fannishliss

Diamonds,  Dust, and Amaretto
7200 words
rated adult, explicit
Nine/Rose
spoilers for New Who 1.05: "World War Three"

This story is for bloose09.  Thanks so much, dear heart, for all your encouraging words which have meant so much to me. This is for a prompt from a while back-- sorry it has taken so long but I hope you will like it.

Bloose asked: "What happens after Nine coerces convinces Rose to leave Jackie's at the end of "World War Three." Remember this speech? 'But
right now there's this plasma storm brewing in the Horsehead nebula. Fires are burning ten million miles wide. I could fly the TARDIS rightinto the heart of it then ride the shock wave all the way out - hurtle right across the sky and end up anywhere. Your choice.'
What happened when Rose returned to the TARDIS after hearing that? The higher the rating the better." -- Your wish is my command.  :D

===?===

The plasma storm in the heart of the Horsehead Nebula was like nothing Rose had ever seen.  Obviously.

Sometimes Rose was sure she and the Doctor were on the same wavelength.  Sometimes she could look into those crystalline blue eyes and know exactly what he was thinking — sometimes the coolness of his hand in hers made her feel so close to him, so in tune, like out of all the things he needed there was nothing she couldn't give.  But sometimes, he left her so frustrated that she didn't even know why they were still traveling together.  

What did he want with her anyway?  He didn't seem to want anything more than companionship.  He didn't show any signs that he saw her the way a man sees a woman.  But  when she tried to invite Mickey along — after all, she'd left her "boyfriend" in the lurch for a year on a lark, it was the very least she could do to try to make it up to him — the Doctor had instantly shut down that option.  More of his bloody mixed signals.

So the amazing firestorm, ten million miles wide, of plasma, particles, space dust, the very birthing spasms of stars, didn't impress her like the Doctor might have liked.

How stupid was she really, preoccupied by thoughts of her mum's mediocre shepherd's pie, and after dinner sips of amaretto.   She'd been inside his warehouse-sized wardrobe, run her fingers through strands of precious gems putting the crown jewels to shame as they spilled out of open armoires, rivaling the stars — and her mum thought the Doctor might find a few sips of liqueur somehow special.

Rose's eyes burned, her jaw setting.  She stared out into the black depths, spangled with jewels that might, in several billion years, crawl with life.  Only a few billion years ago, her own planet had shrunk together out of the same kind of dust, swirling into a blue-white gem, and her ancestors had heaved themselves out of the muck, stood up, and starting trampling mud, slapping it into bricks, piling them up to try and reach the heavens before the gods knocked them down.

But now she knew — didn't she? — the gods never would knock them down.  The human race became a glorious galactic empire, not just once, but again and again.  Races no less magnificent than the very Lords of Time found themselves drawn to the doings of one little obscure planet.  Just a small yellow sun with a few rocky chunks swirling round it — but it mattered.  

Rose felt the Doctor staring.  The Tardis doors hung open, open space yawning just beyond. Rose clung to the door frame.  Nervously, she felt like she ought to be buckled in.  The Doctor eyed her smugly at first, and then with growing concern.  

"Beautiful, hm?" he finally said, but the slightest rising intonation told tales.  

"Yeah, gorgeous," she said.  Light and dust whirled hypnotically against whipcrack arms of seething plasma; diamonds and amaretto.

"Look, I'm all in," she said.  "Thanks for showing me this.  Brilliant!"   

Did he really think she was that stupid? There's a storm brewing right now in the Horsehead Nebula?  Time machine remember?   He could go traveling all around suns and planets and all the way out to the edge of the universe, and just ten seconds would've passed.  There was no reason he hadn't had "time" for a sitdown with her mum, except for his own muleheadedness.  

"Course," he said, a bit tightly.

She tried not to feel the gaping chasm behind her as she turned her back on the open Tardis doors.  She couldn't help it; she'd seen too many movies where helpless females hung on for dear life while the atmosphere depressurized and streamed out past them into the void, finally loosening their icy fingers and sweeping them helplessly into the abyss.  

Rose just wanted to unpack her things, make her room in the Tardis a little more her own.  Just a few little things, stupid things really, the tawdry little things she called her own.  

She picked up her pace, scooping up the strap of her backpack and heading for the corridor.

"Rose — " the Doctor called.

Rose waved behind her.  "Sleep, okay?  Us stupid humans need a kip now and again.  See you later, right?"

She felt him watch her leave the console room, as though his gaze was a cool breeze along her neck. She shivered and hurried to her room.   

She wanted a long, hot shower, but that was silly, wasn't it?  It wasn't as though she'd got space dust in her hair while she was watching the nebula catch fire.  She'd had a good, thorough rinse after the wreck of Number Ten Downing, and that had only been, what, five hours ago?

