A/N:

Summary: The Doctor and Rose reconnect - then go for breakfast on a remote Alien Pavilion...

Notes: It has taken too long to get here, but here is part one of my promise to my wonderful Lego Artist to write them a wee arc based upon her Lego design and storyboard. It was amazing ... really ... stellar work.

Oh, as a warning. The beginning part of this chapter is fluff... plan and simple sappy fluff smoochie woochie rot your teeth kind've stuff. Light raciness, I suppose, but nothing worse than you'll see on primetime TV (quite less than that, actually)... You have been warned...

Have a very glorious weekend... see you next week!

~~oooOOOooo~~

The flat of his hand slapped hard at the headboard and his fingers curled around the top edge of it as a long cry bellowed out from the very back of his throat. He barely heard the first two syllables of his Gallifreyan name howled out beneath him, although he knew beyond all doubt that the wailing sound of it twisted and danced perfectly within his own cry.

Both sounds petered out slowly into gasping, hard breaths panted out by the two of them. He hovered for a moment to catch his breath and it was when he tasted the salty flavour of his own sweat dripping down from his nose to his lips that he finally found the energy to fall heavily off to the side. He fell hard on his side and rolled onto his back, still gasping for breath when he lifted an arm to shield his eyes with his forearm.

"Well," Rose managed out with a dry croak in her voice. Her hand was loosely fisted in the small valley between her breasts. Like the Doctor beside her, she struggled to catch her breath and calm the excessive beating of her heart below her fist. "That. That was…"

"Mission accomplished," he muttered cheekily with a dry chuckle.

She rolled her head to look at him. "What mission is that?"

He didn't remove his arm from his eyes but used the other to lightly swat the mattress to find hers. He threaded his fingers through hers and held tightly. "To make you howl," he said with a wide toothy grin. "I counted at least three of them." He swallowed over a dry tongue. "Quite surprised the kids didn't join in."

"Oh shut up, she said with a breathy chuckle. "Never change, do you? No matter the body you're in, you're always thinking you're so impressive."

He remained shielded from the light and bore a wide smile. The wink he gave underneath his forearm was visible in the light crinkle at its corner. "That's because I am so impressive."

"And so very humble about it as well."

He let the arm finally fall from his eyes and rolled his head to look at her. There was a light pinch in his brow as his eyes searched hers. "Why? You didn't find it impressive?"

"Never said that," she said with a laugh. "Really. That was … something else…" She gulped and tried not to focus on the wide grin of self pride he wore across his cheeks. "We've done a lot of this, Doctor." Her eyes widened to think about it. "A lot." She swallowed and shook her head. "But that? That. Wow. That was very different to either of the last you's…"

"Good different, or bad different?"

There was insecurity in his question, which she found curious. He had no need to be. She gave him a smile. "Just… Different."

His expression fell and his eyes dropped from hers. There was as much petulance as disappointment in his voice. "Well that isn't very encouraging is it?" He writhed just slightly on the mattress, his muscles still jelly and basically non-responsive. "Give me a moment to recover, and I'll give you an experience to rival any of them."

Rose had to chuckle at that, didn't she? She lifted her eyes to the ceiling and huffed out a laugh. "Are you unique amongst your species and this competition you seem to have against yourself; or is it a general trait amongst your people?" She pressed her finger against his lips to prevent him from answering what was really just a hypothetical question and gave him a light hush. "Good different, Doctor. Very, very good, yeah?" A smile spread across her cheeks. "No man before you had me howling in the way you just did."

A happy sound emanated from the back of his throat and he smiled against her finger. His hand flew up to snatch that hand in his, and he kissed against her palm. "That's good to hear, because if I'm being honest with you, Rose…" He chuckled out lightly and let both of their hands fall back to the mattress. "I don't think I can manage another round right now." He writhed a little. "Not sure I can even walk."

