Rose took his hand and led the Doctor into the bedroom. It was surprisingly huge, and taking into account the spacious main room it almost seemed as if the pavilion was bigger on the inside. The floor was made of smooth wooden planks that felt warm under her bare feet. The entire room was held in warm colours, contrasted by the bed, which was covered with white sheets.

The Doctor pulled her into his arms and kissed her almost chastely at first, but with increasing intensity. His tongue begged for entrance and she opened her lips to let him in. As she had done with him, he took his time exploring her mouth and rediscovered all the spots that made her moan.

Never breaking the kiss he pulled her tighter, as if he wanted to mould them into a single being. Her hands glided under his jumper, relearning the naked skin on his back. Then she decided that he was definitely far too clothed for what she had in mind, so she tugged at his jumper and broke the kiss just long enough to remove the garment.

She ran her hands over his smooth pectoral muscles, slung her arms around his neck, and this time she kissed him, first running her tongue lightly along his lips, then entering his mouth and stroking his tongue slowly. She could feel his growing erection against her stomach.

Sometimes she still couldn't believe that he loved her, had asked her to bond with him. He was the most powerful being in the universe and he had chosen an ordinary shop girl from a council estate on a backwater planet named Earth. He could have done so much better. Whenever she lay awake at night she wondered when he would finally realise that and leave her behind.

In the first light of the morning she would banish these thoughts and put them back into the darkest corner of her mind, then she would gather her courage and face the day, to fulfil the promise she had made to herself, to do what he wanted her to do. Have a fantastic life. The Doctor was the one who had shown her how to do this, shown her a better way to live her life, to live. If there was anything she could do to make their separation easier for him, to give him something to hold onto, to drive the nightmares away, she would do it. She wanted him to lose control, to be completely himself in these short few hours fate had granted them.

She slowly bit his lip, gently at first, then with increasing force. He pushed into her involuntarily and she moaned. A split second later his hands were on her back, touching the zip of her dress, about to pull it down. She wanted to give in to the temptation, wanted to feel him inside her, bringing her to completion, but she resisted. There was something she wanted to do first.

"No. Not yet. Would you..." She hesitated for a moment. "Would you let me pleasure you first?" She blushed violently.

He gave her a smile that nearly broke her heart and cupped her cheeks with his large hands. "I told you before, Rose. Anything you want."

~o~o~o~

He had known Rose had something in mind when she had led him into the bedroom and he was going to let her do whatever she wanted. He was hers until the end of the universe and beyond. Sometimes he still wondered how that had happened.

She had a tendency to wander off, she was too jeopardy-friendly for her own good, and he certainly could have done without frequently visiting her harpy of mother. But somehow the beautiful woman in front of him had dragged him back from the brink of madness, had managed to distract him with brilliant smiles and life-saving hugs, and somewhere along the road she had stolen his hearts, mind and soul, piece by piece. Not that he had fought it.

Her fingers traced circular patterns on his arms and his torso, slowly closing in on his nipples, arousing them to taut buds, grazing them with her fingernails. Her lips found his pulse point and she sucked and nibbled until he was certain it would leave a mark. He made no move to stop her. He was hers and she had every right to claim him, as he had done before. Then she bit him.

He hissed sharply, thrust against her, and realised that she had moved her hand and was now cupping his erection. He felt her warm fingers through the fabric of his jeans and couldn't suppress a moan. When he noticed her smug smile he decided that there would be payback. Very sweet payback.

"Rose."

"Yes, Doctor?" She smiled sweetly and began to move her hand.

The little minx. She knew exactly what she was doing to him. He drew her to him and kissed her hard, trapping her hand between their bodies. The feel of her warmth against him made him want to throw her on the bed and have his way with her until she begged for mercy. He fought the urge, but he knew he was losing the battle. Quickly. Her strokes became faster and his jeans now were really uncomfortably tight. He bit back another moan.

"Rose, let me..." He lost track of his thoughts when she ran her thumb over his nipple.

"Later. I promise." She smiled and peppered his jaw with kisses.

Suddenly she took a step back and her hand was gone. He groaned in frustration. She grinned mischievously, knelt down, opened the laces of his boots and removed them quickly. With nimble fingers Rose undid his fly, her fingers lightly tracing the straining bulge in his pants, then pulled his jeans down. When she got up again, she writhed against him deliberately, her arms slung around his neck, her tongue tracing the curve of his ear.