Rose opened her backpack.  She'd packed at cross purposes with herself — on the one hand, she'd wanted to feel that this room on the Tardis was her home.  On the other hand, she didn't want her mum to think she was abandoning her.  She'd be back — just not, she hoped, any time soon.  Though, with the Doctor as flighty as he was, who could tell?  Who knew when he might suddenly lose patience and kick her back to the curb?  

She heaved a great sigh, and tidied her clothes in the sweet French colonial chest of drawers the Tardis had provided her.  Silly.  Why would she need her own clothes, when the wardrobe was packed to overflowing with an astounding variety that would make any shopgirl flail?  

Rose just wanted something of her own.  Something familiar, something safe and known, when everything around her was bizarre and alien.

"Alien," she muttered to herself, and arranged her nail varnish collection on the bedside table, and one of her favorite, a sweet candy pink, caught her eye, along with a nice sparkly glitter coat.  A nail do would be just the thing, wouldn't it?  A relaxing meditative half hour, a girl doing her nails without a care in the world.  

She shook the bottle and read the label on the bottom, bursting into a sardonic laugh.     Amaretto Crush — really?  

She smiled to herself, a bit ruefully, as she carefully applied the pink base coat to her fingers and toes.  Then, splurging, she added a coat of precious silver holographic topcoat to both pinkies and both big toes.  She laughed at herself even as she carefully doled out the layer.  Jackie had got a special dealer's discount on the Chanel nail varnish when it came out, and she'd given it to Rose for her birthday — a tiny bottle was almost one hundred pounds on the internet now.

Now— whatever that meant.  For all Rose knew, the Doctor knew of a hundred worlds where a girl could have her fingernails replaced by miniaturized vidscreens that played back great masterworks of nail varnish art, psychically selected by the wearer.  

Rose found her gold detailing brush and added a delicate curlicue to her left pinkie.  That made her smile, and finally the ruefulness was gone.  She got out her boar bristle hairbrush and gave her hair one hundred strokes.  Jackie and she were bottle blondes, yeah, but she'd started out in life as a natural blonde and her hair was still fine enough to benefit from the boar bristles.  It was soothing, the calm, repetitive motions, awakening the scalp and conditioning the hair.  

She'd packed her favorite nightie.  It was an old thing, an oversized tee shirt with a fanciful cartoon animal on it, waving cheekily like a tourist.  It reminded Rose of slumber parties with Shireen and long nights giggling over rounds of tinker tailer soldier sailor.  Nothing had prepared her for the whirlwind fiasco of Jimmy Stone or the sweet, muddled rebound of falling into bed with best mate Mickey.  Or, whatever might come next.

Rose had packed her comfy pillow too, and she pressed her face against the soft plush as her mind whirled: holograms, shepherd's pie, nebulae, amaretto.  

Finally she drifted off to sleep.  

The Tardis knew when Rose was rested and ready to get up.  The lights in the room gradually brightened, perfectly mimicking the fresh yellow daylight of a clear spring morning,  London, Earth. When Rose opened her eyes, she could almost feel a soft breeze coming in through the window. In her mind there was an echoing hint of birdsong.  It was a lovely way to wake up.  

Rose washed her face in the little ensuite, pulled on some trackie bottoms and thick socks, and went to find the galley.  Sometimes it moved since the last time she'd seen it, but this morning, it was just off her bedroom corridor at the right turn toward the console room.  

There was the Doctor, lounging up against the counter, drinking a bright purple glass of juice.  

"Morning," he said brightly.  His tongue had gone violet.

"Morning," Rose agreed, wondering what morning really meant to the alien pilot of his own time ship.

"Lovely muesli this morning," the Doctor said.  "Organic yoghurt."

Rose wrinkled her nose, but she'd had a lot worse than organic yoghurt, so she pulled the muesli out of the cupboard the Doctor indicated and fixed a bowl.

It was awfully good.  The yoghurt had little bits of peaches in it.

"Delicious," Rose agreed.  To her horror, she felt her mouth seize up and keep talking.  "Probably much better than Mum's shepherd's pie."   She pressed her lips tightly together, then spooned in a helping of muesli and ground it thoroughly between her molars.

The Doctor said nothing.  

"Above that sort of thing, though, aren't you?" she heard herself prompting. Her cheeks felt hot.  She stared as if entranced by the tiny pieces of nut and dried apple that ornamented her muesli.

The Doctor (Rose could see him out of the corner of her eye) pursed his lips.  

"Although," Rose said, and the heat had spread from her cheeks all across her face, "it wasn't so much distaste for shepherd's pie as it was distaste for my mum in general."

