Chapter One

Rose tossed and turned. Something was off, and it wasn't simply that today had not turned out well. That happened to them all the time. No, what was different was the Doctor.

He had barely looked at her, when they finally made it back to the Tardis. He had excused himself from joining her at dinner, and she had not seen him until he startled her, right outside her bedroom door, as she was turning in. It was like he came out of nowhere, and for a moment she thought he meant to come in with her, talk about what was bothering him, make love. But he had only asked, tersely, "Time for sleep?" When she answered, "Yeah," he had nodded and walked off.

She had spent the next two hours trying not to wonder what she should have said, instead, and now she was giving up. She got out of bed, and went to look for him. Clearly she wouldn't be able to relax until they had resolved whatever was wrong.

The Doctor was still up, of course. He was always awake. She found him in the library, sitting on the battered red velvet settee he favored, his reading glasses perched on his nose. Bent over the large, heavy book in his lap, he seemed not to notice her there at the door.

The Tardis had set a crackling fire in the massive marble hearth, and the flames made shadows dance over the walls of endless volumes, which stretched into darkness in this cavernous space. She'd likened it to a medieval castle, or a fortress, a fortress made of books. Big toys for big boys. He'd assured her the Tardis was not infinite inside, but sometimes she wondered.

The Doctor stretched his legs out, bringing them up to rest upon a low hassock. Crossing one ankle over the other, he stretched his feet in the direction of the fire. His feet were perpetually cold. Rose saw he was wearing his slippers. At least he had shucked his trainers. This was as close to casual wear as he seemed able to manage: slippers. Well, if you didn't count "naked" as "casual." If you did, then she'd seen him going "casual" quite a lot the past few weeks. Come to think of it, her favorite casual outfit of his was definitely just a tie, preferably the blue silk, the one with the swirls of blue-er flowers, and nothing else…

The Doctor's voice cut through her reverie. "Thought you'd gone to bed."

Rose fidgeted with the hem of her jimjam top. She felt suddenly like she had been called to the Headmaster's office, like she was back in Primary school and in trouble, again. "I couldn't sleep."

"No," he replied, "after your performance today, I imagine not." He flicked over another page, still not looking up.

Her hair was up in a bedtime ponytail, and now anyone who could be bothered to look would have seen the tops of her ears flushing a vivid purplish-red, a sure sign she was getting angry. "Exactly what do you mean, by that?" she asked.

"Oh, I think you know."

She strode into the room, and moved in front of him, right where she would block his light. He'd have to look now. He did, blinking up at her, and she let loose.

"Are you-you can't possibly be-accusing me of having cocked it up today? 'Cause if that's the case, something's wrong with my memory. 'Cause I don't remember landing the Tardis on an orbiting military platform instead of the pleasant afternoon of shopping I was promised. And I don't remember disappearing for the better part of an hour, leaving myself in nothing but a thin sundress and a pair of flip-flops, to deal with a troop of panicking soldiers, whilst the station lost power and filled with smoke and started hurtling into their moon. The way I remember it," her voice had been rising steadily in volume, and was at its peak now, "that was all you, mate!"

The Doctor slammed his book shut, and glared at her. She didn't find him so sexy in his glasses, now, she noticed. "Since when do you not recognize a self-destruct countdown, when you see one?" he hissed.

"OK, so where are you going with this? Insinuating I don't care enough? That I don't try hard enough? What?"

"A man, Rose, a living, breathing, ordinary man is dead who shouldn't be."

Rose was trembling now, with anger. "I did my best," she tried calmly. "My level best. Maybe you think you'd have done better, but you weren't there, you left me on my own, again, and I won't let you make this my fault. And," she was winding up now for a real row, she could feel it coming. "And how many people have you stood by and let die, Doctor? A handful here, a couple dozen there? Adds up, after a while, doesn't it? So how many? Hundreds? Thousands?" Her eyes narrowed. "How 'bout billions?" The moment she spat that last word, she wanted to take it back. But it was said, that thing he guarded so deeply that it had been like a sacrament when he let her see any of it in his mind, and not until just last week. What he blamed himself for.

He looked away from her, stared into the fireplace, jaw clenched. With quiet intensity, one word at a time, he said, "You weren't paying attention, and I trusted you to handle it, and he died."

"And why is this one man so different?" Rose demanded. "Out of all the times you've stood by and played one life off against another, why're you flogging this - one - death?"

"Because some of you are meant to die, Rose. You-some of you, are meant to die. And some of you aren't."

Rose scoffed. "And you think you always know which is which, do you?"

"Yes, I do." He looked at her again, but his stare went through her and out the other side, and kept going. She knew he wasn't seeing her, but time. Time, holding her like a gnat trapped in amber. Yes, in this scenario, she was most definitely the bug.

