#ficandchips

Rating:Teen

Relationship:Nine x Rose

Summary: The Doctor and Rose discuss sartorial preferences while watching Indiana Jones. Predictably, the discussion becomes very…heated.

Notes: Hello shiny people! I’m back after a few weeks break since finishing my last (lengthy) fic. This time we have something light, fluffy, silly and short (and NINE). I blame @aintfraidanoghosts entirely for this fic because she begged me to write it when this crazy nonsense popped into my head while watching Raiders of the Lost Ark a while ago. So really, IT IS ALL HER FAULT that I ended up writing this on a Monday morning when I was supposed to be working. So….yeah this fic is for her. No beta, all mistakes are mine. I hope you enjoy and please don’t kill me for this silliness!

Also on A03andTeaspoon.

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“You’ve got to be jokin’.”

“Wha’?” Rose said, eyes glued to the screen as the Doctor plopped onto the sofa beside her. 

“How can you watch this rubbish, Rose?”

“What’s wrong with it? ‘S Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark!” she said indignantly, blindly reaching for another handful of popcorn.

“He’s traipsing about the jungle in a leather jacket!” The Doctor offered her the bowl. “Who does that, then?”

Rose choked. “‘Scuse me?”

“Nobody wears a leather jacket in the jungle on the way to liberate Aztec artefacts from a glorified seesaw!”

“Say what?”

 “You heard me. This director is barking, Harrison Ford or no Harrison Ford. Raiders of the Lost Ark, indeed. Nutters of the Lost Ark, more like it!”

Rose turned to stare at him. “You did not just say that.”

“Did so!” He raised his eyebrows smugly. “What of it?”

“You did not just say that nobody- Doctor, you wear a leather jacket in the jungle!” She shook her head disbelievingly. “You do it all the time!”

“Well…that’s different.” The Time Lord shifted uncomfortably and set the bowl on the table in front of them.

“You also wore a leather jacket in the snow and in the desert and to the beach and my cousin Robbie’s weddin’!”

“‘S not the same thing !” The Doctor folded his arms, leather jacket creaking.  

“Why not?” Rose silently thanked the TARDIS for pausing the movie for her. “He’s wearin’ a leather jacket in the jungle, you wear a jacket in the jungle. You wore a leather jacket in the Plentimen jungle just last week!”

“‘M not sayin’ there’s sommat wrong with leather, Rose!” He scowled. “Happen to like leather, me. ‘M just saying leather isn’t appropriate for his…activities! ‘S just daft for a human to wear leather in a hot, humid jungle! You overheat at the drop of a hat, you lot!”

She smirked, suddenly understanding the cause of his little outburst. “Oh please, don’t start that whole ‘Time Lord biology’ bit again.” She rolled her eyes and turned back to the movie, sending another wave of gratitude to the TARDIS for restarting at just the right time, receiving a pleased hum in return. “Just admit you’re jealous of Harrison Ford and move on, Doctor.”

“I am not!”

“Course you are,” she said, watching as Indiana Jones slashed his whip about, admittedly looking like a giant git compared to the bloke sitting next to her- not that she’d ever tell the Doctor that. “‘S understandable that you’d feel insecure about how good he looks in leather.” She glanced slyly from the corner of her eye. “I mean, look at him. He’s a bit of alright what with the leather and the hat and the khaki trousers and workboots. Looks very rough ‘n ready- very sexy.”

“Oi! An’ what ‘m I then? A ballerina?”

She tried not to laugh as she stared determinedly at the screen, even though her attention was entirely on the man beside her. Sometimes, he was just too predictable. Any moment now…

Suddenly, she was lying on the couch, pinned beneath a Time Lord whose eyes burned blue fire.

“S’pose you think you’re funny?”

“Might do,” she said breathlessly. God, she loved him.

“S’pose you thought it’d be fun to tease an old Time Lord?”

“Might’ve done,” she grinned, tongue touching her teeth.

His eyes burned even hotter as his body stirred against her. “You should be careful playin’ with fire, Rose. Could get burned.”

“Oh I’m countin’ on it,,” she said, trailing a finger across his lips, heart racing as his eyes flared. 

“Is that so?” His face drew closer.

“Yeah,” she sighed as his lips caressed her neck. “You know I love a rough and ready bloke.” She smirked as he stilled. 

“Rose,” he growled.

“Well,one rough and ready bloke- a daft old sod who’s jealous of someone off the telly.”

“Was not!”

“Yes you are.” She grinned, watching his eyes follow her tongue to the corner of her mouth. “You’re jealous of a git off the telly, Doctor.”

The tips of his ears burned red. “Alright, might’ve been, just a bit,” he muttered. “Couldn’t help it, what with you starin’ at him so intently.”

She shook her head and pulled him closer. “You’re mental, you are.”

“Am I?” The low rumble of his voice sent tremors through her body.

“Course you are,” she said softly. “There’s only one bloke in a leather jacket I’m interested in.”

“That so?”

“That’s so,” she said breathlessly, arching against him. “An’ he’s so impressive that it hurts to look at him sometimes.”

“Does it now?” His eyes smouldered. “I’ll show you rough and ready, Rose Tyler.”

Neither of them had a word to say for a long time after that.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Four weeks later, the Amazon Rainforest, Brazil, 1926

“Come off it, Rose! Let it go!” The Doctor tromped up the slope, turning to make sure Rose was close behind. “Blimey, you’ve got the memory of a Zoprel elephant, you have.”

“But Doctor, I’m just worried about your health!” Rose smirked as she climbed the slope to stand besides him. “Nobody wears a leather jacket in the jungle! ‘S just mental. Not appropriate for our activities, you know, what with us trying to save that alien ark that landed here.”

“Oi, I’m not the one whose body temperature can kill ‘em within a few degrees!” he protested, crossing his arms. “Nice and steady with the biochemical processes, me.”

“But Doctor, I thought you said only a nutter would wear a leather jacket in the-”

“Right, that’s enough of that. Com’ere, you,” he growled and pulled her to him, kissing her as though both their lives depended on it.

(Come to think of it, they probably did).

She was pleasantly unaware of her surroundings until approaching voices rudely interrupted their pleasant interlude.

“Perhaps we’d better give them a moment,” a timid voice in British tones said. “They appear to be, er, occupied.”

“Oh, if we wait for them to disengage we’ll never get anything done,” Jack said cheerfully. “Locked at the lips is of one the ten natural states in which you can find Rosie and the Doc in the wild.”

“I, er, that is-”

“Others include smiling goofily at each other, holding hands, cuddling, cuddling while smiling goofily at each other, arguing, arguing followed by smiling goofily at each other, the Doc defending Rose, Rose defending the Doc and both of them joined in places that are not permitted to be seen in public during this time period.” Jack wiggled his eyebrows at the blushing archeology student. “If you know what I mean.”

“Jack!”

“Harkness!”

Their erstwhile companion ignored them both and continued to lecture the poor bloke next to him, sounding for all the world as though he were narrating an animal documentary.

“They don’t object to human observers in most of these states, however-

A mighty flash interrupted Jack’s spiel.

“- the male of the Time Lord species has been known to react badly to flash photography,” Jack finished, cringing slightly.

“Oi!” The Doctor pulled away from Rose and stomped over to the poor bloke clutching the camera. “You tryin’ to burn my retinas?”

“He was just takin’ a photo, Doctor,” Rose sighed, following him.

“He was just blindin’ me, is what he was doing! Primitive human contraption nearly took my eye out.”

“’S not his fault that cameras are what they are in this time period,” Rose said, taking his arm as she turned him back to the trail they’d been following.

“He should watch where he’s pointin’ that thing!”

“He didn’t mean to blind us,” Rose soothed, pulling him along. “He’s probably just excited about the whole alien bit- only found out about it this morning, didn’t he?”

“S’pose,” the Doctor grumbled. “Still needs to be careful where he’s aiming that daft contraption.”

“I’m sure he will,” she soothed.

Behind them, Jack and his new friend trailed along. “You’ll note that the female of the brand new, one of a kind ‘Bad Wolf’ species has a calming effect on the Time Lord and can usually soothe him into less dangerous moods in no time.”

Philip exhaled. “Quite. Thank goodness for that! Does it, er, does that happen often?”

She could hear the smile in Jack’s voice. “All the time, gorgeous. All the time!”

As Jack began rambling about the time he’d been arrested for nude hiking on Kolima Beta, Rose glanced at the still-muttering Time Lord beside her, while the most lecherous immortal to walk the earth trailed behind them, trying his best to corrupt the poor naive bloke with him. Nutters of the Lost Ark indeed, she smirked.

And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Fin

Rating: Teen

Relationship: Ten x Rose

Summary: A post-GITF sick-fic UA. What if Rose had come away with more than nightmares after her run-in with the clockwork droids? What if her trust in the Doctor had been so fractured that she’d been afraid to tell him? And what if that broken trust might just lead to a dangerous situation for Rose? Will the Doctor be able fix it in time? Note: Trigger warning for non-explicit DV, self-loathing, PTSD, medical emergency.

Notes:  Helloooooo shiny people! I can’t believe we’re finally here- THE EPILOGUE! The very final chapter of this fic, which was written for the @doctor-rose-events​ classic tropes event. Thank you all for coming on this crazy ride with me- I couldn’t have done it without you and you’re all fabulous.<3
I hope this brief look at a very different future with Rose and the Doctor (I couldn’t help kicking Doomsday in the bum, repeatedly) will leave us all in a good place, and with hope going forward. There’s ALWAYS hope, and no one is broken beyond repair. To that end, I’ll be posting a non-fic chapter in the next day or two with a list of trauma, counselling and DV resources that my wonderful people around the world have sent me. Keep an eye out for that in the next few days.I hope that you’ve all enjoyed this story, and I have to give a big shoutout to everyone who has encouraged me and left comments, the ladies on Fangirlia who have listened to me whine and complain incessantly, Aintafraidanoghosts for listening to me whine on chat EVERY SINGLE DAY, and finally, @rose–nebula​, without whom I could not have done this. She’s beta’d every chapter, every week, no matter what crazy time of day or night I’ve sent them, and supported me emotionally and mentally when I was ready to fling a chapter into the abyss or set it on fire. I could not have done this without you, my dear. Thank you more than I can say <3 <3 <3 All mistakes are mine, and of course all recognisable dialogue from the episode belongs to one Mr RTD. I hope you enjoy!

Also on:    A03    |   Teaspoon

Tumblr:  Chapter 1 |  Chapter 2 |  Chapter 3|Chapter 4 |Chapter 5|Chapter 6|Chapter 7 |Chapter 8 |  Chapter 9 |  Chapter 10|Chapter 11|Chapter 12 |Chapter 13

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“Hello?”

“Jack! Thank God. Are you in Cardiff?” Rose clutched the mobile to her ear, watching in disbelief as the Doctor smacked the TARDIS console with a mallet. 

“Rosie! Yeah, Mickey and I are at headquarters. Why? Is everything OK?”

The TARDIS jolted. 

“Behave!” the Doctor snapped, scowling at the console. 

“Oh my…hold on Jack- Doctor, stop smacking her!” Rose snapped. “Have you lost your mind?”

“She won’t do it, Rose! She’s resisting!”

“Rose?” Jack’s tone was suddenly sharp, all semblance of relaxed chit-chat gone. “What’s going on?”

“We’re flying down the highway, chasing a taxi driven by a robot santa, that’s what’s goin’ on!”

“What? What highway? Where are you?”

“London.” Rose took over holding down various knobs from the Doctor as he inched closer to the door.  “Specifically, chasin’ a woman in a weddin’ dress to Chiswick, or wherever this robot is takin’ her.” She closed her eyes and ignored Donna’s screeched “Oh, you are kidding me!” as the TARDIS scraped the road beside the taxi, the bump almost knocking Rose off her feet. 

“Rose? What the hell is happening?”

“You’ve got to jump!” the Doctor shouted, almost hanging out of the doorway.

“Who’s jumping?” Jack demanded.

“It’ll take too long to explain! Look, I need you to do somethin’ for me Jack- quickly!”

“What do you need?”

“I need you to find out everything you can about a woman who’s booked to get married at St Mary’s Church in Chiswick today. Her name’s Donna.”

“Last name?”

“Dunno. Once you’ve got it from the church, I need you to run it on every system you have- find out everythin’ about her.”

“Why?”

“Because she showed up on the TARDIS while she was in mid-flight, Jack! Just appeared in the middle of the vortex!”

There was a gasp. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not kiddin’! I don’t have time to kid! I need you to do it now, Jack, please!”

“On it.” She heard Jack barking orders to someone beside him to call the church, followed by the clack of a keyboard moments later. “I’ll dig up everything I can, Rosie.”

“Thanks,” she exhaled, staring in disbelief as Donna hesitated to jump out of the taxi. “Quick as you can, Jack! There’s somethin’ weird going on here.”

“Whatever that thing is, it needs you,” the Doctor pleaded with Donna, stretching out his arm. “And whatever it needs you for, it’s not good! Now, come on!”

“Rose? Do you need me to come there?”

“No, not now, just…please find everything you can and I’ll text you the time and place when we land.” She hung up and watched Donna mutter about trusting the Doctor before finally taking his hand and flinging herself out of the taxi and into the TARDIS.

The door slammed shut and the TARDIS zoomed away.

However her relief was short-lived, because the TARDIS was groaning in agony and  the console began exuding copious amounts of smoke.

“Oh my God! Doctor, what’s wrong with her?”

“Oi, watch your mouth, Blondie! Like to see how you look, jumping from a moving taxi in a blooming wedding dress!”

“Not you, the TARDIS!” Rose rushed to the console. “She’s shaking!”

“So am I!” Donna screeched. “Thanks to you two! But you go on worrying about your space machine.”

Rose closed her eyes, praying for patience. “I told you, she’s called a TARDIS, and she’s just saved your arse from a killer robot. And she’s alive,and she understands you, so unless you want to find yourself deposited at the end of the galaxy, shut it!” She turned to the Doctor. “She’s not goin’ to hold, Doctor.”

“We need to land,” he said grimly, clinging to a handle. “Soon.”

“Inside or out?”

“Out,” he said, gripping at the console. “She’s close to combusting.”

“The Estate,” Rose gasped, flinging herself across the console to seize a wobbling gadget. “Take us to mum’s- the roof. If those things come lookin’ for us, we can deal with ‘em up there better than in the middle of the town.”

“Right you are, Rose Tyler,” he said with a quick grin. “Allons-y!”

“Allons-y?” Donna snapped, seizing the nearest handle. “Who the hell says allons-y?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “I do. Now hang on tight because this is going to be a bumpy landing!”

“First time you’ve ever admitted it!” Rose couldn’t help but laugh as she hung tightly to a handle that had just appeared. “Thanks, love.” She patted the console in gratitude.

The TARDIS’ answering hum was strained.

“I’ll have you know my landing skills are usually just fine, thank you very much!” the Doctor squawked, tapping frantically at the console.

“Yeah, must be why you got me back a year late last time!”

“Are you ever going to let that go?”

“Oi! Are we getting out of space or are you two just going to flirt until we catch fire?” Donna demanded. “Honestly, all the spaceships in the world and I end up with the intergalactic Bonnie and Clyde!”

“We are not!” the Doctor exclaimed indignantly. “You’d do better saying Shiver and Shake!”

“Don’t you ever shut up?” Donna demanded. “Honestly, you-”

“Incoming!” the Doctor interrupted. “Hang on, we’re going to land-”

The TARDIS landed with a mighty thud, jerking them all to the floor, handles notwithstanding.

“-hard,” the Doctor finished. “Everybody alright?”

“”M fine,” Rose muttered, standing painfully. “Just a bit winded.” 

“Are you sure?” He hovered over her, his face very close as he inspected her minutely. “Are you hurt? In pain? Rose?”

She couldn’t help but shake her head at his hovering. Even though she’d regained her full strength months ago, and it had been almost a year and a half since her illness, he still worried.  He’d been even worse since their close call at Canary Wharf a few months ago. “‘M fine, Doctor but you’d better get that smoke before we burn the TARDIS down.”

“Smoke?” He whirled. “Oh! Right, I’ve got this. Both of you, out!”

“Oh I like that,” Donna muttered as she accepted Rose’s hand and rose painstakingly to her feet. “And I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Come on,” was all she said. “Let’s get some air.”

They strode out the TARDIS to the sounds of the Doctor blasting a fire extinguisher at the console, and muttering apologies to his ship. They stood in silence, looking at the Estate below until the Doctor joined them.

“Well, I’ve put it out but she’s going to need a couple of hours, minimum.”

“Is she alright?” Rose turned to him, worried.

“Yeah, course she is, just needs a mo.” He shrugged. “Funny thing, for a space ship she doesn’t do all that much flying.”

“Yeah.”

“Sure you’re alright, Rose?” He inspected her closely, his eyes worried. “You’re not hurt? Injured? Unable to breathe?”

She blushed at the way he looked at her. Even after all this time, the intensity gave her shivers. “‘M fine. Promise. You’d better check Donna.”

He gazed intently at her for another moment before nodding and turning to Donna. 

“You sure you’re alright, then?” he asked cautiously, clearly expecting another outburst.

“Fine. Not that it matters now.” Donna was subdued.

Rose exhaled in sympathy. “Did we miss it?”

“Yeah.” 

“You can book another date,” she said tentatively.

“Course we can.”

“You’ve still got the honeymoon,” the Doctor said warily, watching the redhead.

“It’s just a holiday now.” Donna was looking over the edge of the building, unseeing.

“Right. Yeah. Sorry.” The Doctor cringed and turned to look pleadingly at Rose.

“Not your fault,” Donna said finally.

Rose blinked. That was a change. “Maybe not, but we still want to help,” she said softly, warily approaching the other woman, and noticing for the first time that the air was chilly and Donna was clad only in a wedding dress. “You must be cold.”

Donna shivered. “Yeah, a bit.”

“I have a jacket,” the Doctor offered, slipping it off.

“‘S alright, I have one of mine hanging in the console room,” Rose cut in, seeing the scathing look Donna directed at the jacket. “I’ll get it.”

“Hope it’s bigger than this,” Donna muttered, glancing briefly at the Doctor’s suit jacket. “This wouldn’t fit a rat.”

“Well there’s no need to be rude,” the Doctor huffed, slipping the jacket back on as Rose ducked briefly inside. “I was just being polite.”

“This is you being polite?” Donna demanded. 

“Yes!” The Doctor sounded offended. “Rose says I have to.” He huffed. “Even when people make it hard to be,” he muttered.

“What was that?” Donna barked.

“Nothing!” the Doctor squeaked, and Rose couldn’t help but smile as she rifled through the coats hanging in the console room, wondering why on earth they hadn’t thought to chuck that wretched orange space suit away. She still had nightmares about the Doctor being trapped in that pit.

“So, you and Blondie-”

“Her name is Rose,” the Doctor cut in indignantly. “Rose Tyler.”

“Rose, then. You’re a thing?”

“A thing?” the Doctor sounded confused. “What kind of thing? We’re not things. We’re people!”

Rose bit her lip, trying not to laugh as she finally found the jacket.

“Well, I dunno what you aliens call it! Are you together? Married? Partners? I dunno, mated?”

“Mated! We’re not animals!” The Doctor was outraged. “Besides, Rose isn’t an alien.”

“She’s not?” Donna sounded disbelieving and Rose decided she’d left them long enough. Knowing the Doctor, he was going to be smacked, and soon.

“Nope! She’s human. Brilliantlyhuman.”

“Not from Mars then?”

“Nope, ‘fraid not,” Rose grinned, strolling out with the jacket. “Here you are- nice and warm. You’ll need it while we’re standing about in this December air.” She shivered. “Forgot how cold it gets here sometimes.”

“You know London then?” Donna reluctantly slipped on the warm Kalpesian jacket.

Rose grinned. “Lived here most of my life- this is where I grew up. Literally, right here. My mum still lives in this block of flats.”

The Doctor froze. “Jackie isn’t home, is she?”

Rose paused. “Dunno. But if she is, she’s probably heard us.”

The Doctor gulped and turned to the TARDIS. “There’s an incentive for a quick recovery and repair, if ever I heard one.”

Rose hid a smile. “Better pray she’s not.”

“Yeah.” He turned to her with wild eyes. 

“I hate to break up this lovely chit-chat,” Donna interrupted. “But would somebody mind telling me why I was abducted and almost killed by a robot santa?”

Naturally, the Doctor ignored her question. “S’pose we’d better look at masking while we’re waiting for the TARDIS to repair herself- and I don’t just mean from Jackie.”

“Right.” Rose rolled her eyes. “If you’re lookin’ for the bio-dampers, they’re in your right pocket, from that time on Zerpebia- when we were bein’ chased by the creepy space piglets.”

“Oh yeah.” He grinned. “The Zorps. Have to love the Zorps- even if they did want to eat us.” At an impatient twitch from Donna, however, he cleared his throat. “Right, bio-dampers.” He dug into his pocket, frowning for a moment. “Ah, here we go! One basic model, coming right up!” he dug a gold wedding band out of his pocket and waved it triumphantly. “With this ring-”

“Doctor! Not that one!” Rose hissed, seeing the expression on Donna’s face. “Find a different one!”

“What? Why?” Catching her pointed glance at Donna, however, he flushed. “Ah. Yes. Never mind. Basic model won’t do here- let’s see what else we have…aha! Knew it was in here somewhere.” He waved the brooch around excitedly. “Here you are Donna, one first-class bio-damper, complete with style and all for the low price of nothing!”

The redhead rolled her eyes as eyed the brooch. “What does it do?”

