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aibhinn_ficsTitle: To Seek and To Find (2/2)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aibhinn
Rating: M
Pairing: Nine/Rose
Warnings: None
Summary: Left alone while Rose visits her mum, the Doctor is startled by a beacon attuned to the TARDIS. He tracks it down, and is startled by what he finds.
Author's Note: Written for the generous, wonderfulwiggiemomsi for the Support Stacie auction. I'm way behind with this. Sorry, hon, but I hope you enjoy! This is a prequel to my story In Plain Sight.
They turned a corner, and the TARDIS stood before them. Rose stopped dead.
"What?" the Doctor asked, surprised.
Rose shook her head. "It's… I never thought I'd see her again." She walked slowly up to the ship, ran a hand over the blue panels. "Hi, girl," she murmured.
The TARDIS, in the Doctor's head, trilled a welcome that was still underlain by that discomfort he'd felt earlier. This was the cause of it, he realised: the TARDIS knew that this was a Rose who didn't belong in this time. He sent silent reassurance: It's all right, I know what I'm doing. She didn't seem entirely convinced, but he did feel her discomfort lessen, at least a little bit.
To his surprise—and secret delight—Rose reached beneath the collar of her shirt and drew out her TARDIS key on a bead chain. With a look as though asking permission (Permission? He was the one who gave her that key!), she slid it smoothly into the lock and turned. He heard the click of the tumblers, and then they were inside.
Rose's slow, almost reverent steps as she entered and looked around, along with her behaviour up to this point, told him everything he needed to know about their relationship in her time: they'd been separated somehow, though how he'd no clue, and it had been a long time since she'd seen him. That thought made him frown, standing there on the ramp just inside the door: she didn't look all that much older than the Rose he'd left in London. Would they be separated soon? But she'd seen him regenerate—did that mean he'd be dying very soon, maybe in the next few days or weeks?
She paused by the console, one hand resting lightly on one of the struts that ran from the centre column to the edge, then turned to him. "When is it for you?" she asked.
"Dropped Adam off about two weeks ago," he said. "Been spending a lot of time on other planets recently. You're at your mum's for a facial and manicure and who knows what else right now. My you, that is." He winced. Pronouns were difficult for a time traveller anyway, but that sentence was just unforgivable.
She seemed to understand well enough, though. "Oh yeah, when Sharon opened her shop," she said. A shadow of something—grief?—flickered over her face briefly, before her ordinary expression took over again. "How do I know what I can and can't tell you?" she asked.
He came up the ramp and towards her, taking her free hand in his. "You can tell me anything," he said. "Once we get you where you need to be, I'll wipe my memory, so it won't actually affect the future."
"Wipe your memory?" she repeated, blinking. "You can do that?"
He'd mentioned it earlier, but no doubt she'd been too overwhelmed with seeing him again to have caught it. "I'll have to," he told her. "Just having seen you could cause a paradox if I didn't." She glanced away, flushing, and he added quickly, "But it's all right. Done this before, me. Even met myself a few times, and that wasn't half weird."
"You're sure?" she asked, and his heart broke just a little for her. It might have been a long time since she'd watched her father die, at least in her time line, but the lessons from that horrible experience were clearly still with her.
"I'm sure." He tugged gently at her hand. "Come on," he said. "Let's go to the lounge. I'll make us a cuppa."
***
He came in with her tea to find her curled up in "her" corner of the sofa, in a position that was so familiar that he was half-startled to see her brown hair instead of the bottle-blonde he was used to. He handed her the cup, and she sipped at it, then sighed gratefully. "Thanks," she said.
He sat beside her in his accustomed spot and took a drink of his own tea. "Think you can tell me now?" he asked.
She blew out a breath. "Guess I'll have to, won't I?" she said ruefully. "An' I'm sorry. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just… I've had paradox-avoidance pounded into me for so long, it's hard to break that habit." She looked away, sipping cautiously at the hot tea.
"It's a good habit to be in," he assured her, inwardly wondering why she'd had it 'pounded into her'. He was usually good enough to keep them away from incipient paradoxes—or, well, more accurately, the TARDIS was. It was why she'd been so unhappy to land on Nepthron II in the first place. So what had Rose been doing that required her to be so cognisant of the possibility of paradox?
