Chapter Text
“Rose!” the man exclaims, smiling from ear to ear. “And... Doctor?” he says, shock distorting his features as he takes in the figure of the man she’s supporting.
Rose gasps. “Jack!”
“Jack?” the Doctor asks at the same time, his tone coloured far more with disgust than excitement.
“That is you, right?” asks Jack.
He stares at the Doctor’s face with bemusement. When the Doctor doesn’t answer straight away, Jack turns his attention briefly to Rose. “Unless you’ve taken to traveling space with some other... guy...” he trails off, eyeing the Doctor with sudden suspicion.
“What?” the Doctor asks, unable to make sense of Jack’s question in his state of disbelief.
“I mean, the...” he points to his own face, circling his finger awkwardly.
“Oh.” Of course. He’s not used to doing this anymore: explaining the regeneration process to old friends he encounters after a change. “Right.” He sighs. “Yes, it’s me. Same man, new face. Long story.” He waves a hand dismissively, not wanting to delve into it further.
Jack turns to Rose again, looking for confirmation he can trust the bloke she’s currently half-supporting.
Squinting her eyes, Rose gives him a nod (not as surreptitious as she thinks), and Jack seems to relax a bit. He sizes the Doctor up from head to toe, nodding appreciatively.
“And here I thought you couldn’t get any more attractive.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Rose agrees with a giggle.
“What are you doing here?” the Doctor asks, shutting down that train of thought before it can travel any further.
“Well, it’s great to see you, too.” Jack crosses his arms over his chest. “Jeez. This new Doctor is kinda cheeky, huh?” He directs this question to Rose.
Rose turns to glare at the Doctor before responding in her own way.
“Yes,” she agrees through her teeth. “It is great to see you, Jack,” she adds with a disarming smile. “God, I’ve missed you! What are you doing here, though?” she asks, with excitement rather than the displeasure he’d inquired with.
“My team has been local since this all started,” Jack explains, gesturing around the building they’re in. “But we haven’t had any luck putting a stop to it. After the cyclone or whatever it was that got rid of the Cybermen and Daleks just now, I figured you were behind it. And this was the eye of the storm. I left as soon as I could.”
“Left where?” the Doctor asks.
“Up until a few minutes ago, my team and I were trying to keep at least one block of London safe. Got shot by a Dalek laser a couple times; not the greatest day I’ve ever had.”
“Oh!? Are you hurt?” Rose asks frantically, letting go of the Doctor entirely in favour of approaching Jack.
Thankfully, the alarms going off in his head in response to the anomaly in time and space that is Jack Harkness are enough to keep him alert and balanced enough to stand on his own for a few minutes.
“I’m fine. Just flesh wounds,” Jack insists, brushing off Rose’s attempts to check him for injury.
“Team?” the Doctor asks, fixating on a different part of Jack’s story.
“Long story,” Jack uses the Doctor’s choice of words from earlier. “How did you get rid of them?”
“Well,” the Doctor explains. “Opened up the Void to –” he makes a dramatic slurping noise and gestures with his hand – “suck the Daleks and Cybermen back into it.”
Jack furrows his brow in confusion, but he nods along anyway, seeming to decide it doesn’t matter. “Sounds about right.”
“So, what’s this ‘long story’ then?” The Doctor is simply too curious how Jack ended up here and (and now) to let his non-explanation of his ‘team’ drop.
Jack sighs, glancing reluctantly between him and Rose for a long moment.
“I’m the director of Torchwood.”
The Doctor’s fists clench at his sides, his vision tunnelling in hues of red.
No. Not Jack. It can’t be.
“It’s not what you think,” Jack rushes out, holding out his hands in an attempt to ward off the Doctor’s anger. “My team is not affiliated with these criminals,” he spits out the word. “This whole establishment is a sham. We’ve been trying to take these guys down for months, but we’re too new in our operations. We didn’t have the resources or the manpower. But we’re running the real deal. An organization trying to assess and handle alien threats when you’re not around. I started it for you. In your honour,” he pleads emphatically, earnestly, for the Doctor to approve.
“Jack, that’s amazing,” Rose congratulates him without pause. “I’ve been so worried about you, hoped you were doin’ all right. Of course you’ve been off savin’ the world in your own way.”
