(no subject)
Halfway Out of the Dark, Eleven/Rose, PG-13
“I’m always yours, Rose.”
“Are you?”, 1,027
A/N: I didn't use all the words, but those I did certainly came in handy! Someday I will stop with the Eleven/Rose angsting. Today is not, apparently, that day.
indigenous
sublime
sculptured
itinerary
clasping
diffuse
She breathes out and he feels it on his skin, in his hearts, in his mind as it races to comprehend her intricacies and idiosyncrasies. The way she’d moaned his name, throatily and desperately and somehow nothing at all like he’d imagined while simultaneously being exactly so. The way she flinched when he first touched her shoulder, because faint bruises line her body and they clearly still pain her, although, he notes with pleasure, she hasn’t flinched since he kissed each one of them minutes earlier. The way she shudders as he reaches his hand down and cups her backside, almost possessively but really just because it was something his earlier selves had always wanted to do but never dared, and because she is ghosting past him and he knows each time he sees this Rose-blue leather jacket, sometimes with a gun, sometimes without, always so very, very tired-he will see her one time less.
“When do you have to be back?” he asks her, and he wants to laugh-it’s very foreign, them being on an itinerary. Years ago, they’d had all the world ahead of them. They’d had forever; the word still echoes in his ears and just thinking about it somehow makes his lips smile and his hearts twist and tighten in bliss so painful he can almost feel the regeneration energy sparking along his hands.
She checks her watch and then remembers-stopped. The consequence of traveling between dimensions: an inability to get a timepiece from one universe properly running in another. “Haven’t the faintest,” she murmurs, and when she shifts to kiss him, his hand skims further along her backside and she laughs softly into his lips. “You’ve redecorated.”
“Time for a change, I thought.” He lies through his teeth, like he has to so many. The TARDIS had fixed herself after his last regeneration had wrecked her, had chosen the décor herself, but he knew he could have the old interface back any time he wanted. It hadn’t changed when he’d regenerated after Satellite 5, because he’d been the same man then, really, in the most important respects-her man. Her Doctor. He’d told himself when he looked at the old girl’s work that it didn’t have to hurt him-that he wasn’t the same man anymore-but he didn’t, now, know who he’d been kidding.
He was the same man then. He still is now, he realizes. Always.
“You’re not mine,” she whispers after a moment, and he chuckles then.
“You haven’t figured it out yet?”
“Figured what out?”
He lightly touches his forehead to hers, lets her see just a glimpse, careful not to show her what will come in her future-the metacrisis, Bad Wolf Bay redux, the goodbye at New Year’s-a glimpse of them as they were: chips, Charles Dickens, Slitheen and Daleks and Raxacoricofallapatorious and Clom, applegrass and burning so very bright together. “I’m always yours, Rose.”
“Are you?” She presses her tongue between her teeth and there she is. The Rose he remembers. He is not the same man she knew; nor is she the Rose he knew, pink and yellow and glittering. This Rose is blue and dusky and shining still, but dully. She’s grasping for something she hasn’t quite found yet-he is one of so many hims she will see as he travels, he knows-and he can’t always see the girl he knew. This is her.
He shifts his other hand to her backside and clasps, liking the way she then crawls closer and on top of him, the way she traces his lips with her tongue and then pushes inside. It’s all he can do, after a moment or two more, to reach down and remove those knickers-the last thing standing between them-and wait as she takes him into her wetness and warmth and wanting. They burn together like the stars diffused across the universe, the stars that have gone out and led her to find him in his past, in his present, in her future.
“I am,” he whispers into her skin as they flicker out and fade, and she nips his skin as a last reminder and then finally leaves the bed.
“I do need to get back. I can’t stay.”
“I know.”
“Would you want me to?”
“You can’t.”
“I didn’t ask if I could. I asked if you would want me to.”
“This is my future, Rose.” He sighs. “And you aren’t here.”
“So you don’t want me, then.”
“I never said that.”
“Will you ever?”
“Someday.” Because he will. He remembers when he did.
“Do you promise?”
“I try not to.”
“Just once. Please.”
“Then I do.”
She clasps her bra and pulls on her shirt. Finds the knickers where he’d tossed them earlier and pulls them on. Notices his smile and finally asks.
“The flowers,” he answers, nodding to the bright little things printed on the fabric. “They’re so… cheery. Not that I’m objecting, mind. They just seem at odds with…” He makes a vague gesture to her bruised body.
“The rest of me?” A tiny smirk. “What was it you said to me earlier, when I first saw you? That I was getting closer-halfway out of the dark, I think you said.” She lightly toys with the elastic of the waistband, stretching the bright flowers slightly. “These are a bright spot in all the darkness.” She skims her fingers along a bruise. “Just like you. Survival mechanisms, Doctor. I think you know a bit about those, yeah?”
He thinks of many things, in that moment. Of Kazran asking him which day would he choose. Of her being “someone I like.” Amy asking what he believed in, and how he didn’t answer, even if he knew all along, had said it once to the Beast himself. Of this very rendezvous, when he knows he should have just let her go, or that he should not have taken her back here if he was going to take her anywhere.
