So I read a wonderful soulmark AU recently, and afterward I couldn't stop thinking about what the Doctor might do if he were given unequivocal proof that Rose is his soulmate; how that would conflict with his myriad reasons why they can't be together romantically. I had to pause on my other projects and write it to get it to leave me alone. Hope you enjoy. :)

(For those who care, I AM currently working on the next installment of Consequences series- hoping to finish it by the end of the month!)

Rose is asleep.

Her breaths are short and uneven and her body twitches restlessly under the blankets, but that's what convinces him. There's no false serenity constructed to put him off, to convince him to save this visit till morning.

The Doctor's heart sinks.

Patience has never exactly been one of his strengths, but right now, he'd love to find even the finest strand of it to latch onto. Blast it all, he needs to talk to her, craves the assurance that things are fine between them. That the status quo has indeed been maintained, in spite of an unconventionally broken mirror. That, despite Mickey's chastising gaze and ominous warning, no resultant bad luck has already set in.

He can't wake her, though. Not when all he wants is a little chat, to feel her out.

He can't risk having this turn into a conversation.

But now that he's sure she's unaware, will never know that he's poking his head into her room like a fretting parent (or a stalker), he gives in to the urge to step inside. Just one step. Far enough to close the door, let his eyes adjust to the spectral light. It's much warmer in here, silent but for Rose's quiet breathing, and the sweet scent of her hangs heavy enough to taste. It's enticing enough, all on its own- but then, as their minds brush, reality fades in the wake of the shudder that crawls straight up his spine.

As always, their subtle mental connection is electric and involuntary, the product of proximity and pheromones. His telepathy is heightened in the dark quiet, and he can feel her essence clearly. Tonight, with Reinette's mind as fresh comparison, he finds Rose's more attractive than ever- her warmth and heart and empathy, her pretty (if naive) hopes. She is fresh and white and sweet, so much so that the deliberate, dark mark upon her, the one that swirls like infinity and smells of ash, looks like a mistake.

His aura stains her.

He should hate that.

Instead, it entices and scares him in equal measure. It makes him too possessive, especially when they're around other humans, most of whom lack the mind-ability to see that she's taken, even if she isn't bonded. Well, married. With humans it's all about the tangible, like rings worn on certain fingers, a custom he'll happily buy into if-

His jaw clenches as he cuts the thought off. No, he won't. He won't be buying any rings because there will be no bonding, in spite of the meddling, matchmaking universe.

And this, right here, is why he normally goes nowhere near her bedroom in the middle of the night.

Thanks a lot, Rickey, he thinks, though he is mostly disgusted with himself. Who's really the idiot here? The person giving out stupid advice, or the person standing around in the dark, taking it?

Inviting Mickey on board had never been his plan, though the Sarah Jane spiral he was in made him readily agree to the man's request. Seeing his former companion, already withering, made the need for a buffer between him and Rose clearer than ever. A means to sort of...stagnate things.

Not that Rose pushes his boundaries. Comes right up to them, yes, but she never presumes to test them, even if she might not understand or agree with their purpose. They're his, and she respects them. She's wonderful like that.

The Doctor, for his part, straddles his own metaphorical fence frequently- has even, on several memorable occasions, gone so far as to dangle down the opposite side and kick his toes in the grass.

It's not her that needs stagnating. She's so much stronger than him.

So much better than him.

And there it is; that bloody barricade's sturdiest support. Sturdy, because it's the only spot that isn't selfish, that's not about him and his feelings.

With a stab of heartache, the Doctor tips his head back against the door. She's better than him and he's proving it again right now. Proved it all day long today, mucking about with another woman, kissing her because he can't kiss Rose. He flirted, charmed, led Reinette on with hardly a qualm, at least until she barged into his head to discover it full of another blonde who was not her. Then guilt showed up, enough to offer her a trip, guilt which increased one-hundred fold after she died waiting for him.

He peers down his nose to take in the back of Rose's tousled head, swallowing painfully. All that guilt over Reinette's feelings, and till now, scarcely any for Rose's. Because Rose had let it slide. Till Mickey's suggestion otherwise, he's been (mostly) sure she's fine.

Fine.

Like a codependent to his narcissism.

