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Story: The Lady in the Fireplace
Author: Melinda Kitty![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
melindakitty
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Reinette, King of France and (eventually) Ninth Doctor
Rated: Adult for slash, bisexuality, mature content, language, abuse of REALLY good champagne, and lots and lots of sex (multiple pairings/groupings)
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, 'cause if I did, Rose would be more BadWolf and less Angst, Ten would post a sign on the door sayin' "If the TARDIS is a rockin', don't come a knockin'", and half of their adventures through time and space would consist of finding new and unusual places to have a juicy shag.
Spoilers: AU, DURING "The Girl in the Fireplace". If you haven't seen the first three series of Doctor Who, you WILL be spoilered. I like to mess with canon. And you have my word that -- despite how this starts -- I'm a passionate Rose/Ten shipper.
Summary: OTP Rose/Ten with a lot of interesting liaisons along the way. So what exactly DID Ten do in Versailles? This French farce will have love, drama, sex, and eventually as close to a happy ending as I can manage. Be forewarned, though, I may take you places that would make RTD's head explode.
On with the show:
(In which Nine and Ten come to the rescue and BadWolf!Rose takes charge.)
The Doctor comes to slowly. Blinks. Suppresses a moan until he’s sure he knows where he is. Cool grating beneath his naked back. He glances up. Central console to the TARDIS. No signs of damage. Outside, the unrelenting silence of the Rift. He looks down. No clothes. Over there. Soft, plushy sofa. Yup. It was real.
His whole body responds slowly to conscious controls. Languorous. Uncoordinated. Satiated in ways he hadn’t previously imagined, but now fully intends to savour. (And duplicate, if possible -- though probably wise to consider doing the next tryst in less dangerous surroundings.)
Grinning, he glances over. His ninth is similarly sprawled. Similarly uncoordinated. Similarly satiated. Nine gives him an unsteady (and slightly goofy) grin.
“Fantastic?” says the Doctor.
Nine nods, enthusiastic. “Fantastic.” He glances at the engines. “Never knew the old girl had it in her.”
He pats the decking affectionately. “Best ship in the universe.”
He glances at the sofa. Rose is draped over the cushions, exquisitely debauched and still out cold. Grinning, he goes to her. Kneels by her side.
She’s definitely out cold.
Very cold.
Hang on. Very, very, very, very, VERY cold! Not good.
He shakes off the languor. Rose shouldn’t be so cold. He sits beside her. Strips off the blindfold. Touches her face. Cold. Her shoulders. Cold. He presses a hand to her chest. Cold. Her heartbeat’s slow. Very slow. Dangerously slow. Cold blood in cooling veins.
Something has gone very wrong.
“She all right?” Nine gets unsteadily to his feet.
He shushes him. Quells all the emotions that threaten to short-circuit his ability to think. Rose’s life may depend on his ability to think. (He was a fool to try this. He should’ve listened to his ninth.) He shakes his head against the barrage of emotion. Cups Rose’s face in his hands. Looks into her mind.
She’s not there.
Memories remain. Brain still functions. But her soul, that piece of immortality that makes her more than just animate meat, is gone. (Not good. Definitely not good. This is all his fault.)
He reaches. Follows where she went. Dear God, she’s wandered off a long way this time... No... Not so much wandered as was thrown. A long way off. And she’s... in pieces. Fragments. Not unlike what happens to a Time Lord who fails to regenerate -- scattered in billions of atoms around the universe to re-emerge somewhere else, loomed into a new existence.
He quells panic. Refuses to be disoriented by the weird anti-geometry of the Rift. Finds Rose, a piece at a time. After a bit, she comes to him. Bit by bit. Little by little. She clings to him, rightly frightened by their surroundings. He reassures her. Helps her quite literally pull herself together. Draws her back to the safety of the TARDIS. Is oddly happy that at least there are some things he can do better than she. (How annoying would it be to be in love with someone who was omnipotent?)
