Fic: A Flash of Light (Eleven/Rose, 1/1, Adult)

[platypus]

Title: A Flash of Light
Author: platypus
Characters/Pairing: Eleven/Rose
Rating: Adult
Word count: 4943
Beta: nonelvis
Summary: During one of her Dimension Cannon jumps, Rose runs into the Eleventh Doctor.

Author's notes: Written for the sistersofguh 2013 Valentine's Day Ficathon.
Prompt: During one of her dimension cannon jumps, Rose runs into a sad/lonely Eleven on Valentine's Day.



A flash of white light, a sharp crack, and when Rose's vision clears, she's in a dimly lit corridor. It's quiet, aside from a faint hum of machinery; nobody saw her arrival. Good. She steadies herself against the wall, taking in her surroundings as she rides out the roller-coaster feeling that her stomach arrived a few seconds after the rest of her. Grey walls, pipes overhead. Space station—she can tell from the flat taste of the air, cycled and recycled, filtered to the molecular level. Breathing it is like drinking distilled water.

The door closest to her opens onto an enormous lobby, the hub of many corridors. Not just a space station, then, but an orbital spaceport; probably built near the turn of the 52nd century, judging by the architecture. People are passing by, bustling to their destinations, but nobody's looking her way, so she slips out and blends into the crowd. She glances back at the door—EMPLOYEES ONLY, it says. MAINTENANCE.

There's a bar and a gift shop on one side of the lobby; the opposite wall is transparent, for a spectacular view of the blue-and-white arc of Earth below. It's brilliant, almost drowning out the smaller points of light around it, but she can see them: stars. Rose's heart twists.

She scans the crowd, but nobody leaps out as the reason she's here. Families, businesspeople, the occasional hominid-type alien. No tall, skinny Time Lords in pinstriped suits. The Dimension Cannon is supposed to lock onto the Vortex distortion signature of the TARDIS, but they haven't ironed out the glitches yet. And yet she's come so close—on some jumps, it's felt like the Doctor just turned a corner out of sight.

This time, she's not so sure. She glances in the bar as she passes; it's decorated in retro-21st century style, all warm pseudo-wood panelling and gleaming chrome. The barman's tall and balding, with a handlebar moustache; the customers look ordinary enough. A woman in a holographic suit—briefly fashionable in the late 51st century, which confirms Rose's guess about the time period—is working intently on a computer floating underneath her fingers. Businesswoman. Sitting at the bar, there's a man in tweed, with a bow tie; he's too young for the professor look. He's got a glowing rainbow-coloured drink with a paper umbrella sticking out of it. Tourist.

It takes Rose an hour to search the rest of the station, and all it does is reinforce her initial impression. There's nothing here to light up the Dimension Cannon's sensors. The shuttle dock and galactic transfer gates are populated by the usual assortment of travellers. The transients' hostel, with its tiny sleeping cubicles for passengers with long layovers, is nearly empty. The holo-news flashes at the gates show nothing of interest.

By the time Rose finds herself back at the bar, she's prepared to conclude that a random time eddy probably passed through and left an anachronistic keychain in the gift shop. She pulls out her mobile; Torchwood's got it working interdimensionally, but even in the right universe, it can't reach the TARDIS anymore. On every trip, she tries, but the result is always the same: NUMBER NOT FOUND.

All she can do is touch base with Torchwood and let them start preparations for the next jump. The cross-universe connection is tenuous, but she's got time for a quick report. "Control, I need a breather," she says. "And you need to recalibrate. He's not here, and it doesn't look like he ever was. Give me eight hours." She can get one of those ridiculous rainbow drinks and crash on a mattress in the hostel for a few hours. She can't face another stomach-lurching trip back to Torchwood right now, another round of debriefing and dissecting where this jump went wrong. Every time she thinks she's getting closer, there's a jump like this, seemingly at random. She sighs. It's better than the time she ended up being attacked by a pteranodon on Roald Dahl Plass, at least.

