FIC: "Equal and Opposite" 2/10, NC-17, Ten/Rose
Title: Equal and Opposite
Author: Amanda Rex, amandarex
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: NC-17, M
Spoilers: All of S1, S2, and S3 up to "The Lazarus Experiment"
Summary: As the Doctor discovered during the events of "The Runaway Bride", an excess of Huon particles can send you straight to the TARDIS, if you're not careful. What if Rose carried enough residual Huon energy after absorbing the Heart of the TARDIS in "The Parting of the Ways" to pull her through the Void and back to the Doctor?
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the laptop this was written on. You know it, I know it.
Warnings: This isn't the usual, happy reunion fic. Warnings for dark and unhappy moments.
Author's Notes: I would like to thank my wonderful beta reader for all of her time and support, dynapink. Couldn't do it without you. Concrit on this fic is welcome. I would also like to thank scifiangel, corruptinnocent, iwillrememberu, svanderslice, firefaery2, hannagreen20, calapine, megoddess2, ellenscult, blackadder72, calleigh-j, jen-chan13, effulgent-girl, misscam, isolus-gurl, eulalumel, monkeefan1 for their contributions to a thread I posted on time_and_chips, which helped me a great deal with Chapter 6 of this fic.
Earlier parts: Teaser
Chapter 1
Rose turned over in her sleep, patting the pillow a few times and, when that didn't work, bunching it up a different way. Even in sleep, something felt a bit off to her, but ever since she'd found herself separated from the Doctor, everything had felt that way.
Just not quite like this.
She turned again, her legs twisting in the duvet covering her. It made her just uncomfortable enough that she roused from her dream. She still wasn't quite awake, but she floated in that half-aware, half-dream place that she normally only got to indulge in after hitting the snooze alarm.
Eventually, she grudgingly opened one eye to peek at the time. If it was late enough, she might as well get up and go into work. There was always some way to make herself useful there, and it was quickly becoming the only thing in this new world that was really giving her life meaning.
As her vision cleared, she found that her clock wasn't there. She blindly patted the area where her bedside table should be, thinking perhaps she'd knocked the clock to the ground with a flail of her arm, only to find the table missing as well.
She sat up, suddenly recognizing the metallic wall she'd found instead, feeling almost oily against her fingers. Though she was still drowsy and could barely focus on the smallish room, the clothes that littered the ground and the maddeningly flat and uncomfortable pillow she'd once thought she'd never see again were so familiar to her that she could cry.
Her eyes cleared as she set her feet on the ground, finding her slippers there. She put them on and stood up, walking shakily around the room, wondering what sort of dream this was and how long she'd be able to hold onto it before she woke to her "new" and still colorless life.
A few steps took her to the battered desk that had always sat in the far corner of her room. A few racy novels, nicked from her mum at one point or another, sat there. They were dog-eared and only half read, each one thrown aside when something more exciting had come up, which had been nearly every day she'd ever spent here.
She ran a finger over the cover of one of the books and came back with a generous portion of dust. She held her hand up and regarded it quizzically, unable to understand why she would dream of her room in this obviously long-disused state. It was as though she'd been gone, and for quite a long time.
A hoodie hung over the desk's chair. Feeling the chill, she took it and swung it over her shoulders, pushing her arms through the sleeves as she forcibly remembered the last time she'd worn it.
Ages ago, back in her real life, she'd stepped one foot outside, felt the chill, and turned back right away. She dashed to her room and grabbed the first thing she'd found, then ran back to receive his joking admonishment for making them late.
She padded to the door and watched as her shaking hand found the knob, also cold to the touch and so real she nearly believed this wasn't all just a dream. After she stepped into the corridor, she promptly got lost twice as she tried to regain her bearings. She wasn't sure if the layout had changed simply because this was a dream, or because she'd been gone so long that her mind could no longer reconstruct the paths from memory.
After correcting yet another wrong turn, she saw a familiar glow ahead. Still greenish, she noticed, but not as sickly and alien-looking as she remembered it. She grew closer, step by step, and began to see a warm orange lighting the walls as well, eliminating a lot of the darkness and shadow that she'd grown accustomed to, all that time ago.
