Several hours later the Doctor hadn't moved from his position against the headboard although the warm creature next to him had. In her sleep, Rose had gradually gravitated to him until she was resting with her arm across his waist and her head against his hip. He could feel her drooling lightly there against the denim and suddenly he felt an unfamiliar pull in the muscles of this new face.

Smiling. He was smiling. How long had it been since he smiled? And she was causing it, silly little human. Asleep. By drooling on him, of all things.

That small little pull of untried muscles decided his mind in a way four and a half hours of brooding had not. He would try his best to become the man she had once known. Together, perhaps, they could find the goodness in this fragile, battered mind and he would make the most of their time together. And then he would take her back to where she had wanted to go in the first place...where she had been expecting to go when his fearful Eighth body had brought her to the company of a madman instead.

The madman knew what he wanted. But would she?

Rose shifted slightly against him, pressing into his side and drifting her head down more so it was resting on his thigh. He moved the hand that had been trapped under her body to her back and tentatively brushed his fingers lightly over her spine, venturing an action that his last body would have found quite natural. He fought a wave of chemical reactions through his body as her hot breath ghosted over his thigh and down, fighting back his arousal. He needed to prove to her that he was willing to make this situation work for them, not for her to wake up to a randy Time Lord with a hard-on. She had made it quite clear that he was going to have to work for that level of intimacy again. He could accept that challenge. He was good at challenges. He would win her heart and her trust again.

Suddenly he felt her breathing shift and the hand on his opposite hip bone tightened, causing his own breathing to shift but for an entirely different reason. His hand on her back froze uncertainly and slowly but deliberately, Rose awoke and disentangled herself from him. He let the suddenly abandoned hand fall on the bed between them and Rose stretched and settled against the headboard next to him and close by and yet so far away.

She turned her head to him and met his nervous blue eyes. Studying him carefully, she thought through her options. Despite her bravado before falling asleep, she was afraid of what he might say and what it might mean for their future. If he gave into his fear and pushed her away, would it change their first encounter with the Autons? Would he even be inclined to go and find her? And what about her reunion with his Tenth form? Would this fight mar everything she had striven so hard to achieve for her future? For theirs?

Time to take the coward's approach, then. Time to run away. That should be familiar enough to him.

He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off, turning from him and swinging her legs off the bed. "Well, I'm goin' to change then we should nip out an' see wha' kind of help the TARDIS, needs, don'cha think?" she said briskly, not really pausing for an answer, just hustling out the newly-reappeared bedroom door.

His open-mouthed expression turned into a frown as he watched her retreating back. So much for talking about their feelings. Oh well. Why had he wanted to do that anyway? It was so domestic. Time Lords didn't do domestic. He snorted and then turned to follow her out the doors to the console room and slowly, the walls that had so very briefly begun to crumble came flashing back up with a resounding clang. Mentally audible to both of them, the TARDIS made a frustrated noise that left the pair of them confused and vaguely annoyed, though with her or each other, they couldn't tell.

Rose retreated into the loo with fresh clothes from her bag, trying to bat away the red thoughts of chastisement the TARDIS was choosing to bombard her with at the moment. When she emerged into the console room a short while later wearing a pair of black shorts and a tight pink t-shirt, she found the Doctor jammed under the console muttering to himself, long jean-clad legs sticking out haphazardly and large, booted feet resting on the grating above. Leaning on the doorframe, she was once again deluged with a wave of painful nostalgia for him. Followed by a long-forgotten naughty fantasy she used to entertain while watching him from the jump seat, a fantasy of straddling those trapped legs and "servicing" him while he was stuck there. Blushing wildly and now trying to ignore the wave of purple amusement from the TARDIS and the sound of the Doctor smacking his surprised head off something, she quickly turned away from the tantalizing sight of him and began to again remove charred wood from the walls.

Grateful that Rose couldn't see his flushed (and now bruised) face or anything else that might indicate what he had just been thinking (that had been him, hadn't it?) he tried to focus back on what he had been doing. A few deep breaths and some more carefully controlled biological dampeners and he was back to swearing fluently at the mess of machinery in front of him. This body seemed quite fond of colorful language even if the TARDIS wasn't translating it. Part of him (probably a leftover remnant of his Byronic self) was glad Rose couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, although he was fairly certain it wasn't too hard to guess the meaning.

