Doctor Who | songs from the vortex [Songfic Collection]

Tonight

Summary: "Movin' to the rhythm of your heartbeat. Oh, I'm wantin', waitin', touchin' you. We'll be movin' to the rhythm of your heartbeat. Oh babe, when you get that rhythm, gonna move into your room. Tonight—give me love with no disguise. Tonight—I see the fire in your eyes. Tonight—so right, this night, could it be dynamite? Wait and see. If it pleases you it pleases me."

Note: Post-The Idiot's Lantern. Here there be smut.

Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler

Song: "Tonight" by Def Leppard

Originally Published: 2 December 2013

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The dark blue police box shell of the TARDIS barrelled out of the space-time vortex and slowed its fast spin as it adjusted to being in actual space. Inside the darkened console room, green light from the time rotor cast shadows on the coral-like struts against the walls and on the angular features of the TARDIS's thief, a tall, skinny, spiky-haired man known as the Doctor. His brown eyes and hair had darkened to black in the green light, and his entire face was furrowed in deep thought.

He'd saved 1953 London from the Wire a few hours ago and had been reunited with Rose, but he couldn't forget the sight of her standing there in the police station without her face.

They'd taken her, chucked her out in the street, and left her there. As a result, that had made things simple, very, very simple.

It had also made him realize just how much he cared about her, and that he was tired of playing whatever waiting game they were making.

"Doctor?" Rose's voice interrupted his thoughts, had him turning his head to look at her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm always okay." His hands, he noticed, were gripping the console so hard they'd turned white. He wasn't sure if that was from pent-up anger or from stopping himself giving in to the urge to touch her, to have her hands on him.

Rose stepped forward, closer to him, and a shiver raced through him when her hand rested on his shoulder. "No, you're not," she said softly. "What is it?"

He forced himself to meet her eyes and saw only concern in the whiskey-colored orbs. Concern . . . and something else. That potent mixture had him confessing, "I almost lost you today. Rose, I promised your mother I'd keep you safe."

"You're doing a lousy job of it," she said with a tongue-in-cheek smile to show there were no hard feelings.

His expression hardened, and her smile died. "If something happened to you, something I couldn't fix . . . if you died . . . Rose, you and the TARDIS are all I have left." A hollow laugh escaped. "Not to mention your mother would skin me alive and then crucify me."

"Only after you'd—" At his cold look, she trailed off. "Sorry."

He focused on the console, shook his head to clear it. "If I lose you, if you die because of me, I don't know what I'd do, Rose."

The hand that was on his shoulder slid across his neck. He turned toward her, let her embrace him, his angular frame to her curves. Suddenly he wanted more than just holding her. He needed to be sure she was real, he wanted to taste her, touch her. He'd waited this long; surely he could wait a bit longer.

"S'okay," she murmured as he tightened his hold on her, buried his face in her hair. "We'll always be okay, you and me."

The Doctor closed his eyes, inhaled her scent, and tried to shake off the sense of foreboding that came with her words. After a long moment he drew back to study her face and found he couldn't look away from her eyes. His own emotions were reflected in that golden-brown, along with the something else he'd seen earlier, something almost primal, animal.