A/N: Nothing you recognize belongs to me! So this was supposed to be the end but the sex totally decided to derail me and thus we're only 1/3 of the way through what was supposed to be the plot for this chapter. Look for part 4, which will hopefully be out soon. . The poetry is from 'Venus Transiens,' by Amy Lowell, and there's a bit from the Bible in there too. Enjoy!
The Doctor knows that Rose doesn't believe him, not really. He doesn't blame her, even though it hurts his hearts to imagine what she will say when confronted with the inescapable reality that he is not human. He has traveled with enough humans in his long, long life to know the differences like the back of his hands—all nine sets of them. There are things he can't give her, like children, cues he won't pick up on, like what she really means when she says she's 'fine' (but that might be a bloke thing), and interactions he never wants to happen, like meeting her mum. She's fine now, surprisingly so, but what happens when the TARDIS finally allows him to leave? Will she go with?
He opens his mouth to ask her these things. "My name isn't John Smith," is what comes out.
She blinks. "Oh. What is it?"
"The Doctor."
"The Doctor," she repeats, one eyebrow raised.
"That's me." He grins and gives her a little wave. "Hello!"
"That's not a name," she argues. "It's a job."
"An' Rose is a flower," he counters. "What's your point?"
"If you don't want to tell me your name," she begins, but he cuts her off with a sarcastic snort and an exaggerated eye-roll.
"I'm an alien, Rose. Did you really think my name would fit into your own Ape naming system? If I really wanted to shut you up why would I even tell you?" She's clever enough to catch his drift, even if she doesn't want to let herself believe it. He hopes she'll stay once she does. He can peel back the layers of cynicism and disbelief that the universe piles onto its young, but only if she stays.
He takes her to see the TARDIS. The old girl is lonely, and what better way to bring Rose to reality than to show her something impossible? It's the perfect plan, he thinks—but like most of his plans it doesn't work out quite like he imagines.
"So, she says as he fishes around in the pockets of his jacket for the key. "This is your space ship?"
"Space and time ship," he replies as he slides the key into the lock and hopes that she will let them in. The lock clicks sharply as they key turns and he hides a sigh of relief in a flourish as he opens the door. He gestures for Rose to enter and she does with a mischievous smile.
He will never get tired of watching wonder spread across her face. It shines out through her skin, lights her up like a candle. It's one of the most beautiful things he's ever seen and that's saying something. She runs back out the door and races around the TARDIS, verifying that it is a wooden box (at least on the outside) before she heads back in.
"This is impossible!" she exclaims.
"For you," he allows. "This is Time Lord science. You lot make a passable attempt, but you never get it quite right."
"Can you hear it?" Rose asks, her eyes wide and intense.
He cocks his head to the side. "Hear what?"
"The singing." She closes her eyes and a soft smile curves her lips. "I caught a bit of it before—thought it was someone else in the building—but it's so loud in here." She hums something soft and haunting and he realizes two things simultaneously: a) that she has a lovely singing voice, and b) that his ship approves of her, because the singing that she's hearing is the TARDIS. It is rare for his ship to make her opinion of his companions known. Most of them would find the notion of a sentient, living ship too much to take and so she remains in the background, translating and monitoring—but not with Rose. And what will she say, when she finds out who is making the music echoing in her head?
"That's the TARDIS," he tells her eventually.
She opens her eyes. "The what?"
"TARDIS," he repeats. "T-A-R-D-I-S, stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space."
"It sings?" She's watching him again with those wide, curious eyes. There's not a bit of fear in them, not yet, and he wishes they could stay like this forever, that he could show her all the wonderful and beautiful things in the universe and none of the ugliness. There is too much ugliness in this world alone, he knows, for that to ever be a reality.
"She," he corrects. "She's alive, you know, and aware." The song changes and the lights flicker—a greeting.
Rose's answering smile is wide and gleeful. "Hello," she replies, and lays a hand on the nearest support strut. "My name is Rose."
