Who Fic - Comfort in Silence
...my muse has ka-sploded with Who-fic. WTF.
Title: Comfort in Silence
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters:Ten, Rose
Genre: flangst, pinch of smut
Rating: PG-13/NC-17 at a stretch because the smut is really quite light and not graphic at all. Yes.
Spoilers: mid/late season two
Summary: In the aftermath of the impossible planet, Rose’s dreams turn to nightmares that haunt even her waking hours. Unfortunately her only form of solace is the Doctor and he can’t quite understand the capacity she needs him in to chase the shadows away.
Disclaimer: just because my muse has exploded all over a new fandom does not mean that I own it. No it does not.
Author’s Note: Concrit? Pleeeeeease?
~*~
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong in fact and the Doctor didn’t like it at all.
For starters, Rose was in the library and she only ever went there when she was feeling upset or bored. Secondly, she had commandeered a hot water bottle and was currently curled around it like some sort of wounded animal. This he knew from experience, she only ever did when she had PMT or when she was feeling poorly.
Thirdly, she had taken off her shoes. While this third observation wasn’t really a great cause for alarm, the Doctor knew that it meant that she wasn’t likely to want to go anywhere anytime soon. It was a rare occurrence indeed that Rose Tyler wanted to stay in the Time Vortex and do...well nothing.
Therefore something must be wrong. Clearing his throat, the Doctor readied himself to announce his presence to her. He didn’t want to startle her and he’d been hovering awkwardly in the doorway for approximately two minutes and thirty-seven seconds already. For all he knew she already knew he was there and was just ignoring him although now that he thought about it, that was really very unlikely and...
Clearing his throat again, the Doctor stepped tentatively into the room.
“Rose?”
She didn’t look up - didn’t even move. Cautiously, the Doctor made his way over and sat down beside her.
“Rose?” he said again. “Rose, are you alright?”
Slowly, as though only just realising that he was there, Rose turned and nodded once before returning to her original position.
“You’re frowning,” he noted and the lines on her forehead deepened. “And you’re in the library with a hot water bottle. And you’re not wearing shoes. What’s wrong?”
“M’fine,” she muttered.
“Are you feeling sick?”
She shrugged in a non-committal sort of way. “Maybe. A bit yeah.”
“Well why didn’t you come tell me?” the Doctor instantly took her chin in his hands and turned her face towards him with all the brusque professionalism of a medical expert. “Let me look at your eyes, see if you’ve got a...Rose have you been crying?”
Rose dropped her gaze. “Bit yeah,” she muttered.
“Why?” he asked, flabbergasted.
“Fell asleep in here,” Rose whispered, huddling into her hot water bottle protectively. “Had a bad dream.”
“What kind of dream?” the Doctor demanded.
“Doesn’t matter,” Rose shook her head and she irritably brushed at the hair that fell onto her cheek with the gesture. “It’s...silly.”
“If it’s made you this upset then I doubt it’s silly,” the Doctor said flatly and the faintest shadow of a grateful smile touched the corners of Rose’s lips. “Tell me,” he said.
It took Rose a moment or two to organise her thoughts and then she began, her words coming out in a rush.
“We’re always on a planet - this planet with these...I dunno. Mini volcano things? And you tell me to be careful cos if I get my foot stuck in one then you’ll probably have to leave me behind...”
“Hold on - always?” the Doctor interrupted. “You’ve had this dream before?”
“Lemme finish,” Rose snapped weakly and he desisted. “So you keep telling me and telling me, only I slip and I get stuck...”
“Naturally.”
“Yeah well anyway. You don’t even try to help me get out, call me stupid, all that. And then you...you leave me there all alone.”
Silence.
“That’s it?” the Doctor asked. “That’s what upset you?”
“Told you it was silly,” Rose said, suddenly sniffling. “Go on. I really am just a stupid ape aren’t I?”
