Wolf Moon: Chapter Eleven

[amberfocus]

Chapter Eleven:  In the Same Bed

“Doctor?” Rose said shaking his shoulder without getting a response. “Doctor!” She reached for the double pulse point in his neck and found it beating slow and steady. She pulled him over onto his back and straightened him out on the bed.

She leaned back towards the wall and put her hand against it. “What’s happened to him?” She asked the ship.

“Memory crash. He will recover.” The strain of trying to understand the ship in words hurt and she let go of the wall, turning her eyes back to the Doctor. She didn’t like seeing him like this. He looked so helpless. The least she could do was make him more comfortable.

She climbed off the end of the bed and took off his heavy boots one at a time, dropping them in turn with a loud thump to the floor. Next came his socks and she glanced curiously at his feet. The toes were quite long and looked nearly prehensile. Of course, they very well could be.

Rose hesitated and then unbuckled his belt and pulled it out of the belt loops. That ought to be less restricting for him. She was glad he wasn’t wearing his leather jacket as it would have been nearly impossible to remove that with his dead weight. It took a couple minutes of determined pulling but inch by inch she worked the duvet out from underneath him and then covered him with it.

She sat on top of the duvet with her legs folded, an elbow on each knee, and leaned on her hand watching him. She wasn’t horribly worried but she was concerned. Her mind had been coming up with information out of nowhere for the last several hours and she was becoming more and more sure that when her original Doctor had saved her life and transferred his life to her that somehow these buried memories had come along with that transfer.

Rose wondered just how much her body and mind were being changed for this man beside her. She could feel a reorganization of the way she processed thoughts. It was becoming faster and more efficient and almost…prescient.

An hour passed and he still hadn’t regained consciousness or even moved. She was exhausted and her eyes were getting heavier and heavier. She needed to sleep. It had been an extremely long day now and normally she would have been in bed long before this. She considered going into the Doctor’s room to sleep but she really didn’t want to leave him alone until he woke up and she knew for sure that he was all right. She just didn’t know what he’d think if he woke up in the same bed with her. Or what he might assume.

Well, it couldn’t be helped. Or maybe it could have been but she really didn’t care. She removed her jeans and her bra and climbed under the covers in just her shirt and knickers. She had no idea what the TARDIS had done with her pajamas from the previous night and she didn’t want to leave the Doctor alone long enough to look for them.

She moved to the top of the bed and managed to squirm her way under the duvet. Rose knew she probably ought to stay as close to the wall as possible but her need to know when he woke up overrode anything else. And she wanted him near. The feeling she had as she looked at him had been too far away from her heart for too long.

She rolled onto her side and placed one hand over his right heart, the one nearest her, and closed her eyes. Unfortunately it wasn’t the most comfortable position for her to be in. She really didn’t want him to wake up with her pressed right up against his side, but in the long run she wanted to sleep more than she wanted to prevent a misunderstanding, so she slid closer, pulled one of his arms out and laid her head against his shoulder.

With one arm wrapped around his middle, she sighed. It felt extraordinarily right to her. Not because of pheromones or lust or need, but because it was her and it was the Doctor, it was really the Doctor but as he would have been if they’d never met. He was that man but with ten more years of life under his belt. A bit more wounded and travel wearied, without the support of his own beloved TARDIS, without her to have made things better, but still him.

And now she was here to make things better for him. There was nothing she could ever do about the man she had lost, the man she was forever trapped away from. No way back, he had said. Impossible, he had said. And she had believed him. She believed him even more with today’s events.

This has been planned from the beginning by this Romana woman and the Doctor; the disjunction, the sacrifice of his life to gift her with his own and the genetic adaptations, the fact that they’d be separated and at the right time the duplicate version and TARDIS would seek her out and in so doing trigger her body to change. It could only be triggered by the original DNA; DNA that disappeared in the other Doctor’s regeneration.

Had he known when he’d agreed to this what one of him would be giving up? Had he understood then that what they had shared wouldn’t be easily wiped away and that one of him would have to live with that loss forever? Had he done it so that somewhere, somehow part of him would go on with his species and this girl who would be the mother of it even if one of him couldn’t? Had he even been aware once the disjunction occurred? Or had it all faded to nothing, sending him down two separate courses with no knowledge at all of what would occur?

Eventually her troubled thoughts eased and her tired body finally relaxed. Her eyes closed and she slept.



The Doctor woke with full knowledge of the events of the Time War since he’d first become aware in his current body. The memories crashing through his mind had been horrifying, but as he slept his subconscious had dealt with most of it, sorting the Time War itself easily away into the hidden pockets he normally kept it in. His knowledge of what he and Romana had done hovered on the surface, fully accessible now.

He became aware of the warm body tucked into his side and the arm flung across his chest, fingers resting over his left heart. The scent of Rose wafted gently towards him, a combination of peaches, vanilla, and lavender, with a slight saltiness and a whiff of the pheromones of her altered DNA. He could also smell worry on her.

Silently he asked his ship how long he’d been out. “Six hours,” came the silent reply. “She was afraid for you. I told her you would recover.” He thanked the ship and then tried to ease his arm out from under Rose. It was stinging with pins and needles.

Rose rolled away from him with a little whimper and he sat up and shook out his arm until feeling returned. He flung back the covers and got up to use the bathroom. He had planned on going to his own room, his body begging him to sleep after the recent memory crash, but he saw what he had exposed when he’d thrown the blanket back.

Rose lay there in her t-shirt and knickers, one rounded hip and thigh visible, her knee and downwards disappearing under the blanket. His eyes lingered on the curve of her buttocks and that decided it for him. He stripped off his jeans, realizing that Rose had already removed his shoes, socks, and belt for him. He hesitated a moment before divesting himself of his t-shirt, leaving only his boxer briefs covering him. He wanted to be comfortable, after all.

