First chapter after my holiday. Sorry about the two week hiatus, the chapters should be a lot more regular now. Hope you like this one.
Rose awoke slowly, reluctant to leave the warm, comfortable haze that sleep had brought her. Unfortunately, it was during those first, sleepy moments after waking up that she remembered she had not been the only person sleeping in her bed that night.
She sat bolt upright, bleary eyes peering around the room, and even though had had some small experience with young children, what with having a little brother in the other universe, the only thought spinning around Rose's slow, fuzzy brain was "Oh god I've squashed her, oh god I've squashed her, how am I going to tell the Doctor I've squashed her?!"
After a few moments of frantic panic, Rose became aware of a lump under the duvet next to her that was giggling. She pulled back the covers, and there was Jenny, crouched in a ball and laughing her little blonde head off.
"You scared me so much," Rose said, not really cross. She put a hand on her chest and felt the fluttering of her heart slow down, the beats becoming regular again. Glancing at the clock that was set to London time on her bedside table – not that it ever did much good – Rose saw that she had only been asleep for about six hours. Travelling with the Doctor, and then working at Torchwood in order to find him again, had gotten her used to slightly irregular sleeping patterns, and so she thought nothing of getting up now and keeping an eye on Jenny. She would have her lie in tomorrow, when she wasn't afraid of rolling over and crushing a small child as she slept.
As she watched Jenny toddle around on the bed, trying and failing to negotiate the springy terrain of the mattress and falling on her face more often than not, Rose wondered at the Doctor trusting her enough to look after his daughter. Of course he trusted her – they had saved the world enough times – but him actually not minding that Jenny had come to comfort her and stay with her, that struck Rose as something new and quite exciting.
There was a soft knock on the door. Rose didn't even need to wonder who it was – there was only one other person on the ship – and she sat up a little straighter and smoothed her hair and cleared her throat before answering. "Come in."
The Doctor peeked his head around her door, the rest of him following shortly. He was in his suit trousers but had ditched his jacket. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, his tie was loose and he wasn't wearing his converse. His toes wriggled nervously on the carpet and Rose was struggling to remember whether or not she had ever found forearms a particularly attractive body part. Whatever her past thoughts on this issue, she was definitely finding them attractive now. The Doctor looked dishevelled and apprehensive and gorgeous, and Rose would probably have reacted much more warmly towards the sight of him at her bedroom door had she not still been more than a bit angry with him.
"You haven't seen my infamous offspring, have you?" Rose could tell by the tone of his voice that he knew exactly where Jenny was. As he stood there looking over at Jenny, who was sitting on the bed and laughing at him, the memory of him fleeing from her door last night came floating back. Had he heard all she had said to his daughter? Rose shrugged – a mental shrug rather than a physical one, not wanting the Doctor to read her body language. Let him hear. He deserved to know what she thought of him.
"There you are." He strolled over and looked down at Jenny with his hands on his hips. "What did I tell you? The first thing I said when we came in here – don't wander off." Jenny grabbed onto his suit with both hands and pulled herself into a standing position. "Clearly you've been taking lessons from Rose on that one," he grumbled, but the grumbling was good natured, and he flashed Rose a grin. She could tell that he was testing the water, trying to gauge her mood and how he should act around her.
Wanting to forgive him, but knowing that just letting him off the hook would get them nowhere, Rose was silent.
She maintained her silence when the Doctor left to get Jenny dressed, pulling on her own clothes and getting herself ready for the day ahead, whatever they might be doing. Hearing movement behind her, Rose turned to see that the Doctor had returned without Jenny. He was still just in his shirt and trousers – for him that was practically naked – and Rose could sense that he knew he should say something, though he didn't seem to be able to make up his mind what that something should be.
"She's playing in her room," he said finally, gesturing jerkily towards the door with his right hand, "thanks for looking after her last night."
"No problem," Rose replied, her voice almost monosyllabic, "she was looking after me, really."
"I might've thought she would be scared wandering to find you at night on her own, but she doesn't really seem to be scared of anything just yet."
"No," Rose agreed, still not meeting his eyes. "Although..."
The Doctor frowned. "What?"
Rose quickly decided to tell him what had happened – quite apart from anything else, her speaking filled the silence that hung in the air between them quite nicely.
It had happened a couple of days ago, before she and the Doctor had run into this patch of trouble they were currently in, and they had been in the library. The Doctor had just nipped off for a minute – it was his turn to make the tea – and Rose was perusing some of the books that filled the shelves nearest to her favourite leather settee. Jenny, as was her new habit, was copying what Rose was doing. She could only reach the books on the lowest shelf, but she trailed her tiny fingers along them and seemed to enjoy the thunking sound that she could made if she hit the heavy leather bindings just right. Once she had figured out she could pull some of the volumes off the shelves if she yanked them hard enough, it seemed as though she had discovered her new favourite game. Rose was just reaching up to a higher shelf when she heard a small thump followed by a forlorn wail. Thinking that Jenny had perhaps hurt herself, Rose rushed over immediately.
