The Dread of Tomorrow and Yesterday – Interlude 1
A/N: Here's the interlude with future Rhea as was promised. Just a sneak peak to let you all know that it won't be slow and angsty forever. Hope you all like it! It's much shorter than the other chapters, only around 3000 words. And happy birthday to the anon who requested an update on Tumblr!
And I have changed the rating for this story. It is now officially M.
Replies to Reviews:
yellowroseofthemw: Oh, thank you so much. I'm glad you think that Rhea isn't a Mary Sue. Oh, David Tennant's accent is incredibly sexy, that's why I loved writing Tooth and Claw because I got to watch it over and over again, just listening to that accent.
missmerrymak: Thank you so much!
NicoleR85: Rhea will have a really interesting interaction with the Face of Boe in the next chapter, I promise.
MoonLitSky262: Gridlock wasn't one of my favourite episodes either, but it's necessary for the Season 3 plotline and I needed that covered for when I do Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords. I think the Doctor should have been better with grief. I mean, if the guy's lived for nine hundred years, he's lost so many people, he should deal with it better. Another problem was that it could come off a bit racist. The first main POC character and they make her into a lovesick schoolgirl. Rose irritated me in Season 2, she got entirely too full of herself and smug. I liked her in Season 1 because she had a much fuller personality. Season 2 seemed to make her exist as only a potential love interest for the Doctor. It was like RTD kept pandering their relationship to the audience and it just got annoying after a while. I prefer romance left to the imagination.
Jewelsy426: Thank you so much! The reason why I don't write Rhea's glow much is because I'm trying to show how she sometimes disappears without anyone knowing she disappears. And the glow… sometimes it gets harder to keep writing the same goodbye scene over and over again. I'm just trying to write something new.
AxidentlGoddess: Oh, thank you. I wanted Rhea to have different dynamics with each of the companions because I find it hard to imagine that someone would feel the same way for each of the companions. The age difference between Rose and Rhea would lead to a more sisterly relationship between them. I felt like Martha didn't need to have fallen in love with the Doctor. She could have just been a friend for him and that's what he needed at that moment. By making her a potential love interest, RTD kind of degraded so much of Martha's character development. Rhea's on Martha's side because she hasn't had a chance to form a meaningful relationship with Rose yet. She does make greater strides with 10 than the other Doctors because she spends more time with them. I think her self-image will only improve to an extent, of course, because I don't think self-esteem issues go away completely.
DRWfangirl: In Dream Weaver, the Priestess starts travelling with the Doctor after Dalek. There will be conflict between the Priestess and Rose and as for jealousy, spoilers, I'm afraid. It'll get explained in the next chapter for Dream Weaver, I promise. I think the Doctor started to fall in love with Rose in Season 1, but it was unrequited for the most part. I think Rose started to fall for the Doctor in Season 1's finale or early Season 2. Season 3 pissed me off because they had a chance to do something with a main, female, POC character and they screwed it up. Rose coming back in The Stolen Earth/Journey's End just made her look needy and slightly screwed up in the head. It was like a fairy-tale romance. Romance doesn't end up like that in reality. Not to mention, I always had the idea that Rose's dimension cannon was the cause behind the walls of the universes breaking down. I think, if Clara is going to be a romantic interest, Clara and 11 reminded me of a toned-down version of Rose and 10. Clara and 12 could have an interesting dynamic, especially if Capaldi's Doctor is meant to be a little darker. I don't think I would have made Rhea kidnapped instead of Martha in Gridlock because Rhea would have been able to subdue her captors before they got that drug patch on her. It would have been an interesting AU, but knowing Rhea, it probably wouldn't have gotten that far.
Marmalade1512: I'm not saying a word about New Earth. Who knows, you might be right ;) Anyway, thanks for the review!
Quasmire: Hopefully this satisfies your need for more Doctor/Rhea. I am leaning towards Docthea for their pairing name, to be honest.
Warnings: Sexual content, innuendo, flirting, the works. NSFW – a warning.
American Beauty
The Doctor woke up, one hand curled around a sleeping Rhea's hip, the other subtly stroking down her back and if it curved around her ass, both of them smiled into each other. He felt her shift in his arms and stretch out her arms and legs, a sweet sound of discontent falling from her lips. She turned around and settled herself back in his embrace, her fingers clutching onto his bicep, while her foot stroked up and down his legs. She smiled up at him, that same, slow, seductive smile that sent his hearts racing every time she gifted him with it.
