Alternatively

by Rusty Fingers

The Doctor struggles to adjust to Rose's life and being human after Journey's End. With the Bad Wolf at his side, fiercer than he ever remembered her, he finds his way and that the path is not as slow as he might have imagined. Slightly out of canon.

10. Something You Can Have

Hey folks, thanks for the reviews. Seemed to have touched a bit of a nerve with the last chapter so I must be doing something right.

Far as I can figure, the Doc's always been a bit of a cad, especially 10, and anyone wanting to spend their lives with him would have to find a way to live with that. I think a strong, slightly more mature version of Rose would've been able to stick it and it would've looked something like this. I also wanted to go for something a little more interesting than garden variety jealousy with Rose and the Doc.

As for the Doc being a little gay, well, who isn't. You're all right in that he's been months stewing in humany-wumany hormones and maybe getting drunk gave him the perfect out to do what Rose did back a few chapters.

All that being said, I hope I pull this chapter off to some of your satisfaction. Devil knows I enjoyed writing it!

-#-

Torchwood Tower was alive with activity again on January second. Donna arrived at work a minute ahead of Rose and the Doctor, smiled at Rose as she approached the lineup to go past the metal/human detectors at the front desk.

"How are you?" Donna asked, noticing as she did so the Doctor being waylaid by Peter at the front door.

"Top of the world," Rose replied easily, "you?"

"Fine," Donna replied, frowning as Peter touched the Doctor's arm timidly and the Doctor slung his own about Peter's shoulders like he usually did. "An' him?" She nodded toward the front doors and Rose followed her line of sight.

"Oh, sick as a dog yesterday but all better now. Doesn't remember a thing about the party." Rose said airily enough as the Doctor approached them, his arm still about Peter who was red as a firebell and grinning from ear to ear.

"You didn't tell 'im, did ya?" Donna seethed, glaring at Rose as it dawned on her.

Rose didn't look the least bit remorseful. "I have taken that man shopping, set up home for him, walked him through getting' a bank account, how to eat and sleep like a human bein' and helped him deal with hormones an' havin' only one heart. Honestly, Donna? I'm delegatin' to ya." Donna looked at Rose indignantly. "Good luck," Rose said as the Doctor arrived at the line, bright eyed and clueless.

"Hallo, Donna! Happy new year!" The Doctor said chipperly, grinning at his best friend.

Donna sighed.

-#-

"So, John, um, what do you say to just, um, you and me, for lunch," Peter asked as they rode the lift up to Tech two.

"Oh! Let's go to that place you took us, whotsitcalled, where they had those incredible fried bananas!" The Doctor babbled at at him as Donna looked on in stony silence.

"Bar None?" Peter asked.

"That's it!" The Doctor roared delightedly.

"Sure, we...we can go there," Peter replied much more quietly, smiling still.

They left the lifts and the Doctor and Donna proceeded to the Shed, the Doctor completely carefree with his hands in his pockets. He flicked on the lights and Donna surveyed their main work table, usually notable by the fact that it had some measure of the top of it visible, unlike the rest. Bits and pieces of tech littered the floor about it and the table had the largest swatch of free space it had seen since the Doctor moved in.

"We've had some cowboys in here," the Doctor said, stooping to collect the detritus on the floor. "Some of the party must've come looking for the spare drinks."

Donna rolled her eyes at him and woke up the computer she normally worked at, fidgeting with the mouse as she wondered how to go about talking to her friend. She wandered over to where he stood sonicing at a bit of cable sticking out from the Bruxcan sound system, glasses on to survey the work.

"Rose said you were pretty rough after the party," Donna began.

The Doctor grinned, "yeah," he turned to Donna in all seriousness, flicked off his sonic, "did you know alcohol had such pronounced effects on the human autonomic nervous system? Blimey." He returned to sonicing.

"Yeah, had my nervous system done in by a few too many pints before," Donna muttered.

"Lucky for me Rose was there," the Doctor murmured and Donna glared at him, thinking of Rose's face when she'd heard the Doctor and Peter.

"Bloody right, lucky she was there," and Donna walloped him across the arm.

"OI!" The Doctor growled, glaring at Donna. "What was that for?"

"You stupid martian," Donna hissed, "you've probably never told her what she means t'ya, have you?"

A spark of confusion crept into the Doctor's glare. "What are you on about?"

Stepping so she was nose to nose with him, Donna pointed a finger in his face. "You don't remember what you did at the party."

Eyes dancing around their periphery, the Doctor tried to think of what she was talking about. "'Course I do! I..." he recalled the earlier parts of the night, specifically dancing with Rose and the way she had laughed like her old self. "I danced with Rose," he smiled but quickly dropped it when Donna looked like she might hit him for it. "Um, uh, I...I danced with you, made some fantastic banana daiquiris, if I don't say so meself...um...OH! HA! Peter kissed me at midnight!" He grinned and Donna tilted her head side to side as she took out her phone, quietly agreeing that that had been as funny as the Doctor thought it was.

Flicking through photos, she brought up the one she had snapped of the Doctor and Peter locked in a passionate kiss and showed it to her friend. Initially grinning, a hint of uncertainty creased the Doctor's brow as he looked at the picture. Donna leaned in to look at his face intently. "That ringin' any bells, spaceman?"

The Doctor looked into the middle distance as flashes of Peter came to his mind, of the both of them in much more compromising positions than the one Donna had on her phone. His eyes drifted over to the main work table, growing wider as they did so. "Oh," he said quietly.

His eyes flicked back to Donna to find her staring at him like she might hit him again. "Oh? That's it? OH?!" She said sternly but the Doctor began to giggle. "Whot are you laughin' for?"

"Weeell, s'kinda funny to think, innit? Me and Peter, havin' a go? Ha!" He laughed harder and went back to the cable he was working at before Donna belted him again.

"THAT IS NOT FUNNY!" She roared and the Doctor stepped back from her, rubbing his arm, sore now from multiple assaults.

"What?" The Doctor asked, genuinely perplexed.

"What about Peter? What about Rose?" Donna said, quieter now lest anyone was listening after the racket they had made. She doubted they would pay much mind, though, sounds of her hitting the Doctor and him griping about it were commonly heard from the Shed.

Still, the Doctor looked at her like she was speaking a language that he didn't know, which for him, would have been incredibly dumbfounding. "What about them?"

"Peter is in love w'ya, ya alien sod," Donna said slowly, as thought talking to a very thick child.

"Nooo," the Doctor frowned then looked at Donna suspiciously. She had taken him aside so many times in the past few months to point out to him when he was doing such alien things as being inconsiderate of other people's feelings or when he was being indifferent to someone's suffering that he didn't understand. When Hasrat and her boyfriend of two years broke up, Donna had smacked him when he snorted at two years, saying that was nothing. "Is this...one of those things with humans where you know a lot more than me?"

"Pretty much," Donna said, slightly mollified by the dawning remorse in the Doctor's eyes. "And I don't think he thought what happened at the party was funny, Doctor. I think he thought it meant somethin' to ya." She said, more kindly as all mirth left the Doctor's features and the age that hid in the back of his eyes showed.

