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He watched Rose shivering, clutching the blanket to keep warm even as her body was burning with fever. Her fragile human body, doing the best it could to regulate its temperature as her immune system fought the viral invaders. The illness had hit her fast, early that morning; one minute she’d been laughing with him, leaning against the console, still dressed in her pyjamas, the next she’d almost collapsed to the grated floor.
“Thought you said ...” she paused and her teeth chattered. “TARDIS filtered all that stuff out.”
“It does, but the system went down a few days ago, before we went to Prytellaxia VII. I just didn’t realise it.” And that was killing him, the knowledge that Rose’s infection was his fault, that it could have easily been prevented if he’d bothered to pay attention to the TARDIS’ self-maintenance logs. Too much time spent showing off for his companion, wrapped up in their adventures together. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’ll be fine. S’Just a fever.”
It was a fever of 40 degrees Celsius, and if it got any higher he would have to engage in more drastic measures to bring it down. He checked the IV he’d already hooked up to keep her hydrated, the needle piercing the soft skin of her arm. His jaw was clenched tight; he could feel the muscle twitching under his skin.
“Won’t I, Doctor? Be fine?” He thought he could feel the trembling that wracked her body in the beats of his hearts.
Forcing himself to smile, he touched her cheek. Her skin, always hot to his touch, was like fire. “Course you will.”
“Cause I’ve got the best doctor in the universe,” she replied, and her smile tried its best to break him.
She dozed off then, and he watched her and watched the monitors of her vital signs, hoping to see some improvement. At least she wasn’t getting worse, he thought, taking her limp hand in his.
“Doctor,” she said when she woke, her eyes far away. He wondered if she was really awake. “You’re still here.”
“Of course I’m still here.” He squeezed her hand.
Rose smiled serenely, her eyes crinkling shut. “I love you.”
He almost choked. “What?”
“Don’t act so surprised,” she mumbled, her voice scratchy. “You knew. You’ve always known.” He didn’t know what to say to that. “What’s more, I think you love me, even if you never say.”
The Doctor swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. “Not saying doesn’t make it less true.”
She was quiet for a while, and he thought she’d gone back to sleep. “Once I’m well, ‘m gonna kiss you.”
A slow smile crept over his face against his will. “Are you now?”
“Mm-hmm. Might do more than that, so you should prepare yourself.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Rose Tyler, you naughty girl.” Then he added, hoping it would help her fight the infection that was ravaging her, “When you get well, you can do whatever you want with me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Maybe he even meant it.
“Let’s shag, then.” And before he could recover his wits enough to respond to that, she was snoring.
***
Her hours were a haze of chills and wild imaginings and the Doctor’s frigid hands on her skin. This time when she woke, her body was making one overriding demand. With a supreme effort, Rose sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the Doctor asked her, and it was only then that she saw he was there, a constant presence.
Rose waited before the wave of dizziness passed before she answered. “I need to pee.”
“Ah. Right.” He came over and wheeled the IV pole around next to her and then tenderly took hold of her arm. “I’ll help you get there.” She was powerfully grateful for him to lean on, because once she stood up she realized she’d never have made it on her own. The bathroom was only a few feet away from her bed, but it seemed to take forever to traverse the distance. “Okay?” he asked once she was next to the toilet. “I’ll give you some privacy, but shout if you need me.” And he closed the small door, leaving her alone.
She had to lean heavily on the IV pole as she eased her pyjamas and knickers down with her free hand. She dropped heavily onto the toilet, her head in her hands as she relieved herself. It was only once she was ready to get up that she realized she had a problem. She grabbed onto the IV pole with both hands and pulled, her arms shaking with the effort.
“Doctor?”
The door opened immediately. “You all right?”
“I can’t stand up.”
He was at her side in an instant, taking her arm as he had before and helping her stand. This time, though, she was in the unfortunate position of having her pants down. She felt too miserable to be terribly embarrassed.
“Um ... let me help you with that,” the Doctor said. She closed her eyes, feeling his fingertips grazing her legs as he pulled up first her knickers, then her pyjama bottoms. “There we are.”
“Thanks.” She wanted to apologize, but she wasn’t sure what she’d be apologizing for: being so weak, or making him see her half-naked? That thought led to another, and she had the sudden feeling that there was something she should have been remembering. Something the Doctor had said earlier, maybe? Or something she had said?
