The cabin is small, but not as horrible as Rose feared. Four metal walls, a tiny water closet, and a single bunk let her know that this is a room typically reserved for one. But at least it's clean. It's private. And most importantly, it's safe. Then again, it's entirely possible that a year (two years, three?) of ending up in prison cells, damp caves, muddy pits, and pre-plumbing Europe has distorted her perspective on this sort of thing just a bit, so.
"Well," the Doctor sniffs, nose in the air and hands in his pockets as his gaze wanders about the place, "It's actually not bad, considering."
"Considering?" Rose asks, even though she knows the answer.
"You know," the Doctor replies. Traveling feet stop their journey around the room, a preview of words to come. "That we're stuck," he finishes.
Rose tilts her head, arches an eyebrow at him. "You trying to convince me, or yourself?"
"You don't believe me?"
"I think we'll find a way out," Rose says, shrugging. "We always do."
The Doctor's responding smile is a pale imitation of its usual self. One hand leaves the safety of his pocket to push down on the bunk mattress, fingers pressing into foam long enough to leave a warped starfish impression behind.
"Care to make a little wager on that?" the Doctor asks, looking at his handprint instead of her.
"I do," Rose replies without hesitation. She watches as the mattress rises again in agonizing slow-motion, like it's loathe to let the shape of his hand go. Rose does not think about how that's an apt metaphor for everything that's happened since they came here, absolutely does not wonder if the rest of their lives will be stuck in molasses and preserved in amber.
"Well," the Doctor chuckles under his breath. "I should warn you, I plan to collect. And I'm afraid the odds are unfairly stacked in my favor."
Shaking her head, Rose laughs. "Nah. You and me, we're always a safe bet."
The Doctor's grin grows genuine, then, the edges softened by fondness. "Quite right, too," he says.
He doesn't say anything after that. Rose wonders if she's ever seen him so quiet, before.
The search for bedclothes provides a welcome, if brief, diversion. You wouldn't think it, looking at the room—see above, re: small—but it has a surprising number of nooks and crannies and hiding places for the barest of bare necessities to nestle in. Panels in the walls click open to reveal a tiny medicine cabinet, a linens mini-closet, a small computer unit. It puts Rose in mind of a cheap hotel room, minus tacky décor and outdated floral duvets. She wonders if all the rooms on the station come pre-stocked with such amenities.
Curious, Rose presses the computer's "on" button when the Doctor's back is turned, to see what computers look like now, in the year 43K2.1. The screen silently powers on to reveal something that looks like an ended chat session, timestamped from several months ago. Rose doesn't recognize the people onscreen, the subjects on the other end. But there's another face in the mini-window in front, that little preview that shows what you look like when you're talking to your friends, that's always distracting and unflattering all at once.
Funny, Rose doesn't recognize that face either. She met the station's full crew earlier, but she never met him.
That's when, glancing around the room, at the open wall-panels full of bedsheets (clean, but too soft to be new) and medicine supplies (some of them opened), Rose realizes that this isn't just like a cheap hotel room, the cabins did not come pre-stocked, this station probably doesn't have a surplus of available bunks, and there's probably a very bad reason this one was free.
"What's that?" the Doctor asks from somewhere behind her.
Rose closes the panel as quickly as she can without rousing suspicion. "Nothing," she says, speaking around the lump in her throat. "Fuse box," she quickly lies, though she needn't have worried; the Doctor is too busy fitting a sheet onto the mattress to notice the panic creeping into her voice. (Too busy being silent and subdued and distracted and damn him, can't he at least lecture or chit-chat or hum or do anything, anything at all?)
After pulling a blanket out of one of the hidden cubbies—a carefully grey blanket, something that looks standard-issue and absolutely does not suggest personality—Rose walks a loop around the cabin and closes every panel, just in case. No need to risk the Doctor finding any evidence of this cabin's previous inhabitant. She knows he would be upset if he learned she withheld information from him, but Rose can't imagine that the knowledge would do his psyche any good right this moment, knows he would do the same for her. In fact, Rose thinks, maybe if he takes a moment to wash up before bed—he won't sleep, not really, but he'll likely have a lie-down, maybe wash his face before then—she can snoop a bit and remove any additional suspicious items while he's in the toilet, remove the need for worrying tonight. Then tomorrow, she can tell him…
A sick feeling seeps through Rose's body. Tomorrow is a thought that goes sour in her mouth, weighs heavy in her stomach.