He went on. "Three months ago, you would have been aware of your surroundings. You would have seen that panel counting down, and noticed the bolts were charged. And you would have thought about what you were doing."

"'Three months ago,'" Rose repeated, half to herself. She suddenly realized what he was getting at. "You mean, I wouldn't have made that mistake before we started sleeping together? Is that what this is? Oh that's lovely, Doctor, you really are a born romantic, you are." Rose's fists had clenched to her sides, frustrated tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

The Doctor had taken off his glasses, and was pinching the bridge of his nose, pressing into the inner corners of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He looked as if he were about to say something.

Rose cut him off. She wasn't done. "So now the shine's off the apple, you've had your fun, but here comes all that Time Lord guilt, am I right? The indispensable Doctor, wasting time rutting on top a lower life form and-"

He'd opened his mouth to protest, but she wouldn't have it. She wanted this out on the table.

"And today, this is just what you've been waitin' for, isn't it? A reason to put me out the door, with a great excuse to say, 'It's for your own good, Rose,'" she mocked. "That's what this is, isn't it?" Her voice hitched.

She couldn't be this close to him. She backed away, towards the fireplace, turned her back. The thick, hot tears were coming for real, now. Head bent, she watched them drip one at a time, down onto the ornate Turkish carpet which covered a good bit of the library's expansive floor. Watched them drip, hit, and soak into the deep wool pile. She struggled for composure. "You're finishing with me." It wasn't a question.

The Doctor had got up at some point during her rant, and now he was crowding her, trying to clasp at her shoulders. "That's nonsense, I'm doing nothing of the sort," he was saying.

She angrily dodged away from him, wiped clumsily at her eyes with the back of her hands, commanding herself to stop bawling like a weak child and face him full-on.

He stood, hands dangling helplessly at his sides. "You know how I feel. You've been inside my head, not twenty-four hours ago." Was he blushing? She thought he was. "Honestly, Rose," he went on, "how could you possibly think my feelings for you could ever change so fast?" He did look bewildered. Horrified, even. Rose felt her heart rate start to come down.

"Well, what am I supposed to think?" Rose answered. "You just implied I'm no use to you anymore, and from that I take it you regret counting on me, regret asking me to travel with you, regret...everything." She felt like she was regaining some emotional control. Thank goodness, at least the tears had stopped. "I suppose you do love me," she admitted. "But it's not enough, is it? It's not nearly enough."

Without a word, the Doctor drew back one of his slippered feet and kicked, as hard as he could, the side of his own shin. "Ow."

Rose gaped. "Did you just kick yourself?"

"Yes, I did. And I deserve another." And he switched sides and repeated the motion. "Again, ow."

"Stop doing that." She wasn't in the mood for his clowning. They had a history of him joking his way out of important conversations. Not this time.

The Doctor drew in a breath and grabbed the back of his head, elbows out. The unconscious gesture of a soldier surrendering. "You're right. Love alone isn't enough."

Rose's face fell.

He held out his hands, stopping her, asking her to stop. "No, please, don't draw any more conclusions. You've got me all wrong. First off, sod that bloke today, he was a right tosser. Won't be missed, and believe me, I know that, too."

"So why are you angry?"

"I'm not angry, I'm bloody terrified. Because, but for that man throwing you out of the way, and getting into what you both assumed was an escape pod, and leaving you on the platform, you would have been the one inside it when it exploded. You would have been the collection of vaporized molecules and atoms spewing into space. You, Rose. But for the selfish, evil behavior of a bad man, you would have died today."

He went back to the settee and threw himself down upon it, collapsing against the tufted upholstery. He let his head loll back, staring toward the room's vaulted ceiling, shrouded in shadow far overhead. Sounding exhausted, he asked, "Can't you see how distracted we've become? We're not on top of our game, love. Neither of us."

Rose, if pressed, would have had to admit he was right. There had been mistakes, and, in a way, a lot less fun to their "adventures," these past weeks. It wasn't just the new relationship between them, though. Rose thought she knew what it really was, what the Doctor wasn't saying.

"On my own behalf," he was going on, "I wouldn't necessarily care if I'm suddenly bollocks. But it's going to get you killed. Sooner rather than later. And yes, I feel horribly guilty about that." He raised his head and finally said what was really bothering him: "It was me, set that countdown," he confessed. "I meant to drive the Spectorac into that pod, get them off the station, blow them to smithereens. And instead, I nearly killed you."

Rose allowed a minute or two of silence to pass, feeling it wise to let the hurtful words and glares fade before she spoke again. The Doctor picked up his book, only thumbing through pages halfheartedly, clearly too upset to read. Rose studied him. He looked thinner, paler, than she remembered. His layers of clothing seemed overly-large. He looked tired. Rose's heart clenched. She knew what needed to be addressed, now. The devil himself had said she would die, "so very soon in battle." She had believed the Doctor when he brushed it off as untrue, lies meant to get a rise out of her, to put them off-balance. He had assured her he'd looked into her timelines and seen nothing of the sort. Now, she wasn't so sure who had been lying, the demon, or the Doctor. That prediction had come three months ago, more or less. It was right after that scrape they had become lovers. She suddenly felt foolish.

