She floated in the darkness. And then, a swirl of images across the blackness of her mind. Fleeting, a tiny swift touch of light and life and then gone. She struggled to put names to the pictures but they passed her by and faded into the dark. She drifted. And then, another rush. A sheaf of images outlined in gold. They flowed past her consciousness and faded more slowly. She felt vaguely that she should be worried — like someone was having an argument in a room next door that she couldn't quite hear. The images poured back in a flood, racing through her mind, turning the darkness into shards of colour, tugging her with them, refusing to let her sleep. She felt the pull to follow and she fought her way upwards out of the dark, following the trail of yellow light.
She became aware that she was lying on her back. Lying on her back on a cold, hard floor. In fact, some sort of a metal grill, if the message coming from her fingertips was to be believed. She could see a green light leaching through her eyelids and the most pounding headache she had ever felt begin an insistent throbbing in her skull. Groaning, she cracked open her eyes the smallest slit and looked up. High above her, a circular ceiling and a white, wishbone strut behind her arching up to meet it. She felt... It was a surprise to realise that it felt familiar, comforting almost, despite the bleakness of the structures. The word surfaced through her confusion. TARDIS. And the recognition of the word brought her back fully to herself. She was lying on the floor, in the TARDIS, when the last thing she remembered was standing, surrounded by danger on the top floor of Satellite 5, facing down a horde of Daleks and hearing someone else speak through her lips. She tried to concentrate on the memory but the throbbing in her head intensified.
She groaned again and rolled over onto her side, half opening her eyes against the green light bleeding from the floor. She recognised the bottom edge of the console a couple of paces away and in front of it — boots. Black boots, leading to black jeans encasing long lean legs, leading upwards to more black. Leather this time, stretched across broad shoulders. A man. Short dark hair, an aquiline nose, blue eyes — which were currently fixed on the screen in front of him and not looking at her at all. He was drumming his fingers against the console panel and she could see the tension in his shoulders like a shout from across the room.
She felt a wave of heat radiate from her stomach to her face, making her blush. He was alive then. Not dead. She had succeeded in saving him from his circling enemies and somehow they were together again. Alive, and on the ship. She couldn't control the smile that formed across her mouth as she sat up, braced on one arm. And immediately regretted it, feeling a renewed pounding behind her eyes that made her dizzy.
Fighting down the nausea she asked, 'What happened?'
As she looked over towards him for an answer she thought her headache worsened noticeably. She was seeing double. Or at least double, she corrected. In his familiar shape, the figure she had watched and followed for months, as familiar to her as her own shadow, she could see reflections. No, not reflections, but something like the echoes you get when you look at a light for too long. She could see the impressions of at least three people standing in his position, pressed so tightly together they were difficult to tell apart. She could see a whisper of purple around his jacket, the impression of longer, straighter brown hair and even — she squinted to make sure — the suspicion of a hat. Even his size seemed doubled, reflections of people taller and shorter within the outline he cast in the lights of the console. She shook her head, earning another jolt of pain and screwed up her eyes to concentrate. He turned his head towards her, fixing his eyes on a point just in front of her on the floor. Odd, she thought, why isn't he looking at me? Usually he couldn't take his eyes off her, so much so that she sometimes found it uncomfortable. And as her dizziness resumed — he doesn't look like he's going to help me up either.
He cleared his throat: 'Don't you remember?' He sounded strange, she thought; hollow, almost like he didn't really want the answer to the question.
She considered, 'I remember...standing in the TARDIS and thinking about you. I remember wanting, no, needing to see you.' At this, his eyes flicked upwards to almost meet hers before he dropped them to the floor again. 'And there you were. Surrounded by Daleks'. She shuddered. 'I remember wanting to save you, to make them go away. But I couldn't see properly, like everything around me was moving and I couldn't keep it still. There was a golden light and I remember hearing words — someone talking, that might have been me. I remember reaching out into the light for something and then.' She faltered, 'I'm not sure'.
