Possibly, I'm Insane

My Musical Taste

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:39:56 GMT

What Your Taste in Music Says About You

Your musical tastes are upbeat and conventional.

You are an easy going, optimistic person.

Family and friends are very important to you.

You enjoy caring for and helping other people.

You thrive in a tranquil environment, and you do your best to keep things peaceful.

You enjoy your life. You have your priorities straight.

What Does Your Taste in Music Say About You?

Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space (26/27)

Tue, 13 May 2008 01:20:10 GMT

Title – Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space (26/27)
Author -- earlgreytea68
Rating – Teen
Characters -- Ten, Rose, Jackie, Jack, Martha, OCs
Spoilers: Through the end of S2.
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids. They're all mine.)
Summary – And then there came a day when Rose said she was having a baby. Hijinks ensue from there.
Author’s Notes – The icon was created by punkinart , commissioned by aibhinn , who graciously offered it to me for my use.

Thanks to jlrpuck for her excellent beta-work and even more excellent general awesomeness. Many thanks also to Kristin-who-won't-get-an-LJ, who brainstormed this fic with me endlessly and bouncy_castle79 , who gave it the first major outside-eyes read-through.

Ch.1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8 - Ch. 9 - Ch. 10 - Ch. 11 - Ch. 12 - Ch. 13 - Ch. 14 - Ch. 15 - Ch. 16 - Ch. 17 - Ch. 18 - Ch. 19 - Ch. 20 - Ch. 21 - Ch. 22 - Ch. 23 - Ch. 24 - Ch. 25

Chapter Twenty-Six

Rose began laughing, overflowing with joy, as their breaths began to return to normal, and the Doctor began laughing as well. He rolled with her, curling her tight against him, and they laughed together until they suddenly were not laughing anymore, until her ear was pressed against his chest, listening to his heartbeats, and she whispered, “I always knew, you know.”

“Always knew what?”

“That you loved me.”

“I suspected you might. Having told Brem that I would never use three words to say ‘I love you’ if I could use three hundred instead.”

“Aw,” she said, in mock regret for the equally mock indignation she heard in his voice. “But that’s what I love about you.” She turned in his arms, to press a smiling kiss onto his lips, and he smiled back into the kiss.

“You,” he said into her mouth, “were supposed to be exhausted. I was supposed to be putting you to bed.”

“But you did put me to bed,” she grinned, still kissing him. By now she had managed to push him completely onto his back, was sprawled across his chest. “You did such an excellent job putting me to bed.”

“Wellllllll,” he said, smugly. “Yes. If I do say so myself.”

She smiled, rubbing her nose against his. “I love every daft, irritating thing about you.”

“You just made my hearts skip a beat each.”

“Tell me how you got to the other universe to get me back. What did you have Brem do?”

The Doctor was silent under her for a second. “Oh, I’d forgotten how very, very good you are.”

“Tell me,” she said, her eyes wide and solemn. “I need to know.”

He took a deep breath. And he began talking. “In the beginning…when you first fell through…Brem was…I mean, I don’t think I knew—grasped—Brem, until I lost you. Brem is…smarter than the both of us combined. And he…They wanted you back, Rose. They wanted you back so badly. I wanted you back so badly. And I let him…I mean, by then I’d gotten us mixed up, right? I let Brem get his own way for so long, because he knew so much more than me, about what Pinky was, and the thing about the crusts on the bread, and that if I gave Athena a pink ribbon it would make her happy for days.”

He wasn’t making any sense at all, which alarmed her. “Doctor. What did you have him do?”

“Nothing he wasn’t ready for, it turned out. I mean, Rose, everything turned out fine. Look at us, right? Aren’t we fine?”

“Yes. We are. And I’m sorry you had to ask him to do whatever you asked him to do.”

“There wasn’t any other choice, Rose. I knew that. I spent weeks pretending I didn’t know that. I did the same thing before…”

She finished it for him, in her head. He must have done the same thing in the Time War, pretending he didn’t know what he had to do. She bent her head into the curve of his shoulder.

“I went to Sarah Jane,” he said, after a second. “I needed someone to watch the kids. Someone who wasn’t Brem. Why should Brem have to be in charge of everything? Brem used to be this happy little boy, remember?”

