Wolf Moon: Chapter Thirty-Two

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Choices Narrow Down to One

 

When Rose calmed down from her laughing fit she used the sonic screwdriver to unbolt the device from its fastenings and then slipped the egg into her backpack.  It was heavier than it looked and she made sure that the supportive strap of the pack’s waist belt was pulled firmly about her.  Climbing back down the pinnacle without the red glow of the holographic projector was frightening.  Rose was grateful that the moon was out, though she fervently wished they were on a planet with more than one at the moment.

 

She had managed to slither halfway down, suffering various scrapes, cuts and contusions along the way, when she heard the Doctor call out for her.  “Rose?”

 

“I’m on my way, Doctor,” she called.

 

“Okay,” he answered.

 

“You yourself again?” she asked.

 

“I think so,” he said.  “Brain seems to be calculating Pi again at any rate,” he added sounding vaguely sheepish.  Rose closed her eyes.  She hoped that statement didn’t mean he was remembering everything he’d said since going stupid on her.

 

She forced herself to continue and suffered a serious abrasion a few minutes later as her cargo pants ripped open.  She couldn’t help but cry out as the epidermal layer scraped off a large portion of her right thigh, exposing the more sensitive dermis.  “Are you all right?” the Doctor asked anxiously.

 

“Yeah, fine,” she muttered as she fought back the tears.  She didn’t want to act like a little girl over a few minor injuries, but they hurt!  She lost her foothold and slid the last twenty feet straight down the rock face.  She squealed and somehow the Doctor managed to be there as she rushed to the ground, catching her in his arms.  He pulled her tightly into him.

 

“I found the egg,” she said.  “It’s in my bag.  And you can carry it from now on, if you don’t mind.  It’s heavy.”  She handed him her pack, wincing as it brushed against her arms on the way off.

 

He took it from her and then plucked the sonic screwdriver from her cargo pocket and shone its light over her body.  “Bloody hell, Rose, you’re a mess,” he said.

 

“Way to make a girl feel beautiful,” she said in irritation, brushing a sweaty strand of light brown hair out of her face.

 

“You’re bleeding.  Come on, we need to get you out of here and then I’ll take care of the worst of that.  Last thing we need is drayguins smelling your blood while we’re in their hatching grounds,” he told her.

 

They took a few steps but Rose let out a painful yelp and stopped moving.  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

 

“It hurts too much to walk right now,” she said.  “My skin.”

 

“Okay, just a minute.”  He attached her backpack to his and let them both hang from his back and then he reached down and heaved Rose up from the ground, placing her over his shoulder so that her backside was up in the air.

 

“Doctor!” she protested.

 

“You can’t ride piggyback with those cuts on your arms and legs, Rose and I might be able to carry you in my arms to bed but I wouldn’t last more than a half mile on a long trek.”

 

“I feel like a sack of potatoes,” she complained.

 

He smacked her lightly on the bum and said, “Hush.”  He strode off briskly and she had to admit that he was making very good time.  She also had to admit that she had a rather nice, if dim, view of his bum as he walked.  It took everything in her not to reach out and squeeze his cheeks, but she really didn’t want to break his stride.  Running into newly aggressive drayguins who could smell her blood really didn’t appeal to her.

 

The Doctor walked for a long time, while she explained to him about the Quyenseg, and she was surprised when a few hours later he was setting her down in the same place they’d camped in the night before.  It had taken them a lot of time to thoroughly search the nesting grounds, hours, but coming back was a much straighter, shorter line apparently.  He held her steady while the blood left her head and then he reached for her zipper.

 

He helped her ease out of her cargo pants then skinned off her top.  He found a clean cloth and the bar of soap in one of the backpacks and knelt by the stream, wetting it.  Very carefully he began to wash her injuries, while she hissed, squirmed, or gasped at the particularly sore spots.  Once clean he laid her down on an aluminum blanket and began working over her body with the sonic screwdriver and slowly repairing the damage to her skin.

 

 

 

Rose had fallen asleep before the Doctor had finished healing her body and when he had completed the process he picked her up, aluminum blanket and all, and moved her back under the trees.  Moonlight had been best for the work he’d needed to do, but he didn’t want her fair skin scorching when the sun rose come morning.

 

He stripped down to his boxers and pulled her against him.  She cuddled into his body without waking up and he smiled at what had seemed to become an instinctive motion for her now.  He wrapped himself around her and with nothing left to occupy his mind, he started to think.

 

He remembered everything that had happened that day, every stupid decision he’d made while he was under the influence of the behavioral modification field.  He felt so foolish over the way he’d been acting with Rose and yet she had risen to the challenge in such a marvelous way.  She’d figured out quickly that something was wrong with him; she’d managed to find him and keep him with her when he’d wandered off.  She hadn’t made him feel like a child or an idiot.  She’d been loving and careful in how she spoke to him.  And most importantly, though she’d clearly been upset, she hadn’t yelled at him for destroying the serum.

