Bonded

Author's Note: I'm not sure how long this idea's been in my head, but I'm glad to be writing it down. I always thought that maybe the two 'Doctors' were connected through some sort of link (which neither of them need be aware of), since hey, they sort of look like twins even though obviously they aren't.

Mostly I like this theory because it would make a cool scene for 10.5 to be walking down the street in Pete's World (with Rose) and sort of feel something in the air when 10 regenerates. (Obviously, the regeneration would break the link since they're no longer the 'same' person)

Okay, enough of my blathering. Enjoy!

Pairing: 10.5/Rose, 10/Rose, hints of 4/Romana II
+============================================================================+

All of the universe before him, and he was alone.

The Doctor pursed his lips and exhaled. Absently, he wondered how long it'd been since he'd left Rose and that...other him at Bad Wolf Bay; since all of his friends had walked away for what he knew was most certainly the last time.

Her touch still burned on his skin. He wished he could keep better track of time, but when you moved about it so freely, it was hard to place how long you'd been traveling. Especially when you were alone.

His hands rested on the controls, uncaring of where he ended up. He couldn't think straight. As the TARDIS thrummed, he worked.

Then suddenly, the sensation of lips soft and warm on his own. The Doctor drew back in confusion, biting his cheek and checking that he was in fact, alone. But the sensation is gone as quickly as it has come.

It is replaced by a warm, light feeling in his chest, and he fights tears. Oh, fate would not be so kind to keep him apart from this. This torture was undeserved.

Nothing seems to travel across the void, but this does.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Either hours or months or eons later, after achingly bitter moments where he can feel her hands across his face (though she's not there), a long dormant feeling wells in the pit of his stomach.

Oh Rassillion, what had he done to deserve this? Was it not enough he had had to let her go, with someone every inch the same--but not him?

He falls to the couch, away from the control room. The study always calms him down, and he takes a deep breath, and tries to will the feeling away.

The sensation of her hands everywhere does not help. Over his shoulders and down his back and her lips upon the other him and that wanting to touch her is back in full force.

Mercifully (or not), he can feel her in his fingertips; the curve of her breasts, her hips. The softness of her skin. Much unwanted, a moan issued from the Doctor's lips, from somewhere deep, lost.

There's a feeling of urgency and he is quick to play along and his trousers are soon around his ankles, and hands places they have not wandered in countless years. It is almost sensory overload to feel her ministrations as, across the void, his wiry fingers replicate them in her absence.

He feels he will cry when her heady scent and taste float through his mind. If he strains, he thinks he can hear her crying in want, in joy.

Across the dizzying divide, Rose grips the sheets, arching into her love's mouth. This was her Doctor, hers to love and not a stand in (never a stand in) for the man who had loved her so much that he had let her go. It had been awkward at first, this relationship between them.

But he was the same as this other man, but he was different and that intrigued her. And now here they were, tumbled to the bed in a blur of skin and cloth and

Oh, Ohhh my.

She can't think straight any more. His cool hands trace intricate patterns across her stomach, her thighs as he works to please her.

He is lean, all sinew and muscles and she drags her nails across his pale skin, wondering at his internal structures.

And suddenly he is kissing her again, trailing up her stomach to her mouth, and she can taste herself mingled with him. He whispers into her ear and she responds with a heated kiss, and several choice words escape from her swollen lips.

He only grins, and in a shock of pleasure, they're joined. Her eyes almost roll back at the sensation, and he catches her up in a kiss, holding her close as his hips roll into hers and she holds on for dear life.

Even across the void, the Doctor knows the feeling, even if the last time he had (truly) enjoyed it was years before when another fiery blond (this one from Gallifrey) had seen past his grinning facade and known him to the core. He can still recall her fingers threaded through his curls and how he thought he'd never love anyone as much.

A shuddering moan sounds through the study and he cannot help but buck into his own touch, marveling at the way that Rose is moving. He bites back the urge to weep, the feeling that he is voyeur in some strange way to something he should never have been near.

It seems like an eternity that he spends in blissful but bitter torture, but he feels her grip tighten and the almost imperceptible sounds of her go higher and higher in pitch, and suddenly it is all finished. He feels her shudder and it is finally too much and he releases.

A few deep breaths, shaking, and he makes to clean himself up. He returns to the control room, exhausted. He sits in the seat and prays that whenever this lifetime is up, and he has a new face and way of thinking, that this will not follow him.

Mercifully, it does not.

Across the void, Rose is pressing kisses along the 'new Doctor's jawline, both spent and floating in satiated bliss. His hands linger on her stomach, still cool, tracing long-forgotten letters in his native tongue.

He whispers something lyrical, musical into her ear, and though she does not understand what it means, she begins to cry. He kisses the base of her beck.

"I will always love you, Rose."

And she knows it is true.