CALLUSES

VII.

Rose closes her eyes, eventually, in an attempt at calming herself.

They seem to be having a bit of an impromptu contest today, in the 'who can have the most breakdowns of various kinds' category. The Doctor at least has the acceptable excuse of having an unfamiliar, oversensitive body and a nine-hundred-years old consciousness that are slightly out of sync.

All she's got are hormones and emotional distress.

The throbbing in her head recedes slightly with her eyes closed, blocking out some of the external stimuli, causing her other senses to become sharper as a result. With her nose pressed right at the cusp between his jacket and skin, she gets a lungful of his scent every time she breathes in, more and more deeply as the seconds then minutes pass, the smells warm, and comforting; soap, with hints of sweat, and above all, him, that one having become particularly pronounced ever since their little…lapse in that dressing room.

She's just as soothed by the rise and fall of his frame, although his breathing remains noticeably quicker than hers, half of her body pressed against his back, one arm still around him. Every time she exhales slowly against his skin, she feels the shivers that shoot all the way down from his nape to his lower back, again, and again, and again…

"Rose?"

He breathes out her name more than he says it.

"Mm?" She doesn't open her eyes.

"I…" His attempt at speaking fails, his voice thick and strained. He clears his throat, and tries again: "I'm not…I'm trying really, really har- I'm doing the best that I can to…well, get this…unfortunate situation under control. But it's becoming rather clear to me that I will not make any kind of sustainable progress as long as you carry on doing…what you're doing."

Rose reopens her eyes and unpins herself slightly from him, properly assessing his 'unfortunate situation' for the first time in the last few minutes.

It would appear that while she took solace in the feel of him and managed to get some of her wild emotions under control, she's failed to notice how he is still struggling with his…hardship. He's leaning forward even more than he was when they first sat down, his features creased in an embarrassed pout, his ears a bright red still, similar patches of colour across his cheeks.

Rose feels herself blushing in turn, mortified not by his ongoing state of arousal, but at the realisation of how selfish she's been, considering she was well aware of it when she decided to snuggle up against him. Her blush is quite lustful as well, feeling the premise of what could easily turn into a full body flush at the simple thought of him being so affected by her proximity, making her wish they weren't in such a public place so that she could help him…unwind.

She slides sideways upon the bench so quickly that she might as well have received an electric shock. "Sorry," she breathes out. She's lost track of how many times they've apologised to each other, today.

He waves a hand, the gesture swift and half-hearted, his fingers quickly going back down to grip at the edge of the bench. He's decidedly not looking at her, his eyes still closed. "No harm, no foul. Well, except maybe to my pride. Which, let's be honest here, can always do with being taken down a notch or two, anyway. I'm really starting to appreciate why humans are so self-deprecating, too. Bit of a defence mechanism, eh? Donna was very good at that."

His last words instantly draw out another kind of tension between them, some of the colour draining from his face, while Rose nibbles on her thumbnail. She has no doubt that forcing them to resume whatever 'conversation' they'd been having earlier about his counterpart and Donna would be as efficient as dropping a bucket of ice-cold water upon his lap and over her head.

She chooses to let the moment pass instead. They've spent way too much time crying in the past eighteen hours, and she doesn't want to jeopardise the fragile intimacy that is weaving itself between the two of them.

They both deserve a break.

"I'm gonna…" she tries, before clearing her throat, too. "'m just gonna pop into the loo for a minute, yeah? Try and clean all that dried snot from my hair."

"A wise decision," he nods. "I'll wait here."

She can't help but scoff a little. "Liar," she says under her breath as she stands up, with enough fondness in her voice for him to know she's only teasing.

She's walking to the toilets a short distance away, then, feeling the unmistakable weight of his gaze on her as she does so.

As it turns out, there isn't much snot in her hair, which she frees from her now very messy ponytail; her face is another story altogether, still showing traces of her latest breakdown, but there are hints of something else, too; a permanent blush in her cheeks, more light in her eyes than there's been in months (years), and her lips remain slightly swollen.

She distractedly bites down on her reddened lip as she remembers the way he'd pressed her up against that mirror, heat swiftly igniting her insides again at the memory of how eager he'd been, an eagerness that had verged on desperate yearning. Part of it might simply have been his new body overflowing with hormones, but she suspects years of neglected longing had more to do with it.

She spends quite some time washing off, the cool water on her burning face once again a welcomed sensation. She waits a few more minutes, keeping in mind that his lust is a lot more difficult to conceal than hers. She doesn't worry too much, though. Mostly-human body or not, he remains a Time Lord at his core, Master of All Things Repressed. He's probably got a few hundred mnemonics in there to help him focus his mind.

