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Rose Tyler felt the familiar thrill of excitement as she threw open the TARDIS doors and revealed yet another mystery destination. She absolutely loved this part. Would there be an alien landscape in front of her? A busy marketplace? A futuristic London or dinosaurs roaming the street? She had no idea, and that thrilled her.
However, nothing could have prepared her for the sight that greeted her just outside the doors.
They seemed to have landed on a mountain summit, right at sunset. The sun was dipping low in the horizon, shooting breathtaking hues of oranges and pinks through the sky. As she took in her surroundings, she realized with a gasp that the sky before her wasn’t even the most striking part. Spread around the rocky terrain was nothing but soft, fluffy clouds, so dense that she couldn’t see anything below. Though she could sense the hard ground beneath her feet, she couldn't quite shake the sensation that it was somehow more insubstantial than that, that she was actually floating above the clouds.
“Ah, yes, perfect timing!” The Doctor came up behind her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, tugging her tightly into his side. “Rose Tyler, welcome to Mauna Kea!”
Rose turned to him and grinned. “And who’s she when she’s at home?”
“Well, since you asked,” he returned her grin as he gently steered her out of the TARDIS. “We are currently standing on an inactive volcano on what will eventually become the big Island of Hawaii. The year is approximately 84 AD, a bit before the Polynesians began to populate the islands and, technically speaking, you are on top of the tallest point on Earth!”
“Thought Everest was the tallest mountain on Earth?”
“Well,” he drawled, tilting his head to the side. “Mauna Kea has an altitude of 13,796 feet, which is technically much lower than Mount Everest’s of just a bit over 29,000 feet. However, Mauna Kea is actually an island in and of itself. If you measured from the ocean floor to the summit, we are nearly a mile taller at 33,500 feet. So while yes, Everest is the tallest mountain above sea level, Mauna Kea is the tallest in total.”
“Brilliant,” Rose beamed at him and stepped out of his embrace to further take in their surroundings. “It’s so beautiful, like we’re on another world when we’re right here on Earth, sitting above the clouds.” She turned her body slightly towards his. “So, what brings us to Hawaii this evening? Coconut emergency? Conflict amongst the sea turtles?”
“Stargazing!”
Rose did a double-take. “Sorry… did you just say stargazing!”
“Yep!” He frowned, his eyes scanning over the dark, uneven ground. “Though this would be a bit hard on our backs, eh? Bit chilly as well. Wait just a tic!” He turned back and disappeared into the TARDIS, calling, “Be right back!” over his shoulder.
Rose shook her head fondly, the Doctor’s manic energy both endearing and utterly exhausting at the same time. There had been so much of this lately, hopping from one destination to the next with barely a second to breathe in between. Rose loved it, she loved seeing new planets and vistas, shopping in alien markets, and running for her life hand-in-hand with her mad alien. Still, she was human, and sometimes she craved the quiet downtime that had been in such short supply lately.
They hadn’t stopped running since they escaped that impossible planet. She could tell the Beast’s prediction that she would die in battle had shaken them both, despite the Doctor’s vehemence that the creature had lied. They’d gone from place to place, from planet to planet, anywhere and any when the Doctor could imagine.
It was magical and exhilarating but it was also bloody tiring.
The familiar rumble of an engine coming from inside the TARDIS broke through her thoughts. She turned back towards the ship in time to watch the doorway widen and a large pick-up truck barrel out of the console room, the Doctor grinning at her from behind the steering wheel.
“Where did you get that?” Rose laughed when he pulled up in front of her.
“TARDIS garage!” he replied, hopping down from the cab. “4 wheel drive, you need it on this terrain! You know, if we visited in your time we could drive up to the summit? Takes about two hours, and you need to watch your oxygen, but it’s a beautiful trip! Oh! Speaking of oxygen…” He dug into his trouser pocket, his hand disappearing halfway to his elbow before extracting a tiny, flesh-colored circle. “Oxygen patch,” he explained, crossing over to her and affixing the item just below her ear, his fingertips lingering just a moment before he pulled away. “The air can get extremely thin up here. The TARDIS can protect you to a point, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
Rose touched the little patch, just a tad dazed by his gentle touch on a spot she'd had no idea was so sensitive until that moment. She glanced up at him, her chest flooding with warmth at the softness in his gaze. “Thanks,” she whispered before her brain caught up with his words. “Wait, hold on! The TARDIS has a garage?”
“Of course she has a garage, Rose, where else would I have gotten a pick-up truck from? Well, what are we waiting for? When in America…well, not quite yet, but eventually...”
