Birthday Fic--Worth It

[amberfocus]

Title:  Worth It (1/1)
Author:  amberfocus
Characters/Pairings:  Ten/Rose
Genre:  Hurt/comfort, romance
Beta:  jeprdyfrndly
Rating:  Teen
Summary:  Rose and the Doctor argue about their relationship.  Set somewhere post-Doomsday, but without Rose getting stuck in Pete's world.  Canon?  What canon?
A/N:  Happy birthday to amyo67, my faithful beta and fantastic friend.
 

Worth It 
 

“I knew I’d find you here,” Rose said opening the prison cell door and glaring at the Doctor. Was she angry with him? She looked angry with him. He didn’t know what he possibly could have been done to make her angry with him. Although, if she’d found out about that shopkeeper… That hadn’t really been his fault, but still. Better to play dumb.

“What?” he said.

“Come on, I’ve bailed you out. We’ve got exactly fifteen minutes to get back to the ship and get the hell off this planet.”

“What, why?” he asked petulantly. “I wasn’t done shopping yet.”

They made it outside the prison before Rose turned on him. “Because you’ve been banned. You just couldn’t stay out of trouble, could you? Ten minutes, I said. Just give me ten minutes to go and get the Walashoovian chocolate at that little stand in the Teraquay district and what do you do? You go and get yourself arrested,” Rose said crossing her arms over her chest. “What did you do this time? Lick something inappropriate?” Her tone suggested she knew very well that he had. Maybe, just maybe she didn’t know about the other.

“Oi, I needed to check the purity of the tungsten. Too many impurities and it’s not going to help me repair the TARDIS.”

“Tungsten, huh? You licked tungsten? Don’t you find that the least little bit ironic?”

“Can we just get out of here and stop with the word play, Rose?”

“Did you at least get the metal you needed?” she asked.

“No, it wasn’t pure enough. The shopkeeper tried to convince me it was and when I licked it to prove it wasn’t and then refused to buy it…well they have sanitary rules or some such nonsense about such things,” he said waving it away as if it weren’t important.

“Uh huh,” said Rose. “You think that might be because of the recent plague?”

He waved that away. “Possibly, but I don’t particularly think she was worried about the plague,” he shot back before he remembered he didn’t want to go into that. Quickly he tried to cover. “They were really quite ridiculous in their insistence that I purchase it, despite the fact that it was of the wrong composition. Which they lied to me about.”

“You lick it, you bought it?” smirked Rose.

“Basically. Which is stupid because my saliva could probably cure the common cold it’s so healthy,” he said.

“I’ll remember that the next time I catch one and snog the hell out of you,” Rose said flirting for the first time since she’d come to find him, the edge of anger leaving her voice and settling into rueful acceptance of him and his character fla—er..traits. Character traits. “There’s the TARDIS. Come on.”

His eyes got very wide a moment later when he realized what she’d said. “Rose!” They hurried to the ship and once inside Rose turned on him, grabbing hold of his tie and wrapping it around her hand. She backed him into the doors.

“Meanwhile, I think it’s time I taught you the proper use of that Time Lord tongue of yours.”

His eyes got even bigger as he realized what she meant and that she probably did know what had happened. “Rose, now…wait a minute…Rose,” he gulped as she wound him closer and closer with his tie.

“Why should I?” she asked. “No one else ever does.”

He decided to go for humor, trying to defuse the very sudden looming sexual tension he was feeling at her being so aggressive and so close. “You haven’t…you know, been bit by anything? Had a body-swapping psychopath invade your mind? Been taken over by an orgasmic fed energy alien? Sniffed any weird pollen? Ingested a super potent aphrodisiac or…or something?” he asked.

Rose thought for a minute then tilted her head. “Well, there was this one guy with a hypo spray. Injected me with something and said it’d make me raging horny so I best go find my man right away and have my wicked way with him before I disgraced myself in public.”

“What, really?” the Doctor asked with wild concern in his eyes.

“No, not really!” Rose snorted. “I just think…why should everyone else always have all the fun? Jack kissed you. Cassandra. Reinette.” Her eyes narrowed on the last name. “Probably even Lynda with a Y and Jabe, too, when I wasn’t looking.”

“They did not!” he protested, stunned at her jealousy and a little turned on.

“Even my mum’s snogged you. I think it’s my turn.”

“Rose.” His voice held a warning.

“You kissed the shopkeeper!” she snapped. “I saw it, Doctor!”

“She said we could work something out! I didn’t know what she meant until I had three lips and four tentacles in some very uncomfortable places,” he said. “I pushed her off me and she hit her head. That’s part of why I was arrested. Not just the licking thing.”

“Funny how you’re always getting kissed.”

“It didn’t mean anything!”

“Do I?” she demanded. “Do I mean anything?”

“Of course you do!”

“Then why shouldn’t I kiss you? For once why can’t it just be us?” she demanded.

“Rose, if you kiss me, it’ll change everything,” he protested.

“About bloody time it did, don’t you think?” she asked and without allowing him to say anything else she planted her lips firmly on his.

The Doctor meant to push her away first thing, but it was Rose Tyler kissing him. Rose Tyler, who he’d dreamed about kissing in the few sleeping moments he had and many of the waking ones. Rose Tyler who he yearned to build a real life with, but didn’t dare. Rose, who he’d so often pushed away, or worse yet, ran away from because her lifespan could never match his. Rose Tyler, who was currently sticking her tongue in his very surprised mouth. And he wondered why he’d never done this before in this body.