Aware it was an invasion of privacy, but unable to help himself, he opened his awareness to her. He couldn't actually read her mind without touching her, but he could get an idea of her surface emotions, at least. This Rose was so skittish, he wasn't sure her body language would give him enough to help her.
Shock was what he felt most strongly, along with fear and hope. Underneath that, as though she were trying to bury the feeling, was an overwhelming grief—grief so strong that he sucked in an involuntary breath in reaction. She glanced over at him, puzzled, and the grief intensified slightly just at the sight of him.
The penny dropped. "You're not comfortable because you're still grieving for me," he said, rather than asked. "After my regeneration. You can't quite look at me because you'd convinced yourself you'd never see this version of me again."
She blinked, and then her eyes narrowed in a familiar expression. He didn't need to be able to read her emotions to know how she was feeling just now. "Thought you couldn't read my mind unless we were touching," she said.
"I can't. But you're broadcasting emotions loudly enough that it's hard to miss." She didn't say anything, and he added, "It's all right, you know."
"No, it's not!" The blaze of emotions, so mixed that he couldn't sort exactly what they were, hit him so hard he almost recoiled. "I could do something, say something, that destroys everything I remember! I could ruin the rest of our time together, and I'd have no way to fix it, no way even to know it had been changed!"
"You won't—" the Doctor began, but she cut him off.
"And you know what the worst part is? The worst part is that I don't care," she said fiercely. "I don't care that I could destroy your future with the me you know, because all I want to do is stay here, right here, with you, and pretend the rest of the universe doesn't exist!"
She clamped her mouth shut and turned away, fingers clutching her mug of tea so tightly that her knuckles were white, and now the Doctor didn't have any trouble deciphering the emotions she was radiating.
Love. Desire. A desperate sort of yearning, and not for just a hug or a hand to hold. She wanted him. She wanted him. And she didn't want him to know it, because she thought he didn't feel the same, and she didn't want to embarrass either himself or her.
Oh, but he did want her. He'd never gone that route with the Rose he travelled with, and knew he never would—she was too young and innocent, no matter what she thought. But this Rose? Older, wiser, much more adult, the one who had loved and lost him, and cared enough to search him out again—this Rose he could have.
Carefully, he set his teacup down and took hold of hers, lifting it away from her. Her fingers held on briefly, until she glanced up to meet his gaze. Her eyes widened at the expression she saw, and she released the mug. He held her gaze as he set the cup down next to his, then reached out to cup her cheek.
"You won't hurt me," he told her simply. "You won't hurt the timelines. You won't destroy anything you remember. But if you'd like, we could make some—new memories. Together."
It took a moment for his meaning to penetrate. He could tell when it did: her eyes dilated, and a flush stained her cheeks. "You won't remember," she protested faintly. "You have to wipe your memory."
"But you will," he said. His hearts twisted just a little bit, but he held his expression still. He wanted more than anything else to remember this, to remember that he had once made love with Rose Tyler, but he knew that she was right to fear what might happen if he did. And he found that it was almost enough to know that this amazing, brilliant little human would, at some point well in the future, have this memory of him.
She stared at him, her heart in her eyes. It was more than he could bear to see, so he bent forward and captured her mouth with his.
She responded immediately, her soft mouth opening under his, and he tasted her for the first time. She tasted of tea, remnants of the juice she'd been drinking in the bazaar, and something else he couldn't quite define. He slid an arm beneath her knees, tugging her into his lap, but even that wasn't close enough; his clothes rasped uncomfortably against his suddenly too-sensitive skin. Now that he'd come this far, now that he had her so close, he couldn't bear to be even this far apart.
He broke the kiss, looking down into her glazed eyes. She looked up at him, mouth parted, full lips swollen from his kisses. "Bed?" he asked.
She nodded, then gasped as he stood easily, taking her with him. With the woman he loved in his arms at last, the Doctor walked out of the lounge and towards his bedroom.
***
She'd forgotten how strong he was. Not that she'd ever been carried to his bedroom before, but there had been times when they'd travelled together that he'd carried her somewhere, usually after she'd been injured too badly to run. It had always given her a bit of a thrill, to be carried as though she weighed almost nothing, but this, knowing that they were heading towards what she had wanted for so long, set her heart racing and her skin a-tingle.