Kicking at the ground with the toe of his plimsolls, the Doctor eventually said, "he's not inviting me out to lunch for fried bananas, is he?"

"No, sweetheart," Donna confirmed.

The Doctor rubbed at his face, sighed heavily and walked out of the Shed.

-#-

The Doctor was nothing if not observant, so long as he was on his guard. Around people he trusted, he rarely was and this may have been the reason he failed to see Peter's clumsy attempts at a seduction. That, or the fact that where romance was concerned, the Doctor had been blinkered when it came to anyone else save Rose.

At any rate, he walked from Torchwood Tower into the plaza at Canary Wharf with his hands deliberately stuffed in his pockets to avoid any move on Peter's part to secure them. He was observing Peter then. The shy looks he cast the Doctor, how he fidgeted, stammered. If the Doctor thought back, he couldn't recollect Peter being quite that nervous around anyone else.

As the Doctor bought them coffee at the snooty cafe across from the Tower, he could tell by the way Peter was holding himself and directing the conversation that he was excited. The Doctor sighed internally, probably thought I just couldn't wait until lunch.

They sat on one of the benches that looked out at the docks, Peter sitting deliberately close to the Doctor, his hands wrapped about his coffee in the cold.

"Peter," the Doctor began, hating the uncertainty he saw grow in his friend's face at his tone, "I was...completely arseholed at the party."

Laughing to relieve some tension, Peter nodded, "yeah, safe to say we both were, eh?"

"Yes," the Doctor conceded, rubbing at the back of his neck, "but in your case, I think it made you brave...and in mine...it just made me daft."

Peter was most assuredly not daft, the Doctor knew, as the other man took his hand and looked up to him resignedly. "What are you saying?"

"Oh, Peter," the Doctor said with a shake of his head and a squeeze of the other man's hand, "I... shouldn't have shagged you."

Slipping his hand from the Doctor's, Peter stuffed it protectively in his pocket and frowned at the pavement. "Not this again."

"How do you mean?" The Doctor asked and Peter gave him the angriest look the Doctor had ever seen the other man give. All things considered, Peter being Peter, it was still fairly contained.

"You're another one of those blokes who can't face that they're queer. Shouldn't have shagged me, eh? 'Cause you're not like that, am I right?" Peter said, a hint of fire in his words.

It broke the Doctor's heart how gentle his friend was. He smiled just a little, "Peter, no...I don't...I don't regret the sex...I mean, the sex was brilliant, far as I can recall, I mean, reeally, really good," he said with a surprising amount of force and Peter blushed despite himself. The Doctor rubbed his face, "no, I don't regret the shag Peter, not any part of it," he reiterated, shaking his head, "I regret that I don't feel about you how I think you feel about me."

Nausea crept up on the Doctor as he saw tears threaten in Peter's eyes at his words.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Peter," he said softly.

Standing abruptly, Peter looked away from the Doctor casually in order to hide the tears he wiped from his face. "Well," he said shakily for wont of anything else.

"Peter," The Doctor called to him but the other man only stopped, didn't turn. "I never thanked you for everything you've done for me this year." When Peter failed to turn around or otherwise acknowledge him, the Doctor said softly, "so thank you," and after a beat, "Take the day. I'll clear it with Bad Wolf."

A stiff nod at that and Peter walked from him.

-#-

The Doctor walked into the Shed and proceeded to disassemble what looked like a large printer that had been meticulously wrapped in copper wire. His movements were perfunctory and Donna watched him a minute before she spoke. "How is he?"

"Oh, y'know," the Doctor answered immediately. "had his heart ripped apart by a thick Time Lord who clearly can't function in any kind of human society without harming anyone, let alone his friends, let alone one of the only people who didn't look at me like I had a third eye. He's fantastic," the Doctor said, his words steeped in self loathing.

Laying a hand on his shoulder, at which the Doctor stopped ripping apart the machine infront of him, Donna said, "he'll get over it."

"He shouldn't have to, should he? I'm 900 years old, I should've known, I should've seen." The Doctor sniffed and went back to eviscerating the bit of tech, disgusted with himself and his human simplicity.

Even though he was still glaring, Donna added, "Rose knows," and the Doctor shook his head as though annoyed by a fly buzzing about.

"She wouldn't care," he said quietly.

"How can you say that?" Donna said, voice higher with indignation, looked her friend's silent profile over before continuing. "Have you ever told her how you feel about her?"

At that the Doctor looked sharply aside at her. "Rose knows," he replied coldly but something in the look in Donna's eyes made him second guess himself.

Eventually Donna walked away from him and worked at the computer a while before she said, softly, "does anyone really know with you?"

The Doctor paused, then swallowed down the ache her words had caused to bud in his chest.

-#-

He was sitting in her office chair with his feet on her desk when she came in and Rose unceremoniously pushed them off. "Someone's havin' a hump. What's the matter?" She asked as the Doctor stood aside to let her wrap up on the computer.

The Doctor didn't respond and Rose changed tack. "Trip in the Rdis?"

"Nah," the Doctor shrugged.

"Now I know somethin's wrong," Rose half joked.

The Doctor leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets. "I just want to go home and... pretend for a few hours that I'm human," he said dejectedly and Rose frowned at him.

"Sounds a bit dull for ya," she commented offhandedly.

"Could do with a bit of dull at the moment," he replied, shoulders hung ever so slightly.

Waiting until they had the privacy of the jeep, Rose tried to draw him out. "You know, another thing about bein' human, suspect it's true of Time Lords but you'd never cop to it," Rose muttered the second half of her sentence, "helps to talk 'bout what's botherin' ya."

Still, he sat and fidgeted for several seconds before finally saying, "Rose I...I," and he groaned in discomfort and frustration.

"You shagged Peter?" Rose supplied and the Doctor rubbed his face before looking aside at her with a frown.

"Donna was right, you did know," he said with a hint of accusation. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Rose shrugged as they pulled out of the traffic circle onto Kent Road and she shifted up. "Donna knows you and Peter. What was I gonna say that she wouldn't have said a billion times better?"

"Rubbish," the Doctor muttered, crossing his arms and staring out the side window. He felt wounded by what he perceived as her allowing him to be ambushed by the whole scenario.

"B'sides, I was a little busy makin' sure you didn't get sick in your hair," she said reasonably and the Doctor sighed heavily, fairly convinced that he couldn't feel like any more of an arse that day.

When he was silent for a few minutes Rose piped back in, "how is Peter?"

The Doctor shook his head, frustrated. "I dunno, not like I would, would I? You tell me, as a human being-"

"My whole life, yeah." Rose interjected.

"-how would you feel? Someone you fancy shags you then tells you it was a mistake?"

Keeping her eyes on the road, Rose could still feel him staring hard at her. She couldn't help but remember the things he had tried to do and say when she took him home after the party. She hadn't told him and part of her wondered if it was because she didn't want to face his denial of it, if that was how he reacted, like Peter had had to.

"I'd be heartbroken," she said simply and winced when she heard him sigh heavily.

The Doctor was quiet the rest of the way home and Rose wasn't sure what to say to him that she suspected Donna hadn't said already. For his part, the Doctor was still hung up on what Donna had said about Rose.

