Young Enough
Young Enough
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: PG (sensual, nothing explicit)
Potential Spoliers: New Earth, Tooth and Claw
Author's Notes: **Winner** First Place for Challenge 43 at then_theres_us.
My prompts:
It’s been niggling away in his mind for a while now. Maybe since “Run!”
**
He is enjoying the apricot-scented sand of a beach whose name Rose can’t pronounce when the thought finally crystallizes:
Rose Tyler confuses him.
There it is, simply put.
She confuses his brain. Confuses his hearts.
The rest of his anatomy, on the other hand… doesn’t seem at all conflicted.
**
Rose Tyler confuses him because he can’t decide how old she is.
And for a Time Lord - he knows how old everything is, thank you very much - that’s downright annoying.
**
His brain says she’s a smart girl. (a brilliant girl, really - always seeing the things he misses- like when they first met, and she spotted the London Eye as the transmitter, and he couldn’t see it for beans…he wonders how she does that…)
His hearts say she is a sweet girl. (and compassionate, and kind, and intuitive…and he loves how she genuinely cares about the people they meet on their adventures…such a big heart, this girl…)
His anatomy says she is a (gorgeous) woman. (and, weeell, ummmmmmm, thoughts on that topic should just really, pretty much - and by pretty much, he means completely - be avoided. At all costs. Lock the door, throw out the key…preferably into a pit of quicksand…extra-quick quicksand…)
**
And therein lies the problem.
**
Because, it’s getting harder to ignore his anatomy...and his attraction to hers.
He wishes he could blame it (this increasing awareness) on this regeneration’s oral fixation, or on that kiss with Cassandra/Rose. But if he’s honest, those are just the straws that broke this camel’s back.
He keeps telling himself that she’s way too young - barely out of her teens. Though, with him being past nine-hundered, he’s not sure what an acceptable age difference would be.
Whatever the answer is, he’s pretty sure it’s not eight-hundred and eighty.
So here he is, sitting on the beach (because Rose batted her little-girl eyes at him and asked for a day of sun and relaxation, and her wish is his command), getting a headache from thinking too hard.
**
Beaches are bad, he’s decided seventeen and a half minutes later - not because of the sand getting in his suit (though, sand and pockets that are bigger on the inside are most definitely not compatible). Beaches are bad because beaches mean Rose in a far-too-small bikini. Beaches mean Rose - nearly naked.
And he really shouldn’t notice.
He’s been trying not to notice. For seventeen and a half minutes.
Alright, that’s not completely true. He’s been trying to convince himself not to notice.
So far he is losing that fight rather spectacularly.
**
He attempts to fix his gaze on the ocean instead. It really is quite lovely here, the water has more of an indigo hue and…
Oh, who is he kidding?
He doesn’t care two figs about the ocean right now.
**
He (officially) gives up the fight after twenty-three minutes.
At this moment, the object of his interest (his affection) is laying out in something miniscule and white.
He studies her- and she looks so little-girl…if you ignore the body filling out the aforementioned something-miniscule-and-white, that is.
Fingernails and toenails painted candy pink, a sunset-colored Popsicle in her mouth, hair in pigtails and deeply engrossed in a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (and even the book is little-girl pink).
Nothing to suggest that fewer than 48 hours ago she was running from a werewolf, witnessing the death of a good man, being chastised and banished by the Queen of England.
And this is what confuses him most. Her innocence in the face of everything she’s seen (everything he’s shown her, he corrects himself darkly).
His Lolita of the stars.
And he doesn’t know what to do.
Because part of him wants to put this relatively new oral fixation to very, very good, and very thorough use. And the other (smaller, if he’s honest) part, feels like he ought to be warning her not to accept candy or rides - or trips in space and time? - from strange men.
**
“Doctor?” He startles at the sound of her voice.
She looks up at him over her book. Her expression is…quizzical, and...expectant. Like she’s trying to read his face. Or waiting for an answer. Damn, she’d been talking, and he has no idea what she’d said.
“Hhmm?” It’s the only sound he can get out as his eyes drift to the drop of melted popsicle that’s just landed on her thigh. And he most definitely should not bend over her and lick -
“I asked,” she repeats with some humor, “if you wanted a taste.”
He doesn’t have to be asked a third time. Approximately 1.37 seconds later his lips are on hers, tasting with reckless abandon.
**
Her popsicle falls to the side, coated in the apricot-scented sand. Alice in Wonderland finds herself sandwiched between their bodies. He is enjoying this very, very much and is considering test driving his tongue in the popsicle-spot on her thigh, when he realizes Rose is shaking. And pushing him off of her.
She breaks away from him…and she’s…laughing.
This is decidedly not the reaction he was going for. He scrambles to gather himself up and off of her.
His displeasure (and humiliation and confusion and frustration and…) must be spray-painted across his face, because now she’s trying to soothe him with her hands on his lapels, pulling him back down to sit next to her even as she catches her breath.
“ ’m sorry,” she says, still laughing a little around the edges, “ ‘s just, when I asked if you wanted a taste, I meant the popsicle.”
This last bit bubbles out of her in another peel of laughter, and this time, in spite of himself, he’s laughing with her. Laughing at the absurdity of their situation. Laughing at himself, stupid old alien, for having imagined (hoped/dreamed/dared) she could have meant anything else.
“You were just looking at it with such…focus - like a predator stalking his prey…” she continues, giggling…then trails off when she sees his face, and he knows the moment it clicks, knows the second she realizes that her popsicle hadn’t been what he was looking at. “Oh.”
Their breathing settles back into its normal rhythm. He sifts sand through his fingers. Wonders idly if he could convince her that the apricot-scented sand is some kind of aphrodisiac, and that he’d been under the influence when he’d catapulted himself onto her.
They sit, side by side, looking anywhere but at each other.
**
The awkward seconds army-crawl past into uncomfortable minutes. Time Lord that he is, he feels every single one.
**
She looks up and over at him from under her eyelashes, almost shyly now. Fiddles with un-creasing the pages of the book that was crushed between them in the kiss.
They both draw breath. (Though he has no clue what he might say.)
She’s the first to speak - her voice is soft and low…confessional, “ ‘m really glad I asked...if you wanted a taste, I mean.”
And this just might be one of those fixed points in his own timeline: the moment he realizes that she’s young and sweet and sometimes-shy (innocent in so many ways), but that she’s a woman and mature enough (brave enough) to acknowledge this moment rather than skate around it.
And that just might make her more grown-up than his own nine-hundred plus years.
Runaway gob or no, he’s complete rubbish when it comes to saying anything that really matters, but here he tries, “So am I…really glad you asked…” he clears his throat, “…twice.”
She looks up - and dancing across her face are surprise and relief mixed with something else he doesn’t have time to identify, because suddenly her lips are on his.
They are kissing like teenagers. His Lolita of the stars and this rebel-with-a-cause Time Lord. Giddy with new discovery. He hasn’t felt this light in centuries, and he stops worrying about the age gap. He thinks, somehow, she makes him young enough.