They end up darting through the trees, laughing, the Doctor just ahead of Rose, pulling at her hand. They’d been exploring in the village when the rain started, not a sprinkle or a dizzle but a downpour, like standing in a waterfall. Rose shrieks a laugh and their hands reach out as one, finding each other with ease. (A thousand thousand years, their hands can find each other anywhere.) They run, their steps finding an easy rhythm, arms pumping, hearts beating in time.
But when the Doctor almost has her fingers on the door of the TARDIS Rose pulls her back, into her arms, presses her back into the rough blue. There’s a hum of approval from the ship– she always has to have her say– but they barely notice. Fingers push dripping blonde hair from eyes, other find warm skin just above jeans or hook through belt loops. Closer, tighter, heartbeats almost indistinguishable. Breath mingles, smiling lips press together, fingers splay on the small of a back. A tongue teases, kisses deepen, heads spin. Pulling apart to breathe, eyes meet, foreheads press together. No words are needed. Touch is enough.
Chapters: 13/13 Fandom:Doctor Who (2005),Doctor Who,Doctor Who & Related Fandoms,Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio),Doctor Who (1963) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler Characters: Thirteenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Tony Tyler, Original Characters, Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair, Graham O'Brien Additional Tags: Pete’s World (Doctor Who), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst and Smut, Slash, Lesbian Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Telepathic Sex, Telepathic Bond, bondmates, Soulmates, Mutual Pining, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler (past), Femslash, Humor, Fluff and Smut, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor Summary:
*Finished 5 April 2022*
“The drawer containing the intricate fob watch stands open like a trap, and Rose and the Doctor remain frozen in their places for several moments, looking back and forth from the ancient-looking timepiece, and then to each other.
It’s static, the fob watch. Still.
But it has momentum in itself— the quantum-level hum of its particle vibrations not the only thing giving it potentiality. It’s as if it’s dangling in space, swinging like a pendulum on a clock, dragging time—along with its event horizon—unrelentingly forward like a tidal wave.
Rose tentatively speaks first, voice breaking from frayed nerves.
“When…you touched the console, you left a handprint. It looked a lot like residual background radiation, like when I touched that Dalek way back in Van Statten’s museum—but it is clearly linked to your DNA only. I have come up here and touched that console many times over the last six years…it’s the only thing in this room I felt that I could touch.”
She swallows, her jaw flexing, mind racing at breakneck speed.
“What I’m trying to say is, that whatever is in that watch is meant for you alone, Doctor.”
The Doctor looks down at the watch, taking in a breath sharply, and nodding.
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
She takes the watch from its hiding place and holds it flat in her palm, and she studies it. It’s unremarkable at first— a simple, brushed metal pocket watch with a chain coming from a loop on the top, and a clasp to attach to one’s trousers. On the front surface, there are characters etched in Circular Gallifreyan. It’s still ticking, somehow, as though it had been powered by some other source for all these years.
But almost as soon as the timepiece makes contact with the Doctor’s skin, she stumbles back like she’s been struck, and there are voices heard, as though from a recording. To Rose they sound distant, like from an old phonograph.
However, she can tell by the look on the Doctor’s face, and by her eyes squeezing shut that she is actually experiencing these memories with all of her senses.
It’s his voice she hears next, all swaggery and dripping with overconfidence, as he pulls the vowels out through his bottom teeth in spot-on archetypical conformity with himself.
“Hello! I’m Doctor John Smith, and this is my wife, Doctor Rose Tyler-Smith. We are welllll aware that you are a Zygon so you might as well morph back into your big, red, rubbery self. On behalf of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, you are officially trespassing on this planet, and if you don’t bugger off we will be forced to toss you against a glass wall and see if you stick. Oh, I haven’t done that in yeeeeears!”
The voices become louder. The giggling of a child can be heard, along with footfalls and splashing noises.
“Oi! Tony, that’s far enough! Come on, your mother and sister will kill me if I let you go any further into that pond… oh look, a frog!! Be careful, it might be a Salarian from the planet Sur'Kesh! Alright I’m coming in—quick, zap it with your water pistol…er…laser!”
The Doctor presses her palm to the middle of her forehead, wincing in pain, and she leans against one of the trees for support.
Then they hear his voice again, it’s in Gallifreyan, and full of emotion as if he’s swallowed the moon. The words are silky and sublime and familiar and yet brand new in his mouth as he gleans them from his soul.
“I, the Doctor, take you Rose Tyler, to be my eternal partner and bondmate. I bind my consciousness to yours. You are the star of each night, you are the brightness of every morning. You are the face of my sun. We are one for all time, we are one for no time, our minds bound as well as our hearts. I promise to watch over you until the stars turn cold…until time unravels.“
The watch itself begins to glow, and the Doctor wrenches her eyes open long enough to tap the little button at the top, making the device spring open, and for even more light to escape. She quickly tosses the watch away, and pulls her hand back painfully as though it has burned her.
She crouches on the ground, clamping her hands onto her head, Rose rushing to her side. Rose’s own brain feels like it’s on fire, no doubt due to the telepathic bond, and when she is finally able to chisel her eyes open, she freezes.
Without warning, there is a massive explosion as the watch bursts open, sending gears and springs flying about, and Rose instinctively shields the Doctor from it.
After several moments, the pain in each of their heads subsides, and they slowly look up.
Out of the blast, behind one of the armchairs, a tall, lanky, spectral figure appears, standing up on very wobbly legs.
Long limbs, sticky-uppy hair, blue suit, and a manic grin to match the one the Time Lord Doctor currently has plastered on her face.”
