To Rose's astonishment, the soft-looking blindfold turned the exact shade of her dress the moment it touched it. She took a breath in, loudly, surprised at the magical transformation in front of her eyes.
The Doctor assured her that there was nothing magical about it. Advanced scientific interference with atoms and molecules, he told her, and a mimicking technology that reenacted whatever was built into its algorithms.
Rose couldn't care less. It was magic to her.
Her heart was beating out a wild rhythm in her chest, its shuddering echoing in her extremities, as the Doctor walked behind her with said blindfold in hands.
It's not that Rose didn't trust the Doctor. She did so, implicitly, and she knew it firsthand from his actions and not just empty promises that he would always protect her even at the expense of the lives of other people and creatures around them sometimes.
"I could save the world but lose you," he said once.
Rose wasn't sure if she liked the power of that conclusion.
Instead of asking Rose to turn her back to him, the Doctor walked around and stopped behind her. He was close enough for her to feel the slight coolness of his jacket lapels through the thin material of her dress. Rose took a breath in and felt how the Doctor's jacket touched her shoulder blades.
She puffed her cheeks in a stuttering exhale and closed her eyes.
God, this would be a long evening.
And quite possibly her last one, too. There was no way Rose would be able to survive through the night with the amount of hormones running through her veins from the Doctor's close presence in her unusually vulnerable state. It seemed that her body was trying its best to betray her carefully hidden infatuation. If anything, her heart sharpened its pace as the trembling in her hands increased when the Doctor put his arms around her from behind, carefully placing the strip of fabric around her eyes. Despite its flimsy appearance and softness, it was opaque, preventing Rose from seeing even silhouettes in harsh light. She gulped, feeling her knees go weak, cursing her body for its unsteadiness, berating herself for not keeping herself in control of her primitive, annoying, burdening feelings. It's been moments since she was blindfolded, and she already started noticing currents of fizzy electrical shocks travelling beneath her skin whenever the Doctor's hands touched her while adjusting the blindfold.
"How does it feel? Not too tight?" the Doctor asked from somewhere near her ear, and Rose flinched violently in surprise at hearing his voice.
Why she was surprised, she had no idea. She knew he was there. She could feel him next to her body.
It's just the fact that she wasn't able to see that was making her jittery.
Rose heard the Doctor sigh loudly, and then his hands settled on her shoulders, rubbing them gently.
"Rose? It's okay, we can change places, Trimeni said so herself, there's no difference in who's going blind in the ballroom. I know it's terrifying…"
"I'm not scared!" Rose protested, her voice scratchy from nerves and barely-hidden arousal. The Doctor squeezed his hands on her shoulders at that moment, surprised at her unexpected outburst.
"I'm not scared, Doctor," she repeated in a milder tone. She sighed, then searched for his hand, taking it in hers and shivering slightly at her heightened perception of the world around her. The Doctor's hand was dry and cool as it usually was, only now Rose traced the callouses with her fingers, feeling every ridge and scratch rather than seeing them with her eyes.
Each and every of her feelings was heightened tenfold, and she understood for the first time what people meant when they said that losing one feeling improved others.
It was as if her ears could hear better, and it felt like she could predict the Doctor's way of movements, and her fingertips instantly became extra sensitive, taking hold of every surface surrounding her.
And boy, did the Doctor have many surfaces Rose would love to explore…
She twisted her head towards where the Doctor was and confessed a partial truth:
"I'm nervous, yes…it's just that everything's going a bit too smoothly, isn't it, Doctor?" Rose questioned, her voice only shaking a little bit much to her pride. She swallowed, wishing for a bottle of water to help her parched throat, willing to continue concealing her other reason for anxiety. "It feels like a trap, I dunno, with how quiet the whole palace and the rebellions are, and how everyone's acting like things are fine when they aren't - the President's life is in danger, she's about to be assassinated, and everyone's so…so…chill about it!" Rose lamented. "It drives me up the wall, something's off, I'm telling you," she added in a softer, somewhat calmer tone.
The Doctor didn't say anything for an agonisingly long moment, and Rose felt herself going red. Surely, he was rolling his eyes at her jittery behaviour, irritated at her silly, groundless fears.