"Rose," he complained, shifting.

"I know she's probably not up to your usual standards," Rose ground out, getting madder as she went, "but she is my mum.  You could at least do her the courtesy of one sitdown."

"I didn't realize you had such strict standards of courtesy," the Doctor said.

"They really, really aren't," Rose said.  Her face was hot and her eyes and mouth felt like they were shriveling smaller and smaller like a little prune.  She couldn't taste her muesli anymore, so she abandoned it on the counter.   Anger gave her courage, so she looked him in the eye and laid it out.

"You couldn't spare one hour to talk with my mum?" Rose said.  "'I'm ready to listen' she told me—she just wants to spend some time with you, talking, getting to know you."  A tight, aching band of disappointment clutched Rose around the middle.  She could hardly breathe, and she just hoped she'd make it out of this conversation without crying hot tears of anger and humiliation.

"This is just the sort of thing I don't want to encourage," he said, getting on his high horse.

"What is?  What sort of thing?   Me traveling with you, trusting you?  The way my mum has to trust you as well sight unseen? And how bloody well you've done so far, losing me a year of my mum's life!"

"There are always risks," the Doctor said, lips pinched thin. "You have a choice."

"And what was that about, anyway?" Rose said. "Horsehead Nebula my arse!  You told me this Tardis can go anywhere, anywhen in space or time.  There's no great rush to go and see anything."  

The Doctor frowned and looked down.

"Why do you think I came along with you?" Rose said. "You think I'm a tourist?  Just out for a lark around the universe?"

"Well, aren't you?" the Doctor said, his blue eyes blazing.

Rose's mouth dropped open.  "Really?  Seriously?  I've only known you for what, a week?  And we've already saved the world together three times?"  

"So you want to be a 'hero,' is that it?"   The Doctor's eyes fell shuttered, his voice fairly dripping with scorn.

"I want to do what you do," Rose said, trying to calm down.  "You make a difference!  You save lives, Doctor  — whole planets even!  It's brilliant!"

"It's not brilliant!" the Doctor shouted.  "Don't you remember being trapped in that little room, with the Slitheen about to destroy the earth?   That wasn't brilliant -- that wasn't fun and games!"  

"Of course it wasn't fun and games, Doctor," Rose said.  "I may be just nineteen and you nine hundred, but I'm not a kid, whatever you think.  My choices are my own responsibility.  If there's one thing you learn growing up the way I did, it's that there's no safety net.  You make your choices, and sometimes you pay the price."  Sometimes to the tune of hundreds of pounds of debt and no A levels, as she'd learned the hard way.

"You can't imagine the price I've paid," the Doctor said darkly.

The pain and bitterness in his voice made Rose's breath catch in her throat.  He couldn't even row like a normal bloke. He had all this terrible trauma in there where a home planet and a people, a family should have been.  It made a tight ache gather and clench in Rose, so that she struggled to breathe.  

"No," Rose said softly, "but I can see that you're still paying it.  It's in everything you do, that horrible price."

Rose reached up to touch the Doctor's cheek, but he caught her hand and held it in his own.  His hands were ice cold, like they'd been immersed in frigid water.  

Rose looked up at him. The pain, sometimes pushed back or hidden away, was front and center on his expressive face.    

"This has to do with your people, doesn't it?  The reason you don't 'do' families?"

"I don't want to talk about it," the Doctor said.  Sometimes, Rose thought, you could mistake the Doctor for any other man.  But sometimes, his age and his ancient alien origins transformed his face into a mask, his eyes cold, flat mirrors of pain and denial.  

Rose felt her temper rising despite her best efforts.  She felt like yelling.  She and Jackie weren't calm people by nature.  She was loud when she was angry.  But she knew, in her best heart, that he didn't need a fight right now.  He didn't need her anger.   Why couldn't he just open up and admit how sad and lonely he was?  Couldn't he take her up on the offer she made and remade every time he looked at her?  She didn't want him to be alone.  She wanted to be there for him.  But he was just so stubborn, so closed off, and he wouldn't take a chance on her — and he'd gone and insulted her mother as well, refusing her invitation.  It wasn't right.  

Rose knew she had to let it go.  She had to just breathe out past the upset and the irritation and focus on the feeling of his hand around hers, that instant connection she'd felt from the very first moment, when he'd grabbed her with that hand and pulled her out of madness into adventure.  

"I want to be here for you," she said.  It was hokey, domestic, the worst sort of line from some self-help guru on telly.  But it was what she needed him to hear, and she'd just have to keep saying it until he understood.

"You don't know what that means," he said.  But he didn't sound grateful — he sounded angrier and even more closed off than before.  