Rose followed as he moved around to the bed of the truck and pulled down the back wall, revealing a large, cozy looking sleeping bag spread across the floor and surrounded by several plush-looking cushions. Even a small cooler, thermos, and electric lantern were tucked into a corner.
She turned to him with a raised eyebrow. “You planned this, didn’t you?”
“What?” he asked innocently, a twinkle in his eye belying his tone. “How dare you accuse me of such treachery! This is all leftover from the last time!”
“Oh, yeah? Bring a lot of ladies to Hawaii for stargazing?”
“Nah, only the prettiest ones. Now hush and get up here, you’re going to miss the best part!”
Rose’s throat caught at his blatant flirting and she was too stunned to respond. She watched him hoist his slim frame onto the bed of the truck with his usual lithe grace, reaching out a hand to help pull her up after him. He crawled over to the sleeping bag and slid into the open side, lifting it and patting the plush-looking interior invitingly. “Come on in, Rose! I don’t bite. Well, when I say I don’t bite, I should say I don’t bite people... well...unless specifically asked, of course.”
Too stunned to say much else, Rose simply sat back on her heels and managed to squeak out, “We’re sharing?”
“It can get awfully cold up here, even in the middle of June. This sleeping bag uses 52nd Century thermoregulation technology, and it’s built for two. Nothing can beat the sharing of body heat to keep warm, eh?” He waggled his eyebrows adorably and Rose couldn’t help but laugh before crawling over to the sleeping bag and snuggling in next to him, her head finding one of the soft cushions he’d set behind them. He zipped the open side shut and Rose sighed happily as he settled into the lovely, warm cocoon, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tugging her into his side.
“There now,” he murmured, fumbling around inside the sleeping bag to thread their fingers together. “Much better than being out on the cold, hard ground, eh?”
“Much,” Rose agreed, rolling over so her head was resting on his chest. “Now, what’s this ‘best part’ that you wanted to show me?”
“Just watch the sky,” he whispered into her hair.
Rose turned her head and gasped. The sky had noticeably darkened since they’d exited the TARDIS. As the sun made its final descent, bands and bands of stars became visible over their heads, even as the last vestiges of pink and purple sat on the edge of the horizon. The inky black sky seemed infinite from their vantage point as the twinkling pinpricks of light shone more brightly than she’d ever seen from Earth, away from the light pollution of her home city.
“Wow,” she breathed out, completely entranced. She turned to the Doctor and could only just make out his features in the dim lantern light, his handsome face watching her reactions intently. “This is…incredible.”
“I know.” His voice cracked just a bit on the words, but he cleared his throat and turned back to the sky. He raised their joined hands out of the sleeping bag and Rose squeaked at the change in temperature.
“You see those stars?” he asked as he waved their hands above their heads, tracing a pattern that resembled a cross. “That’s called the Southern Cross, in your time. Hawaii is the only place in the modern United States where you can see it. Mauna Kea really is an extraordinary place. It’s north of the equator, so you can see all the northern constellations, but it’s so close to the Southern Hemisphere that you can see about 80 percent of those stars as well. In total, you can see about 85 percent of all the stars visible from Earth from right here.”
Rose gaped at the sky, awestruck. “That’s… amazing, Doctor. You know, you take me to all these places with purple sand beaches and glass mountains that sometimes I forget how gorgeous Earth can be as well.”
“It’s quite a place,” he replied as he tucked their hands back into the warmth of the sleeping bag. “And it produces quite wonderful creatures as well.”
With his superior senses, Rose was almost certain he could feel the heat rising in her cheeks at his obvious praise. She ducked her face into his shirt in a futile attempt to hide her reaction. “What other constellations can we see from here?”
“Well… off to the side there, the stars that sort of make up this shape?”
Rose peered up from her spot on his chest but couldn’t stifle her gasp as his fingertips traced feather light across the skin of her upper arm, starting at a point and spreading out before one single finger traced a line upwards and out. She swallowed and glanced around the sky, focusing on something other than the little bolts of pleasure his touch was causing, instead locating the pattern of stars that he’d drawn on her skin.
“Yeah.” She found herself unable to speak above a whisper.
“That’s Leo, Latin for ‘lion’,” he explained, his voice having dropped as well. “It represented the Nemean Lion, killed by the hero Hercules.”
“Yeah? Wh-what else?”
“There’s Gemini,” he replied, once again tracing a larger pattern into her skin that made her belly swoop and her breath catch. “Can you see them? The twins?”
Rose forced her breath under control before peering in the same direction he was. She easily made out the two identical figures, the stars connecting in her brain and making stick figures. She giggled.
