Tentoo x Rose fic

"I stopped talking, just after I was stranded."

The Doctor's gaze snapped up to her, saw her sat on the edge of the hotel bed with her TARDIS key in her fingers and her heart in her hands. He didn't move towards her, not yet. He couldn't even be certain that she wanted him. He feared her rejection, losing the love he thought she had for him. He loved her, loved her like his universe revolved around her, and losing her again would be his destruction.

He longed for the familiarity of their bond. It had been there for so very long, established in a night of desperation and comfort as they impossibly orbited a black hole, vowing themselves to each other, dedicating and promising themselves in the most profound form of loyalty there ever could be. Projecting love and adoration and content across their minds, the mental threads that connected head and heart.

And it had strained and snapped when they had been ripped from one another.

"Stopped... talking?"

Rose let the key drop down on its chain from where it hung around her neck, running a hand through the blonde hair the Doctor so wished to touch again. "Yeah. I don't know if I couldn't, or just didn't want to."

If this had been their earlier days, he might've quipped back at her - Rose Tyler, stop talking? Practically unheard of! - but these weren't the earlier days. These were the days of Pete's World, of a too-human meta-crisis Doctor and a battle-worn and hardened Rose Tyler. And so, the Doctor waited. He'd wait forever for her, if that's what it would take.

"It went on for a week at first," Rose said quietly, her voice so monotonous and devoid of feeling that it almost brought tears to his eyes. "A whole week where I didn't speak. Scared the hell outta Mum. Nothing she could say or do would make me talk."

He didn't know how to respond. Fancy that - the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, Time Lord Victorious, and he had no idea how to respond! He faltered in his thoughts. Could he even call himself such things any more? Was he any more than a pale imitation? A false replica? Would that be all she ever saw him as?

"She took me to the doctors," Rose murmured, her lips hinting at the slightest ghost of a smile, but it faded as quickly as it came. "But not the Doctor I wanted. So it never worked."

It was like a freight train to his chest, and he had to swallow back the urge to cry out, or scream at the Universe, or something around the like. Perhaps that was the Donna in him. Not the Doctor she wanted. Not the Doctor she wanted. Not the Doctor she -

His eyes stung, throat burning. "I'm so-"

"Don't be," she replied, looking down at her legs as they swung where she sat. "Post Traumatic Vocal Disarticulation. That was my diagnosis. Didn't know it was a thing until I got it. A result of PTSD, they said. Mum called it heartbreak, but it was more than that, wasn't it, Doctor?" She looked at him now, those glistening brown eyes. Dark amber eyes that should only shine with her happiness and never her tears.

"Our bond," he whispered back, and it was the first phrase he had spoken since the beach. They spent the time it took to get back to the hotel in a stunned silence, booking their rooms with Jackie under the assumption that Rose would want to stay by his side.

Rose nodded, breaking their gazes once again, and tentatively patted the spot beside her. Reluctant, but never because he didn't want to be near her, he sat at a respectable distance. "That's right. Our bond. It broke, Doctor. That's what caused my voice to stop."

"But I... I'm not him, Rose. I mean, I am, I am him, but I'm also... me." The Doctor's single heart thudded painfully against his ribcage, the confession on the tip of his tongue and yearning to be known. "Do you even want it back, if you don't think I'm him?"

She looked up sharply, a solitary tear slipping down her cheek. Oh, how he ached to wipe it away, to cradle her in his arms, shred the universe with his hands if it meant she would feel better. "Is that what you think I think? That you're just a replacement? Some sort of consolation prize?" Rose didn't raise her voice, just whispered in the most bitter tone.

"I don't know, Rose. I really don't know." He knew how helpless he sounded, and awaited the resentment he was sure to find in Rose's eyes, so he looked away.

A gentle hand cupped his face, and he nearly simultaneously jumped in shock and sighed in relief. He turned his head slowly to look at her, at Rose, precious Rose. "Doctor. If I'm what's making you so insecure, then I want you to listen to me. Look at me and listen." She didn't take her hand away, just kept it there and stroked her thumb along the freckles of his cheekbone.

