amberfocus | Hope (1/3)

A/N: Rose's feelings for the Tenth Doctor begin to solidify as she realizes he really is the same man he was before the regeneration. The Doctor has hope that she is finally accepting him as he is now. Next in the Moments in Darkness series of the Ten Branch line. Set before, during, and after Tooth and Claw and recognizable dialog is from that episode.

Chapter One: Safe

Rose wakes up feeling warm and safe for the first time in what feels like months, but she knows it has only been a few short days since she felt this secure, even if it was in some ways also a lifetime ago. His lifetime ago. The Doctor is beside her in her bed. Sort of. Part of him is beside her but the rest of him is enfolding her body with his. He’s trapped one of her thighs between his, his top leg looping around hers to meet with the lower one. One of his arms is under her body meeting the other which is wrapped around her waist. His head is pillowed against her breast, his mouth very close to the flannel of her pajama top, his lips almost grazing her nipple. He’s snoring.

She hadn’t expected him to show up at all, hadn’t even been sure she’d wanted him to, but the feeling bubbling up inside her tells her that she did indeed want him to. The feeling of betrayal as that thought crosses her mind is so small she barely recognizes it for what it is, and this time she is able to push it away completely. She tells herself to let it go because he is the same man. If nothing else, his possessive holding of her body would convince her of it. She’s woken up this way too many times in the past, held exactly this same way for him to be any other man.

She wants to laugh and it surprises her. A day or two ago her first instinct would have been to push him off of her but right now she doesn’t want to. A slow warmth is infusing her body from where his exhalation of breath ghosts across her nipple. She feels a growing arousal for this man beside her but wishes it would go away. When it doesn’t, instead slowly building, her fingers rise to touch his hair, to stroke him softly. He purrs as she threads her fingers into the silky locks and he nuzzles against her chest. “Doctor?” she asks hoping he isn’t awake.

He makes no response and she realizes with relief he’s still deeply asleep. She strokes his hair more freely, marveling that she had at first resented his hair when it had meant never touching the soft, fuzzy, close-cropped hair of her first Doctor again. It’s beautiful, really and just as soft. Now she’s got her hands in it she’s already coming to appreciate it for the great hair that it is. As she continues to run her fingers through it she feels him hardening against her thigh in his sleep, something he had always done before when she rubbed his scalp. It has always been a major turn-on of his and it is yet another indicator to her that this man is her Doctor.

Reluctantly she pulls her hand away from his head before it wakes him. She’s curious about what he’s like now, what that hardness hints at, but is not quite in a position to tell if anything has changed in that regard. She blushes at the thought, because no matter how much she’s enjoying this closeness she’s not ready for sex. She’s afraid to have sex with him and she’s aware with newfound clarity why. It isn’t that she thinks he’s not the Doctor. She accepts that he is. It’s because there is a connection between them when they have sex that means she won’t be able to hide the baby from him. And she’s still too uncertain of their new relationship to tell him the truth on that score yet.

A few more days, that’s all she needs, just some time for her to cement this newfound acceptance, to come to terms with everything that has happened in the last five—has it only been five?—days. A few more days to come to terms with the fact that he never told her regeneration was something that could happen. They’d been so close and he’d never even thought about telling her something so important about himself. If he’d told her, prepared her for the possibility, she is sure it would have been easier. She’s almost there now. She can feel it.

Yes, just a few more days to grow used to the newness of him, to feel completely at ease again. Then she’ll tell him. She’ll tell him everything. She wishes she could do it now, but she’s not sure how he’ll take it. His old self wanted a baby with her, but would this new one? He had been devastated when he realized there couldn’t possibly be one. That was before the TARDIS had taken matters into her own hands.

Rose had figured that part out when she’d merged her consciousness with the ship’s and took the Vortex into her body. It was one of the many things the TARDIS had revealed to her in those moments, that when she changed Blon back into an egg to give her a chance to start over again, she also tampered with Rose’s DNA to make a child possible. That and the fact that the TARDIS had been protecting the baby during the symbiosis, keeping the power from destroying the fetus for as long as possible. Of course if the Doctor hadn’t taken the Vortex out of her, it would have killed both her and the baby. So his own sacrifice in regeneration had been not only to save his lover, but to save the unborn child he didn’t even know about. He has the right to know that. She just has to figure out how to tell him.

At least she knows the child within her womb is safe. The TARDIS had reassured her on that score back when the Doctor had been unconscious with regeneration sickness. If the ship hadn’t done she would have had to tell the Doctor right away to be sure. Sometimes she wishes the ship had been silent on that factor or had told the Doctor herself so that Rose won’t have to find the right moment to tell him, won’t have to wait until she grows fully comfortable with him again. She wants it out of her hands. She wants him to know. She wants the courage to tell him.

Rose sighs and her hand reaches for his hair again of its own volition before she catches herself and stops. Her bladder is starting to make itself known to her rather insistently. She tries to slide away from the Doctor but as she does his grip on her tightens. She is going to have to wake him.

“Doctor?” she says softly. He mumbles something and his mouth slips that little bit closer to her nipple, his exhalation making it harden. She says his name again and this time he whispers her name back to her, his lips just grazing the risen bud. His tongue snakes out of his mouth and laves across it and she gasps as it soaks the thin fabric covering her and shoots fire into her nerve endings. His eyes fly open and he’s flinging himself away from her so fast he falls out of bed and lands with a crash on his bum on the floor.