“These creatures can trace you, and this brooch is a bio-damper- should keep you hidden.”

Donna hesitated. “I don’t know…”

“Donna, please.” Rose turned to the other woman. “We have no idea why those things want you or how they even found you, but whatever it is isn’t good. What does it hurt to wear this thing for a few hours until we sort this out?”

“Fine,” the redhead exhaled after a tense moment of silence. “Fine. Give it to me.” Seizing the brooch, she pinned it onto her dress and folded her arms. “Now what?”

“Now we wait.” The Doctor cast a longing look at the TARDIS. “And we chat.”

“Chat?” Donna was incredulous.

“Yep.”

Rose was fairly certain that if the Doctor popped another ‘p’, Donna was going to slap him.

“Chat. About. What?” Donna seethed through clenched teeth.

“Why they’re chasing you, obviously.” The Doctor looked at Donna as though she were mad. “What else?”

“That’s exactly what I asked a few minutes ago,” Donna growled. “And you ignored it.”

The Doctor cleared his throat, clearly sensing danger. “Right, well, good question. What do camouflaged robot mercenaries want with you? And how did you get inside the Tardis? I don’t know….” He sucked his upper lip in thought.  “What’s your job?”

“I’m a secretary.”

Seeing the Doctor about to open his mouth (and almost certainly about to get himself slapped), Rose cut in hastily, fixing the Doctor with a glare. “Where do you work?”

“H.C. Clements.” Donna inhaled. “It’s where I met Lance- I was temping.”

Rose smiled. “Bit of a sweetheart, was he?”

“Yeah.” Donna smiled. “He got me coffee- and him the head of HR! Heads of HR don’t get the secretaries coffee.”

“Sounds like a good one. So tell us more,” Rose encouraged. “When was this?”

“Six months ago.”

The Doctor stared. “Six months? Blimey, that’s qui-”

“What does H.C. Clements do?” Rose interrupted, glaring at the Doctor. 

“Security Systems. You know, entry codes, ID cards, that sort of thing. If you ask me, it’s a posh name for locksmiths.”

Rose opened her mouth to ask another question, only to be interrupted by a very familiar voice.

“You!” Jackie Tyler screeched, charging at the Doctor. 

The Doctor gulped. “Blimey.”

“I’ll give you blimey! I’ve been waitin’ for you, mate!”

“Mum-”

“Don’t you mum me, Rose Tyler! You’re not too old to be put over my knee! And as for that ruddy alien of yours.” She fixed her glare on the Doctor. “You’ve broken my telly, you have!”

“Ah.” The Doctor grimaced.

“All it picks up now is the space news from some alien planet! I can’t get my shows and you’re not leaving this building until you fix it.”

“What? Look Blondie,” Donna glared, “ I’ve already missed my wedding and been abducted by killer robots-”

The Doctor shook his head frantically at Donna. “Don’t, Donna! Don’t!”

“Shut it, Martian boy- I’ll say what I bloody well want and we’re not hanging about here while you fix the mother-in-law’s telly!”

“I’m not from Mars!” the Doctor protested.

“Oi, shut it, you!” Jackie turned and glared at Donna. “I dunno who you are but you’re not getting in the way of my telly repairs!” She looked her up and down. “And what the hell are you doing out here in a wedding dress, then? On Christmas, no less? You’ve a nerve turnin’ up drunk!”

“I’m not drunk! “ Donna shrieked.

“Then who are you and what are you doin’ here?”

Rose swallowed. “It’s a bit of a long story, mum.”

Jackie folded her arms. “I have time.”

“Fine.” Rose took a deep breath. “It all started when Donna suddenly appeared on the TARDIS in mid-flight…”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“You had the reception without me?”

“Donna, what happened to you?” A dark-skinned bloke dressed to the nines came forward, staring at Donna.

“You had the reception withoutme?”

The room was utterly silent.

The Doctor cleared his throat. “Hello, I’m the Doctor- and this is Rose Tyler.”

Rose inhaled. This was actually painful.

“Roooooose Tyler. Yep.”

His usual popped ‘p’ sounded unnaturally loud in the silence that followed.

Donna turned to Rose. “They had the reception without me.”

Rose cringed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Well, it was all paid for,” an annoyingly nasal woman piped up. “Why not?”

Rose turned to Donna. “Let me guess- that’s Nerys.”

“Spot on, Blondie. Nerys the Nag, as she’s better known.” She scowled at the other woman, who squawked in protest. 

The next thing Rose knew everyone was talking at once, demanding to know where Donna had been, an older woman carried on about silly messages and tricks, and it seemed as though the whole world was pressing in on them until Donna burst suddenly into tears.

Rose couldn’t help but smile as she felt the Doctor’s hand slip into her own, knowing as she did how baffled he became when confronted with emotions he couldn’t immediately explain.

“Crikey, didn’t see that coming!” he whispered, squeezing closer to her. 

She shrugged. “She’s hurt that no one cared that she disappeared from her own wedding. And then to top it off, they decided to have the reception without her. They’re dancin’ while she was off bein’ hunted by robot Santas.” She exhaled. “Anybody’d be hurt by that. They’ve basically told her they don’t care where she was.”

“Right.” He was quiet for a moment, watching as the man Rose presumed was Lance comforted Donna and everyone applauded. “Didn’t expect the tears though-  thought she’d tear them a new one when we walked in and found them bopping away. She seemed pretty furious.”

“I’m sure she is.” Rose turned to the Doctor. “Doesn’t mean she isn’t hurt. And I reckon she wants them all to know it and maybe feel a bit rotten about it- as they should.”

Donna winked at them as Lance led her away to the dancefloor, and the Doctor snorted. “Right again, Rose Tyler. Always with the right answers.”

“I try,” she smirked as the band started a new song.

“So.” He turned and looked her full in the face.

“So,” she said, her eyes on his, trying to keep the smile from her face.

“They have a band.” His eyes glinted.

“They do.”

“And the band is playing music.”

“It is.” She tried, she really did, to keep the smile from forming.

She failed.

“It’s nice. Sort of boppy. A boppy band.”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “You could call it that. What of it?”

“Fancy a dance, Rose Tyler?”

She raised her eyebrows teasingly. “Can you?”

“Nine hundred years old, me. I’ve been around a bit. I think you can assume at some point I’ve danced.”

Her heart began to pound because she recognised the look in his eyes: it was exactly the same look he’d given her when he’d spoken those words so many months ago, and his eyes had been blue instead of brown. 

“Doesn’t the universe implode or something if you dance?” Her words were breathless as she played her part.

“Well, I’ve got the moves but I wouldn’t want to boast.”

This time, she let her smile spread freely across her face. “You’ve got the moves? Show me your moves.”

“With pleasure.” He winked. “Not trying to resonate concrete this time.”

“You’ll find your feet at the end of your legs: you may care to move them.” She laughed as he spun her out onto the dance floor.

Together, they twirled and swayed this way and that; forgetting just for a moment about robot santas and bio-dampers and mysterious hitchhikers in the TARDIS, and just enjoyed the music and the closeness of the other.

She waved at Donna as she shimmied past them with Lance before the Doctor whipped her into another complicated turn and dipped her.

“Oh,” she said breathlessly. “Look at you, Mr Smooth.”

He waggled his eyebrows as he held the dip for a moment before letting her up. “It’s Doctor Smooth, actually.”

She groaned. “That was terrible.”

“I know,” he grinned. “But you love me anyway.”

“S’pose,” she laughed, shaking her head, unable to believe how different things were now from where they’d been a year and a half ago, unable to believe that they were here,now and things were everything she’d ever hoped they could be.

Her physical health had improved, thanks to a careful regimen set by the Doctor, and she was finally back to where she’d been before she’d gotten sick. Her mind had slowly and steadily improved and she’d been seeing Elpi every week since that first day- even on days when she’d been so exhausted, so disheartened that she’d want to give up, to crawl into her bed and hide. Things had improved so much and she’d become desensitised to so many triggers that even she had to concede she was slowly getting better. Better still, she knew she could and would continue to improve, until her mind was her own again and none of the scars of the past had the power to hurt or control her thinking anymore.

Because slowly but surely, she was taking control.

The Doctor had been as good as his word and stuck by her through every up and down, every self-doubt (his and hers). He hadn’t withdrawn from her, even when it was clear that he’d wanted to. He insisted on taking her to therapy for as long as she needed to go, and refused to hear a word said about her being a burden.

That’s not to say things were perfect, because of course, they weren’t. As her health had improved, their comfort in disagreeing had increased, and now they argued as much as they ever had. Sometimes she stormed off in frustration when he started on one of his arrogant Time Lord rants, certain he knew better than everyone else, and she was fairly certain he was ready to scream whenever she ‘released her inner human-y human’ as he called it, and charged into a situation throwing caution to the wind.

Sometimes he’d get testy when they’d stumble across someone from his past, and his silence would infuriate her. But now, instead of his usual whirl and dash, he’d sigh when she came to apologise for pushing too far and he’d tell her, in little bits and pieces.

She treasured those little bits and pieces of his soul more than anything.

By the time the events of Canary Wharf had happened, and he’d caught glimpses of an alternate future- the future that would have been -that could have been- she’d known, without a doubt that she loved him, that she knew him. That he was her Doctor. So in that awful, soul-wrenching moment when they’d stood, his words of a different future, a lonely and broken future hanging in the air, she’d gathered her courage and told him. He’d been utterly flabbergasted before seizing her and kissing her ferociously, and she’d known, then, deep in her bones, that it was her Doctor, the same man who’d had burning blue eyes, the same man who’d loved her and died for her…and the man who’d brought her back from death.

Things had been dizzyingly heady, after that, but even then he hadn’t pushed for more than she was ready to give. He hadn’t said a word about the fact that she hadn’t shared that final, intimate experience in her mind with him, that she hadn’t said those words yet.

I am the Bad Wolf.

Because she would. She knew it now, and so did he, and why should they hurry? She knew, even if he didn’t (not quite yet), that they had all the time in the world and for now they were just happy.

“Rose?” He’d stopped dancing, and was holding her close, looking at her in concern. “Are you alright?”

“‘M fine,” she smiled, reaching up to caress his face. “Just…thinkin.’”

His eyes blazed with an intensity that she knew all too well, the gaze her Doctor, in both of his bodies, had only ever turned on her. Because he loved her.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

“Well, hello darlings. Is this a private party or do you take multiple bookings?” Jack suddenly materialized beside them, waggling his eyebrows and breaking the spell.

Rose rolled her eyes as the Doctor turned to Jack with a scowl. “What do you want?”

“Well, I like that! There I was, minding my own business, when I got a call about chasing taxis and robot santas.” Jack raised an eyebrow. “Ring a bell?”

“He’s really pleased you came.” Rose poked the Doctor before turning to Jack. “Did you find anything?”

Jack’s smile dimmed and he waved them off the dancefloor with a grim expression, leading them over to Mickey. “Yeah…you’re not gonna like it though.”

The Doctor exhaled. “Right, what have you got?”

“Yeah, hello to you too.” Mickey turned a glare on them. “You’re both ridiculous by the way- makes me queasy watching the two of you.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Come on then, Micks, get on with it.”

“Right, well, your girl is one Donna Noble, works at H.C. Clements as a temp.”

“We’d already gathered as much!” The Doctor folded his arms. “Don’t you have anything useful?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Graciou as always, Doc. And I’m afraid I do, but as I said…you’re not gonna like it.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. “Tell me.”

“H.C. Clements is owned by the Torchwood Institute.”

Rose stared. “Say what?”

“Yeah.” Jack exhaled. “The London branch of Torchwood, to be exact.”

“But-”

“It doesn’t exist anymore, I know.” Jack looked at them sobrely. “We disbanded it a few weeks ago, after Canary Wharf. But it looks like somebody bought this firm up twenty-three years ago, and if this Donna is involved in anyway…”

“Her fiance is head of HR at H.C. Clements,” Rose said quietly. “Donna’s a temp there. They’ve been together for six months.”

Jack blinked. “Six months? And they’re getting married? Isn’t that a bit-”

“Yes, yes, it’s quick,” the Doctor cut in. “Focus, Jack! We still have no idea why Torchwood is interested in Donna- because mark my words, it’s them. They’ve shown no compunction at all about meddling in things they don’t understand.”

“Here, boss,” Mickey cut in. “There hasn’t been no Torchwood London for the past few weeks. I should know- closed it myself.”

Mickey had decided to return to Cardiff with Jack after Canary Wharf, and Rose was glad for him. Jack had offered him the chance to grow, and have his own adventures instead of being their third-wheel, and he’d taken it. By the sounds of it, he was enjoying it.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “But it was there for the last six months, Mickey, and just because you’ve closed the office doesn’t mean that there aren’t some of the old gang lurking about with unfinished business. Or worse, someone else has come in and taken over the operation.” He exhaled in frustration. “If only I could work out why. What do they want with Donna, and what did they do that landed her on the TARDIS?”

Jack passed him his mobile. “We managed to find this- one of the guests has posted it to My Space. It’s the footage of when she disappeared.”

“Right, she’s walking up the aisle, goose stepping as you humans do, no idea why, and then…oh. Oh. This is very, very not good. That’s impossible. That’s ancient!”

“What?” Rose demanded. “It looked like…if I didn’t know better I’d say it was Artron energy- like when you regenerated.”

“It isn’t.” He turned to her, eyes wide. “I….that looks like Huon particles.”

“What’s that?”

“They’re deadly. And defunct! Huon energy doesn’t exist anymore, not for billions of years.” He swallowed. “We got rid of them- my people did. They unravel the atomic structure. And they can’t be hidden by a bio-damper.”

“Oh my God.” Rose turned and dashed into the middle of the wiggling dancers. “Donna! Donna! They’ve found you! You have to get out! Get everyone out!”

“But I was supposed to be safe.” Donna looked almost vulnerable.

“The bio-damper doesn’t work- not with you. Come on, we’ve got to get everyone out!”

“Too late!” Mickey called from near the doors, peering outside. “They’re here. And we’re trapped.”

“Bugger.” The Doctor turned and, waving his sonic, cut off the music. “Stay away from the trees! Get away from the Christmas trees!”

“But-” An older woman Rose thought might be Donna’s mum began, only to have the Doctor whirl on her. 

“But nothing! Get away from the trees!”

“Too late!” Jack called, drawing his gun as the baubles rose into the air and six santas lined up in front of the bar. “Everybody take cover!”

“Oh, honestly, do you always think with your weapon, Harkness?” 

Rose rolled her eyes at Jack’s gleeful expression as she ducked behind the bar.

“Oi! Santa! Word of advice. If you’re attacking a man with a sonic screwdriver, don’t let him near the sound system.” The Doctor waved his sonic at the DJ’s desk and a horrific screeching caused the robots to explode.

Jack grinned. “Business as usual, eh Rosie?”

“S’pose so.” She shook her head as the Doctor muttered about separate remotes and people began to call for help. “Never a quiet Christmas since I met him.”

“You wouldn’t have it any other way! And neither would I!” The Doctor called, striding over with Donna in tow. “Even if it does mean we have to go to your mum’s for dinner after this.”

“Yeah,” she grinned, inexplicably happy despite the chaos and ever-present danger. “I’m so glad I met you.”

His eyes burned. “Better with two.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Not too far away, another TARDIS stood with the Doctor lounging in the doorway as Rose laughed at him.

“How are you still so rubbish at landings?”

“I am not!”

Rose rolled her eyes. “So you meant to land us in our own timeline however many years ago, so we could watch our younger selves fight killer santa robots?”

He cleared his throat. “There may have been a slight miscalculation involved. And it’s twenty-three years, four months and six days. To be exact.”

“Course there was.” Rose grinned. “Admit it, you’re a rubbish driver and you’ve always been a rubbish driver.”

“You take that back, Rose Tyler!”

She arched an eyebrow. “Why don’t you make me?”

“Why don’t you come over here and I’ll make you?” His eyes burned with a look Rose knew all too well.

She smirked and sidled over to him. “Feels a bit strange to be standin’ out here cuddlin’ while our younger selves are in there bein’ chased by those creepy robots.”

“They’ll manage.” He shrugged. “We did, after all. Long as we don’t interfere, everything will play out as it should do.”

“Yeah.” She gave him a meaningful look. “It will.”

He caught her meaning, and smiled. “Soon enough, that poor sod inside will have everything he’s ever wanted, everything he never thought he could have- including a wife.” He tapped her temple.  “A bondmate. And everything he’s ever gone through, every loss, every sorrow, will be worth it. Because it all led me to you.”

She leaned closer and kissed him softly. “Even if you had to wait so long?”

“Even then.” He smirked. “Besides, I’m a Time Lord, Rose. What’s a measly year or two in the scheme of things?”

“Yeah.”

“What about you?”

She blinked. “Me?”

“Yes. You.” He looked at her in the way only he could. Her Doctor. “Has it all been worth it?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking back over the last twenty-odd years, of adventure and heartbreak, of trauma and fear and danger and of hope and life and healing and love. 

Always love. 

She turned to him with a smile. “Yeah. Every bit of it.”

He gave her the smile that was hers alone and pulled her close for a moment, resting his chin on her hair.

She exhaled. “It meant a lot, you know.”

“What did?” He pulled back, cocking an eyebrow quizzically before taking her hand and sliding his fingers between hers.

“That you told me you loved me, that you asked me to marry you and bond with you before you even knew about the changes.”

He smiled and kissed her. “I’d do it again. That fool inside will do it again for me, soon enough.” He huffed. “Was a heck of a shock, though. Naughty TARDIS, hiding the structural alterations to your genetic makeup all this time.”

Rose laughed. “She probably decided we didn’t need to know.”

“Cheeky ship,” he muttered. “I’ll decide what’s need to know and what isn’t.”

“No regrets, though?” She cocked her head, watching him, tongue touching her teeth.

“None,” he said huskily, leaning in to chase her tongue. “I’m so glad I met you, Rose Tyler.”

“Better with two,” she smiled, before leaning in to kiss him again.

Rating: Teen

Relationship: Ten x Rose

Summary: A post-GITF sick-fic UA. What if Rose had come away with more than nightmares after her run-in with the clockwork droids? What if her trust in the Doctor had been so fractured that she’d been afraid to tell him? And what if that broken trust might just lead to a dangerous situation for Rose? Will the Doctor be able fix it in time? Note: Trigger warning for non-explicit DV, self-loathing, PTSD, medical emergency.

Notes:  Hello lovely people! Here is the new penultimate chapter for my @doctor-rose-events classic tropes fic - yes, that’s right, in typical me style, I’ve decided to add one more- an epilogue set some time after this chapter- to be posted next week. So we still have one more to go! I decided we deserved a look at Rose and the Doctor a way into the future and seeing how far things have come (no hints but SQUEEEEEE!). So keep your eyes peeled for that next weekend.In the meantime, this chapter is really about hope, and moving forward. About Rose knowing she can and deserves to ask for help, and that while it’s a LOT of work, it’s totally worthwhile. And SHE is worthwhile. It’s about courage and friendship and love and trust- all those vital things nobody can live without. I hope you like this chapter, which gives us several different glimpses at different points of Rose and team TARDIS (it makes me so happy just writing that) as they progress in this difficult journey. I hope you like it.Many thanks to Aintafraidanoghosts and @rose–nebula for encouraging me to post and not throw this thing into the bin, and as always, MANY HUGE HUGS TO ROSE-NEBULA FOR HER MAGNIFICENT AND THOROUGH BETA. You are the most magnificent of people <3 Thanks also to @galiifreyrose,@wildchildamandaa and @melusine for their encouragement to post this thing and stop butchering it. I’ve had a difficult week so apologies if this isn’t what it should be- all mistakes are mine.Only general trigger warning applies for this chapter.Hope you enjoy (or don’t hate this) and on with the show!

Also on:     A03     |   Teaspoon

Tumblr:  Chapter 1 |  Chapter 2 |  Chapter 3 |Chapter 4 |Chapter 5| Chapter 6|Chapter 7 |Chapter 8 |  Chapter 9 |  Chapter 10|Chapter 11 | Chapter 12

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Jack had always been much cleverer than he let on.

That wasn’t to say he pretended to be daft, but he played the part of a happy, lecherous fool so well that people didn’t realise that he saw more than he let on and said less than he thought. Rose had certainly never thought him stupid by any means (how could she, when he was so clever?), but she’d been so very surprised, in the beginning, by just how much he saw, how much he’d been able to read between the lines.

She’d also forgotten how well he knew her and how easily he could read her.

They’d talked for hours, that first day, until she was drooping with exhaustion and the Doctor had swooped in to carry her off to bed, glaring at Jack all the while, but Rose wasn’t sorry. She’d missed Jack so much and her guilt at realising they’d left him behind and what she’d done was immense. Jack had explained what had happened to him, and she’d finally understood what the Doctor had meant about Jack being a fixed point. She’d been horrified to hear that not only had she brought him back from the dead, but had apparently condemned him to an eternity of dying and coming back to life. 

*****************************************

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry Jack! I didn’t know, I didn’t mean to!”

“Don’t be sorry Rosie, I know you didn’t.” He comforted her, pulling her close. “It was a shock at first and I’m used to it now. It was hard the first few times, but after that? Piece of cake.”

“Stop tryin’ to make me feel better,” she sniffled, poking him in the shoulder. “I don’t deserve it.”

“No, Rose.” His tone was unusually firm. “You…this happened because you cared about me.” His voice had cracked. “You loved me so much that you brought me back from the dead- how can I be angry about that?”