When she finally exits the loo, she can't say she's surprised to find the bench empty, more relieved than worried by the fact that he wasn't able to sit still for a few minutes. That's the Doctor for you, with bees in his brain, and ants in his pants.

She finds him easily enough, hard to miss in his blue suit; he's standing in front of a vitrine, hands in his pockets, seeming to have recovered just fine. She comes to stand at his side, noticing the specs now perched on his nose. She tries to look at what he's looking at – some latest telephonic devices, but her gaze is inexorably drawn back to his profile, unaware until now of how much she's missed the sight of those stupid glasses.

Or rather, how much she's missed the sight of this man's face in those stupid glasses.

"This universe's a bit more technically advanced than ours, if I recall," he notes. "About fifteen years ahead, from the looks of it."

"Yeah," Rose confirms distractedly, still observing his profile, focused on his growing stubble now, thickest at the edge of his sideburn. "Seems there's some fancy new gadget coming out every hour, these days. Virtual reality's becoming a big thing, too."

He nods, thoughtful, his gaze still on the display, yet his mind seems elsewhere. "If it's anything like our universe, once that gets going, it will become a bit of an issue, for half a century or so, with people preferring to stay hooked to it rather than go to work. Or feed themselves, for that matter. Things get better once space travel becomes more affordable to the middle class." He lets out a short sigh, shaking his head a little. "That's escapism for you. Anything to avoid the banality of an arduous, ordinary life."

Something unpleasant tugs at her at his words, but she chooses to ignore it, gently bumping his shoulder with hers. "Can you blame them?" She asks, nonchalant, choosing escapism alright. "I've heard space travel's all kind of exciting."

He gives her a side-glance even as he replies, every bit as casually: "It has its perks. Although some might argue that it doesn't compare to the lure of time travel."

She's unable not to smile at his smooth mention of how he first convinced her to join him on his TARDIS. "Some might, yeah," she says, her tongue briefly peeking between her teeth, that old habit of hers immediately drawing his focus to her lips.

When he brings his eyes back up to hers, her stomach drops at the intensity of his gaze.

Before long, his body is turning to face hers. By the time he's cupping both her cheeks and pulling her to him even as he leans down, she's already putting most of her weight onto her toes to push herself up, her hands instinctively taking a hold of his lapels.

This kiss is by far the softest they've ever exchanged – including that one on New New Earth she didn't have much control over; it's also the first one he initiates (that she can remember).

Rose lets herself sink into it, into him, as intoxicated by the slow, repeated brush of his lips upon hers and his occasional, perfectly-calculated increases in pressure, as she was by their full-on snogging session half-an-hour ago.

When she can't resist the urge to nibble on his bottom lip, followed by a quick flick of her tongue, he makes a small, disapproving sound, stilling his movements. "Humans," he grumbles against her lips, although his hands have already sunk deeper into her hair and tightened, subsequently bringing her closer, reminding them both of his recently acquired status as a member of this group of randy humanoids.

For a moment, Rose is tempted to find out just how human he's become, especially when he pulls his face away from hers and she's drawn into his eyes, slightly augmented by his lenses.

She reluctantly decides that they've had enough near misses for the day. They've been in this mall for what feels like hours, and they've yet to do any of the shopping they came here to do, except for…

"Crap," she breathes out, falling back onto her heels, although her hands remain on his chest. When he raises an eyebrow, she bites down on her lip. "All that stuff I bought when we first got here, I dropped it on the floor when you had your…you know…"

"…coo-coo interlude," he offers.

"Yeah, that," she frowns, still a bit uneasy about how flippant he is about this. She follows his lead, though, keeping the mood light, and relaxing her face. "It's all still in that shop…" she pauses for a moment "…if you know what I mean."

There is another pause, during which he figures out exactly what she means.

He gets that look in his eyes, then, that look that might be singlehandedly responsible for her ever falling for him, all these years ago.

"Rose Tyler," he says in his best conspiratorial tone as he takes off his glasses, never once leaving her gaze. "Are you suggesting we get stealthy?"

She meets him look for look, tone for tone: "I think I am."

…

Getting stealthy with Rose Tyler turns out to be the most fun the Doctor's had in years.

He's clearly a bit biased, and a tad high on endorphin. It doesn't make it any less true.

The whole shebang doesn't even go well, which is part of what makes it particularly memorable. No one wants memories of merely going back into a store, grabbing a couple of discarded bags, and then walking out.

