Later, she would reflect on why she didn't immediately know that something was terribly wrong.
Maybe that sound, that familiar whirring sound she hadn't heard for three years, had erased all her self-preservation skills, hard-earned with years at Torchwood. Maybe the sight of that familiar coat flapping gently in the London breeze had stopped her brain along with her heart.
But she hadn't thought, not at all. Instead she ran, as fast as she could, as fast as she had when she had travelled with him. She flew into his arms, her throat already full of grief and joy and ready to erupt into near-hysterical tears. She absorbed his aroma, wool coat and cloves and the unmistakeable tinge she'd learned was the odor of time itself. It smelled like ozone and new steel.
He smelled the same as he always had. She squeezed him, her arms pulling his body against hers as hard as she was capable, and his arms squeezed back. He still hadn't said a word, and she pulled back slightly to look up at his face.
His expression was heartbroken and absolutely overjoyed, all at once. Freckled, pale skin reflected the gloomy February light and his hair drooped over his forehead as he looked down at her. "Rose Tyler," he intoned, and gave her his most joyful grin. And then she broke, tears rolling down her cheeks as though gravity weren't fast enough for their taste. There were so many things she wanted to say and needed to say, she couldn't figure out where to begin.
There were so many things she needed to hear from him.
He wiped her tears away with gentle fingertips and she swallowed against the lump in her throat. "Doctor - " she managed to choke, before he put a finger to her lips. She closed her eyes, the burning behind her eyelids too strong to resist.
He replaced his finger with his lips. She would have staggered backwards with surprise, but he held her, keeping her on balance and setting her back on her feet. His tongue begged entry to her mouth and she opened under him, shock turning to adrenaline turning to excitement and half a feeling of dread. He was cool and slick inside her and her brain skittered through her skull, drunk on pleasure. But the rising anxiety was still there.
He had said he couldn't ever come get her. Not without ripping a hole in the universe.
Rose pushed him away as her heart dropped into her stomach. They'd just started testing the Dimension Cannon a week ago. What if they'd done more damage than they thought?
She barely had time to process the thought before he had her back in his arms again, his head lowered to try to kiss her. She put her hand on his chest. "Doctor — I can't believe I'm trying to stop you, but you have to listen to me!"
His eyes were dark, the tilt to his head reminding her of how he looked when he got really angry at someone. Licking her lips, unable to resist looking at his when they'd just been mashing hers into her teeth, she went on. "How can you be here? Is it what we did?"
He blinked at her and the movement cleared his eyes, making him look more like the Doctor she remembered. "Does it matter?"
"Yes! We've been experimenting with this new technology, it's kind of a dimensional transporter, and we - "
He shook his head intently. "It was nothing you did, Rose. I found a way back."
There was a strange rush of wind from the alleyway adjacent to where they were standing. Rose's hair blew and whirled in her face and the Doctor's eyes widened. He reached forward and seized her wrist. "We have to go now, Rose."
She hesitated briefly, but his grip was iron and insistent, and even after all this time she followed him on instinct. She allowed him to pull her into the alley and into his TARDIS, the blue box folded into a narrow space in the bricks just out of view of the street. He slammed the door shut behind them and immediately ran to the console, enacting the sequence she knew would take them into the Vortex. "Wait! We have to say goodbye to my mum. I can't just leave without saying a word to her!"
"There's no time. If we don't go right now, we'll be stranded in this universe forever. The window I used to get through is about to close." He continued navigating, his gaze not wavering from the controls.
Rose clutched at the padded railing as the TARDIS lurched into another dimension. Her brain was still a few minutes behind her body; was it only ten minutes ago that she'd been on her way to a lunch meeting in her best office suit on a chilly winter day?
He watched the screen intently for a moment, the smiled at her again. "We're through. We made it back to our universe."
She didn't know what to say, or what he wanted her to say. She was happy to see him again, so happy she could still feel the joy sizzling down her spine. Yet even by his previous standards, this was a more painful and abrupt separation from her family than she'd imagined. She hadn't made her first real run on the Dimension Cannon yet. She hadn't given them the letter she'd written, the one marked only to be opened if she didn't come back. They might think something really terrible had happened to her.
The years had changed her, though. She was no longer the Rose Tyler that said exactly what came into her mind the minute it occurred to her. She had learned to obfuscate, to act a part, to bury her heart so deeply within her she knew it would take hard labor to uncover it. She licked her lips again and said, "Where are we going?"
"Earth! London, 2015!" the Doctor said cheerily, and for the first time she could have pretended herself back with him, things the same as always between them.
Things weren't the same. That much was obvious. He was acting strange enough to worry her, and he'd kissed her. Really kissed her, as though he meant to do more. Had seemed well on his way to doing more, when she'd pushed him away. And he'd never tried to drag her away from her mother, even when he was in leather. He'd always given her a choice before. He never would have just seized her and hauled her away without so much as a glance back or an explanation of danger.
The TARDIS wheezed its way back into regular space before landing with a minor jolt. Rose made for the door, but before she reached the handle her wrist was caught again, yanking her back up the ramp. "What's the hurry?" the Doctor asked, pulling her against his body and clutching her tight. She could tell by his deep inhalation that he was smelling the back of her neck, or her hair. For some insane reason she felt a frisson of arousal flaring inside her.
She stiffened, not liking the way her body kept reacting to him. It wasn't like her to have no control over her feelings, not anymore. And something about his sudden immutable interest in it, after his previous monk-like patterns, made her very uneasy. She had to get him to tell her what the hell was going on.