The Doctor’s scowl slowly recedes. He doesn’t like the idea of it; Pete’s Torchwood team don’t exactly have a reputation for being stellar role models, either. The word ‘Torchwood’ is leaving an awfully bad taste in his mouth. But if Jack and his team were fighting adamantly against this operation, and Rose approves, they can’t be so bad, can they?
“Since when?” the Doctor asks.
“Six months, maybe. Not long. We normally operate out of Cardiff.”
The Doctor makes a small noise of disgust in the back of his throat. “Not surprising...” Jack just rolls his eyes, already accustomed to the rude comments. “How did you make it back to Rose’s time?”
Jack opens his mouth to answer, but something stops the words in his throat. Confusion and the first traces of anger flit across his face.
“Wait a minute.” He holds his index finger up in the air as he thinks his question through. “Shouldn’t you be asking how I’m alive?” he asks, turning his finger on them like they may be hiding something.
The Doctor and Rose are silent. She glances over at him guiltily, and they both adamantly avoid Jack’s gaze.
“You mean you didn’t think I was dead!?” Jack shouts. “You just abandoned me out there!?”
Rose jabs the Doctor in the ribs with her elbow.
“Abandoned?” she repeats through her teeth.
“Oi!” he yelps, shrinking away from her as much as he can without losing his balance.
“Would’ve hit you in the head, but it seemed too soon,” Rose says, just about as angry as she can get.
He grumbles to himself.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack asks, still frustrated.
“Long story,” the Doctor offers their new avoidance phrase again.
“I’m so sorry, Jack.” Rose cuts in, and the Doctor’s stomach sinks. He does not want this conversation to happen right now. Rose is going to be livid with him, and he’s only just gotten her all to himself. “I didn’t know you had no way back. I had no part in that,” she assures him. “The Doctor – I assumed he talked to you back on the Satellite. I thought... well, I didn’t find out that you were... until...”
The Doctor sighs.
“Wait a minute... find out?” Jack works through Rose’s choice of words slowly. “You knew!?” He turns to the Doctor with fresh anger.
The Doctor sighs again, his hearts heavy. He delays answering as long as he can, but there’s no way Jack will let this go.
“I knew,” he admits. “I sensed it as soon as it happened. But I only told Rose what had happened a few days ago.”
“You know what happened, then?” Jack asks, curiosity piqued. “Because I don’t. I was staring down death, finally made my peace with it, actually, and the next thing I knew I woke up. Died a few hundred more times after that, always woke up. Always gasping, like I’d just had a nightmare. Never understood why or how this happened. I just knew it all started on that godforsaken Satellite.”
“Well...” the Doctor stalls again, scratching the back of his head. “Rose, actually.”
“Rose?” Jack asks incredulously, glancing at her. “How could she possibly have done this?”
“Not her, per se,” he hedges. “Rose joined with the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the power of the Time Vortex to rescue me. For a few minutes, she became nearly omnipotent. And when she discovered Jack Harkness had perished, she brought him back to life. But the resurrection came at a cost.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so sorry.” Rose covers her mouth with her hand, ashamed of herself.
“I removed the Vortex, and with it all memories of her time as the Bad Wolf. But I couldn’t undo what she’d done.”
Jack takes a long moment to process what he’s just heard, taking a deep breath.
“Don’t blame yourself, Rose,” he says in a soothing tone. “You were trying to save me. Plus, It’s not so bad. I’m honestly used to it.” He shrugs, taking his tremendous curse in stride.
“Well, hey, look, I’m immortal now, too,” Rose offers, trying to cheer him up. “Sort of.”
“Come again?” Jack asks, eyes going wide.
“Yeah, another long story,” she grins just a little as she uses their phrase herself. “We’ll have to swap all of ‘em later,” she suggests. The Doctor is glad to see that this unexpected visit hasn’t completely destroyed her mood. But suddenly, she remembers what they were discussing up until this point. Turns back to the Doctor.
“But you! Just bloody abandoned him?” Her voice jumps two octaves in her anger, and this time, she does smack him on the side of the head.
“Ow!” he whinges, rubbing the spot.
“What you said before... well, I at least thought you’d talked about it, came to some sort of agreement! If you had said that’s what you were doin’, I never would’ve let you get away with it!”
All right, she’s still upset about that. He deserves that. At the time she’d found out, she was too distracted trying to learn about her own immortality to get caught up in thoughts of Jack, but now that he’s here with them and she’s had time to process it, it seems to be hitting her full force.
