Rose stared after him in dismay. She had no idea how to process what had just happened. He'd just...and then he'd...well, fine. If he wanted to go brood off on his own he could. That was certainly familiar to her.
She was trying to be patient, trying to be compassionate but he had just made some serious love to her and then looked at her as if she were the most horrifying alien in the universe. Maybe to him right now she was. To say her feelings were hurt was an understatement.
Wincing, she stood up and collected her clothing. A shower and back to bed again, then. Maybe when she woke he would be willing to speak to her, at least long enough for her to convince him to take her where she belonged, to her Doctor. To where he had been trying to take her in the first place.
Hadn't he?
As she let the warm water cascade down on her body, relaxing muscles and soothing the bruises that she was sure were forming, she considered her good-bye to his Eighth form. He had been acting a bit shifty and strange but she had accounted that to his premonition of trouble for the Time Lords and perhaps a bit because he was being separated from her. She recalled his words, his expression, his desperate kiss.
"I wish there was some way I could help" "Go on, get in there. I need you."
"You will. I'm sure you will, Rose."
The world tipped again as Rose realized the meaning behind his words and she leaned heavily against the damp wall. Furious at him, she climbed out of the shower and began to redress in clothes from her bag, flinching a bit at the action. She was going to be sore.
He had brought her here on purpose. Lied to her. Messed with the future. Risked everything they would have, everything familiar to her and for what? So he could yell at her, take her against the wall and then abandon her in the console room?
Except, said a niggling little voice in the back of her mind or perhaps it was the TARDIS (it was hard to tell sometimes), except...maybe this wasn't messing with the future at all. Maybe it just her discovery of the past.
One night shortly after he had regenerated and they were fumbling through their new rapport, through his new-found rambling and her uncertain shyness, in a brief, uncharacteristic moment of revelation he had told her that he didn't know how he had survived immediately after the War. Told her that he had wanted to die. Really die. That he'd tried to die. He seemed mystified that anything had been able to bring him back from the brink of destruction on which he had been poised.
Maybe, just maybe...
Suddenly she heard a strangled cry emerge from the small recovery room. She ripped open the door to find him thrashing around the small bed, clearly in the throes of a terrible nightmare. Her anger with him evaporated in a second and she rushed to his side. The TARDIS shouted a warning to her but it was too late, she had already reached a shaking hand out to soothe the sweat from his tortured brow and Rose suddenly found herself thrown full force into the chaotic maelstrom of his mind. Her body pitched forward onto the bed but she took no notice.
In the pitch black of his swirling mind, for a time Rose lost herself. Everything that surrounded her was pain and darkness. His pain. His darkness. She could smell the burning of hundreds of souls, feel the agony of the dying planet, experience the numbness of a silent mind where millions of telepaths once resided and knew that it was her fault. She was him and he was nothing. For a time, neither of them existed.
It was the sound of the TARDIS that pulled her back, a desperate, determined, familiar melody. Slowly she listened to the distant song and began to pull herself together once more, building her shields up so she was a blazing pinkish golden presence, a variation of the TARDIS gold that at once flew to her in his darkened mind. Together once again, she gathered her thoughts and tried to examine his mind around her. What had once been welcoming, neatly filed and organized was now carelessly and aggressively chaotic and he would soon give in to the darkness. He had given up.
Well, she hadn't.
What was she supposed to do now? The TARDIS nudged her with a flash of blue, showing her what she needed to do. What only she could do.
She set out on a quest through the nebulous, murky caverns of his mind, searching for the man he used to be, the man she needed to help him become again.
After what seemed like an eternity she found it. A small faint memory of cerulean blue that had been hidden away in the back, locked in a golden box, untouched by the darkness. She surrounded it with her own presence, protecting it, cupping it as one would do with the tentative flame of a candle in the wind and slowly, ever so slowly, it grew.
It grew and calmed the bedlam of his mind, giving order to chaos and using her to light the darkness. Slowly, in Rose's eyes, the Doctor's mind changed colors from the eerily dark indigo to a rich navy. Sadly, she realized he might never again manage the happy, carefree blue of his past but at least he was no longer threatened by the inky blackness. Satisfied that her job was complete, Rose retreated from his mind and collapsed in exhaustion back into her own, letting sleep take her.