"What?" she asked, confused.  The fresh hurt stung, deep in the tender spot she'd just been trying to open for him.  She pulled her hand away and he let it go.  

She cradled her hand against her chest, cold now; his icy hands had leached away all the warmth.

He didn't explain himself.   But still, he didn't walk away.

"You don't have to be alone," Rose tried again, her voice shaking. "I don't care if it's dangerous.  It's important.  You need someone.  Even if it's just me.  I'm Jackie's daughter, and Tyler women are just as stubborn as you, Mister Big Arse Time Lord."

"You gonna slap me like she did?" he said, hearing the threat not so veiled in her tone.

"I will if you deserve it," she answered, riled, "so take care."

"Noted," he returned.  

A minute's silence stretched out with neither of them stirring.

"I mean it," Rose finally said, haltingly.  "You can't talk about it.  Fine.  But — there's something between us —  I don't know really, what it is —" Rose faltered, trying to put into words that strange, almost eerie connection she felt with him sometimes.  

"Can't you feel it?" she said, exasperated. "When we're holding hands, or when we're standing close together —  it's like, I can feel what you're feeling?  Am I daft, or what?"

The Doctor stared at her.  His face had gone white, his blue eyes startling in their brilliance.  Rose was shocked, frightened even, by the intensity of his gaze — such a mixture of pain, terror, and deadly hope looked out at her.  She clutched his hand again and took a step closer.  

"Like now," she whispered.  "Why are you so scared?  There's nothing here to be afraid of, is there?"

"Rose," he whispered, brokenly.  "I'm bloody terrified."

"Why?" Rose pleaded.

"My people — we were touch telepaths.  But you, you shouldn't be able to feel what I feel, so easily —" Bright spots of embarrassed flush appeared on his high cheekbones, stark on his pale face.  

"Telepaths?  Like the Tardis— in my head?" Rose said, dubiously.  It didn't feel like thoughts; it was more like entering a room, feeling the emotional climate of a place, like a restful library, a cheery kitchen, or the stark gray heights of a cathedral.  

"You don't like that," the Doctor said flatly.  Rose knew he remembered the row they'd had when Rose had panicked about running off on a lark with a strange man, five billion years into the future.  

"If it was you..." Rose said, hesitant.

"You don't know what you're offering," he breathed, but this time, his whisper was tinged with eagerness held tightly in check.  

"You keep saying that.  What part of 'I want to be with you' don't you understand?" Rose was known for her bluntness; she wasn't Jackie's daughter for nothing; so if she blushed a little at her forwardness, she brazened it out.  If Mickey was a tinker, and Jimmy a clothes horse (if not a tailor), then maybe Rose's fate was mixed up with a soldier and a sailor, traveling through space and time on his own amazing ship.

"I'm so alone, I've been so alone, Rose," he whispered.  "Everyone is gone, lost."

"You don't have to be," she whispered back. Time seemed to slow in that typical suspended moment before a first kiss.  The galley around them seemed surreal, the forgotten bowl of muesli behind her on the counter, his glass with a little bit of fruit juice pooling at the bottom, tell-tale crumbs of Hobnob scattered about on the countertop.  

His eyes were so blue, his hands so cold.  His hearts were beating so fast as he leaned her back against the counter, pressing up against her.  

He put his nose into her hair, right behind her ear, bending down, surrounding her. He breathed her in, and Rose felt herself warming to him.  His body wasn't as cold as his hands, just cool.  He stood there, breathing, both of her hands in his. Waiting.  

Did he want her to make the first move? Did she have to do everything?  No — it didn't feel like that. Her eyes fluttered closed as she concentrated, trying to feel what he felt.  It felt  — like —

Home.  

They were in another place — an alpine meadow, and Rose was seated in the shade of a spreading meadow tree, the Doctor holding her loosely in his arms.  

But the meadow grass was a rusty terra cotta red, and the tree, a tall, slender, graceful thing with leaves of silver, and it was singing, a sweet plaintive song.  The meadow grasses stirred in the breeze, a strange metallic shushing sound. The air was thin and dry, hot even at this height on the side of the mountain.   

Farther up the mountainside was a thicker stand of trees; their brilliant metallic leaves glinted like fire in the glow of the twin suns that hung overhead in a cloudless, pale orange sky.  The wind, coming down the mountain, carried the song of the leaves, a real song that drifted through Rose's brain, trying to coalesce into a story about a hardheaded young outcast and his mentor, an old hermit.  Further down the mountainside was a huge chalet, or castle really, but like nothing that had ever been built on Earth. It almost looked like it had grown there, towering columns of white wood that arched toward the sky.  