“I do everything I can to stay away from fixed points in time, Rose,” he tries to explain. “You know that.”
What she doesn’t know is how intensely unsettling and wrong it feels to be in the presence of one, how uncomfortable he is even now, being around something so unnatural. Encountering a fixed point in time is stressful enough, walking on eggshells trying to not disturb the way history is destined to proceed. But a fixed person? It shouldn’t even be possible. It’s ingrained deep in his psyche that it’s wrong on every level. Maybe it’s something he can show her the next time they’re connected. Maybe then she’d understand.
“Well, that shouldn’t include people!” she insists, still frustrated. “He’s our friend!”
“I appreciate it, Rose,” Jack interrupts. If she weren’t here, he thinks Jack might have punched him in the jaw by now.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” the Doctor offers quietly, moved to action by Rose’s ire. “I panicked. I had just regenerated; I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Regenerated?”
“A Time Lord’s way of cheating death. Only I come back with a new face.” He gestures to himself again. “Well, new everything, really.”
“Doesn’t that make you a hypocrite?” Jack accuses.
He sucks in a breath and exhales with a sigh. “Probably,” he admits. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. It’ll never be enough, but it’s a start.
“Well,” Jack takes a deep breath and seems to loosen up. “I suppose it all turned out. In fact, it might’ve been for the best. I’m happy, getting to run my own team here from Earth. And I think... I might’ve found someone.”
“Found someone?” Rose asks. “Like... a girl?”
“A boy.” He gives Rose the Harkness smirk.
“Ooohh!” Rose sings, intrigued.
“Didn’t think a bloke existed that could make playboy of the universe settle down,” the Doctor quips.
“Me either,” Jack jokes. “Just wish I could make him immortal, too. Nice goin’, by the way,” he gestures to Rose, making yet another insensitive joke.
After months spent travelling with him, the Doctor knows Jack pretty well: his behaviour, his habits, his sexuality. But he still doesn’t understand it. Any of it.
But whether the Doctor likes it or not, Jack looks well. Confident, and proud of what he does. The man standing before them is a far cry from the pompous con artist they met in war-torn 1940’s London. The Doctor can’t help but be just a little proud. If they’d never met, Jack might’ve stayed the fraudulent coward he was back then for the rest of his very short life. But now he has a chance to properly make a difference.
A swell of dizziness washes over him suddenly; his knees buckle and he grabs onto Rose again for support.
Not expecting it, Rose nearly falls over, and Jack has to come to her aid to keep the Doctor upright.
“Not feeling well?” Jack asks.
“Tend to feel a bit woozy after regenerating,” the Doctor explains.
“Woozy’ doesn’t quite cover it,” Rose adds. “C’mon, let’s get him back to the TARDIS.”
The Doctor has no choice but to cling onto both of them for support as the walls and floor around them become indistinguishable. The shock of seeing Jack had kept him somewhat functional, but now that it’s worn off, lethargy sets in again, bringing disorientation with it.
He gets himself talking again, hoping it’ll help.
“Not working on dimension hopping technology, are you?” he asks, hoping Jack’s organisation doesn’t become as reckless as Pete’s team, tearing holes in the fabric of reality.
“No, why?”
“No reason...” the Doctor trails off.
“Good thing, though,” Rose adds to him. “Jack would’ve been sucked in, too.”
“Mhm,” the Doctor agrees, nodding.
“What do you mean?” asks Jack.
“The Cybermen and Daleks were pulled into the Void because they were soaked in Voidstuff. Anything that’s travelled between dimensions has it.”
“Huh. You two have never done that?”
“No, we have, actually,” says Rose. “That’s how this happened,” she gestures to the Doctor’s somewhat helpless state. “He’s lucky he made it at all.”
Being reminded of his near-death encounter seems to help her overcome her recent anger, because she reaches over and kisses his cheek.
“Aw,” Jack croons. “Aren’t you two the cutest.”
The Doctor blushes fiercely. And that does wake him up a little bit.
When they arrive back at the TARDIS, they’re instantly greeted by a very worried Jackie and Pete. The couple explodes with questions about whether the Daleks are gone, the identity of the stranger in the blue trench coat, why the Doctor can barely walk. Jack and Rose thankfully address most of the inquiries, and the Doctor collapses on the jump seat and tries to stay engaged as best as he can. But the console room is spinning, and it feels like he’s been drugged with a general anaesthetic that hasn’t fully kicked in yet. He swears before his tenth incarnation, there wasn’t always this much drowsiness.