Rose chuckled and levered herself up to a seated position. She gave him a cheeky look down along her shoulder. "Not so impressive after all, are you?"

"Hey," he coughed out. "It's been a little while, okay? And certainly not in this body." He frowned a little. "Some of these muscles are sadly out of use." When she slid off the bed and stretched up tall and high beside him, completely naked and lit only by the glow of the swirling constellations above their heads, he let out a long and appreciative moan that spoke of his unworthiness of her. "By the Gods, Rose. You are magnificent."

And in his eyes, she was.

Rose didn't have the tight and skinny physique of the Hollywood and Instagram worlds. She didn't have rock hard abs and perfectly perky grapefruit-shaped double-D breasts, nor did she have Botox swollen lips and false magnetic eyelashes. She did, however, have the most adorable little soft rounded paunch in her lower belly that she'd not been able to get rid of since being pregnant with Mark. Her breasts had lost their youthful perkiness and had stopped supporting themselves shortly after weaning their son from feeding. Her hips, buttocks, thighs and her lower belly sported the silvery stripes of skin stretched to it's limit…

…And in his eyes, she had never looked as visually stunning to him as she did right now.

"Just beautiful," he breathed out.

She chuckled with light embarrassment and curled her arms around herself with light awkwardness to his such focused attention. There was a light and uncomfortable giggle in her voice. "Oh. Yeah, thanks. I should probably find some time to go to the gym or something." She stooped to locate her shirt. "I'll just cover up, yeah?"

"Don't you dare," he breathed out as he quickly scuffled across the bed to pull to his feet at her side. He quickly moved toward her, cupping her elbows in his hands to pull her hands from covering herself. "Don't ever hide yourself from me."

"Doctor," she whined with light embarrassment. "Please."

"I sculpted you," he said to her in a light, but firm voice. "Remember that? Back in Rome? I sculpted a Goddess in your image. I took great pleasure, and spent such intense focus on sculpting your body. Every part of you seared so deeply inside my mind that I could sculpt you from memory alone…" He cupped her cheek. "Your beautiful face." He breathed out reverently. "I thought you were so beautiful back then, Rose. So brilliant and uniquely perfect."

She smiled with thanks and lowered her head with light shyness. "Yeah, well, that was a long time ago. Before havin' kids destroyed me completely…"

He pressed his finger to her lips. "Let me finish," he implored her gently. "I sculpted every perfect part of you with utmost reverence, never once thinking that I would ever find anything in this entire universe more beautiful than the figure I was sculpting at that moment." He drew his finger heavily down her lips, drawing her plump lower lip down enough to show her teeth before releasing it to bounce back up against the other. "But I was wrong. So wrong. That wasn't perfection. Far from it, in fact."

Her brows pulled together and she let out the smallest of whimpers when his hands met with her waist and he lightly coaxed her into a turn. She bit at her lip as he lightly guided her toward the bed.

"Perfection," he breathed out with awe in his voice. "Is who you are now." He cupped her face and kissed her hard on the mouth, releasing her with a pop. "Your lips. Perfect." He dipped his head to press a kiss to each of her breasts. "These. Both of them. Perfect." He exhaled against one. "So. So perfect."

She gave a slight whimper at his affections and faltered backward to end up sitting on the mattress. She wanted to argue with him, absolutely she did, but she knew better than to even try…

…And, heck, didn't she need to hear him say these words to her; to know that he still adored her despite her flaws. She spoke his name in a sigh and leaned backward with her back down along the mattress. Her fingers stroked along his arms as he shifted into a penitent position on his knees between her legs.

"I wish you could see you like I do." He pressed a kiss to her hip bone, and the silvery lines that curled lightly around them. "And how perfect every part of you is to me. Even these. Oh, Rose, especially these."

His lips dragged across her skin, from her hip to the small rise in her belly. He suckled as much as kissed against the soft pooch that she hated so much. "I love this," he vowed as he pressed kiss after kiss from hip to hip. "You can't imagine just how much I love this part of you, and what it means to me that you have it."

