Act Two

II

It continues with a seduction.

"You want this, Rose Tyler," the voice says, and she nods, because it's true. Desire is not logic, and doesn't follow its rules. She knows. She feels it. He has too, she knows, because she feels the warmth in his skin when he takes her hand and hears the breath he lets out when she lets go.

Desire is not love either, but it sometimes dances tango with it still. And she thinks maybe, maybe that's the dance she's started.

She wants it to be. Oh, she really wants it to be.

"It can," the voice promises, and it is his voice and not his voice, because she knows it's not the Doctor speaking. "Very soon, Rose, it will be."

It continues with a seduction, and she's falling for it.

II

The TARDIS is silent, and she knows it's not right even before she opens her eyes. The room is darkened, and the only thing she can hear is her own breath, sounding very loud. Someone has wrapped a warm blanket around her, and her breath turning white as crosses her lips tells her why. It's cold, and she wears the blanket as a cape as she gets up. Her body feels sore, and her head feels almost hung over and she wonders if it's been partying without her.

The silence gets eerie as she walks through the halls, trusting her feet to know the way to the console room. She finds she tends to get more lost in the TARDIS when she tries to use logic to find what she's looking for. The Doctor would probably tell her that's because her human logic is inferior.

At least, the old Doctor would. This one might try to teach her Acolian logic or something similar instead.

Human logic is at least right on one thing. He is in the console room, jacket tossed aside and white shirt stained with grime. Some is even stuck in his hair, she notices, and wonders if that's fashion at some point in human history too.

"Repairs?" she asks, and the frown fades from his face as he turns to look at her.

"No, no, I thought maybe it was the TARDIS interfering with your head," he says sheepishly.

"Was it?"

"No," he says, and shakes his head. "Something's following us."

Not us, she thinks. Her. Following her.

"Is that the technical term?"

"Yes. Short for Sodding Obscure Mischief Edition of Thing Hitherto Incomprehensible to Navigating Gadgets," he proclaims, then seems to slide out of joking mode and right into worried. "You feeling okay?"

"I don't know," she answers honestly. "Better, I think."

He watches her intently, and she fights the desire to bury herself against his chest and make him promise it will be all right, it will be fine, everything can be sorted out, right as rain with a little tea. He will tell her, it's not that. It's just she doesn't want him to feel like he's broken a promise on top of everything else if everything can't be sorted out.

"It was almost like a part of me wasn't even there," she says haltingly, as a way of explanation. "I don't know where, or what, or... How do you know something's following us?"

"It's manipulating time. The TARDIS helped mask it. Bit loud, old girl, but she can't help it."

"Has it stopped? The... something, I mean, following us."

He shuffles slightly, running a hand through his hair. "Not as such, no."

"Great."

"Now don't you worry, Rose, a few adjustments to this timefilled wonder, and we'll soon track the source down! We'll follow it! It'll be fun."

When he smiles at her, she tries to feel comforted and fails.

II

When he smiles at her, she always feels lost. Lost in him, lost in an adventure, lost in a seduction, she doesn't know. But it has to be something, or she would know where the path went from here. She doesn't. The future with the Doctor can be the past tomorrow and was the future yesterday. She never knows. She doesn't know now, and all her guesses feel like fantasies.

If he knows, he doesn't say, merely tracing a finger down her shoulder and stopping at the inside on her elbow. It tickles slightly, and she marvels at how real it feels.

"You're not real."

He looks a little annoyed. "Do you tell all the men you've shagged that? Not doing wonders for your chance of a repeat performance, I have to tell you."

"Too good to be real," she murmurs lazily.

"That on the other hand, does do wonders."

She kisses him lazily too, feeling sore and tired and a little sorry for the dress that probably is beyond repair. Perhaps there is a little comfort in knowing it went for a good cause.

"Rose," he says seriously, tucking stray hairs behind her ear. "You know this is problematic, don't you?"

"So was climbing a rampant Tromk beast, and I managed."

"You also broke your leg," he points out, lifting his hand to rest it on her knee. She remembers the pain of the break, and so does he, judging by the look in his eyes. It's never stopped amazing her how much pain he can carry. His, hers, past, present and all the future possibilities of it.

"It heals," she replies, and wills it to be true.

II

She's trying to will herself to feel normal, and it's not working to well.

Will herself to smile at the Doctor when he looks worried, no problem. Will herself to walk normally and not clutch her head every five seconds, slight problem but doable. Will herself to share his enthusiasm and energy at solving what's going on, bordering on problematic. Will herself to feel like it isn't all an act, all out impossible.

She thinks he knows too, but it's hard to tell. If she's an amateur theatre actor, he's the multiple-BAFTA winning star.

"So," he says, flicking his sonic screwdriver in a slightly distracted fashion. "Not a Kavakinan parasite. That narrows it down."

The TARDIS seems to hum in encouragement, or perhaps just in pleasure at being powered up again. It's hard to read the TARDIS when she doesn't have a dictionary to consult. She would ask the Doctor to write one, but judging by the number of rewrites she's seen in his edition of Troy ('But Rose, Homer's original is like the half-deaf, all-out-drunk version!''), she'd be wrinkled by the time he was done.

"Narrows it down to what?"

"A narrower field," he says evasively, which probably means he thinks the answer will worry her, or perhaps worry him and he would rather not voice it aloud.

Sometimes, he really is protective to the point of assholeness, she thinks.