She went to the Doctor and sat down beside him. "So what are we going to do about it?" she asked, softly. "This impending death of mine?"

The Doctor didn't answer her. He kept pretending to be looking for something in that damn book. Rose peered over his shoulder, into it. The text was all orbs and angles, dots and connecting whorls.

"Is that Gallifreyan?" she asked.

"Yes."

"The Tardis still won't translate it for me. Thought she might, after we started, you know…"

"No." He folded the book shut, set it aside.

"Would she translate for me, if you told her to?"

"Yes." He shifted, turning toward her, folding one leg up on the settee.

"But you won't, will you?"

"What is it, in Gallifreyan, that you want to know, Rose?"

Her answer came spontaneously: "Why you have to hate yourself for being in love." He blinked, rapidly. So, she was onto something. She pressed forward. "Is it a rule, for Time Lords, written up in some book I'm not allowed to see? Maybe the one you were just looking at?"

The Doctor's eyes darted away, he was hiding again, and Rose wouldn't have it. She wanted him closer. She lifted her hands, splayed her fingertips over his temples, her skin warm, his cool, his heartbeats faintly translating to her. She could taste it now, a hint of the increasingly-familiar psychic flavor of him, blue and dark and sweet and deep, hovering at the edges of her own sense of self, calling her in.

"Or," she breathed, "are all your rules just here, inside this head of yours?" She moved toward him, physically and mentally, farther toward that indigo pool she would drown in, gladly, over and over again.

"Don't," he said. He brought his hands up and pulled her wrists down, away. "Not...not now." He scooted away from her.

This was ridiculous, it was like she was chasing him across the sofa.

Suddenly, he asked, "Why are you with me?"

Rose checked his tone for sarcasm, or anger, but there was none. This wasn't some lover's game. He meant it literally. He was looking bewildered again, too. Positively befuddled. "I think I should be the one asking that question," she said. "What the hell do you see in me?"

"That's simple. I love you. You're wonderful. But if I'm going to try and keep you, I have to know what it is you want. From me, from us, from this life in the Tardis. New experiences? Exotic travel?" His voice grew bitter. "That sick rush of adrenaline when I've placed your life in danger?"

When she didn't answer immediately, he added, "Wildly vocal, zero-gravity sex?" That put a tiny twinkle back in his eye, and almost got a smile out of her. He really was rather spectacular, and inventive. But she reminded herself she was annoyed.

So she asked him, "Are you really this thick?"

He raised one eyebrow.

"I want you, you daft alien. That's it. Just you. That's why I want a look into your books, and your head, as much as you'll let me, why I want your body skin to skin with mine, any time you'll let me, why I follow you into danger, why I trust you with my life. It's also why I forgive you when you've hurt me, like you've done tonight-"

"You hurt me, too, Rose. Tonight. That remark, about people dying, that was cruel."

She could see it had caused him pain. And perhaps what she had said, deliberately, out of anger, had been worse than what originally angered her. "I'm so sorry. I can be cruel, and that's one thing you never are. You couldn't be, could you." The tears were threatening once more. "I'm sorry-"

He slid across the short distance between them, and silenced her with a kiss. He pulled her to him, and covered her face with more kisses. "I forgive you," he murmured. "I'll always forgive you, forgive you anything." He kissed her mouth again, then asked with his tongue for her to open to him, and when she responded plunged in, thrusting his tongue against hers, over and over again, as if he couldn't get his fill.

Rose wanted to link with him, longed for it. She reached up, hopefully, towards his brow, but he caught her wrists again, and for the second time denied her what she craved. She wanted that connection so badly that the longing was nearly unbearable. When had she grown so needy of it? Of him? The intensity frightened her.

He buried his face in her neck, his cool breath coming in pants. After a moment, he explained hoarsely, against her ear, "We can't...I can't go on like this."

She pulled back, forcing him reluctantly to release her. He rushed to say more, seeing the hurt on her face again, no doubt. "I don't mean forever, I'm not putting you off the ship, I swear. It's just, I can't do this, I can't be intimate with you, and then carry on as usual. It's not working." He motioned back and forth between them. "This. Us. In the Tardis. I need to sort it. And I don't believe I can be intimate with you again, until I do. Sort it. For good."

Before Rose could say a word, he was up and already at the door. He paused, and said, "I'm going to figure this out, Rose. I'm going to make it right, I swear I will. And then we'll uh...yes..."

And then he was gone, and Rose was left upon the settee, with swollen lips, and tear-streaked cheeks, and nothing resolved at all.