rude_not_ginger | AU RP for ambitious

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AU RP for ambitious_woman

Illness

A Time Lord shouldn't be separated from his TARDIS. He knew this, it was a fairly simple, fairly straightforward rule that every Time Tot was taught back in the nursery. Time Lord and TARDIS were connected, part of a whole, part of a sum and all that. There were horror stories that Ushas used to tell over nightcom about Time Lords who had been without their ship for long periods of time and went insane, or worse. The "worse" was, of course, described in accurate, gruesome details, much to the 'ooooh'ing and 'aaaahhh'ing of those listening in.

The Doctor just never believed he'd be on the end of that sort of experience.

His ship was a lifetime away. More than that, lifetimes away, and he could feel it. He could feel the lack of a ship in his mind and it ached. More than ached, it was as if a large part of him was missing and he'd only just lost the anesthetics keeping the sensation of missing away.

He had meant to do a good deal today, most of which involved bothering the cook into frying chips and rewriting Reinette's library. These were his main plans, and they were good ones.

As it was, he was curled up on the floor of his bedroom, the shakes and stomachache from the night before having finally decided that his lack of response on the matter was unacceptable. He cried out sharply, a noise that only vaguely sounded human, and may have been a name.

"Reinette!"

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Now. For now.

He shuddered, the remaining bits of energy in him gone, and sighed against her. Oh, what a mess he was. What a terrible mess for her to hold up.

"The stars," he murmured, "I've always wanted to show them to you. Give you a piece of that world you would thrive so well in."

He felt the tears again, and this time they didn't hesitate to spill over. There was the shame, as well, stronger this time, because the Doctor didn't cry, and most certainly didn't cry in front of anyone.

"Now it's gone, Reinette. It's gone. Three thousand years away."

His tears had very few places to travel but between them, mingling with the sweat and sorrow that was already there. Her own face was damp and it occurred to Reinette that they must have been shed as they built the wall, in the face of the Doctor's pain. She had been completely unaware of them, else Reinette would never have allowed them to happen.

"The stars are still here," Reinette spoke quietly. She brushed the Doctor's hand to her temple again. "Here, what you shared with me. And just outside as well. Maybe not their best, or brightest, or how you have known them. But they are still here. And you are still here as well."

The last, the most important.

He closed his eyes, and held her tighter. There was pain and there were tears and sweat and it was shared, and that terrified him. He never shared pain, never shared his suffering, he was always strong because he had to be. Yet, here he was, sharing it with a human he met not even eight months ago. Allowing her to hold him up, to help him because he couldn't help himself.

She probably didn't realize how important this moment was. Oh, she may have had an idea, but she didn't realize, couldn't fathom how much he needed her, how attached he'd suddenly become to her.

And self-preservation was out of the way, because he needed her to survive this moment, and thus became connected to her.

"Don't leave me," he found himself murmuring. It was a childish thing to ask for. After all, they all left, in the end.

Reinette laughed.

The sound was raw, and wet, originating from a throat think with emotion and coated in emotion. But still, it was laughter. Something that is no way mocked what sat between them. They were both cut open it seemed, much of them exposed.

He would not be here, after all, if she had not called to him. If she had solved the issue of the Clockwork men before he was forced to be cut off from his home.

Reinette shifted slightly, as if you remind him of how they were bound.

"Where would I go, Doctor," she offered.

And yet, he was exhausted. She was as well, and perhaps too much so to translate her wit. It was time for more plain speaking.

"There is nowhere else I would rather be," she offered, the words tangling into his hair.

"I don't know," he replied, honestly, letting out a bit of a laugh himself, "I don't know. Anywhere else?"

It's what he would've done. Run as far and as fast as he could from the cowering, sweating, screaming man on the floor. And, yet, she pulled him closer, tried to take his pain, even though he told her it would kill her.

"I just don't want to be with anyone else right now. Not even me."

He usually did so well, just being alone. Just having space, time, everything to himself. Just then, however, he needed to have her hold him, to fill the void, be a piece of his empty mind. That was, perhaps, selfish. He couldn't find a way to care.

Reinette made a decision then. To either coax him into her own bed that evening, or to join him in his own. For the only purpose of being there as he rested -- it could not quite be called sleep to her -- and again there as he awoke. The idea of that sort of alone as companion upset her, for him.

Which made no sense. It was not the sort of company he normally kept, she knew that. And the lack of it, thus, should not disturb. But it felt wrong. In many ways as the wall did.

"You do not have to be with yourself in this moment," she countered. "You are my company, and I am yours."

Her eyes found his own.

"Should we move?"

He nodded, slowly, a grateful smile appearing on his face. For all that he was terrible with 'thank you's, he felt the emotion of gratitude, and tried to express it in some way.

"I think," he said, "That we're a bit...uh, entwined, at the moment."