“He still seems like a happy little boy to me.”

“I’ve never seen Brem cry so hard as he did today, Rose. Not since he was an infant.”

“He needed to get that out. He’s going to be fine.”

“Everything I wanted for Brem, for Athena, was that they would never be like me. And Brem stood in that control room this morning, Rose, and made a decision to do something he didn’t want to do, for the good of me. And what did I do? I let him do it.”

Rose lifted her head to meet his eyes. “Brem forgives you for it. I forgive you for it.”

“He held the breach open for me. I needed someone at this end to do it, I couldn’t get through without someone holding it open for me to get back. And the only person capable of doing that was Brem. I mean, Athena helped. Had Athena been four instead of two, Athena probably could have done it. But in the end, it was Brem who grasped what he was doing.”

Rose was silent for a second. “If he couldn’t do it…”

“We would have gotten stuck. In Pete’s World. In the Void.”

“And he would have carried around that guilt for the rest of his life.” Rose pushed herself up onto her elbows, staring at him. “And you let him do it.”

The Doctor looked irritated. “I thought you forgave me for it. And anyhow, it turned out okay, didn’t it?” When Rose stayed silent, he bit out, “I didn’t have a choice, Rose. We didn’t have a choice. There you were, in Pete’s World, so sure I’d come and get you that you didn’t even feel it necessary to name our daughter until I showed up. And I couldn’t do it, Rose, without Brem doing what he did today. Am I happy about? No. Am I proud of myself for not being able to come up with another solution? Obviously not. But am I proud of him? Yes. And would I do it again? I would. Yes. Now go ahead. Tell me I should have made a different choice.”

She gazed at him for a long moment. Nothing in their lives was ever easy, was it? No choice for a Time Lord was ever a simple one. Never for the Doctor. And never for Brem. And to wish it was different was to wish, basically, that she’d fallen in love and had children with a totally different man. “I don’t want to fight about it,” she began, intending to tell him that she understood, much as she hated it, that she understood, but he cut her off.

“And another thing,” he said, feeling himself compelled by some self-destructive desire to get everything out on the table. “We need to talk about Jack.”

She blinked. “Jack? Jack Harkness?”

“Jack helped.”

“Jack…? Jack’s alive?”

“I told you he was, didn’t I?” asked the Doctor, irritated.

Yes, she thought. He had. Busy re-building the future. She had not believed him. She had assumed he’d lied to avoid saying the awful truth out loud. She could not believe he’d been telling the truth. She also couldn’t believe that she’d just decided to allow him to lie to her, rather than straightening things out. She forced herself to think. If the Doctor had told the truth about Jack… “You took the kids to the future?”

“No.” The Doctor’s tone was short, to the point. “Jack helped here.”

“Twenty-first century London?”

“Well. Cardiff.”

“Twenty-first century?” Rose persisted. “Jack is in the twenty-first century?”

The Doctor met her eyes, stubbornly. “Yes.”

She knew that he’d known all along--she didn’t even have to ask the question. She sat up, away from him, dazed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He can’t die, Rose.”

“He can’t what?”

“He can’t die. Jack died, on the Gamestation. You brought him back to life, after you killed the Daleks. A profusion of life. He can’t die.”

Rose stared at him, her gaze growing hard. “How long have you known this?”

He looked at her.

“How could you have never told me this?” she demanded, furious. “How could you have kept this a secret? You made it sound like…like he was off being the most important person in the year 200,000!”

“For a little while, that was completely true.”

“Do not!” she shouted at him. “Do not!” But she wasn’t even sure what she was telling him not to do.

He sat up in the bed, ticking off on his fingers. “Reason number one I didn’t tell you: I didn’t have the easiest regeneration, you may recall. Remember that? Ill, in Howard’s jim-jams, in your bed?”

“And then you got better,” Rose reminded him, between her clenched teeth.

“Reason number two,” he said. “Jack really was helping to rebuild the Earth. I wasn’t lying about that. There was no reason to go to any more detail.”

“No reason?” she gasped, in disbelief.

“Reason number three,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do to help Jack. And I didn’t want to make you feel guilty about something that you couldn’t help, that neither one of us can help. This ship is weighed down in guilt. I didn’t want to add yours to it.”