And there he was. She noticed his hair first, defiantly sticking up in every direction. He'd discarded his coat, now a misshapen blob on the ground, but his suit was different. It was blue now. She blinked, hardly believing it, because she'd never thought he'd give up that battered brown suit. Now she knew it all had to be a dream, a cruel trick of her subconscious, trying to get her to stay in bed and get some rest.
He was mumbling something as he went from control to control, his body contorting like an acrobat's as he worked. She couldn't hear what he was saying, so she moved closer.
"One minute she's here, and then she's gone. This is not happening again. I am not going to be responsible for-"
He broke off the litany abruptly as his head turned and he caught sight of her, framed by the meager light coming from the corridor.
"Hi," she said, gamely. "'S just a dream, I know, but I just wanted to see you again for a bit before I woke up. Go back to..." she said, trailing off, waving her hand indistinctly at the TARDIS controls.
"Rose," he breathed, his eyes going wide. "I can't believe-"
"I know," Rose said, looking down at her feet. "I have this dream a lot, and that's always what you say."
"Rose," he repeated, reaching over to pull a lever that slowed the noise and the lights on the console, but never taking his eyes off of her.
"This is the best bit, coming up," she said, not really caring anymore that it was just a dream. This was the part where he'd leap over to her and gather her into his arms, pick her up, and then swing her around until she was dizzy.
"I...I just...are you real?" he said, walking slowly toward her. He stood in front of her, squinting and examining her from several angles. "I can't...there's no way. There was no way back."
"I know," she said. "It took a long time, but I finally realized there was no way you could come back for me," she babbled, wondering what was taking so long. Her dreams usually didn't take this long to get to the good part.
He reached out with one finger, poking her first in the shoulder, and then on the cheek. It wasn't the gentle touch he usually had in her dreams, and it certainly wasn't the joyous hug she'd thought was coming, the one that pressed all the breath from her until she felt light-headed.
"Ow!" she protested, slapping his hand away. He pulled it back, looking at the back of his own hand in confusion.
"It's you!" he said. "I don't know how, and I don't know why, but it's you."
"Right. Now, can I have my hug, so I can wake up in peace?"
"Your hug, what are you...well," he said, grinning madly at her. "If that's all you wanted, you certainly came a long way to get it."
He threw his arms around her and drew her in, feeling solid and just a bit warm against her body. He began to laugh close to her ear, that maniac's laugh he'd always had, the one she'd nearly forgotten the sound of.
"Mmm," she hummed, pulling him even closer and running her hands underneath his suit jacket. "This is even better than usual."
"Rose," he said, pulling his head away from her, but leaving their bodies in intimate contact, "you're not dreaming."
"All right," she said. "Guess you won't mind if I do this, then."
She pushed forward onto her toes, bringing her face close to his, and then she closed the distance, kissing him in the way she'd spent years wishing she'd done when she'd had the chance. He made a strangled sound as she let her hands wander the expanse of his back, enjoying the silky feel of his shirt against her skin.
"Rose!" he gasped, pulling away and holding her at arm's length, taking a few breaths before he continued. "It's not that I don't appreciate the...well...the..." he fumbled, pointing rapidly between the two of them and then making some of the oddest hand gestures Rose had ever seen.
"Listen," she told him. "My alarm's bound to go off any second now. I don't have this dream every night anymore, so I intend to enjoy it when I do."
"Rose!" he barked, in that no-nonsense, business-minded way that he had. "You are in the TARDIS. You're back." He smiled at her in a way that looked painfully real. "I don't know what I have to do to convince you, but I can assure you that this isn't a dream."
Rose shut her eyes, willing herself not to believe it. It all seemed very real, more real than any dream she'd ever had. The disappointment, though, if she were wrong; it would be too much to bear. She felt as though she'd cried every tear she had a right to shed and then some, and she wasn't sure if she could open the wound again.
"Drink it in, Rose Tyler." He pulled completely away from her, clasping her hand in his and leading her to the central console. "Put your hands here and feel it. Nothing feels like that. No dream you could have would feel like this."
Rose did as he asked, reluctantly and with great trepidation. She felt the connection as soon as her hand made contact, as though a part of her had been missing and had now been restored. She looked at him, her eyes wide with wonder.
"I'm back?" she asked.
"You are. And one more thing."
She'd just opened her mouth to ask him what the 'one thing more' was, when she received her hug. Most spectacularly.
