The Doctor watched coolly as the Master left. The man certainly liked to play with fire, but then he always had, even when they were children together. He had been a little mad for as long as the Doctor could remember. This time it might get him killed for good and the Doctor wouldn't be able to stop it. The sheer force of the Time Vortex in her mind had almost overwhelmed him, yet she lived with it seeming unharmed. She should be dead, long dead. She was impossible.

Rose was stirring in his arms and when he touched her face their link flared. She jerked awake, stumbling as she tried to find her feet. He held her steady and she clung to him. He could feel her breasts against his chest and his cock twitched, reminding him of what the Master had walked in on. He could smell the background aroma of her arousal. He forced the feeling away, out of his thoughts, but he couldn't quite keep it from slipping back through the cracks to torment him with her pressed against him like that. Their link flared again and he gasped and backed away from her. She almost lost her balance before steadying herself, giving him a puzzled look.

"Doctor? What happened?"

He looked at her face, wanting to plunder that mouth with his tongue, and maybe his cock too. They hadn't done that yet. Would she? Did she do that? Oh yes, she did, he'd rummaged through some of her sex fantasies during the formation of their link. He'd never had that before but he wanted it. He wanted those full, wide lips of hers wrapped around his cock. He wanted -

He managed to say, "The Master tried to interfere with our link." A half-truth was the most effective kind of lie.

She frowned, her brown eyes thoughtful, and touched her head gingerly. "Did he try to get into my mind like...you got into my mind?

The Doctor grunted a noise that he hoped she would register as a "yes". He wanted her so badly, wanted to shove her up against the wall and fuck her senseless. He wanted to grab on to the tendrils of their link and stroke them, light up the pleasure centers in both their brains. He wanted to look at more of her thoughts and memories and let her emotions sink in to him like like gentle waves absorbed into the ocean. Then there was that power in her head, the Vortex locked away in a pretty golden package. No matter what he told the Master, the temptation was there for him too. What would he see, if he touched that power? What would he become? A monster? A god?

He didn't understand, no matter how many times he reviewed his memories, how she could have spent more than a year with him with that power inside her and he never sensed it. He'd removed it all back when he had big ears and a leather jacket, sent it back to the TARDIS with his dying breath. He'd never noticed it when they'd been reunited on board the Dalek Crucible, either. Perhaps the Daleks had; they'd imprisoned her in the same kind of force-field they'd used on him. Then he'd locked her away in the parallel universe with his clone and tried to put her out of his mind for the next fifty years. Why hadn't he sensed what a mistake that would turn out to be?

And how much did Rose really know about the presence in her mind? She hadn't said a word. He realized that she really had changed during their years apart. He doubted the teenage Rose he'd known before would have let any of this go as long as she had. This Rose was biding her time. He groaned inwardly as he realized that the game she played was actually turning him on even more. He'd never been able to resist mysterious women.

"Doctor? Doctor?" Had she said his name several times and he hadn't noticed? "I'm going to go take a shower, okay?"

He blinked twice. "I'll come with you. You could pass out again, don't want you hitting your head on the shower floor." Did his voice sound squeaky?

Now she looked concerned. "Are you okay, Doctor?"

"Me? I'm alright. I'm always alright."

She gave him a dark look, which only turned him on all the more. Then she turned and walked away.

When she turned into the corridor he sagged as the uncontrollable arousal let up a bit. He could still sense her in his mind. He still wanted her, body and mind. Where had his control gone? Did he care?

"Doctor? Are you coming?" her voice echoed from down the hall.

His whole body twitched and then he remembered that he needed to keep an eye on her in the shower. That was only half a lie too.

He followed her to her private bath, stepping over the piles of clothes on the floor of her bedroom to get there. His lips curled into a smile. He had come here often during the first years after they'd been separated. When the Master arrived he'd locked it away, not wanting the other man to find it, and it had remained untouched, a shrine to the little human girl he'd loved and lost.

He could hear the water pouring from the shower head as he reached the bathroom door. It being the TARDIS shower, Rose didn't have to wait for the water to warm, and she was already halfway inside. He caught a glimpse of her shapely arse and thigh before she pulled the shower door shut behind her.

The hiss of the water changed its note slightly as Rose moved, the spray of tiny water droplets into the air above the stall shifting. He caught his breath as she moved back in front of the glass door, the fogged glass barely concealing her naked form.