"I wanted to show you this place," he said softly, his voice strange, more posh and less Northern.

"It's beautiful," she said.  "But — am I in your head?"   Everything Rose saw glimmered with a nostalgic sense of paradise lost, burnished childhood memories scoured clean of all that had gone wrong.

"Think of it as my mind cinema," the Doctor said.

"The 3D is amazing," Rose smiled.  "It's so real."   The strangely familiar spicy smell of the sunbaked meadow — Rose realized it reminded her of the warm honey citrus aroma she sometimes breathed in when she was next to the Doctor.  The eerie bell-like vibration of the silver leaves was familiar too — it reminded her of that song she sometimes heard in the back of her mind, the song she associated with the Tardis. The heat was unfamiliar, the thin dry heat of an alien world.  At least, reliving a memory, Rose wouldn't have to worry about UV exposure.

"Was that your home?" Rose asked, indicating the enormous chalet.  No wonder he sounded so posh.

"The House of Lungbarrow, where I was loomed.  It sank into the ground because of me, and my name was struck from the Record." His voice was matter of fact, devoid of guilt or regret.

"That's awful," Rose said, frowning.

"I broke the balance and the House sank.  It was a long time before I even knew about it.  I tried to fix it," he said.  

"No — I mean, they struck your name from the Record? Like, they disowned you?"

"I was always a disappointment," he said, carelessly.

Anger swelled in Rose like a wave.  "If I met any of them, I've give them such a slap!" she said.

Rose felt a quiet laugh shake the Doctor.  "They wouldn't notice.  I sometimes think they were all made of wood, just like the House."

"Funny name, Lungbarrow," Rose said.

"Funny name, Jacqueline Andrea Suzette Prentice Tyler."

"Oi! How'd you know my mum's name?" Rose asked.

"I have my ways," he said smugly, "Rose Marion Angelique."

"Oh my god," she said.  "They never put that on the birth certificate."

"Jackie sent announcements." She felt his smug chuckle, and smiled.  

"What was your name, before it was the Doctor?"

"At school they called me Theta Sigma," he said.

She could tell he was holding back on her for some reason.  "That's not a name, that's, some kind of student rubbish."

"Fair enough," he said, laconically.

"You still haven't told me," she wheedled.

"I can't," he said.

"Can't?" Or won't, more likely, Rose thought.  

The Doctor shifted behind her.  "Like I said, Gallifreyans are telepathic.  When they struck my name, they completely eradicated it from memory.  All memory, including my own."

Rose was aghast.  She felt a cold chill sink deep inside her.  "I've never heard anything so horrible."

"Don't you like 'the Doctor'? I've always thought it suits me quite well.  It's a lot better than some got."

"Like what — the Dentist?  The Solicitor?"  Rose joked, trying to push down the sick feeling she got at the thought of the Doctor being so cruelly disowned.

"Not at all!" he crowed. "Try Quencessetianobayolocaturgrathadadeyyilungbarrowmas!"

"Wow," said Rose.  "That's a lot worse than Raxacoricofallapatorius."

"Yeah," he said, smiling at her.

"I kind of thought maybe your name was a secret, and eventually you'd tell me,"  Rose said, wistfully.

"I would if I could, Rose," the Doctor said.  

"Yeah?" she said, rearranging her back more comfortably against him.

"Yeah," he assured her.

"How am I sitting here anyway?" Rose asked.  "Is my body back in the galley in a coma or something?"

"No," he said.  "One benefit of being a Time Lord.  This is all happening in the blink of an eye."

"Wow," Rose said again.  "It feels so real."

"It is real, for a certain definition of the word," the Doctor said.

"But it's just a memory," Rose countered.

"What's a memory? An assorted collection of sensory details. My brain has more than enough storage capacity to hold every detail needed to replay this as real for you. It was real, once upon a time.  It truly existed, every blade of grass, every hot breeze.... I'm just sharing the recall with you."

"What about the song?"  Rose asked.

The Doctor stiffened.  "You can hear that too, can you?"

"Yeah, why?"  The song continued, sad and sweet.  It was a melancholy song but brave somehow, in its lilting falls and steadfast swells.

"That's the Tardis.  I hope you don't mind."

"I thought the trees sounded like the Tardis!" Rose exclaimed.

"How do you know what the Tardis sounds like?" the Doctor asked.  

"You told me she was psychic, so I paid attention when I felt her in my head, and her song, I don't know, kind of resolved, or came into focus.  Only when I'm paying attention," Rose said.

"You are amazing, Rose Tyler,"  the Doctor said. "You formed a bond with my Tardis, so quickly."

"Is that good?" Rose asked.