“Rose,” the Doctor said sternly, folding his arms around her shoulders and pulling her to him. She automatically pillowed her head on his pinstriped collarbone and sniffled some more. “You are most definitely not stupid. It’s just your subconscious acting out something that you fear in the form of a dream. Very simple!”
“I just can’t stop thinking about it,” she mumbled into his jacket. “An’ about what the Beast said on...”
“Whoa whoa hang on a second,” the Doctor pulled back with abrupt suddenness at that. “Where’d the Beast come from? I thought we were talking about abandonment issues here? Why’d you have to go and bring up that...that...thing?”
Rose was silent, eyes downcast and the Doctor waited for an answer for a long time, peering carefully at her.
He hadn’t seen her this upset in a very long time and he didn’t particularly like it. He’d thought that verbal reassurances and a hug would be enough but maybe he was going to have to try and soothe her in some other way.
“Rose...” she looked up in surprise as he positioned his fingertips to hover over her temples. “May I?”
“Yeah,” she nodded fervently, blinking away the moisture that had begun to sparkle in the corners of her eyes. “Please.”
Gently, he pressed his fingertips against the soft skin at each temple and as Rose’s eyes fell shut he followed suit.
The Doctor had always been a little bit wary of using telepathy on Rose. He’d never forgotten her outrage back on Platform One when he had told her that the TARDIS was translating everything for her, and since Madame de Pompadour had gone sifting through his mind he had been paranoid that Rose might somehow do the same and unearth some things that he’d rather she didn’t see.
Therefore, as he opened his mind to her he took special care to guard his thoughts but it soon became obvious that Rose wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be wandering through his memories anyway. Her emotions were frighteningly turbulent. Between her nagging fear, the anxiety and the general disharmony that she had been feeling for so long the resulting build up of emotion was as thick as molasses. No wonder she felt sick with all this muck clogging up her mind. The Doctor tried to press a little further inside but soon found that she was unconsciously resisting him, too wound up to let him in.
“Just relax,” he murmured to her and his mind echoed the sentiment, reaching out to soothe the jangling, tangled threads of thought and emotion. Rose did her best to relax under his ministrations and slowly she began to let him in. He continued for some time, caressing her thoughts with his own until they relaxed into submission and the tension began to fall away.
As the final threads loosened he pressed careful lips to her forehead and he felt Rose breathe deep and then let her final lingering fears go along with a small shudder of air.
“See?” he said, drawing back but leaving his hands on her cheeks for a moment. “All you’ve got to do is relax and just let it all go.”
He smiled widely at her and from between his palms Rose smiled back, a little more tremulous than her usual megawatt smile but still beautiful nonetheless.
“Thank you,” she said then shyly added. “Wish you could do that all the time. S’nice having you in there.”
“You should meditate,” the Doctor told her, taking his hands from her face and flopping down more comfortably next to her. “Does wonders for the brain. Helps you relax, gets rid of the tension in your muscles. Speaking of which…”
Sitting up again he reached out and squeezed her neck briefly. She jumped in surprise but as he began to knead the tightly coiled muscles that protected her cervical vertebrae, Rose hummed agreeably.
“I thought you felt tense,” the Doctor said amusedly as he moved lower and began to manipulate the muscles of her upper back in turn with his long fingers. “Trapezius, infraspinatus,” he recited happily. “Teres major, teres minor, and somewhere...underneath all that...are your...rhomboids! Ha!” abruptly he stopped massaging and grasped her hand instead.
“But enough of that - come on!” he sprang to his feet cheerfully. “Onwards and upwards? Or should that be upwards and then onwards?” he tugged futilely at Rose’s hand but she hadn’t budged an inch from her spot.
“Can’t we just...stay here a bit longer?” she asked hopefully.
“Well...yes,” he conceded, still tugging insistently on her hand. “But then we wouldn’t be able to go to the Yrndabla solar system and meet the gigantic squirrel people that live there now would we? Eh? Eh?”
Rose smiled indulgently but still didn’t move. “We can go there later though can’t we?”
