rude_not_ginger | for doctorsplusone: A What-if for RS Verse (AU)

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for doctorsplusone: A What-if for RS Verse (AU)

It had been twenty years.

Twenty years since they first landed in London with the communicators. Twenty years since he'd re-met his Rose. Twenty years since he'd entered this universe.

And no escape. Not yet. Oh, there was a brief reprise, five years earlier, when he'd taken one last trip back to France. But other than that, it was London. London all the time. Traveling to find clues to figure out how to save the universe, but the universe wasn't having any of that saving business.

And there he was. In London. In his silver-tree-shaped TARDIS. Alone.

Reinette had died. Five years earlier. Lived much longer than they'd expected, and as she started to wither, he and Louis took her back to France, to die in the palace. Where she wasn't supposed to die, of course. Being a non-noble. But she was loved by a King and a lonely God. That was enough of a title for them. Louis stayed in France to tend to her. To make sure her grave was not lost in their universe as it was in the one the Doctor returned to.

Suzie left far earlier. Found her own calling or some such nonsense. Or maybe she was simply tired of the domestics. Now, he was simply alone. He'd gotten used to it, by now. It had become the norm these last five years as dressing in French silks had become the norm in the three years he spent in France before coming here.

He sat in a chair outside the TARDIS, looking over new information. The neverending war against the cosmic apocalypse that seemed to never come. The sonic screwdriver twirled in one hand. A gift from Reinette to the Doctor many, many years earlier. Helped made by Ted. How long had he blamed Ted for Reinette's death? Too long, he decided.

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She smiled then, tender and slow and took the necklace back from him. Loving words remembered: the original giving of the necklace. Cruelty, too: the taking back of the gift. Her own bitter tears. This, too, was what she was taking back by returning to him.

Rose turned her back and lifted her hair. "Put it on me," she told him.

He nodded and put the cane down on the bed. The necklace felt delicate and small in his hands. So many years since he'd cruelly pulled it away from her. So many times he wished he could've given it back. He'd been trapped by Saxon when she left the first time, and he...he didn't even have a chance to say goodbye. She didn't give any of them a chance to say goodbye.

He unclasped the necklace and gently placed it around her neck. His fingers easily reclasped it, though he worked with extra gentleness. He'd broken it once before, he had no doubt he could do it again.

His fingers smoothed the chain against the back of her neck, then slid down to touch her shoulders.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For what I said to you that night." It was something he'd wanted to apologize for a long, long time.

She wasn't sure if he really meant it. If he was really sorry, if he even really remembered all that was said. She'd let the wound heal over and had long since forgotten the specific barbs and individual hurts -- but maybe he hadn't. Gallifreyans, it seemed, had long memories.

"Apology accepted." Rose lifted her hands to touch his on her shoulders. It was nice to touch him again, and she was trying to keep it uncomplicated. Truth was, now that she was back, she hadn't the foggiest what to do. She really should have thought this through more clearly. 'Track down the Doctor and take care of him' was not really a proper sort of plan by any stretch of the imagination, now, was it?

He wasn't sure what he was expecting when he finally apologized, finally gave her back her necklace. Something inside him to be fixed, maybe? A part he broke back then? He didn't know for sure.

Instead, she touched his hands and it felt all right. Which was something, for him. He hadn't even been 'all right' in a long time.

"I wish I hadn't chased you off. Probably could've saved the universe by now."

She turned in his arms and held him tight and hard and didn't let go for a long time.

"Chased me off? Don't flatter yourself!" Huge, pure-Rose grin. "I did what I had to do and you should be proud of that instead of mourning it. Universe is always going to need saving, you know?"

She hadn't let go.

At her throat, the necklace felt simultaneously foreign and familiar, and she wasn't quite sure what its return truly meant. She'd take it a day at time, though. Step by step.

Rose there, in his arms, felt foreign and familiar. He hadn't touched or held anyone in five years, at least. Grown a brand-new shell that fit only one.

He pressed a kiss to her hair.

"Yeah, but not like this. Not this state-of-emergency." He smiled, a small but very genuine smirk. "And I've been thinking it's my fault for long enough, Rose. Don't think you're changing my mind on that."

"Suit yourself," she returned, poking him lightly in the ribs -- remembering exactly where his ticklish spot was. This was home, it really was, in spite of everything else before, since or during.

"You always did have a martyr complex."

"Just a bit. But I look good all bloodied and smacked around."

He smoothed down her hair with one hand and pressed another kiss, this one to the side of her mouth. Not quite as quickly as she had, before.

"The TARDIS has been empty too long," he said, quietly. "I'm glad you're back."

"It's good to be home," Rose said. A wry lift of the corner of her mouth into a half-smile. "I think."

Then, quick as you like, she stole a proper kiss. Two could play that game.

"You think? Oh, it's the bastard-as-an-occupation, isn't it? Puts everyone off at first."

