a/n: This is a companion piece to Dreaming in Color, written in the first person from Rose's point of view. Like Dreaming in Color, it is for mature audiences only. Dreaming in Color should be read first, otherwise some of this story might not make sense. Many thanks to Spookyknight for encouraging me to write this story.

Wide Awake

In hindsight, I always knew. Even before I knew, even before I realized it was even possible, I somehow knew deep down. There was something in the way he held me, something in the way that he kissed me that was different somehow when he was there.

And of course I didn't really know. Not at the beginning. Not consciously at any rate. I didn't really know until later.

We had been together in Pete's World a couple months by then. It had been a bit of a rocky start for the first week or so, but we managed to put the beach behind us and rediscover the joy of purely being together, before we were even together.

And then when we actually came together… After being separated for so long and longing for each other for years even before that, it would have been incredible even if it had been lousy.

But it hadn't been lousy.

Far, far, far from it.

That first time we made love we were so overcome with emotion—with happiness, with giddiness, with the joy of reuniting and the joy of uniting for the first time—that we both cried. Even just thinking about it still makes me cry.

And there was something about finally crossing that barrier with me that unleashed something in him: an acceptance of his new part humanity. Sexuality hadn't been a normal part of his life as a Time Lord, not for most of his very, very long life, and like with all new experiences for him, he embraced it enthusiastically.

We made love everywhere: in bed, in the bath, in the shower, on the kitchen table, on the sofa at home, on the sofa at work, in the storage cupboard at work… It was as if we were making up for lost time, and the higher the chance of us getting caught, the more exciting it became.

But occasionally it was different. He was different. His kisses were more… desperate than passionate. They were feverish. Almost frenzied. And he made love with a fervor that bordered on frantic.

I chalked it up to flashbacks of our separation and the mood swings he still occasionally had as a result of the meta-crisis. And it wasn't as if I was all that different. When I thought about our years apart I still sometimes felt desperate and frantic as well.

It wasn't until I found out about their link that even an inkling of the truth began to cross into my conscious mind.

Of course, since it was us, when I found out it was in the middle of a crisis that threatened the government and turned out to be the beginnings of an alien invasion. He let a comment slip, just a tiny, silly little thing, that only the other Doctor could have told him, and only via a telepathic link—and only after we had already been left here.

I was furious. Oh, not about the link—if I had thought about it I should have expected that they'd have one, at least for a little while—but about the fact that he didn't tell me about it.

Later, the first chance we had, the first time we had a minute to ourselves, we talked, really talked. He told me they had had some telepathic contact at first, when we had first been left here, but they hadn't had any for a while. And then I asked the question that had been plaguing me for weeks.

"Doctor, was he…?" My voice broke, and I couldn't continue the thought.

He stilled. "Was he alright?" he finished for me after a moment.

"Yeah," I said softly.

He didn't answer right away. He was clearly debating what to tell me, and I tensed up, expecting him to lie to me again. He finally decided on honesty, which was both a relief and a sharp knife to the gut.

"Let's put it this way," he said. "He was traveling alone and had been alone for a while. And we never do well alone."

I flashed back to Bad Wolf Bay, the first time we had been there. It had torn me apart when I realized he was all alone. And now he had given us this beautiful life together, and as a result he was alone again. And it felt like my heart was ripped out all over again.

And I knew my Doctor felt the same way.

~oOo~

It was after that that I really noticed a difference, how sometimes when we made love it was more intense between us. Not that it wasn't always intense; there was just a slight difference that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

And honestly, I don't think my Doctor noticed it, not for a while at any rate. They had been the same man, and although they were separate people now, it hadn't been long enough for them to really diverge. They still were too similar; their brain patterns had to be the same way.

And the Doctor had always said I knew him better than he knew himself.

At first, when I first began to believe that occasionally when my Doctor and I were making love he was also there, I was beyond angry. I was livid. Absolutely livid. How dare he intrude on an intimate moment like that, particularly when we had never been intimate like that ourselves. But discussing it with my Doctor when we were in the middle of making love… I just couldn't do it. And then afterwards, I still couldn't. We were still struggling with communication issues ourselves, and that was a huge, uncomfortable topic. Besides, what if I was wrong? I knew my Doctor was still a bit jealous of him, at least where I was concerned. How could I admit I was thinking about him in any capacity at all while we were making love?

Nope. It was not happening, I decided. Not then, and possibly not ever.

After I got over my initial anger, I became worried about him. I knew that more than anyone he shouldn't be alone. His own people were gone; even if he hadn't gotten along with them, they had been a comforting presence in the back of his mind. Now, without anyone to travel with, I knew that he was completely alone.

Despite him "visiting us", I wasn't so full of myself that I believed I was the only one he missed. Sometime after I met Sarah Jane he had told me he missed everyone, everyone he had ever traveled with, but eventually I realized it was even more than that. With the meta-crisis, this incarnation had been split, ripped in two, and he was missing part of himself. With part of his very self gone, he had to be a little unstable. My Doctor had me to lean on, but being alone he had no one.

~oOo~

It was shortly after that, shortly after the realization that he was unstable and needing us, both of us, that I caught a glimpse of him.

We were in bed, making love, and my Doctor was going down on me. Something we both really, really enjoyed. Not only did I love the feel of his mouth on me—his incredibly talented tongue on my clit and his long, slender fingers deep inside of me, reaching spots I hadn't even realized I had before him—but I loved the noises he made. Before the meta-crisis I knew his sense of taste was more acute than that of humans, and even afterwards, even after he became part human, that sense was still beyond what humans experienced.

And from the noises he always made I knew he loved the taste of me.

But beyond all that, I loved watching him. Loved seeing his head between my legs. Loved seeing his face, his eyes half-closed in bliss while feeling his sideburns brush against my inner thighs.

This time was no different. I was close, so very close, almost overwhelmed with the feeling of his lips and teeth and tongue and fingers, the feeling of his hard cock brushing against my calf as he rutted against the mattress, and the sound of him moaning in pleasure.

He backed off for a moment, simply kissing me, teasing me as he sometimes did, knowing that if he brought me to the brink without letting me go over the edge the payoff would be that much better for both of us when I finally did come.

But I was so close this time.

I looked down at him, intending to protest, and our eyes met. And in the eyes of my Doctor I saw him.

It was him, I was sure of it. What I wasn't sure of was whether he knew I knew he was there.

The intensity of the moment between us became too much. I looked away and then quickly became lost in sensation, feeling a heightened excitement in knowing he was there, they were both there making love to me. It was incredible. But by the time it was over he was gone, and part of me wondered if I had imagined the whole thing.

But I decided then and there that if he needed us so much that he might be telepathically crossing universes to be with us, I'd be there for him.