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He wakes up cold, heavy and stiff. It was a deep sleep, far deeper than the Doctor's used to, more like a regeneration coma than his typical kips. There's something at the back of his head, something throbbing and lonely. A kind of emptiness, too. So many things he doesn't want to think about. He pushes his face further into the pillow, finding it particularly soft, embedded with a soft floral fragrance that always makes his mind wander to satsumas. It smells like home.
He'd dreamed of her face again, he remembers. At least it had hurt less than usual.
He wills himself back to sleep, back to her. The room is too light, quieter than it should be, and before he can stop himself he wonders why Donna hasn't woken him up yet. The thought snares on something inside him, surprisingly jagged, and he grunts. The bed is too soft, he thinks, and something in the room rustles at the sound. Someone. He opens his eyes.
It's not his room in the TARDIS. It is pale where his should be dark; sunlit, early afternoon if he had to guess, and there is someone standing by the window. Impossibly, it looks like her, biting her lip, eyes worried as she stares at him. A little older; more subdued, less hopeful. Just as beautiful as he remembered. This would be such a lovely, easy trap to walk into.
"Hey," she offers, seeing he's awake. She moves a little closer to him, sitting on the bed. "You alright? You kinda conked out after we got back. Guess you need more sleep than you used to." It comes out like a question.
He frowns and she looks away from him, so fragile. "There's tea, if you need it," she mumbles, and when he glances at the bedside table next to him he can see a white mug, smell that mix of sugar and milk he associates with a cuppa made by Jackie Tyler.
His hand is trembling by the time he lifts it above the covers and slides it towards Rose's hand, tentatively stroking his thumb over her knuckles, shuddering out a breath when he feels her remain solid under his touch. Still me, he wants to assure her, instinctively, and that's familiar too. There's a desire to press his fingers against his throat, check his pulse, but he feels it now, knows it to be true - only one heart beating. Her, him, here. Real.
Rose looks at him, eyes tearful but a little more hopeful, and entwines their fingers, her fingers warm against his icy ones. He remembers it all now. The Crucible, the beach, the murmured conversations between them on a long zeppelin ride home, her head on his shoulder. Saying hello to Tony and filling out paperwork with Pete, the creeping unfamiliarity of a body unable to keep up on days without sleep. Finding Rose's old room, uncertain whether she would want to sleep by his side; passing out before she came back from tucking in Tony.
The Doctor finds he can't wait now either, tugging on her hand until she's pulled against him. She goes willingly, her face easily slotting into the crook of his neck. He closes his eyes, the tip of his nose brushing the top of her hair. Freshly washed, a different shampoo than before; the fragrance less artificial, more expensive. She exhales, a shaky breath against his clavicle, and he holds her tighter, presses himself against her more, a kind of desperation coursing through him, quelled only by her proximity.
"I didn't know if you'd wake up," Rose says quietly. "Or if you'd still…"
There's no hum of the TARDIS around them, only the occasional bird song outside and some irregular thumps and murmurs downstairs courtesy of a young boy and his parents. There is the heavy ache of Donna's fate and a lonely, winding darkness inside him, carried over from another world.
There is nowhere he'd rather be than right here.
"I thought you were a dream," he says, trailing a finger along her side. There is nothing he would rather do than kiss her, revel in giving himself to her the way he's always wanted to, nothing now but their own hesitance and uncertainty and patience to stop him. Still, he'll give her all the time he needs; settling for pressing a kiss to the top of her head, another against her temple. "How long did I sleep for?" he asks.
She laughs a little. "Two days. No alien invasions yet."
"Good," the Doctor says. "No need to get up, then. Stay with me a little longer?"
Rose nods and nestles into him further. He maneuvers them so that she slips under the covers, her head next to his on the pillow, their legs intertwined, hands clasped between them. He warms up quickly and unevenly, his chest warm where his feet stay cold. Not how he's used to, and he wants to grin at the thought of that. Cold feet, socks in bed on a long winter night, searching for another's body heat. He'll get it all, now. With her, if she'll let him.
The Doctor looks at Rose, more clearly seeing the dark circles under her eyes. She shifts as he trails his fingers along her sides and over her shoulder, her back arching, and he surmises that she must have slept curled up in a chair or hunched over the bed. Light, troubled rest, still keeping vigil. Even now, she blinks her eyes open, staring at him, as if willing him not to disappear.
"I'm not going anywhere," he promises her. "I'll be here when you wake up."
She searches his face, her lips slowly widening into a soft smile as she believes him, one hand pressing against his single heartbeat to be sure. A few beats later and her eyes are closing, her breaths steadying out, gentle puffs against his face, and for a moment he can't help but damn the universe he just left behind for being so cruel, for putting so much distance between them for so long. The thought ebbs quickly, soothed away by the warmth of Rose in his arms, and the prospect of many, many mornings and afternoons and nights spent together like this. At that, the Doctor finds himself content to just watch over her, the way she did with him, no longer feeling the need to immerse himself in sleep. Besides, holding Rose is better than any dream he's had for a long time now.