Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, shopgirl of the Powell Estate, Companion of the Doctor, had had a long few weeks. She had, quite literally, bumped into the Eighth version of the Doctor on the street in the middle of her parallel universe, gone dancing with him, left her family and the parallel universe behind,danced with him and then been forced to say goodbye to him as he faced the imminent call of the Time War. Then, he had taken her to his Ninth self, the broken, broody version she thought she'd lost forever, immediately after the War and she helped him heal, bought him his jacket, held his hand, danced withhim and then been forced to say goodbye to him as he set out to find her for (her) first time.

Oh, and she'd fallen in love with him. Well...again, anyway.

And now, here she was, poised to open the door to yet another TARDIS, hoping to finally be back in her correct timeline with her Doctor. Well, no. That wasn't quite right. She had decided, in the course of the past few weeks, that all of the Doctors were hers, even the ones that didn't know it yet. Her Doctor with the chestnut curls and fast laugh. Her Doctor with the heartbreaking eyes and fabulous ears. And now, finally, her Doctor with the great hair and the unstoppable gob.

Fitting her key in the lock and giving the door a great push, she stepped into the console room and gasped. And then groaned softly to herself.

"Oh bloody hell," she muttered. "Not again."

Up the ramp to this completely new console room, there was a young man, tall and lanky, leaning back in the yellow captain's chair by the railing, his large, booted feet sticking out from too short trousers propped up on the console.

At the sound of the door opening and her voice, he startled and, to both of their surprise, fell from the chair rather ungracefully to the floor. Rose thought he was lucky not to have fallen down off the raised platform but she still hadn't moved from the doorway. Who was he?

The man bounced to his feet and straightened, looking for all the world like a cat pretending to have fallen off the chair on purpose and then moved to the top of the ramp to stare at her.

"You impossible thing," he started. "How in the world did you -"

"Right. Ok. Here's the deal," Rose said, interrupting. She was a bit tired of this situation, as fun as her jaunt through past Doctors had been, and really, all she wanted to do was find the Doctor and get to her proper timeline. "My name's Rose Tyler. I'm...well...I'm a friend of the Doctor's and I'm not from this time. Judging by the console room, I'd say I'm probably from the past. Anyway, it's complicated. Timey-wimey. But if you're travelling with him, you probably understand that. Bit keen to get back where I belong so if you could just point me in his direction, I'll be off. Oh, and if I'm wandering around here someplace and I really, really hope that I am, it's probably best if I don't run into me. Ta!," she rattled off at a very impressive speed and marching up the ramp toward the still startled looking young man.

If she was in the market, she'd say he was rather good looking in his own unique way. She liked the way his brown hair flopped over his eyes and the geek chic of his maroon bowtie. There was a tweed jacket carelessly laid over one of the railings and she could only assume it was his. A raggedy maths professor, she thought. She, however, was not in the market or at least she hoped she wasn't and so she dismissed all those thoughts as quickly as possible.

Intense green eyes peered into hers as the man came closer, approaching her as if she was a skittish animal of some kind. That thought made her want to laugh because really it seemed that he was the skittish one, all long limbs that didn't seem to want to coordinate with each other. It was sort of cute. He raised an eyebrow at her and she frowned. Why did she keep thinking things like that?

"Rose...it's me," he whispered when he'd gotten close enough to touch her but hadn't. "You know me."

Oh.

Looking into those beautiful emerald eyes, she could suddenly see the age that he so often tried to hide. All of time and space shining out at her through his eyes, no matter the color. She reached a hand out to lay along his (rather prominent) jawline. He sighed, closing those timeless eyes and almost nuzzled into the touch, surprising her again. "Hello," she said softly.

He opened his eyes almost reluctantly. "How did you get here?" he asked. "I left you with Donna for the week just like you asked -" he started.

"What?" Rose asked, broken from the spell of his presence. "Who's Donna? You brought me here. To the wrong you, apparently. Again," she added.

"I didn't...oh." The Doctor took a closer look at her, at her outfit and the heavy red pack on her shoulders. "Oh," he repeated. He began to laugh. "Well. I always was a rubbish driver in that body," he said, laughing again.

To his surprise, Rose withdrew her hand from his cheek and it was all he could do not to chase the movement. She frowned at him. "Rose?" he asked, growing more serious.

"You can't be the Doctor," she said.

"Rose, I am. I'm sorry. I just regenerated again and -" He was growing more agitated. Not this Rose, too. He couldn't handle that.

