Never a Choice
by Camilla Sandman
Disclaimer: BBC own. I borrow.
Author's Notes: Um, yeah. Blame my friends for this one, they're a perverted bunch. Ten timeline: Sometime after "The Christmas Invasion", not really specified. Nine timeline: Right before "Bad Wolf".
II
Before
II
900 years and he still doesn't get humans sometimes.
Take Rose. Rose is bright and brave and flashes smiles that seem to him to match several smaller stars for the light they give him. Rose is beautiful, even to a Time Lord that has seen stars be born and stars die in the march of eternity. Rose is his, even if he never says and other men might touch her because it's always in the end his hand she takes, his ship she steps into. Rose is human and he is Gallifreyan and sometimes, he really doesn't get her.
"I didn't leave you behind," he tries and Rose glares at him.
"What do you call swanning off, telling me you were just getting some air and instead ending up falling out the window with the president of the planet?"
"Accident?"
She still looks stern, but he can see the corners of her lips curve just slightly and he beams.
"Stop it!" She smacks him across the arm. "Ever since the Dalek, you've been doing... This! Leaving me behind, leaving me out!"
"Rose..." he tries.
"No! I'm not just some decoration in the TARDIS. You're making me feel useless."
"You're not useless."
"Then what am I?"
There's a lot of things he can say and doesn't, because humans have a funny way of remembering words and analyzing meaning and finding the interpretation they want and he, he's still the coward.
"You're Rose," he says instead, and takes her hand. "You're always Rose."
She smiles finally, and it's still the brightest thing he knows of. And he knows he still has to keep her safe, the decision he made the first time he took her hand. He has to keep her safe and he still can't quite let her go. Not yet.
"You're always the Doctor, even when you drive me bonkers," she says.
Time Lords have a funny way of remembering words too.
II
Between
II
They never gave her a choice.
When she thinks back to it, it's always that she comes back to.
They never gave her a choice. They just acted, the old Doctor and the new, kissing the choice away from her, taking him away and bringing the new him to her. They never gave her a choice and she never quite got over that, not even after she'd gotten used to the new hair and the new clothes and the new Doctor, still insisting on taking her hand.
They never gave her a choice.
Time is about to.
II
Another day hopping in time and space, another day of something going slightly wrong. Rose is beginning to wonder if there's any 'right' at all in time.
"That can't be good!" the Doctor says and Rose fights back the urge to glare at him. The TARDIS is shaking like a ship in a bad storm and the best he can manage is 'not good'?
"What is it?" she asks instead, trying to find her footing and finding the floor to her ass instead.
"Some kind of transmat beam interfering with the TARDIS! Nearly got it..." he declares, yanking hold of her hand and pulling her up at the same time as the TARDIS comes to a stop. "Got you!"
"So you do," she says and smiles at him, trying to get his face back into focus after the bright light.
"Rose?"
For a moment, she thinks he's slipping into his old accent again, something he does when stressed and always leaves her slightly breathless. But the voice comes from behind her and she turns and he's there, he's there, leather jacket and ears and the close-cropped hair she's almost forgot the feel of against her palm.
He's here.
"Where's Jack?" he asks, looking around. "Who's...?"
He pauses and she realises she's still holding the other Doctor's hand and they're staring at each other, something like understanding seeming to pass between them.
"Been a while since I've been in a time paradox," the newer Doctor finally says. "What is the common courtesy these days? Your TARDIS is my TARDIS?"
"She looks good. You made some improvements."
For a moment, Rose wonders if they're talking about her and she tugs consciously at her top, then feels rather silly. Her breath keeps catching in her throat and her body doesn't quite feel hers. He's here. He's...
"Yes, transmat beam interrupter. Figured I needed it after..."
"I was yanked out of my own ship?" the older Doctor says, nodding and looking around.
"Yep."
"How did you...?" she breathes, finally finding her voice.
"Transmat beam," the other Doctor says, looking down at the console. "We seem to have interrupted the transmat beam to... Oh. Satellite Five."
She isn't really listening. Step by step, she nears him, fighting the urge to throw herself into his arms. He really is here. He really is alive, and he doesn't have to die and she can have him again and hold his hand and do everything she's always wanted to and never got around to.
"Rose," he says and it's the voice she's so used to, the voice she followed into the TARDIS the first time and she leans against him. After a heartbeat, she feels his arms encircle her, warm and comforting and familiar.