“Yeah but I didn’t just do that, did I? I mucked it up and now you can’t die!“

“Alright, so you could have used a bit of work on the fine-tuning.” He rolled his eyes. “Rosie, you used the power of the Vortex! There’s no manual for that, and no one has ever done it! I’m amazed you managed to do what you did.” He buried his face in her hair for a moment. “That you wanted to do what you did.” He waggled his eyebrows in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Not that I can blame you- handsome hunk that I am.”

“Prat,” she muttered.

“But a handsome prat!” He leered. “So handsome you couldn’t live without another peek at my cheeky derriere.”

She couldn’t help laughing at his outrageous means of cheering her up. She’d missed it. “Shut up, you perv.”

“That’s better,” he smiled. “Much better. “You’re not made for sadness, Rosie. And I’ll tell you here and now- you have nothing to be sorry about, and if I’m angry with anyone, it sure as hell isn’t you.”

She wisely chose not to probe further, knowing how furious he was- how furious he deserved to be- with the Doctor who had known what had happened to him and yet chosen to leave him behind.

And then, finally, when it couldn’t be avoided any longer, they talked about her.

She’d been too ashamed to tell him everything, especially that she’d almost caused her own death because she’d been too afraid to go to the Doctor for medical help, but she had told him the bare bones- including, reluctantly, that the Doctor had left her and Mickey on the space station in the future to go after Madame de Pompadour. Unsurprisingly, Jack had been incredulous, and utterly furious, only containing his reaction when he saw how much the topic had upset her. He’d taken a deep breath and, clearly ignoring his own rage on the matter, changed the subject.

She’d never loved him as much as she had in that moment. 

They’d spoken for hours, mourning the loss of the Doctor they’d known and loved, and talking a little about this one. Rose had made a point of telling Jack that while this Doctor had made a poor start and given her cause to doubt, he was working overtime to prove himself now. She’d even shared that the Doctor had been talking about his planet, which Jack had heard in utter disbelief.

Apparently, though, it hadn’t been enough, because the next morning, she awoke to find Jack growling at the Doctor in the kitchen. She stood out of the doorway, just out of sight, listening to the scene unfold.

“Bad enough you dumped me, and left me without a clue about what had happened or where you were,” he snarled at the Doctor, who’d stood with jaw clenched. “But Rose? You abandoned Rose ? If anything could show me that you’re not the same man, that would be it.”

The Doctor flinched, and said nothing.

“He’d have cut off his right hand before leaving her on that dump! What were you thinking?”

“That’s none of your business,” the Doctor said finally, his voice low and fierce. “It’s between me and Rose.”

“The hell it is!” Jack growled. “Rose is family, the only family I have, and once upon a time she was the most important person in the world to you! Now you dump her to go after one of the most self-centred, greedy snobs in history? You’d damn well better believe it is my business!”

“Enough.” The Doctor’s warning tone sent chills down her spine. 

“No it damn well isn’t!” Jack growled right back. “How dare you? How dare you abandon Rose, leave her to die for that…that harpy, knowing what you do about what Rose has been through?”

“What do you know about what she’s been through?” The Doctor’s voice was sharp.

“You know good and well the bastard she was with before abused her.”

Rose closed her eyes in shame. She’d forgotten how clever Jack was, how perceptive. She should have known he’d work it out somehow, should have known he’d piece it all together.

“You knew.” The Doctor’s tone was suspiciously flat.

“Of course I knew,” Jack scoffed. “It was obvious to anyone with eyes, and you knew too. Don’t try and pretend you didn’t.”

The Doctor had been silent for a long moment. “I guessed, but I didn’t know.”

“You knew enough,” Jack growled. “More than enough. You saw how she was in the beginning, you knew how she thought of herself, of you, heck even me! Or at least, the first you did,” Jack added pointedly. “No idea about thisyou.”

“You’re a Time Agent, Jack.” The Doctor sounded tired. “You know how regeneration works, you know we’re one and the same.”

“So how do you explain this little jaunt, then- and abandoning the TARDIS, I might add? And don’t add any bull about it being none of my business because we both know that you owe me for taking off and never coming back. I can just about understand you leaving me at the Game Station when you were regenerating, but what about afterwards? Why didn’t you come back? Why didn’t you warn me, tell me what had happened? Do you know how many times I was burned as a witch? How many times I barely got out alive because I never aged, because I broke my neck and was walking around a few minutes later? I didn’t even realise that it was Rose who’d done it until I talked to her just now! You dumped me like so much trash and kept on going. I was your friend, I travelled with you- I deserved better, Doctor!”

“You did,” the Doctor said into the charged silence. “You did and I’m… sorry. Fixed point or no fixed point, you didn’t deserve that.”

“Damn right I did,” Jack seethed. “And Rose? What was your excuse for leaving her on that disease-ridden junk heap?”

“She told you?” The Doctor’s tone was entirely flat.

“She told me enough,” Jack growled. “She told me you left her on that cursed scrapheap and that she was sick shortly afterwards. Doesn’t need a Time Lord genius to put two and two together. That ship would have been a cesspool of pathogens after what happened to the crew.”

“Yes,” the Doctor said quietly. “It was”

The heavy silence was so charged that Rose had almost made up her mind to walk in, when Jack spoke.

“So?”

“So what?”

“So,” Jack said through his teeth. “Why. Did. You. Leave. Rose? And don’t feed me that bull about needing to save history, because we both know you could have found another way or taken her with you, at the least. And don’t say it isn’t my business because what happens to Rose Tyler is always my business.”

The Doctor sighed. “It’s between me and Rose, Jack. I know you mean well, but this isn’t something I’m going to discuss with you. It’s private.”

“Don’t give me that,” Jack snarled. “She almost died, and while I respect Rosie’s right to privacy, I’m sure as hell not inclined to extend you the same privilege. You owe me, Doctor and you owe Rose. That woman has stuck by you through thick and thin and then some- what could make you leave her? She wasn’t a fixed point,” he added pointedly. “So what gives?”

The Doctor didn’t say a word.

“Not talking, huh? Alright, let me see if I can guess. Let’s see- you’re crazy about Rosie, clearly still are, so what would make you do something so stupid and dangerous? Sounds like a panic response if ever I heard one- no thought involved at all. But what could scare a mighty Time Lord enough to make him panic? Oh, here’s a wild guess: a little worry about mismatched lifespans and getting too attached, maybe?”

The sound of a spoon clattering into the sink seemed unnaturally loud in the silence.

“I knew it. That’s it, isn’t it?” Jack demanded. “Say it!” he shouted when it seemed that the Doctor wasn’t going to reply.

“Yes,” the Doctor said finally.

“Right.”

The next minute, she heard the sound of scuffling and ran as quickly as she could into the kitchen, just in time to catch Jack’s fist in both her own hands, the Doctor standing unmoving with a look of utter resignation and acceptance on his face. He had no intention of defending himself and she couldn’t take it.

“No,” she said, panting from her exertions. “Don’t.”

“Rosie…”

“No, Jack.” She exhaled, trying to catch her breath. “Don’t. Not for me. I don’t…” She drew breath again. “No hittin’.”

She’d had enough of violence to last her a lifetime.

Turning to look at the Doctor, she gasped at the look in his eyes; the guilt, the loathing…and the love.

For her.

She turned back to Jack. “Don’t…I know you’re angry, Jack, an’ you’ve got every right to be. I know the Doctor hurt you.” She drew a deep breath, stifling her emotions. “I know what that feels like, and you have the right to…I dunno, ask for answers, shout at him, tell him off…,but no….no hittin’. I can’t…’s not right.”

Jack’s expression softened and he dropped his hand immediately, his blue eyes suddenly understanding. “I’m sorry Rosie, I didn’t mean to-”

“No,” she cut in. “Don’t apologise to me- I’m not the one you almost hit. Don’t apologise for bein’ angry, or feelin’ the way you do, but there’s no need to make your point with your fists.” She inhaled. “‘S not right to hit people just because you’re mad. Use your words- an’ not as a weapon, ” she added.

Jack nodded shamefacedly and turned gruffly to the Doctor. “I shouldn’t have….”

The Doctor shook his head, his eyes not leaving Rose for a second. “Forget it.”

Rose looked between the two of them, the seething swell of emotion- the panic, the fear, the anxiety and the very familiar loathing- rising in her throat. “Right,” she said faintly, needing to get away from their knowing gazes. “I’ll just…you two need to talk without me here. I’ll be in my room if you want me.”

And with that, she painstakingly made her way back to her room, unable to believe she’d cut in as she had, or that Jack had been so incensed on her behalf that he’d been about to to hit the Doctor- and that the Doctor had intended to let him. As sick as it made her to think of Jack hitting anyone out of anger, let alone the Doctor, his heated defense and his obvious care for her nonetheless warmed her in a way she couldn’t quite explain. 

And the Doctor’s willingness to let himself be struck was both thrilling and terrifying, and she couldn’t bear to think of it any longer.   

To her surprise, he came by with a tray not long afterwards. “Eat,” was all he said, his eyes soft. “Medications on the side, as usual.”

She nodded, unable to say a word.

It took her a few hours to manage to eat, rest, shower, rest and dress (really, it was ridiculous how often and how long she had to rest these days after any kind of exertion) before dragging herself to the library. The Doctor and Jack had joined her not long afterwards. 

Whatever had passed between them, they’d appeared to have reached a truce of some kind and neither of them ever mentioned it again. Rose was glad. 

It was enough.

***************************************************

Life had carried on in a strange, new normal after that. To her utter joy, Jack had told her he planned to stay on the TARDIS for some time, and after a quick trip back to his team to explain any potential absences (knowing the Doctor’s driving as they did), they were off. Oddly enough, Mickey had seemed to accept Jack’s return with no more than a “Oh, you’re back are you? Alright mate?” Thinking on it, Rose suspected that he liked having another person on the TARDIS with them, one who wasn’t caught up in this…whatever it was, between her and the Doctor.

And whatever it was was getting more and more intense by the day- but to her relief and utter amazement, the Doctor didn’t press her once. He didn’t push her to say a word, didn’t try to force her to say more than she was ready to, or confess to feelings she was beginning to suspect she’d never manage to shake.

Feelings she was in no way ready to face, yet.

They’d started travelling again, mostly to out of the way, isolated natural paradises as Rose slowly continued to regain her strength. She’d progressed from sitting on a blanket breathing in crisp, fresh air, TARDIS humming happily in the background and the Doctor standing watchfully behind her as Mickey and Jack scampered off to explore and swim (Jack always in the buff, and clearly enjoying Mickey’s spluttering protests and the Doctor’s gimlet glare when he ventured too close to Rose’s blanket), to slowly walking along flat, simple paths. She’d been thrilled when she’d graduated to short walks along the sand and along the cliff tops, the Doctor by her side every step of the way, wordlessly spreading the blue picnic blanket and watching her until she sat to rest, panting with exhaustion. 

The only exception to their beach and mountain idylls in those months of recovery were the regular trips to the fifty-first century. 

It had taken her many months to make her next, all-important decision, but she’d mustered every bit of her courage and during one of her nightly chats with the Doctor, had finally asked him for a name. He hadn’t blinked, and to her utter shock, had nonchalantly pulled what looked like an encyclopaedia out of his pocket, with what seemed to be the name of every trauma specialist who’d ever lived. After prolonged discussion, she’d decided against someone from her own time (there was far too much she’d have to hide in her sessions) and had chosen a renowned counsellor and highly specialised trauma doctor, from one of the most famous centres in the fifty-first century. Jack hadn’t blinked when he’d learned where they were going, and in view of his own missing history and trouble with the time agency, wisely chose to stay on board during her weekly visits. He had confirmed, however, that Professor Elpi Jiacj had been very highly regarded in his time.

Rose had found that very comforting, especially when, on the morning (she ignored the cheerful voice of the Doctor in her mind reminding her that there was no morning on the TARDIS) of her first appointment, she’d been so terrified that she’d had another panic attack. It had taken the Doctor an hour to calm her and slowly convince her to give the lady doctor a try. He’d sworn that  if she didn’t like her, they’d find someone else. It had taken both the Doctor and Jack (who had assured her again and again that he didn’t think any less of her for either the panic attack or her fears) to eventually walk her out into the waiting room for her appointment. 

She hadn’t known what to expect, but to her utter surprise, she’d found that Professor Jiacj (who insisted on being called Elpi) was nothing like what she’d expected. Despite the many medals and diplomas on her wall, the older woman had been kind and personable, and surprisingly easy to talk to, and Rose had been amazed at the other woman’s reaction when she’d finally managed to get why she was there. She’d expected the professor to respond with skepticism or doubt, or condemn Rose for the actions that had almost cost her her own life. She’d certainly expected some kind of dismissiveness or condescension at Rose’s humble background in comparison with her own illustrious pedigree. She’d expected, at the very least, the contempt she felt for herself every single day, for letting herself get into this situation, for almost killing herself through fear, for letting herself hope at any point that there could be anything between herself and someone like the Doctor, and ultimately, for allowing Jimmy to do to her what he had, and for thinking she deserved to ask for help.

But there had been none of that. Instead, the other woman accepted everything she said at face value. She’d never pushed Rose to reveal more than she was ready to, and asked sensitive, empathetic questions that seemed perfectly designed to draw no more from Rose than she was ready to give.

Most of all, without even knowing her, she’d treated Rose as though she wasn’t damaged beyond repair, as thought she mattered- as though her feelings and thoughts and actions mattered. Rose had been so shocked that, to her utter mortification she’d burst into tears. The Professor had responded kindly and with empathy, sensing (or perhaps used to) Rose’s embarrassment, waving off Rose’s apology, and telling her that she had every right to feel however she felt, and she should never apologise for it.

The idea was utterly shocking, to Rose, and yet, hearing it felt as though she were standing on a new road with the power of a jet-pack behind her, ready to blast off into the unknown.

By the end of that first session, Rose knew that she’d be back, and over the coming weeks and months (the Doctor brought her faithfully in what he called seven day-like but not weekly increments for what seemed to be months and months and months) she slowly came to understand what had happened to her and the effect it had had.

“It’s not your fault,” Elpi had told her, time and again. “It’s not your fault that Jimmy Stone chose to hurt and manipulate you. It’s not your fault that you didn’t realise that you were being groomed to accept abuse, or that you were being abused. His actions are his own, and only he is responsible for them. The only person whose actions you are responsible for are your own.”

It had been hard, was hard for Rose to accept that, because the hated voice was always in the back of her head, all too happy to remind her that she was worthless, that she deserved everything that had happened to her, and that it hadn’t been abuse at all, that she’d made him behave that way. But slowly, over time, she worked with Elpi to process the thoughts and triggers that gave it power, the professor working tirelessly to peel back the layers of trauma, and find each and every underlying cause, teaching Rose to process and manage them as they went.

Together, they’d worked through Rose’s account of her history with the Doctor, and his betrayal on the space station. They’d worked through questions of broken and restored trust, and whilst she didn’t (and couldn’t, as Rose later learned) fix Rose’s trust issues herself, she had given Rose the tools to rebuild her relationship with the Doctor and more importantly, with herself. Elpi had, to Rose’s utter shock, firmly agreed that Time Lord or not (something the other woman still marvelled over), Rose deserved to be treated with consideration and respect, and that avoidance was not an acceptable substitute for communication. She’d worked with her to reprogram and rebuild Rose’s perception of what a healthy relationship and self-perception should look like. They talked about Rose’s views of herself, and her own worth- her upbringing and childhood, her experiences, and things Rose hadn’t even thought would matter.

The sessions were demanding, and sometimes, particularly in the beginning, Rose was so tired afterwards that the Doctor would jump out of his chair in the waiting room and half carry her back to the TARDIS, where he’d put her straight to bed.

He was never far out of earshot, especially when the nightmares came.

Some sessions proved to be so exhausting that she wondered how mere words and thoughts could drain her this way. Elpi had assured her that it was normal and that it was a good sign that her trauma was slowly being processed, one piece at a time, and eventually, things had started to improve.

Having Jack nearby was a boon, and before she knew it, they’d fallen right back into their old, familiar pattern- sharing confidences and giggles, and fighting over the Poitan chocolate. He never pressed her to share, and listened when she did open up. He never called her stupid, or belittled anything she said. While he wasn’t Elpi and it wasn’t his job to fix her, it helped, somehow, to have her dearest friend in the world there to listen to the little bits and pieces she wanted to share and hold her hand during what had to be one of the most frightening and important experiences of her life.

Even better, he shared with her too, just as he’d done all those months ago when they’d travelled together with a gruff man in a leather jacket and a Northern accent. It meant so very much that he still treated her as an equal, that he shared his own troubles with her, and didn’t see her as some kind of basket mental case.

Mickey had been aware, of course in very general terms, of what was going on, but wisely, he chose not to comment, perhaps seeing, for the first time, that this was something he couldn’t share with her, and the best thing he could do was to simply be himself and be there. 

As for the Doctor…

That was, perhaps, the most significant relationship of them all, and deep inside, Rose knew that it had always been so, that the Doctor wouldn’t have had the power to hurt her the way he had if he hadn’t mattered so much.

If Jack had been supportive then the Doctor seemed determined to prop her up himself,  mentally as well as physically, and by sheer force of will if necessary. True to his word, he’d not shut her out again. He continued his meticulous care of her (long after she’d stopped needing it, in her opinion) and had continued to share more and more of his past with her, to share himself with her in a hundred little ways that meant more than all the grand declarations in the universe. He’d continued, each and every day, to show her how she mattered to him, and how important she was. He’d even suggested, after Rose had physically improved enough to avoid suspicion, a trip to visit Jackie, whenever Rose was so inclined, and all the very many doubts and fears that she battled on any given day couldn’t stand up to what she knew to be a selfless and deeply uncomfortable offer. She’d managed (barely) to smother her laugh at the pained expression on his face. 

He’d told her more of his previous selves and even (grudgingly) permitted her to look through a photo album of his third self that the TARDIS had seen fit to leave in her room.

(He’d also permitted himself to whine incessantly at her laughter, and complain that if she was going to look at old photos, the least she could do was keep her giggles and opinions to herself.)

And slowly, she’d started to open up with him too- sharing more of herself, and feeling more comfortable in doing so, because in spite of herself, she’d been able to see more and more of her Doctor and less of the selfish, frightened man he’d been.

She was still terrified.

However, all in all, she’d felt better with him- more of the easy comfort and camaraderie they’d always shared and less of the recent tension and suspicion. That’s not to say it all vanished overnight and everything was picture perfect, nor was she ready to share everything with him, but it was better, and slowly but surely, it was getting better and better all the time.

She was learning to trust him again, as he was trusting her.

It would take time, but they were going to be alright.

****************************************

The first time she realised that she trusted him was several months after Jack had come on board. The Doctor had promised to take them to get chips after her most recent session with Elpi, and instead of taking her to her favourite little chippy in London, he’d landed them on an alien planet in the year six thousand and forty-three. Mickey and Jack had scarpered off into the bustling town to see what kind of trouble they could get into, while the Doctor stood smirking at her, one brow raised questioningly.

“You coming then Rose? Thought you wanted chips.”

“I do want chips.” She folded her arms and arched her own brow. “Do they even have chips here?”

“Course they do!” He sounded offended. “D’you think I’d promise you chips and then leave you high and dry?”

“Cardiff instead of Naples ring a bell? London instead of New York, and no Elvis?”

“Yes, yes, alright, fine.” He pouted. “There may have been a few instances of…miscalculation, but this time, I mean it! We’re exactly where and when I want us to be.”

“Which is where?”

“Wooble!”

“Do what?”

“Wooble, Rose! We’re on the planet Wooble, in the capital city Wooble.”

Her jaw dropped. “You’re jokin’. Wasn’t that a joke from-”

“Blackadder Goes Forth! Yes!” He beamed. “The entire planet was named by Rowan Atkinson’s estate about a thousand years after his death- they thought it’d be a right laugh to name it Wooble.” He sucked his upper lip. “There may also have been copious amounts of hypervodka involved.”

“I can’t…that’s ridiculous! I can’t believe we’re on Wooble.” She shook her head. “But why are we here to get chips?”

“Because Stephen Fry insisted on building a chippie here, of course. Liked a nibble whenever he came for a visit.”

“ Stephen Fry?” 

“Yep!” The Doctor popped his p so loudly that passers by looked askance at them. “Stephen Fry the Sixty-Third, that is. Descendent of a hundredth cousin thrice removed of the original Stephen Fry, or something like that.”

“Right,” she said faintly. “Course he is. An’ so this Stephen Fry decided he wanted chips?”

“Yep, he’s famous for his love affair with the humble potato.” The Doctor waggled his eyebrows. “In a manner of speaking. Managed to hitch a ride with a Time Agent by mistake, ended up on earth in your time, and the Vortex manipulator burnt out (you really can’t trust those things, Rose). He wandered into a chip shop while he was waiting for rescue and the rest, as they say, is history.” He paused. “Or the future, depending on which way you look at it.”

“Course it is.” She shook her head. “So how come we’rehere for chips, though?”

The Doctor grinned cheekily. “Because there’s something I want to show you here. And their chips are tasty. Thought we could kill the two birds with one stone.”

She cocked her head. “What are we lookin’ at, then?”

“Ah-ah, that’s a surprise.” He bounced on his toes, looking enormously pleased with himself. “You’ll have to close your eyes- no peeking!- and walk where I tell you. Can you do that Rose?”

“Yeah, but…”

“No buts! Close those curious eyes, Rose, and off we go!”

She rolled her eyes before covering them with one hand. “Thought I was gettin’ chips, yeah?” 

