I found this in my WIPs and thought it would fit nicely to fill this week's prompt from dwsmutfest, over on Tumblr: a bee in the bonnet.
This is a chapter from a multi-chap WIP that I am currently working on. It takes place after the Rise of the Cybermen.
Here's what you need to know about the story before you read this excerpt: After returning from the parallel world, the Doctor has taken Rose back to see Jackie, and they have spent the better part of a week there, repairing the TARDIS and continuing to repair their relationship in the aftermath of GitF. The day before they plan to leave, they have chips at the chippy where they had their "first date". The server flirts with the Doctor, and the Doctor being the Doctor, unthinkingly flirts back.
Upset, Rose walks out, and the Doctor chases after her, frantic. When he catches up to her, they argue and she insists she will no longer travel with him. He apologizes and convinces her to stay with him, although Rose warns him that there is still much to discuss before she travels with him again. They head back to Jackie's flat.
This scene takes place once they reach the flat again.
I made a few small changes to include the prompt, and to change some references to previous chapters that wouldn't make sense in a one-shot.
Impulsive
"Right you, into the TARDIS!" Rose commanded. She scrutinized the Doctor's every movement as he began to open the police box door.
Jackie's voice ringing from the kitchen made him take a step back. "Oi, you two! Where d'ya think you're goin'? You jus' got back, an' I haven't seen you all mornin', Rose! You're leavin' tomorrow. I jus' wanna spend some time, sweetheart. Come, I'll make us a cuppa."
"That sounds like a lovely idea, Jackie. Doesn't it, Rose?" The Doctor shot Rose an apprehensive grin.
"Oh, no you don't," Rose snarled at the Doctor. She brightened her tone to address her mother: "Sorry, Mum, not right now. Me and the Doctor, we have a few things to sort before we leave tomorrow." She returned her attention to the Doctor. "Move it. In you go."
"Oi, you've got a bee in your bonnet, Rose! What's that man done now?" According to her mum, when someone male was "misbehaving", it didn't matter that they were an alien: the term "that man" covered all the categories of potential transgressors, regardless of their planet of origin.
"Nothin', Mum, we jus' have some things to discuss."
"But, I could 'elp, sweetheart. Give 'im a good slap for you."
"Mum! I can handle it myself!" She was allowing her exasperation to surface. "My hand works jus' fine when it needs to."
"Oi!" the Doctor yelped. "Standing right here, you know."
Rose frowned at him "Oh, I know: not where I told you to be, are you? Now in you go, before I do invite Mum onboard!"
"You wouldn't dare…" He blanched at the idea of Jackie Tyler loose on his beloved ship.
"Do you really want to find out? Now get in there! And don't you try hidin' in some transdimensional cupboard or some such. I will find you. And somehow, I think the TARDIS will side with me on this one."
She watched with pursed lips as he slouched into the time ship. "Be back in time for tea, Mum." She waved to the older Tyler who just stood shaking her head in disbelief.
"He's a right loony, if you ask me, Rose…" she commented with a roll of her eyes.
The Time Lord's voice was heard from within the ship. "Oi, still right here!" he protested.
"…and he's turnin' you into one, too. Pair of nutters, you are!"
Rose waved to Jackie again, and entered the TARDIS, closing the doors firmly behind her. "Now, it's time we talked, Doctor."
"You're not going to slap me, then?" He stood before her with sad, brown eyes, and his hands jammed into his suit pockets, tension and dejection emanating from him in waves.
"I wouldn't rule it out," she threatened, struggling to keep a smile from her lips at his vulnerability.
"Didn't think so, somehow. You know, Rose–"
She cut him off with a curt slicing motion of her hand. "Sit!" The demand burst from her lips.
She felt a bewildered satisfaction when he stumbled back to the jump seat and sat gazing up at her with anxious eyes, his arms crossed like armour across his chest. Here he was, a Time Lord, commanding and powerful, allowing himself to be brought to his knees by a stupid ape.
"Rose–"
"Ahh-ahh! I will be doin' the speakin'." She paused, holding his gaze, to make sure he understood. "When I require your input, I'll ask for it, yeah." She was gratified when he nodded his consent, giving her a little hesitant smile.
She turned away from him, leaning against the console to collect her thoughts. When she turned back, he was still watching her with his ancient eyes. She felt a pang of uneasiness and had to steel herself to not break under his scrutiny. "You treated me like shit, today, Doctor, and somehow I let you charm me back onto the TARDIS with you. So before we start travellin' again, we need to set some ground rules, yeah. And you will follow them or you will be takin' me back home… for good. Agreed?"
