Wolf Moon: Chapter Fifteen

[amberfocus]

Temple of Hidden Means

 

When Rose woke up the next morning she had burrowed her way inside the Doctor’s leather jacket and was resting atop his body.  His t-shirt had been shoved up out of the way and her cheek and arms rested against bare skin.  He could feel his very hard erection trying to escape through his jeans, lined up a little too well with her own body.  For all of her tough talk the night before, she was the one who seemed to be molesting him in her sleep this time around.

 

He kept himself firmly in check wanting to honor her request for time only infinitesimily more than he wanted to ravage her beautiful body.  Her arms held him lightly yet firmly and her breathing was steady, but he could tell she was no longer asleep.  Gently she stirred and stroked one hand down his side and he felt his breath catch in his chest.  “Morning, Doctor,” she murmured.

 

“Morning, Rose,” he said gruffly.  She pushed herself off him and rolled to one side.  He shifted down a bit so that they were lying on their sides next to each other and looking into each other’s eyes.

 

“Sorry about that,” she said.  “Apparently I get gropey in my sleep, too.”

 

“I don’t mind,” he told her.  “I like it when you touch me.”  His grin was lazy and sensual and he hesitantly reached out his hand and ran it gently over the curve of her hip.  She smiled softly at him and scooted just a little bit forward.  She pressed her mouth against his, her tongue seeking entrance and he let her past without resistance.

 

Her kiss was sweet and eager and she stroked his tongue hungrily.  His hand left her hip and travelled up under her coat and towards the swell of her breast, his thumb just brushing the outside edge before firmly moving back down to her hip again.  Rose’s hands came up, one to the back of his neck and the other to run across the top of his head.  He eased her onto her back and she pulled him to her, her hips pushing against his.  But no.  She had said…last night, she had said she wanted to go slowly.   She had said she wanted to take her time getting to know him.

 

With a loud groan and a monumental effort of will he broke the kiss and pulled away from her.  She sighed.  “Not so good at will power first thing in the morning, am I?”  She asked him.

 

“No,” he said reaching out and stroking her hair softly.  “And I’m not sure how much longer I will be either if you keep looking at me like that.”

 

Rose sat up and moved away from him a little more.  “Where’d the wolf go?”  She asked him.

 

“She’s outside.  She went out when the sun came up and every so often she’ll pace past the entrance,” the Doctor told her.

 

“What do you think she is, Doctor?”  Rose wondered.

 

“I don’t know.  She’s obviously more than just an animal, but I can’t seem to reach her mind.  I tried to while you were sleeping but she just growled at me,” he explained.

 

“I wonder why she doesn’t like you?”  Rose asked.

 

“I’m not sure if it’s really that she doesn’t like me, so much as she just really likes you.  She’s more than just a guardian.  She’s a protector.”

 

Rose nodded then climbed to her feet.  “Well, I have to go find 'the facilities' and change back into my clothes,” she said.  “See if you can stay on the wolf’s good side while I’m gone.”

 

When Rose returned a few minutes later sans bikini top but in her t-shirt, she was rubbing her river wet hands dry on her jeans.  She stood outside the cave entrance talking softly to the animal while the Doctor observed them both from a safe distance and set about putting together a light breakfast of cereal and bananas.  He’d managed to will his hormones back into submission while doing so.

 

Rose smiled at him gratefully as she sat down across from him at a relatively flat rock and they ate their cereal.  “I think she found a safe path for us to use,” Rose told him.

 

“You seem to have a lot of faith in her,” he said.  She shrugged and watched him as he peeled the first banana and broke it in half, handing her a piece.  A minute later they were done and were washing up in the river.  Rose refilled the canteens with river water, handing each one to the Doctor in turn so he could zap it with his sonic screwdriver, making it potable.  Then Rose stored them away and hefted the backpack onto her shoulders.

 

“I can carry that for you if you want me to,” the Doctor offered chivalrously.

 

“I’m good, Doctor,” she said with a look he was rapidly beginning to recognize as her ‘I’m not a helpless female’ look.  She turned towards the wolf and the animal rose to her legs and trotted down the river bank.  About ten minutes later the wolf had led them to a path with a gradual incline that worked its way up the red and orange canyon wall.

 

He studied her figure as she climbed the incline steadily in front of him, watching intently the way her long brown ponytail bounced and shone in the sunlight.  Rose seemed to prefer saving her breath for the climb and he wasn’t in a particularly garrulous mood himself, but the silence still seemed companionable and comfortable between them.  He was however slowly growing uncomfortable and feeling a very strong need to make physical contact of some sort with Rose very soon.

 

It was a much quicker trip up then the one down had been and within two hours they were standing on the opposite canyon rim and looking back the way they had just come.  “It’s beautiful,” Rose murmured.  “Can we take a break?”  The wolf immediately dropped to her haunches, then all the way down flat, resting her head on her forelegs.

 

“Sure,” the Doctor said.  Rose sat down with her back against a large boulder and patted the ground beside her.  The Doctor went over and sat beside her and she reached out and took his hand.  He adjusted the grip, lacing his fingers through hers.  Rose leaned her head against his shoulder.

 

The Doctor felt better immediately.  “I didn’t like going so long without touching you,” he said without thinking.

 

“Like you were uncomfortable in your own skin?”  Rose asked.  He nodded.  “I feel it, too.  Part of the pheromonal attraction, I’m sure.”  She sighed.  “I wish I knew what was real,” she told him.

 

“Real?”