“You will! You’ll just have to trust me in the meantime.”

“Course I do, you plum, “ she said without thinking, her breath catching at his sudden exhale.

“Right,” he said a moment later, his voice sounding slightly unsteady. “Surprise first and then chips. Come on, give me your hand, Rose.”

She swallowed, trying not to dwell on the suddenly heavy atmosphere, and gave him her right hand, keeping her left firmly across her eyes.

“You’d better not let me fall on my face,” she muttered. 

“I won’t!” he’d chirped as he’d led her along. “Trust me.”

And to her utter shock, she realised that she did. 

Oh, she was still afraid of being hurt, afraid that somehow, he might see what she saw when she looked at herself instead of whatever he saw now. She was afraid that opening up, that trusting him that little bit more would somehow end in pain. She was still afraid that he might meet someone better, someone more, and love them instead. Because how could he not, when she was what she was?

But in spite of all that, at this moment, she knew that she trusted him more than her fear. She knew that she believed him when he said he loved her, that he’d prove to her that he’d never abandon her again. 

And that alone was more than she’d thought she could ever give again.

“Right, stop there.”

His voice pulled her from her reverie. “Can I open my eyes now?”

“Yep!” Another loudly popped ‘p’- he sounded very pleased with himself. “Go ahead.”

Slowly removing her hand, she blinked. “Right, what am I…oh my God. Is that what I think it is?”

“Yep!” He practically quivered with happiness. “A genuine Barcelonian-inspired dog-tree- complete with dog-shaped leaves-”

“-with no noses!” she finished, unable to believe what she was seeing, tears pricking at her eyes. “You meant it!”

“Of course I meant it! Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because trees don’t usually have leaves shaped like dogs with no noses!” She turned to stare at him. “I thought you were havin’ me on.”

“Well, I wasn’t.” He folded his arms. “It’s genetically modified to produce the er, dog-esque effect. Bloke who did it ended up making a fortune- made trees with all kinds of leaves.”

She nodded, unable to speak, overcome as she was by a wave of mixed emotions because the Doctor had promised to bring her here to show her this ridiculous tree- back when he’d worn leather and blue eyes instead of pinstripes and brown. It had been a throwaway comment, made during a laughing moment she’d not taken seriously at all, nor even thought he remembered.

Only he had. And he’d brought her here to show her.

She took a deep breath, and another, reaching out to caress the rough leaves to soothe her nerves.

Because he’d remembered.

Because he’d allowed himself to remember.

Because he’d made a point of bringing her and acting as though hehad made this promise, not a ‘previous him’.

And because she’d simply thought of him as ‘The Doctor’ who’d promised her a ridiculous tree.

“Did you mean it?” he asked suddenly, making her jump.

“Mean what?”

“What you said before, back at the TARDIS?”

She exhaled. She did, she knew she did. But was she ready to tell him? Could she tell him?

However, seeing his hopeful expression, she knew the time had come. He’d given her so much over the past months, cared so much and been as good as his word. 

He’d loved her, did love her and even if she wasn’t ready to admit the precisely the same, to show him everything, she knew it was past time that she told him- and that he saw and understood everything that would come with it, with her, everything she’d told the past him. Everything he’d hidden from himself until she was ready to share it. 

Well, almost everything. 

She took a deep breath to still her fear. Would he still want her after he saw how broken she was? How damaged? Would he want to stay when he understood just how deep the damage and hurt had run?

“Rose?” His hopeful gaze soothed her a little and added a fierce hope into the swell of emotion. Because hadn’t he stayed through the worst? Hadn’t he come to find her when she wouldn’t wake? Hadn’t he told her he loved her in the face of her open suspicion and distrust? And- her heart warmed- hadn’t he stayed by her side through it all since? No matter how quiet or suspicious or panicked or sick or anxious she’d been, he’d been there. Why would he turn from her now?

She had to trust him. Perhaps not with that last, final declaration of her feelings (and the sharing of self she’d shared with his previous self in her mind), not yet, but with the truth of what had happened in her mind, of everything she’d said and suffered. He deserved to know as much; he’d earned it and it was time she repaid his trust in kind.

She took a deep breath, terrified and spoke the pass-phrase. “I…I trust you.”

He froze for an endless moment, brown eyes wide as the memories were released and she held her breath. Would he turn from her or would he look at her differently? Would he run?

He did neither.

Instead, a slow smile spread across his face, his brown eyes looking oh so familiar as they swirled with an intensity that she knew and loved, whether the eyes were blue or brown, even if she wasn’t ready to admit it even to herself just yet.

To her surprise, he held out his hand. “I want chips,” was all he said, watching her intently.

“Bring your wallet this time?” was all she trusted herself to say, feeling as though the breath had been stolen from her lungs.

“Might’ve done. And I could be induced to share.” He fixed her with an intense look that said things she wasn’t ready to hear, just now, wasn’t sure she could take. “Better with two,” was all he said, watching her intently.

And with a deep draw on courage she didn’t know she had, she took a deep breath and placed her hand in his.

“Better with two.” 

His eyes glowed. “Brilliant. Allons-y!”

And with that, they walked off into…possibility. 

And hope.

Things weren’t perfect. She still had a lot to process, and frankly, so did he. She wasn’t ready to share herself with no holds barred, yet, and maybe neither was he- not this him, at any rate. But she was Rose Tyler and he was the Doctor, and together they were Rose Tyler and the Doctor in the TARDIS.

As it should be.

 Fin

Rating:General

Relationship:Nine x rose

Summary: While waiting out an unlikely infestation/invasion, the Doctor tells Rose and Jack about a rather…unusual…incident from his past.

Notes: Er, so, hi? *waves timidly*. It’s been a long while, I know- RL has been VERY rude. And apparently this is the first thing that my muse has decided that we need to share after all this time. It’s utter crack, from start to finish (totally not sorry!), and those of you who know me are probably not at all surprised by the content of this crackitude. *grins sheepishly* Fair warning, I’m VERY rusty.To be fair, it’s not entirely my fault- a friend sent me this crazy article and, well, the muse took over after that. Thanks to rose–nebula for the beta x Soooo…..yeah. Enjoy the lunacy and if you hate it please don’t come after me with a crepe?

Also on: A03  I  Teaspoon

_______________________________________________________________

Rose turned to the Doctor. “Right, what we gonna do then?”

“Do?” He cocked his head.

“About the crazy giant moose-things that have taken over the ski park, Doctor!’ Rose stared at him. “Or were you plannin’ to just sit here in front of a sixty-first century ski park  an’ wait it out until aliens try to take over the world again?” 

“Who said anything about aliens?”

Jack stared. “Wait, you mean they’re NOT aliens?

“Nope. Just angry meeses.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Rose frowned. “Did you say meeses?”

“Yeah. Plural of moose. Used to be moose, but they changed because of a mad lawyer in the early twenty-first century. Nutella-crazed, moose-obsessed nutter, she was.”

“Nutella-crazed…what? ” Rose shook her head in bewilderment.

“Oh yeah, complete nutter. Whacked me over the head with a crepe, once.”

“Oooooh, kinky.” Jack waggled his eyebrows. “You randy old Time Lord, you.”

“That wasn’t a euphemism, you oversexed sod! She thumped me with a crepe. Literally.”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “What’d you do, then?”

“Why d’you always assume I’ve done something?” The Doctor crossed his arms indignantly, leather jacket creaking. 

Rose folded her own arms in response. “Cause I know you, Doctor. You always do something.”

“Honestly, Rose, I’m insulted. Me own wife, of all people, thinkin’ the worst  of me! Hurts a bloke’s feelings, that does.”

Rose raised an eyebrow. “Doctor.”

“Honestly, Rose! I have feelings , you know.”

“Nope.” The other brow went up. “Not buyin’ it. What’d you do? ”

“Nothing, really.” He cleared his throat. “I might’ve half-inched a jar of Nutella.”

Rose stared at him, not saying a word.

He looked intently at the toe of his left boot. “…from the cafe she was sitting in. As they were about to put it on her crepe.”

“Doctor!”

“What? I was peckish, Rose, and I had a hankering!”

Jack whistled. “You stole a Nutella addict’s Nutella? You’re lucky you’re still alive to talk about it.”

“You’re not wrong. Thought I was going to regenerate then and there,” the Time Lord grumbled. “Not that I was overly fond of that body anway. Too shifty by half, that one.”

“Which you was it?”

“Seventh.”

“Ah.” Rose bit her lip, trying to hold in a laugh.

“What?” The Doctor demanded. “What’s so funny?”

“S’just…the mental image of creepy shepherd-magician you bein’ chased by a crazy woman wavin’ a crepe.” She snorted. “S’ridiculous, Doctor.”

Jack giggled. 

“Oi! That’s enough of that!” The Doctor looked outraged. “I could’ve been seriously injured, Rose! She threatened to throw me to a moose, you know!”

Rose tried harder to stifle her laughter. “Did she even have a moose?”

“Well, I wasn’t takin’ any chances! She was screechin’ about Rupert and the Twice Victorious Meese Army! I wasn’t sticking around to find out!”

“Rupert?” Rose burst out laughing, unable to hold it in any longer. “A moose named Rupert?”

“Rupert the Battle Moose, First Commander of the Regimental Horde of Very Angry Meeses, if you don’t mind.”

Rose only laughed harder.

“It’s not funny, Rose! I could’ve been seriously injured, me! Have you seen the size of them?”

She tried to stop laughing. She really did, but Jack’s explosive laughter didn’t help. 

“Stop that!” The Doctor snapped. “Death by moose is a very serious business, Rose!”

She squeaked.

“Rose!”

“Death by moose,” she wheezed. “Death by moose!”

“Yes, death by moose!” He shuddered. “Pretty certain that regeneration by meeselation has never happened before. Can you imagine what I’d look like if I’d formed meself on the last thing I’d seen?

Unable to help it any longer, Rose collapsed in a pile on the ground, laughing hysterically. Distantly, she heard Jack crackling with laughter. She wasn’t surprised; picturing the Doctor with antlers and a goofy-looking moose face did that to a person.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. “I picked up a jar of Nutella from Tesco on our last visit to Jackie- you just see if I share any!”

“Course you will,” Jack wiped at his eyes. “As if you’ve ever been able to say no to Rose.”

“Of course I can!” The Doctor scoffed. “I’m a Time Lord, me- stern of will and strong of purpose.”

“And smitten of the Rose and whipped of the affection.”

“That’s not the right phrasing.” The Doctor scowled. “And I’m not whipped.”

“As a training post in a Victorian army camp, oh, yes you are.” Jack waggled his eyebrows.

Rose smiled cheerfully at him from the forest floor. “You know you love me, Doctor.”

The Doctor grunted.

“You know you do.” She stood, dusting herself off and slipping her arm into his. “An’ I love you, even if you do get yourself attacked by crazy people carrying random foodstuffs.”

He grumbled.

Winking at Jack, she steered the sulky Time Lord towards the clearing in which they’d left the TARDIS. “Come on then, why don’t we talk about it over a nice cup of tea and some Nutella on toast?” 

“S’pose,” the Doctor muttered at last, absently lacing his fingers with hers as they strode along.

“Honestly.” Jack shook his head as he watched them go. “ Sosmitten.”

Fin

Hello lovelies! So another year has rolled around and today is 9/9, so we celebrate the amazing and wonderful Ninth Doctor, my favourite Doctor and my Doctor forever. In honour of this special day, I humbly, once more, offer a list all of my Nine x Rose fics to date. The list is under the cut. I hope you enjoy!

AU

A Helping Hand- Dr. John Noble hated drama and domestics, and avoided them both like the plague…until he overheard an argument between the new barista at his usual cafe and her ex-boyfriend. To his utter befuddlement, he decided to help her out. And things spiral out of control from there…

Of Coveralls and Penguin Suits-A human, mechanic AU in three parts and my first non canon AU. It’s something soft and fluffy and funny, with requited pining and a teensy bit of angst/hurt/comfort. Oh, and it has Jack. And Donna. And Wilf. Warning for Jack being Jack. ‘Nuff said.

The Disco-Stick of Destiny-Part 1 of the Disco-Stick of Destiny series, which is somewhat crack-ish a ridiculous. A human AU wherein the Doctor and Rose meet because of a most unusual piece of sky-art….and Jack Harkness.

The Python of Passion (Or: Why Jack Harkenss Should Never Be Permitted to Speak in Public)-part 2 of the Disco-Stick of Destiny series. Jack Harkness has to make a best man speech and John and Rose’s wedding…and things go downhill from there.

The Hammer of Thor- part 3 of the Disco-Stick of Destiny series. John and Rose get revenge on Jack for his inappropriate honeymoon gift…by targeting what really matters to him. In style.

The Great Doodle of Diplomacy-part 4 of the Disco-Stick of Destiny series. Rose and the Doctor travel to Australia for a holiday….and so does Jack. Naturally, the results are of rather global proportions.

The Trouble with Technology (Or: Why Jack Harkness Should Never Be Allowed to Touch Anything)-Rose has moved into a new flat, and her mum pays a visit. Madness ensues when one of her neighbours, Jack, decides to play with the intercom and another neighbour gets caught in the crossfire.

CANON VERSE

A Stay of Execution-Jack and Rose need to rescue the Doctor before his scheduled execution. Action, hurt/comfort, romance, a little angst. One-shot.

An Unexpected Delay-  Rose and the Doctor go on a sightseeing tour, and Jack, who is supposed to join them, doesn’t turn up. At least, not where they expect him to. A cracky, ridiculous fic based on something outrageous that I had witnessed that very day. Warnings for references to public nudity (nothing explicit).

As It Should Be-POTW AU, implied. Nine doesn’t regenerate. Companion piece to ‘Love is a Many Splendored Thing’ and ‘Fantastic.’ TARDIS POV. Bonded/married Nine x Rose.

Because It’s You- The Doctor tries to take Rose somewhere special. As usual, things don’t go according to plan. Fluffy, sappy and quite silly. Nine x Rose one-shot.

Because I Want To- The Doctor and Rose inadvertently land on Valentine’s Day. A very interesting discussion follows. A discussion of love, romance and true devotion. This long one-shot is fluffy, with mentions of angst, self-doubt and one specific reference to past off-screen abuse.

Beetlejuice-The Doctor finds an unexpected passenger on board the TARDIS. Silly fluff and humour. One-shot. Part 1 of the Beetlejuice, Fluffy Overlord series.

Burn Like a Candle-Rose is grieving and the Doctor is worried.

Cover Up, Jack-The Doctor tries to give Rose a quiet moment after an eventful few days, but as usual, Jack has other ideas. A silly fluffy fluff silliness, nine x rose one-shot written for 9/9 last year.

Fantastic-POTW AU (implied). Nine doesn’t regenerate. Companion piece to ‘Love is a Many Splendored Thing’ and ‘As It Should Be.’ Doctor POV. Bonded/married Nine x Rose.

For Always- The Eighth Doctor somehow ends up aboard Nine’s TARDIS. Nine x Rose married fic. Humour, a little angst and some comfort.  One-shot.

Gold- The Doctor takes Rose to a unique marketplace for a very special reason.  Angst, fluff and hurt/comfort. Warnings for non-specific references to past off-screen domestic violence.

Fully Gruntled-Rose is pursued by a determined admirer. Madness and a little lunacy ensue. Silly, fluffy and lots of fun. Ficlet. Established Relationship.

Hands Off the Jacket- A silly little ficlet wherein (married) Nine x Rose have an interesting discussion with Jack. With some eighties music thrown in and a cheeky TARDIS.

Honey, I Shrunk the Washing-The Doctor is not impressed when he finds one of his jumpers has shrunk in the wash. Silly, fluffy, humourous nine x rose one-shot.

Jack Wears Speedos- Rose introduces Jack to the phenomenon that is YouTube. She comes to regret it. And so does the Doctor. And the TARDIS. And so do a lot of other people. Absolutely ridiculous Nine x Rose one-shot written for @goingtothetardis birthday last year. Silly, cracky, established relationship and generally fun.

Love is a Many Splendored Thing-POTW AU, implied. Nine doesn’t regenerate. Companion piece to ‘As It Should Be’ and ‘Fantastic.’ Jackie POV. Bonded/married Nine x Rose.

Lean on Me-Rose rescues a young boy from being beaten and it gets complicated. Established relationship, warning for non-specific allusions to violence. Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Rose and loving Doctor caring for her.

Mine-Rose and the Doctor are trapped in a tiny closet, hiding from alien solders. The proximity proves to be too much for either of them. ‘Nuff said.

Moisturise Me- Rose comes out of their latest adventure a little worse for wear. The Doctor offers to help. A silly one-shot ficlet that happened because I am a doofus.

Nutter of the Lost Ark-The Doctor and Rose discuss sartorial preferences while watching Indiana Jones. Predictably, the discussion becomes very…heated.Established relationship, one-shot.

Of Books and Bunnies- Part 2 of the Beetlejuice, Fluffy Overlord series. Rose panics when she can’t find Beetlejuice….only to find him in a very unexpected place.

On the Many Uses of Tea-A series of vignettes which focuses on particular incidents in Rose and the Doctor’s life (with Jack thrown in, of course), focused on the making or drinking of tea. Little bit of hurt/comfort, tiny bit of angst, some personal growth, and happy fluff.

Organic Interface- a silly little one-shot where Nine and Rose run into Three. Confusion ensues, as normal. Established Relationship.

Overheated- Team TARDIS end up on a beach in Australia on Christmas Day. What could possibly go wrong?

She Will- Rose is injured and the Doctor takes care of her while Jack worries. hurt/comfort Nine x Rose one-shot.

Soaked to the Skin-Nine and Rose get caught in storm, and argue about whose fault it is. Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re not trying to look out for each other anyway…

Solidarity- Rose tries to cheer the Doctor up after a slight mishap. A Nine x Rose one-shot ficlet which is very silly, fluffy and blue. Literally.

Something Beautiful-Wherein the Doctor takes Rose somewhere very special, and they discuss the value and comfort of beauty in the midst of ugliness and suffering. Fluffy, with tiny wistful moments.

Take Your Breath Away- The Doctor and Rose argue about beauty. Rose is entirely smitten by the Alcazar Palace. The Doctor is smitten by something else.

That Which Remains-The Doctor and Rose talk about true worth. A post-Father’s Day one-shot ficlet in honour of Chris Eccleston’s birthday. Fluffy, sappy, hurt/comfort and utterly them. One-shot.

The Beauty of Home- The Doctor takes Rose somewhere a little different. A moment of tranquility with fluffiness and implied fluffiness.

The Doctor and Rose: A Tale in Three Waltzes- The Doctor takes Rose on a journey of magical, musical discovery. They may just end up discovering other things, too.

The Enemy of Morpheus-Rose is trapped in a nightmare. When the Doctor tries to wake her, he finds this is no ordinary nightmare and desperate measures are called for. Hurt/Comfort, angst, romance, a bit of humour. Trigger warnings for mentions of past abuse and trauma. Multi-chapter (completed).

The Fire Within- She had no idea how long she’d been in this place. Perhaps she’d always been here. Alone. Always alone. Until suddenly she wasn’t. Because now there was Him. And the Fire. A POTW fixit I wrote as a DWSS gift. Because I absolutely could not let Nine go. So I fixed it. Nine x Rose romance, hurt/comfort, elemental, episode fixit.

The Kiss of Life-Rose is drugged on an alien planet and there’s only one way to wake her. A nine x Rose, !sleeping beauty two-shot. Fluffy, hurt/comfort and romance.

The Smell of Autumn- The Doctor takes Rose and Jack to a surprisingly quiet locale and Jack can’t work out why they’re there. Until he does. Fluffy nine x Rose one-shot.

The Things You Can’t Do Without- The Doctor takes Rose on a special side trip to a very special place. Fluff. One shot.

This Could Be Us-  The Doctor and Rose have to board a flight to get to the TARDIS. Of course, as is usually the case, the flight doesn’t quite go as expected. A silly, humorous, nine x rose fic based on something that happened to me on a plane. One-shot.

Victory Should Be Naked-A slightly…different ending to Aliens of London/World-War Three. Established relationship ship Nine x Rose. Warning for the B52′s and other scary music. And some traumatised Slitheen. Semi-Crack fic.

What You See:The Doctor knows exactly who and what he is, or so he thinks. Until one Rose Tyler shows him otherwise. A hard-hitting look at scars of the soul and the beauty within. One-shot.

Wherever You Are:A post-GITF sick-fic UA. What if Rose had come away with more than nightmares after her run-in with the clockwork droids? What if her trust in the Doctor had been so fractured that she’d been afraid to tell him? And what if that broken trust might just lead to a dangerous situation for Rose? Will the Doctor be able fix it in time? Nine x Rose, Ten x Rose. Warning: heavy angst, read the trigger warnings for each chapter.

Works Every Time-Silly little ficlet whereinRose tries to persuade the Doctor to take them (and Jack) for a beach holiday. Jealousy and all round adorable-ness. Also warnings for Jack being Jack.

DRABBLES

Complications

Addictive

Undone

Safe

Paring: Tenth Doctor x Rose Tyler
Rating: G
Word count: 800
Tags: Angst, Angst, Angst

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Written for the nonne prompt found on @doctorroseprompts​ - “Look at me - Just breathe, okay?”

Sorry about the angst. So sorry. I might just write another ficlet for this prompt because this is hard, even for me. Hehe.