“And what, Rose Tyler, happens to be so funny?”
“They’re stick figures,” she forced out between giggles. “They look like something I would draw in kindergarten!”
“These constellations are named from an ancient, formative, and great society! I am utterly shocked that you are not showing them the reverence they deserve! I’m quite disappointed in you, Ms. Tyler.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she replied, letting go of his hand to wipe the tears from her eyes before reaching back into the sleeping bag and grasping it once again. “Go on, then, tell me another one, so I can be properly reverent.”
He huffed, but pulled her in tighter by their joined hands.. “Well, if you’ll turn your attention just above our heads, you might be able to make out this pattern in the stars.”
He once again began his delicious caresses on her arm, dipping higher up to her shoulder and down towards her elbow in an elaborate pattern of dips and swirls. How such a light touch could have her fighting to control her breath was completely ridiculous, and yet here she was, trying to keep from panting audibly against his skin.
She swallowed. “Can’t-can’t say I can. What is it?”
“Oh, it’s a good story. The Traveler and His Companion.”
Rose was fairly confident she stopped breathing completely at that point. She chanced a glance up at him, barely visible with just the lantern as their source of light, but she could easily make out that dark, fathomless gaze fixed upon her face.
“Yeah?” she whispered, afraid she would break the spell that had settled over the moment. “Tell me?”
“Well,” he drew out, his fingertips now stroking the skin of her arm in a soothing rhythm. “Legend has it, the Traveler was an outcast. He didn’t fit into the way his society expected him to be, so he ran away.”
“He did, did he?”
He hummed in the affirmative. “Indeed. But he never quite found a place where he belonged. He certainly enjoyed his travels, and enjoyed meeting new people, but nowhere quite felt like home. But then…” He trailed off before picking up again. “...well, then his people were lost. The place he had been able to at least call home, even if he had never really felt it, was destroyed.” He let out a breath. “He was the only one left.”
“That sounds terribly sad,” Rose replied, letting go of his hand to trace her own fingertips against his cheek. “What happened to the traveler then?”
“He… didn’t want to go on,” he admitted hoarsely. “He traveled, he helped where he could, but he was… oh, so alone. But then…” He turned more fully onto his side so they were now face-to-face, their breath mingling and their noses almost touching. “His companion swung into his life and saved him, and suddenly his world was awash in life and color. They ran together, they hopped together, they saved each other…” He once again trailed off, and Rose could just make out his eyes squeezing shut briefly before opening again and boring into hers. “And he realized, suddenly, no matter where they were, as long as she was there, he felt like home.”
Rose’s breath caught, hot tears pooling in her eyes and words bubbling up in her chest, but the Doctor continued before she could speak.
“Then, one day, he nearly lost her,” he said, his voice quiet. “And he realized, he’d never told her how much she meant to him. Oh, she knew, of course she knew. But he’d never said it. He said so many things, Rose. But never the important things. The things he should have said. The things that needed saying.” He caught her gaze, even in the near darkness. “He’d never told her he loved her.”
Rose was a half a step behind, her heart racing as she tried to process what he was saying. He was watching her, his brow furrowed in concern when she didn’t respond, and she could feel the muscles in his shoulders tense as he made a motion to pull away from her.
Well… they couldn’t have that.
Without much advance thought, Rose brought her free hands up to grasp his lapels and pulled him back to face her. Knowing his night vision was better than hers and he could likely see her face clear as day, Rose caught her tongue between her teeth and grinned at him. “That sounds made up.”
In their proximity, she could see the corners of his mouth lift, making his eyes crinkle adorably as he reached up with both hands to cup her cheeks. “Rose Tyler. You should know by now that every word out of my mouth is the truth.”
And with that, he leaned in, slowly, giving her every opportunity to pull away, to deflect, to go back to the way they always were.
As if she would ever waste this chance.
While she awaited him in breathless anticipation, he drew her closer, brushing kisses first over each eyelid, then her cheekbones, igniting her skin while cradling her face as if she was the most precious thing in the world. When he finally reached her lips it was with the most feather-light touch that bordered on reverence.
That insubstantial feeling returned, and she was floating again.
