A/N: In which the universe's own timeless flirt must answer for his crimes ...
"Thank you, Doctor," Rose muttered quietly as soon as he had finished piloting them back into the safety of the vortex once more, far away from Earth and the Maitlands and the strange, human life that she knew she was leaving behind.
"For what?" the Doctor asked, eyeing her from where he stood at her side with his arms crossed casually against his chest.
"Keeping the kids alive. Saving everyone from a cyberman invasion. You know - just generally doing what you do best," Rose listed matter-of-factly, smiling at him as she noticed him watching her carefully out of the corner of her eye. His own smile was soft and speculative as he silently nodded at her.
"You were always so good with kids," Rose continued breezily as she crossed her arms and leaned her hip against the console next to him. "Used to make me a little jealous, you know. But it always did come in handy. Glad to see that hasn't changed."
The Doctor's smile grew wistful and his eyes took on an odd, dark quality as he turned his gaze slowly to the floor between his feet. "You never said ..." he muttered quietly. "Did you and he ...?"
Rose caught his meaning immediately and she shook her head slowly as she, too, turned her gaze to the floor. "No. Never quite seemed to work out," she replied with a shrug. "We never really did get to the bottom of it. Felt like we tried everything, though. But no matter what we did, it just ... never happened." She shook her head again as she admitted on a whisper, "I always felt bad about that ..."
"Why?" the Doctor asked, his attention immediately drawn back to her as he searched her expression intently.
"Because," Rose replied with a humorless breath of laughter, not daring to meet his eye as she confessed one of her oldest, deepest doubts to him, "you wanted kids, and I couldn't give them to you."
"Hey," the Doctor muttered, quietly chiding her. He turned so that he was facing her fully, his hands coming up and hesitating awkwardly for a moment before he finally drew her into a tense hug. "Hey, now. Don't say that. You know that that doesn't matter. You still had a life together. He still had you."
Rose slowly returned his embrace, wrapping her arms tight around his middle as she screwed her eyes shut and let her thoughts fill with memories of her husband. Standing this close, she could feel the Doctor just on the periphery of her mind, tentatively testing the edges of her thoughts as he wordlessly attempted to sort out the source of her current dark mood. Rose noticed that his own mind seemed to be just as weary as she felt, after their long day of fighting off hoards of cybermen and several mental attacks.
"Are you ... alright?" she asked slowly, her voice coming out somewhat muffled as she refused to step away from him and muttered her concern directly into his shoulder instead. "The Cyberplanner ... he didn't leave any lasting effects, did he?"
"Oh, not to worry. I've faired far worse than the likes of him before," the Doctor muttered dismissively into her hair, but Rose didn't miss the way that his hands tightened reflexively around her ribs and he instantly shuttered his thoughts safely away from her once more.
"Doctor ..." she sighed wearily, not quite sure how to ask her next question, or even if she should. Did she really want to know the answer? "Those things that the Cyberplanner said ..."
The Doctor immediately went rigid in her arms, and Rose wasn't sure if the thought that crossed her mind next was his, or if she was simply insinuating from his tense body posture. Don't ask, Rose. Please, don't ask ...
"Doctor," she tried again, a bit more firmly. "He knew about the Bad Wolf. He knew about me. And he said ..."
But Rose didn't get a chance to finish her thought, because the Doctor had pulled away just far enough so that he could slant his lips against hers in a hard, desperate kiss - one hand firmly placed against the back of her neck to keep her from attempting to move away.
And the truth was that Rose really, really didn't want to - but shame was burning hot in her gut and the last thing that she wanted was for him to sense it through their close proximity, so for the first time in her long, long life, Rose Tyler turned her head away and refused to reciprocate a kiss from the one man who she loved most in all of the universe.
She quickly shuttered her mind away from the sharp sting of hurt that swept through him and she stepped sideways out of his embrace so that she could be certain that he wouldn't be able to pick up on her answering wave of bitter regret.
The Doctor seemed to be frozen in time as Rose regarded him silently out of the corner of her eye, his hands still raised in the air before him and his eyes gazing longingly at the space that she had occupied just a few seconds prior.
