria—doors shut and blocked, he couldn’t see anything, though he could hear the shouts and sounds of a fight emanating from inside, but it sounded like the security team was holding their own, for the moment at least—and, casting wildly about, the Doctor searched the scattered items littering the floor, dropping to his hands and knees to better rifle through the mess until he found what he needed. Upended cart, rolls of paper goods, dust rags, rubbish bin liners, toolbox, air fresheners, spray cleaners, come on come on come on come on—
“Ha! Gotcha!” the Doctor shouted victoriously, grabbing his prize before he took off running again.
**
Run! Run! Run! rung in Rose’s mind, echoing over and over and over again in time with the rhythmic slap of her boots against the floor. She prayed to whatever god might be listening that the window would hold Jared back, keep Jackie. Because as much as Rose hated it, as much as she hated leaving her, as much as it made her hate herself, she knew there was nothing else she could do for her right now. She had to do what she could to save everyone else in the building, to stop Jared’s kind from harming anyone else.
She’d do whatever it took.
“Saito!” she shouted, her heart pulsing painfully in her throat. “Saito, I’m coming—just hold on—”
Rounding the corner, Rose’s run faltered and slowed into nothing as she saw the physician—unharmed by the looks of it, thank goodness—huddled in a group of wide-eyed and terrified UNIT employees. Saito’s arms were flung in front of everyone else, a last-ditch effort to protect them all from the pitch-covered corpse looming over them.
“Let them go!” Rose demanded, stepping closer.
The corpse slowly turned to look at her, and behind it, Saito shook her head, the motion sharp. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Get out of here!”
“Let them go,” repeated Rose, stepping closer still. She drew in a shuddering breath. “Take me, instead.”
The corpse looked at her, tilting its head in thought. “A generous offer,” it rasped, “but why accept, when we could take you all?”
Rose’s mind raced for a response. “Except you can’t, can you? Or you already would have done.”
The corpse did not reply.
“What was that you said earlier?” Rose asked. “Cos that was you, wasn’t it? All of you corpses, talking through Jared? That’s why he kept saying We. Like We follow the song. But what did he mean by that, exactly?”
No response from the corpse, and Saito and the others were silent as well, watching, waiting. Tense and afraid.
“I mean, he clearly didn’t mean music. Not literally. But you are listening for something, aren’t you? You’re listening for a way in,” she reasoned aloud. “Something about opening doors, he said. So you can’t take any old human body and mind you want—something’s got to open the door. Something’s got to let you in, whether it knows it’s doing that, or not. Isn’t that right?”
Looking round at Saito, at everyone huddled behind her, Rose realized. “And most of us humans aren’t letting you in, are we?” she asked breathlessly.
“We only need time,” the corpse replied. “In time, all walls fall.”
“And is that time you can afford to spare, then?”
Once again, the corpse was silent. Seemed like as good a sign as any, Rose thought. Willing her hands not to shake, she peeled off first one glove, then the other.
“For god’s sake, what are you doing?“ asked Saito. Rose ignored her.
“If you let them go,” she said slowly, slipping off her mask, “if you let all these people right here go...”
She swallowed. “I’ll let you in.”
The corpse did not reply, merely watching her. Rose’s stomach churned uncomfortably beneath the scrutiny.
“Deal?” she asked.
After a few agonizing, seemingly endless moments, the corpse nodded.
Rose closed her eyes amidst the lights flickering overhead, breathing past the sounds of buzzing and her racing pulse thundering in her ears. The buzzing-sound filled her skull, reverberating louder and louder until her teeth were practically chattering from it, until the buzz became a drone became a disjointed symphony of mismatched voices, hissing and slithering and shouting and shrieking and demanding to be let in.
Swallowing hard, Rose thought of her mum, fighting for her life just a few rooms away. She hoped Jackie would understand. Jackie, and the Doctor.
She let her mask fall to the floor.
“What have I missed?” piped up a familiar voice, cutting through the noise. With a jolt, Rose’s eyes flew back open to see the Doctor standing at the door, a spray-bottle in hand, a manic grin on his face.
“Traveler,” hissed the corpse, turning toward the Doctor, hand reaching out.
“Or should I say,” the Doctor continued cheekily, eyes twinkling, “what have I mist?”
With that, he lifted the spray-bottle and sprayed the corpse in the face.