"Nope, sorry," she said and suddenly he saw the slight twinkle in her eye. He relaxed incrementally. He knew that twinkle. He knew her better than he knew himself these days, probably always would.

"And why's that?" he asked, deciding to play her game.

"Because he would NEVER admit to being a bad driver. In any body," she said, grinning her unique tongue-touched smile at him.

He laughed again, feeling lighter than he had in days. "Maybe I'm just more honest this go'round. You know, that was quite the introduction that you gave yourself. If I was anyone other than me, I'dve thought you were barking," he said, moving closer to her again. Rassilon, he needed to touch her. He needed a lot more than that, but he settled for laying his hands on her shoulders.

She snorted. "Well, what was I supposed to say? 'Hello! I'm Rose Tyler. You don't know me but I've just popped up here after being rescued from a parallel universe by a past version of the Doctor (who, by the way, I fell in love with and then shagged. Did you know he does that? Because I didn't.) who then took me to a future version of himself, one I knew but before I knew him, who I then re-fell in love with and then shagged and now I'm trying to get back to my proper timeline, to the version I was in love with when I got separated from him and am hoping to, very soon, fall in love with again and then spend the rest of my life loving and shagging, along with whatever other versions of him come popping along in the future. Also, we have some sort of mysterious mind bond-y hocus pocus going on and I'd really like to find him because my head feels empty when he's not there. So, any questions?'," she said, grinning at him again briefly before he grabbed her to him very closely and enveloped her in a tight hug she hadn't been expecting.

After a few long moments of standing there locked together with him tightly, Rose patted his back, confused by his desperate hug. "Doctor? What is it?" she asked quietly.

"Just something you said about the future," he murmured into her hair, very reluctantly disengaging himself from her warm arms. Focus. He needed to focus. "Wait, a moment. Mind bond-y? Hocus pocus?"

He trailed off and in a move familiar to her, started pacing and hopping around the center console murmuring to himself. "You mean you don't know? How can you not know? But...the book. You're the one that gave me the book. If you don't know how are you supposed to tell me...oh," he finished, fiddling with his bowtie, completing his circuit of the room to stop in front of her, still for the moment, like a coiled spring.

"Oh, you astonishingly brilliant sexy you," he said, laying a hand on the console and then lifting his head up, staring at her with interest, intense green eyes fixed on her once more.

"What?" was all Rose could manage. Was he talking to her or to the TARDIS?

"Both of you!" he shouted, delighted and began dancing around the console again. "Don't you see, Rose? I have to give you the book so you can go back and give it to me then so I can give it to you now! It's a time loop! We're a time loop! And it's almost complete. It's not an accident. Never was. Me meeting you back in my Eighth body didn't CHANGE Time. It's just the way Time has always been. After this, I'll take you back to me, the one in your proper timeline, you'll forget this...except the important bits that you have to tell me so I can tell you and then, eventually, we'll be here!" he finished, grinning delightedly, the smile lighting up his young, boyish face.

"Oh! And it explains why you buggered out this morning, demanded to go to Donna's. You were remembering. That's why you dropped your bacon on the floor. I was worried I was rubbish at cooking again. It wasn't me! I didn't do anything. I thought you were angry...well, maybe you are. I'm not sure. But this time, it wasn't my fault!" he said, taking a deep breath and opening his mouth to start talking again.

Rose couldn't have that.

She had managed to get close to him during his ramble, dodging and ducking around his erratic movements in a dance familiar to her from his last body, although this one seemed a bit less graceful. She reached out, grabbed him by the sides of his face and pressed her lips to his.

Surprised as he was, the Doctor had no idea what to do with his hands for a moment. They flailed about as this new mouth, teeth and all, struggled to remember what it was supposed to do. Luckily it only took a few seconds for his Rose-instinct to kick in and, quite suddenly, they were turned around so she was pressed into the console and he was using his considerable years of kissing-Rose-Tyler-experience to make her knees buckle, held up by his strong arm around her waist. Even if they'd have to re-learn what he liked, he knew exactly what she liked and used mercilessly against her now, lips moving, tongue stroking, teeth grazing.

He really needed to stop this now. But he didn't want to. Especially because this Rose's shields were completely down and so her mind was pouring over his, unfiltered and bursting with love and desire for him. He caressed her mind with his and heard her groan. He really should stop.

He didn't.