She drawled out an indecipherable series of syllables and writhed her shoulders on the mattress. He looked up along her belly and through the valley of her breasts and noted the pinkening of her cheeks and the drop of her jaw as she exhaled out a quietly desperate sigh.

"My hearts beat for you," he assured her. "And I truly don't think you understand just how much I not only love you, Rose, but how much I absolutely revere you. More than anything, including time herself." He shifted his mouth to kiss again at her belly and shifted his focus and his lips lower. "So maybe its about time I show you just how much I truly worship you, hmmm?"

~~oooOOOooo~~

It was a bustling and noisy marketplace that met the Doctor and Rose at the doors of the TARDIS once they'd finally decided it was finally time to venture out. Braxiatel had given them a minimum quarantine period of two days from the first dosage of the medication, and the pair of them had maxed out that time frame without an ounce of guilt shared between them. They were currently at the 52-hour mark from leaving Estrail, but only at a mere 49 hours after taking the first set of pills. Much of that time had been spent rediscovering one another in both the physical and telepathic senses, or sleeping off exhaustion, which left very little time for nutrition. So, with that in mind, and with the dangerously-low-sugar-level tremors he could see in his wife's shoulders, the Doctor had insisted that they stop for a quick breakfast on their way back to London.

"Welcome to the planet Kucails," he chirped out with a wide grin as he stepped off an orange-coloured landing pad and onto light grey stone of the planet surface. He had his hands in his trouser pockets and looked down to dig the toe of his Converse into the gravel-like surface that lay beyond his TARDIS and led to the main marketplace. "Third planet in the Thani solar system. One of only two inhabited planets in this solar system, actually." His brows lifted and he looked up ahead of him. "Which is about double the size of your system." One side of his face scrunched up. "Well, a little more than double, but not quite triple. 22 planets in all – including the three dwarf planets."

He held his hand to her. "Come on, Rose. Stop for a quick breakfast, and then head back home in time for the school run."

"Is it safe?" she queried as she slipped her hand into his and used his hold to steady her as she slipped on a pair of shoes.

"I know you're being playful and all, Rose," he said with a light huff. "But at some point I will stop trying not to take offence to it and express just how offended I really am when you ask me that – with all of the stereotypical dramatics I see you sharing on your YouTube and Facebook pages."

She let out an exclamation of surprise. "You have facebook?"

"The TARDIS does," he answered with a shrug. "And I hijack her account from time to time to stalk you."

"I'm going to have to friend her," Rose said with a chuckle. Her eyes widened. "Does she post? Like, can she talk to us that way?"

"I'm afraid not." He shook his head slowly. "She's watching. That's all. Watching all of you who have travelled with me. Making sure you're safe and well. Letting me know if I need to drop in and lend a hand." He winked and gave her had a tug. "And you're already a friend of hers."

"Really?" she queried. "What's her username?"

"Idris," he answered with a shrug. "Not quite sure how she same up with that one, but she did. Quite like it, actually. Anyway, come on out, Rose. I assure you it's perfectly safe for you here."

"Yeah, I'll believe it once we've left." Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and hovered in the doorway a moment as she took a look around her. "Looks a bit like a marketplace," she remarked with a smile.

"That's because it is," he answered with a shrug. He tightened the hold of his hand around hers and led them in a slow walk through a wide alleyway of light gray gravel that led them in between two double-storey buildings of Cream and ochre.

Rose's eyes were wide with wonder as she tucked her hair behind her ear with the hook of one finger and took in all that surrounded them. The first thing she noted was that the bulk of the people milling about were all basically humanoid. There were random variations between them all, of course, and there were the odd truly alien looking creatures wandering about as well.

"So the Kucailians…?"