“I do,” he tells her, and when she leaves, as she always does, these are what he holds on to.
“I’m always yours, Rose.”
“Are you?”, 1,027
A/N: I didn't use all the words, but those I did certainly came in handy! Someday I will stop with the Eleven/Rose angsting. Today is not, apparently, that day.
indigenous
sublime
sculptured
itinerary
clasping
diffuse
She breathes out and he feels it on his skin, in his hearts, in his mind as it races to comprehend her intricacies and idiosyncrasies. The way she’d moaned his name, throatily and desperately and somehow nothing at all like he’d imagined while simultaneously being exactly so. The way she flinched when he first touched her shoulder, because faint bruises line her body and they clearly still pain her, although, he notes with pleasure, she hasn’t flinched since he kissed each one of them minutes earlier. The way she shudders as he reaches his hand down and cups her backside, almost possessively but really just because it was something his earlier selves had always wanted to do but never dared, and because she is ghosting past him and he knows each time he sees this Rose-blue leather jacket, sometimes with a gun, sometimes without, always so very, very tired-he will see her one time less.
“When do you have to be back?” he asks her, and he wants to laugh-it’s very foreign, them being on an itinerary. Years ago, they’d had all the world ahead of them. They’d had forever; the word still echoes in his ears and just thinking about it somehow makes his lips smile and his hearts twist and tighten in bliss so painful he can almost feel the regeneration energy sparking along his hands.
She checks her watch and then remembers-stopped. The consequence of traveling between dimensions: an inability to get a timepiece from one universe properly running in another. “Haven’t the faintest,” she murmurs, and when she shifts to kiss him, his hand skims further along her backside and she laughs softly into his lips. “You’ve redecorated.”
“Time for a change, I thought.” He lies through his teeth, like he has to so many. The TARDIS had fixed herself after his last regeneration had wrecked her, had chosen the décor herself, but he knew he could have the old interface back any time he wanted. It hadn’t changed when he’d regenerated after Satellite 5, because he’d been the same man then, really, in the most important respects-her man. Her Doctor. He’d told himself when he looked at the old girl’s work that it didn’t have to hurt him-that he wasn’t the same man anymore-but he didn’t, now, know who he’d been kidding.
He was the same man then. He still is now, he realizes. Always.
“You’re not mine,” she whispers after a moment, and he chuckles then.
“You haven’t figured it out yet?”
“Figured what out?”
He lightly touches his forehead to hers, lets her see just a glimpse, careful not to show her what will come in her future-the metacrisis, Bad Wolf Bay redux, the goodbye at New Year’s-a glimpse of them as they were: chips, Charles Dickens, Slitheen and Daleks and Raxacoricofallapatorious and Clom, applegrass and burning so very bright together. “I’m always yours, Rose.”
“Are you?” She presses her tongue between her teeth and there she is. The Rose he remembers. He is not the same man she knew; nor is she the Rose he knew, pink and yellow and glittering. This Rose is blue and dusky and shining still, but dully. She’s grasping for something she hasn’t quite found yet-he is one of so many hims she will see as he travels, he knows-and he can’t always see the girl he knew. This is her.
He shifts his other hand to her backside and clasps, liking the way she then crawls closer and on top of him, the way she traces his lips with her tongue and then pushes inside. It’s all he can do, after a moment or two more, to reach down and remove those knickers-the last thing standing between them-and wait as she takes him into her wetness and warmth and wanting. They burn together like the stars diffused across the universe, the stars that have gone out and led her to find him in his past, in his present, in her future.
“I am,” he whispers into her skin as they flicker out and fade, and she nips his skin as a last reminder and then finally leaves the bed.
“I do need to get back. I can’t stay.”
“I know.”
“Would you want me to?”
“You can’t.”
“I didn’t ask if I could. I asked if you would want me to.”
“This is my future, Rose.” He sighs. “And you aren’t here.”
“So you don’t want me, then.”
“I never said that.”
“Will you ever?”
“Someday.” Because he will. He remembers when he did.
“Do you promise?”
“I try not to.”
“Just once. Please.”
“Then I do.”
She clasps her bra and pulls on her shirt. Finds the knickers where he’d tossed them earlier and pulls them on. Notices his smile and finally asks.
“The flowers,” he answers, nodding to the bright little things printed on the fabric. “They’re so… cheery. Not that I’m objecting, mind. They just seem at odds with…” He makes a vague gesture to her bruised body.
“The rest of me?” A tiny smirk. “What was it you said to me earlier, when I first saw you? That I was getting closer-halfway out of the dark, I think you said.” She lightly toys with the elastic of the waistband, stretching the bright flowers slightly. “These are a bright spot in all the darkness.” She skims her fingers along a bruise. “Just like you. Survival mechanisms, Doctor. I think you know a bit about those, yeah?”
He thinks of many things, in that moment. Of Kazran asking him which day would he choose. Of her being “someone I like.” Amy asking what he believed in, and how he didn’t answer, even if he knew all along, had said it once to the Beast himself. Of this very rendezvous, when he knows he should have just let her go, or that he should not have taken her back here if he was going to take her anywhere.
“I do,” he tells her, and when she leaves, as she always does, these are what he holds on to.