_
The Doctor's eyes snapped open. There was an unfamiliar weight on his chest and he scrambled to sit up, the limp form of Rose Tyler falling heavily onto the bed beside him. A shaking hand reached out and tears sprang to his eyes as he looked down on her and remembered.
He remembered meeting her. He remembered laughing with her. He remembered dancing with her. He remembered caring for her. He remembered selfishly and deliberately bringing her here, misleading her, manipulating her instead of taking her where she had been expecting. Mickey Smith had been right. He was a selfish git.
He knew that he would need her and oh, how he had. She had tended to him and to the TARDIS, cared for him, comforted him, consoled him and, most amazingly, brought him back from the darkness of his own mind.
And what had he done? Threatened her, yelled at her, hurt her, abandoned her and now...he looked down at her too-still, barely breathing form, the shadow of his mark rising on her shoulder, marring her pale, too-pale, skin.
He cradled her to his chest, whispering to her, letting his tears splash freely onto her beautiful golden hair. His dear, sweet, precious Rose.
His? He had never called her that before. Oh well, it wasn't important. She was his and she couldn't leave him now. He told her so.
He prayed to deities he had never believed in, begged fates he had always ignored not to have her taken from him. The Time War hadn't killed him but this would, losing her now. She was the one thing in the universe besides the TARDIS that he owned.
Owned? There insane possessiveness was again.
Time seemed to stop as he clutched her to him, rocking her back and forth, imploring her, begging her, beseeching her to come back, to open her eyes and flash him even a glimpse of her brilliant smile.
The TARDIS nudged him from his grief, showing him a picture of the full MedBay. He pushed her contact aside, too caught up in his melancholy to notice until she prodded him harder and showed him again. Was he a doctor or wasn't he? Rose's breathing wasn't regulating. That was something he could do, something he could fix. He lifted his precious cargo and strode to the newly re-opened MedBay with a purpose, with a goal, with something to work toward for the first time since he had regenerated.
Seeing her body lie motionless on the cold, hard bed tugged at his hearts and nearly broke him again. He needed to be detached and doctor-ly. This wasn't Rose, his dear saviour, his light in the darkness, his lo-...no. It was a patient, a patient that needed fixed. But every time he looked at her, brushed her soft, damp hair with his fingertips, took in a deep breath and smelled her shampoo, eyed her pale, unmoving lips, his resolve cracked a little more and the dam of his emotions threatened to break.
Finally he connected her with an oxygen mask and an IV and she looked so pale and weak and unlike herself that he wept again. He had taken the strong, fiery, charismatic girl who had crashed into him in zeppelin-filled London and turned her into this.
He had destroyed her, just as he thought he would.
"My beautiful Rose. Please, forgive me?" he pleaded, taking her hand and willing her eyes to open. Whether he was begging for forgiveness for what he'd done to her, what he'd done to his people or what he'd done to himself, he wasn't sure but he knew without a doubt that he needed it.
Far away, she could hear the Doctor's voice speaking to her. He was asking her something. For what? For forgiveness? She would always forgive him. She loved him. She tried to answer but she was too tired. He sounded so distraught. That's not what she wanted. She needed him to be happy. She tried to tell him so but the words died in her throat, her eyelids too heavy to open.
Stoically, he used the dermal regenerator to mend the hand shaped bruises on her hip bones and thighs, evidence of their passionate romp in the console room but couldn't bring himself, even in his shame, to remove the brand on her shoulder. It marked her as his and he needed that, needed her to be his.
He sat there, staring at her, a silent sentinel, her tiny hand clasped in his, unfamiliar long, rough and callused fingers entwined with her smooth, slender ones. After four hours, her breathing began to even out and he gently removed the mask although he left the IV, just in case. She should wake up now. There was no physical reason for her not to, only the horrible threat of the mental damage he might of done, damage that he was too afraid to examine.
"Oh, Rose. Forgive me. Please," he begged again. He squeezed her hand and lowered his forehead to the edge of the bed. It hurt too much to look at her. When he received a small squeeze in return, he shot from his seat, knocking over the chair on which he had been sitting and causing her medical monitor to screech at him as he bumped the IV with his too-long limbs but never letting go of her hand. He couldn't let go. Not now. Not ever. He watched as she slowly opened her eyes.