"May I?" He pointed to his mouth and she nodded her assent. "Rose I would never, ever want to take–"
"Yes or no, Doctor. Do you agree?"
The pain in his expression was almost too much for her to bear, and she longed to hold his head close to her heart, so he could hear the love beating from it.
"Yes," he whispered.
She managed to keep her softer emotions from robbing the bite from her voice, and with a private, supportive hum from the TARDIS in her mind, she found the strength of the Bad Wolf inside her. "I don't need a lot of rules. You should know me well enough by now to know that I love to bend 'em almost as much as you do, so I'll keep this simple. Even you should be able to manage with this lot, provided you don't let those Gallifreyan hormones run away with what little common sense you have."
"Time Lords do not experience–" He pressed his lips together the second she cut him off.
"I don't believe I said you could speak. And spare me any rubbish about superior Time Lord physiology."
He lowered his eyes in a show of contrition, stealing glances at her every few seconds. She made sure that her expression was one of unyielding disapproval, and forged ahead with her short list of demands. "I know you're not human, so imposin' my standards on you might seem to be unfair, but I am human, and I need to know that you will respect my wishes. If you don't, Doctor, there is no point in continuin' with this relationship. I will leave. No second chances, this time. Am I quite clear? Yes or no."
He swallowed back a plaintive little sound. "Yes." She found him thoroughly adorable, and struggled to suppress the urge to kiss his soft, pouting lower lip.
"Now listen very carefully, Doctor. Use that considerable brain of yours, 'cause I'm only going to say this once, and I want to know that you will never treat me the way you did today, ever again. But first, answer me this: back on that spaceship, after abandonin' me and Mickey so you could save Reinette, did you even understand why I was upset? At the time?"
She waited for his response, and felt the fury rise in her when it didn't come. "Tell me, Doctor!" She took an aggressive step toward him. "I want an answer. Did you understand why I was upset?"
He quivered. "I… Rose, I, uh…" he stammered.
"Oh, you're hopeless! This is hopeless. Don't know why I even bothered–"
"Rose, no, please listen."
"Go on then." She glowered at him from under furrowed brows.
"I was being selfish–"
"So, no, obviously you didn't understand, then?"
"No! No, no, no, no, Rose, no! Weeeell, yes… and no. I mean to say–"
"Forget it!"
"I was trying so hard to deny how deep my feelings were for you," he blurted. "It wasn't until I made myself… weeell, Mickey made me, really (brilliant, he is!)… examine my actions toward you that I realized how much I must have hurt you. But I'm sure I knew somewhere in my genius brain before that… and I, uh, just ignored it, denied it."
She narrowed her eyes at him, analyzing his proclamation. Seconds later, she found herself striking him across his left cheek. "God, that felt good!" she moaned, her head filled with a satisfying hum, that muffled the shock of the fact that she had lost control and slapped him.
His eyes glittered at her, his expression quite unreadable, but he uttered not a word, just raised his hand to his cheek to massage away the sting.
"You were being honest, Doctor. Sometimes honesty hurts. Now about today: same question. Did you understand that you were hurtin' me?"
"Rose, I would never consciously hurt you. But I did… again. I was too wrapped up in myself to notice." The remorse in his voice was almost painful to hear.
"You're a right git! Self-centred arsehole! You were just orderin' chips, for God's sake! And I was right there, and we were havin' a lovely day. And you just had to chat up, what's-her-name, Sarah." She felt her weaker emotions creeping in and the anxiety starting to rise in her voice. She fought back against them with a wolfish little growl and felt the more disciplined aggression return and the hum in her head becoming more of a soft, gratifying buzz. When she looked again at the Doctor, his eyes had darkened and he was watching her with keen intensity.
"Rules, then!" she snapped. "Listen carefully. One chance. First: treat me with respect–"
"Oh, believe me, Rose, I re–"
"This is not a conversation until I say it is." She kept her tone firm.
He licked his lips in response to her statement, but went silent.
"First: treat me with the respect I deserve. I assume," the disdain dripped from her tongue, "you know what that entails: you will not demean me or my species to my face or to others (no ape comments and such!) and you will not chat up, flirt with, or seduce other women. And I don't just mean when I am at your side. I mean always. And, I will never be "just Rose" again, and if that's what you think I am, we stop now. Am I clear?"
He nodded, his face flushing, and gaze downcast.
"Look at me! So I know you understand," she demanded. She watched him: his mouth was half-open, panting; his fingers were clenched around the edge of the jump seat; and his eyes, when they met hers, were darkened to the deepest black.
