Chapter Text
Norway - 878 AD.
A storm was coming.
The sound of thirty warrior-driven voices pierced the air, all chanting, all rowing the oars of their longship as best they could in the growing waves. Night had fallen, which meant their path home was currently illuminated by hazy moonlight, and much to their annoyance, it had started to rain.
“Keep calm. Odin, guide us!”
In true traveler form, they began to sing.
“Harken will in hall of Kings, on ocean’s steed, my words gain wings - ”
The water was ruthless, splashing onto their faces as they rocked forcibly from one side to the other. The chanting continued, as did their stubbornness, even as the wind began to pick up, shouting at each other to “keep heaving” and singing and reminding them that Odin was watching, until the water completely drenched the ship, and they had no choice but to stop for a moment.
Only one man kept singing.
“The brave men slain, Valkyrjur ways - ”
“We should aim for the shore. Ride this out tomorrow,” one of the men suggested, ignoring the song.
“I agree,” another said.
“No. The longer we take to get back the more chance we’re spotted,” someone else warned, and everyone began to mumble. “We keep going. Skål!”
“Skål!”
At that moment, a wave smashed into the side of the ship with more power than any of them could have anticipated, and two men were thrown overboard. Their screams reverberated around them, and frantically the others called their names, standing up just in time to watch as their bodies disappeared behind white foam and darkness beneath it, and suddenly, they were all arguing.
The rain was coming down harder now, so cold it was almost hail-like as it cut their tattooed, bloodied cheeks, and pounded the wood at their feet. The man who was singing looked out at the moon, not paying attention to his crewmates as they fought over what to do next, and a chill ran through his spine.
“May horns resound the mighty hall, of those who fight and those who fall…”
The wind wailed, the ship shook, and the man stopped his chanting, screaming instead as he and all the rest of his crew were tossed to one side, all hitting their heads on the cargo they were carrying. It was a tempest’s symphony, underscored by thunder and lightning, when suddenly they all saw something move in the water.
“EVERYONE, JUMP!” someone bellowed, but the creature, whatever it was, jumped first, lifting its large body out of the water, and with a hiss it crashed down onto the longship, breaking it in half as it devoured part of the crew. It then slithered away.
“Is it over?” a man asked. No one said a word. It was so dark they couldn’t tell what had just happened exactly, and none of them cared. Those that remained were simply swimming quickly away from the ship’s remains, trying to get to shore, desperate to save themselves.
“BROTHER!” someone shouted toward the man who had kept singing, reaching for him, but he was clinging to whatever piece of the ship was still available to him, searching the water for the creature rather than moving. “BROTHER, COME ON!”
He sang.
“For we who fight, for we who fall -”
The creature hissed once more, carrying water with it as it rose from the depths, and all anyone could do was close their eyes as it crashed down on them, sending the waves in every possible direction.
No one heard their final screams.
ᛃᛟᚱᛗᚢᚾᚷᚨᚱᛞᚱ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ ᚠᚨᛚᛚ ᚨᛏ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚹᚨᛁᛚ ᛟᚠ ᚨ ᚹᛟᛚᛞ ᚨᚾᛞ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚱᚨᚷᛖ ᛟᚠ ᚨ ᛊᛏᛟᚱᛗ
The Vortex - time irrelevant.
“How much longer?” Rose Tyler asked as she sipped a cuppa, trying to get the Doctor’s attention, but her voice was overpowered by the music that was blasting through the ship’s com, and she sighed as she began to look around the room. His jacket was laying on the ground near her feet, and she picked it up, dangling it over the grating just to see if he’d notice, but he was rather enthralled with his repairs, and she dropped it where it had been as she tried to watch him work. She could only see the outline of his profile at the moment, and she smiled, because she knew that despite all the complaining he did about the TARDIS’ “indigestion” he truly loved to dote on her, and he was most likely stroking bits of her at that very moment.