“Why don’t the four of you catch up,” he says, standing up. “I think I’m going to have a kip...”
“You sure it’s not against the rules for me to stick around?” asks Jack, acerbic.
The Doctor is tempted to play along and tell him it is against the rules (because really, it’s hardly ideal having an impossible thing like him around the TARDIS for an extended period of time), but he plays nice. “Stay as long as you want.”
“Huh. Rose here has really softened you up, hasn’t she?” Jack smiles, pleased with the notion.
The Doctor can’t find it in himself to contest it.
She really has.
“Here, let me at least walk you to bed,” says Rose, hurrying across the room to catch up with him before he can reach the hall. He’s glad for it, because his legs are still wobbly and he doesn’t quite trust his balance to get him to bed safely.
Rose puts her arm around his waist as they make their way down the hall.
Jack whistles loudly behind them.
“Oh, shut up!” Rose shouts back, but there’s a smile in her voice. “He’s just going to sleep.”
“Uh-huh!” Jack chuckles behind them.
The Doctor rolls his eyes.
---
Waking up alone in a bed he’s become so used to sharing is a jarring feeling. Since Kaelondaia, he’s never even been in this bed by himself (Rose never wakes up and leaves the room before he does), and it’s unsettling now. Reminds him of the hell his subconscious created out of twisted timelines while he was dying.
He desperately reaches out to Rose with his mind, telling her in a dazed and lonely jumble that he’s awake and misses her and could she please come back?
To his hearts’ delight, the bedroom door cracks open within a minute. Rose peers through it curiously, and a brilliant smile lights up her face (and the entire room) when she confirms he’s really conscious.
“Hey, stranger.”
He pulls back the covers and pats the empty side of the bed, more eager than he thinks he’s ever been to see her.
She climbs under the blanket and snuggles up next to him, her lips finding his automatically.
It feels like it’s been months since he’s kissed her. She means for it to be a modest, good morning peck, but he cups her chin in his hand before she can pull away, savouring it. Committing everything about her to his new cells’ memory. Often, things he’s experienced a thousand times can feel different when he emerges from the other side of a regeneration. His perceptions can subtly change. And when he’s in a brand new body, his senses are heightened: pristine nerve endings all over his body more sensitive.
Supposedly, one day he’ll tire of things like kissing. It’s a caveat passed down through generations – that eventually kissing the same person for the millionth time loses all appeal. But the Doctor is sceptical that’s possible when it comes to Rose. A kiss from her is such a pure form of bliss. Her lips soft and gentle and, even when passionate, never demanding. The softest touch from her instils a sense of calm in him; even in the worst of circumstances she can make the world stop spinning and help him to breathe again with one small kiss. As long as she’s in his arms, everything will always be all right.
Veiled behind but a thin membrane separating their minds, the soft tenderness and adoration she has for him simmer impatiently, waiting to flood through their connection as soon as they open it.
She tastes just vaguely of tea and sugar this morning, and it gets him wondering how long he’s been out.
Waking up his time sense to get an estimate, he pulls away gently, but keeps Rose close.
Twenty hours... ugh.
“I’ve been out almost a day,” he laments.
“You have.” She nods with a pout.
“Jack still here?” he asks.
“No, he left with Pete before I went to bed.”
“You slept and woke up already?”
“I think you know me well enough by now to know I don’t go thirty hours without sleep.”
“True.”
“Life or death circumstances notwithstanding.”
“Of course.”
“You were out like a bloody light.”
He grumbles, disappointed he missed out on so much time. “Sorry I couldn’t celebrate with you properly.”
“’S okay. You didn’t need to be conscious for me to cuddle with you anyway.”
He grins, chuffed at the thought that he was still close to her while he was out.
“Wait, where’d Jack take Pete?” he asks.
“Torchwood,” she says, as though it had come as surprise when she first heard, too. “He’s offerin’ him a job.”
“Is he?” the Doctor’s jaw drops. But, realising what this will mean, he soon sighs in defeat. The legacy of Torchwood is clearly not meant to wither away in any universe. “Well, I suppose that’s to be expected. Is Pete interested?”
