preserved_ginger

Title: Ten of Hearts
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): Rose. The Doctor.
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose
Spoilers: None whatsoever.
Setting: Mid-to-late Season Two
A/N: Beta-ed by the brilliant

requialexa
Disclaimer: I'm not the BBC.
Summary: He took his life in his hands, pulled her closer to him until she was flush against him, and kissed her.
Dedication: For

principia_coh, with love, on the occasion of her birthday. Penblwydd hapus i ti!

He wasn't sure, even now, how long it had taken him to realise that something was distinctly different about the way he behaved towards her. It didn't help that this incarnation was naturally flirtatious and had, essentially, been chatting her up since he'd first appeared. Then again, that probably had a lot to do with the fact that this incarnation was making up for everything his previous self had longed to do, but had never felt comfortable or confident enough to do anything about.

Before this, before Rose, he'd thought imprinting was a myth. That misconception had lasted until he woke up last Christmas sounding as if he'd lived on the Powell Estate all his life. He'd freaked out in his head somewhat when he'd worked that out; had held back from interacting with Rose at any decent level for as long as he dared. He was as unwilling as any reasonable person to admit that Rose, that a mere human, could undo him so completely. He didn't want to acknowledge that she had the ability to bring him - metaphorically and literally - to his knees.

The main problem with deliberate, sustained denial like that though was that capitulation, when it happened (and even as he was digging himself ever deeper into denial, he knew that it would eventually happen), had the potential to be completely out of control, and messy to boot. And that was how he'd got himself here, into this position, in the first place. How he was going to get out of it again he had no idea. Maybe he should try to think his way out of this.

But he couldn't let himself think.

And why? Because he really didn't want to start down that road; he knew that once he began thinking he'd be able to rationalise his way out of this - and that, if he was completely honest with himself, was the last thing he wanted to happen. So he took his life in his hands, pulled her closer to him until she was flush against him, and kissed her.

He'd only meant it to be a quick kiss, over and done with in a heartsbeat; but, of course, it couldn't turn out like that. Once he'd started to kiss her, he'd not wanted to stop. She felt, to him, as if she had melted into him; if he'd been asked at that point where he ended and she began, he'd have been stuck for an answer. Every part of him was simultaneously screaming at him to stop and to continue, and he honestly didn't know which impulse to over-rule. His decision was made for him when he felt her hands slide into his hair and pull him closer, and confirmed when he felt her tongue brush tentatively against his.

The last conscious decision he made before losing himself completely in the kiss was to firmly and irrevocably over-rule the part of him that was pleading with him to stop. The next thing he found himself doing was kissing her wildly, attempting to pour everything of himself into it, tired at last of having to maintain the impression that he didn't care for her. Tired beyond measure of having to attempt to hide the blatantly bloody obvious, tired of trying to bury what he felt for her under the unconvincing, unsatisfying gloss of simply being her friend. All this and more went into that kiss, which had become frantic now from sheer need, because as usual he was unable to actually vocalise his thoughts.

He wondered sometimes whether he would ever be able to let himself be that vulnerable with her, able finally to let all the carefully-constructed barriers between them come down. If he did let his barriers down, if he let her in completely and allowed himself to love her properly, he'd leave himself wide open to falling into a deep dark pit of pain when she left him, willingly or otherwise. Because it was going to happen, one day, and all the wishing in the world wouldn't make that unpalatable fact any less true.

Joy now, pain later. That would be the deal, and he knew it.

But right now that was irrelevant. None of it was relevant, really, to the here and now; none of it and yet all of it. He found himself breaking the kiss then, but clutching convulsively at Rose when she tried to move back and away from him, not yet willing to lose the contact or to stop touching her. He held her to him with one arm and used the other to brush his fingers along her face, her neck, her collarbone - any bare skin that he could reach. He'd gone this far already, he wasn't about to back down now he'd started - especially since he was fast finding out that he couldn't stop touching her. He wasn't even sure whether he cared enough to even try to stop. Her skin under his fingers felt too good; when her hands started touching him, started to learn the pattern of his body for the first time, he went so still - fighting to remember how to breathe - that she almost stopped. Binary vascular systems were all well and good but they didn't cut the mustard when it came to being touched intimately by the woman with whom he's in love. In love. How far he'd come already, to be able to admit that - even to himself.

"Rose."

He breathed her name in a tone of voice he'd not heard himself use in centuries; even to him, his voice sounded as if it had dropped at least an octave in timbre. He felt her shiver against him in response and couldn't help his sudden grin. He'd wrestled with his inner demons and come out victorious - he knew what sort of a man he was; he was a man who knew what he wanted and was prepared to do what was necessary in order to get it. He didn't want to just be the one who listened to her, talked to her, provided emotional support (although he did still want to do all of these things). Now that he'd had a taste of her he wanted to continue to touch and taste and hold her. Wanted to hold her up - or hold her down. Rose was about to find out firsthand what it was like to deal with a ruthless, persistent, Time Lord in love.

He didn't want to be just her friend any more. He wanted to be her lover.