They stand for a moment in silence as the song of the TARDIS ebbs and flows around them. He hears it all the time in the back of his head. Before the war he took it for granted, like the presence of the rest of his people, but now, in the stark emptiness that burns in his mind—now he clings to her like a lifeline. None of his companions have ever taken to Her this fast (except for Susan but he won't think about her, refuses to think about his granddaughter and the way she died like all the rest of his people), but then he usually meets them when they've just learned that everything they ever knew is wrong—and he hardly ever kisses them.
"Come on." His voice echoes in the suddenly quiet console room. "There's a swimming pool somewhere around here."
If possible, her eyes grow wider. "You have a swimming pool?"
"I have a sentient, dimensionally transcendent space-and-time ship," the Doctor grumbles, "and a swimming pool is what impresses her!"
She wanders ahead down the hall, pausing every few steps to peek into a room. "Prove you can take me somewhere," she calls back to him, "and then we'll talk."
They find the swimming pool after they find two spare-parts closets, a kitchen fresh out of the 1970's, and a room filled with strangely-costumed rubber ducks. Well, they find what used to be the swimming pool. The last time the Doctor opened that door it led to an Olympic sized pool in what appeared to be a typical, 21st century facility. This time, however, he opens the door on a rainforest. Is this what you were doing? He asks the TARDIS silently. She humms condescendingly at him, as if to say that this room was the work of a moment, not several months of silence.
"This impressive enough for you?" he asks.
She pats the doorframe. "Yes, it's lovely, thanks."
He turns to smirk at her and notices she isn't speaking to him—she's speaking to the TARDIS, who is insufferably smug in his head. It is lovely, though, he has to admit. The ceiling is lost in the leafy canopy of old growth trees that loom over them, casting the space around them into shadow. A thick carpet of moss blankets the floor and muffles their footsteps. Birdsong fills the air, accompanied by the sound of wind through a thousand leaves. Brightly colored Orchids wrap their roots around tree limbs and stretch their leaves towards the sun, which breaks through over the re-formed pool. It's part of a river now. A waterfall juts out in front of them, sending a cascade of clear, cold water tumbling over rocks and losing a curtain of mist into the air. The basin of the falls is wide and deep and almost completely still past the swirling waters just below the falls. A flash of color on the damp rocks lining the basin catches his eye and he sighs.
"What?" Rose asks, her eyes still on the spectacle before them.
"That," he says, and gestures towards the rock. "I think you'll find it's in your size."
It is.
'It,' is, as he discovers, a bikini. A TARDIS blue, very tiny bikini, and he wonders why she's bothering to wear anything at all. Not like the scrap of cloth his ship seems to think is appropriate swimwear hides her body. If anything, it accentuates the curve of her arse and the swell of her breasts. It draws his eyes to places he's just recently learned are permissible—places his hands itch to touch. She's a surprisingly good climber, for a city girl, he notes as she scrambles up a tree to grasp the thick rope hanging from an outlying branch. She wavers for a moment and he moves forward almost unconsciously, arms out to catch her, but she steadies herself and waves him away.
"Jericho Street under-sevens gymnastics," she tells him with a tongue-touched smile. "An' I got the bronze!" Rose grasps the rope with both hands, and jumps. She cuts a graceful arc through the air, and when the rope is almost parallel to the ground she lets go. He will remember her like this forever, he thinks as she arches her body into a swan dive. (For me, / You stand poised / in the blue and buoyant air, / Cinctured by bright winds, / Treading the sunlight. / And the waves which precede you / Ripple and stir / The sands at your feet.) And he marvels at the coincidence that made him a teacher of the only literature that can accurately capture her beauty. He will remember her as Amy Lowell remembered her lover: as 'Venus Transiens,' Venus in Motion.
The splash when she pierces the water is smaller than he thought it would be, and she is under long enough to give him cause to worry—but she breaks the surface with a gasp and a shower of water droplets that spread ringlets across the pool around her. "Well, come on!" she calls, treading water.
"Come on what?" he calls back.
She grins at him. "The water's fine!"