Chapter 2 coming soon
Author: Amanda Rex, amandarex
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: NC-17, M
Spoilers: All of S1, S2, and S3 up to "The Lazarus Experiment"
Summary: As the Doctor discovered during the events of "The Runaway Bride", an excess of Huon particles can send you straight to the TARDIS, if you're not careful. What if Rose carried enough residual Huon energy after absorbing the Heart of the TARDIS in "The Parting of the Ways" to pull her through the Void and back to the Doctor?
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the laptop this was written on. You know it, I know it.
Warnings: This isn't the usual, happy reunion fic. Warnings for dark and unhappy moments.
Author's Notes: I would like to thank my wonderful beta reader for all of her time and support, dynapink. Couldn't do it without you. Concrit on this fic is welcome. I would also like to thank scifiangel, corruptinnocent, iwillrememberu, svanderslice, firefaery2, hannagreen20, calapine, megoddess2, ellenscult, blackadder72, calleigh-j, jen-chan13, effulgent-girl, misscam, isolus-gurl, eulalumel, monkeefan1 for their contributions to a thread I posted on time_and_chips, which helped me a great deal with Chapter 6 of this fic.
Earlier parts: Teaser
Chapter 1
Rose turned over in her sleep, patting the pillow a few times and, when that didn't work, bunching it up a different way. Even in sleep, something felt a bit off to her, but ever since she'd found herself separated from the Doctor, everything had felt that way.
Just not quite like this.
She turned again, her legs twisting in the duvet covering her. It made her just uncomfortable enough that she roused from her dream. She still wasn't quite awake, but she floated in that half-aware, half-dream place that she normally only got to indulge in after hitting the snooze alarm.
Eventually, she grudgingly opened one eye to peek at the time. If it was late enough, she might as well get up and go into work. There was always some way to make herself useful there, and it was quickly becoming the only thing in this new world that was really giving her life meaning.
As her vision cleared, she found that her clock wasn't there. She blindly patted the area where her bedside table should be, thinking perhaps she'd knocked the clock to the ground with a flail of her arm, only to find the table missing as well.
She sat up, suddenly recognizing the metallic wall she'd found instead, feeling almost oily against her fingers. Though she was still drowsy and could barely focus on the smallish room, the clothes that littered the ground and the maddeningly flat and uncomfortable pillow she'd once thought she'd never see again were so familiar to her that she could cry.
Her eyes cleared as she set her feet on the ground, finding her slippers there. She put them on and stood up, walking shakily around the room, wondering what sort of dream this was and how long she'd be able to hold onto it before she woke to her "new" and still colorless life.
A few steps took her to the battered desk that had always sat in the far corner of her room. A few racy novels, nicked from her mum at one point or another, sat there. They were dog-eared and only half read, each one thrown aside when something more exciting had come up, which had been nearly every day she'd ever spent here.
She ran a finger over the cover of one of the books and came back with a generous portion of dust. She held her hand up and regarded it quizzically, unable to understand why she would dream of her room in this obviously long-disused state. It was as though she'd been gone, and for quite a long time.
A hoodie hung over the desk's chair. Feeling the chill, she took it and swung it over her shoulders, pushing her arms through the sleeves as she forcibly remembered the last time she'd worn it.
Ages ago, back in her real life, she'd stepped one foot outside, felt the chill, and turned back right away. She dashed to her room and grabbed the first thing she'd found, then ran back to receive his joking admonishment for making them late.
She padded to the door and watched as her shaking hand found the knob, also cold to the touch and so real she nearly believed this wasn't all just a dream. After she stepped into the corridor, she promptly got lost twice as she tried to regain her bearings. She wasn't sure if the layout had changed simply because this was a dream, or because she'd been gone so long that her mind could no longer reconstruct the paths from memory.
After correcting yet another wrong turn, she saw a familiar glow ahead. Still greenish, she noticed, but not as sickly and alien-looking as she remembered it. She grew closer, step by step, and began to see a warm orange lighting the walls as well, eliminating a lot of the darkness and shadow that she'd grown accustomed to, all that time ago.