The Doctor groaned and pushed against her still frustratingly clothed body. Then her hand was back, rhythmically stroking him through his underwear. The last shreds of his self-restraint slowly dissolved into thin air.

"This is torture," he hissed.

"I know," she gave back.

"Then stop," he demanded.

"Why?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Because I want to make love to you."

She grinned like the little devil she was. "I suppose you can hold out a bit longer, superior physiology and all that." She scraped a fingernail over one of his nipples and he groaned almost ferally.

Eventually she freed his aching erection from his pants. He almost sighed in relief and stepped out of the garments pooling at his feet. She ran her fingers along his shaft, lubricating her hand with the fluid she found on the tip. She began to stroke him again, ever so slowly increasing force and speed while she kissed him passionately. He wouldn't have thought he could get any harder, but she proved him wrong.

She ran her thumb lightly over the tip of his penis and circled it. He hissed sharply. "Rose!"

"You have no idea how much I want to have you inside me," she told him. "How much I want you to shag me senseless. But not yet."

She knelt down and trailed along his shaft with her wet tongue, licking every inch until there wasn't a part of him she hadn't caressed. Then she blew on him, before she engulfed his erection with her warm mouth and began to suck.

His time sense fled him.

~o~o~o~

From his position he had a fantastic view of her cleavage, highlighted by the low-cut neckline of her dress. He hated the black piece of fabric with a passion that surprised him. All he wanted to do was to rip it off her body and bury himself in her. He was close to coming, had been even before she had taken him into her mouth. His erection was almost painfully hard. He balled his hands and dug his fingernails into his skin, trying to get some semblance of sanity back.

"Rose, no," he managed to grunt out. "Let me be inside you."

She grinned impishly around him and sucked harder, this time taking his balls into her hands and massaging them lightly. Despite his determination not to get off in her mouth he couldn't stop himself from thrusting into her. His need to be inside her when he came and his pride warred with each other, and his pride lost. "Please, Rose. I need to..."

When she released him with a soft 'pop' it came as a surprise. She rested back on her heels, her fingers trailing along his inner thighs, and looked at him serenely, almost expectantly.

Gripping her at her arms the Doctor yanked her to her feet. When he crashed his lips against hers in an almost bruising kiss, he could taste himself on her. He bit her lower lip, although not quite hard enough to draw blood, and her body became pliant in his arms. Her soft moans were nearly his undoing, but he somehow managed to hold back from taking her right then.

"You know you're going to pay for this?" he growled when he had finally regained a small fraction of his self control.

She raised her eyebrows provocatively and licked her lips. "Oh, really?"

He smirked almost cruelly. Before he took her he would wipe that expression of smugness from her face. Thoroughly. He took a deep breath to calm down a bit. This was going to take some time.

"Turn around and close your eyes." Rose obeyed, now standing with her back to him. He discovered a piece of crimson silk on the nightstand and retrieved it, barely able to walk. He suppressed another moan. "You," he observed, "are overdressed."

"Then do something about it," she challenged.

"Oh, I will." His voice was full of dark promises.

He carefully brushed her hair aside and revealed the nape of her neck, planting a feather light kiss just beneath the hairline. Then he covered her eyes with the scrap of fabric. "That alright?"

"Yeah."

The Doctor sucked at her right earlobe and trailed the curve of her shoulder with his fingertips until he reached the strap of her dress, while his left hand caressed her breast. He followed the line of the fabric, slightly grazing her flesh with his fingernails until he reached the zip. His mouth abandoned her earlobe and he scraped along her spine with his teeth, every once in a while soothing the skin with his tongue, while he pulled down the zip of her dress, inch by inch. He could feel her shiver under his ministrations.

~o~o~o~

Rose shivered in anticipation, already losing track of time, and shifted in her damp knickers. She was certain he would make her beg long before this was over, but seeing him lose control had definitely been worth it. She desperately wanted to feel him inside her, filling her, completing her. But she had started this game, and now she had to bear the consequences. She didn't even think of not letting him do what he wanted. She trusted him implicitly, always had, always would.

Abruptly the Doctor stepped back, abandoning her body completely. "I know you're wet for me, Rose," he growled. "Your scent is driving me crazy. But turnabout is fair play, don't you think?"

