A/N Like chapter 8, I've written two versions of this chapter to give the option of more or less detail depending on preference. I've edited this one down substantially, and though it's not explicit it's still bordering on M, so I've upped the story rating to be safe. The complete unedited version can again be found on the site A Teaspoon and an Open Mind for those who prefer to read the full chapter.

Chapter 34

Silver moonlight cast long shadows across the airy bedroom and illuminated the couple within in a muted glow. A symphony of soft sounds carried through the room and blended into a single sensual rhythm: the cadenced crash of the ocean waves breaking on the shore just beyond the open veranda, the soft, wordless sighs of pleasure passing between the two lovers lost in each other, and the accompanying sensual sound of lips joining and separating and joining again and again on a journey of rediscovery.

The Doctor finally broke free from the kiss that was rapidly consuming them both just long enough for each to breathe. He never ceased to be amazed at how Rose could drive him to such loss of control as he sought to pull air into his oxygen-starved lungs, his respiratory bypass having abandoned him the moment their lips met – such was the case whenever he let his desire for Rose overtake him. It was all-consuming; and he wouldn't want it any other way.

He pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes closed and his breath coming out in a ragged rhythm. It was impossible to hold anything back any longer. This needed full release. "I need you, Rose. So much. All of you."

"Yes," she both consented and pleaded, sharing the same desperate need. Driven instinctively, her fingers left their resting place in the thick softness of his hair and slipped down to his temples. For a telepath, the sensitivity here was amplified, and his knees nearly weakened from Rose being the one to initiate that touch. He groaned at the contact, her fingers like conductors of electricity that sent the current rushing through every synapse. The joining each craved went beyond the physical. They needed once again the connection of their minds at the level they had once shared.

The Doctor let the last vestige of his control disintegrate into nothingness as the barriers between them were lowered, the innermost parts of himself offered up to her. He would not pour his mind into hers beyond what she could withstand, but she could now join with his once again and fill him to completion. The focus of their love for each other pouring forth and traveling between them was rapidly rekindling the essence of their bond. What Rose now felt in this moment of merging transcended any experience of having him in her mind previously these past weeks when he had been forced to hold back. Now, their link was reestablishing itself to the fullness they had once known; the fullness neither one could imagine in this moment how they had ever lived without for even a second.

Rose could see him now with the eye of her mind, could feel him more powerfully than ever before. She focused on drawing closer to his radiant essence, pulled as if by a force of magnetism. As Rose's own essence drew closer to the fire and ice of his presence, she could sense a power, like a storm whirling on the surface of the ocean; yet she wasn't repelled by fear but wanted to run into the very eye of the storm where she instinctively knew there was protection.

The Doctor sensed her seeking to merge herself with him. He felt a desperation to draw her in and never separate as his presence sought to become one with hers.

Two souls melded in a brilliant burst of radiance as Rose gasped outwardly, and the Doctor pulled her closer, both within and without, murmuring against her temple in an ancient, melodious language that struck something deep inside her and resonated through her entire being. Bond mates were reunited, as they had once been, as they were meant to be.

Within Rose's mind, his own was suffusing through her like a soothing balm. The force of his mind unrestrained had broken her. The force of his love unrestrained was healing her. What was once shattered was beginning to mend. What had been lost was soon to be reclaimed.

Suddenly any distance at all between them was unbearable, almost painful. The Doctor needed to be connected to Rose in every way, nothing between them, flesh to flesh and soul to soul.

He could feel and see Rose's own desire for him flare, a surge of golden fire in his mind. An erotic groan left his throat and passed into hers, and Rose could feel his own powerful need for her pulse through her psyche.

It was so strong, so consuming that for a moment Rose had to struggle just to breathe. She turned her head to gulp in air as his lips dove to the side of her neck. The love, desire and fervency between them was dizzying. Rose wanted to slow it all down for a few seconds and just take in this moment. She pushed back lightly on the Doctor's chest, slowing his driven urgency. "Just...just slow down a second, yeah?" she murmured, pulling back as he followed, again pursuing her mouth, but she brought her hand up between their lips.

"Rose?" he questioned, his eyes opening halfway. It was so rare to hear him sound breathless and she relished it.

Rose stepped back just out of arm's reach. "I just...want to look at you like this." He briefly looked down at his disheveled self, then back up at her, the most adorable, dazed and blank expression on his face. His moment of cluelessness just made him that much sexier. He didn't even realize just how gorgeous he was like this. She raked her eyes up and down him. His hair was sticking up at gravity-defying angles, his skin was flushed, his tie askew and nearly undone, and his shirttails untucked. "You're just so...gorgeous," she breathed out.