"Sometimes all you have to do is ask a second time," she said, a slow smile spreading over her face. He stared at her in wonder and automatically bent his lips to capture that beautiful smile, the one he had been afraid never to see again, especially pointed at him. He didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve her. As if she could sense his thoughts, she used her left hand to tug him down so she could nuzzle his neck, pressing a light kiss on his jaw. "I forgive you. I love you."
He said nothing and she pulled back to look at him. He was staring at her as though he expected her to disappear any second. Disappear and leave him alone, so very alone. There was frightening depth in his incredibly blue eyes and in that moment Rose thought he had never looked more alien. She loved him even more for it.
Rose held his gaze as long as possible, thinking somewhere along the line his superior biology must have negated his need to blink. Finally, the persistent itch bothering her right wrist made her glance down at the IV trailing off the bed. She turned the wrist over, flipping his hand with hers. "Can you take this out, Doctor? I'm all righ' now, yeah?" she asked him. Physically she felt fine, if a bit achy, but mentally she felt incredibly tired as if she'd been doing very difficult maths for hours.
He slowly tore his eyes from her face, from his task of memorizing every single atom of her existence, to look down at the IV. She was healthy, as far as he could tell but part of him screamed not to take it out and filled his overactive mind with horrible what-if's. Frowning slightly at his hesitation, Rose tugged at the IV herself and he immediately, fiercely grabbed at her hand.
"Don't touch that!" he snarled, snatching her hand away with his free one and painfully tightening his grip on the other. "Stupid ape. You don't know what you're doing. You could..." he trailed off at the startled, hurt expression her face. What was wrong with him? He'd only wanted to keep her from hurting herself and he'd lashed out at her again.
"I'm sorry, Rose. I...I can't seem to control it," he muttered, releasing her hands to remove the IV and avoiding her eyes again.
"Which part? Your mouth or your temper?" asked Rose, eyes slightly narrowed at him. Emotions fought within him...the temper of this volatile body wanted to lash back at her, his hearts wanted to apologize again, and his mind refused to participate.
"Either," he finally conceded, letting the disused IV fall to the floor and leaning over her to switch off the machine. To his surprise, she grabbed him in a tight, slightly awkward embrace as he made to lean back.
It was strange, Rose thought, to hug him and not feel the battered leather. There had been so few times while they were together that she had ever seen or touched him without his jacket. He seemed almost naked without it, even more naked than when she had undressed him earlier. She blushed suddenly, remembering the undressing bit and her hard-fought self-restraint.
He adjusted his arms around her slightly and relaxed against her, leaning into her body and breathing in deeply. Still getting accustomed to the quirks of this body, he sorted through the myriad of scents and could smell her shampoo, her detergent, her exhaustion. And the faint smell of her arousal. How could that be? How could she want him still? He heard her yawn over his shoulder and pulled back slightly to look at her.
"Silly humans. Sleepin' your lives away," he gently said, cupping the side of her face and trying not to think about how much of her ridiculously short life had already ticked by. The overwhelming fear of losing her surged through him again and he listened to her terrifyingly slow, single heart thud against his chest as he pulled her in tightly, fiercely again. He heard Rose gasp softly and he wanted to pull back, to look her in the eye and see what had caused her distress but that involved pulling back and he certainly didn't want to do that.
Stronger than she had ever felt his shared emotions before, Rose felt the Doctor's fear crash through her. It was as if he had suddenly opened the floodgates of his emotions to her and she could see them all. His grief, his loneliness, his guilt. His fear of losing her was foremost in his mind, almost bordering on madness, overwhelming in its complexity. She was his anchor and the thought of losing her threw him into confusion and chaos.
Rose pulled back from him to lay her head on the hard pillow and he brushed his lips against hers as she pulled away, almost as an afterthought, like he thought she might not let him. She closed her eyes momentarily. Sorting through his emotions as well as her own was tiring.
"Stay with me?" she asked, softly, motioning beside her in the small, medical bed.
"Not here," he said gruffly, moving his arms to lift her from the bed and cradling her to him possessively as he walked from the room. This room was filled with too many memories of pain, of close calls, of dangers just narrowly avoided. How many times had he tended to companions and, at an alarming rate over the past few decades of the Time War, to himself in this sterile, unfeeling white room?
Rose was about to protest, to tell him that she could walk by herself, but something in the back of her mind urged her not to. She took a closer look at his emotions and saw that this was what he needed now. He needed to prove to her that he was strong, capable and impressive. He needed her to need him.
She could do that. She did, after all.