"It's the test of a Time Lord — how easily we communicate with something like a Tardis.  For a human, it's extraordinary."

"Hm," Rose said. The phrase "for a human" never sat well with her.

"You're a lot more psychic than I expected," the Doctor said lightly.

"Enough so that you needn't be lonely?" Rose asked.  

He was silent for some time.  

"Not enough, then," Rose said, sadly.  

"You don't —" the Doctor said.  

"You complete that phrase," Rose said mildly, "one more time, and when I come out of this coma, see what happens!"

"You're not in a coma, Rose," the Doctor muttered.

"You're not hearing me, you infuriating man!" Rose snapped.

The Doctor gave a minute grunt.  

"Look," she said, "if you don't want me, just say so.  I'm sick of this tiptoeing around.  I want this, whatever it is, to be something more.  For us to be closer.  Much closer.  If that's not a possibility, then I need to know that."

"I thought you were dating Mickey," the Doctor said.

"I was," Rose said, "but we weren't really going anywhere.... and since I went missing, I could tell he was seeing other people."

"Hm," the Doctor said.

"Hm yourself, you wanker.  Answer the question."

"Please state your question in the form of a question," the Doctor replied, archly, but Rose could feel him trembling, the slightest little tremor giving away his nervousness.  

"Okay," Rose said.  "Do you, 'the Doctor', want to be as close, physically and mentally, as it's possible for us to get, with me, Rose Marion Angelique Prentice Tyler?"  

"Yes," he said, and the trembling increased substantially.

"Yes?" she said.  

"Oh, yes," he answered.  

"Then let me out of this coma!" Rose shouted.  

There was a moment's disorientation as Rose realized she was standing in the galley, back to the counter, with the Doctor pressed up against her, his nose in her hair, his cool hands wrapped around hers, his hearts beating hard, his body trembling like a leaf.  

Rose pulled back a bit, and he followed her with his body as though he couldn't bear the separation.

"Second thoughts?" he said in a rough voice.  

"Please," she said, squeezing his hands. "Let's don't just stand here in the galley."   

His emotions flowed into her even more strongly than they had before.  A surge of anticipation pulsed through her, and she felt her own body flush and heat in sympathy.  

"Come on," he said, and peeling himself away from her, he led her by the hand out of the galley, down the corridor, into his bedroom.  

Rose had always thought his room beautifully decorated, but now she recognized the shades of red and gold in the rug and the coverlet, and the white wood of the oversized trunk in the corner.   Most of the furniture was Earth made:  a four poster bed, a bureau, two fashionable mod wing chairs, a tea table, and an old fashioned standing writing desk and coatrack bracketing the door.   Only the trunk betrayed what she now saw was its obvious Gallifreyan origin, with its flowing organic lines and its silky smooth grayish white wood.  

"ahem," the Doctor said, nervously, as he stood poised just inside the door.

"This is where you ask me if I'd like to join you for a drink," Rose quipped.

"What?" he said, flushing. "Were you thirsty? There's some very delicious juice, I could just pop back..."

"Ha," Rose laughed, awkwardly. "No, it's just a line, to kill time."

"Mortal sin, killing time," he said, and there was a fire in his eyes that Rose had glimpsed many times before, but now he didn't bank it. The fire burned with all the whipcrack flares of the Horsehead Nebula, and she wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Without another moment's hesitation, Rose stepped into the Doctor's arms and pressed her lips softly to his.

As soon as they touched, she could feel, much stronger than before, the ferocity of his desire for her, and the torment it caused him to hold back.

"Don't hold back," she whispered into his lips.  They were so soft, just as lush as she'd always imagined, such a delightful contrast to his stark, masculine face.

"Rose," he moaned, and she melted against him, surrendering herself to him with all her will.  

"Doctor, please," she begged.  "I want you so much." His embrace was familiar, but the passion that shook him, making him literally tremble in her arms, was new, and it drove her wild.  "Tell me what you need," she said, stroking the firm muscles of his back.  Her hands roamed; she couldn't get enough.

"I need," he whispered, "I need — so much!" he said.  He buried his face in her neck again, and she was shocked to feel that it was warm with his embarrassment.  

"Don't be shy," she said.  "Just tell me."

She ran her hands along his sides, learning the way his masculine torso tapered to the waist.  He was so strongly built, hard as a rock, and so powerful — yet he was so reluctant to make the first move.

"Here," she said, putting her hands into his. Safe territory.  They'd always held hands, since their very first meeting.  During her little visit to his "mind cinema," he'd held on tightly to both her hands.  Maybe it helped him with his telepathy.   "Show me how to touch you," she said.  

He looked at her so hungrily, yet with an awful brokenness.  "Don't be afraid of me," he finally whispered, as though it broke his heart.

