Sea Green
Friday afternoon, Corin poked his head through Rose's open office door and knocked. She looked up from the Quarterly Confidential Report to the Crown she was reviewing and smiled, waving him in. He came up to her desk and leaned on it with both hands. "I've just had an epiphany."
Her face turned solicitous. "Did it hurt?"
He looked confused for a moment, then grimaced and chuckled. She pealed laughter, licking her finger and drawing a tally mark in the air – it wasn't often she tagged him; he was too quick-witted. "What was your epiphany?"
"Two things, actually. Whoa. Isn't it amazing how often I think in pairs? I'm always telling you 'two things'! Anyway... Two things. One, I think I may have given you a false impression about the nature of the life bond – the long-term. It's not like what we were doing the other day – that was more like what the LifeDreaming would be, only not as intense. Maybe halfway in between. No, the telepathic link isn't like that. It's... conversational telepathy. With deliberate intent. We could speak mind to mind whenever we wanted, but we wouldn't be constantly hearing each other's thoughts or pulling out memories or stuff like that. OK?"
She had leaned back in her chair while he was speaking, thoughtful. "Yes, OK. More than OK. You're right, what you thought I was thinking – that was just too much for all the time." She smiled up at him. "Two?"
"Two. I am such an idiot." He shook his head. "The only real knowledge I have of the LifeDreaming is my own experience. And I.. we were young. Very young. And inexperienced. We hadn't the knowledge or control that would come later." He grinned. "I've come rather a long way since then." A pause. "What I'm trying to say, not very well, is that I'm sure we could control the LifeDreaming the way we want to. I know I could, and I'm sure you could, as well – you have one of the strongest minds I've ever encountered. Bad Wolf proved that. Even though I had to take it away at the end. Few people of any species could have done what you did and survived at all."
"Even with the way that memory popped out?"
"Well, you're warned about that one now, and have it tucked back away again. Unless there's more bad memories that powerful?" She shook her head no. "Well, there you go. It's just a matter of closing doors, then."
Rose smiled slowly, eyes widening in wonder and excitement. She'd come to want the life bond, maybe as much as he did, even though their experiment the other day hadn't turned out quite the way either of them had hoped. It had still been the most wondrous thing she'd ever been a part of, and she wanted more. She got up and came around the desk and into his waiting arms.
They held each other close for a long moment, then Corin drew back to look into her eyes, his own dark and passionate. In a voice husky with emotion, he whispered the words he'd so long yearned to say: "Then, Rose Tyler, will you join your life with mine? Will you bond with me, mind and heart and soul, and walk with me through life?"
Her breath caught in her throat as she realized they must be the formal ritual words of a Time Lord life bond proposal. Not knowing if there was a ritual response, she merely said, "I will." Tears starting from both sets of eyes, their lips met in a long embrace of pure joy.
And then, of course, her phone rang.
Startled, they both drew back, and she sighed in exasperation. Corin laughed. "Go on, Boss Lady. I'll see you tonight at the flat. I've got some preparations to make." Realizing they hadn't exactly set a date, he simply asked, "Tonight?"
She understood, and nodded. "Tonight." Another shared joyous smile, another quick kiss, and then she returned to her chair, punching the button on her phone as she sat.
^..^
Rose opened the door of the flat that evening, to be met by a wave of heavenly aromas. Corin's "preparations" obviously included making use of his gourmet cooking skills, learned over the centuries on a hundred planets. The chef popped his head around the corner of the kitchen door, and said accusingly, "You're early. This won't be ready for another hour."
She decided to pout. "Don't I even get a hello kiss?"
Pique at her timing forgotten, he came fully around the corner and grinned, then playfully lunged at her and picked her up, twirling her around twice before suddenly pinning her to the back of the door, feet a good distance off the floor, and began kissing her soundly. And passionately. She wrapped her legs around his waist and began to reciprocate.
And the the kitchen timer dinged. Corin growled deep in his throat, then said, pulling his mouth just barely far enough from her neck to slip the words out, "I am really beginning to hate bells."
"Mmmmmhmmm," she murmured back. "I know the feeling." Unwrapping her legs, she wiggled loose and pushed him towards the kitchen. "But I'm quite sure I don't want whatever that is to be ruined – it smells far too wonderful. Since I've got an hour, mind if I take a bath and stay out of your way?"