The Doctor hesitated and then flopped down next to her again, uncertain as to how he should be reading her. She seemed content enough now but she still didn’t want to go anywhere. How strange.
“You really are upset aren’t you?” he frowned. “I’ve never had anybody refuse an invitation to Yrndabla. Well...” he trailed off as Rose snuggled up into his side and considered his next words carefully.
“D’you want to go home for a while?” he offered finally. “Go see your mother?”
Rose shook her head. “No.”
“D’you...d’you fancy a cup of tea maybe?”
“No.”
“Well then what do you want?” he wondered out loud, beginning to get frustrated. “Because I’m rather at a loss as to what you want me to...”
“Why can’t you understand that I just want you to...?” Rose bit back angrily, stopped, and then had the grace to look contrite when her brain caught up to her mouth. “M’sorry. That’s not fair.”
“No,” he agreed and then sighed. “No, it’s not.”
Rose looked down at her hand where it had gathered a section of his jacket. “I just forget sometimes.”
“Forget what?”
“That you’re not...y’know. Human.”
“Oh Rose,” he closed his eyes as he leant his cheek against her hair. “I’m a lot of things but I’m not human.”
“Yeah,” she said thickly. “Yeah I know.”
The Doctor felt vaguely sick as he held her, fingers stroking over the thick strands of her hair. “I wish...” he said falteringly. “Sometimes I wish that things could be...well, different.”
There was a sharp intake of breath against his chest and then a shaky, “What d’you mean?”
He hesitated. This went against each and every one of his self imposed rules about propriety and boundaries but if he didn’t say anything now he knew that Rose would only get more upset.
And he really didn’t want to see her like that.
“There’s things that I’ll never be able to give you,” he said softly. “Things that I’ll never really be able to understand about you - the way you think and feel.”
“Because they’re human?”
He smiled wryly. “Because they’re alien. To me anyway.”
Rose paused to digest this, gave a determined sniff and then pulled back so she could look him in the eye.
“What sort of things?”
The Doctor took a moment to just look at her, this girl-woman in his arms, unshed tears sparkling on lashes thick with mascara.
“Just...well human things,” he managed eventually. “Any number of them really.”
“Maybe I don’t need ’em,” Rose said stubbornly and the Doctor smiled.
“Maybe not. But one day you might want them and I won’t be able to give them to you.” He hesitated briefly and found that he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “I’m sorry for that. You deserve so much more than I can ever give you.”
Rose looked up at him for a moment and then took her hands and placed them on his face, similar to the way he had done to her earlier. She regarded him solemnly until he met her eyes and then she touched her tongue briefly to her lips before leaning up towards him.
The Doctor stayed very still as she touched her mouth to his, the barest brush of skin, and there they stayed for a long moment. Then Rose’s lips moved slightly against his and she shrank back from him awkwardly.
“S-sorry,” Rose whispered, a pale stain spreading over her cheeks as she took her hands from his face hurriedly. She looked ready to bolt. “I didn’t mean...if you don’t want...”
“Rose...” When his words died he merely shook his head and then took her hands between his. “You know I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t,” she said and the hurt in her voice honestly surprised him.
“Rose...”
“Don’t you ‘Rose’ me!” she said, angry tears spilling over her lower lids instantly. “You’ve given me so much and then you just turn around and say that you don’t deserve me and I could do better?”
“Well you could...” he began but in true Tyler fashion Rose was already rebutting him again.
“Could you do better Doctor?”
The silence was thick with dust and anger.
After he managed to un-stick his tongue from the roof of his mouth the Doctor answered as simply as he could. “Nobody could ever replace what you mean to me,”
“What’s that?” Rose demanded. “What do I mean to you Doctor?”
He couldn’t say it. He knew what she wanted from him and just as he had feared, he couldn’t give it to her. And she did want it - no matter how much she might deny it. She was beginning to desire something from him that he could never allow himself to give.