Before he could register what he was doing his shoes and shirt were somewhere off to his right while he tugged his trousers down. Three strides brought him across the bathroom and he opened the shower door and slid inside.

When he brushed his cool, dry body against her warm, slickly wet one she shivered and turned to face him. "Doctor," she said simply, and there was no surprise in her tone.

"There was something we never got to finish," he said. He backed her against the shower wall and kissed her fiercely, the water soaking his hair and dripping down on to her face. He ignored the warm drops, his thin lips forcing hers open. For a moment she didn't respond, and he could sense the swirl of her emotions — reluctance, exhaustion, fear, but above all desire. He wondered which one would win out and got his answer when she slid her tongue against his.

His hands flowed down her body with the water. He brushed her nipples with his thumbs, teasing them to prominence. Then his hands slid further down, finding her wet and ready for him. He kissed her harder and pressed his body against hers before releasing her mouth.

"Turn around," he murmured into her ear.

She nodded and complied, her hands pressed flat against the cream-colored wall tile. He pulled her hips backwards toward him so that she was slightly bent at the middle and used his feet to nudge her legs far enough apart for him to fit between them. He had a perfect view of her arse, muscle into curves, from this angle and he couldn't resist squeezing it. She arched towards him, pushing into his hands. He fondled his cock before sliding inside her in one smooth thrust.

Rose let out a long moan as he stayed seated inside her for a moment, the heat inside her almost intolerable. His fingers curled and dug into her hips. Then he pulled back and slammed into her. Her wet hair flew forward but her body stayed in place, braced against the wall.

"Do you know how long I've waited for this?" he murmured, leaning forward to nip the back of her neck. "How many times I pictured it? Imagined I was inside you?"

She didn't respond, letting out a whimper as he picked up his pace. He could feel her arousal growing, cascading toward her release like a series of streams feeding into a river. "And now you're mine, Rose Tyler. I can have you whenever I like, but it's not enough. It will never be enough." He spoke slowly, punctuating each word with a forceful thrust. "I want all of you."

He could feel her mind coalescing as she tried to find words, struggling through the waves of desire and pleasure toward coherency. "Doctor, I - "

"What, Rose? Haven't I fucked the words out of you yet?" He leaned forward, changing the angle of penetration and forcing her even further down his cock.

His own climax was approaching and he slid his fingers down between her legs, playing with the wet curls for a moment before circling her clit. Her hips jerked and she let out a low moan. He could feel her muscles clenching on him and pressed hard, his finger sliding easily as her moan turned into a scream. He thrust harder and she made an inhuman noise and then his own climax was on him.

He panted heavily, still inside her while the world came back to him. The water was still cascading down behind them, and he pulled out and used it to rinse his softening cock. He winced as the water hit the sensitive flesh but if he didn't clean off he'd be smelling her all day and he didn't think he'd ever let her out of bed. There were too many things to do and calculations to make for him to spend all his time on sex. No matter how good sex with humans had turned out to be. No wonder they were so popular, later on in their history.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rose pull away from the shower wall and wipe her wet hair out of her eyes. She was giving him an indecipherable look and he was reminded once again how he didn't really know her anymore. Then he looked down. Her whole body had turned a delightful shade of pink and he immediately wanted to get a closer look. He was about to grab her, about to tell her he wanted more, when he abruptly turned and left the bathroom without even grabbing a towel.

****

It had been six days since she passed out in the med bay, and Rose was no closer to finding any of the answers she wanted. Six days of inane chatter when she could get him to talk to her at all. He'd given her a few details on his past with the Master, but nothing concrete and nothing that explained how they'd wound up traveling together. No mentions of so, Rose, how's your head after you blacked out and that scary light in the back of your mind took over again? Or, hey Doctor, so what's with this link in our heads that makes sex so spectacular? Or, you've taken me away from my family and everyone I love, are you planning on keeping me locked in the TARDIS forever?

Six days of awkward run-ins with her fellow...passenger? Prisoner? The Master's relationship to the Doctor thus far defied description. There was affection between them, despite an apparently violent history. The Master had casually referenced killing the Doctor and the Doctor had snorted and ignored him. It was easy enough to tell that they felt more for each other than they might have if they'd been strangers mourning Gallifrey together. It was also easy to see that the Doctor had no intention of actually releasing the Master as he seemed to expect. She wondered how long it would take the Master to realize. Maybe he already realized and was plotting against them. It seemed like the sort of thing he might do. From the few sketchy details the Doctor had given her, he'd done much worse.