Finally, Rose broke the kiss, pulling back from his desperate onslaught gasping for breath. His lips tried to follow hers as she pulled back.

"You still talk a lot," Rose said, dryly, once she had her scattered thoughts back under control. That was one hell of a kiss. This Doctor was a bit shorter than the one she had just left and a bit taller than the one she'd kissed before that, all in all making him the perfect height for her to feel just how much the kiss had affected him as well.

"Yes, I.." he thickly, trying to get himself back under control as well, reluctantly retreating from her a few steps. "Sorry about that."

"Sorry? Doctor, that was bloody fantastic!" Rose said, reaching out to squeeze his hand.

"Was it? Oh, that's good. I can still kiss then. I was worried about that," he said, looking relieved and running a hand through his hair.

"You mean you haven't...we haven't?" Rose trailed off. All this work to get back to his Tenth self and, a whole body later, they still weren't even kissing?

"Oh, no! We did then. Great kissing. Brilliant kissing. Starts happening right away, in fact," he said, waving his hands around. "But...not since...well," he trailed off mournfully. "It's been...complicated since I regenerated," he said, the sorrow evident in his voice. Rose's heart broke for him. No wonder he seemed so desperate for her touch. Apparently future her had been pushing him away. She wondered how that was even possible.

"How long has it been?" she asked, quietly, afraid of his answer.

"A week," he sighed heavily.

Rose laughed in relief and his head rose sharply to scowl at her slightly.

"What's funny about that, Rose?" he asked. Honestly. A century and a half and he'd never understand the woman.

"A week?" she asked, incredulously. "You're getting stroppy over a week? Doctor, we spent three weeks walking on eggshells around each other and puttering around the Powell Estate the last time you regenerated, remember? The day after Christmas you couldn't even look me in the eye."

"But that was before!" he said. And he'd had good reason for that little bit of post-Christmas shame. But she'd find out about that later. He remembered. "We were only engaged then and our bond was all wibbly-wobbly! We've got a full marriage bond now. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and the rest of the human-type sentiments, not to mention the Gallifreyan ones."

"Engaged?" Rose gaped at him. "We were not engaged then!" She paused. "Were we?"

"I...well," he stopped and fidgeted with his tie again. Must be one of his new tics, she supposed. His hands flew off the tie and he scowled lightly at her again.

"I do not have tics," he said.

"I didn't say that out loud!" Rose exclaimed and it was her turn to scowl at him.

"Didn't have to," he said. "Full marriage bond on my side and you're not shielding."

"Oi!" she said, yanking her hand from his and slamming up her shields. He cringed at the sudden void in his mind where she usually resided, his marriage bond with his own Rose still there but quiet and distant at the moment since she was so far away and shielding heavily and the bond uncompleted in the Rose in front of him.

"Rose -" he started and she crossed her arms in front of him.

"Nope," she said. "Not til you start explaining things. Starting with 'engaged'."

"Could we go to the library? This is going to take a while," he said, tentatively holding a hand out to her and looking at her hopefully. And he'd eventually need to get her that book. But it could wait, for now. For now, he could just enjoy her company.

Rose sighed. "Ok, then. But only if there's tea," she said, smiling at him and taking his outstretched hand as the TARDIS thrummed happily, assuring her there would be tea.

He sighed at the contact and her shields weakened a bit, giving him just enough contact to sooth the clamor of the bond. "Very good. Come along, Tyler."

In the library, which hadn't changed except for the thick, fluffy rug in front of the fireplace, Rose was pleased to note, there was a roaring fire, a tray of tea and a fair amount of Jammie Dodgers waiting for them on the table in front of their favorite couch. Rose patted the wall nearest the door in thanks and the TARDIS sang back to her with a warm yellow wave of 'you're welcome'. Watching this new new new Doctor closely, she noted that he placed a bit of milk and one sugar in the tea. Leather him had preferred his tea with lemon and Pinstriped him had, of course, dumped as much sugar as possible in the mug. She grabbed her own mug and settled a few of the biscuits on her knees, crossing them and turning to face this unfamiliar him.

He did the same, turning one leg up and sipping his tea. "We seem to have a lot of our important conversations sitting like this on couches," he commented.

"Engaged?" she prodded.