They were walking slowly back across the infirmary when the Doctor stopped. “Rose, you okay?”
“Yeah, just ...” She looked into his concerned, expectant eyes. “Nothing. Remembering a dream, I guess.”
He smiled tightly. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
***
Her fever finally broke on the third day, just as the Doctor was actually considering taking her to a hospital in the future, just preferably not in the Cassandra, cat-nun era. But he came in to the infirmary to find her drenched in sweat, her temperature down to almost normal. She woke up as he was disconnecting her IV.
“Hey there,” he said as she blinked her eyes open. “How are you feeling?”
“Ugh.” She groaned and smacked her dry lips. “I hurt all over, and it tastes like something died in my mouth.”
He handed her a cup of water. “Well, believe it or not, you’re much better. Your fever’s down.” He grinned, giddy with relief. “We’re going to be gallivanting across the universe again in no time at all.”
“Before we do that, could I take a shower?”
He frowned. “You’re still really weak, Rose, you could pass out and crack your head open.”
“But I feel so gross. Please? I know I’d feel much better if I could just clean up a bit. I’ve been in these pyjamas for ... I don’t even know how long.”
“All right, fine, but only if you let me help you.”
Rose’s eyes got very, very wide. “Help me? What, you mean, like, bathe me?”
“I’ve been helping you go to the toilet, Rose. What’s the difference?”
She struggled to stand up. “There’s a difference.” As he helped her down the hall to her bedroom, she added, “I mean, if you really want to see me naked that badly ...” The Doctor tripped over his own shoes, and Rose had to grab the wall to keep from falling down.
“I’ll sit down in the bathroom, then. In case you need me.” He scratched the back of his neck, looking up at the ceiling. He certainly wasn’t picturing her naked, he thought, under the spray of a shower.
“Okay.” She walked along the wall the rest of the way to her bedroom, and the Doctor trailed along behind her.
Once he heard her step into the shower, he let himself into the bathroom and leaned against the sink. Rose’s pyjamas were pooled on the floor, and he could see her colourful striped pants peeking out from underneath the crumpled T-shirt she’d been wearing.
“Doctor?”
“Hmm? What?” He looked up guiltily.
“Just checking to see if you’re out there.”
“You doing all right?”
“Yeah. Just feels good to be clean, finally,” she said. Steam rose from the shower stall, and he could smell the floral scent of her bath gel.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better.”
Rose didn’t say anything for a while. He could see the vague outline of her body through the frosted glass, moving around under the water. I’m only watching to be sure she isn’t going to fall, he thought to himself, rubbing a hand over his mouth.
“Doctor?”
“Yeah?” He could tell she was rinsing her hair.
“Before, when I was delirious with fever ... did we talk about anything ... I don’t know.”
He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Did we talk about anything what?”
Rose was standing still now, like she was looking toward him through the glass. “Did we talk about anything inappropriate?”
“What makes you say that?” he said, flinching at his cowardice.
There was a long pause. “I don’t know,” she finally responded. “Must’ve been a fever dream.”
“An inappropriate fever dream?”
The water shut off. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said, a smile in her voice. “Can you hand me my towel?” The Doctor watched as her arm extended from behind the shower door, water dripping from her pale skin. He did as she asked, eyes averted. She began to dry off, the towel moving over her body, and then he saw her stumble.
“Whoa.” He jerked open the shower door, catching her as she fell against the wall. “Rose? You okay?”
“Yeah.” She held the towel against her chest with one hand, clutching the arm of his jacket with the other. “Just got a little dizzy.”
“Let me help you.” He guided her out of the shower and into the bedroom, his palm pressed against her bare back. Carefully, he eased her down onto the bed. “Okay?” She hadn’t managed to get the towel all the way around her body, and although she was mostly covered, he could see one perfect, unbroken line of naked skin from her side to her hip to her leg.
“Can you get me some clothes?” She gestured weakly toward the wardrobe.
“Of course.” He opened drawers until he saw more of her little pyjama sets, and he pulled out matching shirt and shorts, handing them over to her.
“Knickers too,” she said with an apologetic smile.
“Right. Knickers too.” Back over at the wardrobe, he opened the top drawer, finding himself faced with a wide array of choices. He picked up a pair of black ones — no, she wouldn’t want black knickers, not while she was sick. Perhaps these purple ones? No, too tiny and she’d want a natural fibre.