 

“What I’m feeling,” she explained.  “I feel like I’m being cheated out of a natural attraction to you.  And yet at the same time, the attraction is so strong.  So alive within me.  So lusty.  And I’m confused.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because of you.  I keep expecting you to be him, you know?  To push me away or tell me one thing with your words and another thing with your eyes.  I keep expecting rejection, I guess,” she told him.

 

“That’s not something that’s going to come from me,” he reassured her.  “I want you and I have no trouble telling you that I want you.  However I can get you, even if it isn’t flat on your back.”

 

“Hey, you had me flat on my back this morning,” she told him.  “It’s not like I don’t want to.  You know that.  But I want to because I want to be wanting you.”

 

“Aren’t you finding me in here at all, Rose?  Even a little bit?”  He asked her, tapping his forehead.

 

“Yeah,” she said softly.  “I am.  But it’s not so simple.  I don’t suppose life will ever be simple again, really.  Wouldn’t trade it away though.  Meeting you has been amazing.”

 

He squeezed her hand softly and then the wolf rose up and whined.  “I suppose we best be moving on,” the Doctor said.  “The old girl seems determined to show us something.”

 

They got to their feet and restarted their trek after the wolf, hands still firmly clasped together.  The going was a lot easier on the flat, red wasteland and for the first few minutes the walk was slow and leisurely.  A haze appeared in the distance and the wolf’s pace quickened.  They moved faster, just keeping the animal in sight.  It was only a few more moments before they climbed a rise and stretched before them was an ancient city, most of it fallen into ruins.

 

One building, though deserted and somewhat crumbling, on the edge of the city seemed to be in much better repair.  They stopped at the foot of the stairs and watched to wolf trot up them.  She turned about at the top of the steps and sat down on her haunches, lifting her head skywards and howling.  The sound disconcerted both Rose and the Doctor, the tension noticeable between them in their grip on each other’s hands.

 

“I think she wants us to go in there,” the Doctor said.

 

“Should we?”  Rose asked.  She looked up at him.

 

“Could be dangerous.  The building could be falling apart,” he said.  “It’s up to you.”

 

“I don’t think she’d lead us into danger,” Rose told him.  “Let’s go then.”

 

They climbed the steps and the Doctor read aloud the inscription on a plaque next to the doorway while Rose looked at the ornately carved lintels on either side of the door.

 

“Discover hope inside these walls

Though strands of time resist

And hold on tightly to your ground

Find strength here to persist.”

 

“I suppose that’s better than ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,’ isn’t it?”  Rose asked rhetorically.

 

The Doctor gave her a startled look.  “I don’t think we’re at the gates of Hell, Rose.”

 

“Just as well.  I’ve already met the devil.  Well, him in a possessed human.  Nasty bloke.  Wouldn’t like another run-in really,” she told him.  “Though he was supposedly destroyed.  Not just the bloke but the possessor.”

 

“You’ll have to tell me about that some time.”

 

“What’s it say above the doorway?”  Rose asked.  “And how come the TARDIS isn’t translating it?”

 

“The script has its roots in Old Gallifreyan,” he explained.  “She doesn’t translate that since I know it.”

 

“Well, I wish she’d translate it for me,” Rose grumbled.  “Come on.”  Slowly they entered the building.

 

“It says it’s a temple of hidden means.  When we get back to the ship you can ask her if she will.  It would only require a few minor adjustments to the translation circuit.  But she has to be willing.  Last time I went poking around in her innards without permission she made my hair catch on fire.  It’s only just now starting to grow out properly again,” the Doctor told her.

 

“You mean you don’t keep it that short on purpose?”  She asked.

 

“Nope.  If you’d run into me six weeks ago it would have been a couple of inches longer.  And five weeks ago, I would have been bald.  Had to shave off all the burnt hair,” he told her.

 

“Oh.  I’ve never seen him with longer hair.  Not in this body, I mean.  He always kept his short like yours is right now,” she said.

 

“I can.  Keep it short, I mean.  If you like it that way,” he said hesitantly.

 

She stopped walking and gave him a searching look.  “Think I’d like to see it longer first,” she said shyly.  “See how it feels in my fingers.”  She blushed a bit as she thought about how and why she’d be running her fingers through it.

 

The wolf had disappeared but she returned when she realized she was no longer being followed.  She circled around behind Rose and the Doctor and pushed against their legs with her back.  “Okay, okay, we’re coming,” Rose told the animal.  The wolf whined and led them forward again.

 

The room that they entered was golden and filled with light, the sunshine shafting in through massive skylights.  The wolf walked into the center of the room and the warmth of the light encircled her.  Slowly she rose up onto her hind legs and her body began to morph into something humanoid.

 

The fur rippled and pulled back, revealing a tall, pale, regal looking woman with glittering black eyes, wearing a flowing black hooded cape.  She pulled the hood backwards and her long raven black hair tumbled freely down to her waist.  Her face was shaped almost like a heart, her cheekbones high and her mouth full and sharply red, the only color she possessed.

 

“Welcome, Rose Tyler,” she said.  “Doctor,” she added as an afterthought.

 

“Who are you?”  Rose asked the woman.

 

“I am Ambigere,” she said.  The Doctor frowned thoughtfully.

 

“And what are you?  Why is it you’re here?”  The Doctor asked.

 

She turned to look at him with her hands on her hips, but her expression told him nothing.  She turned back towards Rose.  “I,” she said slowly and carefully, “Am your loophole.”

Ch. 16:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/11598.html 

Comments

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

Ambigere will explain the loophole in the next chapter. Until then, you'll have to be patient, won't you, dear?