She was going to make love with the Doctor.
His bedroom, when they got there, was exactly as she'd pictured it: utterly masculine, simply furnished, and filled with bits of machinery and haphazard piles of books. The bed looked almost pristine; not surprising, since he'd told her years ago he rarely slept. He set her gently down on the deep green duvet, in the centre of the bed, and stripped off his jacket before settling atop her, hip-to-hip. Her legs separated slightly of their own accord, cradling him between them as her hands slid beneath the wool of his jumper, resting palm-flat against his smooth, cool skin.
He bent to kiss and nip at her throat, sucking lightly at her pulse point. Rose gasped, clutching him closer. She wasn't usually so responsive to lovers—she'd had one or two in Pete's World while she'd been trapped there, plus Mickey and Jimmy in this universe, and she'd never been so turned on so quickly, or so thoroughly. Every brush of his hands caused her skin to spark; every touch of her lips caused the deep throbbing between her thighs to intensify.
His hands nimbly worked at the buttons on her shirt, undoing them one by one as his mouth followed the line of newly-revealed flesh. As he moved down, she tugged his jumper upward, until at last he was forced to sit up so he could pull it over his head and drop it over the side of the bed. She stared up at him, at his smooth, muscular chest and the blazing deep blue of his gaze. She'd never seen him so intense, never been his sole focus like this. It was just a little bit intimidating, as well as an incredible turn-on.
He removed her shirt and bra, still watching her with that rapt gaze. His fingers trailed over her skin, his tanned, callused skin a sharp contrast to her pale softness. Gooseflesh rose in the wake of his touch, and Rose thought she'd never felt so cherished. She could read in his face, in his touch, how long he'd wanted to do this, and how he'd never thought he'd be able to. Her heart ached at the knowledge that he'd have to make himself forget, and she decided suddenly that she wanted to give him everything she could. If he could only have these few hours, then she wanted it to be more than he'd ever imagined.
She kicked her trainers off, and they fell to the floor with a pair of thumps. Startled, he glanced back to see what the sound was, and she took advantage of his distraction, rolling him over onto his back and straddling his thighs to hold him in place. He looked startled for a moment, then his gaze turned heated again. "Impatient, are we?" he asked.
"Turnabout's fair play," she informed him, and bent to kiss him, propping herself up with a hand while the other strayed across the cool, smooth planes of his chest and belly, trailing down towards the waistband of his jeans. He hummed in appreciation and cupped her breasts in his hands, stroking his thumbs back and forth across her nipples as his tongue caressed hers in a rhythm that promised much, much more. She brushed her knuckles over his fly, and both of them moaned softly. He broke the kiss, gasping, and she shifted to drop a line of kisses along his jaw towards his ear. "Rose," he said.
"You're wearing too many clothes," she murmured in his ear.
"So are you." One hand reached up to twine in her hair and he tugged her gently back to his mouth so he could kiss her. "We should do something about that."
She smiled against his mouth and sat up, rolling to one side so she could unfasten her trousers. He quickly rid himself of his own clothes and boots, tossing them away without caring how or where they landed, and scant moments later she was once again lying on the bed, this time with the Doctor's bare skin pressed against hers. She ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders, feeling the rock-solid muscles under her hands and enjoying the way he shivered at her touch. "My Doctor," she said softly.
He brushed her hair away from her face in a tender gesture. "Remember this for me," he murmured.
And he slid into her.
They arched into each other as he filled her, and she half-gasped, half-groaned. Her legs wrapped around him, urging him on, and he slipped his hands beneath her back, his hands curling up over her shoulders to pull her tighter against him as he withdrew, then thrust back in, and again, and again. She rocked her hips against him, taking him as deeply as she could. She could feel her orgasm building already, coiling deep inside as he pounded into her. "Please," she gasped, not entirely sure what she was asking him for. "Please, Doctor."
He bent his head, his temple pressing against hers, his breath warm against her cheek as he panted. "Oh, Rose," he said raggedly. "Anything. Just tell me. Tell me what you want, Rose."
"You," she moaned, shifting her legs so he could slide deeper. "Just you. Oh, God, I want you."