Corin nodded, resigned, then slid his sexiest, most lascivious smile onto his face. "But mark my place there, Miss Tyler. I'll be returning to it later."
Rose laughed a promise, walking through the bedroom door, and then stopped dead, gaping at more of his preparations. "What did you do, buy out an entire candle store?" Every surface was covered with tapers, towers, and votives, all in gleaming white. Corin's delighted laugh echoed from the kitchen. "You realize, of course," she continued, "it'll take you an hour to light all these."
"Oh ye of little faith!" came the chiding reply. "Just you wait and see."
Smiling, shaking her head at his romantic whimsy, she went on into the bathroom and drew a hot bubble bath while she undressed, then slid under the bubbles, sighing with delight. A minute or so later, there was a knock on the bathroom door. "Who is it?" she called playfully.
The door opened and Corin walked in, grinning, preceded by a small plate with a wine glass on it. "Your drink, madam."
"Oh, I knew there was something I loved about you!" She took the glass and sipped appreciatively – her favorite white wine. She kissed the "waiter" a tip.
Keeping his head close to hers, he grinned conspiratorially, then reached into his pocket and pulled out – his trusty sonic screwdriver. Sighting down it like a revolver, he swiveled and lit the half-dozen candles at the foot of the tub in one sweep, then, leaving her spluttering in laughter, he made his exit, flicking the switch as he passed and leaving her in candlelight.
^..^
Not quite an hour later, she came from the bedroom, refreshed and redressed in a silky lounge outfit. He sat her down at the dining table, lighting the candles there, and gave her another glass of wine – this time a Cabernet Sauvignon. Then he went back to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the meal.
Bringing it out a minute later, the mouthwatering aromas resolved themselves into a platter of Chateaubriand: beef tenderloin roasted to juicy perfection, surrounded by carrots and broccoli and roasted new potatoes, with a large gravy boat of bearnaise sauce for ladling, and the rest of the Cabernet.
"Ooooooooooooh," she sighed. "You are definitely hired."
He grinned at her, then did a double-take. "What in the world...?" and leaned in for a closer look at the little red X she'd lipsticked onto her neck.
All minx: "Well, you did say to mark your place, didn't you?" Laughing, she fended him off, saying "I'm not wasting this fantastic meal after you slaved over it all day!" She breathed deeply, looking around at it all: the wonderful dinner, the perfect wine, the candles, even the music wafting from the stereo. "You are incredible. I'm overwhelmed," and he smiled that sexy, brilliant smile.
They did manage to finish most of the meal before romantic tension got the better of them. Rising, he drew her up, and began leading her back to the bedroom. A bit confused, she stopped and gestured towards the living room, instead. "Um, are you forgetting something?"
Eyes glowing, he replied huskily. "No. This is how it begins." Drawing her through the door, he paused, pulled out the sonic screwdriver again, and did a complete 360, lighting all the candles in one go.
Bubbling over with mirth, she came to him then, minx back, "Ah, you and that screwdriver. Where would you be without it?" And taking it from him, she held it a beat, and then tossed it over her shoulder without looking onto a chair.
"I'd be naked without it," he whispered, drawing her close again.
"Now, that sounds like a plan," she replied, and reached for the buttons on his shirt.
Moving slowly, drawing out every moment, they caressingly undressed each other, then moved without speaking onto the waiting bed. Then, as before, he placed his hands on either side of her beloved face, and gently reached for her mind.
His presence in her mind was stronger than before, glowing red with desire. She reached with her own mind for the glow, wanting to immerse herself in it. Their thoughts mingled and merged, and they became aware of both their bodies, each feeling not only their own but the other's as well. They returned to their caresses, giving and receiving in equal measure, equal pleasure, making love in every sense of the term.
Entwined and impaled, he paused, lifting his head above hers and searching deep in her eyes. He ran his hands along her arms, bringing them from around his neck, and took her hands in his, lacing fingers, and holding them out on the bed beside their heads. "Now," he said softly, and began to move with increasing passion, increasing urgency.
The mind-bending sensations, coming from both bodies at once, brought them quickly to the brink of release, their minds becoming more entangled with each stroke. Each part of their brains aligned and enmeshed, as if to mimic their outstretched arms and fingers. As they slipped together over the edge into twin climaxes, time dilated, each perfectly synchronized wave of ecstasy seeming to take minutes to build, hang, and slowly recede, each one gluing the strands of their minds closer together.