They were very close, now. Embracing, and she'd kissed him...and it was as if the sexual tension they'd worked up from before hadn't really left. This was their second hiatus from each other and he still couldn't possibly behave.

He cupped the side of her cheek and leaned in close, just brushing her mouth with his.

"Occupation, hm?" she murmured against his lips. "I remember when it was just a hobby." Impish, testing him -- testing them both -- she nipped his lower lip, and smirked at the flash in his dark eyes.

"Full-time. Haven't much else to do while we wait for the universe to sort itself out."

She nipped at his lower lip and he didn't hesitate to kiss her. Deeply, something just short of desperately. Yep, not much had changed. New time, new situation, same Doctor and Rose.

That constant felt good, actually.

All her good intentions of 'just friends', 'being supportive' and remaining 'over him' flew right out the bloody window. Well, the door. The TARDIS didn't really have windows as such.

He felt exactly as she remembered -- strong, wiry, a little too thin to be cuddly, and slightly dangerous.

"I'll have to keep you in line, then," Rose breathed, post-kiss. Or pre-second-kiss, depending on how you looked at it. In the kissing gap, at least.

"Well, you're exceptionally good at that, you know." The hand that cupped her face tangled in her hair as he kissed her again. The hand that held his cane let it fall to the side so he could wrap an arm around her waist.

She felt the same. Warm, soft but unbending, and aching of what he shouldn't have, even as a lonely widower.

She caught the cane automatically, steadying it against the counter to save it from clattering down to the floor. It was as if she'd been doing it for years, and maybe she had. Maybe not literally that, but catching what he dropped and might need and keeping it safe...

It was a good kiss, but when she was done, she nuzzled him gently and pulled back. "Someone's got to keep you in line, don't they? I do what I can."

She caught the cane as if it were nothing. Another vice of his she took care of. Bloody woman, waltzing in and trying to make things right.

He didn't cling to her as she pulled back, though he thought about it. Begging her not to leave, though the immaturity in that act would've been incredible, and she was at least pulling away maturely. He could do the same.

"Where are you staying, while you're here?" He could only assume that at some point she'd be going back. "Figured I'd offer you a room here before Thete tries to catch you first."

"That an offer, Gorgeous?" Big, flirty mega-watt grin and wicked little purr -- out, before she could even think better of it.

Oops.

Her flirty grin was returned with a wide grin of his own. He hadn't grinned like that in a long time. Nearly five years, actually. It felt like an old friend he'd missed.

"Well, you know. Big old TARDIS, never been very good at taking care of places myself. Got a vacancy for tea-lady, but seeing as you have no tea-lady experience..."

The reply on the tip of her tongue was absolute proof she'd been around Jack Harkness for too bloody long. 'Pay her way in sexual favours' indeed.

She just laughed, ducking her head and not saying anything for fear of that coming out of her mouth.

(It was good to see him smile.)

She laughed, and the TARDIS in his mind was so completely confused by the sound after all these years of silence.

"And," he added, "I have a spaceship that goes just 'round anywhere, a sonic screwdriver that sounds like a goat, and having you here would give me a monopoly on brilliance. This place could use that."

How long had it been since he'd tried to charm anyone? He hoped he wasn't too terribly out of practice.

She caught his chin between her thumb and forefinger. "Oh, I suppose we could give it a go again, you and me. Once upon a time, we were pretty fantastic as I recall."

That wicked smile still played on her lips -- the naughty remark, the look on his face if she'd say it, and the little voice in her head (shut up, Jack) daring her to say it and see.

"That we were," the Doctor replied. They were also combustible, angry, tragic, violent, and sometimes downright cruel. But the fantastic that covered it all made up for it, in his mind.

Was that spot on the soft flesh behind her ear still sensitive? He moved as if to brush her hair aside and let his thumb trace it, gauging her reaction.

The wicked grin fell from her lips in an instant, a perfect little 'oh' of surprise forming there instead. Suddenly-heavy eyelids dropped shut for the second's surprised sensitivity and then opened again about half-way to meet his gaze.

"Still haven't learned how to play fair, Doctor?" Rose rumbled out, letting her voice echo gravelly in her throat.

The wickedness had fallen from his own lips, replaced by curiosity and concentration. His single finger turned into two, that lightly traced from the flesh behind her ear down her throat, stopping just at the collarbone.

Memories returned of touching her before. Kissing her neck and knowing how she would move. It had been too long.

"It's not a benefit to play fair if I'm not entirely certain that I'm going to win," he said, the smile returning.

"What is it, exactly, that you want to win?" she asked, and then amended her sentence with a slightly-mangled Gallifreyan endearment that she'd never quite learned to pronounce correctly.

Nonetheless, she tipped her head back for him, baring her throat to his explorations.

for doctorsplusone: A What-if for RS Verse (AU)

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