"Okay. I'm listening." He looked back at her, his eyes boring into hers.

"Who was it," she began slowly, but not condescendingly, "that held my hand in the cellar, all those years ago in Cardiff, and told me how glad he was to have met me? Who would hug me for the most stupid, ridiculous reasons, like pronouncing a word?"

"I..."

"And," she pressed on, ignoring him, "who was it who saved me from the Time Vortex? Who quite literally died to save my life? You, Doctor. That was you."

"That's me, when we first met," the Doctor whispered softly, echoing his Time-Lord self's words back on Dårlig Ulv Stranden. "And do you believe that, Rose?"

"I do. But, do you?"

"I want to," he replied earnestly. "I really want to."

"Then answer this," Rose murmured, her free hand finding one of the Doctor's and twining their fingers. He revelled in the contact. "The words you spoke to me on the Beach, just two hours ago. Are they true?"

I love you. I always have."Yes. They were so true, Rose."

"Then you're him," she replied, leaning in to press the softest of kisses to his cheek. He breathed a sigh. "And he is you. The only difference is the physical. Emotions, feelings, memories. They belong to you, as they belong to him. Because you're the same. Two different bodies. And Doctor... my Doctor, I am so sorry for making you think you were any less."

Unable to restrain himself, he pulled her into his arms, winding them around her as tightly as he could and pressing kisses to her hair. She responded in kind, tucking herself against him, one arm wound around his shoulders, her other hand twined into his unruly hair. Her breathing was ragged against him as he felt the rise and fall of her chest against his. He felt his maroon t-shirt dampen, having rid himself of his suit jacket, and was aware of the dampness in Rose's hair. Crying from the relief, the companionship, how almost right it felt.

Almost.

With the greatest reluctance, he pulled slightly away, his heart tugging as Rose tried to cling harder to him. "Love, it's alright. I think we need to do something, don't you?"

She looked up at him with tired, bleary eyes, and his heart swelled up with his devotion to this precious, precious girl in his arms and reverence of the trust on her face. "The bond, Doctor. Please, fix it."

He didn't press his fingers to her temple, instead cradling her face in his hands and tilting their foreheads together.

The effect was immediate.

Intense feelings of anguish and sorrow flooded his head, and he almost shouted out in shock. It took only moments to realise that Rose was projecting, projecting her broken side of the bond back to him, awaiting its counterpart so that it could once again be whole. And the pain, it was unlike any he'd ever felt before. As a Time-Lord he had managed, feeling a tug and a snap, and the lonely, profound sadness that followed a bond's break. But now, this was something else.

Something else because he was human now. And Rose had felt this the whole time they had been apart.

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he whispered, sending out mental shockwaves of comfort like a blanket, coating her with his love and warmth. "I'll make it right again."

Holding her to him both physically and mentally, the Doctor busied himself in her mind, melding their link and patching over the broken strands, feeling the incredible and indescribable pleasure as his bondmate's pain faded. Rose gasped, her eyes flooding again, but this time with relief. Her own shockwaves travelled across their bond, of affection and fondness and love.

"I love you," he breathed, twining his hands into her hair. "I love you so much."

"I love you too," Rose spoke softly, wiping away her tears. "And now we have our forever."

"Our forever," the Doctor agreed, opening his eyes to look at her. "Our forever."

Rose moved first, her lips connecting with his with the softest of brushes. Chaste and soft, unlike their beach kiss, which had been fuelled by desperation and the need to reassure themselves of their own tangibility. This kiss was different and yet still so perfect, because they both knew exactly what it represented.

We have each other, and we have each other for the rest of our lives. This is our forever.

The kiss didn't remain so soft for long, however. Riddled with emotions and the need for closeness to each other, their mouths worked against each other with complete abandon, their bond flaring and sparking in a rhythmic pattern. As Rose's top lip slotted between the Doctor's, he moaned into her mouth, revelling in the echo she gave back to him.

"Yours," the Doctor whispered against her lips, "all yours. All that I am."

"And I am yours," Rose murmured back.

Tomorrow he would present her with the TARDIS coral piece, and together they would begin their new lives. For now, they were content to lose themselves in one another.