"I'm not!" she answered, gripping his hands tightly.  

"You should be," he said darkly.  "The things I've done — so many lives, lost because of me..."

"Show me," she said.  

"No," he denied. "Too horrible. I couldn't bear it."

She could feel a surge of self-recrimination rising up within him, building a wall between them.  

"I know you don't want to talk about it," she said, "and you don't have to.  But staying closed off isn't good.  You're just stewing in your own juices that way."

He laughed a little at her folksy metaphor.  "I'm a vegetarian," he said.  

"Oh!" She laughed.  "Well, maybe you stew in your own umami," she said, using a word she'd learned from Shireen's aunt.

"You smell fantastic," the Doctor said.

Rose wondered if the Doctor could feel her sway from the powerful surge of arousal that his words ignited in her.

"You do too," she whispered. The world had faded away; all she could see was his face, his beautiful haunted eyes.

"You smell so alive, so hot," the Doctor murmured.  The arousal rocked her again, and this time Rose could feel that it was coming off him as well.   

She leaned in, tilting back her head and offering up her lips.  He lowered his mouth to hers so delicately, his tongue darting out to taste her, and she opened to him with a groan.  

"I want to taste you," he said.  

"Yeah," she consented.

"All of you," he said.  "You smell so good.  I want you on my tongue."

"Oh my god, Doctor!" Rose said.  "What are you waiting for?"

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head with a little laugh.  His smile was a bit wild, but Rose could feel a great joy growing inside him, pushing aside the fear and the loneliness and making its claim upon him at last.  "You humans.  So brief.  There's no time to lose." A slight darkness flitted across his gaze, troubling his brow — but then it was gone.

"There's something so bright about you, Rose," he said. "So alive.  No fading in you."

"Hm," Rose said.  "Too much talking.  Take off my clothes."

His hands lifted the hem of her shirt, resting for a moment on the waistband of her pink velour trackie bottoms.  His face was rapt, like he was memorizing the moment, but his eyes were dark with lust like any man's would be.  

Rose covered his hands with her own and helped him get rid of her bottoms, and toed off her socks for good measure.  He passed his hand across the soles of her feet and she shivered in delight.  

"Acupressure points, you'd call them," he said, doing it again.  

"Your're - you're not, not pressing," she stammered, shivering. It felt so good.  

"Gallifreyan," he said, and holding her left foot, he closed his eyes.  Sometimes after a hard day at work, Rose would soak her tired feet in the hot jetting bubbles of  Jackie's very best foot bath.  A surge of pleasure ten times that good radiated into her left foot, up her leg and straight into her core.  

"I need to, to sit down," she said, knees going soft.  

Luckily the bed was right behind her and she fairly collapsed onto it.  The Doctor turned his attention to her right foot now that she was sitting.  The dark, hot, tingling sensation zinging both feet with pleasure made shivers run down from the top of her head, down her neck, down both arms, down her spine, and it all centered around the place that was now pulsing with desire for him.

She leaned back on both hands, afraid she might just fall.  She tried to breathe, tried to take it all in without swooning.  Her head lolled back, and she rolled it forward, opening her dazed eyes to look at him.  

It was a sight to see.  There he knelt, this amazing man, this alien, nine hundred years old, holding her feet in his two hands like she was Cinderella and he was Prince Charming, looking at her like he hadn't had his fill since who knew when and she was a banana split with double fudge sauce and a cherry on top.  

His hands slid up her calves, to her thighs, and pushed them slowly open.  His hands, still cool, transmitted a fiery warmth into her flesh wherever he touched her.  She felt like she was on fire. She opened her trembling thighs to him. Her knickers were wet through and he breathed her in, rocking forward slightly.  

"Say yes," he said, his voice rough and deep.

"Yes, yes, yes," she breathed.

Like a parody of everything chaste, he leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss right in the center of the little scrap of sodden silk, all that remained of Rose's modesty.  Her drew one finger lightly down the soaked cloth, following the kiss.  Rose opened her legs wider, tilting her hips.

"Yes, Doctor," she said.  

His long, clever fingers found the waistband of her knickers and peeled them off, flung them across the room.  

Nothing was left between them now.  Rose's face burned as she fixed her gaze on the Doctor's enthralled stare.  He licked his lips and she knew he could see how wet she was.  

He lifted a finger, lightly dipped inside her, and carried a bit of her moisture to his lips.  

"Mmm," he moaned, his eyelids falling down.  He swayed forward, breathing in.

"Yes, yes," she chanted, shameless.

His lips touched her flesh.  His tongue, so clever, darted out, probing her folds and caressing her without hesitation.  