And as he leads her back, he notices something else. A second possibility. Not yet formed. (Too soon. Much too soon.) No guarantees it’ll take even if it happens. (Theoretically, it shouldn’t even be possible.) But with time...
Back in the TARDIS, he smiles. That really would change everything, wouldn’t it?
He pulls them back. Her to her body, him to his.
He opens his eyes. Rose’s eyelids flutter, but don’t open. Rest. She’ll need rest. (Come to think of it, he will too.)
The TARDIS shudders violently. She’s given them a gift, but even she will tire in the silence of the Rift.
Nine grabs the sofa’s arm to keep from falling. He looks up, alarmed. “Unstable.” He glares. “Told you it was point seven four.”
“Point seven five,” he insists, though he’s not sure of anything anymore. (God, he’ll never forgive himself if he was wrong!) “Has to be.”
“Point seven four.” His ninth braces as the TARDIS shudders again.
“Point seven five.” He reluctantly leaves Rose’s side. (Check her again after he makes sure the lot of them don’t get de-atomized outside the bounds of space-time.) “A little perspective, please. This is hardly the time to squabble.”
“This is the perfect time to squabble,” says Nine. “Especially if it means I can prevent our getting killed. I don’t fancy skipping the tenth and going straight to Eleven. Assuming we’d get out at all.”
The Doctor heads for the console. Checks the readings. The not-space outside is much more frightening even than the Bad Wolf herself. (And if he’s not very careful and more than a little lucky, the Rift really WILL huff and puff and blow their TARDIS in.)
“Seven four.” Nine rummages through the piles of abandoned clothing. Finds his sonic screwdriver.
“Seven five.” He finds his own sonic screwdriver. Glares. “How did she live with you?”
“Quite happily.” Nine glares back. (His ninth always did have the most splendidly lethal glare. Unfortunately, it’s hard to appreciate when he’s being a bastard.)
“Seven four three two,” says a hoarse voice.
He and Nine turn, startled.
Rose sits up. Shakily reaches for the water pitcher and glass by the sofa. Drinks. Recovers moment by moment. Looks at them with eyes tinged gold by traces of the Time Vortex. (Their Time Vortex! The right universe!)
“Miss me?” she says.
Even the smile is right.
He’s surprised he and Nine don’t collapse with relief. “Rose!”
“Doctors.” She rises from the sofa with the grace of a demi-goddess. The air warps around her. “You need a Bad Wolf.”
They stare as she walks past them. (And he’s seized again by a pang of pure, awestruck lust.) She glances back at them. “Well? Come on, then. Six hands are better than two.”
Nine, speechless, turns to him for explanation.
He shrugs. “Things have changed.”
Nine’s mouth works for several moments before he manages, “Apparently!”
“Now, gentlemen!” Rose barks orders with all the surety of a young general. And her corrections and improvements are good enough that the lust inspired by affecting repairs with a naked (and curvaceous) bottle blonde takes a backseat to the sheer exhilaration of knowing how close he was to being right. Minor rewiring. A few loose connections. Slight changes to the computations. (He always was a little fuzzy with basic maths. Ask him to calculate the quantum trajectory of an inter-temporal hyperlink through five galaxies and he’ll be spot on. Ask him to add .3082 and 1.4350 and neither of his selves are correct to the nearest thousandth.)
Within moments, the TARDIS gives a sigh of relief. Rose glances out from under the console. “She says she’ll be ready to move in an hour.”
“And she’s sure she can get us home?” He has never loved either of them more.
She smiles. “She always does.”
Nine stares at Rose. “If you knew how to fix it before, why didn’t you step in sooner?”
“Paradox.” Rose’s mouth tightens slightly. She throws the Doctor a reproachful look. “He thought it best I play stupid so maybe you wouldn’t notice how much I’ve changed.”
Nine’s look deepens. If the Doctor didn’t know himself better, he’d say he was hurt.
“You were never stupid.” Nine cups her face in his hands. “And I always noticed you.”