"I'm ... sorry," Rose whispered lamely, her tone sounding choked and bitter to her own ears. She did her very best to keep all of the angry sarcasm out of her voice, but she wasn't sure if she succeeded as she added, "What would your wife say?"
The sharp words broke the Doctor out of his trance and he heaved out a heavy breath of air as he let his hands fall to the TARDIS console in front of him and he hung his head down between his shoulders where Rose couldn't catch his expression. The fact that he didn't deny her claim or the Cyberplanner's words sent a stab of pain into Rose's heart and she fought desperately to convince herself that she was better than these petty jealousies. But nothing in her long life had ever quite prepared her for this - to have to share the Doctor's affections with another woman. As long as she had known the Doctor, it had only ever been just him and her. How foolish she was to have believed that it could ever possibly stay that way throughout his entire, extended lifespan.
"It's not what you think ..." the Doctor muttered slowly, his voice rough as he continued to keep his face turned away from her and his body hunched over in one long line of tension.
"It's okay, Doctor," Rose insisted, fighting to convince both herself as well as him. "I understand."
"No!" the Doctor shouted ,his voice ringing off of the silent metal surfaces around them and making Rose startle in surprise at the loud, sudden noise. "It's not okay. It's not even ... remotely okay!"
"Doctor ..." Rose murmured reassuringly in an attempt to calm him down, but her words only seemed to make him angrier, and he spun around to level a wild, bitter glare at her.
"No!" he shouted again. "Because, you see, it's been so long, Rose. It's been so, so long, and I thought ... You were gone and everything was just wrong for the longest time. I kept expecting things to go back to normal, but they never did. So I just thought ... well, maybe normal wasn't going to be an option any more. So I started coping with what I had, you see. I made a life as best I knew how. I kept moving, kept doing what I always did - kept saving people and worlds and civilizations, thinking that maybe if I just pretended that everything was alright, then maybe it would actually start to feel that way. And then I met ... her ..."
And the fact that he couldn't even manage to speak her name out loud in that moment broke both Rose's heart and her resolve. She rushed forward to where the Doctor was fidgeting in place and immediately erased all of the distance that she had put between them by throwing her arms around his shoulders and pressing her face against his neck.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled into his shoulder. "I didn't mean ... I didn't think ..."
The Doctor silenced her stuttering words as he brought his own arms tight around her and held her close. She could feel his misery as her own, even though he attempted to shield her from it, and Rose hated to think that she may have been the one to put it there, with her own insecure doubts.
"Tell me about her," Rose offered gently, her voice a mere whisper as she ran a comforting hand through the thick hair on the back of his head.
The Doctor heaved another sigh, his chest rising and falling beneath her and his breath ghosting across the back of her neck and ruffling her long, dark hair.
"Her name is River," the Doctor replied, speaking her name the same way that he had always spoken her own - like it was a secret that he had to keep hidden from the rest of the world. Rose also didn't miss the fact that he referred to her in the present tense, either - as in, he still spent time with her on occasion.
"How'd you meet?" Rose prodded him, hoping that he would feel better for opening up and also wanting to sate her own curiosity.
"It's ... complicated," the Doctor replied haltingly, to which Rose let out a startled breath of laughter.
"Why is it always the way with you?" she chided him teasingly.
"Our timelines are in the wrong order," the Doctor continued as though she hadn't spoken. "We're all back-to-front with one another. Every time I see her, I know her more, and she knows me less. The first time we ever met, she ... died."
Rose sighed gently as she gave the Doctor a reassuring squeeze and continued to hold him close. "Oh, Doctor," she murmured quietly. "I'm so sorry."
She could feel the next question just on the tip of her tongue, but she hesitated for a long moment before finally allowing herself to speak it out loud. She knew that it might hurt either or both of them to have the truth revealed completely, but she also knew that it was better to get it all out in the open now rather than wait until later. If there was one thing that she had learned from her previous travels with the Doctor, it was that.
"Is that why you're ..." Rose started awkwardly.