And now she was kissing him, all possessive and marvelling, and her lips and tongue forming the question: do I get to keep you, forever? And, of course she does, he belongs to her in some incessant way and she is his, most definitely, his tongue answering her back, his hips anchoring between her thighs as if they were sanctuary, his hands sliding to splay against the smooth skin of her back, stroking against the raised skin of her scars and burn marks, soothingly. Her heart pressed against one of his, and he could hear three glorious heartbeats, his arms tightening around her.
He smiled, madly, into the kiss because every night and every morning with this gorgeous, amazing woman beneath him feels like a first time, never mind the fact they had been doing this for centuries. Waking up with her in his arms filled him with a sort of giddiness that only came with travelling through time and space for over a thousand years. He swallows her whimpers as he remembers the blaze of light in the console room and Rhea throwing herself into his arms. He remembers last night, her spilling soulful, begging, needful sounds and words, confessions and prayers, as he drove them to the peak again and again and again. He remembers her hair fanning out underneath her, his hand tightening around the curve of her hip, enough to leave a bruise, which she would only enjoy. He remembers her moans and her whimpers and her breathy little screams and the way her thighs tensed and quivered when she exploded into a million little pieces right there in his arms.
In bed with Rhea was like heaven and hell mixed into one. And he couldn't help but love every nanosecond of it. Every night with her is the best night of my life. She terrified and exhilarated him at the same time.
"Hello?" Rhea murmured, the same careful, gentle, nudging 'hello' from the first time he met her.
His hearts smiled in reply and he reached down, one finger stroking from the edge of her hairline down to the curve of her chin. "Hello." It was the same vulnerable, bewitched, hopeful hello he had issued the first time he had seen this mesmerising woman and wondered what she could possibly mean to him. He stroked down and caught one of her wrists in his hand and pulled it up for him to lay one burning, meaningful kiss on the underside of her wrist, his nose brushing her pulse-point.
She stared at him, all old-fashioned and sexy-eccentric. She was so used to looking at him and delighting in the contrast between the sweet, young Doctor that shared her bed and the simmering sadness and rage and depth of the Doctor who travelled through space and time, saving people and civilisations and planets and galaxies on a whim. Sometimes she wondered how much of the intensity that her otherworldly Doctor possessed slipped into her lover and a part of her was enchanted by the thought that all of that intensity was focused on her.
Her hand slid into his hair and dragged him down for him so that he could slant his mouth over hers. He felt her slacken in his arms and press against him, delightfully, her warm skin leaving a burning trail against every spot it touched. She smiled into the kiss, feeling him shiver under her hands, as they slid down from the tops of his shoulders, down his arms and chest, until they rested on either sides of his waist. She purred and his lips left hers to kiss down her neck, sucking on various parts of skin, unashamed to leave as many hickeys as he possibly could, smelling the jasmine that still scented her neck after a vigorous round of sex. One particular spot low on her neck and right above her collarbone drew out a moan from her red lips and her back arched into his, feeling a very comfortable soreness in her being, making him growl at the sudden friction. Rhea swatted him on the arm, fondly, smiling at his ministrations and the intentions behind them.
"Naughty boy." She hummed in his ear. Lovely boy.
His thumb moved to where his lips just were, stroking against her pulse point, reverently, feeling the tell-tale signs of her heartbeat thumping against the skin of his fingers. We don't even have to get up. He thought, cheerfully. And it made filled him with a strange sort of happiness to look down at her, looking like this. Sunehri Adwani, naked and gorgeous beneath him, looking at him with that hopeful, fond look in her green, green eyes, her limbs sore and her lips dark red from his kisses, her hair mussed up from sleep and sex and her eyes hooded and wanting. It was his favourite thing. Curls tangled, eyes sleepy, breasts full and lush and looking pretty thoroughly fucked, if he were being coarse and truthful and using Rhea's own words to describe it. His hands came to her breasts now, covering them completely, watching, carefully and with a small amount of pride, as Rhea's breath caught in her throat and her nipples hardened under his fingers.
She wasn't like all of those supermodels they saw on television or in moves. She wasn't tall and thin, she was short and curvy. Toned but still softer and fuller in a way that he found exquisite. Sometimes, he could feel her vulnerability pouring from her through her skin and a sick part of him rejoiced that he was in control of her in this situation. He had so many more days left with her. Days of low laughs, purred words, arched eyebrows and pleasured screams, knowing smiles and wicked eyes and it made him all the more hungry for her.
"You are so amazing." The Doctor said, hoarsely, his throat dry. He couldn't even put it into words what he was feeling, so he tried to put it into his ministrations, his hands, which were now trailing down the skin under her breasts, grazing against the two names that were inked on either side, kissing the tattoos, reverently.
Her hands slid up and covered his, trusting them, explicitly.