"Checking for mice?" the Doctor's voice drifts in through the fog.
Shaking herself, Rose glances toward the source of the Doctor's voice, finds him lying on the bunk now that it's all made up. (Guess he's not going to wash up, then. There goes that plan.) Fingers linked behind his head and one ankle crossed over the other, he would embody the very definition of calm if it wasn't for the fact that he's fully still clad in his suit and plimsolls, and one of those plimsolls is vibrating madly because of the foot jiggling inside of it.
Rose forces her lips to curve upward into a smile. "What?"
"I asked if you were checking for mice. Isn't that the sort of thing you do in a dodgy motel?"
"Like you've ever been in a motel," Rose teases.
"I might have done," the Doctor protests.
Laughing to herself, Rose sheds the bulkier pieces of her clothing—she'll keep on her shirt and trousers, more for the Doctor's sense of propriety than her own, but she doesn't much fancy sleeping in her jacket and belt and shoes—really, he's still wearing his shoes?—and hits a switch on the wall to turn off the lights overhead. The room darkens enough that it almost gives an impression of nighttime, except for the light under the door that bleeds through and paints everything it touches, leaving patches of watery yellow amongst the deep grey. It's just dark enough that Rose doesn't blush at the prospect of removing her bra in front of him, threading it through her shirt in a complicated motion reminiscent of her gymnast days. But there's still just enough light that the Doctor can make it out when Rose gestures for him to budge up. He complies, sliding over until his arm is touching the wall in an attempt to give her as much space as the narrow bunk will allow, and in a few moments, Rose is settled up next to him, trying not to think about how they're shoulder-to-shoulder in a dead man's bed.
"You all right?" the Doctor asks.
Rose nods, playing for time while she prays for her voice to sound normal. "Bit cramped, is all."
"Can't argue that," the Doctor sighs. "But I'm afraid outposts like this, with their limited space and resources, tend to emphasize function over everything else. Still, you'd think someone would have politely informed them that sleep is rather an important function."
"For most of us, anyway," Rose says, halfheartedly giving him a playful poke in the side. She expects him to swat her away, to make some silly protest about the Very Important Physical Boundaries of Time Lords that only seem to exist whenever he conveniently wants to dodge a tickle, but instead, he catches her hand, and slowly twines her fingers in his. In her periphery, Rose can see that he's not even looking; his hand just closed around hers on impulse, like a Venus flytrap.
When he speaks again, his voice is so low Rose could almost be imagining it.
"Rose," he starts. "I'm sorry."
She squeezes his fingers, frowns when she doesn't feel him squeeze back. "We already talked about this. There's nothing to be sorry for."
"I know what you're doing. I appreciate it. Really. But you deserve reassurance too, and at the moment I'm afraid I haven't got what it takes to give you that."
"I don't need it," Rose says stubbornly, her words tripping over themselves in an effort to rush out of her mouth before the Doctor can say anything else that's quiet, or resigned, or sad, or any other horrible sentiment that just isn't him. "I don't need comfort."
The Doctor scrubs his free hand over his eyes and mouth, so that his next words are muffled by his palm. "And I don't need you to offer me solace," he murmurs. "Especially when I don't deserve it."
Rose turns onto her side before the Doctor can see the unhappiness flicker across her face. Her unoccupied fingers fist in the blanket. She's not half-tempted to ask for a cuddle anyway, and knowing the Doctor, he would probably give her that, holding her until she fell asleep. They've done it before, sharing beds and body heat when both are in short supply. But he's so strange right now, and so reserved, and Rose is so very afraid.
She squeezes his fingers again before she releases his hand, withdrawing all of her limbs to the safety of her own body. "It'll all seem better tomorrow," she says. "You'll see."