“Sounds like a great opportunity,” she shrugs, not seeming to care much either way, which he finds odd. Though, she really hasn’t gotten to know this alternate version of her dad very well yet. “He could basically continue the kind of work he was doing back on his world.”
“Hmm.” He decides not to ask any more questions about her family, figuring she needs time to process it all. “Did Jack tell you any more about what he and his team are up to?”
“Yeah. And I really do think you’d approve.” She pokes him lightly in the chest. “He’s a good man.”
“I know,” he admits grudgingly. “Risked his life for you, that’d make anyone a hero in my book.”
“You could ease up on him, you know.” She strokes the finger on his chest, staring at him with that irresistible Rose gaze.
“Ohhhh, I know.” He sighs in defeat, caving immediately. “I’ll try.”
“Well, he and Ianto are coming ‘round for supper tonight, so, try then.” She grins a bit too wide, nervous of his reaction to this news.
“Roooose,” he groans.
“C’mon, just play nice. He really wants to impress you. And I want to meet this bloke.”
He grumbles one more time, just for effect. He knows he’s already lost.
“It’s a good thing I love you,” he blurts out.
Oh.
That’s not exactly how he intended to say that out loud for the first time.
It is not lost on Rose, either, by the sudden intake of breath and the way her jaw drops open. Her eyes glisten with something, for once, unreadable, but she’s strangely quiet, like she’s waiting for him to take it back or correct himself.
Well, not this time. Instead of flinching away from it, one side of his mouth lifts up in a nervous smile.
“So...” Rose starts, smiling back in disbelief. “I thought you just... said it before, because you were, well, you know...”
The Doctor reaches for her hand, taking it firmly in his until their connection flares to life. He reinforces the sentiment as strongly as he can, saying it again as clearly as day in his mind. Unlike the previous time, when he screamed it across the distance of a room as his swan song, this time he intertwines it delicately with all the feelings he associates with Rose, matching them with the English word that he still thinks doesn’t do justice to it all. The complex patchwork of esteem, trust, and attraction he has for the woman who saved him from himself.
Rose takes in a ragged breath as her eyes fill with tears, and he lets go of her hand. It’s so easy for him to forget to titrate his emotions with her. Though she’s a natural at telepathy, and has made much improvement, his mind is still far stronger than hers. The intensity of emotional currents from him can still easily overwhelm her.
“I love you so much, Rose. I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.”
Even as she wipes moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand, a wide grin spreads across her face.
“You know I love you, too, right?”
Hearing the phrase out loud, in her beautiful voice no less, pierces both his hearts straight through with Cupid’s bloody arrows. But, still out of practice with such sentimental discussions, he can’t help but tease her.
“You were really never that subtle, darling.”
She shoves him playfully in the shoulder. “I’m bein’ serious.”
“Sorry.” He bows his head, thinking back to all the times he knew she loved him without her having to say the words. It’s most obvious when she’s inside his mind, but even without that, even when he wasn’t capable of admitting it to himself, it was obvious. “I do.”
“Is it just for my body?” he teases her again, pulling up the covers and staring down at himself. “I probably should’ve properly changed just to see if...”
“Oh, all right.” She shuts him up with another kiss.
Though they both know he was only teasing, as they sink effortlessly into the kiss and one another’s minds, they reassure each other that they’re both utterly serious about their proclamations of affection. It’s not much different than any other time they’ve been connected; it’s impossible to hide their true feelings for each other when connected so deeply. Only now, there’s three little words suffused through the whirlwind of passion.
I love you.
For so long they bit their tongues, restrained by insecurity, and finally giving truth a voice feels very much like freedom. Doubts neither of them realized they were still carrying suddenly float away, leaving behind a calm the Doctor didn’t realize was possible. Not the kind of calm before a storm, but the kind that comes after: when the storm has passed, and you realize you and your home are safe as the sun emerges from behind the clouds with a rainbow.
Words, the Doctor realises, are more important than he’d given them credit for.
It’s not until the Doctor just barely hears the bedroom door closing of its own accord several minutes later (the TARDIS giving them privacy) that he realizes how quickly the has kiss escalated into much more.