“Don’t pretend,” she spat out, “to have done this for me.”

“You know what, Rose?” he snapped back. “You stood in front of me on a beach and lied to me—a direct lie—when I asked you if you were pregnant. Forgive me if your self-righteousness here rings the slightest bit hollow.”

Rose blanched. “But I did that for you. Because I didn’t want you to—”

“Don’t tell me that was for me--and then tell me that I’m lying when I say that I didn’t tell you the whole truth about Jack for you.”

Rose opened and closed her mouth, suddenly aware that yes, he may have been right to point out a hypocrisy there.

“Reason d,” he said, wearily, leaning against the headboard. “Or three. Or four. Whatever. I’ve lost count. But I’m in love with you, Rose. And I was scared you…”

Rose stared at him. “Did you think I loved him more? Wanted him more? Than I wanted you?”

“I…” He ruffled his hair. “Was scared of the answer to that question, yeah.”

“You stupid man,” she said. “I have never wanted anything as much as I have always wanted you.”

“That’s so odd,” said the Doctor.

“Why is that odd?”

“Because it’s exactly how I feel about you.”

She smiled at him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Jack earlier.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Fortuna, when you asked me on the beach.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come up with a solution that didn’t have the potential to destroy Brem.”

“I’m sorry I slipped off the lever.”

“Rose,” he said, in shock. “That was not your fault.”

“That never seems to stop you from apologizing.”

He looked at her for a long moment. She leaned forward and kissed him, to show him they were okay. He kissed her back in relief.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he said.

But when they laid back down in the bed, he was the one who fell asleep; Rose was no longer tired. She stared at the ceiling and turned everything over in her mind. Being back. Saying Gallifreyan vows. Having the Doctor say he was in love with her, which somehow was more than just I love you, which she felt she had already known. Jack, alive, forever, because of her exuberance with the Vortex, and the Doctor never telling her that he was around, to visit, whenever they wanted.

She rolled to her side, watching him as he slept, looking remarkably like Brem in his boyishness. She wondered how much he’d slept since she’d left them. It was unlike him to sleep for so long a time at a clip, and she kissed his cheek gently. His lips curved into a smile, but he didn’t wake. She smiled in response, before sliding out of bed.

She walked over to the wardrobe and chose a new outfit, thrilled to have her old clothing back. She took a quick shower before changing, relishing the fact that she felt sore, and sated, and happy. The Doctor was still sleeping, so shocking an occurrence that she tiptoed over just to make sure he was still breathing. He was; she left him there, wrapped under the covers, and ventured outside.

For a moment, she was bewildered, because the place where she was seemed so empty.She was looking for her children and her mother in a bit of a panic, when she noticed the woman at the workstation, watching her curiously. “Excuse me,” she said, walking over to her and smiling. “I’m Rose.”

“Oh, I know that,” said the woman. “I’m Martha Jones. I work with Jack.”

“Is Jack around?” Rose asked, in relief.

“He got the kids pizza. They’re up eating it in one of the conference rooms. I can show you.” Martha stood up, prepared to act as tour guide.

“Thanks,” said Rose, following her as they headed to a stairway. She was suddenly aware of all the women who must have stepped in to fill her role while she was away, in so many little ways. “So you helped take care of Brem and Athena? While they were holding open the breach?”

Martha shrugged. “They’re pretty self-sufficient.”

Rose smiled. “True. I suppose they’d like to think they take care of themselves. But, anyway, thanks.”

“I really didn’t do much,” Martha said. “Brem is…something else.”

Rose heard Molly calling Brem “weird” that disastrous day she’d tried to force Brem into a play group, and bristled a bit. “Brem is amazing.”

“Oh, no argument from me there,” said Martha, smiling. “And Athena certainly knows how to hold her own against him, which is better than I can say.”

Rose smiled back, feeling silly and sensitive. “More than his father and I can say, too, but don’t tell him that.”

Martha laughed, as she swung open the conference room door. Brem and Athena both exclaimed, “Mum!” around their bites of pizza. Brem was wearing a ridiculous, too-big-for-him captain’s hat that had slipped over one of his eyes and made him look adorable.

Rose smiled at them, and then glanced at Jack, who lifted up one corner of his mouth in a smile.