As they slammed the jeep doors the Doctor finally blurted, "Donna said something to me today and...she's usually right about these things..." he said haphazardly as they began to climb the stairs to their flat, Rose ahead of him. "She thinks...maybe you don't know how I...feel about you." He finished softly, apprehensive until he heard Rose chuckle as she unlocked the door. "What?" He demanded, a little peeved as he shut the door behind him and Rose turned to face him, taking off her jacket.

She smirked at him. "Well, no one really does w'you, do they?" At the look he gave her words, a near verbatim repeat of Donna's, Rose was quick to add, "you're kind of rubbish with words, Doctor," but this didn't help.

Indignant at the very suggestion, the Doctor rushed to defend himself. "I am brilliant with words! I can recite thousands of poems from the Tang Dynasty! The peace vows of the Calamod Warriors! The Sonorous Hymns of the Magrasami tribes of the Mountains of Gol Amut-"

"Yeah? And what do you say to your friends, the people ya love?" Rose cut him off and stared hard at him. "'You're brilliant' or 'you're fantastic' or 'you're beautiful.' Same way you talk about a...a new species you come across...or... or some bit a' tech you find fascinatin.'"

The Doctor's face had dropped and Rose hated how forlorn he looked. "Look," she tried to joke, "the only time you ever good as said you loved me, yeah? A Dalek said it for ya and you just didn't deny it." Rose finished smiling but quickly stopped when the Doctor didn't reciprocate.

She ran a hand through her hair and turned from him. "I'll get on tea, yeah?"

The Doctor could only stand staring at her, his hands in his pockets. "Even you," he whispered. A sudden flash of anger burned through him, born of frustration at himself and the impossibility of being human.

What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?

He strode to her with a few footfalls, spun her roughly about by the elbow to face him, and kissed her. This wasn't soft and loving as their Christmas kiss, not bruising and stiff as the one she had planted on him on Boring three, nor fast and shocking as when he'd kissed her in thanks for Donna. It was the kind of kiss that stole your breath and set your heart racing and once she was done being shocked by it, Rose couldn't stop herself from returning the favour. Her hands gripped his back, brought them closer as his caressed her cheek, firmly tipped her head to give his tongue the access it sought. For a minute their animal brains were fully in charge and they struggled to breathe and maintain the kiss.

Then Rose keyed into the frustration that was simmering in the Doctor, his anger and hurt at what he had done to Peter, and his inability to speak plainly with her. Underneath all of that was a hint of desperation the root of which she couldn't quite fathom.

Rose broke the kiss, and laid her head against the Doctor's chest, one hand gripping his bicep, the other on the back of his neck. She tried to regain her breath, watched as his chest moved as fast as hers.

I don't have the words for you, she heard in his mind and alongside it the heartbreak the thought inspired.

"This isn't how you do it either, Doctor," she whispered to him and felt his frustration again, heard Martha's proclamation that he was a rubbish human as it ripped through his psyche.

Wanting to hold him, Rose reached after the Doctor when he stepped away from her, turning and worrying at the back of his neck as he did so. She returned to preping them tea, her mind listening to the self flagellation he was mentally subjecting himself to.

They ate in silence, the Doctor offering one words answers to the few questions Rose threw at him before giving up. He rose from the table and worked at the dishes before Rose had finished and she chomped down on her fork, mildly irritated with him. She had a pretty good idea of what he was up to when he said he was going out for a run once he'd finished the dishes.

"All right," was all she said, watched him leave and readied herself for a late night.

Around ten she turned off the lights in the flat and went to her room. Tempted though she was to simply listen to the Tardis crystal, Rose knew it would put her to sleep in seconds after a day of work. So she messed about on her computer, looking at the photos the Halbarrow satellite had recently beamed to the Tower, then doing some online shopping for her mum.

As it was approaching 11, she heard the front door crack and Rose whispered a thanks to Time. Still, she waited to see if the run had done the Doctor some good, listened as he showered. When he didn't come out of his room for ten minutes afterward, Rose extricated herself from the blankets of her own bed and walked to his room.

No light shone from under his door as Rose suspected and she went in.

"Rose?" The Doctor called when he heard his door.

"S'just me, s'okay," she said softly in return, climbed under the covers and sat with her back against his headboard, her thigh pressed to his back. He was curled up tightly on his side and she slipped an arm across his chest, rested her palm near his heart.

"If ya don't feel like sleepin' with me ya can always just say," she began and felt him shift. She knew and felt from him that that wasn't really the case, he would've preferred to sleep next to her. "An' if you were still upset, I still would've listened." Yet again he squirmed, a tightness emanating from him.

After a few minutes, the Doctor sighed and sat up next to Rose, flicked on the bedside light. "Does it bother you?"

"What, these huffy tantrums you have on occasion? They're a little immature, but-" She smiled in jest but his face was still stony. "Does what bother me?"

"That...the fact that I am, for all intents and purposes, basically...emotionally immature." In his eyes was the age that crept out on occasion and Rose understood what was making it show then.

She slipped her hand into his and they rested atop their legs. "It would...if it didn't bother you." When his face pinched with perplexity she tried again, "it's not like you're being an ass and not caring how it might affect people, Doctor. Your intentions are good."

A sneer at himself stole across the Doctor's face, displeased, but Rose shook her head at him. "I'm serious," she said as she tugged at his hand to draw his attention. Once again his stormy eyes found hers. "We all cock our relationships up, it's a very human thing. We say the wrong things, we do the wrong things. Leavin' my mum thinkin' I was missin' for a year-"

"I had a lot to do with that-" he tried to interrupt but Rose jabbed at him with her elbow, saw some of his mood simmer down.

"An' the way I treated Mickey...if there was a prize in fuckin' things up with people closest to ya..." Rose let out a laugh at herself as she looked at the ceiling a moment and the corner of the Doctor's mouth twitched just so.

"This is the hard stuff and no one ever gets it right all the time," she continued when their eyes met again, "especially not someone who's been running from it their whole life."

Wryly, the Doctor smiled at her for just a second. "There's hope for me, then?"

"Yes," Rose replied firmly. "It'll get easier for you, promise."

After a minute of their eyes searching one another's, Rose leaned in and kissed him, the very edge of her tongue meeting his momentarily before she drew back. In his mind, she felt him wrestle with the pure arousal he felt. "Thought you said that wasn't how it was done," he said, voice a little high.

Rose smiled into his cheek, "that's not only how it's done." When she looked into his eyes she saw him stamping down the physical urge for them to just have at it. For the first time she properly appreciated what his hormones had been doing to him and perhaps what they might've had to do with his fling with Peter. She tugged at his hair. "I want your words, too," she whispered and was pleased when she felt how strongly he wanted to please her on that front, whatever his body was craving.

"I know that...I can't run anymore...but I don't want to either...not from you," the Doctor said quietly, hoping against hope his clumsy statement would sound to Rose's ears the way he felt it burn in his chest.

She smiled winningly at him. "There...those were good words."