Rose smiles. Throws herself into his arms. He hugs her fiercely. Pauses, surprised. Looks at the Doctor, eyes wide with wonder as he senses the same possibility the Doctor did. He mouths, “Is she?”
He gives a noncommittal shrug. Nothing is certain yet.
Nine’s eyes narrow. He holds Rose tighter. Mouths again, “Is she?”
He gives a less-committal shrug that might also be mistaken for a slight nod. Not certain -- nothing’s certain with the new-and-improved Rose -- but it could be possible. (And if not now, then maybe in the future as she continues to change. The prospect both frightens him to death and makes him want to lapse into a stupid smile.)
Nine grins ear to ear. (And -- with ears like his -- that’s a big grin.) “Fantastic!”
Rose pulls away a little. “What’s fantastic?”
“You,” says Nine. He snogs her hard to cover. Glances over her shoulder, blue eyes twinkling.
He can’t decide whether to glare or grin. Nothing is certain. No sense getting all excitable. And it’s not like it’d be the best idea in the universe anyway. Human and Time Lord have always been genetically incompatible, which is a good thing. No sense passing odd diseases back and forth -- he’s seen the human cold and wants nothing to do with it -- and he certainly doesn’t need to be a...
He doesn’t want to think about it.
When Nine releases her, Rose is weaving visibly. Chaotic traces of the Time Vortex thread through her. Oh dear.
He catches her eyes. “During repairs, you were in direct communication with the TARDIS?”
Rose leans against Nine. Blinks to focus her eyes. “Uh huh.”
“And the Time Vortex too?”
Rose nods, unsteady. “Had to follow the breadcrumbs home.”
Dear God, he actually knows what she means. “Catch her,” he says to Nine.
“What?” Nine’s face is a study of confused concern.
“Catch her,” he enunciates clearly. (Is the man DEAF?) “She’s about to--”
Rose faints. Nine catches her. “Rose!” He looks to the Doctor, stricken. “Will she be all right?”
“Sofa. Now.” For once, his other self doesn’t argue. He lifts Rose handily. Carefully lays her down. The Doctor sinks to one knee. Checks her over with an expert eye.
His ninth hands him a sonic screwdriver.
“Thank you.” He dials. Scans. The readings aren’t particularly useful, as there’s no way to be sure what constitutes “normal” for this kind of human.
What is certain is she’s gone cold again. He ignores the pang of guilt. (His instinct was right, dammit. It’s saved him countless times. No sense starting to doubt now.) He looks into her mind briefly. Soul is in there. She’s alive and intact, but in some kind of stasis. Actually, her stasis reminds him uncomfortably of his own period of weakness after a regeneration. Whatever she’s becoming, she’s still in the process of becoming it. (Life could get very interesting for the next little while.)
“She’s becoming like us,” Nine murmurs.
He nods. “Humanity Mark Two.” He gazes at her. “Gorgeous, isn’t she?” He shakes off the emotion. Cold. He hates not knowing how cold is too cold for this kind of human. His overcoat should be... he glances up. Yes. There. “Now make yourself useful and hand me that coat.”
“What for?” Nine eyes him, suspicious.
He quells irritation that threatens to erupt into full-blown rage. “So help me, if you question me again, I will open that door,” he points for full dramatic effect, “and let you be consumed by the Rift. Sure it’ll be a form of suicide, but at least I’ll enjoy a bit of un-harassed silence before I cease to be.” He glares. “I need the bloody coat because Rose is cold. Happy?”
Nine softens a little. Gets the coat. Hands it to him.
“She’s fantastic,” he says quietly.
He smiles in spite of himself. “Yes. She is.” He spreads the coat over Rose. Tucks her in. A little warmth. A little rest. Maybe a cuppa and she’ll be right as rain. (Hopefully. Not knowing is equal parts exciting and nerve-wracking.) In spite of himself, he savours the excuse to touch her. (God, he’s become SUCH a Romantic. It’s sickening, really.)
“You’re in love with her,” says his ninth.