Jenny was pointing with one finger at the book that seemed to have fallen from the second shelf up – presumably had gotten confident with her skills at book removal and had decided to take it to the next level, quite literally. She did not seem to be hurt, but she was still crying, face screwed up in fear and slowly turning red. She was now flapping her hands at the book, and Rose quickly looked down at the page it was open on.
There, opposite a page of thick text that was almost illegible, it was so small, was a picture of a Dalek. It was a technical drawing –the book seemed to be detailing the Dalek's armour and weaponry. Jenny tottered a little on unsteady legs, giving the book a wide berth as she ran over to Rose and hid behind one of her legs. Little hands grabbed her jeans and refused to let go.
Rose made comforting noises and swiftly slid the book back into its place on the shelf. She picked up Jenny and held her tightly until the sobs turned to hiccups, and the hiccups turning to snuffling and eye rubbing. Why on earth had Jenny been so scared of that Dalek? Yes, Daleks were terrifying, but Jenny had never been in any contact with them, and it had only been a picture. It could have been some sort of Time Lord instinct, but Rose wasn't sure that it worked like that.
After not very long Jenny was back to normal, and when the Doctor came rushing in with tea and biscuits and an exciting idea for a planet they could visit, the incident had been shoved rudely to the back of Rose's mind.
The Doctor was pulling on his ear thoughtfully as Rose's explanation came to an end. Normally she would have warned him that his ears were going to get even wonkier if he kept doing that, but as it was she remained silent. "That's very strange. I don't understand where she could have got that from."
"Neither do I. Unless..." A memory came back to Rose, a face distorted in pain and anger and suffering, blue eyes full of grief, staring her down as she stood between him and the monster that had destroyed his people. "Has she ever been with you when you've seen a picture of a Dalek?"
He thought for a moment. "I might've been looking up some stuff in the console room one time. She was sitting on the console with me. Why?"
"Well, what I mean is..." Rose closed her eyes for a second, trying to sort her thoughts out so she could explain adequately. "Say you have one person who is the person you trust, who cares for you and looks after you and loves you more than anything in the world. Then you see them looking at something – just a picture of something that doesn't really make sense to you at all. But that person – they're looking at the picture with such an expression on their face, fear and anger and grief. It's their oldest enemy and it destroyed their entire species. I've seen your face when you see Daleks, Doctor. To be honest, sometimes it's almost scary. If Jenny saw you looking like that at a Dalek, is there any wonder that she thinks they might be frightening? After all, she adores you more than anything in the universe. If you react like that, she probably thinks you've got good reason to."
The Doctor was looking at Rose in shock, mouth slightly open. This must have been a revelation for him, and for a few moments he seemed to be lost in thought.
"I... I never really considered that."
"You're getting slow," Rose stated, not sure whether she had been attempting humour or had simply been looking for something else to say. Whatever her reasons, the Doctor did not respond, and they were once more plunged into the quagmire of awkward silence.
Finally, after what seemed like an age, the Doctor began to speak. He was rubbing one of his still bare feet on the carpet, but he was at least brave enough to look her in the eye. "Rose," he said quietly, and the sadness and pain in his voice made Rose bite her lip, "I am so sorry."
He reached his arms out towards her hesitantly, then pulled away slightly, as though unsure of how she was going to react.
She wanted to stay mad at him. She wanted to keep her dignity and stay aloof and cold and distant, to pay him back for his foolishness and selfishness and idiocy. She wanted all those things. The truth was, however, that at that moment Rose wanted to hug him more than she could ever want to do anything else. So when she stepped slowly up to him and, almost hesitantly, wrapped her arms around his waist, she felt quite calm and satisfied with her decision. One night of moping and guilt might not be quite enough for him to see the error of his actions. Just because she was hugging him did not mean she was forgiving him, and Rose told him as much.
"Just so you know, I'm still not forgiving you," she said, in a voice that wasn't quite as clear she would have liked.
"I know. I haven't forgiven me either." His arms were wrapped snugly around her, and he was cradling her head and stroking her hair with one of them. It was very calming, and Rose could feel a drowsiness drifting at the edges of her consciousness, a reminder of the tiring day she had had yesterday and the hours of sleep she had lost being awake to make sure she had not crushed Jenny flat while she slept.
"When will you bloody learn?" she said, still feeling disgruntled. "You can't just shove me in this box and expect me to sit quietly waiting for you."