She ended on a groan as she came, her muscles spasming in waves of pleasure that spun her out of control. She clutched at him, holding tight as she cried out. Dimly, she could hear his own shout as he followed her over the precipice, his hips slamming jerkily into hers as he released within her.
Gasping and sweaty, they collapsed together, his weight pressing her into the mattress, his head pillowed on her shoulder. She held him close as she let her legs slip down to the bed, her hands stroking soothingly over his shoulders and back as they both caught their breath, and tried to burn the moment into her memory even as she tried to forget that he would never be able to.
He sighed after a long moment and raised himself up, withdrawing from her slowly and then rolling over to lie beside her. She curled up against him, head on his shoulder, listening to his hearts beating.
"I don't want you to forget," she said softly.
He sighed. "I know," he replied. "Neither do I."
***
In the end, she'd fallen asleep on his chest, and it was a couple of hours later before she woke up to find him still holding her. They'd showered together (shower sex, she'd discovered, was much easier when your partner was incredibly strong) and then dressed, and now she sat on the jump seat, watching as he typed search parameters into the TARDIS. As much as she wanted to see her brown-suited Doctor again—and she did, she really did—her heart felt as though it were breaking at the prospect of losing this version of him again, knowing it would be the last time she'd see him, ever. And yet, he was right; it was time she went back to her own Doctor, and he went back to his own Rose.
But knowing that she'd be the only person in the universe to remember these last hours was almost unbearable.
"There we are," the Doctor said. She glanced up. "What year did you say it was when you left him?"
"2007, including that missing year you gave me." She grinned, an attempt at cheekiness.
He pulled a face, pretending to be offended. "Oi! Thought we were past that." He tapped a few keys. "There I am—found the version of me you're looking for, I think. How's 2008 sound? Make sure the timeline doesn't get crossed."
"All right." She managed to get that out without sounding too bad, she thought, though the lump in her throat had thickened until she almost couldn't force the words past it.
He looked at her, then left the console and came over to her, pulling her into a hug. She held on as tight as she could. "It's still me, Rose," he told her softly. "You're not going to lose me."
"I know," she said. The lump was so thick now that it came out in a whisper. "But you'll always be the Doctor I fell in love with, and I can't bear to think that you'll have to just—forget this."
"Ah, now see? This is the benefit of being a genius," he said into her ear. "Don't worry. I won't need to forget forever."
"But—" She pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. "I thought you had to forget it, or else it would cause a paradox?"
"Sort of." His eyes crinkled with his familiar, bright grin. "But I thought of a way around the problem while you were asleep. I can't allow myself to remember right now, but if I hide the memory away, so to speak, I can access it again once you find me later. So when I drop you off, the older me will be able to remember everything. No paradox, because this me won't know a thing."
She blinked, trying to wrap her mind around that. "So you'll just be able to, I don't know, open a cupboard in your mind and find the memory again?"
"Something like that, yeah." His grin faded to a tender smile, and he brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. "I was going to just wipe my memory," he said quietly, "but I can't. I can't just forget all this happened. I can't forget you."
The lump in her throat began to subside, and she took a shaky breath. "Okay," she said. "Okay. I can do this now."
"Of course you can." He kissed her forehead, then let go and stepped back to the console. "Here we go: the future me."
She hopped down off the jump seat and slid an arm around him as he pulled a lever down, ready to return to the life she'd been torn away from.
Next part: In Plain Sight.
Author:
aibhinnRating: M
Pairing: Nine/Rose
Warnings: None
Summary: Left alone while Rose visits her mum, the Doctor is startled by a beacon attuned to the TARDIS. He tracks it down, and is startled by what he finds.
Author's Note: Written for the generous, wonderful
wiggiemomsi for the Support Stacie auction. I'm way behind with this. Sorry, hon, but I hope you enjoy! This is a prequel to my story In Plain Sight.They turned a corner, and the TARDIS stood before them. Rose stopped dead.
"What?" the Doctor asked, surprised.
Rose shook her head. "It's… I never thought I'd see her again." She walked slowly up to the ship, ran a hand over the blue panels. "Hi, girl," she murmured.