Rose has climbed on top of him; her fingers tangle in his hair while his gently stroke the skin beneath her shirt. Her deep, patient kisses have gradually dosed him with oxytocin and so much desire that he’s hardened beneath her. She, of course, becomes aware of this the exact moment he does, and shifts her position, straddling him with her thighs so she can comfortably take advantage of the new knowledge.
They both gasp when the friction is far more pleasurable than either of them expected. She rolls her hips again, and suddenly they aren’t so much kissing as breathing praise against one another’s lips.
Rose, I’m... he captures her attention. More sensitive right now... new body... new nerve endings... the sentence drags on, interrupted by fresh waves and sighs of pleasure as she aligns herself just right.
“Can tell,” Rose whispers against his jaw, speeding up.
He can already feel their joint control slipping, tension searching for release.
This’ll be over so soon... he laments, even as he wordlessly pleads for her to continue.
Don’t think, she switches to his preferred form of communication to soothe away his pesky instinct to time everything. Just relax. We’ve got all the time in the world to do it again. She languidly brushes her lips just beneath his jawline, to emphasize how little she’s concerned about their methods at the moment. Tells him again that she loves him and that they ought to be celebrating that he’s alive, that she saved him as much as he saved her. It suddenly it hits him anew that he can spend the rest of his life with her: travelling the universe, saving planets... lying in their bed doing this, if they want.
This word choice unintentionally invokes a memory.
You can spend the rest of your life with me, a younger version of himself had promised on a dark street.
Rose clings onto him ever tighter as sorrow cuts through her.
But I can’t spend the rest of mine with you.
The disinterred pain and longing of their past lingers between them for only a moment before it’s tempered by their present. Their future. Because he can now. He can.
It doesn’t matter they’ve still got some clothes on, or that this isn’t quite how they wanted their first time reunited to go. The sensitivity of this new body is so acute, neither of them is sure anymore they could handle going at it a more traditional way: it might be over even faster, then. Nothing matters except they’re still together, that in the end nothing could keep them apart: not even mortality. Their intertwined timelines stretch out into the distance, woven with bright gold fibres and bathed in a soft red glow of passion and devotion.
Rose’s pleasure mingles with his own, intoxicating them both, as the perfect rhythm of her hips against his carries on. It’s never quite enough contact or friction, but it somehow continues to lift them both higher until they’re desperate to finish together. Their thoughts slowly empty of everything but sensation. Rose clutches onto fistfuls of his shirt, his hands splay on the small of her back to steady her movements. They savour the slow waves of heightened pleasure as they finally crash between them.
Rose sounds so beautiful when she comes, his name sharing a breath with a moan, sultry against his cheek.
Their lips find each other again as they float back down to reality together.
“Oops.” Rose says softly when they part. She bites her lip.
“That's not even the first time that's happened to us, is it?” he recalls sheepishly, shaking his head.
“'S okay. We're just too good. Sometimes we've got to keep it simple.” She combs her fingers through his hair idly, preening a bit.
“First in this body, though,” he fuels her ego even more. “Took my virginity again, Rose Tyler.”
“I’m trouble,” she teases, tongue just barely poking between her teeth.
“Certainly are.”
He just lies there for a while, enjoying the way she’s playing with his hair. Frankly, she still doesn’t do it enough.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says, reading his thoughts.
“I’d almost forgotten about that,” he says after a moment, changing the subject. “Heightened sensitivity. One of the perks of being a Time Lord, I suppose.”
“Yes,” she agrees emphatically.
She leans down for another kiss, and he confesses yet another truth: that it’s been centuries since he’s remotely considered being with someone in this way. Since he’s even felt this kind of attraction. He certainly does get sentimental when Rose has just had her way with him.
I wouldn’t have it any other way, she assures him.
Just by reflecting on how rare and precious this opportunity is, they both begin to get carried away again. What began as a sweet, innocent kiss has become so deep and urgent it’s hard to find time to breathe. The Doctor’s hand slips beneath Rose’s pants and Rose fumbles with the buttons on his shirt. Vivid fantasies pulse through their connection: all the ways they’d like to have a second go of it with fewer clothes and much more skin contact.
But before any of their clothes actually leave their bodies, Rose suddenly stops them.
“I forgot,” she rushes out, prying her mouth away from his. “My mum’s waitin’ for us to have breakfast.”
Well. That’s one way to kill a mood.
“Rose,” he sighs heavily, dropping one hand gracelessly to the mattress and covering over his eyes with the other. “Why would you bring up your mother at a time like this?”
