This chapter is rated M but has been heavily edited down and is not sexually explicit. The full unedited version of this chapter can be found on A Teaspoon and an Open Mind.
Later, Rose would marvel at the feat of the two of them actually managing to make it back to the bungalow. There was an exhilarating urgency in the Doctor's eyes as he took her by the hand and they crossed back up the beach, their pace quickening with each step. Once inside the bedroom, he quickly turned to her as their lips crashed together, frenzied and desperate.
Once they separated from the kiss, each held the other's gaze with intensity. When the Doctor spoke, his voice was hushed. "On Gallifrey, the bonding of minds was considered sacred and binding. But afterwards, if you'd still like to wait and have an Earth ceremony…"
Rose silenced him with a deep kiss, then placed her hand between his hearts. "This is what I want," she softly breathed. "I want to pledge myself to you in the way of your people." His eyes shone as he nodded.
The Moon had now risen — full and bright — and illuminated the room in a pale radiance as the Doctor took Rose by the hand and led her to the bed where they knelt together and entered into the bonding ceremony. All of time seemed to still after that moment as they became lost in a world all their own. The Doctor spoke his pledge to Rose in a language she had never heard; yet the fluid, melodious sound resonated deep within her and somehow she understood the essence of his words, as if this language had always been a part of her, hidden deep within.
To the Doctor's astonishment, Rose then began to return the most important of those words to him, tentatively at first as her lips and tongue sought to embrace this new language and learn its form. She slowly repeated words after the Doctor until it started to feel natural. Rose realized in the deepest recesses of her memory that she had heard this language before. She had heard it in the form of a song as the melody of the TARDIS surrounded her and the Vortex of Time flowed through her the day she took the heart of the TARDIS within her and saved her Doctor. The Doctor was in a state of awe as he heard the words pass from her lips. He had not heard his own language spoken by another since the day his people were lost. The affirmation that he was now no longer alone permeated his soul as Rose pledged her entire being to him.
Then came the joining of their minds. The forming of their bond. The Doctor touched her mind with his and she opened herself to him without reservation. He had told her to imagine doors and shut away anything she didn't want him to see. But Rose removed all barriers and laid herself bare before him. She let him see the secret places inside her and let him know her in a way no other had.
In return, the Doctor revealed himself to her. Not in the onslaught of darkness he had directed at her earlier, but in a crashing wave of love. He had shown her Gallifrey in a state of carnage as it burned. Now he showed it to her in all of its majestic splendor — as he wanted to remember it, as she would help him to remember it. He had shown her the darkest parts of himself — the blood and the anger and the revenge. Now he showed her the beauty; the things of the universe that made him stand in awe and the sacred moments that took his breath away.
Rose also saw his deep fear. His fear of losing her to an approaching storm — the storm he had spoken of once before as they gazed up at the night sky lit with fireworks, his words causing a haunting chill down her spine. But as she re-lived the memory of that night, Rose soothed over his fear of loss with the assurance that she was here, right now; and in this moment that's all that mattered.
-:-
It could have been hours, it could have been an eternity. Both had lost all track of time when they finally withdrew from each other's minds like a gentle whisper. The link was now formed and could be opened between them at selective times. Slowly, Rose's lids fluttered open, and she was met by the Doctor's dark eyes gazing back at her, deep and fathomless, ancient and forever. Wordlessly, he drew her into his arms and kissed her, long and slow and deep.
Despite this being their first time of shared intimacy together, there was no awkwardness or fumbling. Every touch, every movement came as naturally as if the two had been made for each other. And they had. Both realized they had always been journeying towards this — destined for this. It was unstoppable.
They rose from the bed where they had been kneeling and stood together in the soft moonlight of the room. The fervency between them both had seemed to reach a new level. Their shared need was overwhelming in its intensity.
No more waiting. No more painful longing. Their lips came together once more in urgency. Rose traced her tongue along the Doctor's full bottom lip before drawing it into her mouth and tugging gently. His lips parted as her tongue slid past and swept across the roof of his mouth, eliciting a deep groan from his chest. The Doctor slid his hands down her back and pulled her tightly against him, letting Rose feel his desire for her as his tongue met hers in long, fluid strokes. Rose moaned at the dizzying feel as his tongue thrust along hers in a promise of things to come.
He broke the kiss long enough to pull back and look into her eyes as he cupped her face in his hands as he pledged, "I'm yours."
Rose whispered his name in Gallifreyan. The Doctor gazed at her in rapturous wonder, eyes wide and fathomless, as if she had just managed to stop Time itself.
They explored each other with the caressing of hands and the brush of fingertips. When that wasn't enough, hands were replaced with the grazing of teeth and the stroking of tongues as two lovers discovered each other's hidden places.
The last vestige of his control was gone as the Doctor surrendered helplessly to her touch. The Doctor had told her he could raise and lower his barriers of arousal at his own choosing, but he knew Rose was the one who could make his barriers tumble and fall at her feet on her command. He didn't think he would mind in the least.
Their already smoldering passion reached the boiling point, and both were desperate for the completion they had yearned for long before this night. This was the moment where fantasy met reality, and fantasy paled in comparison. Both wanted to live in the perfection of this moment.
The Doctor spoke to Rose in hushed words of Gallifreyan. Again, she somehow understood the essence; he then whispered them for her in English, his voice barely audible. "Do you know just what you are to me, Rose? How I love you eternally?" Tears were welling in his eyes.
Rose was consumed with the depth of her love for him. "My Doctor," she breathed out, "I love you. So much."
How they had ever held back with each other, neither one could fathom. All they knew in this moment was that this was the fulfillment of destiny. They were destined for each other throughout all of time.
The pleasure was overwhelming, yet as inconceivable as it seemed, still capable of reaching new heights. The Doctor lifted his hand and placed it on her temple, opening the link between them. Opening the floodgates. They both gasped at the new intensity of what was being experienced. Rose felt her pleasure coupled with his pleasure, and the Doctor felt the same as the loop circled between them, doubling their shared ecstasy. Neither had ever experienced such an unspeakable, all-consuming love.
The Doctor's eyes fell shut as he saw timelines beginning to stretch out within his mind. Possibilities spanned out before him, and he saw a timeline where Rose was at his side throughout his lifetime. It could not be possible, yet in this moment he believed anything was possible; and he reached for that timeline, willing it to be true.
Afterwards, both slowly came back to awareness. Rose whispered her love for him, once again speaking his name into his ear in his own language. The Doctor lifted his head, tears of utter joy now brimming in his eyes and tumbling down onto Rose's cheeks as he brought his lips to hers and kissed her with reverence.