Inhuman screeching and a foul stench rent the air as the corpse fell to the ground, writhing and screaming and clawing at its ruined, melting face. Leaping back, Saito pushed the crowd with her, UNIT employees shielding their eyes, their mouths agape in terror. The Doctor continued to spray the body as it convulsed and shrieked in front of them. Thrashing violently, the corpse screamed one last time before it fell still, black fluid bubbling and frothing from its eyes and nose, its mouth and ears. Its face froze into a grotesque mask, features forever cemented in an openmouthed scream.
An uneasy hush fell over the room as everyone stared at the corpse. Several people pinched their noses against the stench.
Shaking all over, Saito stood, a hand clutched to her stomach. “What...” she tried to ask, her eyes glued to the corpse in horror. “How did you...? Is that bleach?”
”It is indeed,” replied the Doctor, spinning the spray-bottle in his hand, not unlike a cowboy with his pistol. Rose was half-surprised he didn’t pretend to blow smoke off the business end of it. “Industrial-strength. Best way to fight black mold.”
“Mold,” Saito repeated flatly.
“Yep! We’ve got ourselves some good ol’ fashioned infectious killer mold,” said the Doctor as he sauntered away from the corpse on the ground. “Well, I say ol’-fashioned, but whether it’s ol’ or new or in-between, I actually haven’t got a clue. Its age hardly matters, either way. What matters,” he said, planting himself firmly in front of Rose, “is that we’ve got a way to stop it, now. Thanks to me.”
“Modest as ever,” Rose replied drily, but she couldn’t help the smile that escaped her. The Doctor grinned widely in reply, nodding.
**
“And what about her?” asked the Doctor a few minutes later, as Saito rolled Jackie out to safety along with everyone else, locking the hallway behind her. “How’s she doing?”
“Fairly stable,” Saito replied. “Very little change one way or the other.”
The Doctor clicked his tongue. “Ah, well, better than change for the worse, I suppose.”
Rose watched as Saito pushed her unconscious mother into an adjoining room, forcing herself not to chew on her lower lip or the skin around her thumbnail, like she would have done oh-so-long ago. Her mother didn’t look any worse than she did a few minutes prior, but she sure didn’t look any better, either.
“And you?” the Doctor asked Rose, his voice low against the sounds of UNIT employees chatting quietly in the background. “Are you feeling all right? Any symptoms, anything I should be worried about?”
“Everything’s fine,” Rose replied. Thanks to you, she almost added, but she bit her tongue before it had the chance.
“So we know it’s mold,” she said instead, ignoring every impulse in her body that shouted at her to give the Doctor a hug, no matter how much she may want to offer reassurance, or receive it herself. “And we know we can use bleach against it. Will that stop it from going into people’s minds?”
“Ahh, I was just getting to that! The telepathy. You figured it out already! Of course you did, you’re brilliant. Speaking of which,” said the Doctor, positively beaming down at Rose, “well-done, you!”
Rose blinked. “Well-done, me, what?”
“Well-done, you, with the mandatory psychic training, that’s what.” The Doctor tucked his free hand into his pocket, rocking back on his heels. “Miranda might’ve dropped that little tidbit in conversation, before she...well,” he trailed off, and Rose could tell he was trying very hard not to glance back, not to look at the bleach-stinking corpse that several UNIT employees were dealing with behind him. “Point is, if it wasn’t for your training, we’d have a hell of a lot more bodies to deal with right now. Cos that’s how the mold invades, breaking into the mind first, hijacking its signals to alter the body on a molecular level, after. But if your psychic shields are strong enough—”
“Then they can’t get in,” Rose murmured.
The Doctor nodded. “Exactly. ”
“And of course Mum’s never undergone any kind of training like that, so she wouldn’t be able to stop it,” Rose continued tiredly, cursing herself yet again for her lack of foresight. “And let me guess—each of the infected UNIT employees were compromised, somehow.”
“That’s precisely it. For non-telepaths, psychic shields can be compromised by any number of things, stress or injury or illness or lack of sleep being chief among them. And all of the infected just so happen to be single caretakers of multiple children, busy nighttime workers, or people whose mental or emotional faculties were otherwise placed under an undue amount of stress. But that is not, in any way, your fault,” said the Doctor, grabbing Rose’s hand as if he could hear the self-recrimination flooding her thoughts. “Like I said, if you hadn’t installed that protocol, if you hadn’t taught the people here how to protect themselves against a psychic invasion, you would be contending with a lot more corpses right now. You’ve kept a lot of people alive, who wouldn’t be otherwise.”