Tilting her head up, she looks into his face, drinks in the sight of him, but his eyes are on his other self.
Oh.
She turns enough to see the new him looking at them both and even as he's smiling his infectious grin, his eyes are dark.
"Doctor," she says and they both look at her, new and old, gazes different and still seeking her. And before she can think, before she can analyze what it might mean, she holds out her hand to the new him.
"Come here," she says, and he does. Hesitantly, but surely, lacing his fingers in hers, putting the other hand on her back. It's smaller, but it still feels warm even through her top.
"I have no idea what to call you. One and two?" she mutters, enjoying the feel of different textures of their hands as she links hands with the other Doctor too.
The Doctors exchange an amused look.
"Nine and Ten, perhaps," the newer Doctor says, beaming at her. The smile never seems far from his lips, she thinks. He feels brighter, day to the night she fell in love with and warm, so warm.
"Doctor Ten," she says and returns the smile. "Doctor Nine. Nine and Ten. You sure run through your bodies, don't you?"
They both laugh, and she laughs with them, feeling a moment of such perverse joy she thinks she might burst from it. They're both here and she doesn't have to feel like she betrays one when she misses the other, or forgets the feel of one hand by taking another.
"I can probably reverse the field, get you back into the beam," Ten - she has to think of them as Nine and Ten or she'll go bonkers - says and she shakes her head wildly.
"No," she says before the other has a chance to speak. "No."
"Rose..."
"No. He's not going back. You're not," she directs at him, at Nine, clutching his hand harder. He just looks at her, eyes blue and ice, so familiar and so strange to see again still. In her memories, his eyes were a lot less alien, she thinks, but no less beautiful. And she's not letting him go again.
She kisses him. It's not really a choice, it's more the inevitability of looking into his face again and feeling his hand in hers. It strangely doesn't feel like a first kiss, even if his lips are hesitant at first, gradually growing more persistent until he's kissing her, and she's out of breath and probably out of her mind too.
She hasn't let go of the other Doctor's hand, she realises, and tilting her head slightly, she meets his gaze. She can't read his eyes, but she can read his face and the flicker of hurt feels like a stab to her.
"No," she says, shaking her head at his silent accusation. She's never been give a choice between them and she's no longer sure if she could make one. That doesn't mean she won't miss what is lost or can't enjoy what she has. It's not a choice. It's not...
So she kisses him too. This feels like a first kiss, a little awkward, his nose bumping against hers until he tilts his head slightly, his hair tickling her forehead. She frees her hands to take firm hold of his tie and drag him closer, and she feels his hands grow firmer against her back.
When she feels lips on her neck too, she wonders how out of her mind she really is. She's kissing one Doctor and the other is kissing her neck and it's a threesome except it's really not. Or does it still count when there's two of the same person?
She's not sure if it's trying to sort out that or two pair of hands on her body that's making her head spin. It doesn't help that Nine has found just the right spot behind her ear and Ten has pushed her top up just slightly, stroking his fingers across her navel. She breaks the kiss with him long enough to kiss Nine again, firmly establishing that they both like to tug at her bottom lip. Ten's lips are slightly softer, Nine's kiss slightly more demanding.
Differences and similarities, she thinks. Differences and similarities.
"Rose," Ten whispers, brushing a kiss against her temple, "I can leave if you want, give you and me... Him... A little time."
"No," she says again, whispering it against Nine's lips. "No. Both."
Before they can protest or say anything, she takes both hands and leads them away. They both follow, a bit too meekly for her to trust them, until she realises it's because they're eyeing her backside as she walks.
All in all, probably a good sign.
The TARDIS is for once not a maze and she finds her room easily enough, pushing the door open and wishing she'd cleaned some. Still, it will do.
"Both," she says again, and kiss them both, Ten first and Nine after, feeling her lips slightly swollen already.
They exchange a glance she can't read over her shoulder, something passing between them before Nine nuzzles his head into her neck, his breath hot. Ten bends down, trailing butterfly kisses across her stomach and she laces her fingers in his hair, unable to resist the temptation to ruffle it slightly. He grins up at her, and she thinks that his smile always was easy to return, whichever lips it was on.