The next few hours were filled only with the sounds of wires sparking, Rose's shuffling and his quiet curses. Eventually, the comforting sounds of Rose moving around the room diminished to nothing and he emerged from the console stretching and cracking his back, stiff from the uncomfortable angle. His eyes swept over the silent room to find her missing.

He tried to hide the embarrassing well of panic that was surging through him at the possibility of her abandonment even though there was really nowhere she could have gone. He tried to convince himself that it was merely concern for her that he was striding at an unnaturally high pace through the halls of the TARDIS looking for her even though nothing in the ship would harm her. He tried to tell himself that he certainly didn't need the comforting human noise of her presence to work peacefully in the console room.

He tried and he failed.

Finally the TARDIS seemed to take pity on him and pulled him toward a specific door. Without taking heed of which door he was opening, he wrenched the handle and barged in. Once inside, he sucked in a painful breath and tried to retreat out but, once again, the TARDIS had taken away his exit strategy. He stood with his eyes painfully screwed shut until the she nudged him gently, a small golden push. Opening them reluctantly he looked around at what had once been his favorite room in what was literally and what felt figuratively a lifetime ago.

The lush green grass and gentle, sunny warmth of the Butterfly Room spread out like a balm in front of him. He had, at one time, come here frequently to bask in the peace and tranquility. As the Time War raged through his life, however, it became too painful to come here. Too much like a lie, too much of a comfort that he didn't deserve. Why was she forcing him here now? Why?

A few brief tears graced his cheek and he slowly, hesitantly climbed the gently sloping hill in front of him. Once at the top, in the shade of a tree, he looked down toward the blazing sun and saw Rose, silhouetted against the golden sky, arms outstretched, revelling in the touch of countless butterflies who seemed just as drawn to her as he himself was. Was there nothing in the universe that didn't rejoice in her? Seeing her there, he was struck again with the bitter contrast between them, him standing alone in the shadows and her positioned firmly in the light surrounded by beauty. He sank to his knees, cradling his head in his hands so he was no longer subjected to this wry depiction of their incompatibility.

Lost once again in his melancholy, he jumped when he felt a soft touch to his shoulder. Lowering his hands and opening his eyes, he saw Rose standing in front of him, a gentle, concerned look on her face, with one hand resting on his shoulder.

"C'mon," she said softly, reaching down with both of her hands to pull him into an upright position. Once he was standing, she dropped his hands and they stared at each other again, him down from his still-baffling new height and her up into painfully familiar sad blue eyes.

"I know what you need," she said suddenly, smiling at him brightly and holding out her hand, playfully waggling her fingers. He took it automatically but still stared at her, not sure what she was saying.

She held his glance for one more long, charged moment and then she whispered "Run!" taking off and yanking his arm, dragging him along with her so he had no choice but to follow. Together, hand in hand, they ran and ran over the soft green grass, boots and trainers falling in tempo with one another. After a few long increasingly breathless moments, Rose turned to jog backwards from him, still keeping a hold on his hand but transforming her flushed face into a mischievous smile.

They stopped for a moment and she dropped his hand but before he could complain about the loss of her, she leaned in to kiss him on the tip of the nose, quickly. As he began reciprocate, to capture her lips, she whispered devilishly, "Tag! You're it!" and then darted away in the opposite direction.

"Oi!" he yelled, the exclamation coming easily to this body and, growling, he chased after her. He caught up to her near a tree, grabbing her around the waist, scattering butterflies and pulling her in for a similar, although slightly less chaste drift of his lips over her ear before crowing "Tag!" back at her, once again using unfamiliar muscles pulled into a slightly maniacal feeling grin.

They continued their playful game for a few more rounds, the bouts between kisses growing shorter and the kisses growing longer until once Rose pulled away with his eyes still shut and momentarily disappeared. He prowled around a moment, looking for her, still caught in the game when suddenly a noise and unexpected contact to his back from behind a large tree caused him to whirl around and pin his sudden "attacker" to the ground with a blindingly fast, automatic, aggressive ferocity born out of forty-six years of war.

Panting and momentarily blinded by his animalistic, soldier-like instincts it took him a moment to realize that he was lying on top of a wide-eyed, fearful-smelling Rose, one large severe hand securing her arms above her head and the other wrist pressed up against her throat not dangerously but certainly threateningly. Horrified, he let go of her and scrambled as far away from her as he could, closing in on himself, arms wrapped around his knees, head down. He couldn't bear to look at her, to see that fear pointed at him, to see her horror.