Then, she felt him squeezing her hand slightly. "Rose," he called before framing her jaw with his other hand. Her lips parted in surprise at such a sweet, intimate gesture. "The Tardis supplied us with the best kind of equipment. Everyone is calm because although everyone knows about the plot, they aren't aware that the revolutionists are here, at the palace, among the people of the Presidentesse's court. Presidentesse Trimeni and her brother, as well as a small portion of the staff, are the only people who know about it.
The pad of his roughened thumb caressed her cheek. "I'm not saying your worries are groundless or stupid, Rose," the Doctor said, his fingers still drawing half-circle patterns on her cheek, then travelling to the edges of the blindfold, tracing it with light, butterfly-like movements.
Rose's eyes went cross at the simple pleasure of having the Doctor touch her so carefully, so tenderly without shying away.
Each of her breaths was a tremulous one, and she wanted to take her heart out of her chest, shake it and slap it like an old TV-remote, yelling at it to beat normally, to stop exposing her feelings to the world.
The Doctor, mercifully, was clueless, or was taking her anxious behaviour in stride because he thought Rose to simply be nervous and not half-mad with unrequited love and barely-hidden arousal.
"They aren't, and not in your position at the moment. But everything's planned perfectly, and not much can go wrong…apart from me trampling all over your feet, especially with you wearing these."
Rose couldn't see, of course, but she was fairly sure that the Doctor nodded to the pretty, silk-lined shoes on her feet. They were rather fancy, she had to admit, and they wouldn't be good for anything but dancing, but they were lovely and complimented the dress well.
Rose let out a laugh. "They're pretty," and she kicked blindly at where his feet supposedly were.
The Doctor let out an 'oi' for good measure when she touched his shin with her shoe.
"They're dainty."
He said it like it was a swear word.
Rose laughed freely then.
"Is it that bad, hm? You said so yourself. Dancing. You're supposed to wear fancy footwear for fancy footwork, aren't you?" she teased.
Rose knew for sure that the Doctor was smiling then.
"Right you are, Rose Tyler. Dancing it is. Certainly no running involved with our perfect plan in motion!" he boasted playfully.
Rose groaned and tilted her head back in disappointment.
"Now you've jinxed it!"
It seemed that the ball was fully on by the time the Doctor and Rose entered the dancing room.
They passed the security check without a hiccup, and although Rose was a bit suspicious, some of the anxiety chipped away.
It still boggled her mind from time to time to see attributes similar to her own world in the societies of distant futures and alien pasts. In some cases it saddened Rose more than it surprised her when she witnessed the most cruel and unsavoury traits inherent to humanity popping in faraway galaxies and civilisations.
Things like slavery, xenophobia or greediness.
Things like today's plot of assassination.
Rose was distracted from her troubled thoughts by the Doctor squeezing her palm in the crook of his elbow. She was eternally happy that gloves weren't a necessary part of the dress code; she felt vulnerable and out of depth enough as it was without her most reliable sense, her vision.
Not being able to feel with her hands would've been too much.
"I'm gonna be right by your side at all times, Rose, I promise you that," she felt, rather than heard, the Doctor's words soothing her frayed nerves in soft puffs of air against her right temple.
Rose replied with a smile. She hoped it looked genuine (it certainly didn't feel so).
"Don't make promises you can't keep."
The Doctor huffed, affronted.
"Just you wait and see, Rose Tyler, I'm going to show just how good I am at keeping my promises."
Rose hummed in a manner that implied 'whatever helps you sleep at night.'
Immediately upon stepping into the room, Rose was assaulted by numerous sounds and sensations surrounding her.
It was as if the room was a beehive, really. People, in a broad way of that meaning, were chatting, and not all of them were using words. Some noises - speech, Rose corrected herself, resembled the clicking of castanets, some were disturbingly close to resemble crying, and there was also the distinctive sound of a thin metal sheet rattling among the habitual patterns and cadences of human speech around her.
Smells were entirely something else. None of them were unpleasant, much to her relief, but there was a smell prevailing amongst the others. If Rose had to guess, she'd say that it was a cleaning solution, and a one that wasn't too pungent, too: people on Earth could learn the formula to replicate that. She sniffed delicately, trying to guess the scent, but couldn't say anything apart from it being somewhat floral and not fruity.
The music quieted down as someone from the far right to the room announced:
"Rose Tyler and the Doctor, Presidentesse's guests of honour!"
