Chapter Twelve

"Then answer me a question, Time Lord. Just one. What would Rose say? And if you can tell her what you're planning, that the universe would be a better place if you did this and she would agree, then I'll step aside and let you do it."

Donna looked at him serenely, waiting for his decision. It would be a matter of seconds to set the avalanche of destruction into motion and she wouldn't even have a snowflake's chance in hell to stop him. But she had called him upon the trust Rose had always placed in him, and so he closed his eyes and concentrated on the tiny golden spark that represented Rose in his mind.

The bond wasn't strong enough yet to contact her directly, not without the TARDIS and especially not across the Void, but he could feel the warmth and compassion he had associated with her right from the beginning, even when she was standing between him and a lone Dalek, defending it against him.

"What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?"

The words hurt, even more than they had the first time, and worst of all, once again he didn't know how to answer. How could a tiny human render him so constantly speechless without even trying or actually being there?

From the moment he had met her, her hand had been the anchor that had kept him grounded. She had known him less than a month when she had put her life in his hands, not even knowing what he was about to do or what he was capable of. She had believed then that he would do the right thing, a trust he had known he didn't deserve. Not after what he had done, not considering what he had been about to do. He still didn't deserve it, didn't deserve her.

"Rose…"

He opened his eyes with a strangled gasp. His shoulders slumped and his hands fell off the controls. Unable to meet Donna's eyes, he stepped back from the console.

"Come." He turned around and left the hut, feeling completely numb. Thankfully the guards and the Daleks were still busy elsewhere, because he was beyond caring.

It took them almost an hour to reach the TARDIS, and he only spoke when absolutely necessary. Once inside, it took him less than a minute to send the ship into the Vortex. Then he left the console room without another word, leaving Donna behind. Two minutes later he collapsed on his bed, too exhausted to even remove his leather jacket.

~o~o~o~

The street was crowded, but he spotted her immediately. Her eyes lit up when she discovered him, and with a few quick steps he crossed the distance between them. For the life of him he wasn't able to determine what exactly he was feeling. He only knew that he needed her. Without conscious thought he pulled her into a tight embrace, clinging to her like a drowning man to a life belt. The sensation of her in his arms was the only thing that would maybe keep him sane.

Her arms came around him and he could feel her warm hand searching for a way under his jumper, caressing the tense muscles on his back. They stood there for a long time, completely ignorant of their surroundings.

Eventually he loosened his grip on her, cupped her face and kissed her with what was more than just a trace of desperation. His tongue begged for entrance, and she opened her mouth to let him in. He deepened the kiss, his tongue gliding against hers, seeking her warmth. Eventually her soft curves melted against his and her eyes fluttered shut.

Slowly he realised that he needed more than this to convince himself that she was alive, that the images he had seen in his dreams were just a figment of his imagination. He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, never breaking the kiss. Eventually he let her come up for breath, and when she opened her eyes she gasped in surprise.

Beneath their feet a wide plain covered with marine blue grass stretched for miles, while the lower part of the mountain they were standing on was overgrown with pale blue flowers. The upper part of the mountain was covered with what would have looked like oaks, had it not been for the light blue colour of their leaves. A red orb covered almost a third of the sky, casting a mad light over their surroundings.

A rustling sound startled them and they observed a swarm of bird-like creatures settling down in a tree a few hundred feet away from them.

"Where are we?" Rose asked, her voice betraying that she was unsure what to make of this.

The Doctor kept silent. He didn't even know what had possessed him to take her here. This planet had seen one of the most gruesome acts of the Time War, a genetic bomb that had killed every being whose genetic code had carried a certain receptor. They had simply dissolved into nothing, as if they had never existed. Only their buildings remained, and those animals whose evolutionary development had gone into a different direction. And although this hadn't been meant to happen, the few Time Lords that had been fighting for the sake of the rest of the universe hadn't been able to undo it.

Instead of answering, he just took her hand and led her to a small cabin near the rim of the forest. She followed him inside, and as soon as he had closed the door he began to remove her clothes, occasionally pausing to kiss her.

"Doctor? What happened?" she asked eventually, her voice still calm, although her breath was already quickening.

It was just like Rose to sense that something was wrong. More than once her compassion had been the only thing that stopped him from falling into the abyss of insanity. Not that he was feeling particularly sane at the moment. Now he just needed her, her warmth, her being Rose.