His eyebrows shoot towards his hairline. She gestures at him impatiently. He crosses his arms over his chest and shoots a glare at her. She pouts, and when that has no effect, shrugs and floats, letting the water hold her up—and he is thinking about Rose Tyler on her back and suddenly his suit and jacket are stifling. The water enfolds her, caresses her, and he wants to wrap himself around her and feel the softness of her skin against his. He wants to find all the places that will make her squirm and gasp and moan. He wants—oh, he wants, and he realizes for the first time that there is no one left to stop him. No one to enforce the rules he's always denounced.
She'll die, a little voice whispers in his head, but he pushes it away. Yes she will, and so will he, but if he wants and she wants—why shouldn't they? Does she want, he wonders? She is the one who initiated the kiss. She seems to think they shared some deeper bond. And he—well. Maybe he doesn't have to die just yet. Maybe—maybe he can have a second chance. Maybe he deserves one. Maybe, just maybe the universe will be kind.
She wants him to swim? A devilish grin spread across his face. Well, then he will swim. Without a suit, as the TARDIS had failed to provide one. He strips off fairly quickly, although it takes him a moment to find a branch suitable for safeguarding his jacket. The rest of his clothing is replaceable, but that jacket is unique and there's no way he'll risk it getting ruined for a quick dip. Three long strides bring him to the edge of the pool and he hesitates for a moment. Rose is ignoring him. Fine lines crinkle around his eyes. She's not the only one who can be mischievous, after all. He jumps.
The Doctor performs what he believes to be a stupendous cannonball and when he surfaces Rose is glaring at him, once again treading water. "What the hell was that?" she demands, eyes flashing and mouth set in firm, angry lines. It takes him two swift strokes to position himself in front of her and two more to back her against the smooth stones lining the pool. The water is shallower here, but it still hides her from his view. He, being taller, is more exposed and he can almost feel her gaze on him tracing twin trails of fire down his chest. She worries her bottom lip with her teeth and his eyes are drawn there like magnets.
"Do you want this, Rose?" he murmurs. He is bending down slowly, oh, so slowly and almost unconsciously she is rising to meet him. Each pulls the other in, like gravity, and it takes more control than it ever should for him to hold himself away from her, barely touching. She leans forward to bridge the gap and press herself against the planes and angles of his body but his hands on her shoulders hold her still. "Rose," he says, his voice low and gravelly. "Do you want this?"
She regards him solemnly through half-hooded yes. "God, yes," she whispers finally. "I've wanted it for ages." And then she is in his arms, blazing heat against the cool water. He tangles one hand in her hair while the other rests in the curve of her hip as he kisses her breathless. She, however, goes exploring. It's the first time he's been with her without wearing multiple layers, the first time she's been allowed to touch. She learns the feel of him, the way his skin has a texture that's subtly different, the way his heartsbeat thrums against his chest, the way he's surprisingly ticklish on that last rib, just above the waistband of his boxer-briefs. He, of course, has many more senses than a human man and they are in overdrive, filling his mind with information about this woman named Rose Tyler.
He can taste the want on her lips, hormones and pheromones beneath the strawberry lipgloss and the sweet-tart lemon biscuits that he likes with his tea broadcasting her desire as loudly as if she shouted it from the rooftops. He feels a bit dizzy—all those biochemicals that she isn't even aware of permeate the air around them and play merry havoc with the receptors in his brain. Humans and Time Lords are distinct species and therefore unable to produce viable offspring, but they're similar enough for this.
She's several thousand years ahead of the curve, he thinks, as her hand wanders down his chest to stroke his erection through the fabric of his pants. He can feel the heat of her through the cool water and the contrast sets him gasping.
She's mischief and fire, his Rose, steel wrapped in silk. He wishes he had more ot give her, because she deserves flowers and chocolates, dancing and dating. She deserves a change at a normal life with a bloke who isn't old and tired and broken, someone who can match her, joy for joy. His last self, with that ridiculous hair and elegant, refined nature, he could have wooed her like a princess.
Except that she isn't. She is honest, is Rose, and despite what her mum says she never pretends to be anything she isn't. And he, well, he's no prince. They fit together in a strange sort of backwards way, but they fit and really, that is all that matters. So he kisses her with blazing intensity, pouring all of the stormy passion that seems to fill this regeneration into making love to her. She strokes him again and he groans.
"Minx," he admonishes, his voice a growl in her ear.
