Burning for Rose

[preserved_ginger]

Title: Burning for Rose
Character(s): Ten, Rose. Blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to Jackie.
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose (implied Nine/Rose)
Rating: PG
Setting: The wardrobe scene of The Christmas Invasion
A/N: Many, many thanks go to the wonderful requialexa for doing a sterling job at beta-ing this thing; it truly wouldn't be the piece it is now without her.
Disclaimer: I am borrowing, without permission, what will never be mine.
Summary: As far as the Doctor's concerned, everything has always been different for Rose; now is no exception.

He might not know who he is, in his borrowed night-clothes and brand-new body, or indeed know where to find answers to that particular question (how does one find out who he is, anyway?). But if he knows anything, he knows this - that the feelings he holds for his companion, his Rose, have not changed in the slightest with his regeneration. If anything, they are stronger. He's been standing here in the TARDIS, trying to decide what to wear (because jumpers and black leather jackets just aren't me) for bloody ages - there's just so many different things to look through before he can find just the right look - with Rose as far away from him as he is willing to let her be (which would be her mother's flat and no further, then, right?), trying to piece together the scant memories he has of the first few hours of this regeneration, just to make sure he hasn't done anything monumentally stupid (I'm sure I heard the Cloister Bell ring; that only ever rings when I've done something to put me in deep, deep trouble).

This is all very new to him; He's not been in this position before. He has loved before, of course he has (I'm 900 years old, dammit. And I was not a monk!), but never has he loved someone to distraction and then regenerated in front of them only to find that he's still as much in love with them in his new body as he was in his last.

He should have guessed; for Rose, everything has always been different.

He adores her, worships her almost, and is hoping beyond hope that she'll stay with him when it's time for him to start travelling again. The alternative, which he has discovered (from very recent experience) is too painful even to contemplate, is unthinkable. (Highly likely to happen, though; especially as you never told her about regeneration. God, you can be thick sometimes!)

Rose is (although he already knew this) special; she saved him when it looked as if there were no way out of the situation he'd found himself in - saved him, and an entire universe in the process. Which in itself was remarkable, but she had done it without a single thought in her mind about what the possible consequences might be for her. She'd just gone ahead and done the necessary. If that wasn't a declaration of some kind, a confirmation of a long-held suspicion of his that yes, she loved him at least as much as he loved her, then he was not the Doctor (and I am, I know I am; I am sure of very little else, but I am certain of this much) and he was stuck in some nightmarish parody of what he'd thought to be reality.

There are so many parts of this brand-new body that he wants to use to touch her ... he finds that he has to physically stop himself from running his fingertips over her skin, finding out exactly what she feels like; new skin, new sensation after all. He wants to know exactly how it feels to have his lips on hers, wonders whether with his mouth on hers he can somehow tell her the feelings he can't yet verbalise. (God, I want to kiss her.)

His body aches all over; he feels tired. He is tired, tired of having to bloody pretend all the time, of having to lie to himself – and to his best friend – about how he feels about her. It has to stop. (Damn regeneration sickness. Why can't I just have a normal regeneration for once in my life; is it really so much to ask for?) If he could just hug her, just once, he's sure he'd start feeling a lot better. (Rose-hugs have a tendency to help with things like that.)

Who's he trying to fool, anyway? Whoever it is, it's not working. He is burning for her – not in the literal sense (or not any longer, at least), but on a more prosaic, more domestic, more physical level. He desperately wants to kiss her. (I just want to be able to feel what I feel about her without the voice in my head telling me how it's such a Very Bad Idea; I want to tell my brain where it can stick the centuries of conditioning that say I should not, must not, do this. I'm the last of the sodding Time Lords, after all; can't I have any fun?)

He burns. Oh, how he burns. And that immolation, in ways, redeems him; his people died in a ball of flame to save the universe, at his hand – and now he, also, has died by fire, in a shower of sparks – a regeneration that had more characteristics of a bloody roman candle than of the usual, gentle regeneration a Time Lord can expect. (OK, compared to this one, all of my previous regenerations – not one of which had gone properly – were “gentle”; that's not the point and you know it.)

And he burned, not to save himself, not even to save a planet; but to save the life of the human child who had just saved the universe from the very same threat – the Dalek threat – a second time.

Bad Wolf.

Something like Nemesis in human guise, with the power of every God or Goddess that ever existed. (Time outruns everything in the end, after all, even the Gods themselves; but my rosa mystica outmanoeuvred everything; she cannot know just how proud of her I am – Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth).

And that - Rose, Rose and still more Rose (it's fascinating, really, how much of that period is consumed by Rose) is pretty much all he can accurately recall of those fifteen hours or so. (I hope to God I didn't do anything stupid in those fifteen hours that I can't remember; all I want is Rose and if I've done anything to ruin that I'll never forgive myself.) He has scratchy memories of what happened after he crash-landed near Jackie's flat ... something about “Merry Christmas”, he thinks, before collapsing on to the ground ... something about waking up with Rose's mouth beside his ear begging him to help her ... (that got me out of bed, catch anyone trying to do anything to Rose and me not helping her.)

He remembers even less of anything that happened between his collapsing in her arms (that felt so good; someday, I swear, I'm going to tell her exactly how good) and waking up again, fully compos mentis for a change, in that cloud of free radicals and tannin (ah, yes; tea. Bless Jackie; she's a holy terror and I'm scared to death of her, but she makes bloody good tea) that he'd needed to kick-start the damaged parts of his brain. Which parts? The synapses, if he remembers right ... (oh, this suit looks nice - I wonder if Rose likes pin-stripes?)