"...travelling all alone on Valentine's Day?" the barman is saying to Professor Bow-Tie as Rose walks into the bar.

That's when she notices the red and silver hearts decorating the mirrored wall behind the bar. Oh, it would be Valentine's Day. Brilliant.

"Alone. Yes." The young man rolls his empty glass between his palms. "My friends think I'm dead and my wife's in prison. But here we are."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir," the barman says, as though people say things like that all the time. Maybe they do. He sets down another rainbow drink. "On the house."

Rose slides onto an empty stool and signals the barman. "I'll have what he's having."

The professor jerks, nearly spilling his drink, and spins on his stool to face her. Rose wonders if she's made an enormous faux pas; maybe it's horribly rude to bring up somebody's drink in this century. She's always mixing up local customs. He's staring at her incredulously, green eyes wide.

And then his lips move silently on her name.

Suddenly Rose can't breathe. Everything around her seems to fade away, like a huge wave pulling back. All she can do is whisper it: "Doctor?"

And then he crushes her to him in a fierce hug, and it feels like the whole universe comes crashing back through her in pain and joy because it's him, god, it's really him.

"Rose," he whispers, his face buried in her neck. She's clinging to him, too, just as hard. He feels more solid than he did before, less bony, but his arms still fit perfectly around her.

Eventually, she holds him far enough away that she can look at his new face. Floppy hair, impressive chin, she's not so sure about the nose—none of that matters. It's him. He's grinning like a loon. She probably is, too.

And then, in a cold rush, she remembers why she's here. "Doctor, we need your help—the stars are going out—"

She stops abruptly; all the expression has drained from his face. His gaze flicks up and down, taking in her hair, her leather jacket. He recognises it, she can tell.

His eyes are so sad.

The barman sets down her drink and she reaches blindly for it, tossing back a quick swallow. It burns down her throat, raspberries and honey and fire. It makes her eyes water, but by the time it settles in her stomach, she feels a bit steadier.

"But you know that already. Don't you." She's too late. This isn't the Doctor she needed to find after all. Whatever's going to happen, it's already happened for him.

"Spoilers," he says, with a hollow laugh.

"But if I find you... what happened? Why are you alone? Do I die there?" She takes in his new appearance, and her heart catches. "Do you die there? Is that why you... changed?" Because she finds him. Because she asks for his help. It can't be true. She doesn't want to be the death of him, again.

She waves him to silence when he opens his mouth; of course he won't tell her. It doesn't matter, anyway. He'd do it. She'd do it. There's no point in arguing.

She takes another drink. The raspberry thing's not bad.

He sighs. "There's so much I can't tell you. Oh, Rose..." He touches her hair, turns her face toward him. And then he leans forward, hesitantly, and for a crazy second she wonders if there is any possible explanation other than that he's going to kiss her.

There isn't. His eyes flutter shut as she meets him halfway. He tastes of raspberries. Her hand slips around to the nape of his neck as he tilts his head, parting his lips slightly—

She pulls back abruptly. "Wait, what did you say—your wife?"

He swallows. "Um. Yes. Sort of."

"Then what the hell are we doing? What do you mean, sort of? How could you…" Get married, she barely manages not to say. All this time she's spent battering at the walls between the universes, and this might be the only thing she's never imagined. She always thought that when she found him again, they'd... well. And here he is, looking at her like she's a miracle. Married? It doesn't make any sense.

"It's not like that. Well, it is. But she doesn't mind—" He gestures between her and himself. "She's not from your time. We're not together, a lot."

Rose sits back on her stool, caught dizzily between hope and disappointment. "Maybe you'd better explain. How long has it been? Since I… left."

He toys with his glass, obviously considering not telling her, but finally says, "Just a couple of… centuries."

Centuries. She's glad she's sitting down. If she'd managed to stay with him, at Bad Wolf Bay… she'd be a hundred years dead now. More. She swallows. "How'd you end up married?" There, that sounded casual enough.