"Whatcha gonna do about it?" she challenges, her voice a breathy whisper.
He shifts his focus from her lips and tongue to her neck. She tastes different here, salt and cool water instead of lipgloss and biscuits. The flavor of her arousal is stronger thanks to the chemicals in her sweat. A flicker of gold catches his eye and he pauses. Time shimmers and wraps around her. Time lines flicker on her skin like strings of golden glitter and dance in her eyes. Every Time line, every single one twines about her like an affectionate kitten and tangles around her. The possibilities are literally endless and he feels like he did on that night so long ago when he gazed into the abyss, into Time itself—and it gazed back into him. He feels small and vulnerable and elated, as if all of the universe is stretched out before him (Ask and ye shall receive, knock and the gates will be opened wide). And he laughs.
Rose thinks he's laughing at her. Her eyebrows scrunch together and there's that little line between them, the one that shows up when she's cross or concentrating very hard, or he's taken the last biscuit. He kisses her until it smoothes away and she's found that spot that makes him shiver.
"Rose Tyler." He rolls the words in his mouth and doesn't miss the way she shudders. "You are an impossible thing." Because he's been waiting for months for her. Did the TARDIS know, when she refused to navigate him away from London and locked him out? Is this what she saw?
Rose has retained enough of her wits to retort, "an' this from the two-hearted, time traveling alien."
He presses kisses to her nose, her eyelids, her lips, her neck. "You," he murmurs, "you are fantastic." She is here and he is here and everything is new. For months he has been drifting, waiting, existing and now—now he wants to live again. He's been so tired, so weary—all he's craved is rest but his second wind has caught up with him now, and he feels like he could run forever, if she'd run with him. He's breaking all the rules of his people, but maybe—maybe it they'd learned to feel, if they hadn't bred out the instincts that lived and breathed in her, maybe they wouldn't have gone mad. She's nineteen years old and human and one day he will lose her—but not this day. Not now. And he vows that whenever the TARDIS lets him leave, he's not leaving without her.
"O-okay," she replies. Her voice catches when he bites the juncture of her shoulder and her neck lightly and her fingers flex, digging her nails into the skin of his back as she shivers. It sends heat rushing through him and he fights the urge to push her against the smooth stones that line the basin and take her right there.
She turns the tables on him. The Doctor has a feeling that this will be a regular occurrence with Rose. She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls herself up him, wrapping her legs around his waist and pressing her center against his cock. He holds her easily; superior physiology isn't just a boast, it's a simple fact. His arms are full of warm, willing human woman and it feels so good that he almost can't believe it's real. What if it isn't? He wonders. What if he's passed out on the floor of the TARDIS, waiting for death to take him and all of this is just the last bright sparkings of his mind as it fails?
The feel of her teeth tugging gently on his earlobe brings him back to reality. "Doctor?" she murmurs and he knows she caught his hesitation. She's far too perceptive, his girl. The water holds her, lets him move one hand from beneath her arse to tug at the strings that hold her bikini top in place. He's always had clever fingers and this regeneration is no different in that respect. It takes him less than two seconds to get the knotted cords hanging limp and tangle-free.
A hand cups his face and he meets her eyes. Rose looks at him seriously, studies his face like a particularly vexing bit of verse. He peels her top off, presses her back against the smooth rock so that the water and her legs around him will hold her up. She arches back on the cool stone, her hips pressing insistently against his, and raises her arms above her head in a languid stretch. It's convenient and no doubt intentional the way her position brings her breasts in close proximity to his face.
He takes the hint. His lips close over one nipple and his fingers tease the other. She moans and shifts her hips against him, drawing a groan from deep in his throat. They're barreling toward completion like a freight train and a voice in his head warns him to take it slowly, reminds him that if she sees all of him as he is she will run screaming from him. One of her hands slides up his neck and caresses his closely-cropped hair. When her nails scrape against the skin of his scalp he bucks helplessly against her. Smugness curves her lips as she looks down at him through half-hooded eyes.
Slowly? He wonders incredulously. What about this is slow? They kissed for the first time less than two hours ago and he's about two seconds away from shagging her. She circles her hips and he revises his estimation. "Do that again," he growls, "and we won't make it to the bedroom."