As if he knows what she's thinking, he laces his fingers in hers, anchoring her to him and holding on.

She wonders if it's always felt this possessive.

II

She's bordering on possessive, she knows. Keeping close to him, almost as if she's his shadow, kissing him, almost as if he's her boyfriend, watching him, almost as if she is him and he is her now. She's afraid, she knows, and it's the only way she can think of to reassure herself.

She's afraid this will end. She's afraid it won't, too.

She knows she's no Helen of Troy, beautiful enough to launch a war, but she is Rose and he is the Doctor, and she wonders what he will do to keep her close. She wants him to burn the whole Universe if needed, and that scares her too.

But she says nothing, and he says nothing, and time feels almost still in his arms, lulled to sleep and lulled to waiting.

She's waiting for the price, and she knows it's coming.

II

She knows the blinding headache is coming a few seconds before it hits. Enough time to brace herself and think the bracing rather futile. Not much a rowboat can do to brace itself for the storm, after all.

She's running out of ways to describe pain. There is fire and there's cold too, a pulse beating in her with constant sensation, and little pauses where she thinks it isn't so after all. Then it is so bad, and she tries not to gasp.

As it finally leaves her, it almost feels like it takes a part of her with it.

"Rose," he says, and she realises he's clutching her shoulders so hard it's painful too.

"Yes, Doctor?" she quips, and it is enough to make him ease his hold and smile a little.

"I like an obedient patient."

"I like a hot Doctor."

"Only until you get the bill," he replies, and brush a few strands of hair from her face. They're slick with sweat, and she wonders. "Something's reaching out through time, even I could feel it. It's almost like a tickling sensation, if I am still ticklish, I don't know, but the TARDIS, oh, she is. Very good at spotting the ticklers she is, too. I've put a neutron-interfacing..."

He catches her look and quickly amends himself.

"I've put a piggy-tail on it. I'm waiting for the oink of pain to get back to me."

"Oink," she says, and pain comes.

II

He's hard to see sometimes, under all the pain, she thinks. It's almost as if he was born of it, and even when he seems happy, it's still there. She's always sensed it, she knows, but she's never challenged his denials. Don't argue with the designated driver, and all that.

Problem is, she's not sure who is driving anymore.

"Rose," he says, and shakes his head.

"Fine. I'll just ask Jack when we meet him again, except you won't tell me when that will happen either, so I guess I'm stuck a stupid ape."

"Even the wisest man in the Universe doesn't know this."

"I thought that was you."

"No. I'm just the fool with all the knowledge of the Universe," he says, and she wonders what the difference is. "Rose... You don't want to know about Gallifrey's burn."

"I do," she insists, and he's paces a little, looking an annoyed tiger in the very large cage of all of time and all of space. She does want to know. Maybe... Maybe there's a way to bring it back. Maybe there's a way she can make that as she wants it too.

"No," he says softly, and walks up to her, framing her head in his hands. "You'll learn and want to leave and I won't let you go."


"I'm here to stay," she whispers back, and his kiss is hard and possessive.

II

"Stay with me," he whispers, and it sounds like desperation.

That's the problem, she thinks. Does she want to?

He's holding her again, and she can feel something soft under her and something soft and cool over, and it feels strangely like a womb in the light of the TARDIS console room. She wonders what she'll be born into. Into whatever she wants, perhaps. Into...

"Rose," he says, her name a plea. "Rose, stay with me."

Rose.

"I'm sorry," she says, and because she doesn't know how else to comfort him, she kisses him. He tries to pull back, but she puts a hand on his neck, and he seems to think that a show of restraint enough. His hair falls against her forehead and tickles her as he kisses her back, her lips parting willingly to let him explore. She feels a mess, but she also feels that he doesn't feel that at all.

His tie is already half off from his various tinkering and running about, and he doesn't offer any protests when she yanks it all off. His shirt is grumbled and greasy, and that has to go too. She has to pull her top of herself, but his hands find her exposed skin eagerly enough.

"I'm here," she whispers, her head falling back slightly as his mouth is warm against her skin. It doesn't feel like a lie, not right now. She can feel her body, muscles sore and aching and none too thrilled to have to work as he eases her down. Not gently enough, and she winces when her head bangs into something hard.

He fumbles with her jeans, and she feels butterfingered and clumsy when she touches him, and she remembers fleetingly her first time, awkward and silly and so eager to make it right that it was a bit of a disaster.

Time moves and she learns, and when she lifts up and meet his thrust, he makes a sound that is half a whimper, half a gasp.

Yes. Oh, yes.

II

"Yes," he says, and she beams at him. "We'll go see Jack."

"Satellite Five?"

"Satellite Five."

II

"Satellite Five," he mutters under his breath, and she opens her eyes to see him leaning over the TARDIS console. He's half put on his clothes again, not seeming to mind his shirt is unbuttoned. Neither does she to tell the truth, but the look on his face does worry her.

It's nothing, as if he's keeping all options open still as to how he feels.

Satellite Five, she thinks. That's where it's coming from. That's where they're going. There's where it's waiting.

She closes her eyes again and tries not to dream.

II

"It's not a dream," the voice says, and it hums like a lullaby. "Its a choice, Rose Tyler."

"Between what?"

"What I offer, and what is. All you have to do... is let life be."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"I knew you would understand it's not too bad at all," the voice says, and it doesn't sound like her anymore. It doesn't need to.

"You can rewrite this, Rose Tyler," the Emperor of the Daleks says, and she's still listening.