What had he done now? He had been having fun. Fun! Him. And then he'd flipped out like some PTSD'd idiot. Like a dysfunctional human. Like a madman. He could have hurt her. He let out a strangled cry, trying to contain his anguish. What if he hadn't come to his senses? Painfully, he remembered a flash of Peri's similarly frightened face more lifetimes ago. What had he been thinking that he could overcome this, that he could interact with her like a normal person? That they could mend the inherent damage that was him. He curled in on himself further.

He felt her warmth come closer to him and recoiled away but instead of leaving, it came closer still. He felt a tentative hand reach out to his foot and flinched at the touch, making the hand retreat quickly. "I'm sorry," a soft voice full of pain and compunction whispered, followed by the sound of legs untangling to stand up.

He raised his head to look at her, now towering over him and yet so far away, closed in on herself, tears on her cheeks. He risked a look at the emotions pressing in around his shields and saw with amazement they were not tears of fear but of remorse. She was sorry to have triggered that painful response in him. She was feeling guilty at hurting him. Him!

He wanted to yell at her, to tell her it was his fault not hers and that she was crazy to be anywhere near him but for once, this mind overruled his mouth and did what was best for him. Instead of yelling, he let go of his legs and reached out to her, inviting her to him in a tentative embrace. She fell on him immediately and then tensed, as if afraid it had been too much. Another new hurdle to overcome.

He pulled her to his chest and they fell back in the grass. Her hands fisted in his jumper and he whispered his apology softly in her hair. After a few moments, she trailed her hands down his torso and, to his enormous surprise, under the hem of his jumper and undershirt to cling to him around his bare stomach.

"You're sweaty," she murmured into his chest, chin against the admittedly damp fabric of his jumper.

"So are you," he retorted, letting his own hand drift briefly over the thin,slightly wet line of skin above her waist visible from her rucked up shirt and feeling her shiver slightly.

"S'normal for me though," she said, raising her head to look at him, shifting so the top half of her was resting on the top half of him. "Thought you didn't sweat."

"I don't. Or rather, I won't. New body. Internal functions are still sortin' themselves out. This body's not sure wha' its internal temperature's supposed t'be yet so it's compensatin' in a more primal fashion," he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Oi! I thought you liked my 'primal fashion'!" she said, thumping him lightly on the chest and letting her tongue peek out the corner of her mouth. Maybe they would be all right after all.

"I do like it. On you," he said. "But for me...ugh," he said, letting one hand raise the jumper to his sensitive nose, not that he really needed to. He could smell it from where he was. Could analyze every hormone, every chemical coming from both him and her with this perceptive nose. And the hormones coming off her were a surprising and intoxicating cocktail he was almost afraid to believe.

Rose shifted once again, pulling her hands out from under his shirt and laying them on his chest over his hearts. She considered him seriously for a minute and then seemed to decide something internally. If he wanted to, he could probably find out but his telepathy was still raw and a bit wild and he was afraid of hurting her even more.

Once again, Rose stood and offered him her hand. "C'mon then," she said, pulling him (albeit not very successfully) to his feet. He was a bit too tall and a bit too heavy for her to really do it, but he like seeing her try, liked the way he fell into her when she pulled a bit too hard.

"Where're we goin' now?" he asked, letting her drag him through the Butterfly Room toward the door. This body didn't like being drug places, it liked being in charge, being in control. But for Rose...control. He could give her a bit of control.

"Well, since you're unfamiliar with the 'primal' nature of your biological reaction, I thought you migh' not know how we inferior lower species deal with such an inconvenience," she said with no hint of offense. Instead, there was some other meaning lurking beneath the surface of her words but he, for the lives of him, couldn't figure out what it was. Although he was finding himself rather turned on by her scientific-sounding explanation, even if she was making fun of him a bit.

"And tha' would be wha', exactly?" he asked, still letting her lead the way through the halls of the TARDIS, unsure of their eventual destination. He found himself being taken through the steel door of his bedroom and his hearts began to speed up, desperately hoping he wasn't misconstruing this.

She finally turned to face him, dropping his hand and looking him right in the eye. "We take showers," she said pointedly, marching into the large bathroom attached and gracefully peeling off her shirt, dropping it behind her as she went, leaving a once again open-mouthed Doctor staring after her retreating and increasingly less-clothed form.