Her eyes flicked downwards to where his legs met the chair, the large bulge straining the front of his trousers confirming her suspicions. "Oh, my God! You're aroused!" she exclaimed with a disbelieving chortle at her revelation. "This turns you on! Superior Time Lord physiology, my arse!" She took a moment to comprehend what she was witnessing. "You're attracted to strong women: Cleopatra, Madame de Pompadour! Oh, God, it all makes sense!" She was excited by the sudden elucidation of the secrets that the Doctor had, until now, kept well-concealed, the things that made him tick. "Who else, Doctor! Who else?"
"Weeell…"
"Oh, never mind!" Her own arousal was skyrocketing, the pleasant buzzing in her mind, mingling with a growing, needy throb between her legs. Before she had time to register her actions, she was straddling his lap, and pulling his head toward her, hands riffling through his gorgeous hair. Their lips crashed together, and she was the one controlling the kiss. She bit and sucked at his lower lip, then ran her tongue along the seam of his lips to part them. His hands slid under her to cradle her bum and pull her closer to him so she could feel his erection press against her as she rutted against him. She reached between them and undid the button of his trousers, rubbing her palm against him as she did so.
"Rose," he moaned. "Rassilon, Rose!" The desperate, husky tone of his voice sent her own desire over the edge. She felt reckless in her lust beyond anything she had ever experienced before. She shoved his jacket off him, letting it drop to the floor; next went his tie and his shirt, buttons flying. Seeing his naked torso, all lean lines and muscular, made her ravenous yearnings surge within her, the aching warmth radiating through her from her swirling, humming brain to her toes.
She nibbled down his jawline with firm little nips, below his ear to the base of his neck, where she bit harder yet, leaving a vivid, red mark. She grinned possessively at him and was rewarded with his lips ravishing hers, and his hands thrusting under her T-shirt to slip his fingers beneath the margins of her bra.
After that, there was no discussion and little eye contact. The remaining clothes were removed in a flurry of heated impatience.
Rose plunged herself over his hard length, bestriding him where he sat on the jump seat, and the air was soon filled with their fervent sighs and groans as they moved frantically together. Her mind was full of nothing but the desperate need to sate her craving. In just a few brief minutes, she came hard with an impassioned scream, clenching around the Doctor, bringing a hoarse cry from his throat too, as he followed her with his own release.
Rose collapsed against him, skin slick with perspiration, the adrenaline of arousal ebbing from her body. Experiencing a sudden clarity of thought, she snapped back to the reality of the situation, and felt the blood drain from her face. His arms surrounded her bare back, bracing her, his double heartbeat, an unsettling throb in her ear. She choked back a little whimper of dread, as she replayed the last few impulsive minutes in her mind. What had she done? What had they done? How could their relationship ever be repaired after this? This hadn't been lovemaking. This had been raw sex: fucking; shagging. And she had initiated it in an unbidden fit of blind desire. As much as she had longed to take their relationship further, this was not what she had had in mind.
She looked into his eyes, and found herself unable to read the emotions she discovered there. She opened her mouth to shower him with apologies, but found the words lodged in her throat, as she suppressed the need to gag. Tears began to trickle from below her lashes and she ducked her head in shame, burrowing her face in the crook of his neck.
She felt him lean his cheek against her head. "Rose Tyler," the words rolled off his tongue like a song, and he began to giggle in an exceptionally Doctorish way, "oh, Rose Tyler!"
She chanced a glance at his face again, and saw nothing but mirth in his expression. "Shut up," she chided. "Here I am, completely starkers, and wantin' to climb into a deep, dark pit, and you're laughin' at me. I can't even crawl away and hide, 'cause… well, God… what's left to hide?"
"That's just what's so brilliant, Rose! Ha!"
"But I completely jumped you! Out of the blue, that was. Even I didn't see it comin'! Totally blindsided!"
"Yu-p. Brilliant!" The look on her face must have been one of complete confusion and incredulity, because he started giggling again, grabbed her face between his hands and gave her a huge wet kiss.
"Oi!" She made a show of wiping the sloppy kiss away with vigorous swipes of the back of her hand. "I mean, I admit, I've fantasized about… you know… us." She tucked her hair behind her left ear, and blushed furiously as the Doctor simply waggled his eyebrows and flashed a cheeky grin. "But what just happened here, now… uh, that, that was never in the realm of possibility… that was… yeah…"
"And, you being you, I suppose, you're wondering why that happened?"
"Yeah, I guess so… I mean," she nearly sobbed, "our first time! If it was ever going to happen, I didn't want it to be like this. I had been hopin' for something a bit more romantic, I guess."
He stroked her hair. "One reason, Rose Tyler, is that you're ovulating. At the peak of your fertility, you are."
