amberfocus | The Direct (and Not so Direct) Approach (4/4)

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illusiondivine

Title: The Direct (and Not so Direct) Approach (4/4)
Author:

amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler
Genre: Romance, Fluff
Rating: Teen (But with a racy line or two that might not be safe for work.)
Betas:

amyo67,

jeprdyfrndly
Summary: Rose Tyler turns down the Ninth Doctor's invitation to travel with him twice. With a little gentle persuasion, and becoming an active presence in her Earthbound life, can he change her mind?
A/N: Written for the

then_theres_us ficathon. AU from the end of the episode Rose.

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three

Chapter Four

The kiss had rather taken him by surprise. Of course, his first impulse when he’d seen her looking so beautiful, had been to grab her and do the exact same thing, kiss her senseless, but he’d managed, just barely, to refrain from doing that. With her lips on his though, he had no objection whatsoever to her rather eager mouth and after his initial surprise, participated in the kiss with enough enthusiasm that he had to remind himself she was human and needed to breathe a bit more often than he did.

When he broke the kiss and pulled back slightly her fingers tightened against his suit coat and she had to steady herself. “You all right?” he asked gently. He brushed a tendril of hair back from her face and met her eyes.

“Knees are a bit weak,” she admitted with a soft sigh, “but I have to say, I’ve been wanting to do that since the day you showed up at the garage.” She gave herself a little shake, let go of his clothing and slid one hand down his arm to take his hand. “It’s a bit like a fairy tale,” she said as they began walking towards the stairs.

“I’m no prince charming. I want you to be clear on that.”

“You’re pretty charming from where I sit. Or rather, wobble. The heels are a bit high. I love them, but I’m gonna have to hold onto you when I walk,” Rose said.

“All part of the plan,” he said with a grin that set her heart to pounding faster. He could hear it.

“Doctor, I broke up with Mickey the other day,” she said on a rush.

“I kind of figured that out when you kissed me.”

“How do you tell that from a kiss?”

“I don’t. I tell that from the fact that you’re a loyal person and it’s not something I think you’d do, kiss one man when you’re involved with another,” he said simply.

They navigated the stairs in silence, Rose holding onto both him and the rail for dear life until they made it to ground level. The chauffer opened the door and Rose got in while the Doctor ran around to the other side and seated himself beside her.

“You really didn’t have to do all this for me,” Rose said when the driver pulled out and they were on their way to the restaurant. “I love it, but simple things are fine, too.”

“Good, because this is likely the only time you’ll ever see me in a suit and tie,” he said.

“That’s too bad. You wear them very well.” Her eyes on him were more than a little admiring.

“Maybe in my next life. In this one, I prefer leather.”

“I’ll just bet you do,” she said, her voice turning to its most flirtatious. “You wear it very well, too, by the way.”

He grinned. “I try to stay fit,” he says. “Do a lot of running. Usually for my life.”

“Is it always that dangerous?”

He shrugged. “You saw how things could get, but really that’s just the bits in between. Most of the time it’s wondrous if I remember to look at it. I’m a bit jaded sometimes. You’d help these old eyes to see things from a young perspective again.”

“You’re not that old. What are you? 40? 45?” she asked.

“Try 900.”

“What, seriously?” she asked.

“Is that a problem?”

“I can deal with an age gap,” she said. “But…are we…will we be compatible?”

“’Course. I wouldn’t invite someone along who I don’t get on with,” he said.

Rose bit her lip and he could see she was trying to refrain from laughing at him. “That’s not what I meant.”

He stared at her blankly. “You kiss remarkably like a human,” she said, trying again. “Do you…do other things…like a human?”

“Other things? Oh,” he said, his big old Time Lord brain catching up with her line of questioning. “Mostly.”

“What’s that meant to mean?” she asked.

He smiled at her and touched her knee, squeezing it gently. “Time Lords do it better.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He nodded. “We take our time. Lots and lots of time.” His voice had gotten very dark as he thought about taking his time with the lovely young woman beside him. Damn, but he’d fallen hard.

“But otherwise?”

“It’s a little bit different, but even more pleasurable.”

Rose blushed and he took his hand off her knee and laced his fingers through hers. “But there’s plenty of time for that, Rose Tyler. If you decide to come with me.”

