amberfocus | Pain (3/3)

A/N: Can Rose and the Doctor get past all of their misundersandings and finally, finally talk? Fair warning, my beta swore at me for the way I ended this chapter! *laughs evilly*
Chapter Three: Talk

Rose feels warmer than normal as she wakes, feels safe and cocooned, the unfamiliar sensation of weight holding her firmly to the bed. It takes her a moment to realize that this weight is him, is the same thing she feels each night as she drifts off to sleep. It is only unfamiliar because she doesn’t recognize it from this side of sleep.

Nor does she recognize the expression on his face from this side of sleep. For asleep he is and for once there is no tightness to his face, no tension. It is as if he no longer carries the weight of the universe upon his shoulders. His face is simply open, trusting, and gentle. She has seen his face like this only in flashes so brief she thinks she is imagining it whenever it appears. But here it is and she is able to study it without fear of interruption. She finds it beautiful, finds him beautiful, in repose.

It is easy to study him because they have shifted in the night so that she now lies on her back and he lies on his stomach. His arm is still wrapped about her, tucked snuggly up against the undersides of her breasts. One of his knees is hooked across her shin, but otherwise their bodies do not touch, separated by a few scant inches. She misses the contact, but thinks it’s just as well, especially as she needs to move away from him soon without waking him for biological necessity. Sleep is too rare a thing for him for her to want to disturb that just because she needs the bathroom. Especially when it is obviously this needed.

There are lines on his face that speak of his exhaustion and of having lived a hard life. She does not think they make him look particularly old, though he may beg to differ. He seems to think he’s too old for her, not even his real age, but his apparent age. That’s always been clear. Until that moment last night in the bed when he sought to touch her breasts and she’d frozen. She’s only beginning to see over these last few weeks that he doesn’t view her as a daughter-figure or a student. She’s thought for so long she was only someone he teaches things to and wants to impress with his intelligence, but not someone he wants to have sex with.

Now she is confused, unsure of herself, and scared. She had frozen last night because of that uncertainty. She has longed for an intimate relationship with the Doctor, but she can’t start one now, not when he is going to take her home. Not for ‘thank you for a wonderful time, but now you’ve become a liability’ good-bye sex. Not for ‘I died but came back and we survived and the world didn’t really end’ comfort sex. She wants…she wants ‘I love you’ sex. And he doesn’t do domestic. You can’t get any more domestic than ‘I love you’ sex.

Rose wonders when she hit this turning point. The first night he’d come to her bed, she’d been willing to shag him just to shag him. She’d been randy after weeks of danger and no sex to relive the pressure and he’d come to her and she’d thought that’s what he wanted and she’d thought it would be fun to shag an alien and if she could trust him with her life she could trust him with her body.

Plus, well, she’d been quite interested the few times he’d held her a little too intimately after a frightening moment and she’d felt something rather intriguing pressing against her stomach. Something that left no doubt in her head he was definitely a male of his species in addition to the obvious outward appearance, even if he hadn’t been in an aroused state. He hadn’t wanted it though. He’d simply wanted a warm body to hold. Now he wants a warm body to shag, but not to make love to and Rose wants to be made love to.

Reluctantly, she wiggles her leg out from underneath his and then moves his arm off her as slowly as she can so as not to wake him, then rolls to the edge of the bed and manages to get out from under the covers and scoot along the wall and off the end without waking him up. She sits there for a moment, glances back at him and then gets up.

Rose isn’t sure what to think as she heads sleepily into the bathroom. It should be a big step that he is here this morning when she wakes up, but she can’t help feeling she’s reading too much into it, that the only reason she woke up with him beside her is because he fell into one of his rare deep sleeps. Being eaten by a Reaper couldn’t have been easy on him. It must have really sapped his energy stores.

She sighs and washes her face vigorously. She had been so upset the night before she hadn’t removed the previous day’s makeup and it was a mess of mascara tear tracks. She glances at her beauty kit with a frown and wonders if there’s any point in putting anything on today. She’s pretty sure she’ll spend the day in tears when the Doctor takes her back home.

She scratches at the side of her neck and is puzzled when her fingers brush against the body-warmed metal of a chain. She fishes it out, glances down at it and has to grab the side of the counter to steady herself as she looks at the gleaming TARDIS key. But…how? She stares at the door that leads back to the bedroom. There is only one way. He put it on her. Does it mean—can it mean—he still wants her here? Her heart leaps and she tries to calm it, telling herself sternly that she has to find out. She can’t live in this limbo anymore. She takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders and leaves the room.