Suddenly she felt his fingers tingling over her skin. He pushed the straps of her dress over her shoulders, and the garment slid along her body and pooled at her feet. He began to caress her arms, her breasts, the lace of her bra, creating delicious sensations against her hot skin. The only parts of him that touched her were his hands, although she could sense the heat radiating from his body. This was her only indication where he might be. She felt as if a panther was stalking her, inaudibly moving in the dark, ready to strike.

He stood behind her and unclasped her bra, and her breasts fell free. She could hear a few quick steps, and then he was in front of her and circled her nipples with calloused fingers, arousing them to taut buds. Suddenly he pulled lightly and she moaned. This was the most sensual experience of her entire life.

Time skipped.

Slowly she realised that the Doctor was caressing her calves now, drawing circular patterns on her skin with his fingertips. She would never have thought that this could be so arousing.

"Too bad you aren't wearing stockings today," he murmured. She could feel his breath ghosting over the damp patch of her knickers and shivered again. He had to be kneeling in front of her. She could imagine him, gloriously naked and aroused, his bum resting on his heels. More heat pooled in her centre.

"Your fantasy," she managed, nearly incoherent from the sensations he was creating. She wouldn't be able to move a single limb if her life depended on it.

"Shared dream," he corrected absently, his attention elsewhere.

His hands moved upwards and she shifted lightly when he reached the back of her knee. He ignored it and now she could feel his fingers stroking the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs. Just before he reached the seam of her knickers, he stilled completely and breathed her in. She moaned in unadulterated need, yearning for him to touch her.

His fingers pressed against her entrance, only the thin scrap of satin preventing him from penetrating her. The strain on the fabric finally provided some friction against her throbbing clit but it wasn't enough. She was rapidly losing her grip on sanity. Then he removed his fingers and she whimpered. Not long now, and he would have reduced her to a quivering mass of want.

Time skipped again.

Suddenly the Doctor rubbed her clitoris through the fabric of her knickers and simultaneously sucked at her nipple. The unexpected friction was almost too much to bear. When he gently bit the bud her knees began to buckle. She barely managed to hold herself upright. She was so close, she almost sobbed from the effort it took her not to surrender to the sensations he was creating. She didn't want to. Not like this. She bit her lip deliberately, used the pain to concentrate. She knew she'd start begging very soon. "I want you inside me when I come," she told him.

"Oh, you're not coming. Not yet." The way he phrased his words made it sound as if it had never even been in question. He was smirking again, she could hear it. Then, finally, he removed her knickers. She could feel him entering her with a long finger, setting a steady rhythm. She whimpered, almost sobbed. She needed more than this, needed to touch him, needed him inside her.

Then he was gone again, his entire presence vanished from her perception. "Doctor? Please..." She knew she sounded almost desperate. She might be going mad, right here, right now. Wherever and whenever that was.

He took her completely by surprise when he scooped her up, his erection pressing deliciously against her hip, deposited her on a soft surface and removed the blindfold.

~o~o~o~

Time returned to its normal flow. Rose found herself on the bed, the Doctor hovering over her, supporting himself on his right hand, and then he kissed her forcefully, his tongue invading her mouth, gliding against hers in a sensual dance. She moaned and reached for him, desperate to touch him. Her hands slid over his back and drew him nearer.

"Make love to me," she said when he finally released her, her voice somewhere between a demand and a plea.

He aligned their bodies and with one infinitely slow thrust he entered her, filling her completely. She moaned and arched into him. He moved leisurely, pulled back until only the tip of his penis was sheathed within her then pushed into her again in a fluid motion. Her arousal began to build even higher than before. She ran her hands over his back, her feet caressing his calves, urging him on, but he kept the rhythm steady. He seemed inclined to drive her insane with need.

Time lost its meaning once again. Her perception reduced to the feeling of him moving inside her, driving her higher and higher. He slowly began to stroke her clit with his index finger, in time with his thrusts. She closed her eyes, the sensations almost too much to bear.

"Doctor, please..." She was wound up so tightly, she might very well go mad.

"Look at me, Rose." His voice was barely louder than a whisper, but she heard him. She opened her eyes and sanity returned to her for a few brief moments.

"I love you," she said, almost matter-of-factly, as if she was stating an unshakable truth.

He returned her gaze, and she felt like eternity was staring back at her. "I love you," he declared. The force behind his words would hold entire universes together.

