Finite
by Camilla Sandman
Disclaimer: BBC owns the characters. The words are mine, and they're just for fun.
Author's Note: Written for 50lyricsfanfic. Thanks to Saz for title help and general advice and kickassness.
II
He shouldn't really love her, he knows.
... and she is kissing him, breathlessly, jubilant, filled with the joy of life, and he should stop her, he should, he should, but her eyes are so bright and her lips are so warm, and just a second more, just a second more forever...
Not because she's human, a species he insults on a daily basis, mostly because it makes him think more clearly. He doesn't care about that, not really. There are even times he forgets it, thinking of her as simply Rose, a species to herself.
... a second becomes minutes, the taste of her changing from unfamiliar drug to explored stimulation, her lower lip slightly swollen as he runs his tongue along it, her sighs like a symphony of desire, and all for him...
Not because the Time Lords wouldn't stand for it. He never much listened to them and certainly not now, when all he can ever hear from them anymore is the dying echoes of flames. He was a rebel, now he is the survivor. The only thing he has left to rebel against is death itself.
... "We shouldn't," he says, even as his hands slide her top up, feeling her skin warm against his palms, curving them as he cups a breast and he can't stop touching, feeling, watching...
Not because he doesn't do domestic. Rose isn't domestic, Rose is a lifeline. Her hand is skin and pulse when his heartbeats sound only like the start of a requiem. He needs her to smile and be overwhelmed so he can remember how it feels himself.
... "Why not?" she replies, and he realises she's shed his jacket and he hasn't even noticed, but then, he didn't really notice her sinking under his skin and taking him...
Not because there's Mickey. He's selfish enough not to care about Mickey, and tries to reason that Mickey never knew Rose, not the Rose he knows. Rose is better than beans on toast and telly and all the domestics humans seem content to live on. Rose was never Mickey's. Mickey just held an illusion of her for a while, and perhaps he should feel guilty he's torn through that like a storm, but he doesn't.
... and he's lifting her up, swinging her around and kissing her, not looking where they're going and trusting the TARDIS to know, laughing because she laughs, smiling because she smiles, feeling innocent because she still has it in her eyes even as he's slowly killing it with each part of his life she sees...
He shouldn't love her, but he does.
... she looks at him, looks at him as he sinks her down on her bed, looks at his hands peel away clothes, looks at his lips tracing her skin and the faint moisture left behind, looks at his arms as he lifts her up and sinks her down again, looks at him look at her, eyes brighter than the burn of Gallifrey...
She isn't forever. In ten years, she'll be twenty-nine, unless he kills her first by his lifestyle. He's lost companions before - to death, to love, to changes, to domestic. The losses all still hurt, but faded, like scars, drowned by the silence of Gallifrey. The silence is a wound, raw and gaping, and Rose is sound returned, laughter and questions and his name. And the TARDIS, humming through time all the more loudly because Rose hears it.
... he sinks into her and she breathes out, she breathes out and he pulls away slightly, pace slow and reverent at first, but her body urging him on and he's ever helpless in face of her want...
He shouldn't really love her because he's afraid.
... "Rose," he whispers, clinging onto her name because it's the only caress he can give her that wouldn't lay him bare. "Rose, Rose, Rose."...
She will die. Gallifrey died, but he didn't know how silent it would be afterwards. Didn't know he would survive and everyone else would die, that forever had an after he would live in.
... "Doctor," she whispers back, clinging to his skin, fingers burrowing into his shoulder...
This time, he knows, and it terrifies him. He was innocent, now he's just old, and fear weighs the Universe.
... and everything burns, as it always does, burns, burns, burns...
She'll die...
...She rolls over and looks at him, her fingers curling against the skin shielding one of his hearts from the world, smiling, being alive. "You all right?"...
And kill him.
..."Yes," he lies, and she kisses him, giving him life just as she will death after...
He shouldn't really love her, he knows - but he does.
FIN