By the time he could move once again and had followed her into the bathroom, she had turned on the shower, steam rising from the warm water and was patiently (and nakedly) waiting for him. He merely stared at her (he seemed to do that a lot nowadays), dry-mouthed and gaping as she stood, completely unabashed in front of him. At least, unabashed for a few moments. Then a delightful blush began to creep over her, starting with her cheeks and flushing downward under his intent gaze.

He had never seen her like this, bared to him, not with these eyes. The first time had been fast and brutal...and he hadn't gotten a chance to see her properly...hadn't taken the time to look. He was taking the time now.

Oh, how he had missed her. Missed her and not known that he was missing her. Felt an empty place in his hearts where she should have been.

To break the silence, Rose suddenly asked, "Where's the mirror in here?"

He turned his head, surprised, to look at the blank wall above the sink. "I asked the TARDIS not to have one. Didn't wanna know wha' I look like," he said.

"Oh," she said, softly, moving toward him and putting her hands on the hem of his shirt. "Is this ok?" she asked, looking up at him with worried eyes. How could she possibly be worried? He obediently raised his arms to help her and she pulled his jumper and undershirt off over his head. However, he stopped her when she reached for his belt.

"I'll get it. You go ahead," he said. She cocked her head to the side but didn't argue, climbing into the steaming shower. He took a moment to get himself slightly back under control from seeing her bare form before removing his boots, socks and jeans. He really needed to start wearing pants.

While Rose splashed around the shower, he took a surreptitiously look down at his body. It seemed acceptable enough and, for the first time, he wished he could see it all for himself, to know what she was seeing. But then, he knew what he would see. A broken, scarred warrior. A killer. A coward who could never deserve her. He turned back to the shower without another look down.

The gorgeous woman already there moved in the large shower beside him and for a while, they simply let the warm water cascade down on them together, washing away their hurts and cares, simply being near one another, not daring to touch each other and break the peaceful moment. Eventually, Rose moved to stand behind him, letting his body block the water and reaching out a tentative, soapy hand to caress his back. He melted at her feather-light touch then he felt her lean in close and press her lips gently to his spine, causing an involuntary shiver to shoot from his shoulders to his knees.

"Since you don't know what this body looks like yet, how about I describe it to you, yeah?" Rose whispered tentatively against his skin, still with light touches so different from the frantic grapple of their earlier coupling, still a little afraid of his reaction from the Butterfly Room. When he didn't respond, she continued, letting her fingers apply a little more pressure to the tense muscles of his back, "Just relax and let me do this."

Control, again. He took a deep breath. He could do this.

Slowly he nodded his head and felt her shift to kneel behind him. He stood stock still and felt her reach out with slick hands to caress his feet and ankles. "Big feet with long, graceful toes that you almost always keep hidden in your boots which is good 'cause you're always droppin' spanners an' things on top of 'em. Learned a good many alien curse words from you like tha'." He could feel and hear the affectionate smile in her voice and let it fall down around him, soothing like the warm water.

"Strong ankles leadin' into well-toned calves, probably from all tha' runnin'." She re-soaped her hands and spent a few moments caressing each calf with concentrated movements that he might have expected more for a different portion of his anatomy, which, for its part was working desperately to make itself known.

"Bit knobby knees," she said, pressing a kiss to the back of each, making him moan softly like the man he used to be. "An' muscular thighs, so tight and sturdy." With that, she ran her hands up the backs of them, following the path with her tongue and then tracing her fingernails lightly over the insides, making him press his eyes shut. He heard her stand up behind him but her hands stayed on his thighs drifting up them eventually to tightly grasp his bum, kneading the muscles there and nearly turning him into jelly on the spot.

"Mmm...one of my favorite spots, but you already knew tha'. Fantastic arse. Can't tell you how many times I've wanted to do this. How many times I sat on that pilot's bench lookin' at those tight jeans, just imagining what it would be like to touch you, to get to do this." He made another involuntary noise and realized that he was so painfully hard he had to reach down and wrap his hand around his erection for some sensation, resisting the urge to stroke but desperate for some relief from the building, throbbing pressure inside him.

Her hands slowly, almost reluctantly, drifted up from his arse to the tense muscles of his lower back which she kneaded and massaged as well, moving up and down with varying degrees of pressure until he felt all the tension there melt away under the hot water and her hot hands. She replaced her hands with her mouth, letting her teeth graze the protruding bony bits of his spine. He gasped and shuddered. "Lean, strong back and shoulders that carry the weight of the universe."