"She was going to let the universe die for love of me." The way he says it, it sounds like a fond reminiscence. "It makes more sense if you meet her," he adds, a bit helplessly.

Two centuries. It is not, she tells herself sternly, fair to be jealous of what someone does two hundred years after they lose you. "Don't take this wrong," she says, "but I'm not sure I'd want to."

"Ah. Right." He looks uncomfortable. "I'm sorry. I didn't do this to hurt you."

"No, no. It's all right." That's not strictly true, but it will have to be. "You shouldn't be alone." That, she believes with all her heart. She'd been braced for him to have a new travelling companion, someone as close to him as she'd once been. Well, almost as close. But not... this. "Wait. What are you doing here alone?" She tries to remember exactly what it was he said to the barman, a few minutes ago when he was a stranger. "Did you say… your wife is in prison?"

The Doctor stirs his drink into a swirl of multi-coloured light. "Well, most of the time. She doesn't always stay there."

"And what," Rose asks, very calmly and reasonably under the circumstances, "is she in prison for?"

A little twitch pulls at the corner of his mouth. "Killing me."

Rose buries her head in her hands, not sure if she's going to cry or laugh. "Your life never gets any less mental, does it."

"No." She can hear that he's smiling.

So is she, by the time she looks at him again. She can't help it. No matter how different he seems, he's still very much her Doctor. He's probably got what he thinks is a perfectly reasonable explanation for how his wife (what?) is in prison (WHAT??) for killing him (WHAT???). And it would probably turn her brain into a pretzel. Just like old times.

He takes her hand, and a jolt goes through her. His thumb stroking hers is as intimate as kissing in its own way; it feels so right. It's been so long. She'd almost forgotten. "And your wife," she says cautiously, "who is in prison, sometimes… she doesn't mind... this?" Whatever this is.

"Rose, I personally guarantee that not only would she not mind, she'd want to hear details. I won't give them to her," he adds, a trifle belatedly.

She sips her drink, considering. "You pick up girls in bars a lot, then?"

"Never," he says, and before Rose can second-guess herself she grabs him by the tweed coat and pulls his mouth down to hers. He's startled for only a second, and then he melts into her, turning the kiss into something slow and deep and full of promise.

When he finally breaks away—gradually, reluctantly—they're both breathing hard.

He searches her face. "Do you... want to go back to the TARDIS?"

The TARDIS. Just the thought of it brings a rush of homesickness. Also, she's pretty sure that this is the Doctor inviting her back to his place, with all the likely implications. She swallows down her nervous excitement. "Can you drop me off? Take me… wherever it is I meet you?"

He looks hopeful for a moment, then deflates. "No. It's too dangerous. I could end up changing things that shouldn't be changed. If I take you with me..." He looks away. "I don't know when I'd get you back. If I'd get you back. And what you're fighting... it can't wait." He takes a deep breath and stands up. "Well, maybe a little while. If you want."

Her heart is beating like a jackhammer. This is crazy. She shouldn't really even be talking to him. There are a million things she wants to ask, none of which he can probably tell her. She should contact Control, let them know the calibration's not that far off after all.

But what comes out is: "I've got eight hours."

His smile makes that the right answer.

* * *

The TARDIS is down a deserted maintenance corridor, hidden in a broom closet that the Doctor unlocks, his sonic screwdriver glowing green. To Rose's eye, the ship seems bigger and bluer than ever. She rests her hand on its wooden door lightly, reverently. "Didn't you once say something about gingerbread houses?"

"Oh, yes." He's very close, practically murmuring in her ear.

Gooseflesh prickles her arms. "Is this a good idea?"

"I don't know." But he unlocks the door.

To her surprise, the console room has changed: coppery-orange instead of warm coral, larger and brighter than her memory. It's almost as much a shock as the Doctor's new appearance, but it's still beautiful—and the hum is still the same. It seems to wrap around her, warm and familiar and welcoming. "Hello yourself, gorgeous," she murmurs, trailing her fingers over a gleaming copper wall as she steps inside. This feels like home, in a way that Pete's World never has.