“Well?” she was pouting now, her eyes red and puffy and her cheeks streaked with clumps of mascara. Still trying to think of what he could possibly say next, the Doctor absent-mindedly reached out a hand and disposed of a particularly large glob of mascara and as he did so his gaze happened to fall upon her lips.
Kissing was a very human activity and one that the Doctor hadn’t really indulged in until his eighth incarnation. Where Rose was concerned however he seemed to have rapidly developed quite a fondness for this alien custom and the lovely sensations that came from having her mouth resting on his. Although it was alien, overly intimate and potentially a hygiene issue (just think of the saliva) the Doctor enjoyed kissing Rose, oh yes he most certainly did.
And as far as he knew, when someone kissed you, you were meant to give them one back in return.
When the backs of his fingers moved from her cheek to tenderly trace the curve of her lips, Rose froze in surprise. Having garnered her attention, the Doctor dropped his fingertips underneath her chin and then tilted her face towards his.
“This is a bad idea,” he told her.
Sighed.
Leant forward.
His returning touch was just as soft as hers had been - the cool and thin of his lips against the warmth and fullness of hers. When he pulled back she gasped softly against his barely-parted lips and where her breath touched the moistened skin around his mouth he felt himself go suddenly, deliciously cold.
“Don’t stop,” she managed to breathe and it was as though something inside the Doctor’s brain snapped. Or perhaps it just clicked into place. Either way he found himself tightening his hold on her and gently pressing her onto her back as his mouth found hers again.
There was no thinking involved. This was nothing more than biology - a whole host of long forgotten instincts that were stirring at the back of the Doctors subconscious and the thrill of skin to skin. Rose was warm and soft beneath him, mouth suppliant and hands small and clumsy as they reached for the lapels on his jacket.
Kissing Rose Tyler just because he could, because he wanted to - what sensation could ever compare to this?
The feel of warm skin beneath cold fingertips brought him back to awareness - he had accidentally found the skerrick of flesh between jeans and t-shirt. Rose flinched at his touch but just as quickly arched into it.
From there it wasn’t long before he had disposed of his jacket as well as Rose’s jeans and underthings. She loosened his tie and the buttons on his shirt but when it came to his trousers her fingers were trembling so much that he gently replaced her hands with his.
With him naked from the hips up and her from the hips down they somehow managed to get themselves sorted out. They moved slowly but desperately, trying to find a way to balance that wouldn’t involve them falling off the couch.
“Here,” he insisted. “This...”
“Sure?”
“M’positive.”
And then Rose’s mouth formed a perfect o shape as - both of them still mostly clothed - he pressed inside her.
He moved slowly, at an excruciatingly gentle pace, and in silence. His lips were pressed against her neck to stifle his groans but he was certain that she spent most of the time with her fist pressed trembling against her mouth to stop the noises that bubbled in her throat.
They didn’t really look at each other - with their eyes closed they could better feel each breathless kiss against heated skin, each agonisingly slow circle of his fingertips against her throbbing centre. But when Rose tipped over the edge and her eyes flew open in shock, she was met with his returning gaze - just as shocked and so raw that she began to shake with emotion.
He curled into her side to catch his breath and there they held each other until he noticed her trembling and then they tidied themselves up and he covered her with his jacket.
“Are you crying?” he whispered to her as she trembled in his arms and she shook her head no although she was.
“M’alright,” she whispered back and then licked her lips. “We’re not...we’re not gonna just pretend that never happened are we?”
The Doctor considered her words carefully before he answered.
“No. No I don’t think so.”
He felt Rose smile then.
“Good,” she whispered. “S’good.”
To the Doctor’s amazement things went back to their definition of normal very quickly. They travelled together, they held hands and they hugged. They saved lives, saved whole civilisations; saw things that no other living soul had ever dreamed of seeing.
Rose never spoke of that one time they had shared together but sometimes a kiss would linger closer to the corner of his mouth than to his cheekbone and they’d smile at each other and their hands would link and he’d think that maybe she actually understood him better than he did her.