Link to All Previous Chapters
Crossposted to:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
time_and_chips
Author: Melinda Kitty
melindakittyCharacters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Reinette, King of France and (eventually) Ninth Doctor
Rated: Adult for slash, bisexuality, mature content, language, abuse of REALLY good champagne, and lots and lots of sex (multiple pairings/groupings)
Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, 'cause if I did, Rose would be more BadWolf and less Angst, Ten would post a sign on the door sayin' "If the TARDIS is a rockin', don't come a knockin'", and half of their adventures through time and space would consist of finding new and unusual places to have a juicy shag.
Spoilers: AU, DURING "The Girl in the Fireplace". If you haven't seen the first three series of Doctor Who, you WILL be spoilered. I like to mess with canon. And you have my word that -- despite how this starts -- I'm a passionate Rose/Ten shipper.
Summary: OTP Rose/Ten with a lot of interesting liaisons along the way. So what exactly DID Ten do in Versailles? This French farce will have love, drama, sex, and eventually as close to a happy ending as I can manage. Be forewarned, though, I may take you places that would make RTD's head explode.
On with the show:
(In which Nine and Ten come to the rescue and BadWolf!Rose takes charge.)
The Doctor comes to slowly. Blinks. Suppresses a moan until he’s sure he knows where he is. Cool grating beneath his naked back. He glances up. Central console to the TARDIS. No signs of damage. Outside, the unrelenting silence of the Rift. He looks down. No clothes. Over there. Soft, plushy sofa. Yup. It was real.
His whole body responds slowly to conscious controls. Languorous. Uncoordinated. Satiated in ways he hadn’t previously imagined, but now fully intends to savour. (And duplicate, if possible -- though probably wise to consider doing the next tryst in less dangerous surroundings.)
Grinning, he glances over. His ninth is similarly sprawled. Similarly uncoordinated. Similarly satiated. Nine gives him an unsteady (and slightly goofy) grin.
“Fantastic?” says the Doctor.
Nine nods, enthusiastic. “Fantastic.” He glances at the engines. “Never knew the old girl had it in her.”
He pats the decking affectionately. “Best ship in the universe.”
He glances at the sofa. Rose is draped over the cushions, exquisitely debauched and still out cold. Grinning, he goes to her. Kneels by her side.
She’s definitely out cold.
Very cold.
Hang on. Very, very, very, very, VERY cold! Not good.
He shakes off the languor. Rose shouldn’t be so cold. He sits beside her. Strips off the blindfold. Touches her face. Cold. Her shoulders. Cold. He presses a hand to her chest. Cold. Her heartbeat’s slow. Very slow. Dangerously slow. Cold blood in cooling veins.
Something has gone very wrong.
“She all right?” Nine gets unsteadily to his feet.
He shushes him. Quells all the emotions that threaten to short-circuit his ability to think. Rose’s life may depend on his ability to think. (He was a fool to try this. He should’ve listened to his ninth.) He shakes his head against the barrage of emotion. Cups Rose’s face in his hands. Looks into her mind.
She’s not there.
Memories remain. Brain still functions. But her soul, that piece of immortality that makes her more than just animate meat, is gone. (Not good. Definitely not good. This is all his fault.)
He reaches. Follows where she went. Dear God, she’s wandered off a long way this time... No... Not so much wandered as was thrown. A long way off. And she’s... in pieces. Fragments. Not unlike what happens to a Time Lord who fails to regenerate -- scattered in billions of atoms around the universe to re-emerge somewhere else, loomed into a new existence.
He quells panic. Refuses to be disoriented by the weird anti-geometry of the Rift. Finds Rose, a piece at a time. After a bit, she comes to him. Bit by bit. Little by little. She clings to him, rightly frightened by their surroundings. He reassures her. Helps her quite literally pull herself together. Draws her back to the safety of the TARDIS. Is oddly happy that at least there are some things he can do better than she. (How annoying would it be to be in love with someone who was omnipotent?)