When the door closes behind them, the tension seems to somehow ease and ratchet up exponentially at the same time. There's nothing stopping her from touching the Doctor. Nothing at all. Unsure of how to start, she reaches up and traces a finger over his bow tie. "Do you always wear this?"

He has to swallow twice before he can answer. "I like it," he says faintly. "Bow ties are cool."

"Mmhmm." She trails her finger down the buttons of his shirt, bumping over them one by one, coming to a halt when she reaches the waistband of his jeans. His tight, tight jeans. It seems that some things carry over from regeneration to regeneration. There's a button there, right under her thumb. All she'd have to do is tug a little to work it free. He's breathing shallowly, his chest barely moving.

When she glances up, he's looking down at her, pupils wide, inches away. Is he a little shorter than he used to be? She can't remember exactly the angle from which she used to look up at him. It hurts a little, not being able to remember.

But it doesn't matter when he leans down that last little bit to kiss her. Her back hits the wall and his hands settle on her waist and he urges her mouth open under his, tracing his tongue over the inside of her lip. There's nothing hesitant about him now. It's good, it's wonderful, but there's no ease of familiarity in the way he kisses her, only desire. Whatever happens when she finds his previous self, whatever they do, they don't do this.

He presses his whole body against her like he can't bear any space between them, and even through the denim he is very obviously hard. He's angling his hips just right, fitting himself against her, and it's all too much; she moves with him and cries out, clutching at his backside. He lifts his head, looking surprised and pleased and possibly a bit smug, but then he stops, and she makes a frustrated, inarticulate noise. She can't wait. She's needed this for too long. "Shh, okay," he whispers. "Okay."

He fumbles at the button of her trousers and slips his hand in—outside her knickers, probably by accident, but it hardly matters at this point. He's kneading firmly at her, murmuring something low and encouraging in her ear, and that's all she needs. She bucks against his fingers, coming so hard she can barely gasp.

When she comes down, the Doctor's still cupping her gently, massaging through the aftershocks. He kisses her temple. "Okay," he says again, softly. He looks as flushed and sweaty as she feels. "Want me to... um... show you around?" he asks, with ridiculous, adorable uncertainty.

"Start with the bedroom," she says, and his manic grin is everything she remembers. She follows along on wobbly legs as he tugs her through the console room and into a corridor. Somehow along the way they manage to get her jacket off, and his boots. She's working on her own laces when he bumps a door open with his shoulder, drawing her inside. It's a bedroom: simple, neat, not at all lived-in. She wonders whether her old room is still somewhere in the maze of corridors.

The Doctor takes off that tweed jacket of his, and tosses it on a chair; underneath he's wearing braces. Of course he is. When he slides them off his shoulders it's strangely compelling, like the world's nerdiest striptease. Maybe it's just that everything the Doctor does becomes sexy. She's not sure she wants to think about that, not if she can't stay with him. When he sits on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning his shirt and undoing his bow tie, she flashes back on his previous self's loosely knotted tie, how her fingers always ached to tug it free and slide it from his collar. He reaches for the button of his trousers—

"Wait," she says.

He instantly stops. "Sorry, I—"

"No, no. It's just… I've always wanted…"

"Oh." He settles back on the bed, propping himself on his elbows. "By all means, then. Anything you like."

She licks her lips—he's watching her, very closely—and skates her fingers down his bare chest, past his belly button, ever so lightly over the front of his trousers. The button is, in fact, slightly difficult to deal with one-handed, but she manages. She draws down his zip—it sounds so loud, makes it so obvious what she's doing, and somehow that turns her on even more. The thin fabric of his pants is stretched tight around his erection; she cups the shape of it gently, rubs slowly. There's a growing damp spot near the tip, and her stomach clenches with lust. She feels him suck in his breath as she pulls the fabric down and sets him free.