He doesn't reply.
In the silence, Rose wonders what this room's previous inhabitant thought about tomorrow.
Rose doesn't sleep.
It isn't for lack of trying; she's followed all of her usual rules and she's more than a little disgruntled that playing by the book isn't working out for her in this particular game. But closed eyes and measured breathing and counting sheep or llamas or the two-headed goats of Belfrie Zed or any other random livestock are no match for the station's unfamiliar hum or the dread that seems to have taken up residence somewhere in Rose's ribs. She's exhausted, worn to the bone in a way that has nothing to do with being physically tired, and she just wants to forget about everything for a few hours. She just wants to sleep, dammit.
She huffs impatiently. Fine. If sleep won't come to her naturally, then she's just going to have to cheat.
Glancing over her shoulder to make sure her trajectory is true, she reaches across the Doctor's torso and grabs him by the opposite hand, pulling gently in a silent request. He doesn't respond immediately. Rose fears he might have actually fallen asleep for once, that any further motion would disturb him. But after a moment, he relents, rolling over onto his side as Rose pulls his arm around her.
"What's this, then?" he asks. He isn't resisting her, not exactly, but she can feel a measure of hesitation in the way his arm doesn't quite touch her, in the buzzing half-inch of space between their bodies.
Rose swallows. God, she hopes he can't hear it.
"Comfort," she admits quietly.
Long seconds tick by, as if the Doctor is considering whether or not this is valid reasoning. It must be, because before Rose has too much time to worry about it, she feels him relax, loosening by degrees. His arm settles against her with a reassuring weight. He draws her in, fitting the curve of her spine against him until she can feel his double heartsbeat resonant in her chest. It drums against her shoulder blades, a gentle metronome, and Rose thinks this might be her new favorite method of keeping time.
Different bed, different night, and she might allow herself a smidge of blushing and fantasizing right now. (Just a smidge, only ever a tiny bit, because you can never tell what those ridiculous Spidey-senses of his will pick up on.) But tonight, she closes her eyes and reminds herself that he's always been touchy, that this regeneration is downright handsy, that sometimes a snuggle is just a snuggle and it doesn't mean anything. He doesn't feel things the same way she does. The fact that his lips are pressed into her hair and his thumb is rubbing circles more on her stomach than her hand and he's practically bloody spooning her is inconsequential. He's only doing any of this because she asked him to. She's not about to assume it means anything more.
A slow sigh escapes Rose. Tension expels on an exhale. Romantic or not—almost definitely not, Rose reminds herself—the embrace is quickly carrying out its desired effect, melting rigid muscles and tight nerves. She's sure the Doctor could rattle off some science about it, and maybe sometime later, she'll ask him to. Maybe here in an hour or two, if she's still having trouble sleeping; Rose enjoys a sciencey ramble as much as the next captive audience, but blimey, the Doctor can rival Jackie in terms of a good natter.
(Her eyes squeeze painfully shut at the thought of her mum. No. She can't think about anything like that right now. Instead she tries to picture the Doctor's face if she made the comparison aloud, tucks that particular observation away for another time, when she's in the mood for a good scowling-at.)
"Better?" the Doctor asks, his breath ghosting over her ear so she has to suppress a shiver. Rose just nods. She doesn't trust herself to speak. Although the gooseflesh prickling the nape of her neck is probably talking loudly enough for her.
"Try to get some rest," the Doctor says.
Rose tries to obey.
Rose still doesn't sleep, not really, but at least she gets closer this time. Thoughts bleed into each other in her head in a nonsensical fashion that can only mean she's half-dreaming, images flying by in blurry sepia tones and patchy sound. Conversations that never entirely happened with the Doctor morph into days spent lazing about the Estate; mornings laughing in the TARDIS console fade away to a memory of a class field trip to a quarry, and staring down, down, down into an endless rocky abyss. Rose peers over the safety gate and starts to ask Mickey if he's got anything she can chuck in there—she believes the pit is bottomless as much as any of them do, but she's stubborn and she knows for a fact that you can't tunnel straight through the Earth—right?—but when she looks up, there's someone behind Mickey and he looks afraid and he grabs her hand and all he can say is something about a valiant child.