She felt him tense. "I know, I know. Just... we'll talk about it later, OK? Just give it a minute. I didn't know what had happened to you last night, and then not being able to hug you when you finally got back and I knew you were safe... that was torture. And I've actually been tortured – I know."
Rose smiled a bit and clutched him tighter. Only the Doctor could win her over by making jokes about himself being tortured.
He pulled back and looked at her face, eyes flickering around but undeniably focussing on her lips. He was cradling her head in his hands, stroking her cheek with his thumb. Rose let her eyes shut, and with them she shut out all of the happenings of the last day or so, any doubts or reservations or reasons why this might be a bad idea. She let herself be governed purely by sensation, and once she had allowed herself this lapse in control, her lips were pressed to the Doctor's faster than she could remember putting them there.
Kissing the Doctor was like nothing on earth. He bottled up all of his emotions and feelings when they talked, not feeling as though he deserved the sort of love that Rose felt for him, but when they kissed he poured all his feelings out. He held her like he wanted her more than anything else in the universe – and he had actually seen most of it.
Without her even telling them to, her hands slipped down to the buttons on his shirt. He made a delightful moaning sound into her mouth as her tongue danced with his, and she felt his hands slide under her t-shirt, stroking the skin of her back. She had kissed him before a few times, though she had not been in control of her body for one of them, but none of those kisses had been leading somewhere as much as this one was. All she could focus on was the way he smelled and the feel of his hair as it slid through the fingers of her left hand, the right still busy with his shirt buttons.
And then suddenly, right smack bang in the middle of that fantastic kiss, Rose remembered everything – her doubts and her wishes to take things slow, what Martha had said to her, what the Doctor had done the previous day, the fact that they hadn't even talked about this yet. Now they were moving towards something very very fast and if she was going to stop it then now might be the only time. If she left it too much longer she knew that the will to take anything slowly would evaporate in a flash.
With some reluctance, Rose placed her hands on the Doctor's shoulders and pushed firmly, separating them in one smooth movement. Keeping her hands there for the moment helped her to maintain a little distance, but as they both caught their breath Rose found she needed more space. A couple of quick backward steps put enough space between them for her to think.
"Just... just give it a minute," she said. "I've got to think about this. I need... I want..."
The Doctor was looking at her, worry etched in his face and trepidation in every line of his body. "What do you want, Rose?"
The silence that followed was heavy, and Rose steeled herself to say what she wanted from him at this moment, hoping it wouldn't hurt him.
"I want to see Jack."
Another pause. Rose could practically track the movement of her words through the air between them, watching as each one made an impact on the Doctor. He struggled for a second, she could tell, his mouth opening slightly before snapping shut. He blinked hurriedly after that; apparently back to his old self.
"Righty-ho, Jack it is, then. Haven't seen him in a while. I'll set the date not too long after we saw Martha, is that OK?"
Rose nodded, and the Doctor gave her a smile before bounding cheerfully out of the room. The smile had not reached his eyes.
Only then, on reflection, did Rose realise how her breaking off a kiss with the Doctor and asking to go and see Jack might have come across. Despite the Doctor's bravado and arrogance about most things, this type of relationship – whatever it was – was clearly not a very common occurrence for him, and the rejection that she had just given him must have stung. There was enough resentment left over from last night that she felt a tiny stab of pleasure at him being put through a little of what she had gone through, but as soon as that feeling faded away it was replaced by guilt and worry. She realised now that, when it came to the Doctor, she had to be reasonably explicit regarding what she felt for him. He was not that experienced at this (sex: possibly, she had never asked him outright. Relationships: not really very experienced at all. Sometimes Rose felt like she needed to write it all down in a handbook for handling the Doctor), it was as though she were his first girlfriend or something. At least, the first one for a few centuries. And did the Doctor really have "girlfriends"? To top off all of these hurt feelings and things left unsaid, she had suddenly suggested going to see Jack. The Doctor was probably over-thinking everything they had said to each other even as the thought occurred to her.
Now that he had left with barely a word on the subject, Rose was standing alone in her bedroom, wondering whether she had unintentionally set their relationship back farther than she had anticipated regarding the events of last night. She sniffed, rubbing her nose thoughtfully, before fisting her hands in her hair and sighing irritably. Why did everything have to be so complicated?
Rose squared her shoulders and marched stiffly down the corridor towards the console room. She needed advice and help and just someone to talk to who wasn't emotionally repressed and in way over his head. Jack would be able to shed some light. She knew he cared about her and the Doctor enough to be brutally honest.
As she finally made her way into the console room and saw the Doctor hastily plaster a smile over his pained face, looking at her with guarded eyes, it struck Rose that brutal honesty was probably the best course of action wherever the Doctor was concerned. Even if they were almost constantly in ridiculous arguments and screaming their heads off at each other, it had to be better than this.