“Well. Look at what the cat dragged in,” he said.

“I always did know how to make an entrance.”

“That’s for sure,” he agreed.

“I’m going to grab a slice of pizza,” she said to her kids, “and then I’m going to talk to Captain Jack for a bit.”

“Mum,” said Brem, seriously. “He’s dressed.”

“Oh, give him a few minutes,” said Rose, as she slid a piece of pizza onto a paper plate and turned to Jack.

“My,” said Jack. “A few minutes? Really? I can’t wait to see what this talk’s going to be about.”

Rose laughed as she headed back out of the conference room, Jack following her. She walked down the stairs, back to the desks, set down her piece of pizza, turned to him, and hugged him. “Oh, Jack,” she said. “I didn’t know. He told me…”

“That I was dead?” guessed Jack.

“No,” she admitted, almost laughing at her foolishness. “That you were alive. But I thought he was lying, so that he wouldn’t have to tell me you were dead. I couldn’t believe he would leave you behind if you were alive.”

“He had his reasons,” said Jack.

“Not very good ones.”

“It’s fine. You learn not to carry grudges when you’re going to live forever. It’s just too exhausting.”

“Oh, Jack. I didn’t mean it. And I can’t believe he didn’t tell me you were right here in Cardiff all this time. I would have come to visit you, right away.”

“He does the stupidest things sometimes, Rose. And don’t apologize. I know you didn’t mean it. And living forever? Turns out it’s not so bad.”

Rose pulled back, perched on the desk and took a bite of her pizza, grinning. “Tell you what. If anyone in the universe ought to live forever, it should be Jack Harkness.”

“Just what do you tell your kids about me, Rose?”

Rose’s eyes sparkled at him. “Nothing but the truth.” She grew sombre suddenly. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Helping him. When you probably should have told him to go to hell.”

“Yeah, well…” Jack shrugged. “I’ve never had the best judgment.”

“And you’ve always had a bigger heart than you ever wanted to admit.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Jack said, seriously. “He hung onto you. That makes him smarter than I ever gave him credit for.”

“I don’t know if he hung on, or I just wouldn’t let him let go,” said Rose.

“Where is he, anyhow? I thought he was putting you to bed.”

“That ended up reversing itself a bit. He’s sleeping. I couldn’t. Not after…I wanted to talk to you. After he told me you were here.”

“So. This kid you call Brem.”

“Yeah,” Rose smiled.

“I hear his middle name is Jack.”

“Yeah, but that’s after Jack Davenport. You know, the bloke on Coupling.”

“Right. I figured.”

Rose finished her pizza and tossed the paper plate away, feeling the exhaustion begin to tug at her again now that she had gotten to talk to Jack.

Jack must have sensed it, because he said, “Let’s go see your children.”

“Your father’s sleeping,” Rose told them, when she and Jack got back to the conference room. “And, to tell you the truth, I’d like to join him. So, let’s go back to the TARDIS and relax for a bit, what do you say?”

“Oh, I’d love to just relax,” said Jackie, and Rose figured she was probably exhausted, too.

They gathered the kids into the TARDIS, and Rose left them momentarily with her mother while she slipped into her bedroom. The Doctor was still out like a light, although he did rouse himself a bit when she clambered over him trying to tug pyjama bottoms onto him. “What are you doing?” he protested, sleepily.

“Getting some clothing on you so the kids can get into bed with us.”

“Mmmphmmhmm,” he mumbled, which made absolutely no sense to her and she ignored him and pulled her own pyjamas on.

Jackie had found a guest room, and Rose rounded the kids into her bedroom, all of three of them, with Madrid in tow. Brem and Athena enjoyed the novelty of their father sleeping, shushing each other as loudly as possible as they crawled into the bed. Rose managed to get them settled, placing Fortuna between them for safe keeping, and made them promise to be quiet while everyone slept. She curled up into the Doctor, and he rolled over automatically, his arm bringing her against him. She smiled at her children, and they were the last thing she saw before she fell asleep.

When the Doctor finally awoke, only minutes later, groggy from the long nap, which he was very unaccustomed to, he found Rose snugly in his arms and all three of his children regarding her with wide, astonished eyes, as if they couldn’t quite believe she was really there with them. He knew the feeling.