Eyes snapping open, Rose awakes with a jolt, heart pounding desperately against her ribcage.
(She's tried so hard not to think about Mickey since he left, doesn't dare wonder why he's plaguing her nightmares now.)
"Are you all right?" the Doctor asks.
"I'm fine," Rose lies.
She knows he won't believe her; his body is still flush with hers, his hand resting on her belly, and he can probably tell from her madly hammering pulse that she's very much not-fine, but she's not about to show him any more fragility than she already has. Right now she has to be strong, for him if she can't do it for herself. The Doctor may be an adventurer and a madcap scientist and a miracle-worker all woven into one intricate and beautiful and strange lonely creature, but Rose knows he still needs someone to believe in him if any of his magic is going to work.
Rose will be damned before she lets him know exactly how terrified she is.
"I'm fine," she repeats, a little softer this time. Like it's a comfortable truth. "I promise."
When the Doctor doesn't reply, either to question or confirm, Rose settles further back, nuzzling against him until all gaps between their bodies are closed. She knows he probably thinks this is all just a bunch of silly human nonsense, this need for physical reassurance, but unless he needs to, she can't bear for him to pull away from her, not right now.
Almost like he can read her thoughts, his hand on her stomach begins to idly stroke, rubbing absentminded patterns through the fabric of her shirt.
"Let me know if this helps," the Doctor says quietly.
His palm forges a trail over the expanse of her ribs, and his fingers follow, wandering around her bellybutton. Dipping into the small hollow below her sternum and traveling over her flank. It would be a bold gesture if Rose weren't already so accustomed to his hands on her waist and his voice in her ear and his thumb caressing hers.
(Not that Rose would mind a bolder gesture, but those are just her stupid human hormones talking, not to mention displaying some magnificently bad timing. It doesn't mean anything, no matter how much she might want it to.)
"Hmm," Rose hums at the back of her throat as she feels her eyes grow heavy and muscles unwind again in response to the slow softness of his touch. "That's nice."
"Should I continue?"
"Mmm-hmm," she murmurs drowsily.
Soon enough, lost to the warmth and comfort of the Doctor surrounding her, Rose feels herself drifting off again. She is awash in the rhythmic laps of his hand brushing over her stomach and the evenness of his breathing, the gentle metric of his chest expanding and contracting by millimeters behind her. Up, down. In, out. Like an ocean, where the end of the water and the beginning of the impossibly blue sky are only marked by ripples cascading just under the glass surface, waves building just under the skin.
Rose doesn't know how she knows this, lying down in the boat like she is (like a woman in a fairy tale she read once, or a poem) but she knows without looking that she's adrift on a river, gliding past reeds and willows and water-lilies. Her eyes closed, sunlight plays behind her eyelids, patches of dark and light washing over her one after the other as she passes beneath a canopy of leaves. Only the song of birds trilling in the distance and the hum of dragonflies skimming over the water are bold enough to interrupt the silence. At least, until her boat slows to a still, stopping with a muffled thump, and Rose realizes she must have reached the shore.
She opens her eyes, slowly, to find that she's not in the boat after all. She's already on the riverbank, somehow, and a man in a black leather jacket is lounging on his elbows next to her, looking out over the water.
(There's someone on the other side, someone watching them. But the Doctor doesn't seem too worried, so Rose decides she isn't, either.)
"Did you save me?" she asks.
"I like to think you saved me," the Doctor replies, looking down at her with a daft grin.
(He's rather pretty, isn't he? In an older sort of way.)
"Pretty sure I killed you, actually," Rose replies, confused, and the Doctor's smile just broadens, full of mischief.
Rose tries to sit up, but gravity keeps her anchored, or maybe her gown isn't quite as gossamer-thin as it appears. She doesn't get much past propping herself on her elbows.
"What do we do now?" she asks.