Title: Comfort in Silence
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters:Ten, Rose
Genre: flangst, pinch of smut
Rating: PG-13/NC-17 at a stretch because the smut is really quite light and not graphic at all. Yes.
Spoilers: mid/late season two
Summary: In the aftermath of the impossible planet, Rose’s dreams turn to nightmares that haunt even her waking hours. Unfortunately her only form of solace is the Doctor and he can’t quite understand the capacity she needs him in to chase the shadows away.
Disclaimer: just because my muse has exploded all over a new fandom does not mean that I own it. No it does not.
Author’s Note: Concrit? Pleeeeeease?
~*~
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong in fact and the Doctor didn’t like it at all.
For starters, Rose was in the library and she only ever went there when she was feeling upset or bored. Secondly, she had commandeered a hot water bottle and was currently curled around it like some sort of wounded animal. This he knew from experience, she only ever did when she had PMT or when she was feeling poorly.
Thirdly, she had taken off her shoes. While this third observation wasn’t really a great cause for alarm, the Doctor knew that it meant that she wasn’t likely to want to go anywhere anytime soon. It was a rare occurrence indeed that Rose Tyler wanted to stay in the Time Vortex and do...well nothing.
Therefore something must be wrong. Clearing his throat, the Doctor readied himself to announce his presence to her. He didn’t want to startle her and he’d been hovering awkwardly in the doorway for approximately two minutes and thirty-seven seconds already. For all he knew she already knew he was there and was just ignoring him although now that he thought about it, that was really very unlikely and...
Clearing his throat again, the Doctor stepped tentatively into the room.
“Rose?”
She didn’t look up - didn’t even move. Cautiously, the Doctor made his way over and sat down beside her.
“Rose?” he said again. “Rose, are you alright?”
Slowly, as though only just realising that he was there, Rose turned and nodded once before returning to her original position.
“You’re frowning,” he noted and the lines on her forehead deepened. “And you’re in the library with a hot water bottle. And you’re not wearing shoes. What’s wrong?”
“M’fine,” she muttered.
“Are you feeling sick?”
She shrugged in a non-committal sort of way. “Maybe. A bit yeah.”
“Well why didn’t you come tell me?” the Doctor instantly took her chin in his hands and turned her face towards him with all the brusque professionalism of a medical expert. “Let me look at your eyes, see if you’ve got a...Rose have you been crying?”
Rose dropped her gaze. “Bit yeah,” she muttered.
“Why?” he asked, flabbergasted.
“Fell asleep in here,” Rose whispered, huddling into her hot water bottle protectively. “Had a bad dream.”
“What kind of dream?” the Doctor demanded.
“Doesn’t matter,” Rose shook her head and she irritably brushed at the hair that fell onto her cheek with the gesture. “It’s...silly.”
“If it’s made you this upset then I doubt it’s silly,” the Doctor said flatly and the faintest shadow of a grateful smile touched the corners of Rose’s lips. “Tell me,” he said.
It took Rose a moment or two to organise her thoughts and then she began, her words coming out in a rush.
“We’re always on a planet - this planet with these...I dunno. Mini volcano things? And you tell me to be careful cos if I get my foot stuck in one then you’ll probably have to leave me behind...”
“Hold on - always?” the Doctor interrupted. “You’ve had this dream before?”
“Lemme finish,” Rose snapped weakly and he desisted. “So you keep telling me and telling me, only I slip and I get stuck...”
“Naturally.”
“Yeah well anyway. You don’t even try to help me get out, call me stupid, all that. And then you...you leave me there all alone.”
Silence.
“That’s it?” the Doctor asked. “That’s what upset you?”
“Told you it was silly,” Rose said, suddenly sniffling. “Go on. I really am just a stupid ape aren’t I?”