Some Stats on My Name, Apparently

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:41:40 GMT

Stolen from ginamak. And I forgot to cut and paste the pretty code section, so you've got this instead.

There are 170,270 people in the U.S. with my first name.
Statistically the 357th most popular first name.
90.18 percent of people with my first name are female.

There are 669 people in the U.S. with my last name.
Statistically the 38739th most popular last name.

There are 0 people in the U.S. with my full name. While both names you entered were found in our database, neither was common enough to make it likely that someone in the U.S. has that name.

I apparently defy all reason and logic.

Shakespeare!

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:27:23 GMT

Stolen from

rosa_writes. I like this quiz because it tells me it loves me at the end.

You Scored The Comedy of Errors. The Comedy of Errors was one of Shakespeare's earliest works and one of his most farcical and outlandish plays. Full of slapstick physical comedy, intelligent and bawdy wordplay, and mistaken identity, The Comedy of Errors pretty much sums up all of the hilarious plot devises we expect from a Shakespeare comedy. As The Comedy of Errors, you were most likely the quintessential "Class Clown" in high school. In a room full of people you were probably right in the center, making people laugh with your hilarious stories and amusing anecdotes. You probably have a stock-pile of go-to gags for whenever the party is getting dull, and you're willing to go to any length to make your friends smile (including dressing up in drag!) People love you because you are an all-around nice person - and that's why we love you too!

Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space (25/27)

Sun, 11 May 2008 04:27:33 GMT

Title – Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space (25/27)
Author -- earlgreytea68
Rating – Adult
Characters -- Ten, Rose, Jackie, OCs
Spoilers: Through the end of S2.
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids. They're all mine.)
Summary – And then there came a day when Rose said she was having a baby. Hijinks ensue from there.
Author’s Notes – The icon was created by punkinart  , commissioned by aibhinn  , who graciously offered it to me for my use.

Thanks to my usual characters: jlrpuck  for the beta; Kristin-who-won't-get-an-LJ, who brainstormed this fic with me endlessly; and bouncy_castle79  , who gave it the first major outside-eyes read-through. Many thanks also to all three of them for being truly excellent friends over the past couple of days.

Ch.1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8 - Ch. 9 - Ch. 10 - Ch. 11 - Ch. 12 - Ch. 13 - Ch. 14 - Ch. 15 - Ch. 16 - Ch. 17 - Ch. 18 - Ch. 19 - Ch. 20 - Ch. 21 - Ch. 22 - Ch. 23 - Ch. 24

Chapter Twenty-Five

They sat for a very long time, in a heap on the floor, and Rose shed her winter jacket and leaned against the Doctor and listened as the kids told her everything they’d done, in minute detail, from the moment she’d gone missing. Or, at least, it seemed that way, Brem running through paint shades that he’d rejected for Sarah Jane’s house, sounding like Goldilocks as he relayed the choices. Athena, settled contentedly into her grandmother’s arms, kept inserting that she had chosen pink. “Mosaic Pink,” Brem kept correcting, making the name drip disgust in way that made Rose smile. She had thought she had missed them while she had been trapped in the other universe, but she was astonished to realize that she had not grasped how very much she had missed them.

She knew the Doctor was aware of her presence against him, but he was mostly preoccupied with Fortuna, not that she blamed him. He had just found out that he had another child; she expected that he should be so fascinated by her. He tugged off Fortuna’s winter coat, her mittens and hat, revealing to full effect her maternal resemblance.

“She looks like Mum,” Brem had said, brushing his hand over her fuzzy blonde hair. “How come?”

“That’s allowed,” Rose had said, exasperated.

“Wellllllll, that’s because your mum was on her own for this one. I wasn’t around to trigger all the genes. She’s still Gallifreyan, she just missed out on—“

“The impossible hair,” Rose had inserted.

She was so caught up in the wonder of her happy family, together and enjoying each other, that she didn’t bother to register the details of where they were, and who else was around. She was vaguely aware that there were more people there, but the only people in two universes who mattered to her were directly in front of her, clustered around her, for the first time in a very long time and everything else was superfluous. She didn’t want to think about anything but how happy she was.