And there he was. She noticed his hair first, defiantly sticking up in every direction. He'd discarded his coat, now a misshapen blob on the ground, but his suit was different. It was blue now. She blinked, hardly believing it, because she'd never thought he'd give up that battered brown suit. Now she knew it all had to be a dream, a cruel trick of her subconscious, trying to get her to stay in bed and get some rest.
He was mumbling something as he went from control to control, his body contorting like an acrobat's as he worked. She couldn't hear what he was saying, so she moved closer.
"One minute she's here, and then she's gone. This is not happening again. I am not going to be responsible for-"
He broke off the litany abruptly as his head turned and he caught sight of her, framed by the meager light coming from the corridor.
"Hi," she said, gamely. "'S just a dream, I know, but I just wanted to see you again for a bit before I woke up. Go back to..." she said, trailing off, waving her hand indistinctly at the TARDIS controls.
"Rose," he breathed, his eyes going wide. "I can't believe-"
"I know," Rose said, looking down at her feet. "I have this dream a lot, and that's always what you say."
"Rose," he repeated, reaching over to pull a lever that slowed the noise and the lights on the console, but never taking his eyes off of her.
"This is the best bit, coming up," she said, not really caring anymore that it was just a dream. This was the part where he'd leap over to her and gather her into his arms, pick her up, and then swing her around until she was dizzy.
"I...I just...are you real?" he said, walking slowly toward her. He stood in front of her, squinting and examining her from several angles. "I can't...there's no way. There was no way back."
"I know," she said. "It took a long time, but I finally realized there was no way you could come back for me," she babbled, wondering what was taking so long. Her dreams usually didn't take this long to get to the good part.
He reached out with one finger, poking her first in the shoulder, and then on the cheek. It wasn't the gentle touch he usually had in her dreams, and it certainly wasn't the joyous hug she'd thought was coming, the one that pressed all the breath from her until she felt light-headed.
"Ow!" she protested, slapping his hand away. He pulled it back, looking at the back of his own hand in confusion.
"It's you!" he said. "I don't know how, and I don't know why, but it's you."
"Right. Now, can I have my hug, so I can wake up in peace?"
"Your hug, what are you...well," he said, grinning madly at her. "If that's all you wanted, you certainly came a long way to get it."
He threw his arms around her and drew her in, feeling solid and just a bit warm against her body. He began to laugh close to her ear, that maniac's laugh he'd always had, the one she'd nearly forgotten the sound of.
"Mmm," she hummed, pulling him even closer and running her hands underneath his suit jacket. "This is even better than usual."
"Rose," he said, pulling his head away from her, but leaving their bodies in intimate contact, "you're not dreaming."
"All right," she said. "Guess you won't mind if I do this, then."
She pushed forward onto her toes, bringing her face close to his, and then she closed the distance, kissing him in the way she'd spent years wishing she'd done when she'd had the chance. He made a strangled sound as she let her hands wander the expanse of his back, enjoying the silky feel of his shirt against her skin.
"Rose!" he gasped, pulling away and holding her at arm's length, taking a few breaths before he continued. "It's not that I don't appreciate the...well...the..." he fumbled, pointing rapidly between the two of them and then making some of the oddest hand gestures Rose had ever seen.
"Listen," she told him. "My alarm's bound to go off any second now. I don't have this dream every night anymore, so I intend to enjoy it when I do."
"Rose!" he barked, in that no-nonsense, business-minded way that he had. "You are in the TARDIS. You're back." He smiled at her in a way that looked painfully real. "I don't know what I have to do to convince you, but I can assure you that this isn't a dream."
Rose shut her eyes, willing herself not to believe it. It all seemed very real, more real than any dream she'd ever had. The disappointment, though, if she were wrong; it would be too much to bear. She felt as though she'd cried every tear she had a right to shed and then some, and she wasn't sure if she could open the wound again.
"Drink it in, Rose Tyler." He pulled completely away from her, clasping her hand in his and leading her to the central console. "Put your hands here and feel it. Nothing feels like that. No dream you could have would feel like this."
Rose did as he asked, reluctantly and with great trepidation. She felt the connection as soon as her hand made contact, as though a part of her had been missing and had now been restored. She looked at him, her eyes wide with wonder.
"I'm back?" she asked.
"You are. And one more thing."
She'd just opened her mouth to ask him what the 'one thing more' was, when she received her hug. Most spectacularly.
Chapter 2 coming soon