Suddenly, Rose's skin broke out in shivers. It was as if her whole body was assaulted with hundreds of tiny toothpicks. Only she knew that they weren't metaphorical toothpicks, that those were the guests' eyes on her and the Doctor. She felt the need to fiddle with her hands, being unaccustomed to such an onslaught of attention. Rose fought her childhood habit of biting into her fingers' cuticles anxiously, maintaining a somewhat calm, collected display against the stares she felt.
Her fingers, however, curled into tight fists. Rose only noticed how tense she was when the Doctor uncurled her fingers with his hand where their arms were joined.
It seemed like forever passed after their introduction, however, merely two seconds went by before people in the room clapped politely at their appearance. Some of the pinpricks ceased from needling her body, but some stayed.
It made Rose uneasy. She shifted from one foot to another in an attempt to get rid of some of the worry as discreetly as possible.
The Doctor, of course, noticed. He changed their positions slightly, still keeping them close as he promised. He straightened his left arm, to which Rose was holding to like a lifeline, and wrapped it around her shoulders instead. His right hand clasped hers securely, and Rose felt like she could finally breathe for the first time since the blindfold was put on her.
The music swelled gradually, the first notes of a sombre waltz resonating within Rose's body. Deliciously fizzy goosebumps ran from her neck and down her spine from the opening accords. The live orchestra playing that night was splendid, coaxing out music that found response within every person's soul.
The world around Rose was a wild, colourless whirlwind. The only constant, the buoy she was tethered to that evening, was the Doctor.
And oh, was he the person to hold on to…he was her zero point that night, all the nights, and she was his homing pigeon, returning to him whenever she strayed too far.
Not a minute went by that they weren't touching. The Doctor's arms were constantly around her, or he'd be holding her hand, drawing slow circles on her knuckles with his fingers. From time to time Rose could swear that the whisper-like movements of the air around her face and neck were the Doctor's fingers, but she couldn't be sure. After all, it certainly was something out of her most intimate, precious fantasies: the Doctor's work-roughened fingers caressing her, playing her like a delicate alien instrument that replied only to the slightest, the tenderest of touches. The pads of his fingers would ghost over her skin, going closer, closer, closer only to draw back the last moment, causing her to arch into him, whimpering needily, compelling her to follow his movements like a highly charged magnet. The Doctor's playful yet torturing hesitation, the sizzling distance between them would create fiery patterns where his fingers almost would be, painting peculiar patterns on her skin, turning her into an abstract painting with his confident, masterful strokes.
In her fantasies, Rose's imperfections were smoothed by the Doctor's healing touch, by his omnipotent presence.
In Rose's secret dreams, she'd always be turned into a masterpiece with the Doctor's loving, attentive touch.
The music, a waltz, Rose thought, wasn't something she recognised. She never knew classical pieces by their true names even though she could recognise them, but this one was something entirely new, completely unknown to her.
She felt the Doctor's left hand descending onto her midriff. The pleasant weight of his cool skin was very welcomed on her heated body, the shock of the temperature differences softened by the fabric of her dress.
Rose outstretched her left hand in the air, searching for the Doctor's palm. He caught her hand in his immediately, as if anticipating her intent, holding her fingers in his, supporting the weight of her arm in his entirely.
Each of the Doctor's touches were precise, as they always were. Honestly, not a single movement of the Doctor's was ever abundant or without a cause, but today seemed to be a bit…unusual. It was a silly notion, really, but Rose fancied that he treated her like an antique china doll that night, extra careful with his body around hers. It was as if he was afraid she'd crack and fall apart into a thousand sonant pieces if he made one wrong motion that night.
Sure, the Doctor always treated Rose carefully in the quiet moments between adventures or while patching her up in the infirmary, aware of her fleeting, 'delicate' human nature.
Rose made it known to the Doctor on multiple occasions, however, that she was not made of glass, and that she was definitely cut out for the life they lead perfectly, taking everything he showed her in stride with only slightest of hesitations, with only briefest of hitches.
It was only natural, of course, for Rose to hesitate and feel lost from time to time. It was a part of her brilliant human nature, after all, the Doctor declared so himself while closing a gash on her stomach that she got in an encounter with a clawed creature that thought her blue shirt a signal for a fight.
It seemed that this night, however, brought all of the Doctor's fears and doubts about her humanity to the very surface, altering the way he acted around her noticeably.