As if to accentuate that statement, he lifted a brow as a slow, sexy smile stole across his lips. His dark eyes took an appreciative journey of their own down her body and his voice dropped to that low, husky timbre. "I think I'm meant to be telling you that. Now come 'ere."

She squeaked in surprise as he swooped in on her in a flash, drawing her against him and catching her open mouth with his, but she eagerly caught back up with him to where they'd been seconds before.

As the passion escalated, what had begun taking place in Rose's mind as their bond reestablished was now intensifying. Rose began to see a blending of scenes playing out, both before her eyes and within her mind. Memories of their first time making love in this very place began to coalesce with this moment. That memory drove her desperate need for more. Rose was so consumed by him on every level that she didn't know if she was seeing his memory or her own.

Rose nearly drove him over the brink, but he managed enough control to lift her in his arms and carry her to the bed.

He placed Rose down as he sank with her into the mattress, lips never leaving hers. Simply kissing him, Rose decided as her tongue danced along his, was something she could do for a lifetime. His mouth was deliciously cool against her feverish tongue, his heady taste like spiced honey. Rose briefly wondered if he always possessed such an ability to set her ablaze. Then a fiery memory of their passion again flashed through her mind. Yes, he did.

It was almost too much. This, coupled with the past memories of their passion now playing out before her felt like a double inferno coursing through her veins. It was as if he was everywhere at once – touching every part of her body and mind.

"Is...is that you?" she broke the kiss long enough to gasp. The memories became starkly-vivid and almost overwhelming, her whole body shuddering with a crashing wave of love and desire. "Are you showing me?"

He kissed her soundly, and with a final, long, looping sweep of his tongue, he pulled back, breathing hard, his chest heaving as he spoke. "No, Rose. You're showing me."

"I'm remembering...," she whispered breathily as the realization of what was happening became vibrantly clear. It wasn't just a flash here and there as it was moments before; entire events were now returning to her. Rose could see the two of them both kneeling face to face in the fading glow of sunset on the beach just beyond this room as the scene played out in her mind:

The Doctor's eyes were intense, burning into hers, as at last he spoke the words he had brought her here to ask. "Rose, would you accept me as your Bond Mate?"

"This is the Time Lord equivalent of a proposal, isn't it?" she asked breathlessly.

His voice was solemn. "Yes."

She could hear and see him pledging his love, giving her his soul. "...I'm remembering us."

The Doctor stole the last of her words with his lips. He wanted to cry and simultaneously shout. Rose had come back to him. He couldn't hold himself back. He felt like a starving man finally given sustenance. His mind had once again become one with hers as their bodies were following suit. He broke free from her mouth, whispering her name in English then Gallifreyan as he lapsed into his native tongue while descending down her body, his lips setting each nerve ending on fire. He didn't stop until he reached her womb. He slowed then, and showered attention on the place where their child lay within, brushing feather-light kisses across the soft skin of her belly.

"I love you," he whispered into her skin. "So much. Both of you."

Rose nearly wept. She loved him beyond expression, and she remembered that love. Rose stroked her fingers through his hair, then clutched tightly as his lips dipped lower. She was beyond caring if she sounded desperate. Foreplay had its merits, but right now she just needed him. "Please. I...I need you...now. Right now."

The Doctor groaned at her words. Barring extreme circumstances like the ones of these past few weeks, the Doctor made a mental note somewhere in his currently-muddled brain never again to go this long without making love to his wife. The distance between them had nearly been his undoing.

Her eyes had squeezed shut but she forced them back open, and found his were so intense, so searing that Rose thought she might lose all control then and there simply from his scorching gaze.

And she remembered. She remembered all the times he looked at her with such indescribable passion, made love to her in rapturous ecstasy. What had been steadily building reached the breaking point. The final memories returned and she knew it all.

In that moment Rose looked into his eyes and knew it all. Janyeer, the night the baby was conceived, the explosive moment they found out, the hurt that followed, how he drove her to tears of despair and to question his very love. She remembered. It all came washing over her in one final surge.

The Doctor could feel it, could see it in her eyes and within her mind. She knew. She knew it all and he felt shame.

Words of anger, spoken in fear and pain came resonating back like rolling thunder.

"You believe that if Rose is physically alright then us having a child together could actually be something good?"

"I've been working to save lives while you have been working to destroy mine."

And Rose's question to him in the midst of it that choked the air out of his throat every time he allowed himself to remember:

"Would you be happier if I lost this baby?"

He clenched his eyes shut and buried his face in the side of her neck. "I'm sorry," he repeated over and over again in a broken voice. "I'm sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry."