Comfort was also the excuse he gave for pulling Rose’s body back against him so that her back spooned firmly against his front. She let out a little shuddering sigh, pressing into him but not waking. He closed his eyes and felt the fatigue overtake him. It was just as well. He wouldn’t have been able to carry through with anything else tonight and he wasn’t sure Rose would have been pleased if he tried.



Rose left dreamland slowly the next morning. She was wonderfully warm, feeling cocooned and protected and…oh. The first thing she became aware of was the full length of the Doctor’s body pressed against the back of hers. Some time in the night they had shifted positions. He must have woken at some point and removed some clothing because she didn’t feel the roughness of denim against her legs. And her t-shirt must have ridden up in the night because she could feel the skin of his bare chest directly against her back.

The second thing she became aware of was that the Doctor’s hand was on her stomach under the front of her t-shirt. Perhaps stomach was not quite accurate. It was actually closer to her ribcage. Well, no if truth be told his hand was really grazing the bottom of her breast. Or maybe it was just creeping steadily upwards. She reached for his hand and pushed it down. He shifted in his sleep and that was enough to bring his erection into full contact with her backside.

Rose froze. “Doctor?” She whispered. “Are you awake?” There was no response from him. His breathing remained even and steady. So he’d been copping a feel in his sleep? At least that made it easier to deal with. Rose was caught halfway between amusement and embarrassment as she began to edge away from him. His arm suddenly tightened around her body and she was pulled firmly back against him. “Doctor?”

“Mine,” he mumbled and then a soft snore issued from his lips.

Oh, she was his was she? For a moment his possessiveness raised her hackles but considering the fact that she now knew that she had in fact been chosen across time and space, was currently being genetically reengineered to be his mate, and that there was a legend written about this very fact, maybe he actually did have a point. Still, that didn’t mean she was easy. Or maybe, she thought as his hand began to move up towards her breast again and wrenching desire crashed through her, she really was. His fingers began to gently caress her.

“Doctor!” She said sternly.

“Huh? What? Rose?” He came awake suddenly at her loud calling of his name. His body stiffened, although parts of him couldn’t be any stiffer than they already were, Rose thought. Then he slowly relaxed. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to pull his body away from hers or to move his hand away from where it was softly cupping her breast.

“Are you aware of what you’re doing?” She asked him.

“I was sleeping,” he said.

“And holding on to me.”

“And holding on to you,” he said absently, his index finger moving lightly across the tip of her nipple. Rose gasped.

“And are you aware of where your hand is?” She asked him, her voice rising a bit.

“Pretty aware, yeah,” he told her brushing the nipple again. “Kind of hard to mistake, that.” One more flick and she was pushing back into him involuntarily.

“We can’t do this now,” she managed. “Neither one of us is ready. This big mating legend of yours ends up in babies and I don’t know about you but I’m not ready for that!”

“Been a while for me, but I don’t think stroking your breast is going to cause pregnancy, Rose.” His voice was low and sensual and made her shiver despite herself.

“Doctor!”

His hand stilled and he reluctantly slid it down to her waist. “So, erm…shall I go check stores for condoms?” He asked her.

“No, you shouldn’t go check stores for condoms,” she said flustered. “We need to get to know each other.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” he said, pushing against her body.

“Not in the physical sense. Emotionally.” His hand moved down to her hip and she felt something rising up inside of her. She fought to clear her thinking. “And anyway, condoms might not even work. Not against what’s going on with our biology.”

A soft chiming noise filled the room and then the Doctor laughed low in his throat. The rumble of his chest did wonderful things to her. “The TARDIS has just informed me that the reengineering of your body won’t be complete for five years. There’s no chance of pregnancy until then.”

Faintly the smell of pineapples began to exude from the Doctor. “You’re dumping pheromones,” Rose complained.

“You started it,” he shot back a bit childishly.

“I woke up with your hand up my top. I think you started it,” she lobbed that shot right back at him.

“Obviously we both want it.”

“But…you said, before, you wouldn’t be able to control it. That I would get hurt.” Rose bit her lip.

“Rose, look at me.”

Rose turned around in the bed and raised her eyes to his face. “That pink fog the TARDIS used has given me an edge of restraint. And so has the serum. They haven’t worn off. I can stop myself without losing it.”

“Then why this?” Rose asked. “Why are you pushing for this?”

“This isn’t the mating imperative, Rose,” he said thoughtfully. “This is just me wanting you.”

“Well, I want you, too,” she said honestly. “But no matter how bad I want to shag you, I think we need to spend more time building a friendship first. Wanting you isn’t the same thing as knowing you or even trusting you.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“My first instinct is to. But that doesn’t have anything to do with you, Doctor. It has to do with how I felt about him. When you and I…when we do, I want there to be no doubt in my head that the man I’m making love to is you and only you. Because anything else isn’t fair to either of us,” Rose insisted.

The Doctor rolled away from her and sat up on the edge of the bed. She reached out and touched his back with her hand. “You okay?” She asked him.

“You make sense, Rose. Tell you what. Let’s go and find a planet to explore, get into a little trouble, and maybe have some fun.”

“Sounds good,” she said. She just wished it sounded as good as pulling him back into bed and giving in to this thing between them. With a sigh of reluctance she pushed against his back until he stood up and then slid out of bed behind him.

He turned to look at her, his eyes heavy with desire as they crept down her body, showing her he'd much rather be exploring something else besides a new planet. “Go on,” she said shakily. He bent down and retrieved his clothes and boots from her floor and with one last reluctant glance made his way across the hall to his own room.

Ch. 12:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/9130.html