“Rose,” the Doctor said sternly, folding his arms around her shoulders and pulling her to him. She automatically pillowed her head on his pinstriped collarbone and sniffled some more. “You are most definitely not stupid. It’s just your subconscious acting out something that you fear in the form of a dream. Very simple!”
“I just can’t stop thinking about it,” she mumbled into his jacket. “An’ about what the Beast said on...”
“Whoa whoa hang on a second,” the Doctor pulled back with abrupt suddenness at that. “Where’d the Beast come from? I thought we were talking about abandonment issues here? Why’d you have to go and bring up that...that...thing?”
Rose was silent, eyes downcast and the Doctor waited for an answer for a long time, peering carefully at her.
He hadn’t seen her this upset in a very long time and he didn’t particularly like it. He’d thought that verbal reassurances and a hug would be enough but maybe he was going to have to try and soothe her in some other way.
“Rose...” she looked up in surprise as he positioned his fingertips to hover over her temples. “May I?”
“Yeah,” she nodded fervently, blinking away the moisture that had begun to sparkle in the corners of her eyes. “Please.”
Gently, he pressed his fingertips against the soft skin at each temple and as Rose’s eyes fell shut he followed suit.
The Doctor had always been a little bit wary of using telepathy on Rose. He’d never forgotten her outrage back on Platform One when he had told her that the TARDIS was translating everything for her, and since Madame de Pompadour had gone sifting through his mind he had been paranoid that Rose might somehow do the same and unearth some things that he’d rather she didn’t see.
Therefore, as he opened his mind to her he took special care to guard his thoughts but it soon became obvious that Rose wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be wandering through his memories anyway. Her emotions were frighteningly turbulent. Between her nagging fear, the anxiety and the general disharmony that she had been feeling for so long the resulting build up of emotion was as thick as molasses. No wonder she felt sick with all this muck clogging up her mind. The Doctor tried to press a little further inside but soon found that she was unconsciously resisting him, too wound up to let him in.
“Just relax,” he murmured to her and his mind echoed the sentiment, reaching out to soothe the jangling, tangled threads of thought and emotion. Rose did her best to relax under his ministrations and slowly she began to let him in. He continued for some time, caressing her thoughts with his own until they relaxed into submission and the tension began to fall away.
As the final threads loosened he pressed careful lips to her forehead and he felt Rose breathe deep and then let her final lingering fears go along with a small shudder of air.
“See?” he said, drawing back but leaving his hands on her cheeks for a moment. “All you’ve got to do is relax and just let it all go.”
He smiled widely at her and from between his palms Rose smiled back, a little more tremulous than her usual megawatt smile but still beautiful nonetheless.
“Thank you,” she said then shyly added. “Wish you could do that all the time. S’nice having you in there.”
“You should meditate,” the Doctor told her, taking his hands from her face and flopping down more comfortably next to her. “Does wonders for the brain. Helps you relax, gets rid of the tension in your muscles. Speaking of which…”
Sitting up again he reached out and squeezed her neck briefly. She jumped in surprise but as he began to knead the tightly coiled muscles that protected her cervical vertebrae, Rose hummed agreeably.
“I thought you felt tense,” the Doctor said amusedly as he moved lower and began to manipulate the muscles of her upper back in turn with his long fingers. “Trapezius, infraspinatus,” he recited happily. “Teres major, teres minor, and somewhere...underneath all that...are your...rhomboids! Ha!” abruptly he stopped massaging and grasped her hand instead.
“But enough of that - come on!” he sprang to his feet cheerfully. “Onwards and upwards? Or should that be upwards and then onwards?” he tugged futilely at Rose’s hand but she hadn’t budged an inch from her spot.
“Can’t we just...stay here a bit longer?” she asked hopefully.
“Well...yes,” he conceded, still tugging insistently on her hand. “But then we wouldn’t be able to go to the Yrndabla solar system and meet the gigantic squirrel people that live there now would we? Eh? Eh?”
Rose smiled indulgently but still didn’t move. “We can go there later though can’t we?”