Reaching across him, Rose flicked out the light and focused on easing his mind with her own, the mental equivalent of a back rub. She was pleased with herself when she felt it work, felt him drift to unconsciousness. After he had, she cautiously prodded about in his mind, wary of overstepping her bounds but curious never the less. There was a hub dedicated to her she could distinguish in the vast expanse that was the Doctor. It was open for the most part, brimming with memories, the majority of them exciting feelings of contentment and glee in him. In the periphery of this hub were a few that made Rose's chest ache with the sadness they evoked and she shied away from them.

Another area felt very guarded by him and Rose was surprised, as she lingered at it's limits, to realise that it was shame he felt around them. Prodding a little further, the feelings changed dramatically and Rose knew it was arousal these thoughts instilled in the Doctor.

She didn't delve into the details of his thoughts on the matter, respecting the boundaries in his mind as she would want him to respect her privacy around certain subjects. All she had wanted was to confirm that she hadn't been reading into the little things, that he did desire her. She found she was nervous at the prospect of taking that next step with him, so much so that it reached him in his slumber and he shifted, agitated by the feeling.

Rose rubbed at the Doctor's back until he quieted again and carefully slid up mental blocks around her unease. It settled in her mind that they were ready for this. Ready for the repercussions whatever they might be and to move beyond what they had been to each other on the Tardis. She was ready to acknowledge to him that she was not as human in mind and soul as she was in body. Her hope was that the meeting of their human bodies might make the joining of their minds possible as it would have been between two Time Lords. Thanks to his drunken admissions, she already knew he craved that and the knowledge had made her want to believe in its possibility.

-#-

"Bad Wolf, Blue Turtle here. Do you have a minute?"

The seconds distraction caused Rose to overshoot her landing and fall six feet over the ledge she had been aiming for. Rolling, she got to her knees, fired a few shots at her target but missed the personnel that had been waiting beyond the ledge. She got the butt of a rifle to her jaw for her trouble. Five minutes of wrestling, a flashbang and a leg aching sprint later, Rose found cover long enough to chew out three words into her comm.

"I'll find you."

It was easier that way. In any given day at the tower, Rose usually climbed it top to bottom no less than four times, made a round of the circumference on various floors no less than 18 times and departed the planet all together once a week. Peter could be found at the first bench you came to on Tech two fives days a week, nine am to five pm.

She found him there at half past four. After the first few people looked up at her voice, everyone else followed in short order. Because no one could stop staring.

Rose was covered in grime, her blonde hair tucked back in a pony tail, her tight black t-shirt torn at the sleeve and her black jeans ripped at the knees, exposing the bleeding flash beneath. A purple bruise on her jaw completed the look.

"What d'ya want?" She asked Peter who gaped at her. "Peter, I'm fairly certain I have you to thank for this bruise, d'ya wanna get on with it?" She said when his silence persisted.

"Sorry," he managed with the prompt, standing and running a hand through his hair. "Can we, um, can we talk somewhere else?" He finished quietly, clearly wishing he wasn't overheard though a pin drop could've been heard in the room in that instant.

"Why the hell is it so bloody quiet?" Donna's voice rang out along with the music from the Doctor's sound system when the Shed door opened.

Peter closed his eyes, clearly unhappy with the way things were going. Rose noted this, and the way his face screwed up when the Doctor's voice joined Donna's.

"Blimey, it is quiet. Everything all right?"

"Please, can we go," Peter said desperately and Rose was beginning to see notes on the wall. They were too late of course, to leave without the Doctor seeing them. Everyone was looking in their direction.

"Rose?" The question in his tone was one sixth disbelief that it was really her and five sixths that she could look as bad as she did. "What happened?" He asked, a snarl in his tone and features as he looked her damage over.

"Command recerts," she said indifferently. "I'm fine. I need to talk to Peter," she said brusquely and watched as the Doctor looked to the other man before her while Peter avoided his gaze.

"Right," the Doctor said, stepping back, hands slipping into his pockets.

"Get your coat," Rose motioned to Peter and marched back toward the stairs, Peter trotting to catch up with her.

Almost as soon as they were on the front steps of Torchwood Tower, Peter blurted out, "I'd like a transfer," and Rose's suspicions were confirmed. She said nothing, steered them toward the docks and they walked a while.

Suitably far from work, Rose stopped and put her boot on the railings that ran along the water. Peter watched as she plucked a fag and lighter from inside her ankle holster, lit up and recommenced walking.

"Aren't you cold?" He asked in amazement as they continued, marvelling at Rose's lack of a jacket in the January chill.

"Why d'ya want t'transfer?" Rose asked, ignoring Peter's question and pulling on her fag.

Peter hesitated. "I'm not finding Tech two to be a productive work environ-"

"Tech two has identical facilities to one and three, so it's your coworkers what's the problem. What is it? Who're ya havin' issues with?" She cut him off, wanting to cut through the unnecessaries. His answer surprised her.

"Is it a big joke to everyone?" Peter said quietly, stopping, his words forcing Rose to stop also and look at him, narrowing her eyes as she took a drag.

She walked to him and noted how he fidgeted under her gaze. "No one else knows and I only know because Donna n'me walked in on the two a' ya." Rose said this quietly, much more gently than she had ever spoke to Peter or anyone else who worked at Torchwood. "He's not having a laugh about it behind your back, if that's what you're thinkin'."

"You sure about that?"

"Yes," Rose answered immediately and with force.

"I just don't think I can work with him anymore," Peter whispered, his normally placid features shot through with anxiety.

"Peter," Rose smiled as she said his name, "you're one of the best techs I have. I didn't put ya on the floor I worked for nothin' and I didn't assign ya to the Doctor his first day on a lark." Peter flushed at this and Rose took a drag. "He makes people live up to their fullest potential, the Doctor, an' if ya can get past this, I know you'll do great along side 'im."

Peter wrapped his arms around himself, shifted his feet. "I liked him the moment I saw him...and he hasn't seen me this entire time," he said softly, "has he?"

Once more, Rose smiled at Peter and for the first time realised what it was the Doctor saw in him, apart from the fact that he was brilliant. He was kind, was the sort to offer up his heart unquestioningly, an act of recklessness worthy of the Doctor himself.

"I know how he gets under your skin," she confided, "until it seems like he's your whole world, the air ya breath, the water ya drink. But one day you realise all he's done is point out what you were missing and run with ya to find it. What you're missing, Peter? It isn't him and trust me, he's seen ya this entire time."

Peter frowned at Rose but she didn't elaborate further, just tossed her fag to the pavement and crushed it with the heel of her boot. "I'll never turn down a request for reassignment if someone's uncomfortable with who they're workin' with, but I don't think you should move Peter. Don't run from this, from him. You'll both be worse off if ya do." She gave him a minute before she asked, "so what'll it be?"

The hardening that took place behind Peter's eyes was something Rose was familiar with. Everyone who loved the Doctor, thought he was was the stuff of fairy tales, eventually grew up.

"I'd like to rescind my request...if you think that's best," Peter said eventually and Rose nodded.

"I really do." Then Rose did something she never did anymore and poked her tongue out between her teeth just at the corner of her mouth, garnering a surprised laugh from Peter. She thumped him on the arm as they turned back. "Come on, Blue Turtle."

"For the record, he talks about you all the time," Rose said as they neared the Tower.

"Yeah?" Peter asked, looking aside at her.