He settled in between her thighs, feeling as if he were finally home, and her legs came around her waist. Her hands curled around his neck, her fingers stroking his defined jaw, as he leaned over her. She selfishly wanted more of this make-believe world. The world where they didn't have to worry about past Sunehris and future Sunehris and flashes of light and misunderstandings and secrets and spoilers, and just live in this fantasyland they had created for themselves.
It was a show of her strength as she turned to straddle him, deliberately pressing her cunt against the base of his length, watching, smugly, as his mouth dropped in shock and pleasure. She was a lot of things around him. She was the ice queen that deferred to her gun at every possible chance, she was the dewy-eyed schoolgirl who looked at him and saw a god, she was the guarded psychologist who was aware of how much people could hurt her and she was Rhea, the blend of all three women, tinged with love and experience. And she didn't adore him any less for bringing out that blend. She rocked, slightly, her hips sliding against his, his fingers falling onto the red marks on her thighs and hips. Her fingers traced the bite marks on his chest and the fading lipstick mark on his neck, a soundless thank you for this moment of bliss.
At this moment, she wasn't interested in words, just in him. And he knew that, like everything else he knew about her. He didn't say a word and instead, he tightened his grip around her waist, lifting her. His hips shifting, sliding into place between her honey-coloured thighs, relishing the remnants from last night, still sticky and wet between her legs. He nudged her down, his arms remarkably strong for someone who looked so coltish and young, slowly and firmly, his grey-blue eyes boring into her own light green ones. Her mouth parted in a gasp as she sank onto him, their pelvis' an inch from meeting. And she fell onto him, his hand curling around the back of her neck and burying her into his shoulder, her nails digging into his arms, beginning a slow rise and fall.
The Doctor hummed, drinking in Rhea, and all of the sex and warmth and bliss and pleasure he could take. His eyes were drawn to the marks on her body. Not blemishes. She's beautiful. The long scar across the underside of her belly, one finger tracing it delicately, revelling in her answering shiver. She hates this one the most. He resisted the urge to growl against her skin. The scar on her collarbone, stark white against her caramel skin. His fingers traced around the tattoos engraved across her body like maps to another time and place. The intricate flower on the small of her back. Her mother. The names marked on the underside of her breasts. The one on her shoulders that disappeared and reappeared every time they did this. Mine. All mine.
The remnants of a terrifying and heartbreaking life that she had endured before him.
Mixed with the adornment of the slice of happiness he had tried to give her.
His hands fell onto her hips, his fingers slotting against her pelvic bone. She finally began to grind with urgency, lifting herself off of him and pressing her hands against his ribs, towering over him like some goddess. And his hands were now – perfect – exactly where she needed them, pressed against the throbbing place between her legs, sliding between flesh and hot, wet silk, the room filled with their gasps and the sound of wet flesh.
Rhea bit her lip. "Doctor?" She called out, uncertainly, her thighs trembling with the force of the pressure.
"Now." He said, lowly.
And she came.
"This is crazy romantic." She laughed, breathily.
The Doctor hummed in agreement, his thick arms wrapping around her, similar to the bedcovers he had brought out with them, his hands stroking up and down her arm. Her back was pressed against his broad chest, one of his hands settling on her stomach, palm face down, rubbing against her skin.
The air was chilly and she burrowed back into the covers and into the Doctor's chest.
"You know, this feels like exhibitionism." She murmured against his skin, pressing a kiss to the spot between his hearts.
The Doctor snorted. "We're covered and it's the middle of the night." He pointed out. They looked up at the stars. "Let's just say it's romantic."
Rhea laughed, shifting, slightly, so that she could rest her head against his chest. "Okay, then." She paused. "This is nice, isn't it?" She asked, quietly, the starlight falling onto her eyes.
A wave of cold air hit Rhea in the face and she gasped for breath, her nipples tightening. She shuddered, slightly, from the cold. She felt sore in her limbs, the pleasure of their lovemaking ripe and real. She turned her wrists over, knowing that she should be aghast at the pink marks that ran across her arms, but finding no horror in the bruises. She was a woman with rough edges and this Doctor was a rough man. He would never hurt her, but with this Doctor, slow and sweet lovemaking was just not enough for that dizzy sense of pleasure she needed to get through the night.
He leaned down and slanted his mouth over hers, muffling her whimper. The kiss was staggered her with its intensity, as Rhea danced a silent, unintelligible confession against his mouth, resisting the urge to actually breathe the words into him. She broke the kiss first – lone wolf, after all – and pulled her long curls from his steady fingers, gracing him with a slightly haunted smile. She straightened, pulling herself onto her knees, not the least bit self-conscious of the way he had marked her moments ago. Fuck, that's a handprint.