The Doctor hesitated and then flopped down next to her again, uncertain as to how he should be reading her. She seemed content enough now but she still didn’t want to go anywhere. How strange.
“You really are upset aren’t you?” he frowned. “I’ve never had anybody refuse an invitation to Yrndabla. Well...” he trailed off as Rose snuggled up into his side and considered his next words carefully.
“D’you want to go home for a while?” he offered finally. “Go see your mother?”
Rose shook her head. “No.”
“D’you...d’you fancy a cup of tea maybe?”
“No.”
“Well then what do you want?” he wondered out loud, beginning to get frustrated. “Because I’m rather at a loss as to what you want me to...”
“Why can’t you understand that I just want you to...?” Rose bit back angrily, stopped, and then had the grace to look contrite when her brain caught up to her mouth. “M’sorry. That’s not fair.”
“No,” he agreed and then sighed. “No, it’s not.”
Rose looked down at her hand where it had gathered a section of his jacket. “I just forget sometimes.”
“Forget what?”
“That you’re not...y’know. Human.”
“Oh Rose,” he closed his eyes as he leant his cheek against her hair. “I’m a lot of things but I’m not human.”
“Yeah,” she said thickly. “Yeah I know.”
The Doctor felt vaguely sick as he held her, fingers stroking over the thick strands of her hair. “I wish...” he said falteringly. “Sometimes I wish that things could be...well, different.”
There was a sharp intake of breath against his chest and then a shaky, “What d’you mean?”
He hesitated. This went against each and every one of his self imposed rules about propriety and boundaries but if he didn’t say anything now he knew that Rose would only get more upset.
And he really didn’t want to see her like that.
“There’s things that I’ll never be able to give you,” he said softly. “Things that I’ll never really be able to understand about you - the way you think and feel.”
“Because they’re human?”
He smiled wryly. “Because they’re alien. To me anyway.”
Rose paused to digest this, gave a determined sniff and then pulled back so she could look him in the eye.
“What sort of things?”
The Doctor took a moment to just look at her, this girl-woman in his arms, unshed tears sparkling on lashes thick with mascara.
“Just...well human things,” he managed eventually. “Any number of them really.”
“Maybe I don’t need ’em,” Rose said stubbornly and the Doctor smiled.
“Maybe not. But one day you might want them and I won’t be able to give them to you.” He hesitated briefly and found that he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “I’m sorry for that. You deserve so much more than I can ever give you.”
Rose looked up at him for a moment and then took her hands and placed them on his face, similar to the way he had done to her earlier. She regarded him solemnly until he met her eyes and then she touched her tongue briefly to her lips before leaning up towards him.
The Doctor stayed very still as she touched her mouth to his, the barest brush of skin, and there they stayed for a long moment. Then Rose’s lips moved slightly against his and she shrank back from him awkwardly.
“S-sorry,” Rose whispered, a pale stain spreading over her cheeks as she took her hands from his face hurriedly. She looked ready to bolt. “I didn’t mean...if you don’t want...”
“Rose...” When his words died he merely shook his head and then took her hands between his. “You know I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t,” she said and the hurt in her voice honestly surprised him.
“Rose...”
“Don’t you ‘Rose’ me!” she said, angry tears spilling over her lower lids instantly. “You’ve given me so much and then you just turn around and say that you don’t deserve me and I could do better?”
“Well you could...” he began but in true Tyler fashion Rose was already rebutting him again.
“Could you do better Doctor?”
The silence was thick with dust and anger.
After he managed to un-stick his tongue from the roof of his mouth the Doctor answered as simply as he could. “Nobody could ever replace what you mean to me,”
“What’s that?” Rose demanded. “What do I mean to you Doctor?”
He couldn’t say it. He knew what she wanted from him and just as he had feared, he couldn’t give it to her. And she did want it - no matter how much she might deny it. She was beginning to desire something from him that he could never allow himself to give.