"I'm sure you'll figure something out." The Doctor sighs, drops to his side so that he can rest his head in one hand. "You've got quite a good brain, after all," he says, stroking her arm through her dress-sleeve. "Did I ever tell you that? Fantastic stuff. Full of questions and daydreams and half-hatched plans to survive the darkness."
Confused, Rose frowns. "Darkness?"
"Don't take it too literally," the Doctor says, waving his hand dismissively. "Problem with metaphors, isn't it? No such thing as a perfect synonym, no such creature as an immaculate allegory." He over-enunciates the consonants on this last handful of words, rolling them around in a voice from the North. "You take them too literally, notice all the differences, and suddenly they don't mean anything anymore.
"Not to mention," he continues, leaning in closer, until Rose can feel what little body heat he emits radiating off of him. He's younger now, prettier and more vulnerable and his voice changing to match. Watching her with brown eyes instead of blue. "There's nothing really wrong with darkness. Not inherently. It gets a bad rap, but really, it's just the absence of light."
He dips his head down to plant a kiss, the pressure so soft Rose can barely feel it, may only imagine she feels it, first on her forehead, then her cheek. "It's a neutral force," he explains, moving down to brush his lips against her neck. "Neutral nature, much like how your left hand isn't any wickeder than your right. Deep space and black holes aren't any worse than a world lit by the sun. The dark," the Doctor says, the heat of his breath dancing across her skin, "isn't anything to be afraid of, any more than you should worship fire."
"I'm not afraid of shadows," Rose insists, trying not to lean into his touch, trying not to think about what's watching them from across the river. "I'm afraid of what hides in them."
The Doctor flashes another grin at her, his eyes hooded and brown irises gone black. "Aren't you half-sick of shadows?" he whispers.
Rose wants to ask him what he means, but her capacity for rational thought evaporates when he kisses her throat.
Before her eyes even have a chance to open, Rose's hand has flown down to the Doctor's, stilling it on her stomach. His fingers are inches and continents away from her hipbones or anything lower, having never strayed into forbidden territory above or below, but her shirt has ridden up by the smallest bit, removing the walls between his skin and hers. Rose wonders if the Doctor has noticed, or if he's too distracted by the noise in his head to realize that his fingertips are sliding directly against her skin. He must not know the sorts of dreams she's having, drunk on his near-electric touch. But as good as the attention feels, as much as her body is now crying out for it, Rose doesn't think it's fair to let him continue if he doesn't realize what he's doing to her.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor says, stopping the instant Rose covers his hand. "Am I making you uncomfortable?"
"Erm, I wouldn't quite put it that way," Rose laughs shakily.
"Do you want me to stop?"
Rose loosens her hold on his hand, the fog of sleep quickly clearing from her head. No, she thinks, as his palm comes to rest on her stomach once again, thumb now skimming the skin just above the edge of her waistband. No, she doesn't want him to stop. She wants him to abandon any rules he might have, just for a little while. For him to want any of this as badly as she does. For both of them to forget, however briefly, about tomorrow.
"If you didn't stop," Rose breathes, willing her voice not to tremor, not to betray her, "if you kept going…"
The Doctor doesn't say anything; he doesn't move. He waits.
"Show me," Rose says quietly, voice firm. Blood thrills in her veins, leaves her feeling almost lightheaded with recklessness. "Show me what you would do."
More silence. The air is thick with anticipation, so dense that Rose almost feels like she can't draw it into her lungs anymore.
Slowly, so slowly it almost might not be happening, the Doctor shifts. Rose holds her breath as his hand slides lower.
The Doctor withdraws, pulling away with a quiet hum, and doesn't say anything else.
Rose suddenly grows impatient. Really? He's already pretending this didn't happen?
No, she decides; no, he's bloody well not. She pulls him down for a bruising kiss.
(She's not sure, but she could swear she feels this planet stop moving the moment their lips meet.)
All motion in the room grinds to a halt. The Doctor tenses, lips parting in surprise. He's frozen in place. So still he might be a statue. Rose fears that she's crossed some invisible boundary, that he's going to push her away; she starts to pull back so she can ask if he's all right. But then his mouth is moving against hers and she can't think of anything else.