“You do know how to entice a girl,” she said.

Their conversation broke off as the limo pulled up to the front of the restaurant. The Doctor ran around the car to help her out and then they entered the restaurant. It was beautifully decorated and they were taken to the best table in the house. He’d made sure of that. He knew about wooing and if he was going to convince her to actually travel with him, let alone be with him at some point, he needed to offer every enticement he could.

The way she was looking at him made his hearts skip a bit. He’d never expected she’d be so interested in him. Sure he was fascinating, but he knew this body’s looks were sort of…unique, though considering what he’d been numerous times before he was damn attractive. But compared to all the pretty, pretty boys in the city Rose had grown up in (or his eighth self)…well, that was a different story. Still, she wasn’t looking around at any of them. Her eyes were firmly on his.

“So what made you change your mind and come out with me?” he asked. “The dress, the shoes, the jewelry?”

“Nope,” said Rose. “Don’t get me wrong, they’re beautiful, but strip it all away and there’s—.”

A very naked Rose, his mind couldn’t help filling in.

“—still you. And just you is fascinating. I’ve been curious about you since the day I met you. You told me to forget you. That’s basically the one thing you could have said to make me not ever forget you,” she told him. “Did you plan that?”

“Might have done.”

“It worked.”

They looked over the menu for a few moments then ordered their food when the waiter came. “Can I ask you something?” the Doctor said.

“I guess.”

“Where’s your father in all this?”

“You don’t think I see you as a father figure?”

“Not after that kiss. Not even before it, either, really, though I’ve been accused of worse.” He shrugged.

“My dad died when I was a little girl. I wasn’t even a year. He was hit by car. Hit and run driver. I never got to know him.”

“So it’s just been you and your mum almost your whole life.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “That’s why I’m worried about leaving her to run off with you, Doctor. It’s hard to make ends meet as it is. Mum said once that Dad had said something about taking out a life insurance policy the week before he was killed, but she never knew if he did it or not. She never found any paperwork. She checked with the big companies, but…” Rose shrugged. “Never found anything.”

“What was his name, your dad?”

“Pete. Peter Allan Tyler.”

The food arrived and it gave the Doctor the excuse he needed to sit back and take stock of what Rose had just said. As she delighted over the dish she was served he was figuring out how to go back in time and make sure her father bought that life insurance policy. He couldn’t change the fact that Pete had died, couldn’t change anything about how Rose had grown up without any money, but if he made sure that Pete bought it and that the policy could suddenly be found somewhere, perhaps in a safety deposit box that had been paid for up until the present…

“You’re so quiet,” Rose said.

“Just savoring the evening.”

“How are the TARDIS repairs going?”

“They’re coming along. I could fly her if I needed to now. Say, I don’t suppose that ex-boyfriend of yours taught you anything mechanical?” he asked.

“I know my way around an engine,” she said, “and how to use tools.”

“That’s good. If you come with me, I could use the help. She’s in pretty bad shape, you may have noticed.”

“Yeah, I did. How’d that happen? You don’t seem the sort to let things go into disrepair,” she said.

“There were some explosions. A lot of stuff got damaged in…in the war.”

“War?”

“There was a war,” he said. He didn’t really want to talk about it, hadn’t even meant to say it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, putting her hand over his.

“It’s the past,” he said. “I’m much more interested in the immediate future right now. Especially if it involves you.”

Rose blushed again and looked down at her plate. “You know that I’m not ready to just jump into things with you, right? Even if I go traveling with you, you know that right?”

“You can come to me in your own time,” he said. “I thought I’d made that clear.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Do you even think that’s possible?”

“No,” she admitted. “I…want you.”

“Feeling's more than mutual.”

“If I don’t go, will I ever see you again?”

“I can’t hang around forever, Rose,” he said, not even sure of the truth of that statement if it meant she’d always look at him like that.

“I meant, could you come see me when you were in the neighborhood? We could…I don’t know…date,” she said.

“I don’t think…that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?” she demanded.

He lowered his voice. “I don’t come back to Earth that often, at least not in this time period. It would be difficult to hit the right year over and over again. I’d always risk running into myself and there could be paradoxes.”