He swallowed down an entire Jammie Dodger before looking back up at her. "Do you remember Coricana?" he asked. Rose smiled and he reveled in both the expression and the warm flood of memories that surrounded him from her. "I'll take that as a yes, then," he said, smiling back. He felt Rose tense and her shields began to creep back up but he reached out and laid his free hand on her knee, trying not to displace her precarious biscuit stash there. "Leave them down?" he asked, quietly. "Please?"

She reached out to him tentatively with her mind, still unsure of the mechanics of their unfinished (for her) bond. Rose focused on his mind, now a beautiful royal blue and smiled both mentally and physically. Not the bright cerulean of Eight or the dangerous navy of Nine but his own shade, happier than before but still carrying the weight and grief of the worlds. She wondered what his Tenth self would look like. She couldn't wait to find out.

He sighed once again at the contact. His bond had been screaming at him all week, reeling from the internal and external threats on it and Rose's continued confusion and resistance. Rassilon, how he'd missed her.

"Ah, yes. Coricana. My Eighth self tried to explain to you what it meant back then but, poetic coward that I was, I suppose it wasn't very clear. 'A promise of forever', ring any bells?" he asked.

Rose's eyes widened in acknowledgement. "So you've been engaged to me the entire time I've known you?" she asked, laughter and surprise in her voice. Boy, what would her mum have thought about that?

He shifted uncomfortably and blushed adorably. "Well, yes," he said. Before he could register the emotion and intention from her mind, her palm connected with the side of his face. "What was that for?" he sputtered, somehow managing not to spill scalding tea all over his own lap, but just barely.

"Kissing another woman while you were engaged to me," she said, fiercely.

Ah. Well, he probably deserved that, then. And a few more for the others he hadn't told her about. But he wasn't about to tell her now. He distinctly remembered Tenth him facing her wrath on that note.

"And for making me engaged to you without really asking," she added thoughtfully. "Not that I would have said no," she said.

"My Ninth self did his best to propose to you, if you remember, Rose, even though we were already technically engaged. I think he just wanted in on the action a bit." Rose sighed to herself, remembering his apology and what had indeed, at the moment, sounded to her like a proposal. Apparently it had been.

His merry green eyes twinkled at her. "And I'll have you know, Rose Tyler, that even putting aside Coricana and my confessions to you in the library, during the course of our travels we were married or at least engaged, oh, probably at least fifty times on various planets in various ways before we got separated. We're up to something like 643 now. It's a bit of a hobby."

She gaped at him and, for moment, he thought she might slap him again. Instead she laughed. "Remember Oienzaes VIII?"

He joined her in laughter. The two of them had been unknowingly cast as the lead roles in a fertility ceremony, been stripped of their clothes and shoved into a dark, locked room together to copulate and emerge as the married souls of the planet's primitive gods. Finally, with a little ah, erotic, voice acting on Rose's part and an incredible amount of restraint on his and they'd managed to fool the natives into letting them go, although it had taken a royal declaration from their goddess to get their clothing back (and thus to get the Time Lord out of the darkened room) and a mighty fast run to get them through the following, quickly developing orgy. Jack hadn't stopped laughing for two days straight. Once he'd come back to the TARDIS, that is. Poor Leather him had barely managed to look her in the eye for the next week and not just because he kept seeing her naked. He also kept reliving the fantasy of those sounds coming from her for real.

"Remember?" he asked. "How could I forget? That became my new favourite fantasy for quite some time. You looked gorgeous...just like I'd imagined you would. Or remembered, I suppose," the Doctor finished, growling slightly. His mind wasn't the only part of him that was desperately seeking her out. This new body craved her just as much as the other two, demanded the touch of his bondmate and he hadn't had nearly enough of it yet. And that memory, distant as it was for him, still flared in his mind with his arousal and hers.

"You said it was too dark to see anything!" she replied, punching his leg lightly. His breath caught at the contact.

"Time Lord, Rose," he reminded her.

"I couldn't see you," she pouted. He merely shrugged nonchalantly and went back to focusing on his biscuits.

"So...you've got one up on me then," Rose said, when he raised his eyes to meet hers once again, eyeing him closely with an expression he was fairly certain he recognized.

"What?" he asked, licking his lips and watching Rose follow the movement with her eyes.

"You'd seen me naked and I hadn't seen you," she said. "And I think that means you owe me."

"What?"

"Take off your bowtie," she said, calmly.

"What?" he repeated.

"That makes you sound like last you, you know," she said, rolling her eyes. "Take off the bowtie."