All those years, her imagination had never quite settled on this part of things, but reality turns out to be just fine. She drinks in the sight of him, his unbuttoned shirt, open trousers, jutting cock. He stifles a noise when her hand closes around him, and she strokes him lightly, carefully. He's warm and smooth and hard, not alien at all. His cock twitches in her hand when she grazes a spot just under the head, so she does it again, rubbing the pad of her thumb in slow circles.

"Rose," he says, through gritted teeth. His hands flutter over hers, grasp the bedsheets instead. "You might want to stop soon."

What she wants is to watch him come, and he's obviously not far off; a bead of fluid has trickled down to meet her thumb, warm and slippery. But she stops, moving away from the sensitive spot, going still with her hand wrapped loosely around him. She can feel every throb of his pulse. He groans, biting off something that might be a curse, and shoves his jeans and pants down to his knees; she helps him tug them the rest of the way off. Under his avid gaze, she pulls her own shirt over her head, unhooks her bra, kicks off her trousers and knickers together.

She kneels astride him and he runs his hands—bigger, stronger than the elegant fingers she remembers—down the outside of her thighs, then back up the inside. When he reaches the top, he strokes her curls gently. After what happened in the console room earlier, and touching him just now, she's more than ready, and she knows he can tell.

He takes his cock in hand, guiding it to her entrance, and then she's sinking down on him and it's better than anything she's ever imagined. He rises to meet her and oh, god, this is really happening. This is the Doctor, beneath her, inside her. She doesn't take her eyes off his face as she starts to move, shifting back and forth, getting to know the size and shape of him. Even if this isn't exactly how she imagined it happening, it's still everything she ever wanted.

She buries her hands in his hair—he still has great hair—and guides his mouth to her breast. He kisses his way around her nipple, then takes it between his lips, flicking his tongue over the already-hard tip. Glancing up to gauge her reaction, he nips gently, tugs, experimenting until he finds the pressure that makes her gasp and clench her fingers in his hair. He makes a satisfied noise, muffled against her, and does it again.

She's rocking against him, seeking out just the right pressure, and when she finds it she can't stop, pushing down hard, pinning him to the bed. She worries for an instant that it won't be good for him, that the angle won't be comfortable, but he clutches at her and pulls her down even harder, making a low, needy sound in the back of his throat. She grinds down roughly, giving in entirely to her own need, tensing around him, crying out in sheer relief when her climax finally hits.

The Doctor's panting, making little noises with each push, and then all at once he gasps, thrusting up sharply. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her down to lie on top of him, and his whole body shakes as he comes.

He's quiet afterward; she rests her head on his chest, limp and sated and content. Exhaustion washes over her in waves. She can't remember the last time she slept. She shivers with the effort of stifling a yawn.

He holds her, stroking her back. "Sleep. I'll be here."

"I only have until..."

"I know," he says quietly. "To the second."

She settles into the curve of his body and lets sleep take her.

* * *

She's safe. Rose has never been one to wake up quickly, but her years with Torchwood have instilled the habit of assessing her surroundings the moment she comes to awareness. The only ambient noise is a low hum, soothing and familiar, and she's warm, cocooned in soft sheets. The arm around her waist belongs to somebody she expected to wake up with. That, in itself, is odd; she doesn't usually—

Then it all comes back.

She rolls over without dislodging the Doctor's arm. He's awake, watching her with a faint smile.

"How long?" she asks.

"There's still time."

She relaxes into him, looking up at his face. "How am I supposed to leave? I just found you."

"You have to." His arm tightens around her. "I'm not—I can't—I'd let you stay. I'd beg you to stay. And the universe would end up paying the price."

It was never really a question. She knows that as well as he does. "Then we'd better make the most of the time we do have," she says, pulling him into a kiss that starts out slow but quickly becomes more involved. His hand drifts up from her waist, cupping her breast through the sheet. "Why didn't we ever do this before?" she asks. "I wasn't even sure you could."

"I thought it would make it easier to let you go," he says. "And I had to. Sooner or later. One way or another."

"Did it?"

"No."

It seems really wrong, discussing this in bed, but she can't help it. "And now you're married."