“So basically I either go with you or I never see you again,” she said.

“I wouldn’t put it like that, but…guess so,” he said.

“Would I…would I be able to come see my mum? Not all the time, but once in a while, just to make sure she’s getting on okay?” she asked.

“I could try. Maybe twice a year.” Rose’s face fell. “But you could call her whenever you wanted,” he said.

“From across the universe?” she asked in a low voice.

“Yeah. Good with phones, me.”

“I’m going to have to think about this, Doctor. Will you give me more time?” she asked him.

“I can do that,” he said.

“Thank you.”

The rest of their meal was subdued, if delicious. He felt sad that Rose still hadn’t said yes. He still wondered why this girl was so different. Why it mattered so much that she come with him. He wanted her in ways he had rarely wanted other companions and he’d never acted on any of those wants before. Maybe it was because he was alone now with no chance to be with one of his own kind. Maybe he just needed that connection and Rose was the first person he’d found since the war that he thought he could connect to. If it was just about sex he could go look up some internet hooker who didn’t mind things a little bit weird in the bedroom. But it wasn’t. It was very much about Rose Tyler.

A pall of uncertainty hung over the remainder of the evening after the Doctor had told her he might not be able to see her again if she said she couldn’t go with him. When he took her back home he walked her up to her flat. “I’m going to be gone for a few days,” he said. “I’ve got some things that need doing and then I’ll be back for your decision.”

“You’ll be able to hit the right time, won’t you?” she asked.

“I hope so. But if I miss it, please know I will come back. Hopefully in days, but it could be weeks and it might be months. It doesn’t mean I don’t want you. It just means something went wrong.”

Rose’s stomach began to hurt at the idea of something going wrong and the Doctor not making it back to her for six months or a year. Everything in her rejected the idea of not seeing him again. She leaned heavily against the front door. “You could come with me,” he said. “I’d bring you right back.”

“You just said you might not be able to. Doctor, I can’t just disappear without talking to my mum and letting her know I’m leaving. And…I need to finish things with Mickey.”

“I thought you broke up with him.”

“I did, but I need to make sure he knows there’s no chance of getting back together. He’s been calling and I haven’t been taking his calls. I need to settle it once and for all,” Rose said.

“Wait, you said…letting her know you’re leaving. Then you’ve made up your mind? You’re going to come with me?”

“I…I—yeah.”

He pulled her into his arms and she raised her face to his. He kissed her joyously, her body trapped between his and the door. While their first kiss had been innocent and curious, this kiss was heated and downright nosy as he explored every bit of her mouth with his tongue that he could reach. He kissed her until she was dizzy and her body filled with so much need that she had to break the kiss or go mad.

She was breathing so hard that she wasn’t sure she’d ever get it back under control. He leaned his forehead against hers. “I will come back for you,” he promised. Then letting her go to sag against the door, he ran to the stairs and hurried down them. A few moments later she heard the TARDIS’ engines start up and she felt a sharp and sudden pang of loss. But he’d be back. He’d promised.

Rose went inside, took off her clothes and took a long shower, daydreaming about what just exactly the Doctor meant by a little bit different and taking lots and lots of time.

There were parts of the 1980’s that the Doctor didn’t like. Big hair with enough hairspray to put an eye out, shoulder pads on women, and the lack of anything resembling the internet. He’d had to comb through thousands of microfiche and the print was so tiny and the library so badly lit he was pretty sure he’d damaged his eyes into his next incarnation. He eventually found what he was looking for, an article on the hit and run death of Peter Tyler. Armed with a date he returned to the TARDIS and desperately asked her to take him to a week before Pete died.

The TARDIS managed to do exactly that and armed with a thick stack of insurance forms, went to find Pete Tyler. By the time he’d finished with the man, Pete had bought a sizable life insurance policy for a very small price, but after all he’d not be paying premiums on it long. He followed the man to the bank where he put the policy in a safety deposit box, then he’d gone in and deposited enough money into Pete’s bank account to allow for the bank to keep making payments on the rental box until 2005 at which time it would run out and be instructed to call Jackie Tyler for more rent money.