He kicked open an unfamiliar steel door and Rose looked around her. It was obviously his room and yet it wasn't the elegant carved wood and rich burgundy bedding she remembered.
"It's different," she said, looking around as he deposited her gently, so gently on the bed, taking in the hues of black and gray, the almost industrial look of the room The duvet the TARDIS had provided was a dark navy, matching the color of his mind almost perfectly. Rose wondered if the TARDIS had chosen it on purpose. A hum of confirmation buzzed through her mind and Rose smiled to herself. Of course she had.
"I'm different," he responded, suddenly self-conscious. He had no idea what he looked like. Why should he assume she'd still want him? This body felt fit enough but it certainly didn't strike him as particularly foxy or attractive. Last him had been quite dashing and she had liked it, liked his body then. But now...he could look like anything. He could be old. He felt old. He could be horribly scarred. He felt that, too.
Maybe she wouldn't want him anymore. She had in the console room but that could have just been the temporary insanity on both their parts. And he hadn't exactly given her a choice...No. He couldn't think like that. She had wanted it, he could smell it, could feel it when he entered her. Must have been the insanity then.
Turning from her and struggling to decide what to do with his hands, he eventually settled for crossing them across his chest. That felt like a natural position.
He heard shifting and the slight rustle of fabric behind him as Rose burrowed under the duvet. "The TARDIS changes it when I regenerate," he replied softly, looking around. This room was as unfamiliar to him as his new body. It occurred to him suddenly that Rose didn't seem surprised at his appearance. Maybe, just maybe...
"Rose, do you know me?" he asked suddenly.
"Of course I do, silly," she responded, looking quizzically at his turned back. Hadn't they gone through this already?
"I mean this me. This body," he said, his back still turned to her, pretending to heavily examine the exposed duct work on the nearest wall.
"Oh," she said, softly. "Yes. I'll meet you later in this body." He exhaled softly. She had described this body positively to him back on Coricana. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. He had a sudden inexplicable urge to check out his arse and see if it was really as fantastic as she'd said. Of course he wasn't exactly sure what the qualifications were for a "fantastic arse".
"You're my first Doctor," Rose said just as quietly as before, possibly even more so. She sounded sad.
He turned slowly around to face her. "Why do you call me that?"
"Call you what?" she asked, cautiously. She wasn't sure where this conversation was going and, really, all she wanted to do was take a nap. With him.
" 'My doctor'," he repeated, blues eyes fixed on her, arms still crossed in such a familiar pose that she ached a little for him. No leather jacket, but still...she thought she'd never get to see him, this him, again and it caught up with her suddenly.
Tears pricked her eyes and she looked down to worry the duvet in her hands. "I dunno. Always have. You jus'...are," she responded.
"Always have?" he prodded again. She was starting to cry. Why was she crying?
Rose burrowed down further in the bed and mumbled her response. "Well, no. It started...I don't know when it started. But he never complained about it," she said, more than a little on purpose. He was doing his obnoxious, pry-into-things-Rose-didn't-really-want-to-talk-about-and-draw-out-an-answer-she-didn't-want-to-share thing, complete with piercing stare. Why did he have to ask her all these questions now? Couldn't he see she was tired? Her head hurt and the emotional rollercoaster of the past few days was catching up with her.
"Who never complained about it?" he asked, his voice taking on a slight possessive growl that Rose seemed not to notice. Of course, that may have been why she phrased her last sentence as she had.
"Pinstriped you," she responded, her answer lining up with the mental image he had of his future self, the one she had referred to most as "hers", the one she clearly desired the most. A rush of jealousy surged through him, making him clench his hands into fists. Looking up at him with wide eyes, she felt remorseful. She shouldn't have done that to him. She sighed deeply. "S'jus' the way it is. I'm yours an' you're mine."
The jealousy dissipated just as soon as it had arrived, replaced by disbelief. How could that be? He didn't deserve her. He hadn't before, he certainly didn't now and probably wouldn't in the future. And what right did she have to call him that? She had never claimed him, not officially, not in way Gallifreyans would recognize. She couldn't. Not that there were any Gallifreyans left to recognize it anyway. Oh...back to the circular guilt. He felt the darkness begin to wash around him again.
The Doctor was still merely standing to the side of the bed, staring at her hard, making no move to join her or comfort her or do anything really besides stare. She sighed again and, in a small voice, asked, "Aren't you?"