The TARDIS, in the Doctor's head, trilled a welcome that was still underlain by that discomfort he'd felt earlier. This was the cause of it, he realised: the TARDIS knew that this was a Rose who didn't belong in this time. He sent silent reassurance: It's all right, I know what I'm doing. She didn't seem entirely convinced, but he did feel her discomfort lessen, at least a little bit.
To his surprise—and secret delight—Rose reached beneath the collar of her shirt and drew out her TARDIS key on a bead chain. With a look as though asking permission (Permission? He was the one who gave her that key!), she slid it smoothly into the lock and turned. He heard the click of the tumblers, and then they were inside.
Rose's slow, almost reverent steps as she entered and looked around, along with her behaviour up to this point, told him everything he needed to know about their relationship in her time: they'd been separated somehow, though how he'd no clue, and it had been a long time since she'd seen him. That thought made him frown, standing there on the ramp just inside the door: she didn't look all that much older than the Rose he'd left in London. Would they be separated soon? But she'd seen him regenerate—did that mean he'd be dying very soon, maybe in the next few days or weeks?
She paused by the console, one hand resting lightly on one of the struts that ran from the centre column to the edge, then turned to him. "When is it for you?" she asked.
"Dropped Adam off about two weeks ago," he said. "Been spending a lot of time on other planets recently. You're at your mum's for a facial and manicure and who knows what else right now. My you, that is." He winced. Pronouns were difficult for a time traveller anyway, but that sentence was just unforgivable.
She seemed to understand well enough, though. "Oh yeah, when Sharon opened her shop," she said. A shadow of something—grief?—flickered over her face briefly, before her ordinary expression took over again. "How do I know what I can and can't tell you?" she asked.
He came up the ramp and towards her, taking her free hand in his. "You can tell me anything," he said. "Once we get you where you need to be, I'll wipe my memory, so it won't actually affect the future."
"Wipe your memory?" she repeated, blinking. "You can do that?"
He'd mentioned it earlier, but no doubt she'd been too overwhelmed with seeing him again to have caught it. "I'll have to," he told her. "Just having seen you could cause a paradox if I didn't." She glanced away, flushing, and he added quickly, "But it's all right. Done this before, me. Even met myself a few times, and that wasn't half weird."
"You're sure?" she asked, and his heart broke just a little for her. It might have been a long time since she'd watched her father die, at least in her time line, but the lessons from that horrible experience were clearly still with her.
"I'm sure." He tugged gently at her hand. "Come on," he said. "Let's go to the lounge. I'll make us a cuppa."
***
He came in with her tea to find her curled up in "her" corner of the sofa, in a position that was so familiar that he was half-startled to see her brown hair instead of the bottle-blonde he was used to. He handed her the cup, and she sipped at it, then sighed gratefully. "Thanks," she said.
He sat beside her in his accustomed spot and took a drink of his own tea. "Think you can tell me now?" he asked.
She blew out a breath. "Guess I'll have to, won't I?" she said ruefully. "An' I'm sorry. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just… I've had paradox-avoidance pounded into me for so long, it's hard to break that habit." She looked away, sipping cautiously at the hot tea.
"It's a good habit to be in," he assured her, inwardly wondering why she'd had it 'pounded into her'. He was usually good enough to keep them away from incipient paradoxes—or, well, more accurately, the TARDIS was. It was why she'd been so unhappy to land on Nepthron II in the first place. So what had Rose been doing that required her to be so cognisant of the possibility of paradox?
Aware it was an invasion of privacy, but unable to help himself, he opened his awareness to her. He couldn't actually read her mind without touching her, but he could get an idea of her surface emotions, at least. This Rose was so skittish, he wasn't sure her body language would give him enough to help her.
Shock was what he felt most strongly, along with fear and hope. Underneath that, as though she were trying to bury the feeling, was an overwhelming grief—grief so strong that he sucked in an involuntary breath in reaction. She glanced over at him, puzzled, and the grief intensified slightly just at the sight of him.
The penny dropped. "You're not comfortable because you're still grieving for me," he said, rather than asked. "After my regeneration. You can't quite look at me because you'd convinced yourself you'd never see this version of me again."
She blinked, and then her eyes narrowed in a familiar expression. He didn't need to be able to read her emotions to know how she was feeling just now. "Thought you couldn't read my mind unless we were touching," she said.