With a shaky exhale against her mouth, he increased the pressure of his kisses, every brush of his lips setting alight nerve endings she didn’t even know she had until she was dangerously close to panting with need. That feeling of pure weightlessness prickled through her limbs as he increased the press with each kiss agonizingly slowly. Desperate to spur things on, her hands came up to sink into his hair and he made an amazing sound into her mouth, somewhere between a moan and a purr. It tugged at something deep inside her, the vocal expression of his desire spurring hers even further, and the kiss turned voracious. His lips moved expertly against hers and she groaned, allowing his probing tongue to slip into her open mouth and stoke the fire that was currently spreading to everywhere their bodies were in contact. Rose scraped her nails gently against his scalp, and with the sexiest moan she’d ever heard in her life, Rose found herself on her back.
The Doctor, for his part, barely seemed to register the movement, as the rhythm of his kiss did not change in the slightest. It wasn’t until he pulled away several moments later, glassy-eyed, breathless, and silhouetted against the infinite stars, that he finally seemed to notice their position.
He looked down at her in complete awed disbelief, as if he expected her to disappear at any moment.
“Hello,” she murmured as she moved her fingers through his hair. His eyes drifted shut at her ministrations as a deep, contented sigh escaped his lips.
“Is this a dream?” he whispered.
“I sure hope not,” Rose whispered right back, using the gentle grip she had on his hair to tug him back down into another kiss. “Feels real,” she murmured against his lips.
“Mine always do. Superior Time Lord brain. They always feel real, but then I wake up and you’re gone.”
Rose’s heart ached not only for him, but for all the time they had wasted, wanting one another but too afraid… her fear of being rejected, or of hurting him more when she inevitably withered and died; his of losing her and having to live on alone. Those things were still very real, but after this taste of what it would be like to be with him, she knew she wouldn’t be able to let this go without a fight.
She wanted to show him that this, that they were worth the risk.
“Not this time,” she finally replied, sealing her mouth to his.
He sagged into the kiss, bringing more of their bodies into contact and, even through their layers of clothes, Rose could feel the heat of him and craved more. She ignored his whimper of protest as she removed her hands from his hair, smoothing down his lapels and slipping underneath his jacket. His breath stuttered when her palms settled against the cotton covering his waist. She tugged the garment free of his trousers and dipped her hands underneath to find unusually hot skin waiting for her.
“You’re burning up...”
“I raised my body temperature to help keep you warm. Oh, Rose,” be breathed out her name, pressing his forehead to hers, the simple contact making her heart skip a beat, somehow more intimate than any they’d had up to this point. He kissed down her cheek and across her jawline, hitting a spot on her neck that seemed to have a direct connection to her core and made her hips buck inelegantly into his.
The Doctor stilled against her neck with a sharp intake of breath, his arms tightening around her waist. Rose wasn’t sure if he would pull away or respond to the motion, but the last thing she expected was the sudden, wet heat of his tongue pressing against that exact spot on her neck that had caused said reaction in the first place.
This time, his own hips anticipated the motion of hers and they both groaned at the contact. Suddenly quite ravenous for the feel of more skin under her hands, Rose brought them out from under his Oxford and attacked his buttons, first of the jacket and then of his shirt, as he lavished distracting attention on her neck and collarbone.
With shaking hands, she managed to open his Oxford and pull his tie free from its knot, but bundled in the sleeping bag as they were, she couldn’t quite find the room she needed to push the clothing off his shoulders. Instead, she stroked up and down his chest, caressing the definition of his muscles with her fingertips. He shuddered against her, gripping her more tightly to him as his lips returned to hers. He kissed her deeply and resumed the delicious friction of their hips rolling against each other.
The Doctor moved one hand from around her waist to her cheek, cupping it tenderly as they kissed before tracing it down her neck. When he grazed the side of her sensitive breast she gasped into the kiss, and he took advantage of the opportunity to nibble a bit on her lower lip before pulling back to meet her gaze, a question in his eyes.
“Yes,” she breathed, arching against him. “Touch me, please.”
He watched her face intently as his second hand joined his first in dragging her T-shirt up her chest. His eyes turned dark when he found her nipples, stiff beneath the white lace. She raised up her arms and he tugged her shirt over her head, smoothing her hair down as he gazed at her with that look of stupefied disbelief all over again.
“Beautiful,” he breathed out, returning his face to her neck as his palms cupped her breasts through the fabric. He moved his hands around gently, testing their feel and her response to different touches. She arched into him when his fingertips grazed her nipples and couldn’t stop the moan from escaping when he slid the lace cups down and captured the sensitive skin between his lips, flooding her with a new wave of arousal.
”Oh, God!” she choked out, her palms grasping the back of his head to keep him firmly in place. She felt him smile against her skin as he tested various pressures and suctions and combinations thereof.
Her hands flew to his bum when he added his teeth to the mix.