She leaned her head on the Doctor’s shoulder, listening to him have a good-natured disagreement with Brem about whether or not dunking chocolate chip cookies in milk ruined them. She didn’t even realize she was dozing until she felt him turn his head, jostling her position, and brush his lips over her temple.

“You’re exhausted,” he murmured. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to have someone who sleeps in the TARDIS.”

She smiled. “I’m not sure I want to go to sleep.”

“I don’t know how you ever want to,” he replied, lightly. “It’s a tremendous waste of time.” He glanced over at Jackie. “What about you? Are you tired? I’m sure the TARDIS’ll make up a room for you.”

Jackie shook her head. “I think Rose is finally catching up to a year’s worth of exhaustion.”

“Here you go, then.” He handed Fortuna across to her, then pulled Rose up. “I am going to put your mother to bed,” he told the kids.

“This sleeping folderol,” said Brem, in exasperation, but he gave her a fierce hug and allowed her to briefly cuddle him.

“Mum,” said Athena, as Rose kissed her cheek, “when you wake up, can we have a tea party with the dolls? And dress them up?”

Dressing them up was going to take hours. Athena was particular about their outfits to the extreme. Rose was willing to bet that the Doctor, no matter how accommodating of his daughter he may have been, had never had the patience to sit through a full-on formal tea party with her dolls, and she smiled. “Yes. We can.”

Rose reached for his hand, let him pull her into the TARDIS, and they were halfway through the control room before she had to stop walking and lean against him.

“What?” he asked, turning automatically to catch her weight fully.

“I missed you,” she said, breathless with the intensity of it. She pressed herself into him. “God, I missed you. I mean, I missed everything. I missed the TARDIS humming, and I missed the kids more than I could ever put into words, the way everything with Brem turns into a siege, just to get him not to leave random appliance parts in the hallway where I can trip over them, the way Athena needs everything to be just so, I mean, I missed everything. But I missed you like…like…”

“It was a year?” he said, his hand stroking over her hair in a gesture that made her catch her breath, exhale slowly. “A year for you?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Almost. Just about. How long was it for you?”

“Twenty-two weeks.” He kissed the hollow behind her ear. “And three days. Relatively speaking. Rose, I’m sorry it was so long.”

“I’m just glad it wasn’t as long for you. I just longed to hear you ramble on about something stupid, something I didn’t care about, something that was not at all what I wanted you to talk about. Never stop babbling at me.”

“I think I can manage that,” he said, and then did something she could never recall him doing, not while she was able to actually walk on her own. He was not a man who suffered from lush romantic impulses, but he lifted her into his arms and carried her into their bedroom, over to their bed.

She looked around her. The room had not changed at all, was exactly as she had left it, right down the tube of mascara she’d left negligently on the dresser the morning of the day everything had fallen apart. The bed was rumpled, and she tried to remember if she’d made it before she’d left the TARDIS, or if he’d slept on it since then. He set her down beside the bed and pulled her jumper over her head with infinite gentleness, as if he were undressing Brem or Athena, following it with the long-sleeved T-shirt she’d been wearing under it. He knelt, reaching under her jeans to find the laces of her boots and to tug and loosen them until she could wriggle out of them, and she rested her hands in the thicket of his hair as she shifted. He was moving with a measured purposefulness, his face as intent as if he were performing a solemn ritual.

He straightened, unbuckling the belt she was wearing and pulling it out of its loops slowly. She felt it slide around her waist, and watched his face, his dark eyes concentrating on what his hands were doing. He unbuttoned her jeans, rasped down the zipper, and pushed her jeans down, until she stepped out of them.

She glanced down at what she was wearing, and wished she’d donned something better for him, something more than basic white bra and knickers. He glanced at her, from under his eyelashes, their gazes meeting for just a moment, before he reached behind her and unclasped her bra, sliding it forward and off her shoulders. He hooked his thumbs into her knickers, pulling them down the length of her legs in one slow motion, until she stepped out of those as well.

He put his hands on her waist, and watched as he crawled them slowly up her ribcage, skimming over the sides of her breasts, onto her shoulders. He paused, caressing her neck, and smiled for the first time, almost a private joke.

“What?” she whispered.