“Well?” she was pouting now, her eyes red and puffy and her cheeks streaked with clumps of mascara. Still trying to think of what he could possibly say next, the Doctor absent-mindedly reached out a hand and disposed of a particularly large glob of mascara and as he did so his gaze happened to fall upon her lips.
Kissing was a very human activity and one that the Doctor hadn’t really indulged in until his eighth incarnation. Where Rose was concerned however he seemed to have rapidly developed quite a fondness for this alien custom and the lovely sensations that came from having her mouth resting on his. Although it was alien, overly intimate and potentially a hygiene issue (just think of the saliva) the Doctor enjoyed kissing Rose, oh yes he most certainly did.
And as far as he knew, when someone kissed you, you were meant to give them one back in return.
When the backs of his fingers moved from her cheek to tenderly trace the curve of her lips, Rose froze in surprise. Having garnered her attention, the Doctor dropped his fingertips underneath her chin and then tilted her face towards his.
“This is a bad idea,” he told her.
Sighed.
Leant forward.
His returning touch was just as soft as hers had been - the cool and thin of his lips against the warmth and fullness of hers. When he pulled back she gasped softly against his barely-parted lips and where her breath touched the moistened skin around his mouth he felt himself go suddenly, deliciously cold.
“Don’t stop,” she managed to breathe and it was as though something inside the Doctor’s brain snapped. Or perhaps it just clicked into place. Either way he found himself tightening his hold on her and gently pressing her onto her back as his mouth found hers again.
There was no thinking involved. This was nothing more than biology - a whole host of long forgotten instincts that were stirring at the back of the Doctors subconscious and the thrill of skin to skin. Rose was warm and soft beneath him, mouth suppliant and hands small and clumsy as they reached for the lapels on his jacket.
Kissing Rose Tyler just because he could, because he wanted to - what sensation could ever compare to this?
The feel of warm skin beneath cold fingertips brought him back to awareness - he had accidentally found the skerrick of flesh between jeans and t-shirt. Rose flinched at his touch but just as quickly arched into it.
From there it wasn’t long before he had disposed of his jacket as well as Rose’s jeans and underthings. She loosened his tie and the buttons on his shirt but when it came to his trousers her fingers were trembling so much that he gently replaced her hands with his.
With him naked from the hips up and her from the hips down they somehow managed to get themselves sorted out. They moved slowly but desperately, trying to find a way to balance that wouldn’t involve them falling off the couch.
“Here,” he insisted. “This...”
“Sure?”
“M’positive.”
And then Rose’s mouth formed a perfect o shape as - both of them still mostly clothed - he pressed inside her.
He moved slowly, at an excruciatingly gentle pace, and in silence. His lips were pressed against her neck to stifle his groans but he was certain that she spent most of the time with her fist pressed trembling against her mouth to stop the noises that bubbled in her throat.
They didn’t really look at each other - with their eyes closed they could better feel each breathless kiss against heated skin, each agonisingly slow circle of his fingertips against her throbbing centre. But when Rose tipped over the edge and her eyes flew open in shock, she was met with his returning gaze - just as shocked and so raw that she began to shake with emotion.
He curled into her side to catch his breath and there they held each other until he noticed her trembling and then they tidied themselves up and he covered her with his jacket.
“Are you crying?” he whispered to her as she trembled in his arms and she shook her head no although she was.
“M’alright,” she whispered back and then licked her lips. “We’re not...we’re not gonna just pretend that never happened are we?”
The Doctor considered her words carefully before he answered.
“No. No I don’t think so.”
He felt Rose smile then.
“Good,” she whispered. “S’good.”
To the Doctor’s amazement things went back to their definition of normal very quickly. They travelled together, they held hands and they hugged. They saved lives, saved whole civilisations; saw things that no other living soul had ever dreamed of seeing.
Rose never spoke of that one time they had shared together but sometimes a kiss would linger closer to the corner of his mouth than to his cheekbone and they’d smile at each other and their hands would link and he’d think that maybe she actually understood him better than he did her.