it's been a long cold lonely winter
little darling, it seems years since it's been here
[…] and I'll say, 'it's alright'
{here comes the sun; the beatles}
She falls asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow.
Vicki has her own room in the TARDIS and Barbara's changed as soon as they dematerialised away from Susan. Perhaps the ship has finally accepted her; no longer forcing her to lay on a cot pulled from the wall. Or maybe that was what Susan was used to. Barbara hopes she has somewhere much more comfortable on Earth now.
Memories come to her in her dreams, twisted into nightmares. Fire licking at the edges of her sight as Nero chases her through corridors and streets, thousands of plates to balance that only weigh her down until she thinks she'll be crushed. She dreams of poison and the Empress pushing her to the floor, her cheek stinging with a slap that never happened. She dreams of white sheets and mountains of pillows but even her sleeping mind shies away from the Emperor's bed and what would have happened if he'd tired of the chase.
And she sees Ian. Dirtied and blooded, chased by lions in the arena, by gladiators taller, stronger and more skilled. Nero holds her arms tightly and makes her watch as Ian falls to a sword through his back, to a dagger slicing across his throat. To the swipe of a vicious claw.
When Nero lets her go, she runs to Ian, his body shifting through the injuries like a broken signal, and in the end she's left with blood on her hands and his head in her lap, eyes glazed and sightless as they look past her.
Nero smiles from his box and she sobs.
She wakes with Ian's name on her lips. Her body shakes and tears drip down her cheeks and she tries desperately to catch her breath.
The TARDIS hums around her and Barbara clings to the bedsheets to remind herself that she isn't there anymore and that none of that happened, not like that anyway.
Still, her body continues to tremble, even as she crawls from the bed and wraps her dressing gown around herself, pulling the tie tight at her waist.
The floor is cold against her bare feet and she crosses the room to the door. Ian's room is just down the corridor and if she can just see him, see for herself that he is unharmed, then perhaps she'll be able to stop shaking.
The door opens easily beneath her hand, the hallway outside only dimly lit, but she blinks against it anyway, her eyes still stinging. She takes only a step before her toes catch on something soft and she has to grip the door frame to keep her balance.
From around waist height she hears a quiet 'omph' and then the rustle of clothes against flooring.
"Barbara?"
Ian's voice, dry from disuse, pulls a sob from her lips. Looking down she can just make out his form, curled up against the wall beside her door. He rubs at his eyes with his fists, bringing his legs in closer as though to rise. She drops a hand to his shoulder, stopping him.
His body feels warm and alive beneath her palm. She squeezes, once, and then collapses down beside him.
Her knees sting with the impact and she'll feel the jar to the joints for the next few days, but she doesn't care right now. Right now she shuffles closer to Ian until her thighs are pressed right up against his side, her hand moving across his back to grip the opposite shoulder.
"Ian." She says. It sounds breathless, choked.
He moves to turn towards her, but she tightens her fingers around his shoulder and in the end all he can do is turn his head. "Barbara, what are you doing up?"
This close, even in the dim light, she can see the grazes on his face, the bruise just starting to form where someone hit his cheek.
She brings her other hand up to brush her fingers across it, knuckles gentle. She gets bolder when he doesn't pull away, doesn't even flinch, and lets her thumb rub circles beneath the bow of his lip, just at the cleft of his chin.
He's thinner; long days with little food, fighting and working, traveling miles to get to Rome. To get to her when he could have been free.
She had known he would come, despite how impossible it should have been. She hadn't known if the Doctor would wait, hadn't even thought to expect him to come to their rescue even if he did notice their absence. But Ian would come, that she had been certain of.
"Barbara, what is it?"
His own hand settles on her face, cradles her head with a gentleness that should be at odds with how she saw him just a few days ago, fighting in the arena. But it isn't. Just another facet she has known for a long time was there. Teacher. Warrior. Protector. He is all those things and a gentleman to boot. Barbara was reminded of that last too, over their time in Rome. All those men around her who leered and touched her without a moment of hesitation, not even a question.
She turns her cheek into his palm, pressing her lips into a butterfly kiss against his skin. She can taste the salt of her tears there.
He seems to feel the tears then too, as he finally breaks the weak hold she has on his shoulder to turn around and face her, both of them kneeling on the hard floor. "Oh Barbara."
"I was so scared." She says, the words barely more than a whisper, but there isn't enough space between them to need more than that in the quiet corridor.