The Doctor had plans of his own. He turned her around with his long, slender hands on her shoulders. Then he walked her backwards up the ramp and pushed her into the console, lifting her so that her arse rested precariously on the sloped edge. She shifted, feeling as though she was about to slide off the edge, until he positioned himself in front of her and so near she could feel his erection through his trousers.
She wriggled against him, whether trying to get comfortable or escape, she wasn't sure. A tiny noise erupted from the back of his throat when she rubbed against his cock and she froze again. "Doctor, what is going on? Is something wrong?"
He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time, his eyes meeting hers. The depth was there, the obvious age, the sadness and the loneliness that had always drawn her to him, even when the eyes were icy blue instead of warm brown. He touched her face again, his fingers grazing her temple before moving away. She felt another jolt of lust and when he brushed his lips against hers she had to resist the urge to grab the back of his head and hold him to her. His mouth found her neck instead, kissing his way down it as his fingers unbuttoned the top of her blouse.
"Doctor, please. I can't just do this now. I need you to explain. You're...you're scaring me."
"Sex first, I'll explain later," the Doctor insisted, and his hand found its way under her very professional pencil skirt and slid up the inside of her thigh.
She tensed her muscles involuntarily. He noticed and withdrew his hand, touching her cheek instead. His body still pinned her to the console. His face was inches from hers. "Rose," he murmured. "Don't you trust me? Haven't you always trusted me?"
Her eyes slid closed and she shuddered. She didn't know what was going on, what was going to happen and it scared her. But with him between her thighs the want was so viscerally strong it overrode the fear. In the end she did trust him. What choice did she have?
As she sat motionless, she heard him unzip his trousers and the clothy slither as his trousers landed in a pile on the grated floor. He rucked her skirt up around her hips and nestled between her knees. His hand ducked between them and rubbed gently at her folds through her knickers, finding her wet enough that Rose felt slightly ashamed at it. "You were always wet around me," he said into her ear. "I could smell it all the time." His fingers slid her sopping knickers to one side. The head of his cock slipped into her and she gasped, her back arching in anticipation. He held back for a moment, his eyes focused on the place they were about to join. Then he pushed forward in one slow but relentless motion until he filled her completely.
He stopped then, pressing his forehead to hers. His breath was hot in her face. "I knew you wanted me, and I wanted you too," he confessed, his hands adjusting her hips on the console, sliding her slightly farther up. Then he pulled out and slammed back in, throwing her whole body backward with the force of his thrust. Some short, stubby knob dug into the small of her back, but the only thing emanating from her lips was a long moan. He thrust into her again, giving his hips a twist. Rose grabbed for the edge of the console, trying to find purchase to hold herself steady.
His right hand had moved from holding her hip in place and it traced its way up her body, sliding down the top of her shirt and across her bra. He found her nipple through the soft cotton, pinching it hard and making her cry out. His hips were still slamming into hers, his thrusts powerful and relentless. She couldn't remember why she hadn't wanted to do this a few moments ago. The high-pitched, screamy noises filling the console room were all coming from her. There was nothing better than this. The knob behind her was digging painfully into her back now, but the discomfort only added to the intensity of what she was feeling. She wrapped her legs around his waist. Her hands found the back of his neck and pulled him closer, her lips seeking his and he slammed them down on hers. His rhythm didn't change until her hands slid upward into his hair and tugged, her nails grazing his scalp, the silky strands slipping through her sweaty fingers. Then he groaned into her mouth, his cock stuttering to an uneven beat while he tried to get ahold of himself.
And then his hand found her temple, and she was adrift, floating in space. There was no body or self; no sex, no uncomfortable console on the undoubtedly miffed TARDIS.
Something as ethereal and weightless as she grabbed her and dragged her back down.
Rose. You have to let me in.
She struggled, panicking, floundering in the space outside her own mind like a drowning swimmer.
Rose. Let me in. Now.
She almost wanted to but she couldn't. The uneasy mood that had been building in her from the moment he kissed her had come full circle and she was gone. Her neurons weren't firing properly. She was no longer in her body but her body fought hard, arching and pulling away from the Doctor with every bit of strength she had. One of her nails caught him across the face and he winced, letting go of her other hip to add to his grip on her temples.
I'm so sorry.
She felt a sharp pain echo across her mind, as though something inside her had broken, and then her orgasm took her, her whole body arching back off the console at such an extreme angle that her head slammed into the metal beneath her. Pleasure flared through her, up and down her nerves and through every organ, prickling her skin and speckling the backs of her eyelids gray and white. Then the white dots connected, and Rose lost consciousness.
****
The Doctor pulled his trousers back up and zipped himself safely away. Rose lay limp on the console. He judged it would be at least an hour or two until she woke up again. It would take her brain that long to process the shock he'd just given it. Non-telepaths weren't really meant to do what they'd just done.
He picked her up, cradling her in his arms and inhaling the delicate smell of her, all mingled with the aroma of the sex they'd just had. She didn't smell just like herself anymore. She smelled of him too.
He considered taking her to her old room, but it probably wasn't wise to put her where he couldn't keep an eye on her right now. He crossed the console room and set her in the jump seat, removing his jacket and folding it under her head for a pillow. She didn't stir.
With that he strode back down the ramp and unlocked the TARDIS door. As he'd expected, the other man was waiting for him just outside. He stepped into bright summer sunshine, trying not to blink as his eyes adjusted. Never had the best eyes with this body, very finicky.
"So is it done?" asked an eternally bored voice.
"Yes," he said simply.
The Master pushed his own sunglasses up his face and gave the Doctor his best demented grin. "Now that you've got her, Doctor, what are we going to do with her?"