 

Oh, the serum.  He’d been only partially horrified that it had been in him to do such a thing.  He should have been fully horrified but it had become awfully clear to him, even in his addled state that he needed her, wanted her so much.  The emotional desire to mate with Rose was what had driven him to that act.  Not the physical want or need.

 

Still, that didn’t make it right.  He knew there wasn’t much hope of getting back to the TARDIS before his serum wore off.  He knew that in 24 hours he was going to be fighting hard and that in 36 he’d lose that fight.  He just hoped that Rose wouldn’t lose in all of this because he knew he wouldn’t be able to control his awakened passion for her.  It would consume them both but when it was over, he didn’t know what it would mean for Rose.

 

He sighed.  He let his mind wander around for a bit and he tried to come up with options that would allow for a different outcome than the one he was sure was the only one left for them.  He wished he could sleep but he’d spent far more time in sleep this week already than he actually needed.  With a frown he settled into a night of seriously castigating himself for his foolhardy stupidity.

 

 

 

 

“The way I figure it, we really only have one option,” the Doctor told Rose over breakfast.

 

“Oh?” Rose asked him.  It was early, barely dawn, and the sun was just starting to make the air hot.  The Doctor had figured the earlier they started back the better.  They needed to make use of as much daylight as possible.

 

“I can take you up to the top of the chasm and then you can continue on alone.  I’ll come back down to the bottom and I’ll wait here as long as my body will let me.  Just follow the screwdriver.  I’ve got it programmed to home in on the TARDIS.  Press on as long as there’s light.  Use the torch setting until you can’t keep your eyes open.  It should give you a fairly large head start.”

 

He looked down at his hands.  “I’ll be able to track you, of course.  Your scent will linger and I’ll be drawn to it.  But with any luck you’ll make it back to the TARDIS and be safely inside when I arrive.  I’ll be mad with it by then so you need to be clear of the console room.  The TARDIS will flood me with fog the minute I come in if you tell her to when you get there.  It’ll slow me down but it won’t stop me.  I’ll go straight to you.  And then…I’ll take you.”

 

“No,” said Rose.  “I won’t go off on my own.  No.”

 

“What do you mean, no?” he said.  “Rose, it’s the only way.”

 

“No,” she repeated.  She took his hand.  “No.  We’ll go back to the TARDIS together.  The serum will wear off maybe a half day’s journey from it.  You can carry me to the ship afterwards if I can’t walk, but I’m not putting you through all that.”

 

“But Rose--.”

 

“It’ll be torture for you and you know it.  Me, too.  What about the skin hunger?  Won’t that drive me back towards you anyway?” she asked.

 

“Not if you fight it.”

 

“It’s not possible to fight it.  It’s too strong,” Rose proclaimed.

 

“We can do it.  It’ll be uncomfortable but we can manage.”

 

“And leave you following my scent through the forest but not being able to catch me?  What kind of rage might that build in you?  It might make you worse than if we just stayed together.  You could hurt me more.  No, Doctor.  I’ve made my decision and I’m not leaving you.”

 

He pressed his lips together and withdrew his hand from hers, crossing his arms across his chest and glaring at her.  “So you want me to hurt you, is that it?” he snapped.

 

“If you have to, you have to” she said simply.

 

“I don’t want to hurt you, Rose!”

 

“I know.  But if you do, it’s okay.  I’ll heal.”

 

“But--.”

 

“What if we made love now?” she asked him.  “You’re still under the influence of the serum for a while longer.  Wouldn’t you be able to control yourself?” she asked.

 

“I would right up until I was inside you.  Then all bets would be off.  The mating instinct would take over completely in that first rush to bond to you,” he said.  “And when it was over we’d still be too far away from the TARDIS.”

 

“Can’t you summon the TARDIS to you?” Rose asked.

 

“She won’t come when I call unless my life is in jeopardy,” he said flatly.  “And only then because in the end, she doesn’t want to be left alone.”

 

“What about mental bonding?  We talked about that before.  If we went ahead and bonded mentally it was supposed to make it easier for the physical bond link to form,” Rose said.

 

“Are you honestly ready for me to be in your head, Rose?” he asked.

 

“Wasn’t so bad, me being in yours,” she managed.  “I think I could deal with it now.”

 

“Well, but it can’t be something you deal with, Rose.  You have to want it.  You have to crave the intimacy of that mental contact.  It’s not something to be gotten through.  And besides, I don’t have the supplies for that kind of linking without sex with me.  They’re back in the TARDIS,” explained the Doctor.