All at once, it occurs to him that he's lucky she's sleeping. What if... what if he'd poked his head in to find her awake and upset? If his actions today did indeed cause Rose (lovely, patient, forgiving Rose) to... -to be less than thrilled with him in any way- what is he supposed to do about it? Apologise? Own up to being, as Mickey so eloquently put it, 'the Lord of all prats'?

Much as he might want to, the Doctor can't. Owning up to hurting her means owning up to why he hurt her. Means owning up to certain feelings, which for so long have lurked between them like a hulking beast, near impossible to ignore.

Rose stirs and he jumps, eyeing her intently as she rolls onto her back, arms flopping on top of the blankets. She doesn't wake. And, though his heart pounds at the close call, he isn't smart enough to leave. He stares instead, eyes tracing the newly revealed outline of her profile. Her sweet, full, slightly parted lips.

And he doesn't look away until the old memory rips through him like fire, the way mouths and minds joined in one heated exchange, giving and taking and marking. It's been months since then, no wonder he's aching for follow-up, and... blimey, he is bloody stupid.

It is past time for him to go.

He grapples back for the doorknob and tugs it, until faint light from the corridor trickles in along with a breath of much-needed fresh air.

As he closes his eyes and inhales, he gives himself a little grace. It wasn't as if he meant to fall in love with his companion. He'd truly believed he didn't even have it in him. All the places he's been, all the people he's met? Geniuses and beauties and queens, nine-hundred-three years worth, and he goes on fine without any of them.

His fall, when it happened, was a heady, ungraceful plummet, too intense to long deny it, but that didn't mean he understood it. A laugh, a smile, a twinkling glance his way, and what was wrong with him, that he couldn't keep his blood pressure from rising?

In the end, he figured it was less something wrong with him and more that everything was right about her. She is the sort of world he's never dreamed of discovering; she fills his life with laughter and meaning and fascinates him at every turn. She makes his itchy wandering feet go numb, because she's his home.

Snorting, he rolls his eyes. There he goes again, introspections on this subject veering off, as they invariably did, into purple poetry; its singular focus on himself again, the joys that he could be reaping if they-

He stiffens, abruptly stifles the thought.

They can't.

(Time to go, Doctor. Now. Go go go go go go go.)

But somehow, his traitorous feet carry him all the way to her bedside. And what he sees simultaneously strengthens that long-held conviction, and shreds it.

Blotchy cheeks, eyelids swollen and delicate. Rose's lashes fan out in wet, dark clumps, and oh god, oh no. She's been crying.

He's made her cry.

It is a punch to the gut.

Reeling, he gazes at her in horror as his head churns out one recent sin after another.

Was it the five-and-a-half hours that did it? She thinks he nearly abandoned her? Ohhhh...does she...could she know, somehow, that he'd kissed another woman? He hasn't wanted to think about it, but the unspoken, yet clear understanding between them would mean his actions could be construed as cheating. Although, even if she doesn't know about the kiss, how must she have felt on learning he'd invited Reinette to join them? Just because Rose doesn't know about the pairing-marks doesn't mean she is unaware of the mutual regard/commitment that precipitated them. Quite the opposite, actually.

Pleas for forgiveness climb up his throat. Oh, he's got to fix this.

Instead, he runs.

Down this corridor and that one, trainers thumping in the quiet, he makes turn after deliberate turn, till he comes to a garden he's avoided since the start of the War. Sinking to his knees in the long red grass, he inhales, lets its spicy fragrance fill his nose. Looks around, watches the silvery leaves flicker in the breeze, and waits for it all to recriminate him. To remind him what sort of person he is, to remind him why he can't.

But it falls flat, and a mantra from his school days floats into his mind.

You needn't fear being entrapped with a kiss, if you've not given it the power to mark and bind.

Oh, he had, he'd given that kiss so much power. Poured everything he shouldn't feel into it, because she was human and mind-blind and dying, and he has always been an opportunist. He'd believed could save her, kiss her, and get away with it scot-free. She wouldn't even remember.

One morning soon after New Earth she'd wandered into the kitchen, brand-new telepathic presence marked with his name, and he discovered he was only correct about most of that.