As soon as he touched her, Rose felt her body jolt and arch with ecstasy.  How would she live through this? She reminded herself that she just had to breathe.  He was just getting started.  

He lifted her thighs to his shoulders, his cool hands pressing her gently open as he delved into her with his tongue, leaving trails of fire in his wake.  She could feel his emotions, almost as heady as the raw thrill he sent coursing into her body along her enlivened nerves.  

She could feel his hunger, his lust to feast upon her: she tasted of nectar and ambrosia to him.  Her pleasure filled him up in some kind of psychic loop.  The more she felt, the better it was for him.  She surrendered herself to him completely, wondering vaguely how they could possibly have held back from each other.  Everywhere they touched, the contact was electric; arcs of pure sensation pulsing into her body as he held her to his mouth and gently caressed her with his tender hands.  

Rose thought she ought to be embarrassed, the way her hips pulsed helplessly toward him, the way she opened to him so wantonly.  But he was moaning too, drinking her in. And then she felt his right hand slip down from her thigh, and she felt his fingers gently brush against her entrance.

"Oh, please," she begged, "please!" She had no leverage to thrust toward him, but she yearned for him anyway.

His fingers slid deep inside her, effortlessly finding the places she was most alive, stroking inside her, and all that gorgeous fire that poured out of his strange cool hands burned into her, running up her spine and directly into her brain.  Her back arched, she dug her heels into the strong muscles of his back, and she fell back on the bed, every muscle taut in helpless ecstasy.   

Fiery images poured into her brain as his emotions tore through her:  shapes and colors, music and light, thoughts and feelings, too much for her to comprehend.  She just lay back and held herself open to the deluge of his dreams as his mouth devoured her and his clever fingers made her intimately his own.  

She seemed to hear his voice.  

"Rose, Rose," he called, as if from far away.  

Panting in the throes of passion, she couldn't draw a breath to answer — but she heard her voice call in response — "Doctor!"

And she seemed to see him — behind her eyelids — some towering angel of fire and wind — a miracle of implacable power and compassion — ancient but so very young — and she yearned toward him with her spirit as she had with her body — she felt herself collide with him — his tempest of savagery and restraint tossing her like the waves of an ocean she quickly learned to ride — and as she gained her equilibrium she felt that she was bursting with joy — and her joy broke upon him like sunlight after a storm — and he was cleansed, fresh and new — and she could breathe again.  

She came back to herself.  He had rearranged her body on the bed, propped her head on a pillow, and now he was stretched out beside her.  She was a bit amused to find she was still wearing her ratty old tee shirt, and he was still fully clothed, his tight wool jumper clinging to the graceful lines of his powerful torso.

"Doctor, that was amazing," she said.  

"It was for me too," he replied.  His eyes were so clear and open now that she felt her smile burst upon her face.  He smiled back, his whole visage transformed by joy.  

"I'm so glad!"  she laughed.  

"Me too!" he laughed as well.  

She lifted her hand, wanting more than anything to stroke his beloved face. Her hand hovered uncertainly near his cheek, till he caught it up and pressed it tight.  

She could feel a turbulence in his thoughts, the swirl of winds after the worst of a storm has passed, but everything was so bright and clear Rose felt like a child, spinning barefoot on a grassy lawn under the miraculous arc of a rainbow.  

"What's next?" she said, taunting — but she really wanted to know.

"Greedy!" he accused playfully, but he leaned forward to kiss her.  His lips were so full and soft, and she could smell herself on him.  "Delicious," he reiterated, pulling back, his beautiful eyes hooded.  

She just stared, amazed they had come to this so quickly, so inevitably.  

"Everything follows on from this moment," he said. "Everything is new, now that we've chosen this."

"In a good way?" Rose said.

He stared at her for a second, serious, and his piercing gaze reminded her how vast he really was.  

"I think so, Rose," he said.  "For the first time in such a very long time — it looks like a new beginning."

"Nine hundred years of time and space, and I've shown you something new," Rose laughed, scoffing.  

"Yeah," he said, smiling.  "I think you have."

Rose smiled back at him.  

The Doctor looked away after a long moment.  "You should get dressed," he said suddenly.  

"What?" Rose said, startled.  

"Remember, when you told Jackie you'd be back in ten seconds' time?" he said, studiously avoiding her gaze.

Rose felt her heart begin to pound.  The crazy thing they'd just shared — and this was what finally threw her?

"Yeah?" she said carelessly.  

"I have the strongest craving for amaretto," he said, looking off into the middle distance.  

Rose grabbed the infuriating man by the face, and he let her, and she kissed him and kissed him, feeling his heavy burdens lightening, cares and fears drifting away like nothing more glittering dust.