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She was alright now. It was okay, no need to worry anymore. Everything was perfectly fine.
Doctor was keep telling himself that, but he couldn't quite convince himself. After the events of the day he couldn't stop thinking about what would happen if Rose didn't get her face back.
'No' the Doctor shook his head to wash away these thoughts. If he's gonna keep thinking about this he's gonna go mad.
„You okay?” the Doctor heard Rose's concerned voice by his side and felt her hand lightly squeezing his.
„Yep” he said as casually as possible and managed to give her what he hopes was a reasurring smile. But she knew him well enough to know he was lying to her. Yet she didn't push him. She just nodded her head and they reached the Tardis in silence.
He opened the door for her without a word and she muttered her 'thanks'. She clearly wanted to ask him what was wrong. He could see it in her eyes, how she was watching his every movement carefully, trying to see through him.
But he wouldn't tell her. He couldn't. If he would tell her how incredibly scared he was for her today, and how relived he was that she was okay after all.. he would probably crash every boundary he set up beetween them right away, because he would tell her how he really felt about her, and that was something that he couldn't ever do. He promised himself a long time ago that he would stay silent about his feelings, the feelings he shouldn't ever have.
It was all too complicated. He couldn't... they could never.. be together that way. He was a Time Lord, he was over nine hundred years old and she was a human. That was just impossible. And it would just make everything worse at the end, because at some point she will eventually leave him, and if he let himself love her, it's only gonna be more painful for both of them.
So he stayed silent while he sent them into the Vortex, and she was still watching him, waiting for him to speak about what was bothering him. She lost her patience eventually, because she stepped closer to him and carefully put her small and soft hand on his shoulder.
„Want to talk about it?” she asked the question so quietly he almost missed it.
„'Bout what?” he was playing daft now, like she didn't already know that something was wrong.
„About what's bothering you.”
„Nothing's bothering me.”
„Doctor I-”
„Want to watch a movie or something?” he interrupted her, before she could finish the sentence and she blinked at him, confused.
„What?”
„You know.. a movie? Or you want to read maybe? Just spend some time together before you go to sleep?”
She was staring at him for a few seconds, but she finally managed to process that he was asking her a question.
„Um.. yeah sure. We can maybe read „Harry Potter” together? Just.. give me few minutes to change and brush my teeth?”
„Of course.” he managed a smile, but he knew it didn't exactly reached his eyes. Rose saw that too, but she didn't say anything more, she just turned on her heel and left the console room.
The Doctor took a deep breath and left to his room as well. He quickly changed into his pj's, brushed his teeth and wash the product from his hair. He dried them a little with the towel then so now they were all messy now, standing in multiple directions, but he remembered that Rose liked his hair that way so he decided to not do anything with them and headed to the library.
Rose wasn't there yet so he moved to the kitchen to make them both a cup of tea. He could easily send a mental messege to the Tardis to make them tea and it would already wait for him in the library, but he had to make himself busy with literally anything so he wouldn't think too much.
But making the tea took him less than five minutes so he was left with nothing to do again. He sighed with resignation and headed back to the library with mugs in both his hands. Thankfully (or not) Rose was already there, and she gave him a warm smile when she saw him. He reciprocated it the best he could and placed both mugs on the table in front of a couch. The copy of „Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire” was already there, exactly when they left it the previous day.
They made it a habit that they were reading to one another almost every evening, taking turns. The Doctor liked when Rose was reading to him. She had a beautiful and soft voice, he could listen to her reading, or even speaking nonsense for hours.
Rose didn't waste any time and she picked up a book and handed it to him. Even though he loved to listen to her, he didn't complain. He had do keep his mind occupied, and reading was a good solution, at least for now. So he opened the book on the page they finished last time and started reading, while Rose took more comfortable position on the couch. She was painfully close to him, but at least they wasn't touching.
He was doing pretty good with focusing on the story instead of Rose for like fifteen minutes. But then she decided to change her position and she shifted closer to him so now their thights were touching and she put her head on his shoulder.
That wasn't the first time they were sitting like that. There were times they were even closer to each other, when he had his free arm around her shoulders for example, while the other was holding the book. It wasn't usually bothering him, he liked to have her close, but today everything was a little different for him, and the words on the page stopped making sense to him.
She must have noticed that he got distracted about something and she took the book from his hands to read it herself. But apparently she was unaware of the fact that her closeness was the reason of his distraction, because she shifted on the couch, so now she was lying on it with her head on his lap.
The Doctor took a sharp breath, but she either didn't notice or pretend nothing happened. She continue reading, but he wasn't really listetning to the words that were coming out of her mouth.
He was staring blankly at her, studying her face like he saw it for the first time.
He could lost her today. Her beautiful face was gone for like an hour or so and he almost lost his mind because of that. He couldn't stand the thought that he could not see this face again. His beautiful Rose.
He let himself admire her features instead of focusing on her words. He knew the book by heart anyway, he already read it like five times.
She washed off all of the make up she had previously, but he liked her face better without it. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, probably from the heat of the fireplace near them. She had delightful brown eyes that was usually sparkling with excitment and curiosity. Their colour reminded him of honey, but they wasn't exactly like this. They were unique, nothing in the entire universe had the exact same colour Rose's eyes had.
He dared to look at her lips then. Oh how much he wanted to kiss those lovely lips.
Then he realised that the specific part of Rose's face that he was staring at wasn't moving at all.
He then looked her in the eyes to realise that she was beaming at him and waiting for him to realize that she wasn't reading anymore. He felt his cheeks growing red in embarrasment that he had been caught, but she didn't look angry. Just concered.