Again he ignored her question, concentrating on removing her shirt, revealing a utilitarian white cotton bra. He shrugged out of his leather jacket, ignoring the thud it made when it hit the floor, and searched for the clasp of her bra, while Rose kicked off her shoes and toed off her socks. As soon as he had removed the bra he opened the zip of her jeans, then pushed the garment down along with her knickers, so she could step out of her clothes.

He walked her back to the bed and she lay down, staring at him, her expression an odd mixture of calmness, confusion, worry and desire. With economic movements he got rid of his remaining clothes. For a few seconds he just looked at her, until the need for her overwhelmed him.

Deep inside a small voice told him that this was wrong, that he was using her, but he covered her body with his and entered her without hesitation. She groaned, the sound more painful than aroused, and he paused for a second to look her in the eyes. For the sake of his sanity he wanted to believe that he would stop if she asked him to, but he wasn't sure he could. He waited. She bit her lip, then nodded slowly, and he began to pound into her.

~o~o~o~

Afterwards she held him, his head resting on her breast, her fingers caressing his scalp soothingly. For a long time both of them were silent.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled eventually, his first words since he had discovered her on the street.

"What for?"

He turned to his side, his head propped on his elbow, embarrassment written over his face. "I used you. I shouldn't have..."

She held a finger to his lips to silence him. "Shhh. It was what you needed, and you didn't hurt me. I love you. I would have given this to you no matter what."

If possible his embarrassment deepened. "No, Rose. This is not... You're going to be my bond mate, and I..."

She interrupted him with a brief kiss. "It's okay. Believe me. It is. As long as there will be more foreplay next time," she added with a wry grin.

He avoided her gaze and stared at a point somewhere at the opposite wall.

"Oh, come here." She pulled him nearer and hugged him. Both of them were naked, but this time the embrace was anything but sexual. His body was tense at first, and she ran her hands soothingly over the muscles on his back for some time. Finally he relaxed against her.

"What happened?" she asked eventually, still holding him close. His answer chilled her to the bone.

"Skaro."

Rose stared at him, the implications of his words racing through her mind, but she kept silent. Eventually he would talk. It always took him some time to organise his thoughts while he tried to decide what to tell her and what to keep to himself. Not that it ever worked. As soon as he'd begin to speak he'd tell her almost everything. Still running her hands over his back she waited patiently until he began to talk, almost matter-of-factly, as if he was reciting a report.

"We were on our way to Cardiff when the TARDIS was hit by something. I don't even know what it was. It should have been impossible. She was completely out of control, her temporal stabilisers and the dematerialisation circuit damaged, and she was losing Thallium. Skaro was the only planet with the correct isotope in range, but she was too severely damaged to land us anywhere near the source. It took us more than three days just to get there 'cos we had to avoid being seen." He paused briefly. "We were already on our way back when Donna ran into a bunch of Daleks on their first day out."

It took him more than an hour to tell her what had happened, and he was visibly shaking by the time he came to what had happened in the lab, what he had almost done. Eventually he fell silent.

Oh, Doctor. The first time they'd encountered a Dalek he'd barely held it together. He had got better over time, true, but the facade was brittle. Anything unexpected could shatter it, and this had been much worse than last time. She slowly ran her hands over his back, trying to loosen the tension that had crept back into his muscles while he had spoken.

He raised his head and looked at her. She'd rarely seen his eyes so lifeless.

"I wouldn't have stopped without Donna, and she had to shove you into my face to get me to see. But even so I nearly got her killed. Her, those people, they could all have died because of me. If Donna hadn't stopped me… You really should run from me, Rose, as far and as fast as you can. I'll only destroy you, too."

He freed himself from her arms, got up and paced the room with the suppressed energy of a caged panther, completely ignorant of his lack of clothes.

She had really thought they had got beyond that point. It seemed whatever had happened on Skaro had been an even closer call than she'd thought, and she feared for him. It wouldn't take much more, and he would close himself off completely, like he had been doing when she'd first met him.

She set up and wrapped the blanket around her body. "Doctor, look at me."

He paused for a moment and shot her a glance, but then he averted his eyes again and resumed his pacing.

She got up as well. "Doctor."

When he showed no reaction she simply blocked his way. When she had agreed to bond with him she had known that she was also agreeing to put up with a lot of things, but him trying to push her away was completely out of the question. She was not going to let that happen. Never again. She gripped him at his wrists.

He could have shaken her off easily if he wanted to, but he didn't, even if he avoided her eyes.

"Look at me." Her voice was gentle, but firm.

Eventually he complied. When his eyes locked with hers her breath hitched on the devastation and despair she saw there.

"It's not your fault, Doctor."

"You can't know that." His voice was completely devoid of emotion.