"They prefer to be referred to as the Kucail," he corrected her. "There is a planet in a neighbouring solar system known as Kucaili, and they tend to go by Kucailian." He let out a bit of a sigh. "They obviously don't get along all that well, so mixing them up can be quite – how should I say this…?"

"We'll end up in gaol or something," Rose ventured. "Head on a spike kind've thing?"

He chuckled. "Not quite to that extreme – unless the laws have changed recently." His lips pursed outward and his brows knitted together. "Best we don't find out."

"Works for me," she sang. "So? What brings us to Kucail, anyway?"

"Breakfast," he cheered with a wide grin. "Best Croissants and Pretzels in the universe are in a patio café called Bivies, which is Kucail for twisted knot. Oh. You just wait until you try them, Rose, not too flaky or greasy for the former, and not to heavy on the latter." He lifted his eyes to the sky at the sound of a low flying aircraft hovering overhead. "Which makes this a very popular destination for a take-out snacks by local interplanetary traders."

Rose shielded her eyes with her forearm as she looked upward to the ship that looked to want to land in the middle of the square. "Is he gonna land? Right here, in the market?"

He nodded with a shrug. "Not out of the ordinary here, I'm afraid. Pedestrians beware the landing gear of random aircraft crushing you from above."

"No iPhone Zombies 'round here, I'd expect," she murmured with a slight smirk.

"I don't know if I should be thankful to not know what you're talking about, or be curious for an explanation," he said with wide eyes that were as worried as they were curious. "But when you refer to them as Zombies, and given where we've just come from…" He tugged on her hand to lead them onto a patio and the only vacant table he could see. "Quick, before anyone else sees it."

"See's what?" she gasped with a laugh, thrilled to be dragged on yet another fun adventure of sorts. Oh, how she'd missed the thrill of the run.

"Our table!" he called out urgently. "Come on, Rose. Can't miss this seat – perfect for people watching!"

"Well we can't have that, now, can we?"

He let go of Rose's hand and curled himself around another couple that were looking to procure the same seat. He plopped down heavily into one of the seats with enough force for it to scrape a food few inches backward and offered a grin of apology to the other couple. "Sorry," he chirped. "But the wife and I, we had a reservation."

The female of the pair looked upon the Doctor with a look of utter disgust and disdain, but he showed no reaction to it except to smile a toothy grin.

"Such rudeness," she huffed with a lift in her eyes.

"What do you expect from a Gallifreyan," her mate agreed with a sniff of arrogance. "Rude and obnoxious creatures, that entire planet."

"Well that's a bit rude," he muttered with a shrug. "I do have my non-obnoxious moments."

"You think Gallifreyans are rude," Rose snorted with indignance from behind them. "Wait till you meet the Human."

Both of them staggered a startled step backward. She held her hand at her chest with disgust and horror, he just looked mortified.

Rose lifted a brow and slowly a smile spread across her cheeks at the mortification of these two people. She leaned lightly forward and said: "Boo!" She erupted into laughter at a shrill screech from the female, and then the sound of scarpering feet as they both took off in fear. She shook her head and walked around the table, dropping heavily into the chair across from the Doctor. "Friends of yours?"

He rolled his eyes and leaned forward in a slump, folding both arms to lean down on the tabletop. "No. They're a pair of Thanians. From the planet Thani in a neighboring solar system to Gallifrey, inside the constellation of Kasterborous." He looked off to one side. "Their species are as arrogant and self important as the Time Lords are, but with far less reason to be that way except envy. Despite efforts, they've been unable to rise to become one of the main Temporal Powers." He flicked his eyes to hers. "They blame Gallifrey for that, of course. Accuse our kind of …" he sat back in his chair and swirled his finger in the air with a turn of his wrist. "Withholding technology and denying them the ability to access the appropriate temporal archives…"

"Which you guys are, I suspect," Rose said without judgement as she perused a laminated one-page menu. "Right?"

"Well yes, but that's really beside the point."

"Not really," she chuckled without looking up. "The Time Lords are doing exactly what they're being accused of."