"Is that why I'm what?" the Doctor questioned after she paused to put order to her thoughts and her words.
"Is that why you're not ... bonded?"
The Doctor tightened his hold around Rose's middle once more as he buried his nose in her neck and simply breathed for a few moments. "No," he finally whispered quietly against her skin. "No, that's not why. The two of us ... we don't do that."
"How can you be so sure?" Rose insisted hesitantly.
"Because I've already seen her end," the Doctor replied, his voice matter-of-fact but still gentle. "I saw River at the end of her timeline right before she died. She knew my name - whispered it into my ear - but there was no connection there, I would have sensed it if there were. If she didn't have a bond then, then that means that it's never going to happen."
"Then ... you're not married ..." Rose muttered haltingly as she attempted to fit all of the pieces of information together in her head.
"Like I said ..."
"It's complicated," Rose finished for him, quietly rolling her eyes where she knew that he wouldn't be able to see her.
"So all that's already happened for you, then, yeah?" she went on, attempting to steer the conversation back in a direction that she could easily comprehend. "Whatever ... complicated marriage you had, you've already experienced it."
"Yes," the Doctor replied, his voice little more than a whisper.
"So ... you love her, then," Rose continued, her tone coming out slightly cooler than she had intended as she tried for a calm statement of fact.
The Doctor tightened his grip on her once more as he murmured softly against her neck, "Yes."
And Rose really didn't know what to say to that, but she was less put out by the fact than she thought she might be. She was mostly just glad that he was telling her the truth - not trying to hide anything from her in this awkward, vulnerable moment between them. So Rose did the only thing that somehow felt right in that moment. She pressed a light kiss to his cheek and whispered, "I'm sorry," once more.
"Me, too," the Doctor agreed, a small, humorless laugh brushing across her neck as he pressed his lips to her skin in return.
"So why doesn't she travel with you?" Rose asked, finally stepping back slightly so that she could look the Doctor in the eye once more. With the truth laid out bare between them, she found that it was easier to meet his gaze. She lightly ran her hands across his dark jacket, dusting off his shoulders as she loosened her hold from around his neck and smiled sweetly up at him.
"River is ... different," the Doctor replied, his gaze hesitant as he watched her. "She's different in almost every way."
"But you still care for her deeply," Rose insisted, her tone, this time, coming out matter-of-fact rather than bitter.
The Doctor was silent for a moment as he simply looked down at her, his eyes going over every single one of Rose's new features as though he were trying to memorize them. He placed one hand against her cheek and sent her the silent thought that he couldn't quite force himself to speak out loud, not even now - Not like I care for you.
And Rose knew that those six simple words shouldn't be able to please her as much as they did, but in that moment, it was all the reassurance that she needed to know that no matter who the Doctor was or who else was in his life, she was still a vital, integral part of it, and that was enough. It simply had to be enough ...
The Doctor sealed his silent devotion with a gentle but firm kiss, and Rose finally felt the last of her jealous anger release as she sighed contentedly against his lips. Her severed bond was still there - glowing bright behind her eyelids like a supernova, spiraling in a million different directions and winding into endless possibilities - but she was able to keep the persistent mental link at bay as she lost herself in the Doctor's nearness.
He seemed to know on instinct the moment that it became too much for her, and he pulled back slightly, trailing kisses along her jaw and cheeks until the insatiable desire to connect with him abated and became a subdued, itching hum rather than a cacophany raging inside of her head.
"Any other women I need to know about?" Rose asked breathlessly in an attempt to lighten the mood and focus her dizzy, blissful thoughts.
The Doctor laughed, his breath ghosting across the skin of her face as he quietly murmured, "There was this one girl I used to travel with ..." He remained close enough that she could feel his lips move against her cheek as he spoke - it was terribly distracting. "Very pretty. Incredibly brilliant. Fantastic kisser."
"Oh?" Rose asked, finding it very difficult to focus when she was so lost in the deep rumble of his voice and the feel of his hands in her hair. "How'd that end up?"
The Doctor returned his lips to hers, his mouth ghosting over her own as he spoke. "I'll let you know."