She shivered, and he pushed back into her warmth while he pressed her clit. She had been hovering on the edge for so long she hadn't even realised how close she was until this powerful thrust sent her over the precipice. Her mind scattered into a million pieces. For an immeasurable amount of time conscious thought abandoned her.

Eventually she felt on the edge of her awareness that the Doctor was still moving inside her while she was clenching around him. She reached up and ran her fingers through his close-cropped hair, caressing his scalp.

"Come for me, my love," she told him, sounding almost reverent.

His eyes never leaving hers the Doctor thrust into her one more time and emptied himself into her body. Then he collapsed atop of her, his penis still buried in her body, his weight a welcome reassurance of his presence. She gently traced the angles of his face. She had never seen him so at peace, so content before, as if the demons that were haunting him had left him for the moment. If only she could make this last.

After a long time he eventually slipped out of her, rolled over and engulfed her in his arms, his fingers lightly tracing the lines of her body. She snuggled against him, kissed him softly and let out a contented sigh. She could spend the rest of her life like this. Neither of them spoke, as if they were afraid to break the spell.

Finally the Doctor broke the silence. "Tell me about your life." He began to play with a strand of her hair.

Her life. On Darlig Ulv Stranden she had promised to herself that she would not let desperation claim her and she would not go home, watch the telly, have beans on toast and wait for time to pass. That was not who she had become and she would not go back to being that sort of person.

"Well, thanks to a shortage in alien invasions in the last six months I managed to get my A-levels," she said eventually, a tiny smile on her face. It wasn't exactly saving the universe, but it still was something she had achieved on her own, something to be proud of. "Even one in physics, of all things. You won't believe it, but the gravitational constant is minimally different in Pete's world."

~o~o~o~

The Doctor stared at her, surprise and pride shining in his eyes in equal measure.

"What? Did you think I never listened when you and Jack talked about science?" Rose caught her tongue between her teeth. "All the time I spent on the jump seat pretending to read a magazine while I stared at your bum and listened to your technobabble, and you never noticed?"

"Oi! That was a highly scientific exchange of vital information."

"Looked more like a pissing contest, from my perspective."

He was wounded. "Time Lords don't have pissing contests." Not to forget that they never sulked. And he had noticed. Thus the pissing contest. Oh, he really wasn't the least bit hypocritical, was he?

"Don't worry, you won," she soothed. "Anyway, I didn't pass in history."

"You travel through time and you fail history?" he asked incredulously.

She laughed. "Well, it's a little bit problematic if history turns out to have happened differently in another universe. Napoleon never returned from Elba, there was a war in the nineteen-twenties between Castile and France on one, and the UK, or better, the PRGB on the other side, and the London Blitz never happened, while one of Queen Victoria's sons founded Torchwood, shortly before they abolished the monarchy."

"That's probably a valid reason," he allowed, slightly mollified.

She opened her mouth and he asked quickly, "And what else have you been up to?"

He knew she had wanted to ask what he had been doing. Rose already worried about him enough as it was. No need to add to that by telling her what his life without her was like, that he felt as if he was stuck in a dark tunnel without being able to see the light at the end. She let it go, although he was fairly certain he wasn't off the hook yet.

"Hmmm, let me think. As I said, there was a certain lack of alien invasions in the last couple of months, mostly tourists instead, so not much running for my life. Well, if you don't count my mum trying to hook me up with two or three pretty society boys and me running like hell from them." As soon as she had finished the sentence she winced and bit her lip. Clearly she hadn't wanted to tell him this.

"She what?" His eyes narrowed dangerously and a green monster raised its ugly head.

"Shhh. Nothing happened. I was way too fast for them," she told him with a forced grin, cupped his cheeks and kissed him softly. The monster slowly calmed down again.

"It was partly my own fault," she admitted finally. "It took me almost a month to tell mum that you had asked me to bond with you. She had been nagging me, told me to get on with my life, meet a nice bloke and have some fun, and I just blurted it out. You can imagine how the rest of the conversation went." She shrugged in feigned nonchalance. "At the next Vitex party she began introducing the most boring people I've ever met, and that includes the bureaucrats from Noia Five. She only stopped because I threatened I'd never talk to her again." She gave him a wry grin. "At least Mickey thought it was funny."

"Oh, Rose... I didn't think."