He couldn't see the knots, but they felt tight, and he knew he'd struggled enough to bind the two of them well against each other.

A small, but genuine smile appeared to match his own, something inside her unsettled in the right way as the Doctor appeared to distance himself from his initial collapse.

Just how long had he been there, injured, before crying out?

"That we are," Reinette admitted the truth, even as her fingers reached to try the knots again.

"We need to get to my room, somehow. Then I can cut us free. Can you move?"

That was quite the question. Moments ago, he couldn't even breathe without feeling the effects on every cell in his body, but now everything just ached.

Her bed. She wouldn't leave him, wanted him to be there. He felt the sudden desire to cry again, though he couldn't figure out why. It was a different sort of emotion than the tears before were invoked from.

"I'll have to try," he said, nodding his head slowly, "After all, triumph starts with 'try' and ends with..."

They were both battered and bruised, of that Reinette had no doubt. Him much moreso than her, yet both the sort that would wear even worse tomorrow. She would most certainly need to dress in something with sleeves.

"...and ends with umph, yes," Reinette smiled. There was pleasure there, however small, at the familiar between them. Though she would never make such an undignified sound as that as she attempted to stand, and guide the Doctor with her.

Reinette's hand grasped the Doctor's own, fingers lacing.

He took her hand and allowed her to help him up. His legs were wobbly, could've been made from straw rather than bones, the way they felt, and he was just so weak. So much longing that was hidden just below the surface, and so much he'd simply cut from himself.

His eyes went down to her arm, where dark imprints of his fingers already began to mar her ivory skin. Another thing of hers he'd damaged since arriving, to be added to the collections of vases, books, and parakeets (just the one) he'd injured before.

He lifted her hand, and pressed his lips gently to her skin, to the bruise, pressing a kiss there. It was an entirely too intimate act for everyday, but, as always, he lived in the moment. And that moment? It felt right.

Reinette was no longer a child. In fact, she did not think she was ever that child. The one that believed that you might kiss something, and make it better.

But you could make it recognized, or appreciated, or understood. And while she expected none of those things from the Doctor that day? That he struggled past his own weakness to give them? It meant a great deal to her. Much of which Reinette was afraid might be apparent on her face.

Wordlessly, she took a step backwards, guiding him towards the dooorway between their two rooms. She backwards to his forward, Reinette felt it allowed to watch him more carefully, and assure herself he would not fall. It had every potential to be awkward, only their purpose preventing it from being so.

He moved with her, keeping his eyes locked on hers. As long as he could see her, and only her, he could make it. Not the room where he collapsed, not the world where he was trapped, just her.

A romantic notion, he figured, but, still. She was what was keeping him from falling, from giving up, from stopping fighting. They were sharks who nudged each other on, to make sure they kept swimming.

And there it was. That strange notion to tell her he loved her. He was pretty sure, especially now, that he did. It wasn't an emotion he was used to feeling, not a sensation he was used to experiencing, but from his memories on the subject, he was pretty sure he was in love with Madame de Pompadour.

"I-I'm sorry," he murmured, though he wasn't entirely sure for what. There was such a long list of things to apologize for, not the least of which was sweating and crying all over her dress.

Reinette was quite willing to give the Doctor her rapt attention, and listen to him on almost any subject. Except for that sort of apology. For after all, in saving her, he had trapped himself. That still held true, and overshadowed almost anything that might come after.

"Hush," she ordered warmly, not willing to discuss such a topic.

The continued to move, step echoing step as Reinette traveled backward and into her own room One hand remained anchored to the Doctor's arm. As if to assure herself that he was there, not still prostrate on the floor. She had begun to doubt her ability to assist him. So seeing him standing, even if it was a struggle?

Perhaps, Reinette decided, she did not speak more because she could not speak more.

He did as instructed, and silenced himself. As they neared the bed, he raised his free hand to loosen his ascot. It was soaked through with sweat---not the most attractive of sights, he imagined---and he let it drop to the floor. His boots, unlaced as he had been lacing them when he collapsed, slipped off his feet as well, leaving a trail of ascot, left boot, right boot from the door to his room.

And there he was. Without his shoes, he had no real way to run anymore, and that was all he knew how to do; run away. Now, he was trapped in a world he didn't truly understand, with no shoes and no direction.

At least she was not abandoning him.

Once they reached the bed Reinette reached behind her, never once letting her eyes leave the Doctor as she fumbled sightlessly for the sheers. It made sense to look for what she needed, but there was something in his gaze she could not pull away from.

Fingers curling over the silver handles, she lifted the sheers and slipped them carefully between their two bodies. For all that they were needed, she fought not to think of them as an intruder, and unwanted. Salted by his sweat and seasoned by his hurt, they were still connected in ways Reinettee wished to understand more.

But they could not go through the rest of their time together wearing a sheet. With one careful turn of her wrist, Reinette set them both free.