“I have missed,” he whispered back, “this one fervid, little pulse here.” He turned his hand over, brushed a knuckle tenderly over the racing pulse point, then picked up her pendant, pulsing bright yellow.

She looked at it. “Is that the kids?”

He smiled faintly, as he watched it as well. “What makes you think that?”

“You’d have it scarlet by now.”

He looked at her then, his eyes so deep and solemn, and she could not believe how much she had missed those eyes. “We are so happy, your three Time Lords. No, four Time Lords. We are so happy, this pendant may never be able to pick up any other emotion, because our happiness will drown everything else out.”

She took a step forward, away from the tangle of her discarded clothing and toward him, reaching for his tie. He dropped the pendant and watched her hands as they loosened the never-tight knot, pulling at it until she pulled it out from around his collar. His gaze on her made her even more aware of the wondrous importance of this. She hoped desperately that she was making him feel as much like a worshipped, adored being—a beingwho she was honoured to be undressing--as he had made her feel. She pushed his suit jacket off, and began unbuttoning the buttons of his shirt.

It seemed harder than it used to, and she realized in shock that she was out of practice with this. She had once undressed him unthinkingly, taking the act for granted, mostly impatient with the layers of clothing he forced her to wade though. She unbuttoned each button now slowly, pushing it through its hole and parting the shirt as she worked her way down. She pulled it out of his trousers as she finished unbuttoning, then turned her attention to unbuttoning his cuffs. He held his hands up for her, as she tackled the last few buttons and then pushed the shirt off of him.

Mirroring him, she knelt to untie his Converse, and he stepped out of them. She stayed kneeling to work on his fly. The muscles of his abdomen quivered in a slight flinch, and she realized that he was tense, that if he let himself go she’d probably find herself under him before she could draw a breath. She thought of Brem’s storm of sobs and wondered how much emotion was dammed up in the Doctor—emotion that needed to be let loose, released from being buried deep within him--as she pushed his trousers down and followed them with his pants. She forced herself to go as slowly as he had, not to increase the pace just because he was clearly aroused and made a small noise, like a clamped-down groan in the back of his throat, as she moved.

He stepped out of everything, and stayed still while she flattened her palms over his chest, one heart pounding under each of them. And then she smiled at him. “And I missed these two hearts,” she said.

He smiled back, covered her hands with his own and then took a step closer to her. She thought he was going to kiss her, closed her eyes for it and was surprised when he fell short, moving instead to just breathe over the hair that had fallen over her temple. When he brushed his lips over the same spot, his touch was so gentle she could barely feel it. He whispered kisses over her hairline, her eyebrows, down the bridge of her nose, both cheekbones, let his tongue trace the shell of each of her ears. He ghosted kisses along her jaw line, from one ear to the other, pressed his lips against the throb of her pulse. Rose tipped her head back, lifting her hands to his hair, hearing her panting breaths loud in the room. He breathed into the hollow at the base of her neck, and Rose suddenly pulled him up, hard, by the tufts of his hair she had grabbed, and kissed him hard, nipping at his lips, slipping her tongue behind the barrier of his teeth, drawing his taste deep into her, where it pulsed warmly, a tight ball in her belly. His hands tangled into her hair, kissing her back just as fiercely, flooding her.

He turned, clasping her to him, and then, with a gentle shove, he pushed her to the bed. She scrambled onto it, barely settled before the Doctor stretched out over her, recapturing her mouth. She reached for him, running her hands down his body, but he suddenly moved down her, just enough to throw off the path of her hands. He drew paths of wet endless kisses down the length of each of her arms, each finger, and it surprised her. She tried to remember if he’d ever spent so much time nibbling at the inside of her elbow. Surely she’d have remembered how divine it felt, how it made her make an embarrassing sound like a squeak that turned his lips into a smirk against her.

He pressed rows of kisses along her collarbone, moving down infinitesimally toward her breasts. She became aware suddenly that he was speaking, a long slow murmur between his kisses, a language she didn’t understand, that the TARDIS wasn’t translating. Gallifreyan, she thought, as the syllables of the foreign words rose and broke over her. He finally reached her breasts, curling his tongue around one nipple, then the next, sucking until she succumbed and arched into him with a cry, and then he moved on, a long slow path down the plane of her abdomen, always keeping up his persistent mumble into her skin.