Pair-marks are common amongst telepathic races. Gallifreyans, with their extended lifespans, saw them as a gift of Time. Of the line of your future you are granted no glimpses, but She kindly tells you whom you'd best twine it with. Yet those of the Doctor's rank saw it differently. They were Lords of Time, to be manipulated by it as little as possible. And this, unlike most of Rassilon's tenets, made sense to the Doctor. A being in possession of immense power must remain master of it.

But power isn't the problem here. The Doctor trusts Rose. It's just, she's so human, and things like telepathy, pairing-marks...they are so very alien. And while she is as committed to their relationship as he is, there's no chance she understands what a true connection with him means. Body, soul, mind. Not to mention, it's permanent. The line they haven't crossed is literally the point of no return.

'You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend mine with you,' he'd told her. If they do this, it will be Rose locked into his lifespan, not the other way around. How could he ask her for that? How could he condemn her to such a life, living on and on with no hand to hold but his blood-stained own, eventually losing every other person that she loves?

He can't ask that. But he's been beyond arrogant, thinking he could keep them from getting too close. Believing he could thwart Time, keep his hands off the one She's destined as his, all the while having that one within easy touching distance.

He can't do this anymore.

He'll... he'll have to take her home. Should have taken her home long ago.

His burning eyes clench shut and he makes himself picture it, to force himself to try to get used to the idea. Throwing the lever as Rose stands outside, idly chatting with her mum till the TARDIS shocks her with its groan, her heartbreak as she watches it fade-

It's like drinking poison, and the Doctor doesn't get through it once before he doubles over in agony.

The platonic veneer on their relationship does nothing to hide the fact that they are completely enmeshed; parting will break them both. If only his love were unrequited. His own pain, that he can handle. But Rose loves him. He can't understand why, but she does. She sees him, she gets him, she forgives his flaws and his sins and he's pretty sure she thinks his quirks are adorable. She's accepted his mark and marked him in return.

She makes him want to be a better person, for her.

The Doctor stills, thinks about that for a minute.

He is better.

As if determined to counter the realisation, his eyes pop open, absorb his surroundings. This garden isn't Gallifrey, it's an echo of it. His planet no longer exists, because of him.

He's terrible for her.

But... he has to admit he's less terrible now. Maybe his terribleness is not the static, immutable fact he's seen it as. Maybe it has degrees, maybe it's something he can continue to work on. And isn't he certainly motivated enough?

Though recently he's lost ground in this fight. He's made Rose cry.

Shifting to sit cross-legged, he breaks off several strands of grass, twisting them round and round his fingers as he considers how he can turn things around. No more games. No more mixed signals, pulling her close one day only to lash out the next, like a trapped animal.

No more stagnating.

He's got no choice, does he? All this fighting he's done; no more than a useless struggle against the inevitable.

And just like that, it's all over.

A load slips from his shoulders as he accepts his fate, and he exhales a silent, disbelieving laugh. His toes tingle, his throat is tight, and he wants to laugh some more and cry, and run and crawl into her bed and tell her everything, now. He wants to make her happy, see her smile, hear her say she'll marry him as soon as possible.

Maybe even in the morning.

Well, soon as they drop off Mickey.

No, this can't be as bad an idea as he's feared, if he feels so incredibly good about it.

Yet, the Doctor's got enough sense left to recall that it's not quite so simple. Common as it is in a Disney plotline, in real life, humans don't usually leap from friendship to wedlock in a single day.

He's got quite a lot of explaining to do. And, depending on how Rose takes the whole pairing-mark, predestination, very alien-to-her way that his species choose a mate, he might even have to...wait. Take it slow.

And.

Before he tells her about any of that, he owes her one big, fat, apology.

The euphoria fades somewhat as nerves begin to take over. Peril awaits him, of the emotional sort, and up till now his M.O. for dealing with that is to run far, far away. He needs a plan. Or the start of one, at least.

Sighing, the Doctor pries himself up out of the grass without his usual energy, and heads for the corridor. He's tired- weary, even, his body demands rest. A bit of sleep is what he needs, and maybe then planning out what to say to Rose won't seem so overwhelming. He stretches and yawns. Blimey, battling oneself for months on end is exhausting.

At least the worst part is over.

Part two will be posted soon.