His lungs were like balloons squeezed too hard, too fast, that burst to shreds to release the air the wouldn’t fit through the hole. He felt them. Full, swollen, compressed inside a ribcage that as nowhere big enough. His throat, narrow, dry, that could only gulp down small intakes of fresh air that only made his failing organs strain harder against his ribs, grow heavier, bigger, absorb his hearts into a viscous paste of flesh and hinder their wild beating. Soon, his lungs would explode. And his hearts would stop to beat.

His jaw hung low, his tongue darted out to moisturize cracked lip, his stomach heaved, a vain attempt to chase the surplus of air, his abdomen contracted, a futile exertion to force a breath out, but it was no use. Not with that kind of prison. A thick straitjacket, the straps pulled so tight he couldn’t feel his hands any longer, apart from the thousands and thousands of fire ants crawling up his fingers, up his arms, up his shoulders, up his head. A head swarming with a loud buzz, like angry bees droning through the tiniest blood vessel. It might have been the lack of blood circulation, or the lack of oxygen feeding his brain. Both, neither. It meant the same. The only words his last thought had hooked into. She’s gone. Those were the only words he could hold on to.

The pain started, soon. Not much, at first, just a tickle at the back of his neck. But it grew, fast, exponential. A headache that sprouted in the depths of his brain, a sickness that seized his stomach and made it push harder in violent retaliation against the lungs he knew were starting to crack under the pressure. She’s gone. Why were these the words he was thinking of when they only turned the pain to torture, he didn’t know. A thought of she, a fleeting image of blond hair and full smile, and a desperate moan echoed in his throat without getting out. A thought of gone, a tears fell from his eyes, depriving him of the few oxygen he had left in his dying body.

And then, he felt it. The cold hand on his cheek - maybe the hand was warm and his cheek burning. The sound of a murmur - maybe it was a scream and his ears were beating too loud with the blood rushing through his veins. A pressure between his hearts, between his lungs - maybe it was nothing, just the feel of his organs finally giving up.

“Look at me.”

His eyes shot open and were met with the blurry picture of she. Same blond hair, same smile. Deep brown irises that looked at him without the panic he was sure reflected in his, without the pain his cried profusely to wet his cheeks and his dry lips. Her hand, splayed over his chest, drawing circles like spells that stopped his ribcage from collapsing over itself.

“Look at me. Just breathe, okay?”

He blinked, hard, and forced his chest to follow the up and down of her hand. He latched onto her words, those words he desperately needed to replace the truth hammering against his skull. She’s gone. Breathe. She’s gone. Look at me. She’s… Breathe. Just breathe.

The pain faded, little by little, just as his lungs deflated, little by little. A seething breath, scorching, that had boiled for far too long in the confines of his ribs, but that was slowly expelled through his constricted throat. He was able to take in some fresh air, a small shot of oxygen that was just enough to keep certain death away. Just enough to reignite the system that must have shut down in his sleep again. The more he breathed, like she had told him to, the less he saw her face, the less he heard her words, the less he felt her hand.

Soon, he was breathing again. He hurried to untangled his limbs from the sticky web of sheets and covers glued to his body, covered in sweat and tears and drool, kicking them away his his feet in a fit of anger, with a fit of coughs, letting the cold air roll on his skin.

A nightmare, again. Or so the lingering taste of horror on the tip of his tongue and the images flashing before his eyes, the excruciating love soaring between his hearts and the sorrow imbibed in his stomach proved. But just a nightmare.

She’s gone.

No.

Breathe.

He rolled to the side and buried his nose in the pillow next to his. Breathe. He did. He breathed, and breathed, let the sweet smell fill his nose and soothe his aching lungs.

Paring: Tenth Doctor x Rose Tyler
Chapter: 2/2
Rating: Explicit
Word count: 2700
Tags: Temporary Disabalities, Borderline PWP, Fluff, Light Bondage, Very NSFW

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Second and last part of this story, for the @doctorroseprompts​ Hurt/Comfort!

Mind the tags, it really is NSFW!

Without a warning, he shuffled away and broke every kind of contact with her body. He remembered she had mentioned that fantasy she had, once. Not really a fantasy, merely a modest adventure she wanted to try and that they’d never embarked on - not for lack of opportunity, rather for lack of sufficient restraint on both their part. They just never resisted each other long enough to think about engaging into even a modicum of something different from either angry shagging against a wall. And when they took it slower, when they made love in front of the fireplace in the library or in their bed, they just never resisted the temptation to stare into each other’s eyes so they could share the words their moans forbade them to speak. But now. Now, he could.

Rose tensed when she heard him move away from the bed, then heard  light ruffle of clothes, then felt the mattress dip slightly on her left side. She knew where he wanted to go with this, and while part of her was still a bit miffed at his carelessness, she couldn’t help the thrilled shiver that ran down her spine. She was almost tempted to reach out for him, to touch him, to fill the gap her blindness had carved in the wall of her perceptions, but then the tip of his tongue dragged along the shell of her ear and she gave up on the idea. He sucked her lobe in his mouth, and he was gone again.

The only thing she could do was to guess where he would touch her next. She had never felt so much erotic tension before. His finger drew a line on the patch of skin showing between the hem of her tee-shirt and her belt, and he was gone again. He pressed a kiss in the crook of her elbow, and he was gone again. He bit her lip, and he was gone again. He didn’t reappear for a full minute. The silence was only broken by her heavy breath, and his - he probably didn’t realize how hard he was breathing, almot ragged already, almost too deep and too loud. A minute was all it took for her body to steadily tense, muscles pulled taut, teeth grinding, gooseflesh spreading like wildfire over her skin everywhere she thought his hands were hovering. Everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

More sounds, more movements she could imagine happening around her without really knowing what he was doing. And suddenly, his large hand picked up both her wrists, pulled them up above her head, and the cold silk of his was tied around them, locking them around the headboard. He kissed both her palms, caressed her forearms, and he was gone again. Not for long. Just long enough for her heartbeat to turn erratic and a fire to burn its way down her loins. She had never been more powerless than in that moment. She couldn’t see, couldn’t touch. She could speak, but he wouldn’t hear. She couldn’t hear, but he wouldn’t speak. He could read her lips, but he could just as well pretend he wasn’t and she’d have no way of knowing. It was oddly… Satisfying. To let him possess to the last shred of control. To let him decide what to do. Liberating, in a way.

His spikes of hair tickled the underside of her jaw, and a groan was ripped from her throat when his mouth wrapped around her nipple over the layers of clothes. Not a direct contact, but enough to feel the moist heat of his tongue, enough for pleasure to spark and shoot down to fuel the heat of her arousal. When the fabric grew damp, he switched to the other, his thumb replacing his mouth to keep its attention awake. Her chest rose from the bed to seek more contact, a sigh of pleasure breaking free, but he wasn’t pleased by her eagerness. He bit her soft flesh in reprisal, and he was gone again. Really gone, the mattress taking back its original shape, his weight vanished, his heat replaced by a wisp of cold air. She still heard him, walk about the room, another quiet ruffle of clothes, a low rumble followed by a sharp metallic click. She wasn’t sure she liked this sound.

Soon, maybe too soon, she sensed him straddling her hips, and if she wasn’t mistaking what she was feeling against her skin above the line of her jeans, the ruffle she had heard was the one of his boxers falling to the carpet. Her hands unconsciously pulled on their bind, the desire to touch, to make sure with her own fingers, to feel, turning into a consuming need. If there was one sound he was still capable of, it was tutting. And he did. Just before he slipped a hand under her tee-shirt, splayed fingers on her stomach, and the awkward clicking sound reached her ears again. The fabric was pulled high, a swish of breeze rolling up her skin to the underside of her breast, and the same sound was heard. Scissors. Cutting through her tee-shirt, the back of his hand resting protectively under the blades should she be tempted to push her chest up. But now she knew. She nestled deeper into the cover and remained perfectly still, hoping he would get the message. He did. His hand disappeared and she could almost see his lips drawing into a grin. Her abdomen rippled slightly, the cold blade finally meeting her skin, and she had been right. She loved it. The cold against the hot, the hard against the soft, the not-quite danger against the weak, the sharp sound against the silence. The mere minute it took for the garment to curtain out on her sides, the sleeves having suffered the same fate, and expose the bra still covering her breast managed to fan her arousal better than a whole ten minutes of their usual foreplay. And then, with three meticulous snap of his scissors, he cut the two straps and the middle of the lacy piece. She felt like a flower whose petals were slowly picked off.

He raked his nails over her sternum, down, down, swiping off the tatters of the bra that joined the remnants of her tee-shirt. Her breath hitched in her throat when he bent forward to capture a nipple between his teeth again, caught the other between his knuckles, and teased them with his tongue, his lips, his breath, until they stood almost painfully erect atop her mouds of pale flesh. By the time he decided that was enough, she was almost ashamed by the wetness that had gathered in her knickers. Thankfully, he silently agreed to remedy the situation.

She released a breath, heavy, shaky, his hands drawing snakes down her stomach until they reached the buckle of her belt and deftly undid it. The two buttons followed, then the fly, and he shuffled down her legs all while pulling at the garment, along with her knickers. She heard the way he clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, heard the deep inhale he took and almost heard his tongue run over his lips.

“Oh, God, fuck.”

She knew it was useless, but given how he suddenly wrapped his hands behind her knees and pushed them up, spread them out, she couldn’t help that curse. She didn’t think he had ever exposed her like that. She didn’t mind, if the throb between her legs and the renewed wetness she felt trickling down her opening were any clues. No, what she minded was the complete lack of stimulation. He did nothing, for a long moment. Almost too long. She grew too impatient, her nerves turning to scorching ashes, and she rolled her hips. She cursed again, loud and desperate, when what she believed to be the tip of his cock slid between her folds and bumped against her clit - and God, if it was, it seemed he was enjoying the ride, too. She felt his weight shift - he probably shuffled back on his knees so she wouldn’t try to seek for contact again - and she could only wait. His breath caressed her skin, first, somewhere on the inside of her left thigh. She felt the same on her right. Then a poke of his tongue on the left again, that he repeated on the right. Then his tongue ran along the dip between her folds and the juncture of her leg, and it did the same to the right. She knew he could tease, and she usually loved it, but the sensations were so much more powerful and consuming in that moment that she was starting to hate it. Her breath probably betrayed her, or the quiver of her muscles, or maybe the almost pained frown on her features. He finally licked his way up from her opening to her clit, and that about did it. About. Oh, it didn’t take much more, because he knew her by heart. He knew what she wanted, and he knew what she needed. He plunged his index deep into her, and sucked her clit into his mouth, hard, the taut tip of his tongue circling the bud over the bud, once, his fingertip pressing against the rougher patch of her heat, twice. Her arousal peaked and the headboard cracked in protest, her hands pulling on the tie to anchor her body, arching away from the bed, only supported by her feet and her her shoulders.

He didn’t hear her shout his name, but he felt her inner muscles squeeze his finger in, saw her body thrash, tasted the juices that flowed from her when he withdrew his finger. He loved it, to see her surrender to him, bound to their bed, at his mercy. He loved it even more to know she trusted him enough to indulge in that kind of fantasy that had left him indifferent at first, but that he was seriously starting to consider doing again, very soon, very often. His cock twitched hard at the sight of her flushed body, the heavy rise and fall of her chest, her white knuckles firmly grasping his favourite tie. She was beautiful. He was disappointed he couldn’t voice his affection and his love, but he believed she knew anyway. So, he shifted up her body, up to her chest, careful not to crush her with his weight, and he slipped two of his fingers into her mouth after giving it a full kiss. He let her twirl her tongue around them for a moment, enjoying the rumble of her moan that echoed in his bones. And then, he used those fingers to draw a question mark on her warm and reddened sternum. He hoped she would understand. She nodded forcefully. She did.

In a sudden surge of possessive behaviour, strength heightened by his arousal, he pulled on the knot of the tie to help her higher up against the headboard. His lungs constricted painfully in his chest and his hand squeezed his leaking cock, once, twice, dragged its tip up her chin, and he filled her awaiting mouth with a quick thrust. He didn’t even want to imagine what kind of sound he would have made if he could use his voice. His fingers tangled into her hair, his thumb pressed against her temples, palms cinching her cheeks to push her jaw down as low as he could - though he made sure to watch for any sign of pain or too extreme discomfort, he refused to hurt her. Her tongue worked fast against his underside, her lips thick around his cock, her mouth hot and wet and tight. She suddenly moaned around him, loud, or so the rippling echoes that pulsed down to his balls had him think. A single moan, that sliced a dent in the already tight coil of his arousal snaking in his loins. It felt too good. He wouldn’t last. He thrust hard into her mouth, once more, twice more, and he hurried to slip his cock out of her mouth before what thin thread of his control was left would break. He fumbled around to find the pair of scissors he had discarded to the side, feverish hands cutting through the silk of his tie above the knot until she was set half-free.

He flipped her around, rolled an arm around her waist to huddle her up to her knees, and slammed his hips against her rear to bury himself to the hilt in her wet heat. His fingers found her clit to rub it in tight circles, the chopped rhythm and the despair of his thrusts making it quite clear he wouldn’t last much longer. She fell on her arms, curved her back, squeezed her muscles around him. He threw his head back, biting his lower lip hard in the vain hope to keep his orgasm at bay just a while longer, just long enough so she would come before him, but it was no use. He didn’t want to fight it, not when this was bound to be the best orgasm he had ever experienced. So he let it sweep him away. His hips jerked against her bum and his fingers scratched through the coarse hair at the apex of her sex, his breath coming out in choked puffs as his cock throbbed and pulsed its long and powerful release in her dripping wetness. It lasted, seconds, how many he didn’t know because he hadn’t enough brain left to count, but he knew it lasted.

He wanted nothing more than to let himself fall over her and try to survive the intensity of his release, but she hadn’t come. He needed her to come. He found the strength to withdraw his softening cock from her and replaced it with two fingers he hurried to pump, fast and hard, in and out, his quivering thumb brushing random pattern against her clit. Thankfully, she was close, and it didn’t take long before the small of her back arched up, before she pressed back against his fingers and came around them, and he had to sigh in relief at the feel of her own release.

He snatched the tatters of the tee-shirt before she could fall down on them, pressed a kiss to the swell of her bum, made a quick job of wiping the heavy combination of fluids dripping on the inside of her thighs. With his shaking hands, he managed fetch the scissors and cut through the knot of the tie to free her of her bindings.

He winced at the sight of the bruises spreading from her wrists to the base of her thumbs - nothing he couldn’t fix later, but still, he was scared he might have gone too hard on her. He apologized with a trail of soft kisses he sowed over each dark colour spreading over pale skin, fleeting caresses all over her body, butterfly kisses peppered on her face. He wanted nothing more than to have his voice back and tell her he was sorry. Nothing more than tell her how much he loved her.

Her blind eyes looked at him as she snuggled to his side, and a smile tugged on her lips. She cupped his face again, a gentle hold, and articulated a few words again.

“I know. I’m fine. I love you, too.”

He smiled, too, even though she couldn’t see him yet. He cupped her left breast in his palm, and pressed his lips hard against the back of his hand. He hoped she could feel it. He knew she did, when she mirrored his actions over his right heart.

“Slip it off,” she mouthed, just before she kissed his lips again and buried her face in the crook of his neck.

He toed the plaid at the foot of the bed and caught it to throw it over they bodies, entwined in a warm and comfortable embrace. He would sleep it off. And when they both woke up, he would make sure to apologize. Twice again.

Paring: Tenth Doctor x Rose Tyler
Chapter: ½
Rating: Explicit
Word count: 1200
Tags: Temporary Disabalities, Borderline PWP, Fluff

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Started this work for the Hurt/Comfort prompt, from @doctorroseprompts!
Second chapter should be uploaded very soon!

The panic he saw on her face made his stomach heave, and he rushed to her side to wrap a solid arm around her waist. Her eyes were wide open, trying to look everywhere at once without ever landing on anything, not even on him. A fleeting gaze, unfocused irises that had lost their lively whiskey colour and were now almost as pale as the white that surrounded them. She was blind. Momentarily, thank the Heavens, but she was blind. And he was deaf. And mute. Communication was bound to be a problem. A very big, very annoying problem. Especially since Rose was talking to him, or so her jaw and mouth proved, but he hadn’t been focused enough to read her words.

He winced when she clutched the lapels of his jacket and shook him forcefully, her panic turning to anger, tears falling from her eyes, mouth feverishly speaking words he couldn’t decipher. He hurried to press a finger across her lips to stop her, brought two of her fingers to his own lips, then to his ear, before he clasped her hands around his face and shook his head forcefully. He could only hope she would understand. I can’t hear. I can’t speak.

The way her shoulders sagged, almost imperceptibly, was enough to reassure him she had, but the anger and the terror written on her face did nothing to assuage his guilt. He knew this wouldn’t last for more than a few hours, but she didn’t. She was stuck in the dark, and he had no way to soothe her fears. The faster they’d get back to the Tardis, the sooner he’d be able to explain. Not that he expected her to forgive him for his awful blunder, but at least she’d know this wasn’t permanent. He could only hold her hand, like he always did when he wanted to comfort her, gentle and soft, hoping his calm and composure would induce her own.

He looked around for a while, taking in the forest of tall trees drawing a maze of narrow corridors, the spongy grass from which large roots sprouted, the many potholes and clods of wet earth. They had managed to dodge them on their way inside the forest, but he doubted Rose would be able to walk back safely on her own. He couldn’t risk a sprained ankle, or any other injury for that matter, so he did what he thought was best. He scooped her up in his arms and secured a tight hold behind her knees and shoulders. She seemed to understand, thankfully didn’t protest, and locked her hands behind his neck. The Tardis wasn’t very far, and he walked briskly through the rows of trees, huddling her close to his chest so he wouldn’t lose his balance or inadvertently let her legs knock on the trunks. Mere minutes later, he was kicking the door of his ship open and carefully set her down on a jumpseat before he went to a computer on the console. He flicked a switch on, reached for a keyboard and quickly typed a few words he deemed to be the most important.

“It’s temporary,” a metallic voice echoed in the console room - and he risked a glance at her to see her body visibly sag on the seat. “Sense paralysis. There was a plant I thought this planet didn’t have. Released spores that locked the senses we were using the most. I was talking and listening to your hum. You must have been staring at something. It will only last a couple of hours.”

He looked at her over his shoulder again, and a sketch of a smile ghosted over his lips when she lifted a thumb towards him.

“Sorry,” he typed on his machine - and she threw a dismissive hand at him, as if she didn’t really hold it against him. “We should sleep it off.”

He saw her nod and he went to her to gently take her hand and pull her back to her feet. He kept her close as they made their way to their bedroom, lest she’d trip over her own feet or walk into a wall - he knew just how hard it was to lose such an important sense and he noticed in the way she unconsciously leant against his side that she needed him. He helped sit her down on the side of the mattress, unlaced his shoes and toed them off along with his socks, shed his jacket and threw it on the desk chair, loosened his tie and slid it off his neck. He expected to already be in bed when he turned around, but she was angrily pulling at her own laces she always insisted should be tied into a double knot - she refused to risk stepping onto an undone shoelace should they have to run for their lives, which wasn’t necessarily a pointless thing. He quickly knelt before her and she jumped slightly when he wrapped his fingers around her feverish one, stopping her frantic attempts at untying laces that only made it worse.

He could imagine her annoyed sigh all too well, and he grinned as she let her body fall back on the mattress. He took his time to untie the laces of her hiking shoes, the right first, then the left, then tugged on her socks. She playfully nudged his shoulder with her toes and he laughed soundlessly before he planted a kiss on the sole of her foot and rose to crash next to her. He was pleasantly surprised when she rolled on her side to face him - approximately face him, her eyes only level with his mouth. She found out soon enough when she tried to kiss him and the bridge of her nose met the tip of his chin. He helped her shuffle up and smiled against her kiss, until she spoke against his lips, her voice echoing through his flesh and her hot breath rolling on his skin. Surely, she hadn’t forgotten he couldn’t hear her already. He pulled back a little, and she understood. Her fingers groped around his face to clasp his cheeks, and she made sure to articulate the word, syllable by syllable, and he read it on her lips.

“Apologize.”

He would have moaned deep in his throat if he had been able to. She drew him into a kiss - a snog- and grabbed a fistful of his hair at the back of his neck, tongue slipping into his mouth and teeth biting into his lip. Well, that certainly was an interesting alternative to sleeping it off. And who was he to refuse an apology she deserved, anyway?

Paring: Tenth Doctor x Rose Tyler
Rating: G
Word count: 600
Tags: Fluff, First Kiss

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Once she was sure he was busy in the console room to fiddle with his cables and tinker with his components, Rose withdrew into her room. Not her bedroom, but her room. She firmly believed the Doctor didn’t even know about this room, believed the Tardis kept it away from his prying eyes, and believed everything that happened in this room would never get past its walls. She closed the door behind her, locking it with a soft click, just in case, and she smiled. She loved this room. It was a small room, a serene, muffled atmosphere induced by the few spotlights, the dark blue carpeted floor, the foam-covered walls that offered just enough sound isolation. She didn’t want him to know what she was up to in that room and she didn’t really know why. It was her secret. And she would share her secret when he would share of the many he owned himself. Especially that secret she had accidentally learnt about. He thought she didn’t know, but she did. So, she would share her secret when he’d finally confess how he felt for her. She would share her love when he’d decide to share his.

Rose sat on the comfortable leather bench, put her foot on the right pedal, placed her fingers on a few keys. And she started to play.