"You're his best mate," Rose supplied, knowing she was doing some of the Doctor's talking for him but not caring in that moment.

"Nah," Peter denied, "that's Donna."

Rose shook her head, held the door open for him. "She's more like family, me too, comes to it. You're his friend, have been since he got here, even when the whole rest of sciences wouldn't talk to him." Peter had nothing to say to this and Rose let him be until they were about to enter Tech two from the stairwell.

"Just keep it in mind, yeah?" Rose said, hand on the door and eyes boring into Peter. "Don't shut him out...but don't let him be the sun and the stars for ya."

Before Rose could open the door, Peter boldly placed his hand over hers and held it closed. "Like he isn't for you anymore?" He asked doubtfully and Rose eyed him a second before replying.

"No, he isn't. Most of what Torchwood is I made after I lost him, Peter. I figure if you've managed to make your life outside a' him when he disappears on ya, it'll be easier for ya."

Peter narrowed his eyes at her. "When he disappears?"

Rose tilted her head to the side, "bit a' truth I wish I'd known before I met him," and she opened the door as though Peter's full weight hadn't been on it.

"Smith!" Rose bellowed into Tech two, once again silencing the floor.

"What is it now!?" The Doctor whined, leaning out of the Shed.

Rose marched up to him and yanked his face down to her level by his tie. She winked at him and the Doctor raised a brow at her.

Take Peter up in the Rdis tonight. DON'T make it seem like a date, be very clear about that.

The Doctor frowned at her. He isn't even speaking to me right now.

Just...give it a go, yeah?

Within his mind, the Doctor felt Rose's strength and belief in the suggestion buoy him and he smiled.

"You got it, Bad Wolf," thank you.

A smirk and she let him go, her face returning to its usual impassibility as she walked past the Tech workers. The Doctor watched her go, hands in his pocket, a grin slowly seeping onto his face.

-#-

At quarter past five, Peter got up from his work bench and walked to the stairwell with a nod to the worker who sat the table next to him. The Doctor exited the Shed at almost the exact same moment, timed it so the stairwell door just closed behind him as he called out Peter's name. Peter looked up at him from five steps down, wary.

"I've got something I want to share with you...as mates," the Doctor said, unable to keep the gleam from his eye at the prospect.

"John, I..." Peter attempted to beg off but the Doctor descended to the step above him and held his gaze.

"Think of it as an apology...the best one I could ever come up with."

Standing infront of the Rdis after he'd just ripped its tarpaulin off, the Doctor grinned at the perplexed look on Peter's face. Peter stood a safe distance from the Doctor, his backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Is this a joke?" He finally asked.

"Oh, no!" The Doctor said, a manic glint in his eye. "See, that's what I love about you Peter. Never once asked what planet I was from or what my squiggley alien spaceship was like or where it was. You always just treated me like one of your mates."

"Well you..." Peter caught himself, smiled at his feet and shrugged. "You are," he finished, choosing his tenses deliberately.

The Doctor caught it and unable to smile any more broadly, simply turned and unlocked the Rdis. "This is who I am, Peter." He held open the door and looked back at Peter.

Shaking his head, Peter was in the midst of saying "John, it's a," when the Doctor slipped his sonic out of his jacket pocket and pointed it inside.

"Box," Peter finished quietly as the lights inside the Rdis hummed on. "Oh my god," he whispered, stepping up to the doors, eyes impossibly wide, then stepping back to make a round of the outside.

The Doctor was grinning, still leant against the Rdis's side when Peter returned to the doors. "That's not even the best part," he said and walked inside. Peter only hesitated a second before following, circumnavigating the console in wonder, the Doctor watching him as he did so.

Eventually, Peter's eyes fell to the console and he dove at it, eyes ripping to and fro over the various controls before he ducked underneath the main boards. "This is incredible! That's a Ramarchian nav-catalogue but..."

"But so much better," the Doctor supplied, likewise peering underneath the controls of his ship.

"And...that looks like the filter for an inter-Q space slip drive but..." Peter looked at the Doctor like a man possessed.

"But different and also better," the Doctor said, a little smug.

"This ship is impossible," Peter said with awe.

The Doctor sniffed with self satisfaction as they stood, "more like improbable. Where do you wanna go?"

"What?" Peter asked, genuine concern etching his features.

Gripping Peter by the shoulder's, the Doctor looked him over, eyes dancing. "You joined Torchwood because you dreamt of the stars and aliens and planets, all those improbable things! Where did you start dreaming?"

Jaw twitching in hesitation, something cracked behind Peter's eyes and he finally whispered, "Orion."

The Doctor thumped him on the shoulder and roared, "Orion, nu quadrant, allons-y!" He flicked levers and spun dials and the Rdis lurched for a moment and then was still.

Hanging off the side rails, Peter was fixated on the Doctor as the other man grinned at him before levelling his hand in the direction of the door. Peter shook his head. "Our best ships couldn't make it anywhere close to Orion in two weeks."

"Torchwood's best ships," the Doctor corrected him, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking to the doors, "not ours." He flung open the doors and a massive blue plume of gas glowed before them in the dark, a red star visible at the heart of it some distance away. Then he watched as Peter walked slowly toward him, eyes wide and mouth open. "That's Betelgeuse," the Doctor said softly and Peter began laughing, bringing a hand to his forehead as he did so.

"It's his shoulder!" Peter cheered, almost hysterical.

The Doctor nodded, smiling at the unbridled wonder he saw in Peter's eyes. "Yep," he popped the 'p', "that's his shoulder." As he watched his friend, the Doctor appreciated that Rose hadn't told him to take Peter up just for Peter's sake. He was being reminded that he wasn't just human and that wasn't a bad thing at all.

After a while, Peter shook his head, "can I sit?"

Falling lightly to his arse in the doorway, the Doctor patted the patch of Rdis next to him and Peter hesitantly lowered himself down, cautiously slipped his feet over the edge to dangle next to the Doctor's. "You're even more incredible than I thought," he said aside to the Doctor, awe in his features as he stared at the other man. The Doctor only shrugged. "Can I ask you now...where are you from?"

The Doctor took a deep breath that just fell short of sigh. "If this were my universe...it would've been a long, long way from here," he said, not meaning to be evasive. When he realised he had been just that, the Doctor added, "it was called Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborus." Peter shook his head and frowned and the Doctor nodded, "yeah, part of space you lot haven't even heard of yet."

"And you had this technology, your people?" Peter asked with a glance back at the Rdis controls.

The Doctor raised a brow. "Had better than this, didn't we? We were Time Lords, Peter, we guarded time."

In silence, Peter thought about this for a long time and didn't ask the questions the Doctor expected. "This ship has...barely half the technology you claim to be capable of...the sensors at the front desk don't go off on you...and the medics in the infirmary patched you up...you're not quite a Time Lord anymore, are you?"

The Doctor had to remark to himself at how clever Peter was. "No, not quite, Peter."

"Was I right then," Peter asked, leaning aside on the door frame, "that you're not here by choice?"

Likewise leaning on the door, the Doctor shrugged. "We all make choices. Those I made brought me here, one way or another."

"Made you half human-"

"More than half," the Doctor corrected.