His hand slips up her arm to the more neutral territory of her shoulder; she's not sure if it's a caress or a retreat. "It's not like that. There's no house with curtains, no two point four children. It's nothing you would have wanted."

"Don't tell me what I wanted. I wanted anything you could give me."

"You would have wanted more, someday." He holds his hand up when she starts to protest. "You deserved more. Could you really have given up your family for me? Jackie, your little brother—you wouldn't even know he existed."

"It wasn't up to you!"

"No." He looks tired, and old, and very alien. "But I make decisions that aren't up to me all the time."

"What happened to you?" she asks, quietly. "You shouldn't be travelling alone. You need people."

"You know I can't tell you. It's too long a story, anyway. It was necessary. I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Everything I couldn't give you."

She doesn't have an answer for that. But apparently he's thinking of one thing he can give her; he shifts a little awkwardly, and she realises his cock is beginning to stir against her hip. "Are you trying to distract me?"

"Maybe?"

She reaches down, strokes him the rest of the way to hardness. It doesn't take long. "Okay."

He's on top this time, kissing her slow and deep as he slides in. He rests his forehead against hers and moves inside her with exquisite care, a tenderness she never knew he was capable of.

And then it hits her. This is him, saying goodbye. How much time do they still have? She wraps her legs around his, trying to memorise exactly how he feels inside her, the way his hair falls into his eyes when he's moving above her, the tiny hitch in his breathing. She thinks of everything she's ever wanted to do with him, everything she won't be able to do because there's not enough time. Never enough time, even though they're in a time machine. The clock is ticking. Her body feels a million miles away.

The Doctor says her name, low, and brings her back. His hips have never stopped moving, rolling in a steady rhythm, out and back in, over and over. He's in no hurry; it feels like he could do this forever. He's here, for as long as she needs him. Bit by bit, she relaxes into it, lets it happen.

It's a long time before his breathing starts to quicken, but when it does, she's right there with him. She's hyper-aware of the change in the tension of his body, the building urgency in his movements. Without even thinking about it she's matching him, rocking her hips up to meet him each time he plunges in. She's close now, so close, but she can't quite—she's trying not to force it, but it's maddening to balance on the edge like this, to want it so badly and have it just out of reach. She's far too close to stop or change position, but she can't—can't—

"Please, please," she's gasping, and there's only a brief stutter in the rhythm as he works his hand between them, pressing two fingers against her clit. She could scream with relief—she is crying out, jerking up against him as her orgasm crashes through her, but he holds on, thrusting hard and steady and it's exactly what she needs.

Before she's even done, she feels him let go; a few more thrusts and he's shuddering in her arms, mouth open on a silent cry. It's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. And still he keeps moving, slower now, rocking with her as long as he's still hard enough to stay inside at all, drawing out each fading surge of pleasure. Her muscles flutter one last time around him, and he lets out a shaky sigh.

Finally, when he can't keep going anymore, he rolls to his side and pulls her with him, face to face, hip to hip. He leans his head gently against hers as their breathing slows.

They stay like that for a long time.

***

Eight hours. She's eaten, showered, dressed, given Control what they need to know (and nothing more). It'll take them a few minutes to power up the Dimension Cannon. She's ready. No, she isn't. But she's going anyway.

It's agonising, these last few moments. She can't look away from him. It could happen any time now. He's leaning against the TARDIS, watching her with a sad, proud smile. Maybe this really is all he could ever give her. He's right; she did want more. But at least she had this.

It's starting, the feeling of electricity flickering over her skin. A universe away, the Dimension Cannon is ready.

"Doctor…" She doesn't know how to say goodbye. Not in tears, she promises herself, not this time. She blinks hard to clear her vision.

"Rose Tyler. Defender of the universe." He cups her face in his hands, presses his lips to her forehead. "Go on. You have a job to do. Whatever happens"—he hesitates, seems to struggle for words—"it will be all right."

She stands up straight, squares her shoulders and smiles at him.

Everything disappears in a flash of white light.