misscam: (PPP - Ten/Rose)
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What Other Word
by Camilla Sandman

Summary: What other word is there? [Ten/Rose]

Rating: Teen. Some naughtiness implied.

Disclaimer: BBC's characters. My words.

Author's Note: Vague references to series three and companion for series four. Lyric 045 for [livejournal.com profile] 50lyricsfanfic. Response to the "What?!" challenge - apologies for the (almost) total absence of angst, as this was written to cheer self up in the middle of writing a much darker story.

Table of Prompts

II

"What," he says, and almost drops the rugby ball.

It's not really a question. After all, he can see the answer. He can see that Rose Tyler, last seen in another dimension's Norway is in fact leaning against his dimension's TARDIS. He's not blind, just very good at seeing what he wants to see.

It's not really a surprised exclamation either, because he has had stranger things appear in his TARDIS. A bride. A Titanic. Himself. On the international surprise scale of one reappearing sock in the wash to waking up to your own funeral, this would rate about a two-headed kitten in the sink.

It's definitely not anger. Maybe there's a little of it, for a brief moment, knowing this means he'll have to lose her again. But that's in the future. He's always been good at just travelling in it, never seeing it.

It's just....

What other word is there?

"Hello," she says.

Oh. That.

"Hello," he echoes. She just smiles.

On second viewing, he notices she's not quite his Rose. Her hair seems a little darker, her skin has lines he knows he didn't leave, her posture seems just a little different. Time's the likely culprit. How much time, he isn't sure.

"Seven years," she says to his unspoken question. "Did you know rebuilding a world is a lot harder than saving one?"

Of course, he doesn't say. Why did she think he never stayed?

"What?" he says instead.

"Rebuilding," she says, taking a step closer. "Longer hours and less rewards. Less danger, though. Most of the time. Did you miss me?"

"What?"

He can tell she's very close to rolling her eyes now. His brain is definitely rolling something at him, at least.

"M-i-s-s-m-e," she enunciates. "I missed you. Grieved you. Hated you. Missed you again. Got over you."

"What?"

She takes another step closer, smiling a bit like her remembers and a bit like someone a little more naughty. "It is possible, you know. It's just..."

"What?" he whispers, watching her take the last step towards him.

"I'd rather not," she whispers back, and then she kisses him.

Huh.

Okay, strictly speaking he has kissed Rose before, but that was always with other people present as well, as it were. This is her and this is him, and he's not saving the world or having amnesia and possibly he could excuse himself with it's just her snog-ambushing him, but that seems a bit unlikely to be accepted when he's already given his tongue the tour of Rose's mouth, as it were.

Hands in her hair is probably also a bad idea, unless he can convince her it's the latest in grooming. 'Getting your hair done in snogging style', he could see that become a hit.

Her step back is so sudden he almost falls over and end up head first into the TARDIS, which would rather complete a stellar performance. He manages to straighten himself with slight dignity - looking dignified while silly is a Time Lord Olympic trial, after all.

"Rose got your tongue?" she asks cheekily.

"What?" his automatic response is, but then his brain seems to manage to find another word. "How?"

"Not just this world that has an Yvonne Hartman," she says, and her voice sounds almost wrong. "I didn't... I watched her, but I didn't... She tore into the void, into this world. I couldn't close it from my side. It was me or Mickey, and Mickey has a life there. I went. Didn't take long to find you, either. You're the only bloke I know who would save the world by scoring a try at the rugby World Cup."

Didn't come for him, he thinks selfishly. Might stay for him, though. Might might might might oh he's in a world of dangerous mights. Swimming in mights and he really might just kiss her rather than think.

Yes.

He pushes her against the TARDIS, feeling the hum of it through her body and knowing she too remembers. Maybe Rose does too, somewhere deep enough that he couldn't take it away. He used to almost want that, selfishly wanting something shared.

"Are you alone?" she whispers, her tongue touching his earlobe as she does.

He thinks briefly of Donna and Martha and Astrid and the Master, leaving and being left and all the options in between and knows what's always the truth.

"Yes."

She considers that carefully, eyelids slightly lowered. "How've you been?"

Been a bit of a lonely bastard, Martha would probably say. Donna would probably manage to communicate the same without words.

"You know. Same old life. Same old TARDIS. Same old me."

"Not same old Rose," she replies carefully. "Just Rose. That all right?"

He feels strangely adrift when she closes her eyes and his hands seem to seek skin on their own, finding an area just between her top and her skirt.

"Rose," he says. It is and isn't, and he half wonders what he's done with her in his memory.

"Rose," she agrees, touching his face. She laughs a little, but with the first touch of nervousness he's heard so far. It's finally the thing that seems to snap his brain back into orbit.

"Rose!" he exclaims, lifting her up and spinning her, spinning her, spinning and falling with her on top as she laughs at him. They've stumbled into the TARDIS, he realises, and Rose is regarding it with fondness. He lets her get used to the sight again, getting used to the feeling of her hand again himself.

Her right middle finger is still longer than the left, he notices. That hasn't changed. Taste in clothes seem to, as he can't find a speck of pink on her, not even when edging her skirt down a few inches.

Hmm. Lace.

"Doctor?"

"Rose?"

"Why did you never shag me?"

He wonders if he looks as much 'uh-oh' as he feels.

"I never," he says firmly, then rethinks. "Well, except when to save the world. Oh, and except that time on Starstock. And except that time with Cleopatra. And with Caesar. Oh oh oh and except that time with the scarf tie-up. And..."

"Just say 'and except that time with Rose',"she interrupts.

"And except that time with Rose."

She's already reached up to pull her top off, he realises, and he's already lifted his head to kiss the exposed skin.

Never with companions. Never. Except...

It's no fun breaking rules unless you've set them first, he's always known.

Yes.

II

"... and that's about it, I think," he finishes, feeling Rose shift slightly against him. He's not sure what her reaction is, her eyes closed and her face rather busy with shagged-out look.

It really is like riding a bike, that. Mounting included.

"Donna. Martha. Jack," she says thoughtfully. He hasn't told her about one who turned him down. Or one who picked death over a life with.

He's almost sure he's going to, though.

"Same old life," she says a bit softly, and he remembers his words to her. "Been a bit of a new one for me."

"Good?"

"Mmmm." She exhales, the breath stroking his skin for a second. "I loved you, you know."

"I know."

She nods once, leaving him to think about past tense and present and maybe even future.

Save the world. Lose his world. Save the world. Lose Rose. Save the world. Lose an enemy that's closer than a friend. Save the world.

Get shagged by Rose Tyler with interesting uses of a rugby ball.

He'll always be saving the world. But maybe he can do a little of the other too.

Rebuilding.

Maybe it's time to.

"You love me, you know," she whispers against his neck.

"What?" he whispers back, but she's already asleep, hair across the pillow and his shoulder too. Such a human sight. Such a human body. Such a human mind.

So much he never said then. So much he'll never say now. So much he never says at all. And yet...

Yet.

What other word is there?

FIN
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