She considered this for a moment. "But I should be at the peak of my fertility once a month, yeah? I don't jump you every month. I think I would have remembered. I mean, I get a little… well I mean I have to take care of things myself sometimes." Her cheeks burned again. "But that's not what happened today. I lost it, today! Completely bonkers!"
"Twenty-eight and a half days, Rose."
"What?"
"Your cycle. Very regular. Not every month: every twenty-eight and a half days."
"Do I want to know why you know this?"
"I can smell you: all your hormones and pheromones. All the things you little humans miss, with your inferior sensory systems."
"Oi! They must be there for a reason! I guess we're affected by them, just not aware what they do to us." She gasped, in sudden realization: "Oh my God! You can smell… You mean you know when I'm… or when I'm… or…"
"Yu-p!" he stated proudly. "Eh, don't worry, Rose. You smell lovely to me all the time. You know, Time Lords have pheromones and such too. We were always just trained to keep them under control. They can be very powerful, Rose, and natural sexual reproduction was very much frowned upon… Weeell, we were sterile for so long we got away from it. Stuffy lot, us… but not me!"
"Clearly."
"Children were grown on looms, and the tradition stuck even after our sterility was lifted."
"So you're not sterile now?"
"Nope!"
"Oh, God! Could I get pregnant? I mean, if I'm ovu–"
"Very unlikely, Rose," he interjected, tugging on his ear and running his hand through his hair. "I wouldn't worry."
"Why don't I believe you?"
"You wound me, Rose. Genius, me! I would let you know if there was a possibility, and, weeell, it's only a very slight possibility. Genetic compatibility and all. Although, there have been some precedents…"
"You can shut up now. I've decided I don't want to know. Cross that bridge if it ever comes. So about what happened today. Any more theories, I mean other than the fact that I'm ovulatin'?"
His cheeks flushed a fiery red. "I was very, very, very aroused, Rose. Very, very. You were being absolutely, splendidly sexy, and strong, and all Bad Wolf-y, and I mean to say, Rose… weeell, I have trouble containing myself around you most of the time, anyway, but today… blimey, Rose!"
"You lost control of those powerful pheromones, didn't you?"
He offered a sheepish nod in response. "Yup! That and I was broadcasting telepathically quite loudly. You probably were responding to that as well without realizing."
"That warm, buzzing hum in my head? That was you? I was hardly even aware of it, I was so beyond control by that time."
He beamed, smug. "Oh, yes! That you were!"
She smacked him on the arm. "God, I'm so… so… humiliated." She burrowed her head against him again.
"Rose, there's no need. It's just me. And look at all the embarrassing things that have happened to us! We have our digs at each other, have our bit of fun at the other's expense, and think no worse of one another in the end. I said it before: I think what happened today was absolutely brilliant!"
"But…"
"Rose, it got us here! If you had waited for me–"
"–to make the first move? My forever would have come and gone ten times over!" she snickered, incredulous. "There was a time, yeah, remember, I wasn't sure you could 'dance' at all."
"Sometimes, Rose, although I know it's hard to believe, I'm actually a bit stupid, and weeell… I sometimes let my Time Lord heritage guide my personal life far too much. And," he lowered his gaze and Rose wrapped her arms around him tighter, giving him a loving squeeze, "I get scared."
"Scared of losin' the people you…?"
"Yes, Rose, yes, scared of losing... everyone, everything. Scared that if I allow myself to feel it, that it will hurt more in the end. But you know all this already, don't you? I'm scared of losing you, Rose." He clung to her.
She nodded, and pressed her head against his bare shoulder, delighting in the intimacy of holding one another, skin to skin, with him still inside her. She sensed his tension ease to contentedness and felt blessed that she was a part of it. It struck her that for this man, this Gallifreyan… the Doctor,to bare his soul and admit his feelings to her was a gift, an incalculably precious gift to her, and one that she was sure had been given to very few, if any, in his long life.
She was humbled.
This man who flirted and showed off and ran his gob was only trying to balance his overwhelming levels of self-doubt and self-reproach, trying to gain approval by impressing the world, and talking so much that he didn't need to say anything at all.
This man who moved ceaselessly, never settling, was running from life and commitment to protect himself from greater hurt.
And yet, he was starting to let her in, sharing with her the person he truly was. He was allowing himself to become committed to her, and he wanted them to run together.
"I love you," she murmured, "I never want to cause you pain."
"Oh, Rose, you've only ever healed me. You give me peace when you're near. Before you came, I hadn't had that for so long." She melted into his embrace and didn't move again for a very long time.