"Maybe I don't wanna," she replies and that look is back in her eyes, the challenge.
He loves a challenge, always has, and he's not about to back down from this one. "Your wish is my command," he tells her, "just be careful what you wish for." His hands move to the ties of her bikini bottom and she lets her legs fall away from his waist. He misses the heat of her immediately.
"Your turn," Rose says as the Doctor lets the cloth fall from his fingers.
"Patience," he chides. She rolls her eyes and opens her mouth to tell him exactly what he can do with his 'patience,' but he slides one long finger inside her and a gasp is all she can manage. A wicked grin dances across his face as he catalogs her reaction to every press and stroke. He wants to learn to play her body like the time lines, to ride the crest of her pleasure like the fires of a supernova. He slips a second finger in and she arches here hips toward him.
"Please," she whimpers. He sets his rhythm to the beat of her heart and she rides his fingers, moaning when he brushes his thumb against her clit. He wants to watch her come undone beneath him, to bring her with his fingers and lips and tongue. He wants to flip her over and take her from behind, to feel the smooth skin of her arse against him. He wants to make her hoarse from screaming. He wants to shag her rotten and lick the sweat from the valley between her breasts. He is going to fuck her six ways from Sunday, and in a time machine that saying is surprisingly literal.
"Doctor," she moans and he loves the way she says his name. Something stirs in him, something ancient and furious and possessive, burning with the memory of the Dark Times. She is his.
"Again," he orders and twists his fingers inside her. He quickens his rhythm and she raises her pelvis to meet him.
"Doctor!" she gasps out as her fingers clench, her nails digging into his shoulders.
"Again," he repeats and buries his face into the crook of her neck. She smells like sweat and hormones and home and he wants to bury himself so deeply inside of her that no one will ever be able to separate them again. He wants to hold her against the emptiness and let her heat beat back the void that screams in his head.
She comes with his name on her lips. She pulses around his fingers and he can feel the inferno of her orgasm against the edges of his consciousness. It would be such a little thing to bring his hand from her hair to her temples and slip inside her mind. She's clever and kind, he knows, and it's been so long since he's felt anyone that close.
The Doctor restrains himself, just. Later, there is time for that later, there will be time. Humans with their puny little brains, they think sex is intimate. They have never tasted real intimacy and he doubts they ever will. Telepathy is so much more than the quick tricks that the movies show, so much more than words in his mind. Telepathy is knowing, feeling, being. She sighs when he slips his fingers from her and watches with a lazy smile on her face as he discards his pants.
"No tentacles, then?" she asks, her voice light and teasing, just this side of breathy.
He raises an eyebrow. "What is it with you humans and tentacles?"
"Never seen alien bits before,' Rose replies with a shrug. "Not sure what to expect." She takes him in hand and he closes his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath. When he opens his eyes she's smirking at him. He places his hands on either side of her head, leans in, and proceeds to kiss away her smugness. She's released him when he lets her breathe again and he can feel her solitary heartbeat against his chest. She holds onto his shoulders, uses the buoyancy of the water to wrap her legs around his waist again. He bites back a curse as she presses just there, so close to where he wants to be.
"You think you're so impressive," Rose murmurs in his ear as she slides herself up and down his length.
"I am so impressive," he growls. Finding the right angle is key and his hands grip her hips, holding her in place as he slides in. She's slick and tight and he takes a moment to adjust, but she is impatient as always, and squirms against him, trying to draw him in deeper.
"Doctor," she moans, long and low and his control shatters. He wanted it to last, this first time, but instinct takes over and her legs tighten around his waist as he pulls out and then he's thrusting into her, hard and fast and she's urging him on with lips and teeth and whispered words. It's primal and animalistic and all about the body, skin and sweat and that little gasping noise she makes when the friction between them is just right. His world narrows down to her breath against his skin and the strawberry scent of her shampoo and the building pleasure that sets his nerves on fire.
She comes first, clenches herself around him and he's over the edge, falling and burning and whispering her name in a language that no one speaks, anymore, no one but him.