AN: Alright. This one goes just after A Last Obstacle, and will include the Bad Wolf's solution to said obstacle. Just a heads up, this is planned out as two chapters.
This is part of The Bad Wolf Chronicles, and anyone interested in the rest of that can visit my profile for a list of its stories in chronological order. (Because I will post out of order.)
As always, hope you like.
-AutumnxAngel
Disclaimer: Look, if you recognize it, guess what: It's not mine
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They had just returned from another mad adventure: saving worlds, running for their lives, the usual. The Tardis had been once more launched into the swirling Vortex, and everything was calm.
They were sitting in the control room, silence reigning between them. The only sound in the room was the soft hum of the Tardis. The Doctor was in the captain's chair; Rose was lounging on the floor. She held a book above her head so that some light from beneath the grating illuminated the pages, reading intently, and occasionally laughing at something that amused her. He sat in the dim green light of the console, watching her.
When a grin lit her face, he felt his hearts constrict. She was so beautiful, so innocent, laying there reading some alien book the Tardis had translated for her. He watched her mouth twitch with a laugh and felt himself smile in response. He loved that about her: when she was happy, it made him happy.
His eyes then traveled down her slim form, entirely of their own accord. He took in her jawline and throat, unaccountably seized by the desire to run two fingers down the line his eyes had followed. He noted the slow, steady rise and fall of her breasts with each breath she took. Listening carefully, his attention focused solely on her, he found he could hear her heart beating within her chest. It wasn't as good as listening with his ear pressed against her skin, something he had recently discovered he enjoyed very much, but it was still good.
He carefully wrenched his eyes back up to her face, but was only immediately distracted by her mouth. He caught himself wanting to run his hand over her face and follow it up with his lips. He remembered the feel of her skin against his, not too unrecently really. He stifled a moan.
Since her return, he'd promised to explore a relationship. He knew that neither of them had realized how much they loved each other until they thought they'd never see each other again. It was his full intention to make the best of their reunion, he just wasn't sure how at this point. He understood that she hoped for more than the words and soft kisses he could give. He also understood that he couldn't give her more without hurting her.
He'd never really wanted to be human, not for any more than sheer curiosity. For her though. . . For her he wished they weren't so different. It was nothing obvious to someone just looking at them. He looked human enough. For someone who knew them though, the differences were vast.
Physically, he felt she could match him, at least in any way that mattered. It was his mind that would hurt her. He refused to let that happen.
His determination was their deadlock. They'd gone as far as possible in their relationship, and it wasn't near enough. It was so far from enough that it hurt.
She laughed again and he snapped out of his melancholy thoughts. He briefly wondered why she chose to lay there in particular. The grate didn't look all that comfortable. She seemed happy enough though, buried in the pages of a book.
He sighed, wishing it was that easy for him to loose himself. Wishing he could live within another's imagination, just for a little while. Instead he was here, staring at the girl he loved, wanting her so badly, and unable to do anything about it.
He stood, stretching, feeling his back crack with slight satisfaction.
Her gaze ran to the end of the line she'd been reading and turned up to him. The book closed, her finger still between its pages, marking her spot.
"Leaving me?" She was vaguely curious but not overly so.
He grinned, intentionally misinterpreting her words. "Never."
His answer made her smile. He wondered if he was selfish for wanting her to smile just so he could see the brilliance in her face and the sparkle in her eyes.
"That's good." She told him, her eyes still shining.
A moment passed in which her face told him how much she meant that.
She broke it with a mock-stern expression. "Don't get lost in the Tardis."
He was immediately the picture of an indignant Time Lord. "I only ever did that once!" He glared at her and affected a sullen look that reminded her of a puppy. "It wasn't even my fault. I can't help it if she switched the halls about in the middle of the night."
Rose just giggled. He was right. She knew because it had been mostly her fault. "I'm just saying." Her voice was patronizing but he could hear the laughter under it. She went back to her book, pretending to ignore him.
Just for that, he went over to where she lay, kneeling above her head. She tilted her face back to look at him, one eyebrow raised. He suppressed a smile and leaned down, caressing her upside-down face between his palms.
"And I'm just saying, you asked for this." He murmured, watching her shiver before leaning down to press his lips to hers.
She let the feel of him so close to her flood her senses, enjoying his scent and the feel of his hands on her face and his lips against hers. Even if he was upside-down. Maybe it was a Time Lord thing. It was probably just a Doctor thing.
Then he was gone, the air separating them once more. He smiled and brushed a thumb down her soft cheek. She shivered with the feel of his not-quite-rough fingertip grazing over her cheekbone. That made him grin wider.
"I'll see you later." He stood, leaving a noticeable emptiness in the air around her. "Enjoy the book." He turned and walked away from her, his feet making only the lightest sound on the metal grate. She watched him go, a small, content grin gracing her lips, her head still upside down.
She went back to her story and he walked down the familiar corridors.