She kissed each shoulder in response and pushed on him gently, silently instructing him to turn around. He obliged, water now cascading on his well-loved back and her hands went immediately into his damp hair, nails scratching the scalp and he was barely able to control the sudden surge of his hips forward toward her, toward the completion he wanted so badly inside her. But even more he wanted to hear her continue, to describe to him this new body as she saw it in a way he could never see it, as a thing of beauty, a thing to be desired. She amazed him at every turn.

"Short, dark hair I always wanted to touch. Imagined runnin' my hands over it jus' like this." He made a long, low sound of appreciation and she chuckled darkly. "In my fantasies you almost always make a noise like tha', yep." Her confession of fantasizing about him made him want her even more, made him want to hear every fantasy and then show her the reality of each. Multiple times.

He bent his head obligingly, lowering it from his newfound height so she could continue. Her fingers drifted down to what he had decided earlier felt like rather large ears. Rose's mouth curved in an affectionate smile, fingering each one delicately before pulling his head even lower so she could take one earlobe into her mouth, nibbling none too delicately and allowing her tongue to drift in. He wasn't able to control the surge of his hips this time, thrusting once into his own hand and the hand not on his length flexed at his side, desperate to hold her. "Big ears," she commented, into one of them. Assumption correct then. "You're always makin' fun of 'em but I love 'em. An' you know what they say about blokes with big ears," she continued, pointedly glancing down to his impressive, stiff length currently partially hidden in his hand. The combination of her wicked glance and the peek of her tongue in her teeth made him thrust forward again, crying out at the sensation that was too much and yet wasn't enough.

Allowing her lips to now ghost along his jawline with light, butterfly kisses she knew he was imagining elsewhere, she continued a bit breathlessly, affected by his display and his diminishing control, "Rugged jaw bone and high cheekbones. Strong, silent brow," she said, pulling it down to press a kiss there as well, her hands on either side of his face, keeping it bowed. His eyes fluttered shut and she immediately kissed both eyelids.

"Beautiful, ice blue eyes that see right through my soul. Expressive eyes that have seen so much and are able to light me on fire with the smallest glance." He opened them suddenly to stare into her own, barely an inch away. Right now they were entirely black with just a small rim of hazel around the outside, her obvious desire fanning the flames of his own to a painful, fabulous burn. She held his gaze for a moment, letting her love shine through at him, hoping he would receive the message and then focused back on her task.

"Elegant Roman nose," she commented, nuzzling it with her own. Big then, too, he thought. No wonder he could smell so well. "An' soft, beautiful lips." She ran her fingers over them, tracing the outline and gasping as he sucked one of them into his mouth, wrapping his tongue around it before allowing her to remove it. Those lips then met hers for a brief moment, a communion of love, before she continued down to run her tongue along his Adam's apple, sucking lightly, causing him to shudder against her.

"Wiry, sparse chest with just a bit of dark hair." She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest and stomach, massaging the muscles of his chest as she had done his back and bending forward to take his nipples in her mouth one at a time, teasing the painfully hard peaks further, nipping at them slightly and drawing another guttural sound from him.

"Slim frame. Your ribs show a bit," she said, suddenly poking him and rewarded by an indignant "Oi!". Her questing fingers went to the tight, muscular stomach, massaging it and causing a whole new flood of arousal to sweep through him, starting at the pit of his stomach and rushing to his groin, making him let go of his member, already pulsing with pre-cum, so it rose to rigid attention so near her hands. She yearned so badly to take him in hand, to stroke him and then take him in her mouth and, as if reading her thoughts, he twitched and rippled, letting loose another helpless noise, but Rose wasn't finished with her exploration yet so she restrained the urge. As soon as she touched him she knew they would both be so frantic with need it would be over before it began. As it was, her body was humming with arousal so much that she could barely focus on him and keep from touching herself as he had been.

Her hands transferred to his left arm, circling it with both of hers and starting at his shoulder, running her hands the full length over suddenly tensed biceps until she reached his wrist similar to the motion she had been mimicking on his calves, repeating the action on the other as well. "Sinewy, sturdy arms that've carried me to bed, comforted me when I cried and held me while we danced."