A tiny smile played around her lips. "I know you, and that's enough for me. You didn't land the TARDIS on Skaro on purpose, did you?"

"No."

"And you didn't hand over Donna to her fate, did you?"

"No."

"And you did everything in your power to free her and those children, didn't you?"

"Yes," he agreed reluctantly. "Until…"

She interrupted him before he could finish what she already knew he would say. "Then I don't see any reason why this should be your fault. And if you're going to tell me that you are responsible for Donna wandering off you're gonna get a smack," she added in a weak attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

She should have known that it wouldn't work. Not when he was in this mood.

"I should have told her to stay in the TARDIS," he said tunelessly. "Then she wouldn't have spent a week being imprisoned in that camp."

She smiled. "As if that would have worked. From what you told me she isn't exactly a person who would just sit back and watch, and I bet she is as lousy at following rule number one as I am."

"Don't you dare making this her fault," he hissed at her, his eyes narrowing, his body leaning into her personal space.

She refused to be intimidated. This was much too important. "Doctor, that's the point: It's nobody's fault. Not yours, not hers, not mine."

"You weren't even there," he protested.

"No, I wasn't," she acknowledged, but she ventured on. "Doctor, we knew it would be dangerous when we decided to come with you. But we came anyway." It felt weird to include Donna when she didn't even know her, but she was absolutely certain he would have told her about the dangers when he asked her to come with him. Especially after what had happened to herself.

"That's not the point!"

At least he was fighting back now. "Yes, it is, Doctor. It is our life and we get to decide what we do with it. That's what living means. You should know. You're the one who showed me."

She looked at him solemnly, willing him to understand.

"No, Rose. It's not that easy." He freed his arms from her grip and began to pace the room again. "No matter how you look at it, this is my fault. I could have put a stop to it. But I didn't." He cast her a short glance, wondering what she would make of his admission. She didn't move, just listened attentively. He took a deep breath.

"In my forth life the Time Lords sent me on a mission to prevent the creation of the Daleks. I couldn't do it. I knew what they'd do, well, some of it, because I'd already watched it happen, but I still couldn't destroy them. Everything they ever did is my fault. Every being that ever got killed by a Dalek death ray. The entire Time War." He turned around and stared at the wall, although he didn't see it. All he saw was the devastation the Daleks had caused on his home planet when they'd finally broken the barriers and the even greater evil that had come from this.

"Don't you see, Rose? I could've prevented it, but I was arrogant enough to think I knew better than the Time Lords who had sent me there. I thought delaying their development would be enough. I was wrong."

He heard her move, the gentle whisper of the sheet she had wrapped around herself, and then he felt a warm hand slip into his. He wanted to push her away, didn't want to pollute her with the blood that stained his hands, but he craved her warmth too much.

"That you didn't kill them in their cradles or eggs or whatever only tells me that you've got a conscience, and that's one of the many reasons I love you. I know you'd never do anything like that, unless you had absolutely no choice."

Rose paused briefly before she continued, sounding curious, "I really wonder why they gave you that assignment. You're not exactly a person who would carry out an order without thinking, and whoever sent you there should have known that, should have known you. I bet you were not that different then, apart from a penchant for multi-coloured scarves." She smiled briefly at a memory of a picture he had shown her. "Besides, it was their decision to declare war on the universe, and don't you tell me that wouldn't have happened if you'd killed them."

He could almost hear the force of an oncoming slap behind her words. To tell the truth, that would have been his reply. She really knew him too well.

She tightened her grip at his hand. "Doctor, believe me, not everything that ever goes wrong in the universe is your fault."

"Oh, Rose." He wrapped her in his arms and buried his head in the nape of her neck, trying to get lost in her scent, wanting to shut out the universe forever. "What do I do without you?"

She had already made it very clear that she would regenerate him herself if he ever put her over the safety of the universe, but sometimes he wondered what he would be capable of just to get her back. If someone offered him a Faustian bargain he would be more than tempted to accept it.

She leaned back to look at him, then she smiled, a bit shakily, but it was warm, genuine and completely Rose. "What you always do: Barge into people's lives, blow up their jobs, and save the universe in time for tea."

A barely visible smile played around the corners of his mouth. He rested his chin on her head, and for some time they just stood in the small room, holding onto each other, sharing their warmth.

A/N: Please note that chapter 13 will not be posted here because of its graphic sexual content. You won't miss anything plotwise, but if you want to read it you can find it on my Teaspoon page as soon as it is approved (same username, link can be found on my profile page).