Six days of no explanations, as if he expected 25-year-old Rose Tyler to accept even more on faith than her 19-year-old version. She wondered if he knew how terrified she was, deep down, and how good she'd gotten at hiding her fear during her years at Torchwood and her efforts to promote the Dimension Cannon. Did he understand that she truly needed to know what was going on, that she could not continue to live this way? It was hard to tell since the Doctor didn't speak to her much at all. She saw him only when he wanted her to see him. The TARDIS must have been helping him hide from her, and a tentative push at the vast, incredibly alien presence at the back of her mind got her nowhere. The TARDIS's hum remained unchanged no matter how she pleaded. She saw him once or twice a day in the kitchen — where she pointed out their impending food shortages — and sometimes during the night. Otherwise he would appear seemingly at random, and usually for one reason.

Six days of violent, startlingly delicious sex, as alarming in how much it turned her on as how it showed her Doctor had changed. At first she'd thought it was just that it was him, finally him after all the years she'd spent pining after him while he haunted her dreams. The Doctor's cock inside her at last, filling her body while his presence overwhelmed her mind. Even if was nothing like she'd imagined it back as the innocent 19-year-old she'd been. Even though he never asked permission or seemed to care if he had it. He pushed her farther than any other lover ever had, not that she'd had many. After a week she slowly began to realize she liked it. All she had to do was look at him the right way and he'd have her pinned to the nearest flat surface in a heartsbeat. It was always fast and rough and exciting, but sometimes he could be so tender her heart ached at it. When his fingers trailed down her face so gently, she could almost believe he loved her like she loved him. Then, when they'd both come, he'd leave, making some silly excuse and not looking back at her as he walked away.

Six days of no landings on any planet, anywhere, not even Earth. The food in the pantry was running low, the selection going from sparse to repulsive. She had no idea what most of the remaining items were, their markings not translated properly by the TARDIS. She didn't know if they were even edible for humans. There were more than a few signs that there hadn't been any humans on board for a very long time. The cupboards were empty of Earth products, even the ones she'd expect him to refuse to live without, like strawberry jam. The layout of the TARDIS corridors had changed and become more confusing. She wasn't always sure of finding her room anymore. The library was organized and catalogued with the spirals she knew represented the Doctor's written language. She had no idea why the TARDIS wasn't translating for her when she always had before. It was yet another question she had no answer for.

Six days of a delirious, dizzying combination of ecstasy and well-suppressed terror. Maybe it wasn't so different from before after all. They'd always been running from monsters while laughing at the absurdity of it all. This time, though, it was the Doctor who was the monster. And she couldn't run, not from him. She didn't want to. Even if she wanted more, needed more, she wasn't capable of walking away from what she had. Not when what she had was him.

Six days had been long enough for her to mull over the moment she'd stepped inside his mind. It was as though she'd crossed some impossibly high threshold, and suddenly she was there, in a vast cavern of reverberating thoughts and memories hidden away in nooks. There had been so much data, flowing through her and around her and everywhere, like a molecular river. It had been too much for her to process and her brain had filed it away for later contemplation. She had barely taken a step toward the wall when she was buffeted away with a resounding blast of no. Then there had been nothing, and then the strange hallway where she'd seen the Doctor again. How had she gotten there? There was something right in front of her and she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Last night had been the strangest of all; the Master had visited the TARDIS, visibly annoyed and saying his TARDIS was out of food, "even the Belkin crackers, and those aren't technically edible." He had accused the Doctor of deliberately crippling his TARDIS and ranted about injustice and the Doctor's hypocrisy. The Doctor had barely reacted, telling Rose to go see what they had to eat. Both Time Lords followed her, the Master chattering away in slightly sinister anecdotes. They'd eaten dinner together, using up the last of the real food, which had made for the most awkward meal of Rose's life. Periods of strained silence were only interrupted by the sound of chewing and the occasional snide remark from the Master. The Doctor hadn't said a word the whole meal.

And now this brief, flippant note left on the console, accompanied by a locked front door. He had never locked her in before. She hadn't even known it was possible, though she supposed it must be or else the Master would have run off years ago.