Finally, finally, after half a lifetime, the waves receded, and so did the world.
^..^
They wandered together through each other's pasts as if through an immense, never-ending fairy-tale castle, holding each other's presence close, sharing their lives. They came to closed doors, sometimes whole wings – and they respected those doors and moved on. They shared the moments that had changed them, moved them, made them who they were; moments of joy, fear, sadness, discovery, loneliness, love. They lived again through those ecstatic two years of traveling together, and he showed her what it was like to regenerate and find yourself in a whole new body, new teeth and all; and then they took each other through their years of separation and grief – and new-found, painful-at-first friendships, even some adventures.
– Surfacing briefly, blearily together, they found him still sprawled atop her, and together rolled and shifted till they were side by side, facing each other. She shivered in the cooling room, and he reached down to bring up and tuck in the blanket, and they sank below the surface again. –
She showed him her normal, boring, English childhood, growing up in the Powell Estate, and he showed her his lonely Gallifreyan childhood, growing up on the side of the mountain, far from anyone else. They shared images of their parents, warm and caring, or distant and demanding. She "met" the hermit that lived at the bottom of his hill, and he went with her to the first day of school, terrified, clutching her Mum's hand as though her life depended on it. She went on rare family holidays to the sea, and visited the Citadel, goggling with him at the city beneath the dome. He went on shopping sprees, school museum trips, and overnights with her mate Shereen, giggling the night through. They sat, bored to tears, through endless lessons at her school and his Academy, each of them staring out the window, watching sparrows and flutterwings, wanting to escape. She caught glimpses of another boy, arrogantly styling himself 'the Master', he and Corin circling each other warily, sometimes enemies, sometimes allies – never "friends". *That didn't end well* he told her, and showed her the year he had spent in the cage on the Valiant, ending with the Master's death. She "held" him for a time while he grieved again for the loss of what could have been.
Then, she made a request. There was something in particular she wanted to see. *I want to hear your true name, the first time you did.* So he turned, and whisked her to a room in their castle she hadn't seen before. (*I do like this imagery of a castle* he told her. She was confused. *Isn't it always like this?* He "smiled". *No, this is your image – let it stand.*)
– His father had brought him the long miles from their estate to the Valley of the Untempered Schism, to stand before the gap in reality and gaze into the time vortex, his initiation into the Academy. He was half terrified, half excited – make that mostly terrified. He didn't want to leave his home and his parents to enter the Academy, and yet he did. Mostly, though, he was terrified of the gap before him.
*Open your eyes, Corin.* His father's command ringing through his head, he had no choice but to look. And found wonder, and terror, in equal measure. He saw Time, as though it were a separate, incarnate Entity; the most irresistible of forces, marching inexorably through all of Creation, sweeping everything and everyone along. He saw empires rise and fall, saw unimaginably countless lives begin and end, each playing their tiny, atomic part in the whole. He saw the eddies swirling around fixed points, and knew instinctively that although other bits could be messed with, changed to suit a Time Lord's whim, that those points were absolute and unalterable.
But others could be changed. He reached with his mind and seized a planetary wildfire, a holocaust sweeping an entire globe, and made it burn hotter, made the winds howl louder. He laughed, and then he heard different sounds in his mind, sounds that seemed to echo through him, replaying what he had just done. He tried the syllables silently on his tongue, delighted in the response within. Knowing he had found his true name, he turned to his father and smiled, fear gone. *I'm ready* he said. –
She "smiled", realizing that the "something very young giggling with delight" that echoed in his true name had been Corin himself. And then she turned, and led him down another corridor, continuing on through their pasts, dreaming each other's lives.
^..^
Rose and Corin drifted slowly up through layers of consciousness and back to the real world, surfacing and opening their eyes at the same moment. Judging from the slanting sunlight on the walls of the bedroom, as well as the guttered candles, it was late the following afternoon. They lay still for several long moments, gazing at each other, wonder and love reflecting back and forth. They tasted each other's presence in their minds, a small, permanent, glowing yarnball of love and comfort, entangled in strands of their own consciousness.
*I love you* she thought towards his presence, testing it.
*I love you* came his swift reply. *I always have. I always will.*
And after another long, very long moment, they smiled and pulled themselves out of bed, using the bathroom, and puttering into the kitchen to throw a light supper together to satisfy their famished tummies, safe and content in the knowledge that, no matter the miles in between, they would never be parted again.