***

Once he was sure she believed he was busy in the console room and had scurried away in her room, the Doctor silently walked up to the door. He sat against it, drew his knees against his chest, closed his eyes. And he listened. He knew she didn’t want him to know, but he had never been able to resist the temptation ever since he’d heard a short string of notes a while back. He loved it. He would have never guessed she could play so well, but everytime she did, he felt transported to another world. Her music was both soft and powerful, sometimes slow and soothing, others quick and overwhelming, but he always had the same reaction. A slightly faster heartbeat, a slightly quicker breath, a slightly higher blood pressure. Fingers drumming the rhythm over his thighs, eyes squeezing in tandem with the loudest notes, mouth closing and opening to whisper lyrics that didn’t exist.

That night, when he squeezed his eyes, a tear fell from a corner. Because, that night, she wasn’t playing music, she was playing emotions. And he could feel to the last tremolo flowing through a single note what those emotions were. The music stopped. And he knew.

***

The morning later, Rose stared at him, a hint of suspicion etched in the frown that darkened her eyes. He cleared his throat with a sheepish shrug, and stopped humming the song she had been playing the night before.

***

Their fingers twined on the armrest between their seats, his thumb brushed the inside of her wrist, hers brushed the back of his hand. They both knew there was nothing friendly about that gesture in that moment. She shivered when the Doctor slightly bent to speak into her ear, so his voice wouldn’t be drowned by the piano song echoing in the concert hall.

“I like it better when youplay,” he whispered, nose nuzzling a strand of blond hair.

Rose smiled, and turned her head into his palm that cupped her cheek. When he kissed her, she knew there was one more secret they wouldn’t have to keep.

Paring: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Rating: G
Word count: 900
Tags: Reunion, Fluff

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Donna remembered the Doctor once telling her he didn’t need to sleep as much as human did, thank his Time Lord biology and all. She believed him. And it was that belief that made her wonder why, everyday, he excused himself and disappeared into his bedroom for hours. Sometimes, she would walk by his door, when she went to bed to get sleep shemost definitely needed. She never meant to listen, but she heard. Some days she would hear him laugh, a merry, singing laughter. Some other days, she would hear him cry, heart-wrenching sobs or quiet siffs. Most of the times, she didn’t hear anything. She didn’t know what he was up to in the privacy of his room. She would never know. She didn’t want to know.

***

The concept of everydayshouldn’t have made much sense to him, especially not aboard the Tardis. But, everyday, he made sure to count the hours. Twenty-four hours, split into morning, afternoon, evening. And everyday, he made sure to go back to his room to sit at his desk. It was a ritual, of some sort. A ritual that had started long ago - or maybe fairly recently, he didn’t really know. A routine he refused to abandon.

It was almost ten already, or so the small alarm-clock on the bedside table showed him. He had never touched it ever since, scared it would break, scared he would accidentally mess with the settings, scared the softly glowing red numbers would vanish.

He pulled on his desk chair, wrapped his pinstriped jacket around its back, and plopped down with a sigh, just as a low beep erupted from the alarm-clock. Ten. They had rarely, if not never, gone to bed after ten. It was time.

He unlocked the secret drawer of his desk, slid it open, and reverently took the small cardboard box it contained. A light yellow box, white polka dots, a pink taffeta ribbon. That box had once held a tie, a gift she had given him for his birthday - birthday she had decided would happen on the day they had met for the first time, as he had told her, quivering voice and teary eyes, that he had been born again on that day. Thanks to her. Thank to that little woman looking back at him.

The photograph was torn in half - he had one half, she had the other. The colours were a bit faded, a crease gave her jaw weird shadows. It didn’t do her any justice. But when the memories were not enough, when his mind was too hesitant to properly reconstruct her face, when he was too tired to remember, this photograph was his solace. A frame of her beauty he could fill with all those things he loved. It made it easier to remember.

He carefully set the photograph against the foot of his lamp, and he remembered. Just for a little while, just a few snippets of their lives together, just enough to hold on to that part of his past he didn’t want to let go. He knew there would come a day, in a distant future, he would forget. But not just yet.

He brushed his thumb over the crease and nestled his head in the crook of his elbow.

“Goodnight, Rose,” he murmured as he closed his eyes.

***

It was almost ten when she flicked the lights off in her bathroom and went to her bed. She slipped under the cold sheets, but not before she opened the drawer of her bedside table and took out a worn wallet. There wasn’t much in that wallet. Just a photograph, torn in half - she had one half, he had the other. The colours had faded a little, the tear cut part of his neck and a bit of his ear, a crease added some relief to his hair. It didn’t do him much justice, she thought. But when he brain refused to properly recreate his face, when the few things she could recollect looked like a giant puzzle missing all the important pieces, when she felt the memories fade away, this photograph was her comfort. A rough sketch of who that man was she could draw over to picture the man she loved. It made it easier to remember.

She carefully set the photograph against the foot of her lamp, and she remembered. Just for a little while, just to go over what had made their life beautiful, just enough to hold on to that part of her past had been the best few years of her life.  She knew there would come a day when her human brain would forget. But not just yet.

She kissed a fingertip, brushed it against the side of his face, and snuggled deeper into her pillow.

“‘Night, Doctor,” she murmured as she closed her eyes.

***

It was almost ten. His bed had never felt so warm than in that moment. Theirbed. He wrapped his arms around her, tight, reassuring, and he pressed a kiss on her forehead, soft, relieved. She clung to his tee-shirt and brushed her lips in the crook of his neck.

“‘Night, Doctor,” she murmured against his skin as she closed her eyes.

“Goodnight, Rose,” was his answer, a murmur, before he closed his eyes.

In a corner of their bedroom, the dimension cannon was abandoned.

Against the foot of the lamp, beside the alarm-clock, there was a photograph, vamped with thick tape, covered in creases, its once bright colours faded.

***

Donna never heard a sob again. Just merry laughter.

Paring: John Smith/Rose Tyler
Rating: G
Word count: 1200
Tags: Soulmate AU

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Inspired by a post @timepetalscollective​ reblogged (I think?)

Soulmate AU, in which  you have a black stain where your soulmate is supposed to touch you, and when they do, it gets its colours. 

It’s not much, but I liked the idea - I hope you’ll like it!

God, how much he hated public transport. More particularly that one morning commute, when he had to ride that one bus that was always so crowded he had to fight his way through a horde of sleepy, irritable and rude people just to find that one blessed spot on that one filthy pole that had just enough space left for one more hand. Awful.

His only solace in this Styx was the tacit agreement, the one rule, the implicit decree that made it bearable. Almost bearable. No eye contact whatsoever. No smile, no greetings, no words, no sounds - apart from the occasional curses and snores, that is. That was fine by him. He had read the signs plastered all over the bus so many times sometimes he’d even dream about them - yes, his dreams were rarely exciting. Still, better to stare at those words for so long they became void of any sense after two stops than accidentally meet someone’s accusing glare. No eye contact.

He also had devised a little game of his own, for when the signs became so boring his energy was sucked out of his system and he turned drowsy. A silly game, but a game he quite liked. He looked at the shoes. That was usually enough to occupy his mind for the rest of the commute, and it was safe. No risk whatsoever to offend anyone with a haphazardous look.

He pretended not to be annoyed by the mountain of muscles standing behind him and poking him in the back with what must have been the handle of an umbrella, and he tightened his hold on his pinstriped jacket - he had found out after two rides that a bus, at this hour, was closer to being an oven than an actual bus, some kind of crematorium everyone still willingly stepped inside, like a herd of clueless cows en route to the slaughterhouse. Anyway, the shoes.

Ah, he recognized these. A pair of brown leather shoes. Probably your average businessman in his forties, single, because what kind of married businessman doesn’t own a car, seriously. A pair of fluffy slippers that oozed an odd smell he didn’t want to shell. That must be the old, very old lady that gets into the bus four stops after him, the old lady who swings her cane into people’s shins until she’s found the right seat and claimed it as her seat. A pair of brand new trainers, the white of the laces immaculate, the plastic bare of any creases. Maybe a student on his way to uni - he would know that if the trainers followed him when he’d get off the bus. And…

Oh, these, he had never seen before. And they were just inches away from his, glued to the murky linoleum. Trainers, too, but worn and dirty. These trainers must have had a long life, already - not unlike the chucks he was currently wearing, the white rubber just as soiled as hers. Yes, hers, if the thin line of pink running around the sole was any clue. Those were tricky. She could either be a teenager or a full grown woman, no younger than fourteen, no older than thirty - shoe size and shoe style, they mattered. But he rather liked the idea that she was about his age, so he took that for granted and went on with his analysis. No eye contact , he should be safe to look just a bit higher than the shoes. Jeans. Very tight jeans around very toned legs and a very round… No, he should definitely lower his eyes again, now. Still, interesting. It was too rare an occurrence to find that kind of shoes not to daydream about the lady who was wearing them.

So, he pictured her. Twenty-five, soon to be twenty-six. Blonde, he liked blonde, maybe shoulder-length but tied into a messy bun, because he liked messy buns. Green eyes would be good, but he supposed a light brown could work, too. A round nose and full lips, the exact opposite of his pointy nose and lips so thin they vanished into the void whenever he smiled. Compensation, he thought. I need balance. He had never understood what was so beautiful about women who disappeared if they stood behind a bus pole at just the right angle - no, he wanted curves, he wanted matter , he wanted a woman that wouldn’t shatter into pieces when he held her hand. And those thighs, phew , those thighs definitely fit the bill. So did the rest of her body, he guessed, without knowing he would get to feeljust how curved and soft she was.

The bus came to a full stop with the deafening sound of screeching tires that made the windows tremble, and his whole body was propelled forward, right into the owner of the trainers. He held for dear life to his pole, so his body simply curved towards her - he believed he could make a good pole-dancer for a second - and his waist bumped into the small of her back. And he felt it.

The burn that spread just above the line of his waistband, where his shirt had escaped his trousers and ridden up his abdomen. Where his soulmark drew a thin, irregular path, like a paint path brushed by a shaky hand. His heart ploughed against his ribcage as he dared to look down, not at the shoes, but at the black mark he wore. A black mark that was now a rainbow of colours melting into each other, like a puddle of gasoline on a wet pavement. The same kind of rainbow he noticed on the small patch of skin peeking between her pale blue tee-shirt and a brown leather belt.

He breathed in deeply and, sod the rules, he looked up. Her back was still to him, even as the bus was spurred into motion again. A messy bun of blond strands. A slender neck. A spine moulded under the garment that pointed to a definitelyround… No, he would not look. He’d get to look until he got drunk on the sight later. Hopefully, not toolater.

He was just a bit upset that she didn’t turn around - surely she had also felt her mark flare to life at his contact - but then again, meeting their soulmate on a crowded bus wasn’t ideal. Maybe she was shy. Maybe she had also signed the implicit contract and didn’t want to nullify it.

That was why he bent forward, his head above her shoulder, so close their cheeks almost met, and he pretended to squint and read the sign he already knew by heart.

“I hate to break the rules, but…” he whispered, hoping only she would hear him above the general hubbub. “Hello.”

She didn’t answer straight away. Instead, she took a step back to press her back against his chest, and found his hand that was still holding his jacket. She curled her little finger around his and he felt the strain in her neck as she fought the urge to look at him.

“Next stop?” she breathed out - and, oh yes, he fell in love with that voice at the first syllable.

“Next stop,” he confirmed.

He broke another rule that day, when he stared into her light brown eyes mere moments before the door opened. He almost didn’t make it out.

Paring: John Smith x Rose Tyler
Chapter: 3/?
Rating: T
Word count: 2100
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, University AU

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Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

She smirked as she read those words in the book opened on her desk. The Art of War. Doctor Smith wanted to wage war on her, then so be it. He would get his war. But she was determined to win. She might have lost the budget general battle because the president had always had a soft spot for his cherished science faculties, but that was fine. She didn’t need a fancy centrifuge and in depth knowledge of nuclear fission to fight her own battles against her archenemy.

She knew him by heart, this one Doctor Smith. And she knew his arrogance was legendary. Not only did he belittled the colleagues from the other faculties, but he also ridiculed the work of most of his own colleagues. She had witnessed it first hand, at a physics conference given by a confrere rom the applied science department, some shadowy thing about quantum physics and teleportation. While everyone had been impressed by the tremendous amount of research he had done on the subject, Doctor Smith had snorted and sighed for two hours, until he’d had enough of what he called nonsensical theories only based on more nonsense, thrown a tantrum in the auditorium and made it his personal duty to bring down every single bit of the theory. She thought he had probably been right. Still, his egotism and disdain had been painful to watch.

Painful, yes. But also oddly appealing.

She had been sitting on the same row, four seats to his right. So, she had seen. More than that, she had looked. How he had risen from his small folding chair, running fingers through his mane to give it the shape it’d lost after two hours spent head in his palm. How he had pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose with a haughty sniff and cleared his throat. How his shirt had tightened over his shoulder when he’d bent forward on the tiny desk. The dimples, the crinkles at the corner of his eyes, the pouty lip, all following his grimaces and frowns on the arrogant train to prove he was some kind of underrated genius.

God, out of all the teachers roaming around in this sodden university, why did it have to be him? Sure, he had great hair, a handsome face and a derriere she could stare at for hours without ever getting tired, but that didn’t make him any less of a cocky prat. She certainly wouldn’t wave the white flag because of a smug pretty boy who couldn’t even write subaquaticproperly.

She needed to find a way to secure herself at least one more victory. Sun Tzu. Praise his clever little brain, applaud his superior intellect, flatter his planet-sized ego. Let his confidence and pride build over her compliments, and then strike it all down at once. Maybe that would hurt too much. Maybe that was too cruel.

But, from the corner of her eyes, she saw the book he had bought her - most certainly not by kindness of heart - and she decided she didn’t care. Doctor Smith wanted his war, he would get his war. Remained to find how she could hit him. Hard.

She closed her book just as a knock was heard.

“Come in,” she called out, taking off her glasses to fold them over the cover.

A delivery man appeared with a large cardboard box in his arms he dropped on a chair after a casual greeting.

“I need your signature here, Doctor,” he said as he handed her a slip of paper.

“This is supposed to go to the science faculties,” she noted, reading the name on the pink ticket. “Doctor Smith, his office is on the other side of the main auditorium.”

“Dunno, I was told to come here. Look, I’m in a bit of a rush, I don’t really have time to run around.”

“Fine,” she sighed, taking is pen to write her name before she inked it with her stamp. “Hope whatever’s in this isn’t dangerous.”

“Dunno,” he repeated as he shoved the paper in his hip pack. “‘M just here to deliver. Have a nice day, Doctor.”

She looked at the box and saw the top was pierced with dozens of little holes, a nauseating smell filtering through the orifices. She definitely heard a sound coming from it, but she wasn’t about to investigate - what belonged to the mental house the science building was would remain in the science building.

She picked up her phone and dialed his number, just hoping he wouldn’t be busy teaching or refuse to answer when her name would pop up on his display.

“Miss me already, Doctor Tyler?” his voice sneered through the receiver - and she was almost tempted to hang up immediately.

“Got something for you in my office, smartass,” she simply answered, glancing at box with a scrunched up nose. “It stinks and it takes up too much space. Just come get it, will you?”

“I’m busy, working on a new project with my amazing centrifuge,” he said, his grin flowing along his words. “Groundbreaking discoveries, scientific breakthroughs, that kind of stuff. Not that dead languages don’t matter, of course, but I doubt your Latin will ever save anyone.”

“Come get it or it flies through the window, you git,” she huffed before she angrily slammed her phone back down.

She pondered for a moment if she just ought to leave the box outside her office so she wouldn’t have to see his stupid face and be tempted to slap it, but a chime rang and a message popped up on her screen.

Coming, don’t actually throw it out the window. *risus* I know it’s just brutum fulmen anyway. Dr. S.

She puffed at his use of the Latin phrases, knowing he was just trying to get on her nerves again, and leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. Sometimes, she really hated that contemptuous man.

He knocked on the door a few minutes later - his legs longer than stilts probably helped crossing the distance faster, she supposed.

“Ave, Doctor Tyler,” he grinned, raising his right hand in a Roman salute as he entered her office. “So, what’s in this box, then?”

“You’ll have to find out yourself, I didn’t open it,” she shrugged as he picked up a pair of scissors on her desk and sliced the thick tape. “I just know it moves, and it stinks. Pretty good summary of what happens in your asylum.”

“At least, things happen in my asylum, no one dies of boredom learning languages you’ll only ever speak with the dead,” he smiled, twirling the scissors around his index. “Let’s see, shall we?”

She sighed as he rolled his sleeves up theatrically and wiggled his fingers before he peeled one side of the top of the box. He sneaked a peek inside the box, squinted when he realized it was too dark inside to see anything, and reached inside, obviously forgetting about the moving dimension of the contents.

She didn’t react much when he shrieked loudly, thinking he was just indulging in one of his silly jokes, but then he snapped the box close and tightly wrapped his fingers around his hand.

“If that’s your idea of revenge, Doctor Tyler, let me tell you it sucks,” he glared at her above the rim of his glasses. “I knew you had a rubbish sense of humour, but this…”

“What do you…” she started with a sigh, but stopped dead in the middle of her sentence when she saw the blood steadily dripping from his extremity. “Shit, what the Hell is that?”

“You tell me,” he growled as she hurried to find a first aid kit in her drawer. “Seriously, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

“It’s not me, alright?” she defended herself, motionning for him to sit on her chair. “Yes, we’ve had our differences, but I’d never go as far as hurting you on purpose, okay?”

“So you wish to tell me this arrived at your office by accident?” he frowned over eyes flooded with irritation. “Right, what a wonderful coincidence this is, isn’t it?”

“Well it did. Now shut it, Doctor Smith, and give me your hand.”

He huffed loudly, but he still did. She gently cupped his hand and wiped most of the blood with a clean handkerchief to better see the nature of the wound.

“Snake bite,” she told him as she reached for a cotton ball in her kit she was quick to soak in alcohol. “Non-venomous, in case you were worried about that. See the four rows of tooth marks? That’s the kind of bite you want.”

“For someone who hasn’t planned this, you sure know a lot about snake bites,” he said, wincing lightly when she pressed her cotton over the injury.

“When you spent your summer camps in the same snake-infested forest five years in a row, you learn rather quickly,” she smiled - and she was relieved to see his features soften as he understood it really wasn’t her doing. “It wasn’t me, I promise.”

He kept quiet after that, and she took her time to properly clean the strings of tiny lesions that spread from the base of his thumb to the middle of the back of his hand. A light bruise was starting to colour his skin, the little red dots lost in the shades of green and blue, but it wasn’t serious. She probably spent more time than necessary cleaning the wound, but she rather enjoyed the feel of his large palm over hers, and how his long fingers lightly squeezed the side of her hand. She could enjoy the truce, because he seemed to enjoy it too, if the way he leaned into her touch was any indication.

“Why do you even have a kit in your office?” he asked with a grin, watching as she finally picked up a bandage and started to roll it around his hand. “The worse than can happen in here is a paper cut.”

“And snake bites, obviously,” she retorted as she pulled a bit tighter on the white gauze.

“Obviously,” he nodded, pinching his lips when she pressed just a bit too hard over the wound to stick her medical tape.

“There, done.”

She released his hand and packed her kit away while he worked his fingers to make sure they were still fully functional. Once reassured, he went back to the box and sntached the piece of paper taped to the side - he thought it might have been wiser to start there, but he kept this comment to himself.

“Rat snake, for Mister Graham,” he read in the small box dedicated to the description of the parcel. “Now I get the extra dead mice we received last week. Sorry I blamed you, Doctor Tyler. This shouldn’t have landed in your office.”

“Pardon?” she asked, stunned to hear that word coming out of his mouth.

“I said, this parcel shouldn’t have been delivered to you,” he repeated with a shrug, scratching the back of his head just a little sheepishly. “I should take it back to the biology department, whatever it is they plan to do with that thing.”

“You should indeed, Doctor Smith,” she agreed - of course, he wouldn’t repeat that word, but she knew he had said it, and that was enough. “Don’t need a snake in my office, thanks very much.”

“Quite right,” he nodded as he taped the top of the box again to make sure the reptile wouldn’t slither away on his way back.

He picked up his box in his arms and offered a quick nod of the head as a goodbye, but he stopped by the door and turned on his feet.

“Fancy a coffee one of these days?” he asked, much too casual to sound natural.

She blinked, gaped at him for a second, until she understood the meaning of his question.

“Huh, sure, why not,” she answered, quite unable to decide if this was a genuine, friendly request or another one of his evil plans.

“Alright,” he smiled softly. “We’ll catch up later. Have a nice day, Doctor Tyler. And thanks for the bandage.”

She stared at the closed door for long minutes after he was gone with his snake, drumming her fingers on her desk. Doctor Smith wanted to share a coffee. And he had thanked her. Well, maybe the snake was venomous, after all.

Paring: Ten x Rose 
Rating: G
Word count: 1100
Tags: Fluff, First Kiss

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Written for @creativebec who asked for the following prompt: 
I have you shoved against the wall but now I can’t stop looking at your mouth

I actually strayed a bit from the actual prompt, but well, the idea is there, more or less! Kept the rating to a G, but if you wanted a higher rating I can definitely write another one!

I hope you’ll enjoy it, thank you for sending me the prompt! :)

Oh, she was properly furious. Not only had she him pinned against the wall for the eighth time since they had started travelling together, if his memory served him right, but it was the first time she was threatening to whack his head with her shoe. A pretty polished black heel - well, the heel was broken, only hanging at the end of a brave thread of glue. And its twin was lost, left behind in a dark street. Shame, he rather liked those shoes. Well, not the shoes themselves, but how they shaped the muscles of her toned legs. And how they made her tall enough to steal glances at her cleavage without her noticing. And how she walked, sashayed, when she was wearing them.

