Chapter Three – Shall We Dance?
"So Doctor, is there anything I should know about Gallifreyan 'dancing' that might be a bit different from what I'm used to?" Rose tugged him gently towards the bed and gave him a teasing grin.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he blushed a bit. "Well... not really different, although I'm sure with our connection, the sensations might be a little more intense. Well, I say a little, but it will probably be quite a bit more intense." She could feel his nervousness as well as a hint of fear which was a bit confusing. He had told her that he'd 'danced' before, so what was he so nervous about?
"Doctor, what's wrong? You do want to, don't you?"
"YES! Yes, of course I do! It's just that, well... I told you that this wasn't done on Gallifrey to produce children... not really done at all as far as I know. Taboo subject to be sure." He started running his fingers through his hair now and mussing it up in a way that she wanted to be doing right now.
"But you told me that you've done this before?"
"Well, yes... once or twice, but it was more of a situation where it was that or be executed. Not exactly ideal situations to be sure. I know how it all works and such and believe me Rose, I have wanted this with you for so long, but it may take me some time to get everything quite right." There were a few books that he had skimmed once or twice and from the stories that Jack used to tell, he could probably make detailed diagrams. But practical experience was another matter altogether. Would he match up to a human lover?
"Of course, Doctor. Don't worry yourself about it. It's... well, it's been a while for me as well. I haven't been with anyone since I met you. It hardly compares with centuries, but this doesn't have to be rushed and it doesn't have to be perfect. It's a new something for us to learn, yeah?" She gave him a comforting hug and pulled him with her to sit on the edge of the bed.
Rose tried to push towards him feelings of reassurance, love and desire. She felt his fear slide away, although the nervousness was still lingering. She pulled off the t shirt she had put on when she got ready for bed and kissed him as she brought his hand up to touch her. He gently explored her body with his hands just as they had done in the shower at the hotel. She tangled the fingers of one hand into his hair as the other found its way downwards towards his bum (both of which she had long been admiring). Their lips separated and his kisses started trailing down her neck towards her chest and he gently guided her to lay down on the pillows. She was still wearing her knickers and he had a pair of boxers on, but he pressed his hips against hers as he kissed and licked and sucked on her breasts. She dug her hands into his hair and thrust back against him, muttering encouragements and basking in the waves of desire she felt rolling through their connection. She tried to tug at his boxers, but found that she couldn't reach with their differences in height and his thorough attention towards her chest blocking her way.
'Please, Doctor! I need you now!'~ She pushed a wave of impatience towards him in the hopes that he would get the idea.
His head popped up with a slightly dazed look on his face as he seemed to be trying to process what came next before he grinned at her and reached for her knickers. She moaned happily and wriggled her hips to help him take them off, then quickly grabbed for his bottoms before he could lie back down with her. She rolled on top of him to take some control over the situation and stroked her hands over his chest and abdominals. Making her way further south, she found him to be quite ready for her already. She rubbed herself against him as she slid up to meet his lips for a kiss and positioned their bodies perfectly. When they finally came together, they both closed their eyes and she shouted, "Yes!" as he choked out, "Oh Rose!" And after a few seconds to catch their breath, they began to move against each other, quickly finding their rhythm. The feelings flowing between them made it easy to know when the other enjoyed something and it wasn't long before they were both shouting out their release.
She pulled to duvet over them and snuggled into his side. They both sighed happily and gave each other sweet kisses. They chatted for a while about the lighter things that happened while they were apart. She told him about taking some classes and working with the researchers at Torchwood. He told her some of the details of happier trips with Martha and Donna. After another round of practice at what was sure to be one of their new favourite pass times, they fell asleep in a warm embrace and found themselves sharing the same dreams of walking happily through fields of red grass.
The Doctor awoke to find himself alone in bed, but smelled the most heavenly scent he could imagine... Rose's banana pancakes. He found his boxers where they had been tossed across the room and made his way to the kitchen. From the doorway, he watched her hips sway as she prepared breakfast, clad only in her t shirt and knickers and a pair of pink, fluffy slippers. It was adorable and he couldn't resist hugging her from behind and placing a quick kiss to her neck.
"Good morning, sleepy head! It's not often that I wake up before you do." She reached back to ruffle his hair and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
"Well, I was involved in some rather vigorous physical activities last night..." He sniffed haughtily and reached to straighten a tie that wasn't there, quickly slid his hands down to put in pockets that weren't there either and settled for clasping his hands behind his back and rocking on his heels.
"Are you saying that I wore you out, old man?" she said with a wink.