Rose — Have gone to pick up a few spare parts and some supplies. Stay in the TARDIS. Don't even think about wandering off.

He'd finally listened to them about the food, but he'd left her behind. Why? She wasn't about to start enslaving planets like certain blond Time Lords. Was where they'd landed dangerous?

Rose snorted as she tossed the note onto the console. Don't wander off, not bloody likely. When had she ever listened to him in the past? She sought out the echoing presence of him in the back of her mind. It was still there, silvery blue and comforting, though he seemed farther away in a way she couldn't articulate. She didn't have the vocabulary to describe what was happening with the telepathic link the Doctor had forged without her consent.

The Master was still there as well, a strange and eerie yet not unattractive green. The darkness contained within that little thread seeped out as she probed at it. She wondered if he had out-of-TARDIS privileges, since Rose obviously didn't. If she had to guess from his mental presence she would say he was still in his TARDIS, or wherever it was he went when he wasn't around making nasty comments about everything. Not that she really understood where his TARDIS even was. The Doctor had said his TARDIS was nurturing the Master's, like a mother or a nanny, not that she had any idea what that meant, or if they were somehow attached physically.

Her personal opinion of the Master based on their time together was more uncertain. She was not really afraid of him. He reminded her of an alien version of her first boyfriend, a walking cliché of an unemployed musician. He'd seemed sweet, or at least harmless at first, winning her over with his charm and writing songs for her. Then one day not long after she'd moved in with him, Jimmy had turned on her in an instant and she'd found herself being slapped across his dingy flat. He wanted to control her, and when words didn't work he resorted to his fists. The Master did the same thing on a universal scale. She bet Harold Saxon had seemed like the nicest politician around until the day he started slaughtering millions. And Rose Tyler would never be afraid of that kind of coward.

The whole situation was as if she'd walked into some advanced course at university without taking any of the pre-requisites, everyone simply assuming she knew enough to get by. Nobody in the class would say a word to her for fear of angering the professor.

Well, she was bloody sick of the professor. Maybe it was time she asked someone else for help.

Even if that someone else was a psychotic alien prisoner who'd enslaved her whole planet just for kicks.

****

It had been two days by Rose's reckoning since the Doctor had left the TARDIS when she felt an out-of-place wave of dread roll through her. For a moment she didn't understand. She wondered if she was starting to crack up from lack of food. She'd eaten the last jam jar, hidden away at the back of the cupboard, yesterday morning. Could low blood sugar make you hallucinate?

Then she realized she was feeling what the Doctor was feeling again. The fear settled into her bones and her muscles tensed. The Doctor was in trouble, somewhere outside the TARDIS. She was absolutely certain of it, the little silver-blue thread singing to her as clearly as a bell.

She ran to her room and yanked on her trainers. It occurred to her that she had no idea where they were, when they were, or even if the atmosphere outside the TARDIS would be habitable for her as a human being. A few times in the past he'd landed somewhere with enough oxygen for his superior biology, but with levels too low to sustain her for more than a few minutes. After sneaking out after him the first time, and winding up gasping for air and turning blue before he dragged her back into the TARDIS in a fury, she'd learned her lesson. Of course, in the past he'd always told her why he was leaving her behind.

As she approached the console room she felt a change in the hum of the TARDIS. She put her hand on the wall, stroking the coral lightly. "I don't know where he is, old girl, and I'm afraid."

The hum got slightly louder in response. Rose knew there was no point in actually talking to the TARDIS. The ship communicated in images and feelings, not words. She frowned and closed her eyes to concentrate. She pictured the Doctor in trouble, locked in a jail cell; God knew she'd seen that enough times. She pictured herself opening the lock and letting him out.

There was a pause, then the hum took on a dubious note, as if the TARDIS didn't think this was a good idea. Or maybe she didn't think Rose was capable of rescuing him from whatever trouble he'd got himself into this time. The door stayed locked.

Rose cursed with frustration. Then another wave of foreign emotion crashed through her, dropping her to her knees on the grating. She winced. Her knees were already sore from three days ago, when the Doctor had taken her from behind in this very room. The terror she'd felt receded gradually as if washing back into the Doctor's mind. Before it went she grabbed a piece of it and pushed it toward the TARDIS. The old girl had to understand that Rose only wanted to help the Doctor.

Then there was a click and the door cracked open. Rose grinned.

"Thanks, girl," she said, and headed outside into the unknown.