If Rose were to be honest with herself, she'd've admitted that she was feeling rather fragile and wrong-footed that night. Not being able to see interfered with her usual activities at that moment, activities like looking around, assessing possible enemies and exits, analysing people's behaviour, watching the Doctor work its magic in unveiling a secret plot…
If these were hard enough with her eyes unseeing, then dancing and not falling further in love with the Doctor that night was impossible.
Rose sensed the air next to her right shift and imagined the Doctor's determined, reassuring expression as he leaned down and whispered, nearly touching the shell of her ear with his lips:
"Relax, Rose. Follow my steps."
The air wheezed out of her lungs with a thundering sound at the low, gentle order. Rose wondered if she was looking like a beached fish at that moment with her eyes wide open, gasping for the sea waters desperately. She half expected the Doctor to have that smug grin on his face at her abnormal behaviour that night.
However, her companion surprised her again.
"I won't let you fall, Rose," he told sotto voce. "Don't be afraid, come on. Just another adventure for us tonight, let's enjoy every minute of it," his voice turned playful, teasing her ears with its Northern cadences. "Aren't you always nagging me for taking you dancing? Well, here's your chance, don't miss it!"
She closed her mouth with an audible click and gave him a tremulous smile.
Rose had to get a grip on herself. She had to make sure that the Doctor didn't notice her crush that was growing with alarming speed each time he leaned into her personal space.
"You think you're so impressive," she bantered. Good. Her voice wavered only slightly, and she could write that away to being worried about…dancing.
On the dance floor. In a crowd full of aliens. Blindfolded.
Blimey, Rose marvelled.
Life with the Doctor never ceased to colour her stunned.
Rose knew very little about ballroom dancing, especially about waltzing. She wasn't a tutu and ballet shoes kind of girl, she was a monkey bars and cartwheels kind of girl, and certainly not a posh gown and waltzing kind of one.
Following the Doctor's lead, however, turned out to be surprisingly easy although not without its initial faults. She stepped back when the tip of his chunky shoe nudged hers gently, prompting her to move. However, when it was her turn to step forward, Rose faltered, and it led to the Doctor stepping back with Rose standing still, awaiting his next movement, and a sudden metre-wide gap between them.
Rose floundered and felt herself go violently red. Her cheeks felt hot, and alarmingly so, and Rose swore that she could feel the deafening roaring of the blood that echoed wildly in her ears.
She worried about missing the steps, and about her face being a bright, red moon, visible to the people who could see that evening. The flimsy fabric of her dress got stuck to her back with sweat, chafing unpleasantly whenever she breathed in too hard - and that happened a lot. Mortified, Rose attempted to smooth out her mistake but ended up stepping forward with the wrong foot, trampling over the Doctor's shoe inelegantly. She scrunched her face, embarrassed, and whimpered softly at how awful it felt to be so unsure, so devoid of her usual assets, and in front of the Doctor's face no less.
Rose felt the Doctor's shoulders roll beneath her palm. Then she felt her hand on his right shoulder lower, and in a span of mere seconds he was near her ear again.
"It's okay. Rose, you should see others, honestly. They're all supposed to be much more experienced at dancing blindfolded - this kind of dancing takes place at least once in three months," he explained, his tone laughing but not mocking. "Honestly, you'd think they were as new at this as you and me are, but it can't be possible."
The mild, unhurried pace of his words, delivered in that resonant voice of his, tinged with the rough vowels of his lovely Northern accent, sent a thrill down Rose's spine. Excitement bubbled in her blood again.
With several single words, the Doctor returned Rose's zest for adventures, even as domestic and romantic as waltzing in a ballroom was.
Wait. It was something entirely out of Rose's private, girly-girl dreams (that girls from the estates weren't allowed to have, not past turning fifteen anyway), the whole dressing up, dancing and flirting business.
It just wasn't the Doctor's, Rose sighed mournfully to herself. It must've been torture for him to exchange his trusty armour, his leather jacket, for a cotton-like shirt in white. Rose let out a huff of a laugh as she remembered him full-on warring with Ktktli and the Presidentesse herself, refusing to give up his 'best running boots' and his jeans with trans-dimensional pockets for a 'full-on monkey suit.'
He still had to give up his leather jacket before entering the ballroom, however.