They've kissed before, but never like this. Never where Rose can drown in every detail, her brain overdosing on happiness and hormones like fine liquor with every brush of the Doctor's lips over hers. Rose thinks the only thing stopping her from flying apart into a thousand tiny pieces is her own sheer force of will.
Closing her hands around the Doctor's suit-lapels, Rose drags herself closer to him. He wraps his arms tightly around her in response. The kiss deepens and she draws herself as snug against him as she possibly can, and there's nothing soft or gentle in the Doctor's reply this time.
(It's fast and it's hushed and it's frantic and it's glorious.)
Funny. The world has gone a bit fuzzy around the edges. Rose doesn't mind.
Holding the Doctor close, Rose takes just a moment to collect herself. Her breathing slowly evens out. She pushes a hand lazily through her hair and feels her pulse slowly taper off to normal once more, feels the Doctor's double-heartsbeat do the same.
She wonders if she should say something. She doesn't know what it would be, though. He isn't talking, either. So Rose opts for another kiss instead. It's a lovely lazy kiss this time, slow and languid. Rose indulges in the warmth of it.
Slowly, they disentangle. Curled and cramped limbs move and stretch, things are tidied, clothes are pulled on and fastened up. Rose is not surprised when the Doctor retreats back to his side of the bed. Redrawing boundaries, rebuilding walls. He fancies himself an island and she was just a visitor. In a few moments, it will feel like nothing happened; already it almost could have been a dream.
Still. When her hand brushes his, very nearly by accident, he grabs it and gives it a good squeeze before letting it go. The familiar gesture saturates Rose with relief. Finally—a hint of something normal.
Completely spent, Rose thinks maybe she can rest now.
(Tomorrow doesn't even cross her mind.)
There's someone in her room.
"Who's there?" Rose slurs, startling awake. She sits up in bed—a very pink bed, it is; pink bed and pink duvet and pink walls and pink curtains and good grief, whoever let her choose so much damn pink?—and stares at the dark silhouette in the corner of the room.
(It's a dark, conspicuously non-pink silhouette, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end.)
"Who are you?" Rose demands, because it seems like the sensible thing to ask.
"What are you?" she gives in and asks when it doesn't answer.
"I am called Iblis," a voice booms in her ears. It's a sound too big to come from any one place, reverberating all around Rose, buzzing in the walls and her eardrums and her chest and teeth. "I am called Melek Taus. Ba'al Zebûb. Ragnarok. Rassilon."
Rose shakes her head. "I didn't ask for your names," she says. Its presence startled her, but she's not afraid. It's not tomorrow yet. "Those don't tell me what you are. Or why you're in my room."
It's quiet again.
"If you're in my room," Rose tries again, "I have a right to know about you."
A moment passes in silence. Slowly, the figure steps forward, leaving the shelter of the shadows to be painted in watery moonlight. Light slides over its feet, up its legs, dances up its chest and arms until it reaches its face. Rose doesn't recognize it, until she does.
"Oh," she says softly. "It's your room, after all."
It looks different when it's not hiding behind Mickey, or across a riverbank, or in a flat face on a computer screen. The basics of him are the same as they were before. He's still young, black-haired, pale-skinned, thin-boned. Rose only saw it once before, but she knows without a doubt that this is the face of the man whose room she and the Doctor are sharing, a planet and a lifetime away. But his face is more gaunt than it was when she last saw it, his flesh covered in strange, dark marks, his eyes glowing red.
"I'm sorry," Rose tells him. She means it. "I mean, I'm sorry for the man in the computer, whatever happened to him. I don't think you're quite the same thing, though, are you?"
"I am Semjâzâ the Watcher," he says, his voice quieter now. "The serpent tempter, the killer of Osiris. The Prince of Morning."
Rose shivers under her duvet. "What do you want?"
"What everything wants. I desire that which is rightfully mine."
"Don't suppose you're just talking about the things in the cabin, are you?" Rose asks hopefully. "Only you might want to give the linens a wash first, we sort of had sex on them."