"I can't. But you're broadcasting emotions loudly enough that it's hard to miss." She didn't say anything, and he added, "It's all right, you know."
"No, it's not!" The blaze of emotions, so mixed that he couldn't sort exactly what they were, hit him so hard he almost recoiled. "I could do something, say something, that destroys everything I remember! I could ruin the rest of our time together, and I'd have no way to fix it, no way even to know it had been changed!"
"You won't—" the Doctor began, but she cut him off.
"And you know what the worst part is? The worst part is that I don't care," she said fiercely. "I don't care that I could destroy your future with the me you know, because all I want to do is stay here, right here, with you, and pretend the rest of the universe doesn't exist!"
She clamped her mouth shut and turned away, fingers clutching her mug of tea so tightly that her knuckles were white, and now the Doctor didn't have any trouble deciphering the emotions she was radiating.
Love. Desire. A desperate sort of yearning, and not for just a hug or a hand to hold. She wanted him. She wanted him. And she didn't want him to know it, because she thought he didn't feel the same, and she didn't want to embarrass either himself or her.
Oh, but he did want her. He'd never gone that route with the Rose he travelled with, and knew he never would—she was too young and innocent, no matter what she thought. But this Rose? Older, wiser, much more adult, the one who had loved and lost him, and cared enough to search him out again—this Rose he could have.
Carefully, he set his teacup down and took hold of hers, lifting it away from her. Her fingers held on briefly, until she glanced up to meet his gaze. Her eyes widened at the expression she saw, and she released the mug. He held her gaze as he set the cup down next to his, then reached out to cup her cheek.
"You won't hurt me," he told her simply. "You won't hurt the timelines. You won't destroy anything you remember. But if you'd like, we could make some—new memories. Together."
It took a moment for his meaning to penetrate. He could tell when it did: her eyes dilated, and a flush stained her cheeks. "You won't remember," she protested faintly. "You have to wipe your memory."
"But you will," he said. His hearts twisted just a little bit, but he held his expression still. He wanted more than anything else to remember this, to remember that he had once made love with Rose Tyler, but he knew that she was right to fear what might happen if he did. And he found that it was almost enough to know that this amazing, brilliant little human would, at some point well in the future, have this memory of him.
She stared at him, her heart in her eyes. It was more than he could bear to see, so he bent forward and captured her mouth with his.
She responded immediately, her soft mouth opening under his, and he tasted her for the first time. She tasted of tea, remnants of the juice she'd been drinking in the bazaar, and something else he couldn't quite define. He slid an arm beneath her knees, tugging her into his lap, but even that wasn't close enough; his clothes rasped uncomfortably against his suddenly too-sensitive skin. Now that he'd come this far, now that he had her so close, he couldn't bear to be even this far apart.
He broke the kiss, looking down into her glazed eyes. She looked up at him, mouth parted, full lips swollen from his kisses. "Bed?" he asked.
She nodded, then gasped as he stood easily, taking her with him. With the woman he loved in his arms at last, the Doctor walked out of the lounge and towards his bedroom.
***
She'd forgotten how strong he was. Not that she'd ever been carried to his bedroom before, but there had been times when they'd travelled together that he'd carried her somewhere, usually after she'd been injured too badly to run. It had always given her a bit of a thrill, to be carried as though she weighed almost nothing, but this, knowing that they were heading towards what she had wanted for so long, set her heart racing and her skin a-tingle.
She was going to make love with the Doctor.
His bedroom, when they got there, was exactly as she'd pictured it: utterly masculine, simply furnished, and filled with bits of machinery and haphazard piles of books. The bed looked almost pristine; not surprising, since he'd told her years ago he rarely slept. He set her gently down on the deep green duvet, in the centre of the bed, and stripped off his jacket before settling atop her, hip-to-hip. Her legs separated slightly of their own accord, cradling him between them as her hands slid beneath the wool of his jumper, resting palm-flat against his smooth, cool skin.
He bent to kiss and nip at her throat, sucking lightly at her pulse point. Rose gasped, clutching him closer. She wasn't usually so responsive to lovers—she'd had one or two in Pete's World while she'd been trapped there, plus Mickey and Jimmy in this universe, and she'd never been so turned on so quickly, or so thoroughly. Every brush of his hands caused her skin to spark; every touch of her lips caused the deep throbbing between her thighs to intensify.