"You're safe. I wouldn't have left you there." The hand on her face shifts slightly to cup her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair while his thumb brushes away at the tears still falling down her cheek. His other hand flutters at her side, his fingertips grazing against her dressing gown but not settling. Hesitating, questioning. Her gentle man.
"No, I was scared for you, Ian. You could have died."
He doesn't know if it's her words, or something he sees in her eyes, but his hand finally lands on her waist, fingers curling around her hip and she sways forward, slightly. Her body warring with itself between wanting to bury her face in the warm safety of his neck, and keeping her eyes on his, watching as they soften and glitter. Alive.
He opens his mouth, reassuring words no doubt ready to provide her comfort. She speaks before he can.
"You nearly drowned, the soldiers could have killed you, Nero would have killed you." He squeezes her waist, but she continues to choke out the words. "You could have died before you got to Rome and I wouldn't have known. I would never have known."
With the hand at her neck, Ian tilts her head enough that when he pulls at her waist to draw her closer, his cheek rests against her own. Her arms curl around him, fingers gripping the back of his nightshirt tight enough to make her knuckles ache.
"Wild lions couldn't have kept me from you." He says, right into her ear.
"Ian," she chides, even as a tremor shakes through her.
Ian pulls back, just enough that she can see his face again. "Barbara, never underestimate the lengths a man can go to, for his-" he cuts himself off.
She blinks, her heart hasn't calmed since she woke from the nightmares, but it pounds even harder now in her chest.
"His what?" She asks eventually, when the silence has lasted almost too long.
"It was dangerous, for a woman, Ancient Rome. Everywhere is dangerous, even London in our own time." He says instead. "I'll never leave you alone if I can help it."
Her lip trembles; "And when you can't help it? Ian, one day it might be too much and you'll…" the words die in her throat, she can't bear to give them voice. Too superstitious suddenly, afraid just by saying it that she'll make it real.
His fingers are careful as they tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, the pads rough from a life of work. "I'll come for you. I'll always come for you, Barbara."
The words are quiet, but said with such conviction a part of her can't help but believe him. The same part of her that knew it was only a matter of time before he found her in Rome, that kept reminding her she needed only to stay alive, stay safe for a little longer and then he would be there. If she could have got away as she planned it would only have been to find him outside the city walls quicker.
She half believes Ian could fight Death itself to get to her, because he believes he could.
"Because I shouldn't underestimate the lengths a man will go to for his…?"
It's still almost dark, in the corridor, but she sees the smile that pulls at Ian's lips. How it grows slowly, softening at the edges as he brings both of his hands to cradle her jaw. "For his wife."
Her heart trips, and she tips forward, her lips pressing against his wonky smile.
He is soft and warm and his fingers curl into her hair, his arms around her as she leans into the strength of his body. She clutches at his shirt and his shoulder and when his lips part she feels the slide of his tongue and opens her mouth with a sigh.
When they part, when they need more air than they can gasp against jaws and cheeks and necks, she rests half in his lap, his legs stretched out across the corridor, his arms holding her close.
She lays a hand against his chest, feels the slightly fast beat of his heart. His lips rest in a long kiss against her crown.
"Is that really how you see me?" She asks, peeling one of his hands away from her stomach to play with his fingers for a moment, before lacing her own through them. She squeezes their joined hands and brings the back of his up to her lips, planting a kiss there.
"It is. I know we've skipped a few steps, but…Barbara, what we've experienced, what we've been through, together. I don't know if you-"
"I do," she says, unable to let him wonder. She feels his smile where it's buried in her hair. "Oh Ian, of course I do."
"Do you think the Doctor counts as a Captain?" Ian asks, and her heart skips again.
"Well, he does have a ship."
She feels the breath that catches in his chest and his arms press her tighter against him. When she tips her head back to see him, his eyes glitter.
"When we're back home, we'll do it properly."
He leans down and she stretches up and this kiss feels weightier than it should, like sealing a promise.
"Why were you out here?" She asks later.
"I couldn't sleep in my room. I needed to know you were safe."
She rises stiffly, still holding onto his hand and pulls him up with her. "Of course I'm safe," she says, stepping backwards into her bedroom as he follows. "You're here."
The sheets on the bed are crisp and cold as they slip beneath them. She curls up on her side and Ian slides in behind her, their fingers still tangled together, resting against her stomach.
His nose settles into place at the nape of her neck and she relaxes into the mattress.
"I love you, Barbara." He says and she smiles, sleep already claiming her mind.
She thinks 'I love you' and says, "Barbara Chesterton."
She falls asleep with his smile pressed against her skin.
End.