And as he leads her back, he notices something else. A second possibility. Not yet formed. (Too soon. Much too soon.) No guarantees it’ll take even if it happens. (Theoretically, it shouldn’t even be possible.) But with time...
Back in the TARDIS, he smiles. That really would change everything, wouldn’t it?
He pulls them back. Her to her body, him to his.
He opens his eyes. Rose’s eyelids flutter, but don’t open. Rest. She’ll need rest. (Come to think of it, he will too.)
The TARDIS shudders violently. She’s given them a gift, but even she will tire in the silence of the Rift.
Nine grabs the sofa’s arm to keep from falling. He looks up, alarmed. “Unstable.” He glares. “Told you it was point seven four.”
“Point seven five,” he insists, though he’s not sure of anything anymore. (God, he’ll never forgive himself if he was wrong!) “Has to be.”
“Point seven four.” His ninth braces as the TARDIS shudders again.
“Point seven five.” He reluctantly leaves Rose’s side. (Check her again after he makes sure the lot of them don’t get de-atomized outside the bounds of space-time.) “A little perspective, please. This is hardly the time to squabble.”
“This is the perfect time to squabble,” says Nine. “Especially if it means I can prevent our getting killed. I don’t fancy skipping the tenth and going straight to Eleven. Assuming we’d get out at all.”
The Doctor heads for the console. Checks the readings. The not-space outside is much more frightening even than the Bad Wolf herself. (And if he’s not very careful and more than a little lucky, the Rift really WILL huff and puff and blow their TARDIS in.)
“Seven four.” Nine rummages through the piles of abandoned clothing. Finds his sonic screwdriver.
“Seven five.” He finds his own sonic screwdriver. Glares. “How did she live with you?”
“Quite happily.” Nine glares back. (His ninth always did have the most splendidly lethal glare. Unfortunately, it’s hard to appreciate when he’s being a bastard.)
“Seven four three two,” says a hoarse voice.
He and Nine turn, startled.
Rose sits up. Shakily reaches for the water pitcher and glass by the sofa. Drinks. Recovers moment by moment. Looks at them with eyes tinged gold by traces of the Time Vortex. (Their Time Vortex! The right universe!)
“Miss me?” she says.
Even the smile is right.
He’s surprised he and Nine don’t collapse with relief. “Rose!”
“Doctors.” She rises from the sofa with the grace of a demi-goddess. The air warps around her. “You need a Bad Wolf.”
They stare as she walks past them. (And he’s seized again by a pang of pure, awestruck lust.) She glances back at them. “Well? Come on, then. Six hands are better than two.”
Nine, speechless, turns to him for explanation.
He shrugs. “Things have changed.”
Nine’s mouth works for several moments before he manages, “Apparently!”
“Now, gentlemen!” Rose barks orders with all the surety of a young general. And her corrections and improvements are good enough that the lust inspired by affecting repairs with a naked (and curvaceous) bottle blonde takes a backseat to the sheer exhilaration of knowing how close he was to being right. Minor rewiring. A few loose connections. Slight changes to the computations. (He always was a little fuzzy with basic maths. Ask him to calculate the quantum trajectory of an inter-temporal hyperlink through five galaxies and he’ll be spot on. Ask him to add .3082 and 1.4350 and neither of his selves are correct to the nearest thousandth.)
Within moments, the TARDIS gives a sigh of relief. Rose glances out from under the console. “She says she’ll be ready to move in an hour.”
“And she’s sure she can get us home?” He has never loved either of them more.
She smiles. “She always does.”
Nine stares at Rose. “If you knew how to fix it before, why didn’t you step in sooner?”
“Paradox.” Rose’s mouth tightens slightly. She throws the Doctor a reproachful look. “He thought it best I play stupid so maybe you wouldn’t notice how much I’ve changed.”
Nine’s look deepens. If the Doctor didn’t know himself better, he’d say he was hurt.
“You were never stupid.” Nine cups her face in his hands. “And I always noticed you.”