She pressed a kiss to each wrist and then finally came to rest on his right hand. She slowly took each finger into her mouth, swirling her tongue around and letting her teeth graze each digit on its exit. He watched with rapt fascination and was hit, hard, with the memory of the first time she took him in her mouth in her flat so long ago for him. He groaned and pressed himself against her, his hands on the small of her back, more fluid leaking from the tip, his erection trapped between them at her stomach, her body heat and skin giving him a small bit of the contact he craved.

"An' this hand. The hand tha' started everything." He glanced down to see their fingers entwined and for a moment, forgot about the pressing need that was clouding every one of his senses. She was watching him with deep, fathomless orbs of hazel. "From the moment you took my hand an' told me to run, I knew I'd found my place in the universe."

"An' where is tha'?" he asked softly, forgetting for a moment who he was and what he'd done, forgetting that she was a only a human and would leave him far too soon, forgetting his pain and loneliness and grief, his world solely and sharply focused on her next words.

"Beside you," she said, simply and it was the perfect thing to say. He finally surged forward to capture her lips with his own, offering her everything he had, everything he ever was and everything he ever would be if she would just stay there, beside him for the rest of Time and never leave him.

His steel erection pressed into her stomach and they ground their bodies together with furious need, suddenly delirious with frantic attempts to occupy the same space. He lifted her easily, settling her on the edge of the handy little shelf in the shower and she immediately wrapped her legs around his body, sinking onto him with no hesitation whatsoever. He hadn't wanted the second time to be like this, so like the first but he was gone and so was she.

As he surged forward, sinking deeply into her at this new angle he muttered a filthy Gallifreyan expletive, surprising himself with its ferocity but, oh, was it good. He said it again, changing it to a verb and adding her name. He rippled in her powerfully, reaching a spot in her velvet heat he remembered from the margins of his book and making her cry out with him. His proper Eighth self would be appalled at his language in front of the lady. Of course, he might also be appalled at ferociously fucking Rose against the shower wall. He grunted and increased his pace slightly at the thought of that other body with Rose and the terrible idea that she might have liked it better. He would erase all of that. He would make her love this body even more, let it bring her to new heights.

He changed speed once again, trying to listen to the internal language of her body and to match her needs with his own, cursing her, praising her, urging her on in words she wouldn't understand echoed by her own fabulous sounds.

Suddenly he felt her reach out to him mentally and his rhythm stuttered, his mind recoiling from the connection. His eyes flew open to see her watching him cautiously. "I'm sorry, Rose. I can't. I jus' can't righ' now. Please let this be enough. Let me be enough," he pleaded, faltering. He raised his hands to the sides of her face, carefully far from her temples and kissed her desperately, rippling with the need to stay with her, to not let her reject him for his inadequacy.

"It's fine, it's ok. I'm sorry I asked," she answered when he released her lips, astonished to hear his plea and see his vulnerability. Her mind had reached for his instinctively and she hadn't thought about him not being able to handle the contact yet.

They didn't move for a moment, afraid that they wouldn't be able to reclaim the passion but he was still rock-solid inside her and she was still slick with need. "Doctor," she whispered, willing him to look back up at her. Eventually he did, slightly guarded blue eyes gazing into hazel. And then she raised her hips and uttered his Gallifreyan curse back at him, correct verb tense and all, and he was once again surging into her with newfound heat.

He drug his hand down her body from her face, settling it between them and working her swollen clit in time with his frenetic action. He was so close but he refused to come until she did. He would bring her satisfaction. He wouldn't fail her in this, too. Finally, she tensed around him, tightening almost painfully and crying his name, the sounds of her release echoing around the shower.

With a triumphant, guttural cry he rippled twice more, hoarsely crying the other word he had used earlier, repeatedly, in the console room, causing it to burn in the forefront of her mind again and, to both their surprise, making her come violently and completely again with him, meeting his body surge for surge. After a moment, he withdrew and sank to the floor of the shower, his knees too weak to stand, completely spent.

A few moments later, she nudged his shoulder with her foot and he looked up to see her beaming down at him from her shelf perch. He stood and gently lifted her to the floor, wordlessly taking the soap and washing the proof of their actions away from both of their bodies.

Stepping out of the shower together, they wrapped up in fluffy white towels and, hand in hand, retired to his large bed. Without another sound, they dropped the towels and clung to each other, letting sleep take them both. He would not have nightmares tonight. How could he? Morning would come and they would have new challenges to face but she would still be here. Beside him.