"So how did that happen?" Peter asked with a laugh and the Doctor shook his head at him.

"You got bloody Betelgeuse smack dab in front of you and you want to hear how I wound up as a glorified cubicle monkey?" The Doctor asked with incredulity as he gestured out to the star before them.

"I've got half an alien from a part of space human beings haven't even discovered yet who knows about technology that's more advanced than anything I've ever dreamed of before. Yeah," Peter confirmed with a laugh, "I want to know how you wound up a cubicle monkey."

Hovering around Orion's shoulder, the Doctor told Peter a fairy tale about Daleks and the Bad Wolf, Donna and the Doctor. Peter hung off his every word and not because it was the Doctor speaking.

-#-

Rose couldn't help but be surprised at herself and the nervous quiver in her stomach as she stepped into Tech two. The entirety of her day had been an exercise in overcoming distraction as she thought about the night ahead, the date she had planned for her and the Doctor. Usually, she was more focused. Usually, sex wouldn't have occupied her mind so completely as it had that day.

Outwardly she looked poised as she made her way to the back of the floor, seeming her normally inscrutable Bad Wolf self to the few science workers still at their benches. Inwardly she felt like a bloody school girl.

Working around primarily men in a field that saw you risking your life every other day, Rose had gotten used to dirty talk and innuendo, to being hit on and talk about who wanted who, how often and in what position. The boundaries she had put up between herself and the staff had precluded her acting on any opportunities that came her way at work, but her tryst with Henry had been entirely as Rose had wanted it. She was capable of talking about sex, having it and generally doing so in a very adult fashion.

But not, apparently, when it came to the Doctor.

He grinned at her when she knocked on the Shed's door frame and Rose's gut clenched.

"Whot're you doin' here?" Donna asked, perplexed, as the Doctor grabbed his coat and made to leave with Rose. Rose never met the Doctor at Tech two at the end of the day, and she was rarely finished at five.

"Just pickin' him up," Rose said, not managing to be any kind of smooth about it at all. Donna raised a brow at her evasiveness.

The Doctor leaned down to Donna's ear. "We've got a date," he said conspiratorially and winked at Rose.

Rose hated that she was blushing though it did help her to throw up her stony façade once more.

"A date," Donna said, eyeing Rose closely. "And what will you be doin' on this date?"

"Dunno!" The Doctor enthused, "it's a surprise!" He grinned at his friend from beside Rose.

Donna crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, more interested in Rose than ever. "So whot? You're takin' him out then?"

When Donna raised a brow at her, Rose couldn't keep the ghost of a smirk from the corner of her lips, as good as confessing her intentions. "Yeah," Rose said simply and knew that Donna was on to her by the way the other woman looked at her.

As though completely bored with the whole idea, Donna turned back to her computer. "Have fun then," she said dismissively.

Rose left, fighting a smile, the Doctor on her heels, grinning like an idiot.

An hour or so later, the Doctor was on his knees with his hand jammed under the couch cushions, tongue peeking out from between his lips as he searched beneath them. He growled in frustration and ducked his head to look under the couch.

"You all right?" He heard Rose ask from above him and lifted his head to reply.

"Can't find my bloody-" But the Doctor lost his voice before he could finish.

Rose had just come from her room fully dressed for the evening in a little black dress that left her shoulders bare. They were highlighted by the fact that her hair was up and wound seamlessly at the back of her head, two delicate golden earrings hanging down instead of her usual curtain of blonde hair. The dress left just enough to the imagination, the hem coming to her knees and the slit on the side letting her very well formed thigh just show through.

After the Doctor had been silent for a suitably long period of time, Rose smiled at him like she used to and stepped to within arms reach. "Words, Doctor," she prompted.

He swallowed and cleared his throat. "You are gorgeous, just...impossible you are," he said, finally smiling in kind at her.

Tongue poking at her top lip a second, Rose looked down at his feet then back up at him. "I'd say the same...but you seem to be missing a shoe, Doctor."

He frowned at her and ruffled his hair, "can't find me other shoe!" He confirmed and Rose laughed out loud at him, a proper sprightly, Rose Tyler laugh.

Joining him in the hunt, it was Rose who eventually found the Doctor's other white chuck tucked behind his vinyl collection. "How'd that get there?" The Doctor asked when she held it up for him and they both replied at the same instant, "Tony."

The restaurant was posh without giving up on fun. Framed prints of classic films were on every wall, signed by the actors who had starred in them. About to remark on how this was possibly the snootiest restaurant they had ever eaten at, the Doctor was distracted when he caught Rose chewing on her bottom lip. It was a sign of nervousness or playfulness she rarely indulged in these days.

Having caught his eyes lingering on her more than a few times during the drive, Rose asked, "Ya gonna stare at me all night, then?"

The Doctor shrugged, looked away casually. "Shouldn't have dressed like that if you didn't want me to."

Rose smirked as the receptionist asked them for the name of the reservation and showed them to their seats.

"Tonight we have a guest chef, Nilam Megat from the Kechik restaurant in Malaysia. She has prepared a four course meal inspired by the simple banana-"

"NO!" The Doctor said gutturally and Rose smiled into her shoulder as their waitress looked at the Doctor, afraid she had offended him.

"I'm...I'm sorry, sir?" The waitress stammered.

"You're kidding!" The Doctor said with glee, looking at Rose.

"Shut up and let her finish, will ya?" Rose chided him and their waitress, though confused, continued.

Once the waitress had, the Doctor declined to look at the regular menu. "Give me the banana experience," he enthused and the waitress smiled at him patiently before turning to Rose.

"The bass for me, an' a glass of the '92 gewürztraminer, please. Also, could ya let the kitchen know we have a show to catch?"

The waitress nodded and left, the Doctor leaning his elbow on the table and staring at Rose with his chin in his palm in her wake. "We're going to a show." All Rose did was raise a brow at him and he grinned. "And here I thought it was just appies, an entrée and desert," he finished, emphasising the last 't' in desert like he would any word, but it made Rose start at the perceived innuendo. She worried at her lip again.

"Are you all right?" The Doctor asked, seeing this and gently reaching out to her mind when he did.

"Fine, yeah?" Rose said too heartily, avoiding his eyes as she fought to seal off certain thoughts from him.

He stared at her for several minutes in which Rose struggled to maintain casual eye contact with him. "You'd tell me if something was wrong," he stated softly.

Rose looked gratefully at the waitress for bringing her wine in that moment and took a sip before responding. "Of course."

The fact that he babbled made dinner easier than Rose had worried it would be. He was the distraction that, funnily enough, she could have used to distract her from thoughts of him the rest of the day. She paid and ignored the significant look their waitress gave her when she did, the Doctor clueless to the exchange.

"The Solonos Orchestra," the Doctor read as they pulled into the Zetland Theatre parking lot. "We're going to the orchestra! Brilliant!"

Once more Rose had to laugh. She could feel that he was genuinely excited by their whole evening, the surprise of it all and happy to be spending it with her. She was grateful as she handed over her keys to the valet that they were managing this despite the fact that it was earth food they were eating and an earth orchestra they were going to listen to.