His first mistake was not responding automatically. His second mistake was not responding at all, caught up in his own musings and guilt.
Rose turned from him and he watched as she closed off, like she had in the car the night they had first met, for him anyway. "I'm tired. Just go away," she said wearily. He could feel her hurt threatening to bombard him through the link. He seemed hyper aware of her emotions now and they were just on the outside of his shields, more so than ever before if he would just let the walls down and examine them. But he couldn't. He couldn't face any mental interaction with his mind raw and wild. Look what he had nearly done that last time.
Last him would have revelled in the strengthened connection, would have sat down on the bed, would have reached for her, drawn her to his chest and let himself comfort her, let her comfort him. This him hung his head and walked from the room, pretending not to hear her quiet tears.
He ran his long fingers over his face, pulling at the ears and running them through his short hair. What right did he have to offer her comfort or accept comfort from her? He could only hurt her more. And the "mine" and "yours" thing concerned him. It also desperately pleased him and, if anything, that concerned him more. He had a feeling it had to do with his action in the console room earlier, vague recollections of ancient history lessons on Gallifreyan mating rights coming to mind, but he'd have to find a book to confirm it and finding a particular book in this mess was not going to be an easy task. Plus he had more pressing concerns than the befuddling human in his room right now. Didn't he?
He walked past the remains of the magnificent bookshelf that used to grace the console room and a book fell from the shelf at his feet. He glanced over toward the time rotor and it glowed at him, the TARDIS giving him her version of a raised eyebrow. He bent and picked up the book, expecting to see a dusty tome of Time Lord history. Instead, he saw the slightly garish and rather inappropriate cover of "An Interspecies Guide to Sex with a Human for Dummies". Nice to know where the TARDIS stood on everything, then.
"Not gonna happen," he muttered to the console. "Not after the way I treated her the last time. An' the way I jus' treated her now." In his defense, he had been completely overwhelmed with everything...no that wasn't really a defense. His behavior had still been unacceptable. He wouldn't blame Rose for not wanting him anymore.
The TARDIS nudged him to go back in, to go back to Rose. "I can't. She's mad at me."
He felt what was probably a mental sigh from his timeship who then responded that Rose was hurt, not mad and really he should get in there if he wanted to salvage the situation. He didn't answer her and didn't move from his spot in the console room, glancing down at the book in his hands, thumbing absently through the pages and feeling a pang, seeing his last version of handwriting grace the margins, making Rose-specific comments.
The TARDIS sighed again and he was suddenly deluged with images, flashes of what had to be a younger Rose's reactions throughout her time with him, always hurt, confused and pushed away by him in his angst and depression, never seeing his own face, just glimpses of a retreating, leather-cased arm or a turned back. Reaching out in pain because he needed her and couldn't figure out how or why and then pushing her away, usually with hurtful words to keep her at bay in his panic.
He reeled back from the connection. That's how Rose saw him, this him? No wonder he had just hurt her, again. Acting just as she expected him to, but nothing like she wanted him to. She probably thought all their time together in his last body meant nothing to him now. And it didn't. It meant everything.
And how did the TARDIS have access to all her memories? She clammed up at the question and closed herself off to him, merely commanding him back into the room again.
He sighed and turned back to his room, replacing the book on the shelf. Rose was deeply asleep when he entered and he briefly considered leaving her in peace but when he turned back to exit, he realized the door had disappeared and the TARDIS hummed at him in a superior fashion. She wasn't going to let this go. He felt a flash of anger that his own ship was manipulating him but then Rose whimpered in her sleep and the anger dissipated immediately.
"Daddy?" she whispered, tossing in her sleep. He reached out to her and she suddenly cried out "DOCTOR!" loud enough to wake a statue, thrashing around and almost clocking him in the face. He gathered her to him on instinct, pressing her into his chest and she clutched at the jumper, murmuring feverishly about churches and cold keys. He kissed her forehead automatically and suddenly she awoke, eyes darting around wildly, her breathing erratic and far too fast.
"Shh...it's ok," he cooed, in a soothing manner he would not have believed possible from this hard body. "I'm righ' here."
She pushed him away and he watched her, hurt at her rejection. He had assumed that when he decided to offer her comfort, she would take it, not push him away as he had seen flashes of himself doing in her memories.