The man tilts his head, pale eyes unblinking and fixed on her. "There is a price to pay," he says. "The old way of things never changes. Blood and lambs, libation and fruit, flesh and bone." He steps forward, slowly approaching the bed. "This planet is the temple; the world, the domain. The darkness, the altar."
"You need a sacrifice," Rose realizes, and the man stops just in front of her. She has to look up to maintain eye contact with him. "And you're going to try to use the Doctor and me. But it won't work."
"No," he replies, his voice low and smooth. He seems unconcerned, as if he already knows Rose is right. "He killed his own kind, but he cannot, I think, kill you," he says. "But without an offering, he cannot hope to stave off the shadows. The prayers of the selfish will not be answered. And so I will be freed. There is a path through the weakness in the hearts of those who love."
A pale hand reaches out for Rose, traces a gentle line along her cheek. It doesn't occur to her to flinch back; she knows instinctively that he won't hurt her. Not now, anyway. Not like this.
"The things that crawl in the light are so soft," he murmurs. "I almost pity them. So deaf to the storm that creeps upon them. So blind to the things that have already been written and set in motion."
He shakes his head. "No," he says again. "Yours is a sacrifice on a different altar."
Rose's blood runs cold, pumping ice through her veins.
"You're lying," she says, but her voice breaks on the words.
"Valiant child," the man intones. He slowly sinks to his knees, so that his face is level with hers. If Rose didn't know any better, she would think that was compassion in his red-burning eyes. "Nothing can be gained in this world without giving something in return. I know this. He knows it. It is the oldest truth."
"He would never let anything happen to me," Rose says stubbornly.
The man's face slowly splits open in a wide, dead smile. When he speaks again, it's in a whisper, in a voice like a snake slithering through the leaves.
"Never say never ever."
Rose awakes with a snort and the unpleasant realization that she's dribbled onto her pillow.
Gingerly, she sits up, peeling the pillowcase off her face, wondering why the fabric feels and smells different from usual, questioning why the TARDIS is humming so funny like that. Or, for that matter, why she's not alone in her bed. Time plods on and the details of her strange dream fade away just as everything else bleeds back in.
Ah. Not the TARDIS. The station. Krop Tor. The black hole and their impending doom. Right.
Turning toward the Doctor, Rose starts to ask him about her dream—it'll be gone by morning, already she can feel the last vestiges of it slipping like sand through her fingers—but she stops as soon as her gaze lands on his face. His eyes are closed, lips parted slightly, chest rising and falling in slow, deep motions. Breaths leave and enter with the smallest of sighs. He's asleep. Really, properly asleep.
"Just like a bloke," Rose teases softly.
She reaches up to clear a stray hair away from his face, but she stops herself. It still feels too close, somehow. Too intimate, even after everything. Such vulnerability is rare for him and she doesn't want to take advantage of it. But she might take advantage of his unoccupied hand, nudging her fingers under his until his hand curls around hers.
Rose snuggles back down into the pillow and the blanket. "I'm afraid," she admits quietly. "I don't know what's going to happen to us."
The Doctor doesn't reply, not that Rose expected he would. She just needed to say the words aloud. Feel the full weight of them, and everything they mean.
"What will we do tomorrow?" she asks.
"We'll stop talking, so we can rest," the Doctor says, eyes closed and voice heavy with sleep.
Smiling a bit despite herself, Rose presses forward, snuggling closer to him, and the Doctor doesn't stop her. Doesn't even seem to register that she's there. He may be talking in his sleep, for all Rose knows.
"What's this?" he mumbles.
Rose considers for a moment, her eyes slowly drifting closed once again. "The prayer of the selfish," she tells him, though she can't quite say why.
Wordlessly, the Doctor reaches across his chest to grasp her hand, drawing her against him. He fits her curves to his lines, wrapping his arm lazily around her.
(Maybe he's not quite an island, then. More like a neighboring state. It's not the worst thing one could be.)
The Doctor's hand curls around her ribs and his breath issues soft on the crown of her head. With her hand resting lightly on his chest, Rose can feel in his slowing biorhythms as he slips back into sleep, feels him pulling her along for the journey.
She lets him.