Rose laughed merrily, nearly folding in two at seeing the Doctor so insulted by being offered to dress into a three-piece suit. It was almost the highlight of that day.
Dancing with the Doctor, no matter how unorthodox the experience was due to the secrecy of their mission and Rose's artificial blindness, was Rose's highlight of her day.
Oh, who was she kidding.
It was the highlight of her week.
From there on, Rose leaned into the Doctor's steady, calm guidance on the dance floor. Not having a thick layer of leather seemed to make her go crimson every time she felt his shoulder muscles flex beneath the crispy cotton of his fancy shirt.
Even though the Doctor promised her that he wouldn't leave her side, she feared that they might get separated, and how would she be able to recognise him without his patent leather jacket? He even smelled differently that night, no doubt his usual hygiene products changed by whatever was in the palace. Mercifully, the subtle scent of the oil grease, which must've been absorbed in his blood through his skin from all the tinkering he'd been doing on the Tardis' engines, stayed along with some woodsy, cool-tasting smell that seemed to follow the Doctor at all times.
The Doctor squeezed her palm slightly, grounding her, reassuring of his presence, and Rose forgot her silly anxieties about losing him in the crowd.
He'd never leave her willingly, and if they were torn apart by the people, she knew he'd turn the place upside down on his quest to find her.
And he would find her.
So, Rose willed her shoulders and her face to relax and dove straight into the sensations of dancing with the man she fancied, living her daydreams and fantasies closest to her heart at that moment.
She gave the Doctor a million watt smile, her best flirty version with the tip of her tongue tucked into her teeth, and hoped that she was facing him in the correct way. The Doctor gave a hearty chortle in reply and manoeuvred her into a non-waltz spin that had her clutching to him and laughing without reserve, making some of the dancers in the room smile indulgently at the bizarre but sweet couple.
It all happened in a matter of a few short minutes.
All of a sudden, the host of the show announced a switch of partners in a group dance.
Rose froze, unsure and unbelievably scared of something so small and silly like dancing with someone other than the Doctor.
The Doctor, however, faltered, too, and she could feel the uneasy, surprised slant of his arms as they lowered from mid air to simply holding Rose close to him. Rose fought the waves of apprehension that were rolling over her. Her heart hammered inside her rib cage, and she could feel her palms getting moist with sweat.
Rose almost groaned and tried to extract her hand from the Doctor's secure hold. The Doctor, however, caught her intentions beforehand and held on tightly. She could tell that he was alert: every muscle in his body was taut and poised for attack, yet somehow his heartsbeat stayed the same without jumping in pace like Rose's heart did.
Much to her horror, Rose felt herself clinging to the Doctor. A swell of unrest went over the whole room, and the sick-feeling kind of tension filled the air, making the fine hairs on her neck and arms stand.
Rose was feeling alarmed, and the Doctor's body language, what with his perfect stillness and his fingers on her back flexing - the only visible (well, the one she could feel) sign of his distress.
Something felt…out of sorts, and Rose wasn't sure that it was her paranoia of not being able to see talking.
The host repeated, his voice cheerful:
"Dearest guests, it's time we've livened up our party!" the crowds murmured in reply, and Rose got the distinction that some of the dancers were shuffling nervously from one position to another. "Pass your partners to the right, here we go!"
Rose clutched the Doctor's hand.
Being separated from him seemed like the worst idea ever at that moment.
"We will let our Presidentesse's honoured guests lead the reel!" the host announced, prompting the Doctor and Rose to relinquish their hold on each other. The other people in the ballroom buzzed, now somewhat excited rather than worried, and Rose heard the Doctor growl - actually growl! - when she sensed someone else's hand on her upper arm.
"Sir Doctor," the woman's sugary voice sounded from Rose's right. "Allow me to exchange Dame Rose for my partner, Chiloao? I promise I'll be most respectful and careful with your Iosotta ," the woman promised in a flirty voice.
Something told Rose that Chiloao was a man, and if their circumstances weren't so dire, she would've giggled at the absurd picture of the Doctor dancing a bloody reel with some bloke in a ballroom somewhere at some future alien ball.
So occupied Rose's mind was, she didn't really notice that the Tardis didn't translate the term that the woman used about her, and, being blindfolded, she couldn't see the Doctor go red in the cheeks and the top of his neck.