He felt the fabric fall away between them, but didn't move away from her. As she had said before, where would he go? There was nowhere else on the Earth where he'd rather be.

He leaned his forehead forward, pressing it gently against hers. He could still feel the remnants of their connection, the connection she forced on him that he was neither ready for nor desired, but needed completely.

"You saved me." The words were whispered even as he thought them, and he added to them a note of gratitude; "Thank you."

His forehead brushed her own, and after the strain of the events in the other room it would have been so simple to close her eyes, to feel, to get lost in the almost-connection. But as always, when he was near, Reinette could never stopping looking, and seeing. Drinking him in.

"Not to be a child about such things?"

Because truthfully, Reinette much preferred that she was no longer a child in the Doctor's eyes.

"But you did save me first."

The memory brought a smile.

He had been truly magnificent on that horse.

He grinned at her. The muscles in his face hurt, so it wasn't the most magnificent of grins, but it was one with much emotion behind it.

"Yeah, I did, didn't I?" he said, "I'm very glad I did. Would've been alone there if I didn't."

That wasn't the only reason, of course. Saving her had been the right thing to do. He couldn't have left her to that kind of fate. Not Reinette.

He felt his hand move up to cup her cheek, his thumb tracing her cheekbone. The way she had so long ago, when she saw him first as a woman, examining him for the first time. In a way, it was as if he was looking at her for the first time, seeing a woman who was strong (and stubborn, his mind added), who was willing to give everything for him.

Reinette had always approved of a well placed compliment. Her nature and upbringing dictated as much. She worked hard to reach where she was, and if people wanted to notice, and appreciate? Well, she was more than inclined to allow it.

But this all suggested something darker. Thick and heavy it seemed to connect them even now. Reinette was thankful to be alive. That would always be true. But she could still not accept the Doctor was less alive because of it.

And it was certainly not a situation she wished to be complimented for.

"You would have found someone," she assured him, attempting to push past that moment. He always did find someone -- eventually. She had seen that, in his mind. "They just might not have had my way with knots."

"Maybe," he replied, with a small nod, "I would've. Found someone else, that is."

He did have companions come and leave often. He was used to it, tried to make the idea seem routine in his mind, even though each and every change always hurt, always affected him. Grace and Bernie and Fitz and...all of them. When they arrived, it changed him. When they left, it changed him.

"Still," he added, "I'm very glad it was you."

It was probably far from the right time for another intimate gesture, but he was never very good at doing the right thing at the right time. He leaned forward, and pressed a kiss next to her mouth. As chaste as possible (she was Reinette, after all), and as softly as possible (he was still rather uncoordinated).

Those that thought they knew Reinette might have made their own attempts to predict the next moments. For all that she was bold, she was not rash, and as the Doctor's mouth brushed the corner of her own most might have thought her to simply accept as much. To possibly laugh. To certainly kiss both his cheeks as well to assure even footing. To never let him asert himself so when they both knew how week he remained.

Reinette, ruled by her head.

But those that knew her, knew how often she was swayed by her heart. That group numbered two men, exactly. One of when stood next to her even now.

"I am very glad it is you."

Standing here. A survivor. And in the present tense.

The smallest turn of her head gave him full access to her mouth.

For all that the past and the present tenses didn't always translate well into the Time Lord language, he understood what she meant, and he smiled in response.

What was it he had said in his Third incarnation? Where there's life, there's hope? Hope. He had to keep that,in order to keep moving.

She tilted her head slightly, and he kissed her again, more properly this time. Slowly, deeply, every ounce of his emotional and weakened state at her mercy. He trusted her, loved her, and, really, this was only a very short fall from where he'd already tumbled. His free hand slipped down to her waist, and he held her close. No binds to tie them, but they weren't apart.

Reinette allowed herself several full, memorable minutes of indulgence. It was never so much that they deliberately teased one another, or attempted to hurt the other with purposed intent. And she was fairly certain that her own desire was stronger than his own. After all, hers was a love thirty years in the making.

It became difficult, she knew, to have what you wanted most so close, and not to reach for it. But he was still learned, and often still confused by her time. Reinette refused to burden him with more.

With a soft breath, she finally lifted her mouth mere inches from his own.

"You must be exhausted."

He didn't want to move away. He could've easily considered it part of their lingering connection, of being so utterly connected to her for so many moments, but it was more than that. He desired her, he was becoming quite used to this emotion. And he was fairly certain that his own desire was stranger than her own. After all, he was still fresh in his knowledge of her, all of her wits and abilities and his love was new. She had to have grown tired of him after having him pop in and out for so many years.

"Yeah," he admitted, "Weak, mostly. But I'm not dead, at least."

His thumb slid along her cheekbone, then traced along her jaw. She was so fragile, he knew, and yet she could hold him up. Him. A 900-year-old Timelord who had brought down empires.

AU RP for ambitious_woman

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