She closes her eyes and leans slightly back, Nine steadying her against him. His hands are warm on her hips, his woolen jumper smells so of him and the leather jacket makes familiar sounds as he shifts slightly.
"Hey," she whispers and kisses him, tracing the sides of his mouth with her tongue, feeling rather than hearing his sighs. Hands still in Ten's hair, she can feel him lift his head slightly and pushing up her top as he goes, the air cold against her skin. But his hands are burning as he cups a breast and she arches into the touch as lips take over for hands.
Oh God.
"Hey!" Ten says cheekily, but makes a strange sort of yelp as she lets her hands wander down him. He's hard against her hands, and Nine is hard against her back and they're both hers and she's always just Rose to them both.
She isn't quite sure who undresses her, but does both of them. First Nine, leather jacket discarded, jumper pulled off, trousers yanked off and her hands on his thighs, her lips on his chest, kissing his heartbeats. Then Ten, nearly choking him dragging the tie off and kissing it better, fumbling with buttons until he helped and her hands tracing his shoulders and kissing the mole, as she's always wanted to.
Nine was her first Doctor and he's still the first now, his face so bright when he sinks into her, his forehead against hers. Ten is soft against her back and the mattress is soft against her side, and she feels her own breath like thunder in her mouth. Thunder, thunder and lightning and she's breathless when he breathes her name and time goes still.
Ten makes sounds that make her smile even as she scrapes her nails over his chest and feels him under her, her skin burning where his fingers burrow almost painfully in. Perspiration clings to his skin and his skin clings to hers as moves and sighs, moves and sighs, moves and makes her sigh. He smiles, smiles like a dawn when he makes a strangled sound and Nine kisses the pain from her lips.
Rose sounds so beautiful on two lips, she thinks as they both whisper her name and both cling to her and they're both hers, hers, hers.
"Doctor," she whispers and closes her eyes.
II
She dreams of fires and firestorms and wolves howling and wakes to find the Doctor's arms around her, warm and comforting. Ten's arms, and the rest of the bed is cold. Without even thinking, she bolts up, ignoring the fact that she's starkers as she runs for the console room. The floors are cold under her feet, but that doesn't matter, not when she seems Nine still there, looking up as she enters.
"You were just going to leave? Without a goodbye?"
"Rose," he says and she knows that tone. She still hates it. "I have my own timeline to return to. My own Rose."
"Your own timeline will kill you!" she blurts out and tries furiously to blink the tears from her eyes.
"Rather figured that, with new guy there," he replies. "The transmat beam should muddle my memories enough to make sure I doesn't mess things up."
"I..." She stares at him, trying to find the words. "I don't want you to go."
"Don't you like the new me?" he asks brightly. "I thought I looked pretty good. Not bald. Nice teeth. Not sure about the mole, though."
"I do," she protests and she realises she really does. Somehow, the new him has grown on her until she can't quite imagine things without him either. "I do, I just... I miss you."
He reaches out and curl her hand in his, looking at her with so much love she thinks she might fall from the weight of it all and fly at the same time.
"Rose," he says again. "I'm always there."
He kisses her so softly she does cry, his lips tasting of her tears and his breath, so achingly familiar. And then it's gone and he pulls back and smiles at her.
"See you, Rose."
The TARDIS goes bright and then he's gone too and she stands still in the cold until she feels warm skin against hers.
"I had to go, Rose," Ten whispers, arms around her waist, holding her. "The Daleks were destroyed, you survived to be here now."
"You never gave me a choice," she whispers. "You made the choice."
"I made the choice the first time I took your hand," he replies, and links his hand with hers. "I haven't changed my mind since."
"You just changed everything else."
"Change is good!" he protests. "I like having hair. I like the mole."
"So do I," she says and turns her head to look at him. He's grinning and so is she, she realises. He always could make her smile.
"Enough to follow it back to bed? You'll get a cold out here with nothing on."
"Like you weren't enjoying the view."
"Time Lords do not ogle and tell."
"Hah!"
II
After
II
They never gave her a choice.
Maybe there's never been a choice to make after all. Maybe she made the choice a long time ago too, running into the TARDIS on his invite. Maybe every time she takes his hand is just a reaffirmation of it, just like kissing him now, feeling his body against hers, the weight of him growing familiar.
"Always Rose," he sighs and closes his eyes.
"Always the Doctor," she replies and keeps her open.
Never a choice at all.
FIN