Rose smiles. Throws herself into his arms. He hugs her fiercely. Pauses, surprised. Looks at the Doctor, eyes wide with wonder as he senses the same possibility the Doctor did. He mouths, “Is she?”
He gives a noncommittal shrug. Nothing is certain yet.
Nine’s eyes narrow. He holds Rose tighter. Mouths again, “Is she?”
He gives a less-committal shrug that might also be mistaken for a slight nod. Not certain -- nothing’s certain with the new-and-improved Rose -- but it could be possible. (And if not now, then maybe in the future as she continues to change. The prospect both frightens him to death and makes him want to lapse into a stupid smile.)
Nine grins ear to ear. (And -- with ears like his -- that’s a big grin.) “Fantastic!”
Rose pulls away a little. “What’s fantastic?”
“You,” says Nine. He snogs her hard to cover. Glances over her shoulder, blue eyes twinkling.
He can’t decide whether to glare or grin. Nothing is certain. No sense getting all excitable. And it’s not like it’d be the best idea in the universe anyway. Human and Time Lord have always been genetically incompatible, which is a good thing. No sense passing odd diseases back and forth -- he’s seen the human cold and wants nothing to do with it -- and he certainly doesn’t need to be a...
He doesn’t want to think about it.
When Nine releases her, Rose is weaving visibly. Chaotic traces of the Time Vortex thread through her. Oh dear.
He catches her eyes. “During repairs, you were in direct communication with the TARDIS?”
Rose leans against Nine. Blinks to focus her eyes. “Uh huh.”
“And the Time Vortex too?”
Rose nods, unsteady. “Had to follow the breadcrumbs home.”
Dear God, he actually knows what she means. “Catch her,” he says to Nine.
“What?” Nine’s face is a study of confused concern.
“Catch her,” he enunciates clearly. (Is the man DEAF?) “She’s about to--”
Rose faints. Nine catches her. “Rose!” He looks to the Doctor, stricken. “Will she be all right?”
“Sofa. Now.” For once, his other self doesn’t argue. He lifts Rose handily. Carefully lays her down. The Doctor sinks to one knee. Checks her over with an expert eye.
His ninth hands him a sonic screwdriver.
“Thank you.” He dials. Scans. The readings aren’t particularly useful, as there’s no way to be sure what constitutes “normal” for this kind of human.
What is certain is she’s gone cold again. He ignores the pang of guilt. (His instinct was right, dammit. It’s saved him countless times. No sense starting to doubt now.) He looks into her mind briefly. Soul is in there. She’s alive and intact, but in some kind of stasis. Actually, her stasis reminds him uncomfortably of his own period of weakness after a regeneration. Whatever she’s becoming, she’s still in the process of becoming it. (Life could get very interesting for the next little while.)
“She’s becoming like us,” Nine murmurs.
He nods. “Humanity Mark Two.” He gazes at her. “Gorgeous, isn’t she?” He shakes off the emotion. Cold. He hates not knowing how cold is too cold for this kind of human. His overcoat should be... he glances up. Yes. There. “Now make yourself useful and hand me that coat.”
“What for?” Nine eyes him, suspicious.
He quells irritation that threatens to erupt into full-blown rage. “So help me, if you question me again, I will open that door,” he points for full dramatic effect, “and let you be consumed by the Rift. Sure it’ll be a form of suicide, but at least I’ll enjoy a bit of un-harassed silence before I cease to be.” He glares. “I need the bloody coat because Rose is cold. Happy?”
Nine softens a little. Gets the coat. Hands it to him.
“She’s fantastic,” he says quietly.
He smiles in spite of himself. “Yes. She is.” He spreads the coat over Rose. Tucks her in. A little warmth. A little rest. Maybe a cuppa and she’ll be right as rain. (Hopefully. Not knowing is equal parts exciting and nerve-wracking.) In spite of himself, he savours the excuse to touch her. (God, he’s become SUCH a Romantic. It’s sickening, really.)
“You’re in love with her,” says his ninth.
Link to All Previous Chapters
Crossposted to:
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