The Doctor wakes from the best sleep he has had since the Time War, stretches his rangy limbs, and seeks for the warmth of Rose beside him. His eyes snap open when his hands encounter only emptiness and a sudden fright fills his stomach with dread. He had imagined waking up beside her, his way of letting her know he wouldn’t leave her, would never leave her again. But he’d never imagined waking up in her bed without her there.

The dread in his stomach turns to despair and he rolls over, swings his legs to the side of the bed and sits up. Her rejection of him is obvious. She hadn’t wanted him last night and she obviously hadn’t wanted him there this morning. In the dim light he looks around her room and realizes that it is clean. He sees that her rucksack is out of the closet sitting on the arm chair and his heart sinks. He hadn’t seen it in the dark last night, but it’s obvious to him now. She wants to go home.

He pounds his fist into his open palm. He’s blown it, blown it so badly he can’t fix it and she wants to go home. All he’s ever wanted to do was give her what she wanted. This time it had been time with her father. He’d never meant it to go so terribly wrong. For a moment he is tempted to go back into his own timeline and interfere, prevent himself from taking her back to see Pete Tyler in the first place, damn any paradox it might cause. It’s not like there are any other Time Lords left to prevent him if he so chooses. He swallows harshly, gets himself back under control and stops himself from carrying out that want.

How will he be able to bear Rose leaving him? How has he let himself depend so heavily on this little woman’s presence in his life? He does not wish to go back to the suicidal existence he was barely surviving in before he met Rose. He has spent so much time in darkness since the Time War and the only thing that has chased that darkness away is Rose. Her smiles during the day and holding her body at night. If he loses those things, if he loses her, what will he have left to cling to, to anchor him, to save him?

He has to find a way to stop her from wanting to leave him. He’ll do better, be a better man, stop calling her stupid ape and ignoring her opinions, which he ought to do anyway, because really she was quite bright and she’d turned out right more times than he had lately. He’d keep a check on his temper and sometimes take her places that weren’t dangerous, places that were just beautiful. Like he could take her to Woman Wept and show her the beautiful frozen ocean, or there were these dragons on this rather pink prehistoric planet, and of course Barcelona! He could take her to the planet Barcelona and maybe she’d see that life with him could be more than just something that hurt. He could--.

“Doctor?” she asks just as her hand comes down and touches his shoulder. He jumps at her touch, but before she can pull away he reaches for her hand and tugs her in front of him.

“Rose, oh, Rose, I--.” He breaks off when he sees that she is holding his key in her hand. He holds his breath as she looks at it and then looks at him and for the first time in ages he sees her clearly. There are tears in her eyes as she faces him.

“You’re not kicking me out?” she whispers.

“No,” he says just as softly.

“You want me to stay?”

“I do, Rose. Yes. I want you to stay. I want you with me. Please don’t go.” He feels so vulnerable as he pushes the words out.

She looks down at the key again and then back up at him. “Never,” she says. “I’ll never leave you as long as you want me here.”

He pulls her into his lap, cradles her body against him. Holds her as tightly as he dares while still allowing her to breathe and strokes her hair. “I want you here,” he says.

“You do?” He nods against the top of her head.

“I really do. Always have. I’ve never…I’ve never asked anyone to come with me twice. Never wanted it like I did with you. You’re different, Rose. You’re...” He shrugs and holds her tighter and she gasps.

“Need to breathe, Doctor.” He loosens his arms just a bit.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “I just. I don’t want to lose you. You’re my best friend, Rose. My best…the best…I…”

“Yeah,” she interrupts softly. “You’re mine, too.” She squirms around until she gets her arms free of his hold and then rests one along the back of his shoulders and with the other she reaches up and slides her fingers along his jaw line, across his cheekbone and then down to his mouth where she traces the outline of his lips.

His eyes close and he inhales sharply and that impressive bit of masculinity she’s felt on other occasions begins to make itself known. She moves her hand down to his shoulder then around to the back of his neck and he leans towards her and his lips brush against hers. He starts to pull back, but she stops him with pressure from her hand and leans back into him, her little tongue pushing at the seal of his lips and then he is opening his mouth and sliding his tongue against hers and then the cloister bells begin to shriek.

To Be Continued in Have: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/46292.html