“I feel bad! She’s out there all by herself. She doesn’t know where anythin’ is. C’mon, we should go.”
She tries to climb off him, but he holds her fast by her waist, whining like a child.
“I wasn’t finished with you yet.”
“I promise,” she enunciates clearly, like she’s trying to get a hold of herself. “We’ll continue this later.” The way she’s gazing at him like he’s all she really wants for breakfast, he thinks she may be easily swayed.
“Rose, please,” he begs in his lowest, most seductive voice he can manage. “She can wait five more minutes.”
“Five minutes, hmm?” She chuckles despite herself. “That’s ambitious.”
Her body betrays her words; he can already feel her relaxing against him once more.
“Ten,” he amends, brushing their noses together and reuniting their lips. His hand glides beneath her shirt, finding her breast and grazing his thumb over her nipple.
She gasps into his mouth, pressing into his hand.
Okay, she surrenders eagerly. You win.
His only answer is a low hum of victory.
---
When they finally stroll into the kitchen precisely twelve minutes later, Jackie is at the table reading a book with some tea.
She glances to the doorway when she hears their footsteps approaching.
“Well, that took a long time,” she says, raising an eyebrow disapprovingly like she already knows why.
“Er...” the Doctor reddens instantly. “Yea, we had to, um...” Oh, dear. His stuttering is not helping. He and Rose should have pre-fabricated an explanation for their tardiness.
She holds up her palm to stop his half-formed explanation.
“I don’t want to know.” She turns back to her book, shaking her head.
The Doctor cringes, wiping a hand down his face. Rose turns to him with an utterly indiscreet ‘I told you so’ look that doesn’t help.
Despite this mortifying embarrassment, he thinks it was worth it. That second time was even better than the first.
They go for a full English breakfast this morning, Rose starved from exertion and the Doctor even more starved from the taxing physiological demands of regeneration. Shortly after sitting down to his plate, the Doctor discovers he’s not very fond of meat anymore. Huh. May be the first vegetarian incarnation. Interesting.
“Damned taste buds change every time,” he laments, pushing a piece of sausage off his fork with his finger and letting it drop back onto his plate.
“Still like the linschenberry syrup, though?” Rose asks.
“Oh, yes,” he says, mopping up some of the green stuff with a bite of fried bread.
“Then we’ll make it work,” Rose assures him with a smile.
---
It’s a socially exhausting day of catching up with Jackie (Rose still hasn’t told her about the whole immortality thing – and the Doctor doesn’t know how to bring it up, or whether he even should), dinner with Jack and Ianto, and setting Pete and Jackie back up in their flat (at least until they can find a better place). But finally, at just after ten local time, he and Rose are finally alone again, the entire TARDIS to themselves.
Rose slumps onto the jump seat, looking about as exhausted from all the socializing as he feels, as he guides them back to the privacy of the Vortex. He approaches her as soon as they’re safely tucked away, taking both her hands and interlocking their fingers. As soon as they have sufficient contact, they both silently agree all they want to do is head back to their room. Take a long, hot bath together then get back under the covers and make love until they fall asleep.
Rose, however, is too tired to move.
Notwithstanding her exhaustion, she is still stirred by the enticing plans they’ve made for the evening. She lets go of his hand in favour of latching onto his tie so she can tug his mouth down to hers.
It’s a good kiss. So good that it takes him a solid minute to remember how non-ideal this location is for amorous activities. There’s no way they’ll both fit on the chair, and the Doctor doesn’t quite feel up to standing. They tried that once and it’s awfully strenuous on his part.
He’s about to offer to carry her back to their room so they can continue this in comfort, when a woman’s voice sounds behind them.
“Oh!”
The Doctor and Rose both gasp as they’re startled apart, and he whirls around to locate and assess the threat. Seeing no one, he takes a step to the side and leans over to glance around the time rotor, holding out an arm behind him to indicate Rose stay put.
A redhead in a wedding dress stands just across the console, looking utterly out of place and lost.
Despite his admonishment, Rose gets to her feet, too, peering over the Doctor’s protective outstretched arm to get a glance at the intruder for herself.
The woman turns to them both, her face twisting up with disgust.
“Who the hell are you?” she spits out.
He and Rose respond to her in unison, the same utter confusion in their voice.
“What!?”