An Ever-Fixèd Mark

[preserved_ginger]

Title: An Ever-Fixèd Mark
Rating: PG
Character(s): Ten, Rose (off-camera)
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Beta: glory_jean
Spoilers: Not a one, so long as you know the villain in The Satan Pit and the alien entity from Fear Her.
Notes: The title is from Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare.
Summary: For her, it’s different.

He’s finding it harder and harder to let her out of his sight – and with good reason. First, there was the Beast (the echoes of its prophecy about Rose still ricochet through his mind). Then, the Isolus and, following on immediately from that, an utter certainty that a storm, the likes of which he’s never seen before, is on its way.

It’s hit a nerve, and he knows it. He’s never been particularly capable of rational thinking when it comes to Rose’s well-being. This time is no exception, but he also knows that he can be almost possessively protective of her when the mood takes him. And, right now, he is in that frame of mind.

The fear that she will “die in battle”, and thus prove the Beast correct, rattles him more than he cares to admit. And although he is adamant, when Rose asks him, that the prophecy is a lie (the unspoken promise he makes to himself being that he will make it a lie, if he has to), he is nervous.

He knows himself well enough to realise that he would do anything up to – and including, which is perhaps the most worrying thought of all – changing time itself to save her, and that frightens him. How many people, planets, universes could he let fall, if they stand between him and the life of the woman he has let become more important to him than almost anything else?

It’s all very well being a “no second chances” sort of a man, but for Rose will he let there be times when there’s not even a first chance, let alone a second?

It’s not as if there’s anyone who could stop him.