“You had to, didn’t you?” she seethed, pressing her forearm at the base of his neck.

“I can’t breathe,” he choked as his nails scraped the wall behind him.

“Serves you right, teaches you how to keep that gob of yours shut.”

Oh, she was properly furious. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to run away from a horde of angry guards, but it was the first time she’d crashed down on the wet pavement because of a stupid heel. Of course, he’d have to drag her in an alleyway of rough slabs, of course she’d have to get stuck, of course he’d have to keep pulling on her hand despite her protest, and of course she’d have to fall. They had escaped, that was good. Better than expected, given he was accused of an offense punishable by death.

Still, she was furious. It had been a perfect night. Some dancing, some drinking, lots of flirting, lots of teasing. The kind of night she believed could have change the status of their relationship from platonic friends to… More, whatever that word could mean to the Doctor. She was furious because her shoes were ruined, because her dress was ruined, because the perfect night. But mostly because they had been about to kiss, and the moment had been ruined, too. Well, kiss. Probably. She thought so. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time, because they’d been tiptoeing on that tight rope for ages. They’d been dancing for two songs, the tension had built, their looks had grown heavy and dark. He had smiled at her, not the kind of goofy grin she was used to, but a soft, tender smile that had pinned her in her shoes almost as hard as she was pinning him against that decrepit wall.

But then, he had gotten closer, he had entangled his hands from hers and splayed them on her hips. That was when things had gone to Hell.

“I thought that law was going to be passed at least a millenium in the future,” he wheezed - and only when his eyes got covered with a thin layer of tears did she released a bit of pressure.

“Haven’t you learnt to double-check yet?” she muttered angrily, giving him another hard shove.

Because, for whatever reason, this stupid planet considered touching hips in public a criminal offense. Trumpets had echoed in the whole ballroom and within seconds an army of little yellow men crowned with horns had been on their heels. He had tried to save them, claiming loud and clear they were just friends. It only had made the offense much worse - friends weren’t allowed to even touch, or so she had understood from the outraged murmurs.

They had had to run, again. She was used to it, because running was just a mandatory step in her daily life. Except, usually, she didn’t have to run in heels and a tight dress. They’d vene had to run faster than usual, because he had deemed necessary to snatch a chocolate eclair sprinkled with icing sugar on his way out and comment on its taste, thus losing precious seconds. Said eclair had left a think line of icing above his upper lip, and while she was furious, she had trouble looking at anything else but that lip she had been about to kiss mere minutes before.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized as he moved his hands to her wrists, keeping the shoe away from his face, loosening the pressure on his throat. “In my defence, may I say you are partly to blame for this.”

“Oh, am I, now?” she mumbled, doing her best to stop looking at that icing she wanted to suck from his mouth. “I’m not the one who let my hands wander, thank you very much.”

“No, but my hands wouldn’t have wandered if you weren’t so… So…”

“Sowhat, Doctor?”

He felt his cheeks warm up as he remembered her face, her eyes, her smile, just when he had been about to capture her lips. She had been beautiful. She still was beautiful, even with her mad frown and the thunder in her eyes. Especially since she kept licking her lips all while staring at his.

“As if you don’t know,” he huffed, tearing his eyes away from the face that caused him so much trouble. “You just keep seducing me and teasing me like you want me, and tonight you made it particularly hard, okay? All laughy and smiley and sexy, and yes, I took you to that ball because I was hoping you’d finally let me touch your hips if the mood was right, and yes, I touched your hips because I thought it was, and no, I didn’t know touching your hips was punishable by death, but on second thought, I’ll probably die before I find the right mood and the right place to finally touch your hips anyway, so it doesn’t really matter, does it? And that’s presuming you’ll actually ever want me to…”

Before he could finish his thought, she shoved him again, hard. Not against the wall, but towards her, and her mouth crashed against his in a searing kiss. It was deep, hard, tongue clashing, teeth clacking, lips fighting. He supposed it couldn’t be otherwise after letting the tension build for so long. He rather liked it. No. He loved it. And his hands found their way to her hips again. Oh yes, he was finally touching her hips. She moulded her body against his, broke the kiss to mumble something about icing, assailed his mouth all over again and slipped her hands under his shirt. He groaned, low in his throat, she moaned, loud through her nose.

He couldn’t wait to go back to the Tardis to touch more than her hips.

Paring: Ten x Rose ; TenToo x Rose Tyler
Rating: T
Word count: 900
Tags: Angst

Summary:

Three times the Doctor laughed. One time the Doctor cried.
At least, they were happy. He could only be happy, too.

Read onAO3

The first time it happened, he was sitting cross-legged under the console, dozens of wires in one hand, his sonic screwdriver in the other. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. Tinkering with things that didn’t need tinkering, busying his hands and his brain, focusing his thoughts on something else than his everlasting pain and sorrow. He was used to it.

His screwdriver buzzed, one of the wire sparked, a burn spread over the back of his hand. He laughed. Odd. Usually, he would curse at his ship or glare at the culprit. But that one time, he laughed. It scared him. To feel the joy bubbling in his stomach, to feel his lungs fill with air to fuel the laughter, to feel his brain buzz with excitement and… Was that love?

His hands clenched his sides made painful by so much hilarity and he fell down on his back, gleeful tears rolling down his temples. A flash of blond hair behind his eyelids, a picture of a naked body.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started, and he was left with an awkward feeling of nothing. His laugh turned to a giggle, then to a silent smile, until he pinched his lips and swallowed the hard ball in his throat. He rubbed the back of his hands under his nose and sighed. At least, they were happy. He could only be happy, too.

The second time it happened, he was in the middle of a negotiation with a bunch of aliens in a far corner of the universe, on a planet that was more of a giant dumpster than an actual planet. Death threats, terrorism, bombs ready to explode. Nothing to laugh about, really. But he did. In the middle of an offer, a giggle rose in his throat and his fierce frown morphed into a stupid grin.

He laughed, loud, his body bending forward on its own to alleviate the pain in the muscles of his abdomen, his eyes squeezed shut to chase the ecstatic tears. And behind his eyelids, a flash of blond hair, a picture of laced fingers, each hand bearing a golden ring.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started, and he was left with a comforting feeling of completion. He cleared his throat several times to tame the laughter dwindling down to giggles, wiped the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his manic grin gave way to another frown. At least, they were happy. He could only be happy, too. For the both of them. For him.

The third time it happened, he was nestled against a cushion in the library, a heavy philosophy book opened on his lap, glasses perched on the tip of his nose. Nothing particularly funny about any of it. But he laughed. He felt just a tiny flutter of something between his hearts, for just a tiny fraction of a second, and he laughed. Not very loud, this time, just a rumble in the back of his throat and puffs of air coming out of his lips.

He closed his book and reigned a few tears in. This happiness was theirs, and theirs only. But behind his eyelids, a flash of blond hair, a picture of pouty, minuscule fingers wrapped around a bigger one.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started, and he was left with a treacherous feeling of jealousy. Not for long. They were happy. He could only be happy, too. For the three of them. For that part of him who was living the life he had always dreamt of.

He stood up, walked to the shelf, and picked a thin book with a laughing bunny on the cover. He read it aloud by the fire, and he smiled.

The fourth and last time it happened, by accident or by fate, he was in bed, looking up at the dark ceiling. Nothing exciting, really. Just trying to get some sleep. He should be feeling nothing. But he felt too much. Both his hearts broke in his chest, his stomach heaved under the waves of pain, silent tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. No flash of blond hair, no other picture. Only black. Black pain, black sorrow.

He rolled to his side, reached for the heart-shaped cushion he had stolen from her room. He buried in his nose in the pink fuzz, and he cried. Even when his presence was gone from his mind, he cried. For an hour, maybe, or two, or the whole night. He was heartbroken. He could only be heartbroken, too. For him, for that part of him who was learning what it meant to be human, that part of him who’d have to live alone, without the blond-haired woman who had brought so much love in his life. And he cried.

It mustn’t have been more than two months later. He was standing atop of hill of bright yellow grass, the deep purple sky diluting into a pale pink on the horizon. He felt it. How his left heart missed a few beats for no apparent reason. How a little hole was momentarily carved in a corner of his mind. He felt the tear that hung to his eyelashes and he looked up at the night sky, at those two sparkling diamonds pinned on the endless canvas of the universe.

They both had lived their happy lives. He could only be happy, too.

tiptoe39:

So many prompts are about the meet-cute. So this list is meant to go straight to the good parts. Please use, prompt, share, add to, etc.

1. I have you shoved against the wall but now I can’t stop looking at your mouth
2. We were dancing but all of a sudden it’s a slow song and we’re standing here awkwardly staring at each other
3. I just told you I liked you but now I’m shy and say “never mind, forget it” and why are you looking at me like that?
4. We slept in the same bed for space reasons but now we’re just waking up and there’s something about your bleary eyes and mussed hair
5. It’s time to fight the boss and if I don’t tell you now, I might not live to tell you
6. Congratulations! One of your dreams has finally come true. Let me give you a big hug and wow, you’re warm…
7. I’ve never seen anything like the way you handled that. I’m just so moved.
8. Oh, my God, I thought you were going to die. Please don’t ever scare me like that again.
9. We’re hiding from the authorities and it’s very close quarters in here, I can feel your body against mine.
10. Wait, my hero’s secret identity is… you? To be honest, I’d always kind of hoped…
11. You’ve said you’re going to leave, but I don’t want you to go and if I don’t say something now…
12. We were pretending to be lovers but I’m not pretending anymore and I have to know if you feel the same way
13.  This wasn’t meant to be a date, but we’ve had such a good time and now it’s 2 a.m. and I should really go home…
    

Remember, I’d love you to send me prompts guys!

Choose your pairing, your number, and send me an ask!

I do Ten x Rose (+AUs), TenToo x Rose, and basically every Teninch pairing you can think of! Also, every rating!

I’m waiting for you readers! :-)

Paring: TenToo x Rose Tyler
Rating: Mature
Word count: 2200
Tags: Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Smutty-ish

Summary:

That’s it. He’s getting old. And he doesn’t like it.
Thankfully, Rose does.

Read onAO3

Tagging@doctorrosepromptsand@timepetalscollective for the second chapter of this little TenToo x Rose fluffy work!

Kept it under Mature because it’s far less smutty than I expected it to be!

“Rose, please,” he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut as he nimble fingers reached into his pants.

“Please what?” she smiled at his reflection through the mirror. “Stop, or don’t stop?”

“Stop,” he answered before she gave his erection a squeeze and kissed the side of his neck. “Okay, maybe don’t. But I won’t be blamed if we’re, ah, late.”

“Fine with me,” she giggled as she withdrew her hand just to take his and lead him back to the bedroom. “Now lie down and let me do my thing, handsome.”

“Handsome,” he snorted, plopping down on the mattress as asked, shuffling back to nestle his head in a pillow. “As if you believed that. Seriously, Rose, this is all pointless. I’m a fat wrinkled apple. You won’t change my mind.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t try,” she grinned, toeing off her heels and getting rid of her tight skirt. “Now shut it, old fart, and let your wife prove you wrong.”

He wanted to roll his eyes, but couldn’t detach them from her. She still had this power to hypnotize him at all times, but more specifically when she was undressing. He had trouble accepting the epitome of perfection that she was could already be forty-six years of age, because to him, she was as beautiful as the day he had fallen in love with her for the first time. He watched, enthralled, her deft fingers unbutton her blouse, pull it down her arms, drop it to the side, that one insolent smile tugging at her lips.

“Since when does my wife wear red lace?” he asked, eying the underwear ensemble he had never seen before.

“It’s your birthday next week,” she explained as she joined him on the bed and straddled his waist with an elegant throw of her leg - her flexibility, among many other things, was still something he particularly enjoyed. “Wanted this to be a surprise, but you know how much I hate brand new underwear. Wanted to wear it once to get used to it for the big day. Guess I’ll have to find another surprise. So, Doctor, shall I begin with my… Presentation?”

“Like I have a choice,” he sighed, his hands finding their way to her hips out of habits.

“No you don’t, indeed. Part one. Me.”

“You? What do you mean, you?”

Her only answer was a soft smile. She reached behind her back to unclasp her bra, shrugged it off her shoulders and discarded it to the side, glad to see his sweet chocolate eyes darken almost imperceptibly. She laced her fingers with his and brought his hands to her breasts, splaying his them over the mounds of creamy flesh. Without really thinking about it, he did what he usually did. He caressed their swell, weighed them in his palms, brushed the pads of his thumbs over her nipples. She breathed out a groan and momentarily shut her eyes to enjoy his touch, but remembered she had to carry on with her presentation. She caught his wrists and pulled them down so his fingers trailed down her abdomen to settle on her lower belly.

“See?” she said softly, ignoring the gooseflesh that spread to her skin under his warm hands.

“See what?” he raised an eyebrow as he caressed her body he knew by heart, trying to spot something out of the ordinary.

“Forty-six, four kids, Doctor,” she smiled, mirroring the patterns of his gentle strokes over his chest. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not as fit as I used to be either. Saggy boobs, little fat belly, a few stretch marks.”

“Nonsense,” he protested with a vehement shake of the head as he rose into a sitting position to hug her body close to his. “You’re as beautiful as ever, love, just as gorgeous.”

“Then why can’t you accept that I still think you’re as handsome as ever, Doctor?”

“Because I’m vain?”

“Well, at least we’re getting somewhere,” she giggled, giving his jaw a playful bite. “Now, part two. You.”

She pushed him back on the bed and shifted higher up his waist, smirking at the gasp that fled past his lips when she ground over his lap in retaliation for his sigh of defeat. She buried her fingers through his mane of brown spikes that felt just a tad stickier than usual, thank the many layers of gel he had used, but the result was the same. She knew he husband, and she knew he loved it when she played with his hair, pulled on his strands and scratched her nails on his scalp. Sure enough, at the first tug he closed his eyes, and at the first scrape he bit into his lip. She found the grey spot he had tried to bury among the brown - how he had even believed he would have been able to hide it, she didn’t know. The tuft stood out almost comically, like a single white petunia planted in a large bed of red ones. But only the colour was different. It felt the same under her fingers, just as soft and thick as the rest, just as rewarding when she pulled on it and he answered with a moan.

She could see all the years they had spent together in that grey hair, all that time she had been blessed with with this beautiful man on her side. Twenty years into their marriage, four beautiful children, and when she looked at him she still saw the man she had fallen in love all those years ago. She loved the grey hair because it reminded her time was a precious thing and should not be wasted.

“Don’t touch that horror,” he whined, shaking his head to divert her fingers away from the patch of silver hair. “I’ll have it dyed tomorrow.”

“I like it,” she said as she clenched her fingers tighter around his spikes, using her hold to pull his head back and lick her way up his throat to suck the soft patch of skin under his jaw into her mouth. “I think it’s important. When I look at it, I remember the chance I’ve been given to spend my life with you. I remember I love you more than life itself, and I remember you love me. I want to see it everyday. I want to see it and remember. Don’t dye it, please. I like it.”

She pulled on his hair again to turn the objection she felt coming into another one of his throaty moans and kept going. She trailed her fingers down his sternum, traced the edges of his pectorals that had softened over the years, teased his nipples with her fingertips and watched his face. Like she expected, his eyelids fluttered shut and his mouth pinched, the tendons in his neck straining under the skin. She kept a hand over his chest to continue with her ministrations, and brought the other back to his face. She ran her index over the crinkles at the corner of his eyes that spread out to his temples, followed the curve of the hollow of his cheek, swept over the prominent dimple dug into his skin, pressed against the wrinkle that fell from the edge of his mouth. As far as she could remember, the corners of his mouth had always had a tendency to be pulled down by a mysterious gravity. The years had only made it more visible. Deeper, longer. She replaced her finger with her lips and tweaked a hardened nipple between her knuckles.

“I like to think I contributed to those wrinkles,” she murmured against his skin, shifting down his body to rub her center against the erection she still felt under the layers of clothes. “When I pleasure you, you always make the same face.”

“What face?” he grunted, prying an eye open to see her smirk at him.

“That one,” she said just as she slid her hand down his body to grab his length through his trousers - the face he made that came with his groan perfectly illustrated what she meant, and it seemed he realized. “But I also like to think… Those wrinkles show just how much you’ve smiled for the past twenty years. When I see those wrinkles, I see your happiness. I remember all those times we’ve laughed and smiled and shared our love. The day we got married and you couldn’t keep that stupid grin away from your face. The day I told you I was pregnant for the first time and you couldn’t stop laughing like a loony. The day our first daughter was born and you couldn’t stop crying. I love your face, because when I look a you, I see my handsome husband, and I remember why I’m happy.”

She knew that, after this, he would never dare to think his wrinkles made him ugly again, lest he’d hurt her feelings. She knew he was vain, but she also knew he was vain mostly because he didn’t want he to think he was growing unattractive. She hoped that was enough to convince him she still thought he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen - the lack of protest was already a good sign.

She heard him suck in a gasp when she shuffled down his leg, grinding down hard on his crotch before she did, and she stole one last deep kiss from him before she went on a journey south. Her mouth followed the shallow line between his pectorals, planting wet, open-kisses on the way down, until she reached the soft curve of his belly.

“Hm, not much to say about this,” she smiled, cushioning her cheek against the flesh, drawing little heart shapes with a fingertip over his side. “But I like it. And you can’t do anything about that, darling, because you can’t judge what I like. There’s plenty of things I love that you hate.”

“You love sappy novels and pear pies,” he huffed as she scraped her teeth over the underside of his bellybutton. “Not very reassuring, given your more than questionable tastes, love.”

“‘Kay, let’s put it that way, then,” she nodded, cradling her chin in the palm of her hand as she lazily rubbed his hardness. “You love me and you trust me, yes? So, if I say I like it, you have to believe me. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

“I…” he started, but had to swallow when she finally tugged on his trousers and underwear to gather them around his knees. “I suppose.”

“Sorry?” she teased, kneeling between his thighs before she wrapped her fingers around his hard base and squeezed hard, just to steal to the last thread of his coherence and win the fight.

“Yeah, ‘kay, I believe you,” he whimpered as his hips jerked up to follow her movements. “I mean, ah, it’s just a bit a fat, right? And it’s kinda, God, your fault, so…”

“Exactly.”

She didn’t wait for another reaction on his part and bowed her head to take him into her mouth - the only efficient way she had ever found to keep his gob under control. It didn’t stop him from moaning and cursing and growling his pleasure, but at least that hadn’t changed. She knew exactly how to get him there, knew every little thing he loved and every little sound he made depending on how she touched him. It was comforting, in a way. To know her husband was exactly the same as he’d ever been, no matter how much he thought he’d morphed into something he loathed. She could only hope he understood she still loved him just as much. Hope he accepted she did.

It didn’t take long before she heard the low groan he usually made at the pinnacle of his pleasure and felt his fingers tangle in her hair as his back arched from the bed and his toes curled into the sheet. She brought him down from his high with gentle caresses and a few kisses pressed on the swell of the belly he didn’t like, then plopped down next to him to wrap her arms around his chest heaving with the remnants of his pants. She nuzzled his cheek with the tip of her nose, dropping a few more kisses on his jaw, brushing a hand through his hair.

“You’re beautiful, my Doctor,” she murmured, watching his softening features, a glint of adoration and a gleam of affection in the depth of her eyes. “You’ll always be.”

“You’ll always be, too, my Rose,” he answered softly, content to bask in the love and the warmth of his perfect wife. “I love you.”

“I know, darling. I love you, too. And I love your belly.”

“Don’t push it,” he grinned, poking the soft spot above her hip where he knew she was ticklish.

“Sorry, couldn’t resist. Now, get your old ass up, we really need to go. And you have quite the belly to drag behind.”

“I take back what I said, I hate you.”

His hearts only soared with more love when she patted the soft lump with a cheeky grin and climbed off the bed.

This week-end is going to be a smut fest.

- I’m currently writing a third chapter toThe Christmas Cake (John x Rose AU) because I’ve wanted to do that for a while - Merry Christmas everyone, you might want to read that again to get in the mood.

- Then, I’ll write a second chapter to Grey Hair (TenToo x Rose), because I need some more TenToo x Rose fluffy smut.

- Then I’ll write chapter 18 for Across the Universe (Ten x Rose Soulmates AU) because I’ve had that scene in my head for weeks.

- And if I have time, I’ll write the next chapter to Hit and Run (Alec x Rose)

There you go, you’ve been warned.
I’ll open the festivities tomorrow night!

And to everyone who reads my stories, thank you again, for everything!

Paring: John Smith x Rose Tyler
Chapter: 2/?
Rating: T
Word count: 1900
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, University AU

Read on AO3

Tagging@doctorrosepromptsand@timepetalscollective for the second chapter of this University AU!

He grinned proudly as he tore the cardboard of the parcel he had received on his desk, taking out a heavy book he had ordered. He had spent his own money on something he would never use, just for the sake of retaliation - and because he couldn’t wait to see her furious face again. The motivation was clear. Get his revenge for that cheap short she had aimed at him the week before. It was simple, efficient, and not evil enough to risk much more than a glare and another fit of anger. Oh, he couldn’t wait.

He tucked his book under his arm and walked out of his office, unable to wipe the smug smile from his features. You’ll get your stupid book, he thought as he walked into one of the humanities corridors that sprouted from the mail hall, greeting a few of his own students on the way. He had never been to her office before - not for lack of interest, because he had wanted to visit her for two years, but for lack of any precise reason that would leave her wondering why he had even bothered when they had a phone and emails. Phone and emails had this one disadvantage he couldn’t see her, skirt and high heels and tight blouse, but well. He always managed to find a good spot at the canteen to make up for all those times he didn’t visit her - namely, that one table behind the plastic plant that shielded him from her, but from where he had a very good view of her legs under the table.