“Want me to leave you two alone?” she teased. She could see the tips of his messy hair from under the grating, and she couldn’t help but burst out laughing when she realized that not only was he not paying any attention to her, he was singing at the top of his lungs while his screwdriver buzzed.
"I don’t give a damn ‘bout my reputation -”
His fingers drummed along the metal, in perfect syncopation to the beat of the song.
“Oh, no…. Not me…. WAAAAA-oh…. Not me -”
With a flourish, he twisted a suspension motor in place and bobbed his head, still singing, before he moved on to axle rods and transient circuits. Given the state of his jacket, his sleeves were up to his elbows and covered in grease, and when Rose caught a glimpse of his forearms in the golden light of the coral, she felt her stomach flip over in the best kind of way.
“Helloooo? Doctor?!”
“NO! I DON’T GIVE A DAMN ‘BOUT MY BAD REPUTATION!”
Her smile radiated off of her when he finally popped his head out of the floor and locked eyes with her, and he grinned back.
“How long have you been there for?!” he yelled over the music, panting lightly.
“Hello, nice to see you too.”
"Hello,” he said, smiling, but the music was still playing, and he began to hum. “ROSE! It’s Joan Jett!!! HA!” He turned the music off with a click of his sonic, and he began to wipe his hands clean with a flannel as he joined her by the controls. “Really, though. How long have you been here?”
“In this room? Or since I first came aboard? Because both are the same at this point,” she said, tapping an invisible watch on her wrist. He rolled his eyes.
“Joan Jett…The Runaways! Absolutely brilliant, she was, and think about it - if that doesn't fit us, I don’t know what does. Not that we run away. Quite the opposite, but we do run a lot, don’t we? And we -”
“God, you’re such a punk,” she said, interrupting his ramble, and he smirked.
“With a bit of rockabilly thrown in,” he chimed, his eyebrows wagging, and they both laughed as his hand patted the coral. The TARDIS hummed in appreciation. “Right! Well, she’s in tip top shape! We can go wherever we want! Do whatever we please! Kayaking through the Nile? Climbing the top of the Ghuruu Mountains? Ooh, we could attend an art festival on Oatuliyan, or go see some music, if you want.”
“If I want?” she repeated, and he nodded. “Do I get to pick who we see?”
“Depends,” he murmured as he took her tea out of her hand and sipped it, and he didn’t miss the way her eyes dropped to his bobbing Adam’s apple before they looked back up at his face. “Who’d you have in mind?”
“What?”
Her voice was breathier than it had been moments before, and he tried to ignore the way it made the hair on his arms stand up straight. But she was taking him in properly for the first time all day, and he was… It was unfair that he should look like this, actually. His hair was wild and dusty. His chin had a slight smudge of grease on it. His tie had somehow come loose along with his collar, and she had an overwhelming urge to plant her lips to the pulse she saw in his neck as he stared at her. She looked down at his forearms again, her eyes tracing every inch of skin until he cleared his throat, and she snapped out of it.
“N-Sync,” she said without thinking, and he groaned. “Fine, sorry. Spice Girls.”
“I just played you Joan Jett - ”
“- then you should have said that’s who you wanted to see!”
“N-Sync?!” he scolded, but his eyes were playful, and she felt her entire body flush. “Three years without you, dreaming of all the places I still wanted to take you, and I get you back only to have you demand we go watch bloody N-Sync -”
“Well, there’d be no strings attached -”
He burst out laughing, and she smiled brightly as he cupped her cheeks with his palms and gently pressed his lips to hers. She sighed into it, the fact that they do this sort of thing now still entirely out of her realm of understanding, but she didn’t spend time questioning it. Instead she wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling him toward the jump seat until his knee touched her thigh. His tongue sought permission to find hers, which she accepted gladly, and for several moments they snogged against the controls, his hands dropping from her cheeks to her neck, until she pulled away to catch her breath.