She watched him closely as his long, nimble fingers undid the bow of his tie and slid the fabric from under his collar. The thin strip of fabric was quickly discarded the floor. He unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt and massaged his throat lightly, aware that Rose was watching each movement with the intensity of a cat stalking its prey.

"I seem to remember you undressing me at least twice while I was unconscious, Rose," the Doctor responded casually from his end of the couch. He hoped casually. He was going for casual even if his rapidly beating hearts were betraying him. "Doesn't that mean you owe me?"

She tilted her head to the side, considering letting him change the rules of her newly minted game. He watched as the considerations played behind her eyes and resisted the urge to look at her thoughts. This was a game best played on the outside.

Just as casually as he had been pretending to be, Rose shrugged out of her jacket, letting it drop to the floor on top of his bowtie. Lucky bowtie. "Fine," she answered. "But if we're going down that route, Doctor, I believe there were a number of times that I fell asleep in the console room and woke up in my bedroom. In my bed. Under the covers. Magically in my jimjams," she finished. "Which means...braces," she commanded.

He obligingly unclipped them from his waistband and shrugged them down off his shoulders, letting them drop on top of her jacket. Opening his mouth to speak, Rose shook her head. "Not just the console room, though, was it, Doctor?" she asked, her voice going low and smooth and Rassilon, he didn't know how he was still sitting on this side of the couch so far from her. "Seemed to happen a lot, that did. The library, the MedBay, the kitchen, the media room..." she trailed off, raising an eyebrow at him as he blushed again. This Doctor blushed a lot. Or maybe it was that he was so pale it just showed more in the flickering firelight. Little did she know, he was mentally remembering all the times she and he had done a lot more than fall asleep in all those places.

He bent down to untie and discard his boots and socks and when his head came back up again it was with an evil smirk. "You're right, Rose. It did happen an awful lot. Almost like you planned it that way..." he trailed off, delighting this time in her blush. He knew she had. They'd had this conversation already...but this Rose hadn't.

She ducked her head to hide behind a curtain of blonde, untied her own trainers and removed her socks, stretching her legs out so her toes rested against the shin of the leg he had propped up on the couch. He rubbed his cool hands together for a moment and then reached out to pull one of her extended feet further into his lap. It was a comforting, calming practice for him...a custom between the two of them to come in here after an adventure and unwind, him massaging her feet in his lap, them enjoying each other's presence in the firelight. Sometimes he would read, sometimes she would doze, sometimes they would make love in front of the fire. Or on the couch. Or on the table. Or against the bookshelves...the list went on.

The larger question was...would she still want to? His proper Rose? For all intents and purposes, she practically had to but there was little telling how much damage had been done to their bond and how long that damage would linger. This business with their bond was bothering him and his unexpected regeneration had him worrying over Rose's reaction.

"Do you want to talk about it?" her soft voice came from the other side of the couch and for a moment he forgot that she wasn't his Rose.

"It's complicated," he said, softly, his hands still moving over the tender muscles of her foot.

"It always is with us," she said, smiling gently at him and then closing her eyes and moaning slightly as he found a particularly good spot.

"You got captured. They used our bond to hurt you, to make you hallucinate and they tried to break it," he said, grimly. "You were in so much pain and so was I...It's not meant to be broken," he said, vehemently. "It can't be broken and when they tried to sever it...it wasn't good. For me or for you...or for them," he finished quietly.

She nodded. Maybe this was some of the stuff she was supposed to remember to tell him later.

His hands transferred to her other foot. "We have a full marriage bond. It's an old custom, ancient even to me, from a time long before Rassilon brought the Time Lords out of the Gallifreyan 'dark ages'. As I told you before, there was a time in Gallifreyan history when a male would claim a female in order to keep her bound to himself and himself alone, locking the two's biological signatures together. It was called a mating bond. The bond kept the pair from mating with others and, indeed, generally proved to make all other attempts not only ineffectual but also painful. On rare occasions, however, there was more to it than that. Most sentient species, including Gallifreyans, have some concept of love, the idea that a pair bond can exist on a higher plain than merely the physical. If the bond initiated was backed by a mutual feeling of love and dedication of the highest order, a full marriage bond could be achieved."

Soothed by his unfamiliar yet familiar voice and the gentle ministrations of his hands, Rose reluctantly opened her eyes when he stopped speaking. "And what does that mean, exactly?" she asked.