"Some people just shouldn't have access to it, Rose."

"Not saying they should. I mean, can you imagine Earth as it is right now getting that…" She lifted her eyes and her words stopped immediately upon seeing a very familiar face happily enjoying an icecream at the next table over from them. Her hands flew to cover her mouth as she drew in a startled and worried breath. "Oh my God."

The Doctor's attention, and his protective streak rose within him immediately. He sat up quickly and looked at her with hard eyes of question. He needed to make sure she was okay before he leapt into action. "Rose?"

Her eyes watered as they flicked toward him. "Doctor. You. You're here." She drew in a shaking breath. "I mean another one of you."

He winced at that. Her reaction, the watering of her eyes, and the almost audible breaking of her heart meant it could be only the one version of him. His eyes slowly dropped in a blink and he exhaled almost sadly. The two of them had just managed to cross the most important threshold of their stumbling relationship – please say this wasn't going to throw them back to square one.

"Which me?" he asked quietly.

"Him," she answered with a shudder in her shoulders. "The … the one who…"

"Who loved you so much he made you his wife," he conceded almost sadly. He twisted in his chair in a movement he tried desperately to make look as casual as possible. He pressed his cheek into his shoulder and looked backward toward the nearing table.

Not that he doubted Rose's identification of him in any way at all, of course, but it was prudent for him to make a beyond-all-doubt identification of his own. He didn't quite remember visiting Kucail during his Eighth incarnation – but then again, quite a vast amount of information about that incarnation was missing from his memories. His brother would call it: Spotty at best.

One thing he could quickly determine, however, was that at this juncture in his younger self's timeline, he had no memory of his wife and children. He could tell by the slightly aged, slightly sunken features that this man was nearing the Time War. A century passed from the Bad Wolf incident at the Capitol, decades since Charley … this man was on his way to meet Lucie.

"He doesn't know you," he managed out with a croak in his voice.

"B-Before or after?"

Oh, how could he tell her this was after Bad Wolf? How could he possibly admit to her that despite the immense love, devotion, and blind reverence he had for her, she was so easily forgotten? Oh, of course, she knew it had happened. She'd been told of it…

…But that didn't mean she had to see it, or even experience it. Her heart didn't need that level of breakage. He wouldn't allow it.

"Before," he lied with far too much ease.

"But the looks so much older," she breathed out. "Like he has the weight of it all on him."

He turned back to her, reaching out a hand to grasp at one of hers. "Before I met you, Rose…." He sighed out hard. "I had a lot of heartache before you ended up on my TARDIS. My hearts were broken. I'd lost so … so much."

"Lungbarrow," she breathed out knowingly. "And your family?"

That would work. It wasn't a lie that Lungbarrow hurt him deeply, and it was still aching his hearts when he met Rose.

It just wasn't in the forefront of the man seated at that table….

He nodded slowly. "That was a hard time for me." He looked down his shoulder to gesture toward his younger self. "Add to that a hard, and very confusing regeneration into that man. The toughest regeneration of all of them so far." he looked back to her, lifting his hand to touch at her cheek with his fingertips. "You came into my life right when I needed you the most." His mouth tipped up into a smile. "Like you did with the next me." His smile fell to a reverent expression that was almost pained. "And both of them, Rose. You saved them both."

"Oh, I just want to hug him," she breathed out empathetically. "Tell him that everything will be alright, and that he's loved. So deeply loved."

"That would be the most dangerous thing for him to hear right now," he whispered more to himself than to her. He rubbed at his thighs and slowly drew to a stand. "Come on. Let's swap seats. That way you won't have to look at him."

"I won't test my resolve, you mean," she corrected with a smile. "I understand the timelines, Doctor. I promise you I won't do anything to let him know who we are to each other…"

"Oh Rose," a Northern voice said with a deep chuckle of amusement from the patio railing beside them. "I already know."