There came a day, soon after Rose returned home from the hospital, that she and the Doctor had to take some things out of the TARDIS. They had decided to keep it there, in the back yard, as a testament to days gone by — and, the Doctor said, in case it was ever really needed, because a time ship was a useful thing to have.
So Rose and the Doctor began removing clothes and kitchen supplies and all those sorts of things from inside the TARDIS, both trying to ignore the triumphant smile on Jackie's face whenever she came into view.
Tony, now eight, had some choice things to say about their decision to lock the TARDIS doors.
"You promised to take me for a ride! To Barcelona and the 51st Century and all those other places! You promised!"
"I know, and I'm sorry, Tony, but —"
"Don't you dare," hissed Jackie from her reading chair in the corner.
The Doctor swallowed and looked back at Tony.
"I'm sorry, I really am. But it's dangerous."
"That never stopped you before. Rose told me!" And Tony, who always reserved the spot next to his own at the dinner table for the Doctor, didn't speak to him for a week.
Soon enough the inevitable day came when the last T-shirt and cardigan and pair of pinstriped trousers was transferred into the mansion, and the TARDIS was empty of anything that had once made it seem like a home. On that day, Rose and the Doctor stood in the console room together in a state of quiet shock.
"Well I suppose that's it then," said Rose.
"Suppose so," said the Doctor.
"What are we going to do all day now?"
"Oh, we'll find something..."
"Tony did get that Wii for Christmas."
"Oh yes. Wii. Always have wanted to try a Wii..."
He trailed off and they lapsed into brooding silence. The console room seemed cold and forlorn without the whirr of its engines, the dull glow of its lights. The Doctor felt for Rose's hand, and she slipped it into his. The TARDIS for the certainty of Rose's safety. She was so, so worth it.
"You know," said Rose after a while, "There's this... well, it's not like I'm suggesting anything, mind —"
"'Course not," said the Doctor.
"—but I saw this flat down in Kensington and —"
"Kensington!"
"—and I thought, well, 'isn't that a nice flat.'"
"'Course it is, if it's in Kensington."
"Not that I'm suggesting anything."
"No." The Doctor swallowed and looked about the TARDIS, drawing in every detail hungrily with his eyes. "Mind you, your mum —"
"I know, she's a right terror. I'm sorry." Rose bit her lip, trying to hide a sudden smile. "She petrifies you, doesn't she?"
The Doctor gave a nervous sort of groan.
"There's no Jackie in that flat in Kensington," said Rose unexpectedly.
"Isn't there? I thought all flats came with their own."
She laughed and looked up sideways into his face. It seemed to dawn on them both right then that this was possibly their last moment in the TARDIS, ever — and immediately afterwards came the thought that this was the only place on the grounds of the entire mansion where Jackie never went. And perhaps it was both of those things or something else altogether that drove the Doctor to put his hand up to Rose's cheek, and without much warning short of a brief and burning stare he leaned down and kissed her warmly.
They had kissed before, of course, although not very often — the adventures, the running, the thrill of space and time and each others' company had always seemed more important than the kissing. It wasn't needed to emphasize the friendship between them. But now there was a new urgency in the Doctor's embrace. Rose was enveloped by his arms in a way she hadn't been since that morning on Bad Wolf Bay. It wasn't just losing the TARDIS — it was keeping her. And suddenly, with the console room dark and empty, he was seized by the irrational fear that if he let her go she would drift up and away and disappear, and he would be alone again forever.
And Rose clung to him, because she remembered a day when she hadn't been able to hold on long enough. One warm kiss became a desperate embrace, and when gravity threatened to overcome them they backed up against the console. A new kind of flower blossomed in Rose as she reached up her hands to touch his cheeks, his eyelids, the line of his nose. The Doctor, too, was overcome by the power of this feeling that had broken over him with the sudden strength of a tidal wave. Because Rose smelled like pink-and-yellow girl, and snow, and stardust, and in all his wandering days he had never found a scent so wonderful. What kind of miracle or trick was this? That he had gotten her back? That he had gotten to stay with her?
Her fingers traced the line of his collar and parted the layers of clothing around it — oh yes,he hadn't worn a tie today! — and he shivered at her touch. That movement sent a change over the kiss; lips parted and hesitated, trembling on each other, sharing breath — and then deepened into something that burned with longing and passion and broken boundaries.
Rose stood on her tiptoes and pushed his coat off his shoulders, and it fluttered to the ground like a blanket which they fell upon together. Like molting feathers they peeled away the layers of denim and fabric that still separated them until it was just skin against skin, heart against heart. For the Doctor there was nothing but a pink-and-yellow winter, in the spin of her hair and the hitch in her breath when he kissed her eyelashes. For Rose there was the universe itself, the smell of rushing summer and galaxies, the press of a chest that had been rising and falling almost a thousand years, angular cheeks and broken memories and a millennium of anguish and joy flowing from him to her and — somewhere beneath all of that — cheap QuickMart-brand hair gel, watermelon-scented.
They shared breath and skin and thoughts together, naked and exposed to the air of the darkened console room. First there was cold, and then there was fire; Rose would never have words for how his chest and belly felt pressed against hers, and the Doctor would always, even in years to come, be overwhelmed by the thought of how her skin had shone in the darkness over him. And as they became of a single breath and being, they were both aware of two heartbeats there, two hearts in the TARDIS, beating in time with each other, and they were finally whole again.