"Old?! Honestly, this body was created only two days ago. Now who's old by comparison?" Yes, his past was still his own, but this kind of playful teasing was just the way they were. Up until the moment the regeneration energy went into the hand, he and the Time Lord were exactly the same person. It was a split, perhaps an uneven one in the biology department, but still the same man.
"You still are, because new body or not, you are still over 900, husband." She smiled teasingly as she flipped the last of the pancakes onto a plate and headed towards the table where tea and syrup were waiting for them. He giggled at her calling him husband and followed her to the table happily.
"Well, my darling wife, shall we let your mother take her time in planning our human ceremony or set her a deadline? We do need to do a little more shopping today." He dug into his pancakes and sighed happily, savouring the flavours he hadn't tasted in years.
"It would probably be best to give her a bit of a deadline or she's liable to spend a year and a half organizing something to rival Princess Di's wedding back in our home universe. If we only give her a month or two, she'll be forced to keep things relatively simple." Visions of puff pastry dresses and three inch heels made her cringe as she ran through thoughts of the most casual wedding locations she might be able to insist on.
"Hmm, well, I think I can survive a month and maybe by then we will be done with those initial project ideas we had for Torchwood and our honeymoon trip could kick off our little around the world exploration tour, eh?" They grinned at each other goofily as they each mentally added to the list of locations to visit. She decided to test this communicating mentally without touching by trying to send him an image of the two of them drinking big fruity drinks while lounging on a sunny beach. He raised his eyebrows at her and made a happy, giggly noise from the back of his throat, making her pretty sure that he got the message. He added to her idea by sending back an image of some of the other things they could do on a beach with a little less clothing in the way.
After tidying up from breakfast, a shared shower, a few false starts at getting dressed, followed by another needed shower, they finally made their way out for the day to go shopping. Rose had saved up a fair amount of money in her time at Torchwood since she didn't really spend much time socializing and had no desire to decorate her life with unneeded stuff that would just be left behind. It meant that they could browse the jewellery stores without too much concern over prices. Of course, neither of them were interested in anything too extravagant either. They settled on a lovely solitaire engagement ring for her and matching plain gold wedding bands for the pair of them. The Doctor had plans to do some engraving on them before the ceremony, but he'd keep that part to himself for now.
They found a nice little restaurant where they shared a plate of appetizers for lunch and spent perhaps a little to long licking crumbs and sauces off of each other's fingers. With the look of lovesick fools, they started walking around this parallel London while Rose pointed out some of the differences from their home universe. As the afternoon went on, they made their way back towards their flat to take the car to the Tyler mansion. This time, she let him drive as she gave him directions.
"This is a great car, Rose! I used to have a fantastic little car during the time I was stuck on Earth working for UNIT. It was bright yellow and I made all kinds of special improvements to it. I named it Bessy! Does your car have a name? I could make some modifications to it you know.."
"Doctor! You're rambling again. Are you nervous about going to my parents' place?"
"Well, it isn't so much about your family as it is about the prospect of discussing creating a human identity for me here. I suppose I'll just stick with the same name I've always used in similar situations, John Smith. It's served me well enough before. This is just feeling a lot more permanent than my previous uses of the name. Even when I was exiled to Earth, I knew it wasn't forever." He felt a bit of apprehension from her and rushed to reassure her, "Oh, Rose! I'm not upset over being here with you permanently. It's just the idea of being tied down to that name and identity while knowing that it isn't really me."
"I understand, Doctor. When we first came here and they made up the back story for where I came from, it all felt so phony and pointless. But, just like those other times that you've used the name John Smith, it's just a cover. The people who are important in our lives know exactly who we really are and that's what matters. You'll always be my Doctor." He took her hand and twined their fingers together. Rose turned up the radio and they spent the rest of the drive singing along to Ian Drury.
They pulled into the driveway of the Tyler mansion and made their way up the front walk. Before they even reached the stairs, a blur of strawberry blond two year old was jumping into Rose's arms. "Oi, little man! What have you been up to today?"
"Mummy took me to the park to play on the swings and then I had a peanut butter and 'nana sandwich and then I played with my rocket ship and then I saw your car coming and came to get you to go colour with me!" Tony counted off his activities on his fingers while Rose carried him back towards the front door where Jackie was waiting to greet them.
"Come on, Tony! Give them a minute to get themselves in the door first!" Jackie took him back into her arms as she walked them through to the sitting room. The room was nicely decorated and homey. It was quite different from what the Doctor remembered when he last visited here as wait staff. Now it looked lived in rather than looking like an art gallery to show off their wealth. There were toys scattered on the floor and colouring books with a container filled with random crayons, coloured pencils and markers.