She looked up at him quizzically, asking for an explanation, but his gaze remained fixed to the floor. She sighed, and braving the pain banging out a crescendo in her head, pushed herself gingerly to her feet, staggering forward a few paces until she could steady herself on the edge of the console. There was a pause. She had the distinct impression he was shaking, almost too slightly to notice. Slowly, he raked his gaze up from the floor and fixed her directly with his steel blue eyes.
He was angry. He was so angry. As soon as he looked into her eyes she could feel it — he was trying to control it, trying so hard that the effort was making him tremble. His anger washed across her and she felt something else riding on the back of it. There was fear there certainly, but something else as well, just as strong as his rage. She caught herself — just how was she managing to analyse what he was thinking when he hadn't said more than two words to her since she woke up?
'Let me tell you what I remember'. His words were a soft hiss across the room. 'I distinctly remember closing the TARDIS door behind me and sending you home. I remember making sure you had very clear instructions to stop this ship falling into the hands of the enemies my people died to destroy. What I do not remember doing,' and at this he abruptly straightened and stalked his way across the few feet that separated them, 'is suggesting you smash up my ship, steal its power, fly it straight back and practically gift-wrap it for the Daleks'. At this point he was standing right in front of her, piercing her with his gaze. 'And I explicitly do not remember giving you permission to pretend you were some kind of all powerful god and play around with my life.' He didn't raise his voice, but the words he spat at her had the burn of acid.
He was so close now she could hear him swallow, see the beads of sweat around his temples, practically smell his anger. His eyes shot sparks at her and she was overwhelmed. The pounding in her head got worse and for a minute she had to close her eyes against it. She could feel how appalled he was in the core of her being; far stronger than just guessing what he felt, she knew it in her heart. If she had had the strength to step away from him she would have moved. Her eyes filled with tears, which at least give her some respite from the swirling in her vision.
'You needed me,' she whispered brokenly.
He snorted, and flung away from her: 'I needed you? I don't think so. I've got lifetimes of experience behind me, power you have no conception of and you can do what — fold clothes? It's the arrogance of it that gets me' — and his voice scaled upwards into a shout as he completed the circuit if the room and ended up in front of her — 'I decide — do you hear me? If I decide to save you then you stay saved. If I decide to face my enemies on my own then that's my choice. It's not up to you to decide if I live or die. I don't need you or anyone else to make my decisions for me.' He stood in front of her, face pressed nearly into hers, spittle flying out of his mouth in his rage.
Again, she could feel the terror and the —something else- behind his words, her own emotions a tiny voice in the storm of his anger. She steeled herself against a rush of dizziness to reply. 'But I needed you,' she said, her free hand making supplicating gestures at her side.
She felt his restraint snap like a gunshot as his anger fell away. Staring up into his eyes she saw them fill with tears as he looked at her, devouring her gaze with a religious intensity. Slowly, he raised his hand to her face, sliding his fingers into her hair as his thumb grazed her cheek.
'Rose,' he muttered. She could feel the nerves in her face respond like a lick of fire where he had touched her and she felt a wave of emotion wash over her. In any other circumstance she might have called it love, or passion, but now, its name was need. Before she could still her dizziness enough to respond she found herself crushed in his arms, his face pressed into her hair, his arms straining to hold her as close as his own shadow. Brought into proximity with his body the borrowed sensations she had felt intensified. She was lost in her awareness of him, of the strength of his muscles underneath his clothes, of the strange coolness of his embrace and the rising heat against her stomach.
Cascades of fear and need poured through her, passing though their layers of clothing to skin on skin. She felt his shoulders shift as he moved backwards, giving her a chance to breathe, and a chance to see patterning in front of her eyes as her headache claimed her. His mouth drove down to meet her lips and she lost all sense of herself in his punishing kiss. I thought I'd lost you, she heard him say, although she knew the words had arrived straight into her mind without bothering with her ears. The words brought her back to herself. She felt an echo of his need rise from her stomach and her heart missed a beat as she recalled the absolute terror and hopelessness of losing him, left alone in the TARDIS on her own. She opened her mouth.