She wouldn't ever know that the coquettish woman called Rose the Doctor's beloved .
That was, possibly, the last clear memory Rose had of that night.
Apart from a small but impactful explosion in the ballroom, her being manhandled and hauled away somewhere where the air was considerably cooler and more humid and from fighting someone relentlessly even with her eyes still unseeing and her hands tied behind her back.
Rose thinks she remembers stepping on someone's foot angrily, screeching like a mighty warrior of the times before, and she certainly recollects some bloke howling in pain when her leg crashed into his crotch violently while she was thrashing.
There was also a distinct sound of something glass-like falling to the floor with a resounding 'tink!' , rolling noisily until it fell down the stone steps: roll, tink!, roll, tink! , until it reached the lowest step where it broke into what seemed to be a hundred pieces with a final deafening tink! that bounced off the walls and the stone floors around them.
And then, Rose thinks, she was thrown against the stone wall, and her head hit it with a crack that made her brain rattle inside her skull - literally - and then Rose remembers next to nothing after sliding down to the marble door.
Finding the culprits of the coup turned out to be fairly easy.
The cold, calculating part of the Doctor's character dissected the person behind the assassination plot in a matter of three minutes now that his mind wasn't fogged by Rose's all-encompassing, intoxicating presence.
Rose!...
The Doctor's hearts squeezed painfully at her absence. The irrational, human part of him was fighting to run off in search of her, to see for himself that she was unharmed and well and not scared. Was she knocked out before she was taken? Did she walk willingly, thinking that it was him leading her, before she realised that she had been deceived? Had they taken the stupid blindfold off before kidnapping her, or was Rose still as lost in the darkness surrounding her?
The Doctor took a deep, measured breath in and willed himself to stay calm in order to stop the panic in the ballroom, unveil the customer of the plot with all the necessary evidence and suss out where Rose was taken.
He sucked his teeth, angry and irritated despite his attempts to keep a cool, collected demeanour. He scanned the people, scattered helter-skelter on the ballroom floor, some injured from the explosion, some dazed and shocked, some of them aware of the gravity of the situation enough to draw back at his quiet ire.
Someone has already alerted the medics, and the doctors were taking care of the people hurt the most in the explosion.
A set of medics were fussing over Trimeni with Ktktli clucking worriedly at her side, but the Doctor's eyes were on the Presidentesse's half-brother.
He was standing in the grand doorway that was missing the doors now, staring at some box-like device in his hands dejectedly, rattling it a bit as if hoping to make it work.
The Doctor shook his head, disappointed. A brother coming after his sister's death. How very…banal and how awfully human.
Despite both Trimeni and her half brother being human only in the very watered-down meaning of it, with Inglindo being more human than Trimeni was.
A brother going against his sister for power over a continent.
The Doctor cringed and said nothing, knowing that Trimeni already knew about her brother's trespassing. How painful it must have been to be betrayed by your own flesh and blood, and how disappointing it must have been to realise that one's own brother thought you lower and less deserving of what was righteously belonging to that one.
Judging by the box-like device and by the suspicious absence of some of the dancers that were previously in the room, those were Inglindo's accomplices.
The Doctor chucked self-deprecatingly and looked down.
He was so distracted by being enamoured by Rose and trying to make her feel as comfortable as possible in the given circumstances, that he hadn't understood how suspicious and out of place some people were. If dancing blindfolded was a normal occurrence, how come the people at the court were so awkward about it?
It was a painfully obvious sign of a subplot happening, yet the Doctor missed it entirely.
Because of Rose.
Rose!
He needed to find her, and he needed to find her soon. Rassilon knows what the rebels have done to her after their plan went belly up.
He knew Rose very well by this time of the travelling together. His flair was pointing to the failure of the second explosion being Rose's merit.
If that was the case, that wasn't good for Rose. Her kidnappers might've gone aggressive after recognising their defeat, and although the Doctor believed in Rose Tyler's capability to look after herself, he doubted the chances of her protecting herself against several people with ill intentions.
Closing his eyes and hearing the blood rush through his temples, the Doctor exhaled slowly, then turned to Inglindo. The guilty man stood, frozen by the Doctor's pinning glare. The man's hands were trembling lamely when the Doctor asked in an icy, intimidating voice:
"Where is Rose?"