He went back to the TARDIS and jumped forward to the end of the 90’s and set up an internet presence on the web for his fake insurance company, then hopped back to the early 70’s when banks were paying out 14% in interest and deposited enough money that in 2005 it could easily pay out Pete’s policy. Jackie would be set for the rest of her life and Rose, well, she might suspect he’d done something, but she’d never be able to prove it. And anyway, she’d said Jackie had thought there was an insurance policy.

He jumped back to 2005, aiming for as close to when he’d left as possible. He arrived nearly six months later and Jackie and Rose Tyler were no longer living at the Powell Estate. There was no forwarding address. He tried to get the TARDIS to go back closer to the date he’d left, but she refused and when he pushed he realized that there was a fixed point in time that his ship wanted nothing to do with. A fixed point in time that was entirely, or perhaps unentirely, human and running for his ship. He hopped across London, leaving the man with the dark hair and billowing coat behind.

He had the TARDIS hack into the internet and search for Rose Tyler and Jackie Tyler. He finally found a real estate deed with Jackie’s name on it, out in Chiswick. The TARDIS obligingly landed him in the house’s back garden. He stepped out of the ship and the back door of the house flew open. A barely dressed Rose Tyler barreled across the lawn launching herself at him.

He caught her, picking her up. Her arms and legs wrapped around him and she kissed him for all she was worth. He turned, balancing her against the ship, using it to support some of her weight. For the first time in his life, he was unaware of the passage of time, lost as he was in the hungry hands and mouth of Rose Tyler. He felt himself growing hard against her and was debating making love to her right there in the grass if she'd say yes to it. Absence had definitely made her heart grow fonder.

“If the two of you are going to shag, let me know so I can go on home,” interrupted a loud, brassy voice.

Rose broke the kiss then went limp, her body slipping back down to the ground. She tied her dressing gown more firmly around her waist. “Sorry, Donna,” she said. “Doctor, this is my next door neighbor Donna. Donna, this is the Doctor.”

“Doctor…?”

“Just the Doctor,” he said.

“What kind of name is that?” she asked.

“Mine,” said the Doctor.

“Thanks for the brownies,” Rose said. “I’ll be sure to let Mum know when she gets up.”

Donna nodded. “I’ll just leave you to get reacquainted with your man.” She slipped out of the house and went through the little gate in the fence to the house next door.

“You’re back!” Rose exclaimed throwing her arms around him and hugging him again.

“Did you doubt me?”

“No, but I missed you. Five and a half months is a long time.”

“I’m sorry. I meant to come sooner. And then I couldn’t find you. You’d moved,” he told her.

“That old insurance policy that Dad took out? Mum found it when the bank called and said the rent on Dad’s old safety deposit box had run out. It was worth 500,000 quid. Mum bought this house and a salon for her haircutting business. She’s going to be just fine and what’s even better is she’s ready for me to move on. If…if you still want me.”

“Go pack your stuff, say good-bye to your Mum, and we’ll be off.”

“You sure?”

“After that kiss you couldn’t tell?” he teased.

“Well, a girl likes to hear the words.”

He grinned and asked for the third and last time, “Rose Tyler, do you want to come with me?”

“Yes!”

She hurried into the house and he followed her up to her room as she threw everything she owned into a couple very large duffle bags. He carried them down to the TARDIS while Rose said good-bye to her mum. He also snitched the plate of brownies after eating one. He took them out to the ship and waited impatiently in the console room.

At last Rose appeared. She stared around in wonder as she had the first time she’d come into the ship. “Welcome,” he said, “to your new home.”

She smiled and laughed and hugged him tight. He grinned, dropped a kiss on the top of her hair and began programming the flight computer. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Further than we’ve ever gone before!”

She giggled and raised her eyebrows. “Why, Doctor? Right here in the console room?”

He guffawed at her cheekiness. “In any room you want,” he declared. “Any time you want, any place you want, any when you want.”

The TARDIS made a loud noise that could only be construed as disapproval. “Okay, maybe not in the console room,” he amended.

She heard the sound of the engines materializing and was knocked to the floor with the Doctor as the ship bumped against the ground. “No, really, where are we?”

“San Kloon. Ready to see the glass pyramids?”

She smiled and nodded and together they stepped out onto the surface of her first alien planet, and Rose Tyler knew beyond all reason that this was exactly where she was supposed to be.