He knocked on her door, grinned even brighter when she answered, and stepped into her office with the firm intention to thoroughly enjoy her rage. He was momentarily struck by the size of the office, less than half the size of his, and he realized a lighter budget was not the only bad thing about the humanities. Especially since, being the literary person that she was, piles and piles of books were stacked against the walls, precarious towers that would all tumble down if she picked but one of them.

She was wearing that light pink blouse that day, one of his favourite, and he was disappointed he couldn’t see what skirt she had paired it with. No. He wasn’t there to watch her legs. Revenge, he remembered.

“Doctor Smith, what can I do for you?” she greeted with a smile, taking off the black glasses perched on the bridge of her nose - he would have liked to tell her to leave them on, because he didn’t think he had seen anything sexier in his whole life, but he managed to keep that thought for himself.

“Doctor Tyler,” he nodded, shutting the door behind him with a kick of his heel. “I got you a little something I thought you might like. Remember that book we, er, argued about last week?”

“Yeah, I do, thanks for reminding me,” she sighed, leaning back in her chair, tucking a temple of her glasses in her cleavage. “So?”

“Well, I kinda felt bad, you know, I got this brand new, amazingcentrifuge and you’re left with nothing,” he said - he made sure to sound falsely saddened and offered an ironic smile of compassion. “So, I got you the book.”

“Did you?”

He nodded with a grin, the delighted flutters of thrill blooming in his stomach at her surprise and immediate softening. Oh, she really wanted that book. And she was genuinely happy he had bought it. It made it even better. The downfall would be rough.

“Here it is, new edition and all,” he said, letting the book plop down on the desk, putting its title on prominent display. “Cost me fifty quids, but well, I’ve got a centrifuge worth a few thousands so I thought… You know, consolation prize.”

“It’s in French,” she noted with a frown as she flipped through the pages. “All in French.”

“Oh, is it?”

He faked an outraged gasp, and started to ramble about how it hadn’t been made clear enough on the website, and how they would hear about it and he would get his money back because it was unacceptable to pay that much for a few pages in a wrong language. Of course, he was jubilating at her momentary perplexity, but on the inside only. Well, probably a bit on the outside too, because she raised an eyebrow and smiled, the kind of amused smile that had him observe her with a hint of suspicion. She wasn’t disillusioned, like he had hoped she’d be. She looked… Pleased. Now, that wasn’t part of the plan. Something must have gone wrong somewhere.

“Thank you very much, Doctor Smith,” she simply shrugged, shoving the book in a drawer. “That you would go to such extents is proof of your repentance.”

“But it’s in French,” he pointed out, frustrated that she wouldn’t make any more comments about it when he had expected, and even hoped for a tantrum.

“Yes, it is,” she smiled, slipping her glasses back on the tip of her nose - ah, that looked much better. “Good thing I speak French.”

“You… You do?” he asked as he watched his plan crumble down to ashes along with his confidence.

“Of course I do, majored in French literature, did one of my thesis about Molière. Why the disappointment? At least you didn’t spend your money on a silly joke. I can actually use it. Gonna need to do a few extra hours to translate what my student needs, but all in all, this is better than nothing. So, thanks.”

“Oh, good, then, very good,” he could only nod, trying hard not to let the his abatement show on his face. “I could send it back and order the good one, though, I really…”

“Don’t sweat it, Doctor Smith,” she grinned as she handed him a small file of papers. “I know what you wanted to do. Sorry it didn’t work.”

“No idea what you’re talking about, I just wanted to help you.”

“Right. Now, I have work to do, so…”

He nodded with a sigh of defeat, but it was when he started to turn on his feet that he absent-mindedly read the title written in sharp little letters on the top of file. A title he knew all too well.

“Wait, what’s this?” he asked as he sifted through the sheets to make sure it was what he thought it was.

“Your article about nuclear fission in subaquatic rift currents was good, but your whole theory doesn’t look very professional,” she started to explain much too matter-of-factly compared to the scornful twitch that pulled on her lips. “You’ll find annotations and corrections. It might be science, but if you can’t spell all your gibberish properly, you won’t get published. You can leave it as it is, of course, but I doubt you’ll go far with subacquatickrifts.”

“You went through the trouble of reading my article just to taunt me on stupid grammar?” he huffed, both angry and embarrassed to see so much red painted over the pages.

“Spelling, Doctor Smith. The grammar isn’t that good either, though, you’ll find a few notes about that too. Page three, you say one thing and the exact opposite two lines further. It matters when you’re talking about potentially deadly stuff, just saying.”

“This is a paper I am still working on, I typed my notes at two in the morning, okay? How did you even get this, you snoop, I only posted it to my personal drive.”

“And on the staff Intranet. It appeared in the news stream, under the glorious title, hm, what was it? Oh yes, FML this fissions my ass. Thanks for the laugh, by the way.”

“No, I didn’t, I can’t have! It wasn’t even on the page yesterday when I logged in, and the latest news posted dates back to three weeks ago.”

“Don’t get your pink panties in a wad, your ass suffers enough as it is, it seems.”

“Just tell me how you found it, for God’s sake!” he huffed, angrily rolling the file in his fist as if he wanted to whack her head with it.

“The Intranet,” she repeated, undaunted by the way he braced himself against the edge of the desk to bend towards her, menacing and eyes shooting thunderbolts. “I knew you’d posted it by accident, so I saved a copy and deleted the post to spare you the embarrassment. But you know what, you’re right. Not my problem. I’ll just post it again and you can deal with it yourself. Now stop fissioningmy own ass with your childish enterprises and go back to your toy to grow your mushrooms. Might want to stop by your computer first, though. People don’t need to know about your current anal health.”

He watched, powerless, her fingers type words he couldn’t read and click several times on her mouse. Surely, she wouldn’t… But then, she cocked her head at him with a bright smile and mouthed a done. Obviously, she would. And she had. Yes, he had been looking for trouble and willingly tugged on the Devil’s tail, but that didn’t prevent anger from boiling in his veins. If anyone else found this article, under that title, he wouldn’t bet much on his reputation for the coming weeks. He’d need to invest in earplugs rather than in books to mute the sneers and laughs that would bury him under mountains of shame.

“Go to Hell, Doctor Tyler,” he seethed, shoving the rumpled sheets in his pocket. “I won’t argue with someone who can’t differentiate between mushrooms and microbiological cultures!”

“Fine, just go, then,” she shrugged as she planted her fingers on her keyboard and waited for him to actually go. “Thanks for the book again, that was very thoughtful of you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare for my next course. You’re welcome to attend, it’s about latin etymology, you might learn a thing or two about spelling subaquatic.”

“I know how to spell subaquatic, I wrote this in a rush, alright? I just… Nevermind. Have a nice day, Doctor Tyler. Enjoy your stupid book.”

He stormed out of her office before he could drown in her sickening smugness and rushed back to his office, his highest priority now consisting in deleting any trace of the humiliation eulogy this post was. He sat behind his computer and hurried to log in, opened the page he was looking for and scrolled through it to find the subject of the offence. Sure enough, there it was, posted under his name, but it seemed Doctor Tyler had deemed necessary to add an attachment. Introduction to Latin Etymology. He made a face at his screen and erased the article from the database with a few clicks. She was saucy, that woman. He loved it. Still, he would need to up the ante and hit harder if he wanted a chance at winning.

The email bell chimed again. His face blanched as he read the message she had sent him and his hands went to his fly.

I didn’t say pink panties by accident, BTW. Lovely underwear, Doctor Smith. Dr. T.

He zipped up his fly and fell back in his chair with a groan.

Paring: TenToo x Rose Tyler
Rating: Mature
Word count: 1800
Tags: Fluff, Domestic Fluff

Summary:

That’s it. He’s getting old. And he doesn’t like it.
Thankfully, Rose does.

Read onAO3

Another fluffy TenToo x Rose piece!
Will probably be a two chap. explicit story, but I’m leaving it to one mature chapter for now!

Tagging@timepetalscollectiveand@doctorroseprompts in case this fits into a prompt!

“Doctor, I swear to God if you don’t get out of that bathroom now I’ll kick the door open.”

He barely heard her threat, barely peered at the door behind him through the mirror. It was true he had spent far too long in the bathroom, but he had a very good reason. Several reasons. First, to keep her from witnessing a small-scale panic attack that might have had pulled a tear or two from his eyes. Second, to find a way to hide it, so she wouldn’t see the horror of it.

Well, it didn’t lookhorrible, but it certainly felthorrible. That was it. The very first obvious sign that this rubbish human body was aging, and all the rest it implied. According to the small plastic card Rose insisted he should always keep in his pocket, he would turn fifty a few days later. To a Time Lord, fifty was nothing but a quick blink of an eye, a flutter of an eyelid. To a human, that fifty marked the beginning of the second half of their pathetically short lives. He was old. Very old. Older than he’d ever been before, even as a Time Lord. Ancient, almost.

He wasn’t scared of dying, because he had long accepted this body wouldn’t last. He was simply scared of aging. Scared the changes in his body would somehow… Make him too different from the Doctor Rose had fallen in love with. It might be too awkward to her. She had started to love him when she thought he’d always remain the same lanky man with wonky features and long spikes of brown hair. But now. Now, he certainly was different from that ideal she had married.

There was the few pounds he had managed to pack on for indulging in way too many of the meals she prepared him every night, and all those unhealthy lunches she put in his bag before he left for work. And then, his lower lip had gotten just a bit poutier, his left eye a bit bulgier, his crinkles a bit deeper. And then, this morning, he had found out about that one thing he dreaded. He could contract his abdomen when she was looking, just to make it look a bit flatter. He could smile and make faces to hide his growing wrinkles and softening features, just to pretend time wasn’t taking its toll.

But there was nothing he could currently do to hide the tiny tuft of silver hair growing among the mane of brown. He had tried to sculpt the hair around to bury it, but it hadn’t worked. He had tried to trim the top to make it less visible, but it hadn’t worked. He was trying to paint them back to their original colour with careful strokes of his fingers covered in a thick layer of her eyeshade, but it wasn’t working that well either.

“Doctor, I’m coming in, yeah?” she said behind the door - and it flew open before he could protest.

She stared at him, raised eyebrow and fists firmly planted on her hips - how had she managed to keep such a slender waist when his was but a long gone memory, he didn’t know. She spotted the tubes and boxes of hair gel on the counter, the comb full of hair, his fingers dirty with black power, the contents of her toilet bag all gathered in the sink.

“What on Earth are you doing with my makeup?” she asked, picking up his wrist to watch his fingers from up close.

“I’m not, I mean, I’m not using your makeup to… Makeup,” he stuttered, hurrying to wash his hands with a blob of soap. “I was looking for your hairbrush and… It just all fell and I’m trying to… Nevermind, it’s nothing. I’m done anyway. We should go.”

But of course, she had seen the hair products, the comb, the awful quantity of shiny gel plastered all over the top of his head. She only smiled, suddenly much less irritated, and handed him a towel.

“I like it, you know,” Rose pointed out, purposefully glancing at his hair.

“You like what?” he shrugged as he shoved all of the products in the bag and set it back on the shelf.

“Your hair,” she simply answered. “It’s beautiful. The good kind of grey, silver and all shiny.”

“I do not have grey hair yet, thank you very much,” he huffed, though the blush spreading on his cheeks did a poor job at backing up his claim.

“You’ve had gray hair for ages, Doctor,” she giggled, running her fingers through the short strands at the back of neck. “It started there.”

She gently tugged on a spike going astray just behind his ear. She trailed her fingers around, until they reached the slightly flat area of his skull and scratched her nails on another patch of hair.

“Then here,” she continued - and she rolled an arm around his waist as she did, pressing into his back and staring at his reflection through the mirror. “And that one, it appeared two weeks ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he muttered, swatting her hand away from his head.

“Because I like it,” she repeated, pinching the light swell of his abdomen in retaliation. “I like everything about you. I like that you’re human. I like that you’re growing old with me, like you promised. You thought I wouldn’t notice? Your breath when you try to hide your belly, or your forced smiles when you try to hide the crinkles at the corner of your mouth?”

“You… You did?”

“You’re my husband, you plonker, of course I noticed. And guess what, you’re not smiling twenty-four seven, and sometimes you have to breathe like everyone does. I see it, Doctor. I’ve been seeing it for months. I said nothing because I love it. I love you, slight overweight, grey hair and wrinkles included. I just want you to be yourself.”

“Well I hate myself right now,” he mumbled, trying to get free of her hold she wouldn’t loosen. “Look at me, Rose. I’m fat and hideous and so old.”

“Fat, yes, alarmingly so,” she agreed.

He frowned at those words, but rolled his eyes when she grinned at him from above his shoulder and snatched the hem of his shirt from his trousers. He grumbled when she ran her hand in circles over the small lump that, she had to admit, was slightly overreaching above his belt. But she loved it. Its warmth, its softness, its thin layer of coarse hair that disappeared under the waistline of his pants. All those things she had learnt to love about this human the first day they had spent together, and all those things she still loved despite his most vehement protests.

“And hideous, too,” she smiled, pressing her lips on the side of his neck. “But you’ve always been hideous, it just didn’t happen overnight. And old. Gosh, you are so old, I think you’re on the brink of death already.”

“It’s not funny, Rose, look at me.”

“I look at you, my Doctor, I always look at you.”

“You should have told me, then,” he groaned, still miffed that she had been seeing these things for ages when he only had noticed them a few weeks before.

“Tell you, then what? What would you have done about it? Go on a diet and dye your hair? Buy a pass to the gym and get botox in your face?”

“Well, if that’s what it takes to be the same as before, yeah, I would do that.”

“Do you honestly believe I would ever love you less because you’ve grown a tiny belly?” she asked in a murmur, so sincere he almost believed she meant that question - impossible, though, because that would imply he didn’t trust her, and she knew just how much he did. “Or love you less because you’ve got a few wrinkles or gray hair, or weak knees and cranky fingers? That such ridiculous things of your appearance would ever change how I feel for my husband and the father of my children? Do you, Doctor? Because that means I haven’t loved you properly.”

“It’s not about love, Rose, it’s about you finding your husband attractive,” he retorted, swatting her hand away from his belly, now revealed by the few buttons she had undone. “And, excuse me, but you never compliment me on my hair or my body anymore.”

Her fingers went back to his shirt at those words, but instead of carefully undoing the remaining buttons, she ripped the two hems apart, little plastic pucks raining down on the tiles. She pulled it down his arms with a harsh shove, staring at him through the mirror, looking at her own hands mapping the contours of his broad shoulders, trailing down his pectorals, down to his abdomen, down, downer. Her fingertips slipped under his belt, quickly, just enough to see his bright chocolate eyes darken and, quite ironically, the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth deepen as he pinched his lips to keep a moan in.

“Rose, the kids…” he started, briefly closing his eyes when her nails grazed the coarse hair at the juncture of his legs.

“Are gone already. Our eldest has her licence now and this is her birthday. She took my car.”

“We’ll be late, we…”

“Don’t try to change the subject, Mister,” she scolded, biting her lips into the soft skin of his shoulder. “Do you want to know something, Doctor?”

“What?” he sighed - both because he was just a bit annoyed, but mostly because he was starting to really appreciate how her body was pressing against his.

“Maybe I don’t compliment you on your body anymore…”

“Ah, see?” he interrupted with a sad grin of victory.

“But you don’t tell me you love me anymore,” she continued, unfazed by his intervention. “The last time was… I don’t know, a year ago, on our anniversary?”

“Of course I tell you I love you, don’t be silly Rose,” he protested, stopping her wrists when she began to move her hands again. “I tell you that everyday.”

“Nope,” she smiled as she broke free from his hold and unbuckled his belt. “But that’s alright. Because I know you do. So I thought… You knew I still find you attractive, too, just like I know you still love me. Because I do. You’re handsome, Doctor, every single part of you. Obviously I haven’t made myself clear enough. I shall remedy that, don’t you think?”

“Rose, love, we’ll be late,” he repeated, bracing himself against the sink, her deft fingers zipping his fly down and popping the button off.

“They can wait. I have a beautiful husband to love, right now.”

Paring: John Smith x Rose Tyler
Chapter: 1/?
Rating: T
Word count: 1200
Tags: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, University AU

Read on AO3

Tagging@doctorrosepromptsand@timepetalscollective for this University AU!
This is just a short prologue, if people like it the next chapters will be longer! :)

They had never been friends. Just colleagues, crossing paths in the corridors, exchanging shallow greetings and indifferent smiles. Nothing particularly surprising about it, given the everlasting rivalry that existed between them. Well, not between them, per se, but between their faculties. Things had been fine for the past few months - and by fine, he meant that there had been no real confrontation, apart from the usual taunts and cheap shots, which clearly pointed to a semblance of entente cordiale. Until the budget meeting, three short days before. That start of the war.

He had won the first battle when he had secured the better part of the budget for his own faculties, and left her with a thin envelope that would never be enough for the project she had defended before the president of the university. He had to admit, the science faculties always had the upper hand over the others, and while he had felt a flutter of guilt at her obvious rage, he had also been delighted to know he’d be given the centrifuge he had been asking for for weeks. Not his fault science required money, after all. A centrifuge was so much better than revamping a library and buying stupid books about obscure notions and pointless theories no one understood anyway. Science mattered. Literature, much less so.

He leaned back in his desk chair and grinned at the order slip tacked on the edge of his computer screen, unfazed by the obscene string of numbers that read the price of his new toy - though he would make sure not to call this extravagant equipment a toy but when he was alone. Or maybe when she, and only she, would be around, just to see the fury on her face. That could be fun. And he rather liked her face when she was furious. How her eyes burnt and her full lips pinched. He rather liked her. Period.  How she pinned him on the spot with a stare and made his stomach twist with her threats. The thrill she sent down his spine when she smiled at him, no matter how vicious and spiteful the smile was. The fire she sent through his veins when she turned her back to him and swaggered off on her high heels, in her tight skirt. He would never admit it, of course. Never. She was the enemy, and he refused to lose the upcoming battles because of a ridiculous smile and an ostentatious skirt.

A bell chimed from his speakers and a small window popped up on his screen, signaling a new email.

“Speak of the Devil,” he muttered under his breath as he read the name of the sender.

Sent you a student. Hope your toy is worth it. Dr. T.

He barely had time to start typing an answer, to ask what she had meant by those enigmatic words, that a sharp knock echoed on the door.

“Come in,” he called out, readjusting his tie and wiping his annoyed frown from his features.

A student stepped into his office, fingers clenched around a piece of paper, obviously distressed - he noticed the half-dried tears on her pale cheeks and the way she anxiously nibbled her lip.

“Doctor Smith,” she greeted, pulling on the straps of her backpack, daring to take a few steps towards him. “I’ve been told you have that book, and I could borrow it.”

“What book?” he asked, then took the paper she handed him - a paper that read a title about literary concepts he had never heard of before and was quite unable to understand.

“Doctor Tyler told me you had it, and I need it for a very important paper,” she said, hope written all over her face.

“I don’t have it, no,” he shook his head, giving the piece of paper back. “I don’t know why she’d tell you that, surely she must know…”

He stopped in the middle of his sentence and swallowed the curse he wanted to grunt. The little… He offered a shrug of apology and crossed his fingers over his desk, trying to keep his composure and calm intact despite the disappointment he could feel oozing from the desperate student.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have it,” he repeated with a smile of compassion. “Better double-check with the library, eh?”

“Nah, they don’t have it. Nevermind. Thanks anyway.”

He kept his smile hanging on his lips until the door closed, and his face contorted in anger as he hurried to pick up his phone and dial her number.

“What the Hell was that about, Doctor Tyler?” he grumbled into his phone after she greeted him with a merry hello.

“Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t you have the book, Doctor Smith?” she answered - and he could feel the pride and thrill of vengeance in her voice.

“Why would I have such a ridiculous book? That student was almost crying, for God’s sake, that was cruel, even for you.”

“Well, you see, that book was on the list I gave the library to weeks ago, but guess what?” she said, her tone growing just a tad more irritated. “Not enough budget, what a surprise! All those expensive books my students need and can’t buy? They should be in the library right now, but a childish scientist thought it better to invest in a useless toy that costs a fortune.”

“It is not a toy!” he cried out into the phone, slamming his palm on his armrest - now wasn’t the time to tease her about the toy dimension of the equipment, he believed. “It is a first class centrifuge I need for very serious experiments! Just go back to your prehistoric literature and write a poem to the president if don’t agree with his decision!”

“Fine!” she almost shouted back. “Do me a favour and centrifuge your stupid brain, maybe some good will come out of it!”

“Fine! Have a nice day, Doctor Tyler!”

He smashed his phone down on the desk and directed an obscene gesture at the name still displayed on his screen, his other hand feverishly running through his spikes of hair. God, how that woman could get on his nerves. Just for a stupid book about stupid things only stupid people could understand. He groaned loudly and let his head fall on his keyboard with a dull thump.

The bell chimed again a short moment later, and he peeked at the screen to see a new message had popped up, under the nonsensical string of letters he must have sent by inadvertance when his forehead had crashed on his keyboard.

You need to read some books about anger management, Doctor Smith. Oh wait. We don’t have the books.

He blew a resolved sigh through his nose and straightened in his chair, staring at the cynical message. Fine. Doctor Tyler wanted to wage war on him, then so be it. She would get her war. But he was determined to win.