His hands nimbly worked at the buttons on her shirt, undoing them one by one as his mouth followed the line of newly-revealed flesh. As he moved down, she tugged his jumper upward, until at last he was forced to sit up so he could pull it over his head and drop it over the side of the bed. She stared up at him, at his smooth, muscular chest and the blazing deep blue of his gaze. She'd never seen him so intense, never been his sole focus like this. It was just a little bit intimidating, as well as an incredible turn-on.
He removed her shirt and bra, still watching her with that rapt gaze. His fingers trailed over her skin, his tanned, callused skin a sharp contrast to her pale softness. Gooseflesh rose in the wake of his touch, and Rose thought she'd never felt so cherished. She could read in his face, in his touch, how long he'd wanted to do this, and how he'd never thought he'd be able to. Her heart ached at the knowledge that he'd have to make himself forget, and she decided suddenly that she wanted to give him everything she could. If he could only have these few hours, then she wanted it to be more than he'd ever imagined.
She kicked her trainers off, and they fell to the floor with a pair of thumps. Startled, he glanced back to see what the sound was, and she took advantage of his distraction, rolling him over onto his back and straddling his thighs to hold him in place. He looked startled for a moment, then his gaze turned heated again. "Impatient, are we?" he asked.
"Turnabout's fair play," she informed him, and bent to kiss him, propping herself up with a hand while the other strayed across the cool, smooth planes of his chest and belly, trailing down towards the waistband of his jeans. He hummed in appreciation and cupped her breasts in his hands, stroking his thumbs back and forth across her nipples as his tongue caressed hers in a rhythm that promised much, much more. She brushed her knuckles over his fly, and both of them moaned softly. He broke the kiss, gasping, and she shifted to drop a line of kisses along his jaw towards his ear. "Rose," he said.
"You're wearing too many clothes," she murmured in his ear.
"So are you." One hand reached up to twine in her hair and he tugged her gently back to his mouth so he could kiss her. "We should do something about that."
She smiled against his mouth and sat up, rolling to one side so she could unfasten her trousers. He quickly rid himself of his own clothes and boots, tossing them away without caring how or where they landed, and scant moments later she was once again lying on the bed, this time with the Doctor's bare skin pressed against hers. She ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders, feeling the rock-solid muscles under her hands and enjoying the way he shivered at her touch. "My Doctor," she said softly.
He brushed her hair away from her face in a tender gesture. "Remember this for me," he murmured.
And he slid into her.
They arched into each other as he filled her, and she half-gasped, half-groaned. Her legs wrapped around him, urging him on, and he slipped his hands beneath her back, his hands curling up over her shoulders to pull her tighter against him as he withdrew, then thrust back in, and again, and again. She rocked her hips against him, taking him as deeply as she could. She could feel her orgasm building already, coiling deep inside as he pounded into her. "Please," she gasped, not entirely sure what she was asking him for. "Please, Doctor."
He bent his head, his temple pressing against hers, his breath warm against her cheek as he panted. "Oh, Rose," he said raggedly. "Anything. Just tell me. Tell me what you want, Rose."
"You," she moaned, shifting her legs so he could slide deeper. "Just you. Oh, God, I want you."
She ended on a groan as she came, her muscles spasming in waves of pleasure that spun her out of control. She clutched at him, holding tight as she cried out. Dimly, she could hear his own shout as he followed her over the precipice, his hips slamming jerkily into hers as he released within her.
Gasping and sweaty, they collapsed together, his weight pressing her into the mattress, his head pillowed on her shoulder. She held him close as she let her legs slip down to the bed, her hands stroking soothingly over his shoulders and back as they both caught their breath, and tried to burn the moment into her memory even as she tried to forget that he would never be able to.
He sighed after a long moment and raised himself up, withdrawing from her slowly and then rolling over to lie beside her. She curled up against him, head on his shoulder, listening to his hearts beating.
"I don't want you to forget," she said softly.
He sighed. "I know," he replied. "Neither do I."