"Doctor, I walked into this with my eyes wide open. I knew what could happen." She smiled shakily and continued in a very see-through attempt to change the subject, "So apart from running from boring society people and persuading alien tourists that we had birds for Christmas dinner, not people, I had a bit of time to think and I came up with a couple of questions."

The Doctor winced inwardly. This was his fault. All of it. She was stuck in a parallel universe, her mum was being, well, Jackie, and now Rose was bottling up her emotions. He silently promised that he would fix this. He didn't know how, not yet, but he would do everything he could to get her back.

He smiled and kissed her. "What questions?" If she could let it go for the moment, he could, too.

"Well, for instance, did you ever wonder how the dimension jumpers worked in the first place?"

No, he hadn't. And he could smack himself for that. He was sensing a trend.

"A couple of months ago Mickey hacked into the archive and stole the plans. I don't know how much time I spent down in Archives studying them, but I found out that they only worked because there had already been cracks in the walls between dimensions," Rose said. "We know what caused the breach in our universe, or at least why it got bigger, but what about this one? From what I remember the Cyberleader said they had nothing to do with it. I dunno, but they don't seem to be the most imaginative lot. I'm tempted to believe him."

"And Daleks don't have the capacity for trans-dimensional travel, which means the cracks must have been caused by something else," the Doctor continued her line of thought.

"And I've been wondering... You said the breach on your side would seal itself after the Void had sucked the Cybermen and the Daleks in. This is possibly a stupid question, but what about the cracks on my side? Would they have closed, too? All of them?"

His eyes lit up at the potential implications. "Rose, you're fantastic! Absolutely brilliant!" He kissed her thoroughly while the very small part of his brain that wasn't occupied with the woman wrapped around his body was already working its way through several scenarios.

And then she did something with her hips that made him drop every line of thought that was not related to repaying her in kind.

~o~o~o~

"Did you find someone?"

He stared at her incredulously. "We're in bed and you ask me if I travel with somebody?"

Rose planted a kiss on his chest and smiled. "Well, it's not as if I had anything to worry about. You're mine." He definitely wasn't the only person in this relationship who was slightly possessive.

"Yes, I did. Find someone, that is. Reminds me of Jackie, actually."

"We're in bed and you bring up my mum?" She swatted his shoulder. Her playful tone told him that she had forgiven her mum, although he wasn't sure he could do the same. Truth be told, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

He rubbed his arm. "Ouch! See? That's exactly why she reminds me of your mum."

"She slaps?" When he didn't answer Rose started to laugh. "Oh, I think I'd like her."

He should have anticipated that reaction.

"So what did you do to her that you deserved a slap?"

"Who said I deserved it?" he gave back, decidedly not sounding like a petulant three-year-old. Time Lords were never petulant. And they definitely never sulked. Yeah, right.

"I know you," she sing-songed.

That she did. Only too well, sometimes. "I told her she couldn't bring her hat box."

The scowl he wore while he made this statement regularly caused despots throughout the universe to give up their nefarious plans and hide in fear, but his tiny human lover collapsed into laughter. "Let me guess: She brought it anyway. Poor Doctor, a hat box is certainly the height of domesticity!"

"It is!" There was only one person in the entire universe, no, make that multi-verse, he might consider doing something remotely like domestic for and said person was currently in his bed, even if the bed existed only in their minds, and only as long as the TARDIS would be able to fuel the connection. "Tell me you don't own a hat box," he demanded.

"And what would you do if I said I did?" she asked with a smirk then laughed at his horrified expression and kissed him. "Nope, you're safe. Come on, it could be worse. Pets, pretty boys, Jack..."

"We're in bed and you bring up Jack? Again?"

"Well, it's not as if you had anything to worry about. I'm yours."

For the remainder of the night the Doctor made love to Rose Tyler, proving to her exactly whom she belonged to and whom he belonged to, until they fell asleep in each other's arms.

~o~o~o~

In a universe that felt even more inane now than it had been directly after the Time War, the Doctor woke up from a dream. Time for a trip to Cardiff, he decided. He owed someone an explanation and an apology. And if he was very, very lucky he might not only actually survive the encounter, but also get access to the CCTV footage of the battle of Canary Wharf and a few answers to the valid questions Rose had asked. He showered, donned his clothes and left his room, yelling for his current companion.

"Donna?"

Fin.