Rose sighed heavily, then took a seating position and faced him.
„Doctor please tell me what's wrong.” she whispered pleadingly. Doctor opened his mouth to deny that anything was wrong once again, but she was faster. „And don't tell me that everything's fine, because I know you better than this, and I can tell when something is bothering you, and.. I want to help you. Please?”
She was practicly begging him to tell her and he didn't know what to do. He could't just leave the room and tell her to piss off, he would never do such thing. But he couldn't tell he what was going on either. Doctor ran a nervous hand through his already messy hair.
„You can't help me with that m'sorry Rose.” he finally said. She looked hurt and he just wanted to hug her, but he managed to keep his hands to himself.
„Let me try at least? Please Doctor, y'know you can tell me anything right? I hate it when you're upset, just tell me what this is and maybe we can figure this out together okay?” she then reached to take his hand in hers, and he let her to that.
„It's just..” he started, but he didn't really know how to finish that sentence. She tried to encourage him to keep going by stroking his hand with her thumb, but if he was being honest, her touch was only making this worse.
„I was.. so scared today. When I saw you and your face was gone I just... I was so angry, and scared and...” he stopped talking again, afraid that he already said too much. Instead of looking at her face, he was staring at their interwined fingers.
„But you can calm down now. I'm here and I'm okay and my face is back.” she tried to comfort him. „You can stop worrying now Doctor, everything is fine..”
„Nothing is fine, Rose Tyler.” he didn't mean to snap at her, but he just lost it. „Because I'm still thinking about how it all could go wrong or how something still can go wrong at some point, and I don't.. I can't..” he bite his tongue before he said too much, but it was no turning back now.
„You can't what?” Rose's voice came out as a whisper. They were sitting in very uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, before Rose lost her patience and she lifted his chin with her fingers so he would look at her. „Finish that sentence Doctor.” her voice was sounded threating now and he almost spit something stupid like 'or what?', but he then relized that it was Rose, she would never let go until he tell her the truth.
„I can't lose you.” he finally said and she blinked rapidly, like she couldn't quite belive in what she just heard. Doctor couldn't really belive it either.
„You're not gonna lose me Doctor.” she replied after a minute, still not fully understaning what he meant.
„I will eventually.” she wanted to say someting to that, but he didn't let her. „You'll leave me eventually one way or another, whether you like it or not. And I'm not sure how I'm gonna survive this, because I let you get too close to me, and it's still not enough for me, I still want more, something that I can't have, because it will only make losing you even more painful, and I lost enough in my life already, I don't know how much more I can take.”
There. He told her. The whole truth. He really shouldn't, but he couldn't just lie to her when she was looking at him like that.
Rose was now staring at him with her mouth slightly parted and her eyes lost. She really didn't know how much he care about her? How could she possibly not know? It's not like he was hiding it so much. He just never said it. Well.. until now.
Doctor didn't even realized that single tear slid down his cheek until Rose reached to wipe it out of his face gently. When she done that, instead of taking her hand away she placed it on his right cheek and he let her. He closed his eyes for a few seconds to gather his thoughts. When he opened them again Rose was looking at him with so much love and devotion in her eyes, that he nearly regenerated right on the spot. He knew she loved him. It just would be so much easier if she didn't.
„You're so daft sometimes you know that Doctor?” she finally spoke and he blinked suprised. That wasn't exactly the aswer he was expecting.
„Insulting me – that's your solution? Wow.” he said sarcastically, but somehow he couldn't help but smiled a little.
„What I mean is... wouldn't it hurt even more when you won't allow yourself to have feelings? Why can't we just... spend the time we do have together the way we want?”
The Doctor was speachless, and it wasn't happening very often. He had no idea what he should do. Try to convince her that he didn't mean it like that? Leave the room and pretend that conversation never happend? Tell her she should go back to her mother and leave him forever? He didn't want to do any of those things.
„Doctor?”
„Hm?”
„You didn't answer my question.”
Oh.
„Right. Er.. Maybe.. maybe you're right.” he admitted and Rose was clearly suprised.
„I am?”
„Yeah.”
They both went silent and were just staring at each other. Suddenly Doctor became painfully aware of how close they were sitting right now. Her hand was now on his neck, and the other was still interwined with his on his thigh. And their faces were only inches apart now.
He have no idea who made the first move, but the next second his lips crashed with hers and her hand was in his hair pulling him even closer.
Her lips were soft and warm against his. This felt a way better than he expected it to feel. None of his dreams about this moment could compare to reality.
The Doctor placed his hands on Rose's waist to pull her body closer to his, and she hummed with appreciation against his mouth, and he couldn't stop the muffled groan that escaped his own mouth. If they'll carry on with this like that he might regenerate from all of the things the felt right now after all.
He could kiss her all night long, but then Rose pulled away from him, breathing heavy and he realised that she had just one heart and no superior biology like he had, so she had to stop eventually.
„Did we just..” she started and he smirked, pleased with himself that he made Rose Tyler all flushed and panting.
„Yep.” he confirmed.
She was looking him in the eyes unsure how she should react. „Please tell me you're not going to brush it off now and tell me to forget it ever happend.” she said after a moment, suddenly sounding scared. Well he couldn't blame her that she was thinking he would do that. But Doctor was done with running away from his feelings.
„Rose Tyler. There is nothing in this universe that would make me forget this.” he said truthfully and she smiled at him with this tongue touched smile he loved so much.
He wasn't scared anymore.