He offered her his arm and a charming smile and Rose took it, though she looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

"Excuse me, sir, this is a black tie event," the doorman informed them, a beefy palm blocking their way as they tried to enter.

The Doctor eyed the man curiously. "Yeah, this is me, in my black tie," he twitched at the bow tie about his throat. The doorman nodded at his shoes. "Oh! My kicks, don't worry, they're fancy," and he winked at the doorman.

"I'm sorry sir, I can't let you in with those," the doorman said and the Doctor looked indignantly at him, his mouth opening to deliver a tirade.

Before he could, Rose stepped between them and whispered into the doorman's ear, smiling aside at him and the Doctor's eyes grew wide when he saw her slip a few bills into the doorman's hand.

"Right, enjoy the show," the doorman smiled at them and the Doctor, mouth still agape and yearning to unleash his verbal fury was dragged away from him by Rose.

"You just greased him!" The Doctor hissed and Rose smiled, hugged his arm tighter. "You shouldn't have had to grease him, that was rubbish!" He complained until they were seated and Rose finally leaned over and shut him effectively up with a finger on his lips.

"I wanted ya here w'me, and I wanted ya in your kicks in your tux because I love the way you look in 'em." The Doctor had to swallow hard as she stroked his cheek. "Ya don't take yourself too seriously, don't let them get you in a hump over it." She settled back in her chair but kept her arm laced through his and eventually he followed suit, flipping through the program.

He snorted when he read 'contemporary' in a description of the music that would be performed and Rose just shook her head at him. Eyes on the program in his lap, the Doctor noticed that Rose was worrying at the corner of her clutch and he surreptitiously looked aside and caught her chewing her lip again. The lights about them dimmed just as the Doctor was about to remark on it.

Rose paid close attention to the Doctor's emotions as the music started and was pleased to feel his mind infused with wonder and delight by the performance. He had once taken her to see the Carcaralous Symphony, with music so varied, moving and forceful, that it had stuck with her through all the years and she paid attention whenever she heard anything like it. The Solonos Orchestra played contemporary orchestral arrangements that reminded Rose of that night with him so long ago. She could tell, as the Doctor leaned forward to drink it in, that it reminded him too.

The Doctor couldn't stop talking about it. They detoured to have a walk along the Thames in the frosty night air and all the while the Doctor spun about and gestured to act out his favourite parts. Rose followed, an easy smile on her lips, sometimes laughing, and infused with the joy he felt.

He hummed as she drove them home, drumming on his leg with his fingers. His mind was elsewhere as he hung up his coat in the doorway, bent down to work on his laces, when Rose called to him from her room.

"Can ya give us a hand?"

"In a tic," he replied, and succeeded in yanking off his plimsoll.

The Doctor swallowed and paused in the doorway when he saw Rose, her back to him, a hand holding back her hair that had been let down, exposing her neck. She looked over her shoulder at him and once their eyes met, his heart started to hammer. "Just with the zip," Rose said softly, and the Doctor's eyes focussed on the zipper that ran the length of the back of her dress.

"Right," he replied and walked to her, his hands hesitating before they gripped the top of the dress and the zipper. His eyes followed the progress the zip made and the flesh it exposed as it went, unable to focus chivalrously on the ground instead. It made him hesitate to move from her once his hands dropped, their task complete and Rose took the opportunity to slide the dress to the floor.

Swallowing hard, the Doctor finally averted his eyes and went to turn before her hand on his wrist stopped him. "Doctor," he heard Rose say softly as she drew him back round.

Once more his eyes betrayed him and he couldn't focus on her face to save his life. Her creamy skin cut through with various scars, the muscles that were hinted at by the light and shadows thrown by her bedside lamp. The simple black bra that offered up the swell of her breasts and the matching panties that still left her the most exposed the Doctor had ever seen her.

For her part, Rose flushed at the attention, watched how his chest rose and fell with speed as his eyes roamed her body. When the Doctor finally managed to meet her eyes, Rose smiled warmly at him to shift the unease she saw there. It was difficult to place, whether it was fear or shame or something else, let alone what the root of it was.

Rose doubted, somehow, that it was fear of the act itself. Sex was sex. Messy, ridiculous, wonderful but all basically the same and she had been privy to enough of his 900 years of memory to know he was familiar with the mechanics. It was the person on the other end of the messy, wonderful, ridiculousness that made it thrilling. Or nerve racking.

Dropping his hand, Rose lightly touched his belly and pushed him until he backed against her wall, his eyes still fighting to look at her and to look her over. Rose flipped up his collar and undid his bow tie.

"I fantasized 'bout doin' this, undressin' ya," she confessed, slipping his tie from around his neck and letting it drop to the floor. "You in your suit, takin' it off piece by piece," she continued, undoing the buttons of his suit jacket, sliding her hands up his chest to push the jacket off at his shoulders. "Must've been...three nights after you showed up at Christmas wearin' it for the first time, that suit." Button by button, she undid his shirt, appreciated how fast he was breathing as she exposed his chest. She stepped to within an inch of him to hold up his wrists and undo the buttons on them. "I was...furious that Cassandra stole my first kiss with these lips," Rose said, dropping his hand as she looked at his mouth, parted slightly, and the fine grain of beard about it. The act of dragging his shirt from his shoulders pressed their chests together and the Doctor's breathing became audible. Stepping back half an inch, Rose let the shirt hang from his trousers as she reached for the button on them. "An' I was sore that I'd had my first and only kiss with that handsome man ya used to be not a week before," Rose said, the memory bittersweet, as she slipped his trousers from his hips, pleasantly noting that the swell in his boxers was already larger than normal.

The Doctor had been speechless the entire time, his mind completely overwhelmed with sensation. In the back of it, something was screaming, fighting to get past the human animal and only when his pants were around his ankles did that voice take hold.

"Rose," he said quietly, searching her eyes as she stepped toward him, her hands sliding up his chest. His jaw worked for a few moments, trying desperately to say what he knew he needed to.

"S'okay," Rose whispered in return, rising on the balls of her feet to kiss him.

His arms finally finding purpose, the Doctor reached up and grasped her jaw, deflected her so that they stood cheek to cheek and he could speak into her ear. "I want things from you that I don't know if I can have," he said desperately, and in his mind Rose heard whispers of Gallifreyan, of a ritual more permanent than the one she had had in mind for the evening.

Rose smiled, finally understanding the source of his hesitation. Into his ear she said firmly, "An' I know you want something from me that ya can have," and she pulled back and kissed him.

Her hands searched for every bare piece of skin she had never touched before and his went instantly to her hair, gripping locks of it as if in fear she would retreat and take her lips away from his. Whatever the Doctor's hesitations, they were drowned in that instant. He was overcome with desire for Rose as he felt her bra come loose, her breasts suddenly warm against his chest.

I can't...I can't...I can't, he stuttered in his mind and Rose understood from the chaos there that he was lost, completely unable to fathom any but his most basic, most human instincts.

Then don't, she replied and he picked her up, toppling them to the bed in an instant.

There was something about the fact that the Doctor couldn't even think straight enough to smoothly remove his pants and socks from where they had tangled about his ankles that Rose found comforting. It was familiar. He was clumsy, frantic, very un-Time Lord and it put her at ease. It was just them, in bed, grasping at each other for satisfaction.

