amberfocus | A Place in Time (29/30) (Reply)

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Chapter Twenty-nine: Unbreakable Bond

“What’s wrong?” the Doctor asked Rose as they lay in bed together that night. There was a tension about her that he hadn’t seen since long before he’d lost her to a parallel world. Not since she'd been upset about the prophecy of her dying soon in battle all those years ago. That had proven to be right and wrong in ways unimagined at the time.

“I don’t know,” she said her fingers threading absently through his chest hair. She leaned forward and kissed the little spot between his pectoral muscles. She sighed then, nestling her head against his chest.

“I know you, Rose. You’re worrying at something,” the Doctor said softly. “Is it what Jack said? Never ever?” Her body tensed even more if that was physically possible.

“Yeah,” she nodded into his chest. “I guess it is. Last time those words came up…I didn’t like the result.”

“They’re just words, Rose. They don’t have that kind of power.” He was trying to reassure her but she was having none of it.

“All words have power,” she whispered. “It’s like,” she sat up and turned to look at him, “Have you ever been in a library, one of those ones that are really old and the shelves go up to the ceiling and you have to use a rolling ladder just to reach the top? And there are floors and floors of nothing but books? And the smell and the sounds and even the taste of the air just radiates with power?”

“Yeah. The one back home was like that. The power was in the knowledge held there...”

“Something ancient and old.” She shook her head. “I felt that tonight when he said those words. Like something walking over my grave.” She shivered, gooseflesh coming up all over her arms. Next to her the Doctor sat up and wrapped his arms around her.

“Tell me it’s nothing,” she whispered. “Tell me that what I’m feeling isn’t real. Tell me I’m safe.”

The Doctor stood up and held his hand out to Rose. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” Rose asked getting up and placing her hand in his.

“To the garden. I was going to wait for this until Jack and Donna had gone, but…there are enough hours to do this now and you’ll know you’re safe when we’re done.”

They walked without further conversation until they reached the carved ivory doors. Once inside the Doctor snicked the lock shut just in case there were any late night wanderers who might stumble upon them.

“Why are we here?” Rose asked.

“It’s time, Rose. Time for the ceremonial bonding.” He led her on a path, past the waterfall, towards a corner they’d not explored yet. As they entered the area, Rose gasped at the color of the grass beneath her feet, a brilliant shade of red she had never seen before that set up an immediate but not understood longing in her hearts.

As she looked around her she saw nothing familiar, other than the silver and crystal trees. There were other forms of vegetation that had not been anywhere else. The tiniest little dark purple flowering vines wove around the branches of the crystal trees, emitting a fragrance that smelled…like time. She shook her head. That was a silly thought. Time didn’t have a smell.

The brilliant orange sky dimmed into darkness and thousands of tiny pinpricks of light shone above them. “Where are we?” she breathed. “Why does this feel like home to me?”

“This is all that I have of Gallifrey,” he said softly. “This is the last place in the universe that even a piece of it exists.” He dropped her hand and took her by the shoulders. "It feels like home to you because I am home to you.”

She smiled, suddenly realizing that this was true. “Yes.”

“It’s time, Rose,” he repeated words he’d said earlier. “It’s time for the final bonding.”

“The ceremony?”

“It’s not really a ceremony so much as…I can’t describe it. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance that went with it back on the home world, but none of that was what really constituted the final joining. All of those rituals are dead and buried, Rose. We used some of them in the wedding, even. But the real bonding takes place here.” He put one hand on her forehead and one hand over her hearts.

He reached up into the crystal tree above him and pulled a length of the flowering vine down, wrapping it about Rose’s left wrist and then his own. He reached into the neckline of her nightgown and pulled out the pendant of Rassilon that she wore and pressed it to the ring on his hand. A warm yellow glow emerged from hers, combining with the silver of his own.

Her trust in him was total. She felt the vine on their left wrists beginning to writhe, saw it move up their arms and then entwine about their bodies, pulling them closer together. Again the smell of time seemed to be strong in her nostrils and she realized it was the tiny purple flowers emitting that scent. It wove all about her and him and then at last it fell to their feet.

The Doctor lifted her fingers to his temples and put his own onto hers. “Close your eyes. Walk with me,” he breathed. Rose did as he instructed and when she did she knew that the place her feet stood upon was no longer really in the TARDIS. It was within his hearts and somehow he was within hers, as well.

She felt the warmth of the Doctor’s love suffusing her, washing over every part of her mind and body and she could feel herself moving into him, like warmth seeping in to take all of the cold from his mind, everything that made him fear, every hurt he’d ever felt, every pain. She reached for it without thought, soothing it, lathing it in her love for him.

He walked through her mind, taking away her fears and remembered horrors of times he hadn’t been there to make things better. And she saw the destruction of his people and his home, the sacrifices he had made for the good of the universe and the bitter agony it had set up in his hearts. And somehow sharing these burdens with each other, lessened them, eased them, made it possible to let them go.

The heat started suddenly above her hearts. She reached out instinctively, found the source of that heat in him as well. Slowly that warmth crept its way across her skin each inch raising up a desire in her that she could feel being echoed back by him. It moved across her, whisper soft, the heat beginning oh so slowly to sear through her cells with it’s brightness and intensity.

By the time it had spread across her entire body she was trembling with her need of him and she could feel somewhere in the back of her mind, that his physical body trembled against hers. Her breath caught, quickening as he focused his thoughts on her, sending her waves of pleasure that she echoed and sent back to him, setting up a boomerang of emotion that got stronger and stronger as it ricocheted between them.

Her body broke out in sweat, the beads of perspiration rolling down her skin. She heard herself crying out his name, screaming nearly into infinity and heard in her mind the word ‘Rose!’ called out in desperation, longing, and lust. She began to shake and in one last burst of intense emotion felt an explosion of colors, sounds, tastes, and scents burst from her body. The pain was exquisite and yet wonderful at the same time and she felt it as it washed over him, this binding heat of passionate love. It was everything they were, held together as one.

When she returned to her own mind she found herself in a sweaty heap on the crimson grass, her naked limbs tangled with the Doctor’s, her body still joined with his. She hadn’t imagined there could be anything more intense than what she had already shared with the Doctor, but this had been a joining of mind and heart and souls. This had been bonding in the most intensive sense of the word.

She opened her eyes to meet his staring at her, his expression as unguarded as she had ever seen it. “Unto time eternal,” he said and instinctively she knew what words she was expected to say and said them, “And to each other,” and then they spoke together, “We belong.”

“I love you,” he told her, “And now you know how much.”

“I love you,” she whispered back. “And now you know it’s forever.” She snuggled into his arms, and they fell asleep, every cell in their bodies still singing within the confines of an unbreakable bond.

Ch. 30: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/58248.html