She moved slowly, restlessly, feeling languorous and adored. Beloved. He paused at the juncture of her thighs, and she coiled in anticipation. He probably felt the sudden clench of her fists in his hair, because his lips, when they pressed into the top of her thigh, were quirked into a smile. She thought she’d hate him a little more if he wasn’t so very, very good at this.

He attacked with sudden flashes of teeth and tongue, and she gasped. It was like flipping on a light switch that had been off for far too long, the blinding brilliance of the pleasure that licked through her. She whimpered his name, clutching at the bedspread now, as everything inside her tightened, focused completely on him. He hesitated, just as she reached the knife’s edge of the climax, and she started to protest until his tongue produced the perfect push over the edge and she felt her blood go incandescent with bliss. She may have shouted, although she wasn’t sure. She was just sure that she’d completely forgotten how amazing he could make her feel.

The Doctor was still until she relaxed back into the hold of the mattress, and then resumed mapping her body, moving down the length of her left leg to her foot, his tongue scraping up the sweat that he’d coaxed. When he hit her left foot, he pulled her sock off, and it was only then she realized she still had them on. He pulled the right sock off, began his journey up her right leg. He continued breathing words into her skin, in that foreign language, so it was almost a shock to hear him say, in English, “Turn over.” He’d raised his voice a bit to say it, and his voice was raspy with arousal, and she turned, feeling spellbound.

He worked his way up the backs of her legs, alternating between them, lavishing attention on the back of her knees, where he knew she was ticklish. It was after the line of his kisses had moved past her rear, had begun to scatter over her spinal cord, that she swallowed thickly and forced herself to ask, “What are you saying to me?”

She could not see him, facing away from him, so she had to sense the long moment of hesitation.

Then he planted a line of three more kisses, toward the base of her neck, before whispering in her ear, hoarsely, “Vows. They’re Gallifreyan vows.”

Of all the answers she would have expected that was not one of them. They were still, together, for a long moment, before she wriggled a bit. He took the hint, moving off her, and she rolled over, pushing him onto his back.

“Tell me them,” she said.

“Rose—”

“No, it’s my turn to say them to you. Say them. I’ll repeat after you. I can do it.” She swung her leg over him to straddle him, began feathering kisses over his face the way he had done to her.

He did not begin to speak until she had begun to nibble on his throat, and then he began saying them slowly, overenunciating the syllables so she could catch them. She repeated them carefully, not wanting to destroy the vow, to accidentally say something ridiculous. She delivered her vows to him, as she kissed his arms and his fingers, as she brushed her lips across his chest and belly. The syllables he was feeding her grew more laboured, were said between gasps, and she allowed herself her own smile as she scraped her teeth below his navel. But she skirted his erection, moving instead down his legs, still echoing his words. He had his socks still on, too, and she pulled them off as he had done to her.

“Turn over,” she said, pausing in her recitation and waiting for him to obey.

He did turn over, but he did it only after surprising her by pulling her to him and flipping her underneath him. His eyes met hers, boring through her, as he said a few more words. She repeated them, her breath catching in the middle of the phrase as he drove inside her. He closed his eyes for a moment, before forcing them open, forcing himself to continue to deliver vows to her. She forced herself to continue repeating them, as she met his impossibly slow, impossibly deep thrusts. Their words were breathless now. It required more concentration than she would ever have imagined to keep her voice even. When it was his turn to speak, she leaned back her head to gulp at air.

There came a time when he did not deliver her another line, and she looked at him in surprise.

“That’s it,” he said. “The end of the vow.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers. “Rose Tyler. I love you.”

She smiled at him. “Quite right, too.”

He paused in the rhythm he was setting, a small frown flickering across his face. “Not the response I was quite hoping for.”

“I love you, too,” she said, seriously, fingertips on his lips.

“Much better,” he grinned, and then thrust into her again, increasing the rhythm, until she was quite sure she couldn’t bear it anymore. The climax, as it grew inside of her, washed over her in more and more devastating waves, until it suddenly shattered her into a million pieces. When he followed her, her name on his lips, she had the impression that he was gathering each and every one of these pieces and burying them inside himself so they could never be fully separated ever again.

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