She encouraged the gentle rocking of his hips to turn more firm, pulling him against her, craving friction where the pressure was turning unbearable. Judging by his sharp intake of breath, he enjoyed the new rhythm just as much as she did and, desperate to feel more of his skin, she slid her hands beneath the pinstriped fabric and gripped the firm, supple flesh she found there.
The Doctor wrenched away from her breasts with a long, low groan, eyes screwed shut and lips parted. He looked so irresistible in that moment that Rose couldn’t help rocking upward and capturing his mouth in a searing kiss as she kneaded the heated skin under her hands. Wanting more and wanting it now, Rose withdrew and grinned at his little mewl of displeasure. She popped the button of his trousers and navigated the zipper carefully over the sizable bulge she found there. His breath stuttered as the change in pressure, and the sound he made when her hand enclosed around his length went straight to her core.
She explored the smooth skin, testing his reactions to her touch just as he had tested hers. She alternated between delicate caresses and firm pressure, pushing certain extra-sensitive areas to the back of her mind to enjoy more fully when they had a better range of motion. His eyes were half lidded and his jaw was slack as she experimented, and the dark look in his eye was enough to make her positively ravenous to have him inside her.
He sighed when she removed her hands, but caught up quickly when she pushed his trousers down his legs, as far as she was able in their confined space. In turn, he attacked the button and zip of her jeans, deftly maneuvering them out of the way, bringing her knickers along with them, and somehow freeing one of her legs in the process.
His hand went immediately between her legs, and for a moment she wasn’t sure if the stars she was seeing were the real ones overhead or just in her mind.
“Rose?” he stammered out. “Can we…?”
“Please.” Normally she would have been embarrassed at the needy response, but this was the Doctor, and he was just as far gone as she was, judging by the slight tremor in his hands as he probed her slick flesh and the desperate lines of kisses he was placing anywhere within reach. With her affirmative response, he nodded and propped himself up on one arm, coaxing her legs as far apart as they could within the confines of their sleeping bag.
Their eyes were locked intently as he pushed inside of her.
“Blimey,” he breathed out, dropping his forehead to hers as their breaths mingled in unison. “That’s…”
“So good,” she panted, shifting her hips and loving his strangled gasp as he slid deeper inside of her. “Move, please.”
He did, burying his face in her neck as he stroked in and out of her, his movement restricted by the sleeping bag but the angle still perfect. He was whispering to her, broken phrases that she could only half understand as he lapsed into what she presumed was Gallifreyan. His hands wouldn’t stay in one place, caressing her face before gripping her breasts and providing some much-welcome friction against her nipples, before settling on her hip and stroking against her clit with perfect pressure.
She was climbing embarrassingly quickly, so tightly-wound before he had even been inside of her that there was no way to hold on when he felt like he was made for her, his elegant fingers knowing how to play her body like an expert pianist. The pressure sparked from her core so quickly that she could barely breathe, and by the time his uneven breaths turned into a deep, throaty moan, she was coming apart right along with him.
He collapsed against her, panting like he’d just run a marathon and holding her tighter than she could ever recall him holding her before. She gripped him just as close, stroking her hands soothingly up and down his back as he let out rapid, shaky breaths against her neck. Meanwhile, that insubstantial, floaty feeling had returned to Rose’s body. Every one of her limbs felt deliciously loose, her muscles utterly relaxed, and their shared body heat making the temperature inside the sleeping bag just warm enough that she could drift off at any moment.
Her senses came back to her slowly and she registered the spectacular expanse of stars above her head, recalling the “legend” the Doctor had shared with her just before things had gotten so delightfully carried away.
“So what happened next?” she murmured into his hair.
He drew his head up slowly, his eyes half lidded, cheeks flushed, and his smile slow and lazy. “Hmmm?”
“With the traveler and his companion?” she asked. “How did their story end?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“Well,” Rose drawled out, doing her best impression of the Doctor about to launch into lecture mode. “Turns out, he not only told her he loved her, but proceeded to show her in a most pleasurable manner.”
The Doctor’s grin turned wolfish, but she continued on with the story. “Then, the companion realized that she hadn’t answered him, which was a terrible oversight on her part.”
“Absolutely awful,” the Doctor agreed.
“Because, as it turned out,” Rose pressed on, reaching up to brush a damp lock of hair off his forehead. “She loved him, too. More than she’d ever loved anyone in all of her years.”
The smile that he gave her rivaled the stars above. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“And then what happened?”
Rose grinned back at him, her tongue caught between her teeth as she reached into the blanket to lace their fingers together. “They lived happily ever after among the stars, of course.”