Rose’s hand tensed in his grasp, her heart twisting guiltily behind her ribs. “You don’t have to do that, you know,” she mumbled, sliding her hand out of his.
The Doctor tilted his head in confusion. “Do what?”
“It’s been a rubbish day,” Rose said quietly, unable to look him in the eye, “and I’ve been horrible to you.”
He stared at her blankly.
“You shouldn’t be so nice to me,” Rose muttered.
“I’m not being nice. I’m being honest.”
Rose allowed herself a small smile. “I guess that’s one of the good changes, huh?”
“All right, so let me get this straight,” Saito called out before the Doctor had a chance to respond. He turned to her with his eyebrows raised in surprise, like he’d forgotten anyone else was in the room. “We just spray them all with bleach, and that’s it?” Saito asked, incredulous.
“If by we you mean Rose and me, then yes,” the Doctor replied. “You need to stay here and keep an eye on everyone, keep them safe.”
“But you’ve got a plan? And that plan is bleach?”
“That’s just part of it. Bleach won’t take care of everything; that’ll only corrupt the host-bodies, make them unfit for possession. The real thing is tracking down the physical hive mind and taking it out at the source.”
Rose frowned. “When you say taking it out, do you mean you’re gonna kill it?”
“No, I mean I’m taking it out for a nice dinner at Kitty Fisher’s,” the Doctor teased as Saito walked away, rolling her eyes at them both. “Yes, of course I’m gonna kill it. Any reason I shouldn’t?”
The real you wouldn’t, she wanted to say. “Is there any reason you should?” she asked.
Eyes narrowing in suspicion, the Doctor slowly fished the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. “You said you’re not experiencing any symptoms, right?” he asked, his voice deceptively mild. “Mind if I give you a quick check just in case?”
“Why?”
The Doctor shrugged. “Just seems a little funny that you’re speaking in defense of the killers trying to murder your mum.”
“Of course I’m not defending that,” Rose said stubbornly, allowing the Doctor to gently tilt her head this way and that as he inspected her with the sonic. “But the mold—as silly as this sounds, it’s got a brain. It thinks, it talks. It’s a person, or people, or however that works. We can’t just kill it, can we? Haven’t we got to give it a chance?”
“It had its chance,” the Doctor muttered. “It is, as you might have noticed, shockingly easy to not-murder-people.”
“It’s acting out of desperation, isn’t it? Just trying to survive?”
“Well, so are we.”
Rose opened her mouth to argue but at the Doctor’s thumb glancing against her lower lip, suddenly she could think of very little else, even as she fought to ignore the warmth that fizzed up pleasantly at his touch. It was an accident, she told herself; this whole inspection was a purely clinical gesture, and he didn’t mean to touch her like that, in a way that made her heartrate speed up and her toes curl in her boots. Looking up at him, she caught his gaze and saw the concern in his eyes and she looked away again, telling herself not to be foolish, not to be taken in, because all good doctors are concerned about their patients, aren’t they? Never mind the purse of his mouth, the intensity of his gaze, the worry knit in his brow.
She couldn’t afford to be distracted, anyway, she told herself firmly. Not right now.
“Are you killing them to stop them hurting anyone else,” she forced herself to ask, “or to punish them?”
The Doctor’s gaze hardened. He pulled back. “Does it make a difference?” he asked.
Yes, Rose wanted to argue, of course it does, but the words didn’t sit quite right in her thoughts. They were her words, her thoughts, that much she knew. But something about them was off. Like a bit of a drone in her head. A bit of a buzz, almost, and in the background noise of her mind, was that a quiet chorus of voices she heard?
She suddenly noticed how very, very warm she felt.
Like she had a fever.
“Come on,” the Doctor said quietly, urging her along with a hand to the elbow. “We haven’t got time for squabbles. We’ve got to round up some more bleach, find the hive-mind, and kill it before it takes anyone else. Okay?”
Nodding numbly, Rose followed, resisting the urge to glance back at the darkened hall and rooms behind them, where she knew Jared still lurked, waiting. Instead, as the Doctor pulled her along, Rose snuck a look down at her hand, mounting dread thundering through her veins.
There, just beneath the nailbeds, she could spot the faintest hint of black.