 

“What about the pink pills?  Can you take them?” she asked.

 

“They’re geared towards your body, Rose.  Not just specifically to the fact that you’re a female, but to your own biochemistry.  They won’t work for me.”

 

Rose bit her lip, making her decision.   “All right then.  What will be, will be,” she said.  “But we’re staying together, Doctor.  I can handle it.”

 

Rose’s firm insistence and refusal to move on without him led him to give up the fight.  After breakfast they began the trek up the side of the chasm.  It took a half hour longer to climb out than it had to descend, but they were in the rainforest before he would let them stop long enough to grab a quick bite to eat.  Then they were off again and he was pulling Rose along faster than she wanted to go.

 

He was determined to make as much time as he possibly could.  He was starting to get irritable and when dinner time rolled around he paused only briefly for a loo break, insisting that they eat their food as they walked.  When night descended he made Rose walk until she could no longer see the torch light of the screwdriver through bleary eyes and then he had her climb on his back and he carried her.

 

He strode through the night, a sleeping Rose snug against him as he walked.  As her body bounced against him his desire for her began to rise and he felt the serum’s grip on him beginning to fade.  He was starting to feel a touch like a caveman bringing his woman back to his cave.  Although the way he’d carried her last night was more appropriate for that particular theme.

 

Rose grumbled against his shoulder and asked, “Can you put me down, Doctor?”

 

He stopped, irritated at her request.  Every little stop he made meant there was that much less time to get back to the TARDIS.  “Rose, no, we need to keep going.”

 

“I need to pee,” she told him gruffly.  “All this bouncing about is hard on my bladder.  Put me down.”

 

He let go of her legs and she slid down his body.  He turned and pulled her roughly against him, kissing her desperately until she had to push him back to get air into her lungs.  “Doctor, I’ll snog you all you want in a minute but I have got to go pee right now,” she said.

 

The minute she was out of his sight he felt restless and anxious and had a very strong urge to go and look for her.  He fought it down savagely.  There was no way Rose would forgive him for invading her privacy that way.  She was back in a minute, washing her hands from the canteen and then walking into his arms.

 

“Where were we?” she just managed to get out before he devoured her mouth, his tongue snaking in and taking full control of hers.  He was lifting her up and wrapping her legs around him, walking her up against a nearby tree and she felt the full state of his arousal.  The rough bark scraped her skin and he held her tightly to it so that his hands were free to roam.  They slid up under her shirt, manhandling her breasts and eliciting a screech from her as he pinched hard at her nipples.

 

His mouth moved from her lips to her neck and she could feel his teeth edging their way down towards her shoulder.  “Doctor, we need to stop,” she said.

 

“No,” he told her.

 

She shoved him hard, using the tree for leverage.  They tumbled to the ground, the Doctor landing hard on his bum.  Rose managed to get out of his grip and she stood up, backing away from him.  He stood up and she eyed him warily, but he didn’t approach her.

 

“You okay now?” she asked him when he didn’t come near.

 

“Give me a minute,” he said tightly, closing his eyes and focusing his mind inwards.  A moment later he said, “It’s almost dawn.  I think its better you walk now.”

 

 

 

Rose walked ahead of the Doctor in a bit of a daze, sonic screwdriver clenched tightly in her hands to show the way.  The power in that last kiss of his had left her nearly breathless and her hormones wound up quite high.  They had a lot of ground to cover still and she couldn’t dare get sidetracked by the feel of his body against hers and his lips against her throat.  It had taken everything she had in her not to give up right then and let him take her.  She wanted it.

 

She shook her head.  She knew that the pills were starting to wear off.  She hadn’t taken her last dose in the confusion to leave the drayguin nesting ground and by the time she had remembered to take them she had considered that it would be better for them to have completely worn off by the time the serum had so she hadn’t bothered to take them.  If she was at a high state of arousal when the time came, it would go easier for her body.  At least she had taken the supplements and done her exercises before they’d left that morning.

 

Rose knew there was no chance of getting back to the TARDIS at all before he took her.  And that was okay, but she wanted to be close enough that he could get her there quickly, just in case.  A low ache was building up within her and she could feel a tingling rippling through her blood.  The scent of pineapples was strong in the air and she knew, could smell it, that she was ready for him at any moment.  It wouldn’t be long now.

 

They didn’t stop for breakfast, just trudged onwards while eating handfuls of cereal and dried fruit.  Lunch went much the same way with jerky and energy bars.  The only stop they made was another quick loo run.  They pressed onwards, ever onwards.  Every footfall began to echo in her mind, each step taking her closer to her salvation or her downfall.  She felt her nerve-endings starting to burn.

 

Behind her the Doctor uttered a low, guttural syllable.

 

“Rose.”

Ch. 33:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/19441.html