It's much more entertaining to realise that said discarded bags have been found and put behind the counter, which means that you have to sneak past a certain shop assistant using your former companion as a lookout, hearing her shout "Raxacoricofallapatorius!" just as you are getting your hands on the bags, so that you end up diving head first into a clothes rack maybe hoping it will turn out to be bigger in the middle – it doesn't, hearing the most beautiful laughter echo through the store as a result, eventually getting your psychic paper out as a last resort so that no one actually gets arrested.

They have spent a fair amount of time trapped together in various prison cells on many different planets during their run as a pair, but getting a criminal record when he doesn't even have any identification paper yet would have been excessive, even by his standards.

They subsequently decide it wouldn't be good taste to do their actual shopping in that particular store, picking one at the other end of the mall instead. Rose must notice his slightly put off scowl as soon as they enter the shop, because she swiftly takes the lead.

"Just think of it as a public wardrobe," she tries encouraging him, but he mainly complains about how tiny all those human pockets are.

And again, she seems to pick up on his changing body language, going from goofy and almost relaxed to something a lot more sour and quiet with every new suggestion she makes. She stops trying to involve him at this point, picking a couple of jeans and shirts almost at random, along with a woolly sweater that is nearly as blue as his TARDIS used to be. She gets herself an extra outfit, too, as well as everything they'll need to sleep comfortably.

All and all, she succeeds in making the whole dreary affair last less than twenty minutes, never once prodding about his renewed sulkiness. He shows her his appreciation by pointing out a particular food stand he'd spotted on their way in.

A few minutes later, they are sitting at a table, eating chips.

Rose, who'd barely touched her food at breakfast, is particularly enthusiastic. In contradiction to his behaviour this morning, he appears almost disinterested in his plate of crispy, greasy goodness, still appreciating how ridiculously tasty the food is – for potato sticks, but his single heart isn't in it.

They don't speak for a while, the silence thankfully nowhere as uncomfortable and heavy as it's been at various points today, but there is a definite tension in the air, Rose pretending to be as interested in passer-by as he is, but he regularly senses her eyes on him.

"This is gonna be hard for you, isn't it?" She eventually asks, quietly, sounding hesitant and oddly younger, drawing his gaze back to hers. "Being a regular bloke, I mean," she carries on. "Mr John Smith, shopping for clothes at a mall, stuck living through…how d'you put it, 'the banality of an arduous, ordinary life'."

The Doctor tenses, not exactly surprised that she'd picked up on his phrasing, although at the time, he hadn't meant for it to sound so demeaning; he rarely does.

He instinctively averts his eyes as he clenches his jaw, a couple of conflicting emotions fighting to take charge, one of them being his tendency to deflect and brush it all off with a wave of his hand and a dismissive smirk, while the other encourages him to shut her down plain and simple, and to be unpleasant enough about it that she won't be tempted to bring it up any time soon.

And then, another emotion sneaks past his defence mechanisms, almost feeling Donna unceremoniously tackling them to the ground, shouting at them to shut it, allowing something a lot more sensible to take a hold of him.

The truth of it is, this is the one chance he's got at spending his life with Rose Tyler.

He's only got the one, now, and so does she; mayflies, the two of them, ordinary, tiny, and perishable.

When he was a Time Lord in denial, pretending he could outrun the ticking clock of her mortality had been almost easy. Back then, he could afford to act carefree and push aside any real issue that arose, the closer they became to each other. He doesn't have the luxury of time anymore.

Which, for a Time Lord, is rather ironic, and all kind of difficult to grasp and accept indeed.

He wants this fleeting life with her, though, if she allows him; that one adventure he thought he could never have. He's certain of it, just as he is certain that for this to work, between them, he cannot afford to hide or push her away.

That honesty thing needs to become a part of their foundation.

"I suppose it won't be easy, no," he admits at last, his voice uncharacteristically weak, almost breathless. He makes himself look back at her, allowing her to see how exposed he feels about this. "Although it probably won't be for the reasons you think." When she waits for him to expand on his answer, he continues: "The thought of settling down into a more…sedentary and domestic kind of life isn't nearly as dreadful as it used to be. Especially if I get to do it all alongside a very narrow list of specific people."

"Yeah?" She asks with a tentative smile, an amused twinkle in her eyes. "'Did I make the cut?"

He raises a hand and waves it this-and that. "Just about. Waaaay behind your mother, though."

"Figures." She carries on looking at him with a small smile on her lips, still waiting for him to tell her what's really on his mind.