As he walked, he mulled over their relationship, trusting his ship to get him to the right place without his attention. He of all people should know that nothing is impossible, yet he couldn't figure this out. They had been separated for so long. Now they were back together and still this thing divided them.
He growled quietly in frustration and focused on his surroundings in an attempt to distract himself.
The room he sought was a refuge. He knew that she often wandered there. It was her place and mirrored exactly what she wanted. She didn't have to remain on the ship: a physical form wasn't necessary, but she apparently enjoyed it. It was only rarely that she was gone, and then not for long. She enjoyed being on the physical ship. The house of the soul of the Bad Wolf. The part of her that often lived in a human-like body seemed to appreciate things like that.
When he entered the room, she was there. She was always there when he came.
The room was small today, and completely empty. It was square, probably about ten feet from one wall to the opposite. The walls were black, the floor and ceiling pure white. There was nothing remarkable about it today, though the color scheme was a bit dramatic.
He closed the door gently and walked over to where she sat, leaning against the wall. He sat next to her, leaning back a little too fast. His head hit the wall and he winced.
She had been watching him carefully, though without much effort, since he came in. When his head cracked back into the wall, one of her eyebrows lifted slightly, though that was the only trace of emotion on her face. She idly wondered if it had hurt.
He plucked the thought from the air where she had let it drift. His answer slipped softly into the room. "Yes."
The corners of her mouth curved up slightly in understanding. It had hurt. It had also helped. Her eyes left him for the first time since his arrival as she tipped her head back against the wall, more carefully than he had, staring up through the ceiling.
It shifted, the change happening so quickly that it would seem to an onlooker that rather than change, the ceiling had always been as it was now. In place of the white that had never been, there were now stars. A galaxy of them.
The colors swirled and a planet loomed into view. It was a relatively small planet, but it loomed large in the endless ceiling of her room.
Earth. Not the Earth she had come from. This was a better one. She liked it more.
The white clouds in its atmosphere swirled lazily over its blues and greens. The sun shone brightly on this side of it, lighting everything up brilliantly.
The Doctor smiled. He loved it when she shared moments like this. He loved looking at the colors she saw behind her eyes.
When her gaze came back down, it met his, and he could see the planets spinning in her pupils. She grinned, scooting across the small space between them in a very undignified manner. She lifted his arm and draped it over her shoulders, leaning her head against his chest.
"Tell my why you're sad." Her voice was soft and, in the silence of the room, he could hear the song behind it.
"I want to love her." He whispered, burying his face in her hair. She understood that he meant more than just in his hearts. "I want to give her everything she wants and the thing she seems to want so much is entirely beyond my power. I can't be with her and not hurt her. I just want to. I need her to feel exactly what she means to me." His voice was sad and soft. She disapproved of the acceptance she could hear at the edge of his words.
Her eyes closed and her mind pushed into his. He let her do it, let her see how much he loved his Rose. How badly he wanted to show the girl how deeply that love ran. She looked, flipping through his mind as though it were the pages of a book. She was delicate in her search though, for all the briskness. She was careful not to make him the slightest bit uncomfortable.
He wouldn't have really cared if she had. She already knew the secrets he kept there. There was nothing in him that she had not seen and felt in her own mind. He belonged to her. Just as she belonged to him.
Her search ended and she withdrew, silent, considering. He allowed her her thoughts, waiting. His face was buried in her short-cropped hair and he could smell the Vortex on her, like a perfume. He let it wash through his senses, blurring out the pain.
After a brief time that seemed like much longer, her thoughts began to pour out into the air around them. He listened closely, attentively, understanding the ideas she didn't know how to put to words. Her song poured through his mind as something made her very excited.
When she pushed away to sit in front of him, her eyes shone bright with the Vortex and the stars. "I know how to do it." A grin lit up her face, which had been dark in the glow of her eyes. "I can do it. I can protect her mind."
He was a little skeptical, afraid of what could happen if she was wrong. What would happen if she was wrong.
She felt his hesitancy, the fears that flashed across his mind dancing in the air before him. She leaned forward and took his face between her hands, forcing him to look into her bright eyes.
"Don't doubt me. I can protect her." She could feel his resistance crumbling. "I will protect her. For you. For the two of you."
His last bit of fight was dissipating as she pressed her idea into his mind. Her next words, echoing loud in the air around them, decided him.
"Doctor. You can show her how much she means. You can do exactly what you want to her and she will be okay." She became impossibly brighter when an eager smile drifted onto his features. She added a suggestive tone to her last argument. "Actually, she'll probably be more than okay."
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, tasting her happiness on her lips and mind. "Thank you." He whispered, drawing away. "Thank you my Bad Wolf."
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AN: Look for the next chapter. Also, reviews make me happy, and happiness makes me write faster, just so you know.
Btw: If the relationship between the Doctor and the Bad Wolf is a little odd right now, it'll make more sense when I post the stuff from earlier in the chronology. My apologies for current strangeness.