“Doctor, stop fondling my pants!”
“What? I wasn’t ...” He grabbed a simple pair in blue cotton and handed them over, then turned around while she changed.
“Okay,” she said finally, and he turned back around as she was climbing under the covers of her own bed. “I don’t suppose you could bring me some toast, could you?”
“I’d be happy to.”
“With strawberry jam?”
“Of course with strawberry jam. How else would one eat toast?”
“And some tea?”
“Coming right up.”
“You’re wonderful.”
He grinned. “I know.”
***
They were snuggled together on the sofa in the media room, watching a film. Rose was finally almost one hundred percent better, and they were planning a trip somewhere special the next day to celebrate. He hadn’t told her where, and in truth, she suspected he hadn’t decided on a time and place yet. For now, she was so relieved that she felt normal again, and when the Doctor had come to her that afternoon with a large bowl of popcorn and suggested this, she’d almost felt like he was asking her on a date.
She was almost asleep when the credits rolled, her head pillowed on the Doctor’s chest, her mind soothed by the alternating beats of his hearts. He had an arm casually thrown across her shoulders.
“Rose, I need to tell you something.” She heard it as a rumble, her ear pressed against ribcage. He flicked the telly off, throwing the room into near darkness.
She looked up sleepily at the outline of his dishevelled hair. “What’s that?”
He cleared his throat. “We did have an inappropriate conversation while you had a fever. You didn’t dream it.”
“Oh? What was it about?”
He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand and looked up at the ceiling. “Well, you said ... wellll ...” He took a deep breath. “You might have expressed an interest in ... in kissing me. Once you were well.”
She held back the grin that was threatening to burst out over her face. “And what did you say?”
“I said ... I said that would be fine.”
“Is that all you said?” she prompted.
“I might have said ... you have to understand, you were very sick. I just wanted you to get better.”
“Doctor.” She was extremely conscious of how close they were, there on the sofa together, and of every point of contact between their bodies. “What else did you say?”
“I said that once you were well, you could do anything you wanted to me,” he rushed out.
Now she did grin at him. “I know.”
“You what?” His eyes were wide, his lips pursed around an O of surprise.
“I finally remembered. Well, not the details, but the gist of it.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he whined, his voice pitched high.
She sat up, giving them both a little bit of breathing room. “Because, like you said, I was sick. You probably would have said anything to keep my spirits up. I didn’t want it to feel like I was going to hold you to it.”
He frowned. “You’re not going to hold me to it?” She could have sworn he sounded disappointed.
“Do you want me to?”
“I ...” He made a sort-of frustrated, strangled sound, running his fingers through his hair. “Do you want to?”
Rose knew an impasse when she saw one; the situation was full of outs for both of them to escape through. But surely he wouldn’t have brought it up unless a part of him wanted her. Throwing caution to the wind, Rose leaned over and kissed him.
His surprise was only momentary, and then he was most definitely kissing her back. She’d expected to have to gradually coax him into a more passionate kiss, assuming he didn’t stop things altogether and run away. But it wasn’t happening the way she’d imagined. His mouth opened readily under hers, his tongue darting out to taste her mouth, one of his hands going into her hair and exerting pressure on her scalp. Rose tilted her head and deepened the kiss, and she thought she heard a tiny, stifled moan from the back of the Doctor’s throat.
Because of the way he’d been reclined in the corner of the sofa, she was already half on top of him, and it only took a few minor adjustments from both of them before she really was lying on him, one of her legs thrown over his, chest pressed to chest. It might have been their first proper kiss, but it was long and wet and full of desire. When their mouths finally parted, Rose gasped for air.
“So ...” She looked down into his face, at his dilated eyes and open mouth. “I can do anything I want to you?”
A slow smile crept over his face, and Rose wondered if she’d ever seen him looking sexier. “Anything.”
“So if I were to undress you ...”
He sat up enough to place a wet kiss on her neck, then another and another and another toward her ear. “That would be within the parameters of anything,” he murmured against her skin. She could feel his smile.
“And then if I wanted to, say, have sex with you,” she added, her eyes falling closed at how good his mouth felt. He responded by finding her lips and kissing her again, harder and deeper and his hands slid down her back, pulling her against him as he bucked upward with his hips. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she gasped.
“Yes.”