"I can adapt to being Mr John Smith, or whatever name I decide to take on," he resumes at last, as his human identity is something else already gnawing away at his mind. "But I suppose….accepting the fact that I will never regenerate again is a tad more…tricky. Live as long as I've lived, believing yourself to be so very special for cheating death every time it sneaks up on you, and you begin to think yourself immortal."

She studies him quietly. "Are you afraid to die?"

He ponders on her question for a long moment. On a technical point of view, he's already died enough times for that number to be counted on both hands. He's died painfully. He's died peacefully. He's died slowly, just as he's died without any warning.

The act of dying itself is not what scares him.

"I'm afraid I'll die before I get to do…everything I could do."

Rose leans forward slowly, until both her arms are pressed upon the table. "You mean…on top of everything you've already done across the universe, these past few centuries."

He shakes his head a little. "What I've done doesn't matter, not really. There's always more I could do. And given my current body, bearing in mind that I'd have to go through some extensive testing to confirm it, I doubt I have more than fifty years left in it, at the most."

Another stretch of time goes by, before she speaks again: "Can I tell you what I think, as someone who's known since she was seven that she'd someday die?"

"Please."

"I think…that's true," she says quietly. "We've only got a short amount of time to…make a difference. To try and make this world a better place. We're all born with fairly similar biological clocks, putting aside some of us being born more privileged than most. Yet some people live until they're ninety-three without ever leaving their flat, never a kind word for anyone outside their door, while others get hit by a car before the age of eight for…I dunno, trying to save a cat, maybe. Sure, it's just a cat, and cats are shifty. But someone loved that cat, somewhere. I guess my point is…doesn't really matter, how long you've got left, as long as you spend that time doing what you believe's right."

Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters, it's the person.

His own words boom in his head, the air briefly trapped in his lungs.

Not that he's ever forgotten any of it, the reason(s) why Rose did in hours what none of his other beloved companions ever managed to do in nine-hundred years – claim a firm ownership on both his hearts.

He never forgot a single thing about her, yet in that very moment, he remembers exactly why he fell so hard in the first place.

"You," he says, his voice surprisingly steady despite his hammering heart, pointing a finger at her with a bit of a disapproving scowl, "were hit by a car at the age of seven trying to save a cat."

She half-shrugs with a conceding smirk. "It was a very pretty cat."

"Aren't they always, with you." She gives him another one of those smiles, her tongue briefly peeking between her teeth, making him want to reach across the table and kiss her again, right there above their plates of chips. "How bad was it?" He asks instead.

"Couple of broken bones, a mild concussion, and a good scare. The car wasn't going fast, and I was already more flexible than most. Mum didn't let me out of the flat for about six months after that, though. Seriously considered moving us some place where cars were banned, for obvious reasons."

He's leaned forward, unconsciously mirroring her posture, soon propping his chin upon his hand. "Tell me."

When a couple seconds go by and she realises he's not going to say more, she frowns. "Tell you…"

"Anything," he completes. "Everything. Tell me about all the other dumb things you've done for cats over the course of your life, or, pick a program you loved watching on the telly when you were thirteen, and describe it to me in details. Or if you feel up to it, you could even tell me about what you've been up to these past four years beside, you know, building a dimension cannon and preventing every star from going out."

She keeps their eyes locked, and from the look she gives him, she's understood that although he would very much enjoy listening to her talk about trashy 90s programs, what he really wants to hear about is what she did during their time apart.

He wants to know all about who she's become.

"What about you?" She ends up deflecting as she mirrors him in turn, chin on her palm, and there is genuine curiosity in her voice. "Was it as long for you?"

He tilts his head from side to side upon his hand with a bit of an undecisive pout. "Depends on if you count 'The Year That Never Was'."

"The Year That Never Was?" She repeats. "That sounds very…timey-wimey."

"You wouldn't believe it if I told you," he says, offhandedly, purposefully not giving her anything. He can be very good at this game, too.

"Try me," she dares him, picking up a chip with her free hand and popping it into her mouth, and he's quite certain that she licks the salt off her bottom lip on purpose.

"I asked first," he protests, sounding much younger than nine-hundred-and-four.

She gives a slow, nonchalant shrug of her shoulder, tilting her head upon her closed fist with a sly smile he's seen many times before. "You tell me about The Year That Never Was, and I might tell you about how Tony was born inside a lift."

"Born inside a…what?"

She shrugs again, innocently. "Your call, Doctor."

In the end, he chooses honesty.

A/N: It will probably take me a couple weeks to post the next chapter, between work and it being sliiightly smutty, which always takes me longer to write. In the meantime, I hope you've enjoyed this one! Any feedback from you would be lovely 3