In all the planning and hoping she’d done when she’d been trying to find her way back to this universe, she never imagined she’d meet a Doctor who was unabashedly ready to admit how he felt to her. She expected a more reserved man than she’d known, in fact. One who had been worn down by loss and would keep her at an even greater distance than before. One who trusted her, but would be scared of her (or scared of losing her, maybe, or perhaps both); who needed reassurance that she didn’t regret her decision to leave her family behind and be there with him, but instead she found him surprisingly vulnerable, and it was still rather impossible to believe.
Grief does things to a person.
The day they reunited simultaneously haunted and comforted her dreams. It was two months ago now, back when the universe was falling into darkness with Davros at the helm, and she’d found him on an abandoned street with Donna as the only witness to their embrace. He’d almost been hit by a Dalek as they nothing short of sprinted toward one another, but by some act of grace she’d spotted it first and shot it with her gun, which he didn’t even try to scold her for having as he lifted her off of the ground, holding her so tightly she thought she might actually break in his arms. Jack appeared, as did Martha and her mother and Mickey and Sarah Jane, and more people from Torchwood, and it should go without saying that they saved the universe from total destruction.
Defenders of the Earth, through and through.
Mickey was still in this world with her, currently working for Torchwood and dating Martha, whom she’d come to greatly admire. Donna traveled with them often but was currently home taking care of her granddad. Jack showed up every now and again with a wild mission he needed their help with, but her mother was gone. Alive and well, but still gone. The day they saved the Earth she’d asked to pick up Tony and Pete before the walls between the dimensions sealed for good, but when they arrived at Bad Wolf Bay they realized they didn’t have enough time to wait for them, and she chose to stay behind.
That goodbye was gut-wrenching and bittersweet, but they had both been preparing for it for years, and no amount of protesting from the Doctor would ever change Rose’s mind. She also refused to think about that now, because somehow, after all that time, she got everything she wanted, and every day of her forever was going to be spent aboard the TARDIS with him, just like it used to be, and that was enough.
Well… maybe not exactly like it used to be.
He kissed her again, his fingers tangling in her hair, and she moaned softly, sliding her hands across his shirt and up to his open collar, which she began to play with. The kiss deepened, their noses brushing up against one another as she began to unbutton his oxford from the top down, and he helped her - pulling the bottom of it out of his trousers without breaking his kiss. It fell to the floor next to his jacket a moment later, and she tilted her head when his lips descended upon her neck.
He shuddered when she moaned.
He hadn’t expected this either, of course. He always knew that should he be so lucky as to have Rose come back into his life that he’d be unable to resist what she meant to him, but he didn’t expect sex to be part of the equation. Alien biology. He never really thought about it, but now that he’d experienced it with her, it was quite literally always on his mind.
She was always on his mind.
Always.
“Arms up,” he whispered, and she obliged, squirming as he lifted her shirt above her head and tossed it by his clothing. He cupped her breasts over her bra, kneading and flicking as she gasped, and with a slight growl he eventually propped her up so she was sitting on the edge of the controls. With a moan, his tongue traced feather-light strokes along her collarbone, and she began to fumble with his belt as he pulled back and stared at her, unable to comprehend her beauty in the light of the coral.
“Wait.”
Gently, he wrapped his fingers around her wrists and paused her movement. The double beat of his hearts were racing, and she panted as she looked at him, still squirming a little in place, but she didn’t try to break free of his tender grasp.
“Hello,” he whispered, and she smiled. Desire coursed through her like a wildfire, all consuming, but his eyes bore into hers with an even hotter heat, and he gave her wrists the softest of squeezes, when she suddenly groaned impatiently and stopped his thoughts of gratitude that she was here before they’d really begun.
He smirked.
“You look beautiful,” he whispered, but the next thing he knew she’d caught his lips in a frenzied kiss, and he finally released her hands, giving her permission to rip his belt off and pull him closer until they were both naked, and without words he slowly sank into her. They were done with foreplay, they both knew what they wanted and knew it would be sublime - and as their bodies wrapped themselves around one another they both cried out. This was all still so new, but it was also beyond every possible expectation, and for as long as his hearts might continue to beat, he will never understand how they never did this sooner.