"You were dead. You left me. AGAIN," she said, almost venomously. "End of the earth. The church. Utah. Satellite Five Scotland. France," she said the last word dripping with accusation and unmasked hurt. There was France again, coming up to haunt him. Maybe he could leave a mental message to himself to avoid France in the future at all costs.
He considered his options. He could take her rejection at face value and get up and leave again, although the TARDIS made an angry mental noise at him and forcefully reminded him that the door wasn't coming back anytime soon. Well, he hadn't really wanted to do that anyway. He could offer her more words, not a strong suit of this body apparently however, as no loquacious apologies came to mind. Or he could show her.
He leaned forward and put his hands on either side of her head, careful to avoid her temples and kissed her, somewhere between the fierce claiming he had done earlier and the shy, tentative kiss in the MedBay. She relaxed bonelessly against him and began to return his kiss in earnest and then she suddenly pulled back and, to his enormous surprise, slapped him across the face as hard as she could.
He reeled back off the bed, barely catching himself before falling to the floor. "Rose! What the hell was tha' for?"
"You...you can't jus' storm back in here an' kiss me!" she sputtered.
"But I thought that's wha' you wanted!" he exclaimed, raising his hand to his sore cheek. It was definitely going to bruise. Rose was quickly on her feet and they were squaring off against each other from opposite sides of the bed.
"It's not about wha' I want. It's about wha' WE want. About wha' WE are. I'll not have you kissin' me out of pity or whatever the hell tha' was for...to get yourself out of trouble," she responded, narrowing her eyes at him, hands clenching by her sides. Oh, there was that familiar human-under-attack mode.
"On the contrary, Rose. I think you'll find that kissing to get out of trouble is a very common ape procedure. I was jus' trying to stick with your cultural norms," he said, getting ruder by the minute. This was not going to end well. "Humans seem to use jus' about anythin' for an excuse to have sex." Stupid, stupid, stupid. This mouth was even worse than the last one.
"So tha' was the only reason tha' you kissed me!" she practically yelled at him. Oops...he had walked straight into that one. Her voice raised to an unnatural high and she continued, "An' I am certainly not havin' any make-up sex with you. Not after the way you treated me the las' time, you prick."
"Wha'? No! I jus'..." He tried back pedal, to get a word in edgewise but Rose had bristled and charged on over top of his ineffectual words.
"An' an ape, am I? Oh, yeah, tha's a new one. Go ahead, mock my planet, my species, my mother, I've heard it all. Tell me how young I am, how stupid I am, how lucky I am to be travellin' with you, impressive alien git that you are. Very original, tha' is."
He was starting to deflate under her anger. Would he really say all of those things? He loved Earth, loved humans and loved...anyway. She wasn't stupid. Far from it. Apparently his sensitivity and politeness had disappeared with this regeneration. No wonder she had told his last body she liked how kind he was.
"An' you know the worst part? I was happy to see you again. This you. Excited to steal a few more days with this body. I built the memory of you up in my head, rememberin' all the nice stuff about you and forgettin' all the heartbreak you put me through. You're a bastard," she finished, crossing her arms across her chest.
"I know," he sighed, defeated once again. How was he ever going to survive like this?
Rose made a loud noise of frustration from the opposite side of the bed and he chanced a look back up at her face. "You're so complicated! One minute I want to knock your block off an' the next I want to kiss you."
A little spring of hope welled up inside him. She still wanted to kiss him?
She sighed and settled back down on the bed, turning from him. "It's all mixed signals with you an' I am NOT relivin' tha'. I'm goin' to lay down here an' take a nap an' you're goin' to stay over there an' think about wha' it is tha' you want. When I wake up, we can either work through this now or you can take me where you shoulda taken me in the firs' place an' I suppose we'll pretend like it never happened."
With that, she got back under the duvet and turned her back to him, ending the conversation. She felt the bed depress slightly as he sat down on the other side, felt the confused, conflicted battle of his thoughts and resisted the urge to look deeper or to turn back to him. He needed time to brood and she needed to sleep.
She heard the slight thunk of his boots hitting the floor and moved to her back as she heard him settle against the headboard. There was a slight scrabble and she felt him patting the bed beside her until he found her hand on top of the covers, interlacing their fingers. They both sighed involuntarily at the contact then the lights in the room dimmed and she thought she heard the TARDIS humming in a satisfied manner before she drifted off to sleep.