***
In the end, she'd fallen asleep on his chest, and it was a couple of hours later before she woke up to find him still holding her. They'd showered together (shower sex, she'd discovered, was much easier when your partner was incredibly strong) and then dressed, and now she sat on the jump seat, watching as he typed search parameters into the TARDIS. As much as she wanted to see her brown-suited Doctor again—and she did, she really did—her heart felt as though it were breaking at the prospect of losing this version of him again, knowing it would be the last time she'd see him, ever. And yet, he was right; it was time she went back to her own Doctor, and he went back to his own Rose.
But knowing that she'd be the only person in the universe to remember these last hours was almost unbearable.
"There we are," the Doctor said. She glanced up. "What year did you say it was when you left him?"
"2007, including that missing year you gave me." She grinned, an attempt at cheekiness.
He pulled a face, pretending to be offended. "Oi! Thought we were past that." He tapped a few keys. "There I am—found the version of me you're looking for, I think. How's 2008 sound? Make sure the timeline doesn't get crossed."
"All right." She managed to get that out without sounding too bad, she thought, though the lump in her throat had thickened until she almost couldn't force the words past it.
He looked at her, then left the console and came over to her, pulling her into a hug. She held on as tight as she could. "It's still me, Rose," he told her softly. "You're not going to lose me."
"I know," she said. The lump was so thick now that it came out in a whisper. "But you'll always be the Doctor I fell in love with, and I can't bear to think that you'll have to just—forget this."
"Ah, now see? This is the benefit of being a genius," he said into her ear. "Don't worry. I won't need to forget forever."
"But—" She pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. "I thought you had to forget it, or else it would cause a paradox?"
"Sort of." His eyes crinkled with his familiar, bright grin. "But I thought of a way around the problem while you were asleep. I can't allow myself to remember right now, but if I hide the memory away, so to speak, I can access it again once you find me later. So when I drop you off, the older me will be able to remember everything. No paradox, because this me won't know a thing."
She blinked, trying to wrap her mind around that. "So you'll just be able to, I don't know, open a cupboard in your mind and find the memory again?"
"Something like that, yeah." His grin faded to a tender smile, and he brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. "I was going to just wipe my memory," he said quietly, "but I can't. I can't just forget all this happened. I can't forget you."
The lump in her throat began to subside, and she took a shaky breath. "Okay," she said. "Okay. I can do this now."
"Of course you can." He kissed her forehead, then let go and stepped back to the console. "Here we go: the future me."
She hopped down off the jump seat and slid an arm around him as he pulled a lever down, ready to return to the life she'd been torn away from.
Next part: In Plain Sight.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-11-04 01:03 am (UTC)Thank you so much for finishing this and for putting it up for all of us to enjoy.
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Date: 2008-11-04 02:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-11-04 01:06 am (UTC)Nine, oh, so loving...poor Nine *sniffs*
Adds to mems
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Date: 2008-11-09 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 01:23 am (UTC)Thank you :)
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Date: 2008-11-09 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 03:38 am (UTC)*Hugs*
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Date: 2008-11-04 04:37 am (UTC)And BLESS you for that!
*Hugs*
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From:(no subject)
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Date: 2008-11-04 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 04:31 am (UTC)I cannot thank you enough for this lovely, hopeful, delightfully sexy and totally satisfying, emotional prequel!
You write Sexy!Nine/Rose (and indeed, Ten/Rose) incredibly well. Please ... NEVER stop writing them!!
*Appreciative Hugs*
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Date: 2008-11-09 02:56 am (UTC)Thanks for bidding on me--I'm so pleased it's met with your approval!
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Date: 2008-11-04 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 05:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:56 am (UTC)**hugs**
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Date: 2008-11-04 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 07:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 10:32 am (UTC)Thankyou, for making my day more tolerable.
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Date: 2008-11-09 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 12:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-04 03:44 pm (UTC)I feel sorry for Rose too, for having to lose him again, but the Doctor is right - she hasn't lost him. He's still the same man; he just looks a bit different.
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Date: 2008-11-09 03:03 am (UTC)Thank you for the kind words!
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Date: 2008-11-04 03:56 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-11-08 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 01:16 pm (UTC)Heh.
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Date: 2008-11-13 07:38 pm (UTC)A lovely story, I might add!
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Date: 2009-01-26 12:50 am (UTC)