After the struggle with his trousers, the Doctor waited just long enough for Rose to expose him with a tug on his boxers before forcing the crotch of her panties aside and entering her. They both froze, quivering, looking at eachother but so lost in their minds for an instant. The Doctor had felt the momentary stab of pain he had caused Rose and she had felt his spine-melting pleasure, both sensation equally intense. He hesitated to move but Rose gripped his hips with her thighs and forced him to, threw her head back, her eyes screwed shut as the ache melted and her pleasure equaled his.

That small encouragement was all the Doctor needed and he moved inside her recklessly, unable to do otherwise. Had he been cognisant of anything except his need to shag Rose Tyler senseless, the Doctor might've been ashamed at himself for being so undone after only a few months of wanting her. But he was oh so human and oh so desperate for her that he was nothing else in that moment, not a Time Lord, not alien, not a time traveller, not duty bound. He was nothing but the man that needed her like she was water and he was dying of thirst.

He didn't last and Rose wasn't surprised. She felt his orgasm building the second he began thrusting and it felt as though it would split her head in two with pleasure when it hit. He called out for her again and again and through the haze of it all, Rose loved the sound of her name backed by the force of his release.

Feeling his body relax atop her, Rose pushed at his chest and slid her hand along his arm to find his fingers where they gripped the sheets beside her head. She brought them to her lips and took three inside her mouth, made them wet with her tongue as the Doctor stared at her with intense fascination. Shifting her hips as she brought his hand down to them, Rose guided his slick fingers inside her just as his cock slipped out and bit her lip.

Exhausted, the Doctor tuned into what Rose was feeling to fight the sleep that wanted to come, noted the speed and pressure that felt best and where she wanted it focused. His breath caught as she started sliding her finger alongside her clit and he appreciated that she had been closer to coming than he'd thought.

Eyes screwed shut, Rose breathed faster and placed her free hand on the Doctor's chest, caressed his muscles as they twitched in his efforts. His name died on her lips before it escaped as she came. In that instant, just as she was at the edge, he had whispered her name in his mind and touched her mentally just so, pushed her over.

Rose's arm reached about the Doctor to pull him closer as she rode out her orgasm and he buried his face in her shoulder, feeling every twitch of her every muscle in his mind.

You're better at that than me, he thought and Rose laughed, hugged him tighter still.

Before he could pull out, Rose gripped his hand to hold it inside her and whispered in his ear, "keep going." The muscles in his arm burning, the Doctor obliged and she came again not seconds later, this time pushing his hand from her as she rolled him over and laid atop him.

They were both breathless as they lay with their arms wrapped tightly about one another and only slowly did they become conscious of their own thoughts and then each others. Rose leaned up just enough to catch the Doctor's drooping eyes and her lips found his as she threaded her fingers into his hair. She smiled as he sighed into her mouth and fell like a stone into sleep. At the edge of consciousness, just as sleep took her, Rose saw him in their minds, dressed in his brown suit and long coat, leaning against the Tardis. He stretched a hand out to her and wiggled his fingers, grinning. She took it and they ran in their dreams.

-#-

He was aware that she had left the bed but knew she was nearby, felt her mind and how it was so much more awake and aware than his. Mentally, he called out for her and felt her respond reassuringly. Groaning, the Doctor cracked an eye at the light coming in through the bedroom door, saw it go out and Rose return.

He grinned sleepily. "You're naked."

"Yeah, and it's not half cold, budge up," she whispered, slipping under the covers with him and nudging him aside.

The Doctor felt something cold on his chest and opened an eye again to find it was a banana. He giggled dozily and reached for it, peeled it as he finally forced his eyes open to regard Rose properly. She was propped up an elbow, watching him as she ate her own fruit, the covers drawn up around her chest. "S'like Christmas," the Doctor said quietly, "fruit in the bed," and Rose smiled at him.

Warmth pooled in the pit of his stomach as he watched her. "Rose, is it just me or are you eating that banana rather...suggestively?"

Rose gave him a look, swallowed. "This is just how I eat a banana," she replied smoothly and took another bite, her tongue meeting the tip of the fruit as she did so, "and you are daft," she said with a smile after she had chewed and swallowed. It amused her to feel that he was genuinely aroused at the sight of her.

Reaching aside to drop her peel on the bedside table, Rose returned to looking at the Doctor and played with the hairs on his chest. "Have you often thought about me...eating a banana," she asked and this time meant every hint of suggestion.

The Doctor's jaw dropped before he quickly closed it and nodded. "Yeah, yep," he confessed, then whispered a second later, "you do have very beautiful lips."

Rose smiled warmly at the tenderness in his comment then let her eyes drift to his lap as she drew the blankets down. She took his hand, pulled at him until he sat at the edge of the bed and she knelt before him. Intent on following through with the banana metaphor, Rose was caught off guard when he raised her face with a hand on her cheek and ran his thumb along her lips. His eyes traced their curve as well before drifting to meet hers and Rose felt how fully he was present with her that time. She pressed herself up, her hands on his thighs as he leant down to meet her in the kiss, his hands once more in her hair but not in fear she would retreat.

Rose would recall the second time they had sex as the first time they properly made love, patient and drawn out and the more memorable for those facts. He mapped her scars with his fingers and tongue whenever he managed to tear his mouth from hers. Cradling his head to her whenever his mouth went in search of old wounds, Rose would wind her hands in his hair and marvel at the feel of it, the feel of their bodies as close as their minds had been the past few months.

-#-

She beat him out of the bed once more and, in pjs and a robe to ward off the morning chill, he went into the kitchen to find her at the stove. Her back to him as she cooked, she swayed to the R&B she had on, music she listened to rarely but that the Doctor knew she loved. He watched her until she reached aside to pick up her coffee and caught him out of the corner of her eye when she did so.

"Good mornin'," she said with a smile to greet his grin.

"Have to agree with that," he said, walking toward her.

When she slipped her arms about his shoulders and kissed him, he leaned in and hugged her tightly to him. "Is this a thing we get to do now? Kissing?" He asked.

Rose grinned properly at him, her high cheek bones accentuated for it. "Yeah, that's a thing we get t'do now."

"Not that we hadn't before, this is just-"

"Different," she cut him off and drew him down to her again. That was how the first round of pancakes got burnt.

Rose sang as she cooked, which she rarely did and the Doctor was pleased to hear, and they got distracted snogging one another a few more times. Apart from that, though, it was a normal morning. They joked, they touched often and with no more or less affection than they ever had.

The Doctor frowned through a mouthful of pancake. "It's, um, it's Tuesday, innit?"

"Mmm," Rose intoned, curled into his side, a mug of coffee wrapped in her hands.

"Not that I'm particularly keen on headin' into the ol' Tower but...shouldn't we be at work? Aren't Torchwood personnel about to descend on our flat in search of you and find us in our jim jams?"

Smirking at his nervousness at such a thought, Rose nuzzled his shoulder. "I called us in sick. Just remember ya had food poisoning last night."

"Did I? Most pleasant bout of food poisoning I have ever had," he said, popped another forkfull of pancake into his mouth.

"Mmm, me too," Rose laughed.