A big hello to all those brave enough to venture onto this page. If you came here thinking this is about sex...I'm a bit sorry to disappoint you and your deceived deductive reasoning. I'll be honest and tell you that this is my first Whofic, so I'll let you decide whether or not it's worthy. Many thanks to all those that take the time to read and review. Each of you makes my day shine a little brighter.

Of Wearing and the Underneath: Naked Truth

Traveling with the Doctor, things tended to fall out of place just as quickly as they tended to fall into place. Wherever he landed himself, things would always gravitate towards him, both good and bad, as if the weight of his years and responsibility of his title carried a force of their own.

Rose suspected this was because of the TARDIS, and that people and events weren't so much drawn to his gravity as he was being drawn to people and events of great gravity.

"Doctor…?" she propositioned, winded from their most recent escapade across the ruins of the ancient battlements strewn across the landscape of a planet known as Phlox. She propped herself against the base of one of the crumbling structures, sinking down the polished surface.

"It's got to be here—it's got to be here somewhere," he was professing to the wreckage, pacing and prancing in his usual way.

"Doctor," she said again.

But now he'd gotten himself distracted. "Would you look at this! Built from the prowess of a single race. What a beauty you are. To have lasted all these centuries…" He was standing under an almost unscathed statue and admiring a fork.

Frustrated now, she tramped up to where he stood without heeding where she stepped. "Tell me something; if you're a lord of time and space who's looked into a hole in the time vortex and can feel the planet moving under your feet, why do you let things go so bloody wrong all the time?"

"Oh no, no, no—that isn't right. This can't be the north; look, these rocks don't sound like north rocks." He proceeded to toss a stone a few meters off, where it fell amongst its peers with a resounding series of clunks. "We're most certainly heading in the wrong direction. Nice view, though, isn't it?"

"Doctor, this whole planet is bollocks."

The comment awarded her a brief glance and a shrug. "Well—potayto, potahto."

"Is the north going to have as many hills?" she asked begrudgingly.

"I suspect we'll find out when we get there. Bit of fun, eh?"

"Oh yeah—loads."

As she dragged herself back down the precipices of a collapsed society, the Doctor bumbled along in front of her without a single hitch in his step. "Well, it can't all be frozen oceans and glowing forests. Then even that would get boring, which would really be a shame because I still have to take you to the crystal mountains in Alpalingapolis Seven. Rose, what color underpants are you wearing?"

"Excuse me?"

"Don't look at them. What color?"

That gave her reason to pause. "Are you making a pass at me?" she teased, shooting him a sly glance.

For the first time since they'd set foot on Phlox, the Doctor's feet faltered over the uneven terrain. "On second thought, nevermind that question—I've got a better one."

"Better than my underwear?"

"Rose, every rock and pebble on the surface of this planet is emitting a low-frequency humming sound, and if I'm right, you stopped paying attention to it within a minute after we arrived. Am I right? No, don't answer that—of course I'm right. I'm always right."

Being a lord of time and space, he gave modesty a wide berth. As was her duty, she made a valiant effort to elbow him in the side for his trouble. "I don't hear anything."

"No, I don't expect you would," he concluded. "Your human ears consider this unimportant background noise."

He'd been walking along in front of her with those bounding strides of his, hands in pockets, but now he turned to look at her dis-recognition and slowed to a stop. "Don't you see?"

"Sorry, but see what, exactly?"

"Oh, Rose." The look he harbored for her wasn't quite sympathy. In fact, it was almost fond. "Do you notice the clothing on your back—feel every inch of fabric shift over every hair on your skin when you move?"

"Of course not." She thought she saw where this was going, and was surprised that he'd been listening to her.

"Of course not! Your human brain wouldn't know what to do with all that sensation. It would get distracting, overwhelming, impossible—you have much better things to pay attention to."

"Like the color of my underwear?"

He looked a bit sheepish. "You asked me why I make mistakes." The fact that he was admitting it grabbed her attention. "The sounds of the universe are the rocks you can't hear, and the weight of it pressing down is the clothes you don't notice. My range of perception might be infinitely more vast than yours, but we have one thing in common."

"What's that, then?"

"Neither of us can pay attention to everything at once." His eyes were looking straight into hers with that grave, forlorn look he donned whenever he chose to be serious. Quite strikingly, she could see his true age staring back at her from the void in those ancient eyes, and it drilled a hole in her heart that went deeper than fear. There was regret in those eyes—for everything that might not have come to pass, had what he'd just told her not been the truth. She knew, then, that it wasn't just loneliness that caused him to look straight through her and into his past.

"There's only one of me, Rose." His emotion was just as human as hers. "Just one Time Lord. If the universe was going to pick out its own savior it would probably be a lot better off choosing someone with a bit more brass, because if you think I'm brilliant—If you think anything I've shown you has been brilliant—none of that can hold a single candle to the majesty of Gallifrey. But even if I'm not the best, even if I'm not first-pick on the list…I'm the only one you've got."

She knew, too, that the fact that he was the last—the very last one—made him all the more dangerous. He was doing a job that was meant for an entire race in a universe full of so many other races—and the universe better be ready.

More than feeling guilty for having been so unthinking, Rose was overtaken by pride and compassion. The scale of his accomplishments made her proud for him even when he wasn't, and his rarity gave her a longing to share his burden.

"You aren't doing it alone, you know." She eased up to him and gingerly threaded her fingers through his. "The universe has got me, too."

When he clung to her, knuckles white and eyes dark, he was clinging to a part of himself as well. Out of all the worlds he'd seen and saved, none were his own. As long as there was a Gallifrey-shaped hole in the universe and in each of his two hearts, his only world now consisted of two things: the TARDIS and Rose Tyler. She was glad to be a part of it.

Then he broke into his cheeky grin , tugging her after him as they plodded towards the horizon, and everything was as it had been. "Rose Tyler," praised the Doctor, "protector of the universe. Scourge of the Daleks."

"Don't forget Raxacoricofallapatorians."

"Or Banicoriopalindistriorsoans."

"You made that up."

"Well…yeah, but you have to admit it's good."

Much later, after they'd wandered their way into an ancient puzzle trap, climbed through centuries-old catacombs, combatted an electronomatized mass of skeleton security guards, and made it back to the TARDIS with a time-wave pulse manipulator to modulate the flow of the time vortex, Rose took the opportunity to inform him, in a velvet whisper and a barely-contained laugh, that she was, in fact, not wearing any underwear at all.