"Shhh," she soothed him, stroking up his back and across his shoulders. She had no doubts of his love – for her or their child. "That's past now. That's over. What matters is now." Rose took his head in her hands and lifted his face to look at her. "I love you."

Tears brimmed in the Doctor's eyes as he exhaled shakily. He didn't deserve her. He didn't deserve this. "Rose, I...I can't. I d-don't..."

He moved away but Rose rolled to his side, shushing him with her fingers on his lips, then cupped his jaw. "Do you believe I love you?"

He might not feel he deserved it in this moment, but he believed it. His shining, sorrowful eyes locked on hers as he whispered. "Yes."

"Loving someone only if they never make mistakes, never get scared, never do things they regret – that isn't love at all. Love is unconditional and it forgives," she answered with finality.

Any further refute he might have had was silenced with a searing kiss. "I love you," she whispered once more as her lips brushed his jaw, his neck, down his chest, across his abdomen. "I love you."

He wasn't about to let this just be about him. Any pleasure she gave him would be returned in equal measure as his hands went about caressing every inch of flesh he could reach and he repeated his love for her again and again. Now that he was able to speak the words again, knowing without any doubt she felt it too, he couldn't stop. Those words had been absent from his tongue for far too long.

The moment their bodies and souls melded as one, wordless declarations of love, apology and forgiveness were given and received as they reclaimed what had been lost. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and glorious and everything love should be.

-:-:-:-

Both utterly sated, Rose lay with her head pillowed against the Doctor, lazily swirling her fingers through the soft hair of his chest as she dipped her face down, placing a light kiss over his right heart, still thrumming hard. The Doctor tilted her chin with his hand to look up into his eyes.

"I missed you," he whispered, feeling a peace within his mind that had been absent. "I missed you so, so much. And Rose, I...I'm s–"

Rose placed her fingers over his lips. "No more apologies," she gently admonished. "There's nothing more to forgive."

He smiled, so gently that her heart melted. "I love you, Rose."

She kissed his shoulder, up to his jaw, then his lips. "I love you," she whispered back, then cuddled into his side, drawing a knee up over his waist.

They lay in silence for several minutes, their hearts beating in harmony. The Doctor held her close with one arm while the other hand stroked languidly down her back, then up, repeating the sensual rhythm.

The Doctor's mind was journeying to thoughts he once never imagined would have been his.

His low, gravelly voice rumbling in his chest beneath her ear broke the dreamy silence. "Do you think..." He paused and drew a breath, startling his own self with what he was about to say. "Do you think you might want to do this again sometime?"

Rose tilted her head to look at him, resting her chin on his chest. She lifted a seductive brow. "Sex with you? I think that is highly within the realm of possibility," she purred.

He let out a small laugh, jiggling her. "That's not exactly what I meant. Though happily it does involve that, too." His eyes were suddenly more vulnerable and stripped bare than perhaps she had ever seen them. He lifted his hand and brushed his fingers through her hair again and again because he was too anxious to keep still. Some part of him had to be moving. If he were vertical he would have been pacing. The vulnerability in his voice matched that within his eyes. "Would you ever want to have another baby with me again?"

Rose stared at him, stunned. This was the last thing she ever expected to hear. She knew he had come to terms with this pregnancy, and she also knew with her reproductive physiology having been altered on Janyeer that more children were theoretically possible for them, but she never expected it to be something he would willingly desire again.

"Of course, there's plenty of time to think about it," he added, taking up the silence and falling into that nervous babbling mode. "It'll be a year before this little one's even ready for the world. And then I'm sure you'd want some time...between...if you even wanted at all, that is...and..."

"You would really want that?" Her voice was barely a whisper, but enough to gain his full attention.

He swallowed hard and nodded. "Creating life with you, Rose...there's nothing more incredible in the entire universe."

She shook her head slightly as if to clear it and laughed in astonishment. "I didn't think you'd ever..." She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly before looking back up at him and breathing out. "Yeah. I think I might want to do this again."

They both just stared at each other before simultaneously breaking out into laughter. The Doctor drew her up to him for a thorough kiss.

Rose snuggled back into his chest. "Though I might change my mind once I reach somewhere around the eleven-month mark when I haven't even been able to see my feet for an eternity," she added lightly. "Best not bring it up again at that point, yeah?"

His chest vibrated as he chuckled, overflowing freely with joy and love. He drew Rose closer to him, never wanting to let go. And he never would. Whether he was holding her in his arms tonight or holding her in his hearts a thousand years from this night one thing was certain: throughout all of Time he would never let her go.