Rose sat up, trapping the Doctor’s hips between her legs. As she pulled her jumper off, she rotated her hips, enjoying the hardness of him even through layers of clothes, enjoying the way he stared at her breasts. She reached behind her back, unhooking her bra with a practised hand and dropping it on the floor.
“I thought you were undressing me,” the Doctor said.
“You’re complaining?”
He sat up quickly, taking first one nipple, then the other, into his mouth. “Not complaining,” he murmured. His tongue on her skin made her writhe on top of him, alight with pleasure.
Rose slid the Doctor’s jacket off his shoulders, then loosened his tie and began working the buttons of his shirt. He helped, tossing his shirt aside and pulled her into his arms for more deep kisses. Skin against skin, and she thought he must have felt the thundering of her heart against his chest, or through the pulse point that he sucked. Rose threw her head back, giving him more access. He rolled them, guiding her underneath him on the large sofa. His hand traced down from her neck to her breasts to her belly. Long, nimble fingers unfastened the button of her jeans. “Sure you’re feeling up to this?” he asked. “Because if you need more time to recuperate—”
“Shut up.” She pulled him down into another kiss as the Doctor slid his hand inside her open jeans. When his fingers touched the top of her knickers, he stopped kissing her to squint down below her waist.
“Ah, the purple ones!” he crowed approvingly. “I noticed those.”
“I knew you were taking too long sorting through my pants,” she said.
“I was just looking for something that looked comfortable, because you were still so sick.” His hand continued its downward trek even as they talked, and then Rose gasped as this fingers finally touched her intimately. Light touches, teasing, spreading her moisture and making her hips buck in response.
“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he groaned against her, the teasing note in his voice replaced by something else entirely. A little part of her wanted to shake him for not doing anything about it before now, but the last thing she wanted to do was spoil this moment. Better late than never, she thought, but also, better sooner than later.
“Then what are you waiting for?” she asked him, her teeth clenched, as he continued to stroke her. She reached down to finish taking her jeans off, and he took the hint, seeing to his own trousers. As he unfastened them, Rose couldn’t take her eyes off the the trail of hair starting at his navel and disappearing under his waistband, above the unmistakable bulge of his erection. Then they were both of them bare and she reached for him, pulling him over her, between her legs. She was shaking, feeling delirious that this was really, finally happening.
He moved his hand between them and adjusted the angle and oh, God. Rose couldn’t imagine that anything in her life would ever feel better than that first moment that he entered her, deep and full and so perfect. They kissed and there was a moment of crystalline stillness, a moment that she wished she could capture and experience forever.
Then he was moving. Long, slow strokes, hitting her just right on the apex every single time, and she moaned and sighed her pleasure into his open mouth. His hips between her thighs, and the slippery motion of his cock in and out of her, the almost-unbearable heat of her climax building and building — she screamed when she came, her head thrown back, and she felt his teeth graze her neck.
The Doctor’s thrusts became harder and less controlled as Rose’s awareness bled back in, and she reached up and braced herself on the arm of the sofa above her head. “You’re so ... perfect,” he bit out, reaching down to raise her knee over his hip, spreading her wider. “So good. You feel so ... “ and he trailed off into a low moan as he came, still moving inside her in short strokes, his face contorted in ecstasy.
She held him close, hips rocking in time as he slowed and then stopped. Rose didn’t ever want to forget this, not one tiny detail of this precious day. Danger came at them from all sides sometimes, and so far they’d overcome it all, even the alien virus that had tried to lay her low last week. Still, she’d never know when a day with him might be her last, a fact that made her want to cherish every moment all the more. She kissed his temple, fingers combing through his unruly hair.
The Doctor lifted his head enough to kiss her lips gently. “Don’t ever get sick again,” he whispered.
“Aww, but it turned out so well for me,” she said, grinning.
“Rose, I ...” His eyes searched hers, as if for some clue as to how to finish his sentence. Finally, he said, “I think ... we might be more comfortable in a bed somewhere, don’t you?”
She doubted that was what he’d been planning to say, but she smiled happily anyway. “Yes. After all, I’m not sure I’m finished with you yet. Anything I want, remember?”
He hummed with contentment, making no move to withdraw from her in spite of his words. “I’m an old man, Rose. You might have to let me rest a while.”
“You? Rest?” She touched the back of her hand to his forehead. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay, Doctor? Haven’t contracted any alien diseases, have you?”
He giggled, kissing her on the nose. “I’m feeling ... perfect.”