Sure, he’d kissed her, but she didn’t even remember it. He’d done it to save her life and if he admitted the truth, because he’d been in love with her. He’d enjoyed it despite the fact that he was being torn apart by the Time Vortex, which sounded ridiculous, but it had been a very sweet kiss. It had been a completely unnecessary act considering he could have taken the power from her by touching his fingers to her temples, but he’d wanted that kiss, felt he deserved it as the last act of a dying man and come to think of it he had been searching for that kiss, that taste ever since. Was this why he licked everything in this body? Because he’d been desperate to find the flavor of Rose Tyler once more?

He wondered why when she’d been possessed by Cassandra he hadn’t noticed it then? Perhaps the compression of her brain had caused changes on a basic level, but it was definitely something he noticed now. Noticed and craved and knew he had been craving and that he would be craving for the rest of his life and—Oh, damn, was that her hand on the front of his trousers?

He broke the kiss and pushed her back from him so that he could look in her eyes. He’d wanted this for a long time, but he needed to know her motivation. He didn’t want her kissing him out of simple jealousy or anger. If she was going to kiss him, if he was going to kiss her, he needed to know it was about love. And then he needed to be brave enough to allow it to happen. “What,” he said slowly and deliberately, “is this all about?”

He watched her face fall and the sparkle of life go right out of her eyes. “You…you don’t know?” she gasped. Before he could answer she said, “Me being an absolute idiot over you, apparently. Again.” With that she turned abruptly away from him and stalked out of the console room.

He watched her go in confusion. One minute she’d been snogging the life out of him and getting…well, more than a little bit frisky and the next she acted like he’d called her a stupid ape and sent her to her room. He stared down at the front of his trousers. “You can go back to normal any time now,” he told his rather obvious erection. It wasn’t listening.

He went after her, pausing outside her closed bedroom door. “Rose?” he called knocking.

“Go away,” she said.

He didn’t. Instead he turned the doorknob. It rattled but didn’t open. She’d locked him out. “Rose, please. I need to know what’s going on.”

“What’s going on is that I’m a fool and you’re…you don’t…I’ll never be what you want,” she said through the door. “I should have got a clue when you sent me away to Pete’s world. I should have realized when you were so angry with me for coming back. When you yelled at me for nearly falling into the Void.”

“I yelled at you because you could have died.”

“Well, it’s a good thing that wall closed up and all I did was break my arm then when I hit it, isn’t it?” she snapped.

“Rose, please open the door. I don’t want to fight with you. I want to talk to you.”

Rose sighed and the lock snicked open. She pulled open her door and crossed her arms over her chest before turning away and moving across the room to sit on her bed and glare at him. “Do you even understand why I came back to you?” she asked.

He looked down at the floor. “No,” he said. “I don’t. I don’t understand why you would. You had everything there. Your mum, an almost-Dad, your best mate.”

“You’re my best mate!” she roared. “You’re my…” She stopped.

“What?”

“I chose you. Over everything. Maybe you’re used to people doing that, people coming back for you and laying down their lives for you and giving up everything else, but for me it’s a big thing. I thought…I thought that you and I…that one day we would…really have forever. I promised you and I thought you…sometimes I thought…but we never will.” She sighed.

“Rose, your life is not like mine,” he began.

“Don’t tell me I’ll wither and die!” she snapped suddenly defiant. “Don’t you dare! Because I’ve got a good fifty years left in me and probably another fairly bad ten years after that. And Jack said, he said once that there are ways to expand the human lifespan so maybe I could live to be three hundred. Three hundred years together, Doctor, and maybe fifty isn’t worth reaching for for you, but three hundred? Spent together? I’d do it, but you…you don’t want me enough to try. There’s always going to be some other girl that you’ll risk things for or you’ll let snog you because I—.”

“Because it could never be anything real with them!” he finally snapped. “It could never be something lasting. They could never be someone I could form an emotional attachment to. They could never be someone who would break my heart, who I would never recover from if I lost if I dared for one minute to let down my guard and love,” he interrupted. “And have you ever stopped to think for one minute that I want you too much to try?”

She stared at him open-mouthed. “You…you…what?”

He pushed a lock of hair back from her face. “I practically depend on you to breathe,” he admitted. “If we…if we get…close and I lose you…I can’t lose you. I can’t.”

“You won’t,” she said, suddenly sure of herself.

“You can’t know.”

“The Daleks have tried to tear us apart, twice now. And they haven’t. Not even the Daleks. Not the Cybermen. Not the Slitheen or the Gelth or a face-sucking energy being. Not…anyone. Just you,” she said. “You’re the only one, the only thing standing in the way of your own happiness. Is it worth it, Doctor? Is it worth giving up on us before we even start because you’re afraid you’ll lose me?”

He stared at her for a moment, her face so earnest and open and longing. Was it worth holding himself back from her anymore when he could have what he’d wanted since the day she’d let him launch a missile at her to save the Earth? All of his reasons suddenly dissolved in the face of her sad, sad eyes. “No,” he said, amazed at the relief that washed through him as he made his decision. “No, it’s not worth giving up everything I could have with you.”

He leaned forward and ever so gently pressed his lips to hers. She met his kiss, her lips open and pliant and as he deepened it she sighed softly against him and wrapped her arms around him. He gave up his fears as her light filled him up and for the first time in two years, he no longer feared what the future might bring.