The Doctor looked down at her. She was so beautiful. Her hair mussed up. Lipstick smudged across her mouth, blushing skin and warm in his arms. The starlight illuminated her wicked sense of fun, her self-deprecating wisdom, her shy kindness and her dirty promises. She was Catwoman personified. She was the point where his fantasy and reality met.
He had the urge to press kisses to all of the soft bruises and red marks that criss-crossed her body. He wanted to whisper thank you and I'm sorry and are you really all right with this and I'm utterly mad for you all against her skin. Tonight had been fantastic and this was a perfect, silent post-coital moment too. In fact, being here, with her, was everything he had ever wanted. It was as if Sunehri Sennen had the ability to create fantastic, life-changing, jaw-dropping sex routinely.
She sighed, curling up against his chest. "This is the happiest I've ever been." She whispered in his ear.
That voice. Her voice made him ache on a daily basis, especially on the days and nights he couldn't have her. And ache even more for all of the mundane details he had yet to find out – how she organised her closet, where she put her umbrella, what flowers did she like the most. Wait, he knew the last. Jasmine and pink lotuses. The former from when her grandmother used to pin them to her hair when she was young. The latter as her favourite flower from her mother's garden.
She meant it. She needed this man who pulled moans and secrets and shyness and sentimentality from her. She had spent so long admiring this beautiful and built by mad luck creature. She had been certain of his kindness and decency and terrified by her the way her stomach fluttered around him. And always in lust with his easy, eccentric and ancient charm and his striking beauty in every regeneration she had the pleasure of meeting. Put together, the Doctor – generous, loving, intelligent, trustful, knowing, decent,staring at her with such open greed, sexy as hell with kinks possibly – the culmination of everything she had forgotten she had wanted.
And he brought her back to life the first time he called her 'beautiful'.
He reached up and pressed a kiss against her hair, his mouth sweet and slow. It was a sense of pride that enveloped his entire body. He knew she was experienced. More so than he had wanted to know. And some details of that experience sent him spiralling into a storm of fury. She'd had many lovers… some with a great deal more experience than his and maybe even better than he was. Even if that was a blow to his ego to even consider. However, he knew it had been fantastic. He didn't need her to confess her undying love for him after their lovemaking to know that she wanted him more than anyone else. He knew it by the way she let him hold her, with his hands, with his voice and with his heart.
She softened and moved against him, the tingling in his skin beginning anew with every old and new touch that her body elicited. She tugged on the covers, lightly, making sure that they still covered them both, before splaying her hands across his chest and straddling his lips. She watched in pride as his eyes travelled down from hers to her dark red lips, along her long neck, finally resting on her breasts, which were pert and flushed across her dark skin.
She leaned forward, rubbing herself against him. She gritted her teeth and sank down onto him once more, his pelvic bone striking her sensitive flesh, making her bite down a sob of pleasure. Her nails dug into his shoulders and she ran a tongue over her teeth, her hips undulating against his. The Doctor growled against her shoulder, his hands digging into her hips, sure to leave bruises the next day. She was dirty and hot and perfect and open. She rubbed and rubbed, frantically, until she was rearing up, her body tensing and her nerves singing with the painful pleasure of it all. Her hands searched for momentum and her mouth parted, her eyes almost rolling back in her head. The covers had separated from her body now. He registered golden skin, her long, dark curls, the colours of the brown wool framing her body, her spread legs, the creativity of her fingers, the flushing of her skin, her head now tilting back, her full red lips. She was like some dirty Klimt painting.
It was after a few moments that she finally came back down from her high, slumping against his chest in a post-coital respite. There were almost perfectly still now, her chin resting against his ribs, her eyes running over her face, their fingers longing to be entwined. Something changed in her eyes and it was reflected in his eyes. She could see the happiness and fear and confusion and longing and the soul-crushing wariness in her eyes reflected in his eyes – it felt like they were making some sort of promise to each other.
She looked up and saw stars and reached for his hand.
A/N: Hope you all liked the interlude. If you didn't guess, the second section of the chapter was smut between Rhea and the Ninth Doctor. And the first section was with the Eleventh. I know, I didn't get to do the Tenth Doctor. But there's a reason for that and it'll be explained soon.
I know I usually update this story on a Sunday, but I think I'm gonna change the days for my updating. This story will now be updated every Friday and Dream Weaver will be updated every Monday.
This chapter, hopefully, will not detract from the rest of the story. Just trying to fit another chapter in the skewed up timeline. The next chapter will be the finish of Gridlock, I promise. I just thought this would be interesting for this story. A contrast between the Rhea in the normal chapters and in the interlude.
Anyway, hope you all liked the chapter and don't forget to leave a review!