The Doctor sat down on the floor with Tony, eager to get to know his little brother-in-law. "I'll colour with you Tony-roni and we can let your mum and big sister chat for a bit." Jackie eyed him warily, wondering at his sudden acceptance of 'domestics,' but sat on the couch with Rose where they could watch over the two of them.
"How are you doing, sweetheart? This isn't exactly what you were expecting right now." Jackie fussed with the tea cups on the coffee table as she went into mother hen mode.
"We're doing just fine, mum. Settling in and making plans. It isn't what any of us were expecting, but it's going to be fantastic." She smirked a bit at the wink the Doctor gave her when she said 'fantastic.' Suddenly, her mother's gaze landed on her left hand and her eyes went wide.
"What's this then? Already? You've barely been back here two days and you're already making those kind of plans?" Jackie was happy and all, but wasn't it a bit sudden?
"Oh, this coming from the woman who was marrying a parallel version of her twenty years dead husband within a week of getting here? Why did you think I was willing to risk my life throwing myself across the universe to get back to him? Don't think I can't do the math to figure out how quickly Tony was conceived!" She had been ready to stay behind with him in a different universe, did her mother not realize the level of commitment she had already shown towards him?
"Alright, alright... it's just a bit of a shock, that's all. I really am happy for you. Both of you."
"Thank you, mum. Would you plan it for us? I know you love putting together those big parties now and we'd like to have the wedding soon. Maybe a month or so?" She fiddled with her new ring a bit, hoping they could get past this conversation without any big arguments from her mother.
"Oh, sweetheart, I'd love to! Only a month though? How am I supposed to get all the important people here so quickly? The president's calendar is always so busy and you know how all those Vitex people are. There's no time for a custom dress and the cake and..."
"Mum! Can't we just keep it small? I don't have a lot of friends here, but maybe a few coworkers and family?" Oh she had been hoping to avoid a media circus.
"But what about..." sensing the oncoming argument, The Doctor jumped in with his usual knack for talking his way out of difficult situations.
"Jackie! How about this? You get one month to put together however big or small an event as you can manage and we won't complain about all the people that we don't know, so long as we get to pick our own apparel? You can pick the food, the decorations, the cake, the music... all that typical human wedding type stuff and we will show up happy and on time and smile for all the silly paparazzi that try to crash the party. Sound good?" Hopefully they could avoid the future argument over the fact that they'd both want to be wearing trainers the whole day.
"Oh, I suppose so. I guess I should be happy that you aren't just running off to Vegas or something."
'If she only knew that we were already married according to your people,'~ Rose thought to him.
'I know. If it weren't for that, I might just have dragged you off to Vegas for a drive-thru wedding!'He winked at her which was thankfully missed by Jackie as she ran off to grab her laptop to look up caterers and decorators.
Dinner was relatively peaceful, despite listening to Jackie going on and on about all her plans for their wedding. The Doctor and Rose amused themselves by having their own private mental conversation, teasing each other about banana flavoured wedding cakes and serving all the guests chips. At least (so far) Jackie seemed to have forgotten the stipulation of them choosing their own clothes.
After dinner, Pete asked Rose and the Doctor to join him in his study to go over a few things. "Well, it sounds like we'd better rush some of this along so that we can get you a marriage license and passports then. I don't suppose you've thought much about a job yet, Doctor?" Pete was shuffling through some of the papers on his desk as the Doctor sat down in the big leather chair opposite him and Rose crawled into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. ~'Mmm... that's nice.'
"Actually, Pete, we have been discussing that a bit. Rose and I have thought of a few quick but important projects we might be able to help Torchwood with up until the wedding and then, we had planned to work a little more freelance as needed. We really are more the travelling type."
"What kind of projects?" Pete hoped his list of wants would match up a bit with what they had in mind before they disappeared again.
Rose jumped in here, since she was more aware of this Torchwood's needs than the Doctor was, "We can help sort through the alien technology to label it and dispose of anything really dangerous and the Doctor said he can help improve your translation software too."
"Alright, I can see where those are definitely high on my priority list. How would the two of you feel about being our quick response team for things happening outside of our usual operating area? That does seem to be your usual style." Pete was really hoping not to lose out on the Doctor's vast knowledge as a resource for Torchwood.
"Well, yes, I suppose we do have some experience in that area," the Doctor agreed with a grin. "As long as you aren't expecting any kind of paperwork reports or anything, I'm sure we can find a way to swing in and save the day as needed."
"Sounds good to me! Let's get the rest of this paperwork in order and see if we can find a way to delegate the recording of events to a clean-up crew."
They managed to come up with a plausible back story for the Doctor that they could feed to the media and arranged for his identification, passport, bank accounts and Torchwood ID cards. With plans to meet up at Torchwood the next day, Rose and the Doctor said their goodbyes and made their way back home.