Sweet as Sugar

Sweet as Sugar Chapter Twenty Four
Disclaimers Apply

A/N I officially give up trying to keep on schedule! Whenever I say it, things run amuck! That aside, Foxy is a wondermous beta goddess! And thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! AFFN is down and wonky and I can’t update there like usual so for now, this is the only place this fic is going until other arrangements are made.


One time, when she was very young and her father had hit a particularly lucky, albeit short lived, streak with one of his schemes, her parents had taken her on holiday to the shore. She had been ecstatic, running back and forth along the very edge of the waves, letting the foam scallop across her toes and marveling at the tiny shells that were no larger than the tip of her finger. She had ventured out to knee-deep water, her six year old legs splashing through the chill waves, her heart thumping hard with the excitement of this unexpected, pleasant escape with her parents who had not fought even once since leaving London. Then, like the hand of God coming down, she was knocked back by an incongruously large wave. She had sputtered and choked, swallowing mouthfuls of cold, salty water as her legs buckled, the pull of the water dragging her away from her parents on the shore. Rose remembered vividly the feeling of panic, of loss, and how the world shifted almost seamlessly from bright daylight to cold, dark water to nothing. She woke up in the seaside town’s tiny hospital, her chest aching and her body still dusted with sand like so much burnt sugar. It seemed that, for days, all she could hear was the roar of the water in her ears as the wave pulled her under and the crush of the sea against her ribs, pushing the breath out of her before the strange peace of drowning started to steal through her. Standing in the door of the TARDIS, the Doctor’s hand suddenly splayed on her back as if he could reach through her to the Rani, Rose heard the roaring again and felt the weightless peace of nothingness. “…Eve?” She shook her head, her fingers curling into fists by her hips. “Sorry, but you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not your anything.”

The Rani did not reply aloud. She simply inclined her chin as if appraising a particularly rare antique, pursing her lips before walking towards them both, her hips rolling in a confident gait. Stopping just short of touching Rose and the Doctor, she raised a brow and let her lips curve into a smile. “Time Lords are, for the most part, a stiflingly honor bound group,” she murmured, reaching out to touch Rose’s hair, her fingers skimming to the pale skin of her cheek and then along her jaw. Rose tensed visibly, her body fairly vibrating with a deep anger that overrode any fear she might have felt. The Rani’s smile shifted, became a fair semblance of a concerned moue. “Do not fret, my dear prodigy. You have passed all of the necessary tests. You proved yourself to be intelligent, cunning even, strong both physically and mentally, and you are, without a doubt, pleasant to look upon.” Her gaze flickered to the Doctor and her moue became a vulpine grin. “Even Theta has noticed.”

“Do not,” he intoned sharply, “use that name with me.” He slid his hand along Rose’s back to her side, curling his fingers around her waist and pulling her back, moving to stand between her and The Rani. “Gallifrey is dead. I am all that is left.” He cast a cold gaze at his ancient nemesis and added, “You are not numbered among the dead of Gallifrey. You are cast out, a persona non grata, as it were.” He paused, his mouth open slightly as if he were about to speak, but a confused, then morbidly fascinated look stole across his features. “Is that…”

Rose, pressed against the Doctor’s back, felt the double pulse of his hearts speed up as his muscles tensed beneath his coat and shirt. She could feel the heat radiating off him, carrying his honeyed scent, growing more intense as if he were growing warmer in his excitement. “Doctor?”

“I hear it,” he murmured, shifting his weight forward to the balls of his feet as if he were preparing to run.

“It’s home, Doctor. You can feel it, can’t you? Gallifrey breathing it’s life around you, moving through you. You feel complete for the first time in forever, don’t you?” The Rani’s voice was soft, almost caressing.

“Doctor, listen to me,” Rose said firmly, pressing as close as she could. She could feel her body respond to his in a way she had tried to suppress for such a long time, since before the Bad Wolf came. Since then, since taking the TARDIS’s power into herself, it had been nearly impossible to ignore the way she felt when she was near him, how her body and soul seemed to quicken. Touching him, even simply holding hands like they typically did, send fire racing in her veins in a way that was beyond the basic lust she had felt with boys her age and the tender, small kind of love she had felt with Mickey, bless him, she thought. It was as if something inside her, something deep down under layers of mortal thought and reasoning, were struggling to the surface, trying to break free and find it’s other half. She would die for him, she knew, die without hesitation. “This isn’t real. Gallifrey was destroyed, remember? You told me… you said you couldn’t feel it anymore… it was gone, with everyone, everything…” He did not reply, just swayed slightly on his feet and sighed softly. “Doctor, please…”

“Rose,” he said suddenly, shifting and turning so that he faced her, still tightly against her even though they did not need to be. His hands moved to her hips, his eyes blazing in a fearsome way that made Rose’s heart leap to her throat, heat pooling in her belly and coursing through her nerves until she wanted to sink to the floor with it. “It is real. This is Gallifrey… I can feel the pulse of it all around us…” His grin was manic, for once scaring Rose rather than delighting her. “We’re home! The Rani finally did something right!”