He groaned her name as her hips thrusted to meet his pace, seeking friction. “ Ohhh, Rose…”
A squeaky sound escaped her lips that stirred primal something in him, and as he rocked into her he leaned her body back against the controls, supporting her with his arm so she didn’t get stabbed by any of them. He nibbled a trail of love-bites along her hips and ribs, and he moved fluidly, panting and catching almost every noise she made with a wet kiss, and when she wrapped her legs around his waist, he discovered whatever control he’d had left was gone, and he was lost in her . Lost to her. Would be completely lost without her.
He knew from experience.
“You feel… incredible,” he groaned, trying not to think about that when her soft skin was cupped in his hands, and she nodded.
“You…oh….”
She could imagine his smug smirk at her inability to form a thought, but for some reason that spurred her on more, and her fingers roamed his entire body, wishing there was a way to hold him closer than she already was. They kept pace with the pulse of time beneath their feet, and he whispered words of encouragement in her ear, begging her to come for him, his movements growing frantic and needy as her moans grew louder and more desperate, and when her cheeks flushed and the most ecstatic scream reverberated from her chest into his, he found himself not far behind, his limbs turning to jello as the gnawing, desirable tension he felt in his gut released.
“ R-r-rose - ffffu-” he gasped, and without realizing what he was doing, his hand accidentally moved the lever as he came hard, chanting her name, but before he’d completely come down from his high and they had a chance to catch their breaths, the TARDIS was on the move.
They were both thrown to the floor in surprise.
“OW!” he cried when his back slammed against the grating, and she bursted out laughing. He looked up quickly, his legs tingling as he tried to figure out what had happened, but she continued to laugh, and his heartbeat began to settle when he realized they were safe. They were just… traveling.
He looked over at her, watching as she slowly sat up and tucked her hair behind her ear, and she leaned her forehead on his shoulder. He smiled. “Fancy a trip?”
“I think she was sending us a message to stop shagging in here,” she chuckled, and he winked as he slowly kissed her head. Their bodies felt light and sated, and she hummed happily as she stood, feeling the familiar pulse of the TARDIS getting ready to land radiating through the room, and she made her way over the monitor to see where they were.
"Ah-ah-ah, wait, come here,” he said instantly, pulling her away and back into his arms. One hand firmly pressed into her lower back, and the other twisted the monitor away from them so they couldn’t see it. “I reckon it’ll be more fun not knowing, hm?” She bit her lip, unable to hide her smile as he sniffed and looked back at the door. “Probably should put some clothes on.”
“Thought you don’t care ‘bout your reputation,” she teased, and he raised an eyebrow at her, her wit and banter sending a fuzzy feeling into the air. He opened his mouth for a comeback, but with a sly grin she bent down and grabbed his jacket, and when she wrapped it around her naked body he forgot what he was going to say.
“That’s…erm…”
“Wanna take a peek?” she whispered, her voice dripping in flirtation, and he cleared his throat, unable to understand how a bloody jacket could have him feeling aroused again, and her hand slipped into his perfectly as she led him to the door. Before she could open it, however, he had her pressed against the railing, and his fingers were brushing over her right breast beneath the pinstriped fabric.
“Do you know what you do to me?” he said in her ear, and the gravelly tone of his voice made her sigh. “Everything you do, Rose… Everything… it…”
His thumb grazed her nipple, and she whimpered. For several seconds, he teased her, watching her reaction, and he began to kiss her jaw.
“I know we just… but… you… I missed you,” he admitted, and she kissed him, shimmying her body out of his jacket so she could wrap her arms around his neck.
“I missed you, too,” she whispered, and he nodded, pressing his forehead against hers as the emotions he’d not been able to shake since he saw her on that street came flooding back at once, and he guided his fingers down… down… down… until she gasped as he touched her.
“Bedroom,” he insisted, and the new ground they had waiting for them stayed a mystery as they explored sweeter terrain, their voices echoing through the ship as they wasted no time making up for lost time.
(Someone knocked at the door.)