Instantly, his tongue pushed past her lips into the recesses of her mouth, setting up a rhythmic pattern that made her shiver. Trusting him to hold her up she let go of the console and reached both arms up, feeling the wool of his jumper and the taut chest beneath under her fingers before entwining her arms around his neck. She had no chance to kiss him back. He was in control and she felt his need for her driving him forward. As much as she wanted him she could only acquiesce. She raised her hands to the back of his neck to lock them closer together and she could feel him groan.
He shifted a hand down her back, inching lower across the swell of her bottom until his hand was resting between the join of her legs and he pushed her hips closely against his. She could feel his desire for her with the contact between them, hot and hard, but she had lost all will to move, to stop, to consider whether this was what she wanted. All she could feel was her need to know that he was alive, that he was still there, still hers.
His other hand grazed down her back to the top of her trousers, moving her red top up and out of the way as his fingers found bare flesh. He slid his hand purposefully up her back, running his fingers over the bones of her spine until he reached the clasp of her bra and flicked it open. In the back of her mind she wondered what else lifetimes of experience had taught him. Feeling her breast free he moved his hand in a smooth slide around to her chest, pushing the lace out of the way as he did so. His hand squeezed her breast strongly, almost roughly, and she stiffened in response. His fingers found her nipple, already hard for him and he brushed his thumb across it, once, twice, three times. She felt an answering rush of warmth between her legs and pressed her hips more closely into his. He took her nipple between his fingers and squeezed gently, pulling and rubbing, flicking across the sensitive skin more and more quickly.
She felt a drawing sensation between her legs as ripples of pleasure began to cycle upwards through her stomach and she knew she was damp. As if sensing her readiness she felt his hands move, both coming forward to the fastening of her black trousers as he released the button that held them closed. Too fast, too fast she thought for a split second before waves of need washing though her carried her away. The small movements of his hips against her softness told of his desire — he wanted to touch her, to feel her warm and alive under him, to reassure himself that she hadn't abandoned him, that he wasn't alone. She felt his hips engage against hers as he pushed his knee between her thighs, rubbing the hardness she could feel through his trousers at her throbbing centre. The pleasure threading through her tightened and she caught her breath, trying to respond against the increasingly wild thrusts of his tongue.
And then he drew back, not releasing his domination of her mouth as she heard him freeing himself from his clothing, felt her trousers pushed down as both his hands curved around her bottom, parting her legs as he lifted her up and backwards so she was lying on the console. For a split second she felt him against her leg, large and throbbing before he shifted again and drove into her in a single thrust. There was pain. She knew she wasn't quite ready, knew there would be consequences, but as he buried himself within her body she didn't care.
He withdrew slightly and pushed into her again, changing his angle to rub against her more closely. He withdrew and pushed again, again, matching his strokes to the rhythm of his kiss. She could feel her orgasm starting to build, pain forgotten as he moved inside her, stretching her to fit him completely. She felt joined to him in a far deeper way than the physical; as he moved in and out she could feel her own pleasure mounting with his. She dug her fingernails into his shoulder and brought up her knees to grip him more closely and she could feel how the position enhanced his sensations, made him push into her more deeply. She felt her world contract down to the push and pull inside her, concentrating her thoughts on finding the white hot pleasure she knew was promised. He groaned and thrust himself into her with less control, clearly losing any restraint as he struggled towards his climax. She felt her muscles contract around him, holding him clenched firmly inside as she began to shudder in regular waves.
She ripped her head away from his kiss, arching her back and pushing her hips upward to let him fill her more deeply. He braced his hands above her head and threw his whole weight forward into her, again and again. She was rising, rising, and waiting for him to push her over the edge. She heard him cry out and felt his release as he spasmed inside her. She voiced a strangled cry as she came, hard and desperate, her fingers gouging his back as the blistering heat expanded outwards.
And in the minute of her orgasm she felt the darkness and the pain from her head closing around her again, dragging her down and away from him into the black.
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