“Are you okay?” she asks but he’s gathering up his suit coat and shoes and socks and fleeing the room so rapidly she’s not even sure he heard her.

Rose drags herself to the bathroom, uses the toilet and then starts the water for a shower. As she cleans her body she realizes that her sexual response to this version of the Doctor might be different, but it’s just as strong. She’s pretty sure her body is going to be ready to shag him before her mind is. Well, actually, she’s pretty sure her body is ready to shag him now. She sighs and for once wishes she could just take her brain out of the equation entirely.

Somewhere fun, he thinks manically. He needs to take her somewhere fun. Somewhere where they can relax, forget about danger for a while, take a lovely break and laugh and be themselves. He focuses tightly on that idea so he doesn’t have to think about what his rather rebellious tongue has just done to Rose. He had promised her time and space and what does she wake up to? A needy Time Lord wrapped around her body with a hard on who was licking her breast. Even in sleep this body has an oral fixation.

He has to flood his system with hormone suppressing brain chemicals to get that erection under control. Rose has made it very clear that there will be no sex until she’s comfortable with his changes and even then, well…he doesn’t know how she’ll feel about it. He never should have gone into her bed like that. He just…he missed her so much and the door had been open and she’d curled herself into him and called him her Doctor and he’d thought maybe…

He’s loved her for a long time, but the intensity with which he feels it now astounds him. Everything is on such a heightened state of arousal. Tastes, scents, colors, everything. Not just Rose. But especially Rose. Will she be able to forgive him for his lapse or will she demand he take her home for failing to live up to his end of the bargain?

Maybe if he just ignores what he did she will, too and they can just pretend it never happened. "Please, please, please," he whispers. He can’t lose her now, he can’t, not when she’s just starting to trust him again. At least, if he hasn’t blown that trust with his actions this morning, she is. He needs to stop thinking about that. If he can’t stop thinking about that with his huge Time Lord brain to get lost in how does he expect Rose can with her less complex human brain. Seems like his ability to fixate on things may not just be on the oral level.

He picks up the mallet and slams it into the TARDIS console. His ship gives an indignant noise of protest and he apologizes soothingly. “What am I going to do?” he asks aloud. “I messed everything up with her. Again.”

The TARDIS sound system roars to life and starts playing music that makes him laugh. That’s it! A concert! Rose adores music and she loves watching it live. Perhaps a concert will keep her distracted enough that she’ll forget about what he did, or maybe forgive him for it if she has enough fun. “Where’s Rose?” he asks the TARDIS, who informs him she’s in the shower.

He scribbles a note on a piece of paper that tells Rose to dress for 1979 and leaves it taped to her knickers drawer. He beats a hasty retreat back to the console room and waits. She shows up several minutes later in a violet t-shirt and a dungaree dress. “What about this? Will it do?”

He turns and gives her the briefest of glances, his eyes most decidedly not looking at the long expanse of her legs on view. “For the late ‘70’s? You’d be better off in a bin bag. Hold on, listen to this.” From the corner of his eye he sees her cringe and hopes his propensity for insults is something he can keep control of this regeneration.

He turns the music up louder and rushes on. “Ian Drury and the Blockheads. Number one in 1979.” She follows him to the console but he continues to skip around it, afraid that if he settles he’ll have to look at her and see disappointment or anger or frustration flashing in her eyes.

“You’re a punk,” she says with great good humor and something within him relaxes. He leans over the console and adjusts a lever.

“It’s good to be a lunatic,” he sings.

“That’s what you are! A big old punk with a bit of…rockabilly thrown in.”

“Wanna go see him?”

“You mean a concert?” she asks in astonishment.

He finally meets her eyes. “What else is the TARDIS for? I can take you to the Battle of Trafalgar, the first anti-gravity Olympics, Caesar crossing the Rubicon…” He’s still circling the console and she’s still following him around it. “Or Ian Drury at the Top Rank, Sheffield, England, Earth, 21st November, 1979! What do you think?”

She smiles at him and his hearts skip a beat in his relief. She’s choosing to ignore what happened in the bed. “Sheffield it is.”

“All right.” And he sends them hurtling into the Vortex.

Ch. 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/168018.html

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From:

ramblinsuze.livejournal.com

That first image of the Doctor all wrapped around Rose and snoring away is just too darn cute. I suspect Rose might have noticed this. ;)

They've got a whole lot of stuff to work out, especially Rose, but at least this is starting off well. I honestly can't imagine what it must be like to have your lover, the father of your baby, suddenly be a completely different person. Yes, the essentials are still there, but...very, very different. I'd be having a hard time with that, too.

I've always wondered why the Doctor never tells his companions about regeneration to prepare them for the possibility. The only thing I can come up with is that he's always a bit in denial. "Nope...won't happen to me!" And then it does. It's always been shocking for his companions, but for him to not tell Rose, who is obviously so much more, was kinda dumb on his part. But again, I think it goes back to the "it's not gonna happen" thing. For a genius, he can be quite dumb at times...

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Hope (1/3)

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