"Gallifreyans are a telepathic species and we spend our whole lives carrying links to one another. Remember when I told you I would be able to feel if there was another Time Lord out there? Back in that bunker in Utah?" Rose nodded sadly. "I would have felt the link to another member of my species practically anywhere in the universe. A marriage bond is similar to that except instead of sharing a surface connection, a light telepathic link, the two have a total, complete sharing of the minds. The link is more than an external connection, it's a part of who you are. A part of me in you and a part of you in me. That's what makes the bond so strong. I'm with you all the time and you're with me. Thoughts, feelings, memories, the very core of who you are and who I am, all caught up together. My attraction to you was and is so much more than a physical one, although the mating portion of the bond contributes to that. I don't just wantyou, Rose. I need you. Which brings us to the secondary part of the bond."

"The marriage bond ties the life spans of the two participants together. If you died, the part of me in you died and so then...I would die or at the very, very least...go completely mad. Took the 'til Death do us part' bit rather serious, Gallifreyans did. Which is why things started getting complicated when Rassilon and the Time Lords emerged. With the ability to regenerate, the bonding became much more complicated. The lifespan of a Gallifreyan, while long, compared to a Time Lord was just too different and the bond always takes on the length of the dominant lifespan, enabling the lesser species to live just as long as the Time Lord partner. Rassilon decreed the bonding between a Time Lord and a Gallifreyan forbidden, punishable by permanent death for them both. For the most part, by his time, the practice had become rare anyway...love like that is almost impossible to find," he said, softly, looking into her eyes with such deep devotion, Rose had to blink back tears. He gave her a small smile and then continued. "Pythia's curse and the inability for our people to reproduce naturally defeated the purpose of the mating bonds and so bonding fell out of use quickly as passionate emotions were buried under Time Lord restraint and it merely became a quirk of the past, barely worth a mention in all but the most ancient, most detailed historic books."

"And you have one of those books?" Rose asked, sighing slightly as he released her foot and merely let his hands trace light circles on her ankles. "That's how you know all of this?"

"I do. You gave it to me when I got you back because, apparently, I'm going to give it to you now," he said. "I think someone has known about this all along," he said, raising his eyes to look up at the ceiling.

Rose felt the thrum of the TARDIS increase around them, washing her love and purple affection over them. Relaxing and letting her link with the TARDIS come to the forefront of her mind, Rose was suddenly deluged with the golden essence of the TARDIS. She felt herself ancient, wide and expansive with all of Time and Space as her domain. She felt herself waiting, waiting for her pilot, for her thief and she felt her joy at his arrival. She felt her bond with him, her love for him and she felt her grief for her Sisters and for his People. She saw his future need, their future sorrow, their future salvation. She would push him, mold him, love him and someday, his bondmate would emerge, created for him and for her. Their timelines would cross and mingle and they would need her help, silly creatures that they were and help she would for she loved them both. Both of them a part of her and her a part of them. With one last purple brush of affection on her mind, the TARDIS released Rose into the impatiently waiting royal blue of her mate.

Rose opened her eyes to find herself lying on the floor in front of the fireplace with a nervous looking Doctor straddling her body, hands on her temples.

"I really wish you two wouldn't do that," he said, moving his hands from her temples to her chest, staring down into her eyes. He sighed heavily and suddenly noticed the crimson blush covering Rose's face in the glow of the fire. "Are you feeling all right?" he asked. He'd left his screwdriver in his jacket pocket but he could go get it quickly if he needed to...

She coughed slightly. "Err...yes," she mumbled and her eyes darted down to where his hands were, quite comfortably, resting rather intimately on her chest and his hips were pressed to hers without a concern.

"Oh! Right!" he said. "Not mine yet," he said, scrambling off her, all flailing limbs again.

Rose propped herself up on her elbows to watch his inelegant retreat to sit at her feet, long legs crossed comically. "I think you'll find, no matter what our current or future relationship, Doctor, that those are mine," she said, sticking her tongue in her teeth and raising an eyebrow at him challengingly.

He stared at her a moment, firelight flickering over her familiar features, teeth just slightly stuck into her lower lip, flirty, seductive and wanting him and he snapped. Moving from his position at her feet to slowly stalk up her body with a panther-like grace she never would have expected from him, his hands travelling under her shirt as his mouth descended toward her ear.

Each of his hands took one soft mound and began to knead and pull through the lacy fabric of her bra as she felt his warm breath on her ear. "And that's where you're wrong, Tyler," he whispered. "You're mine, remember?" he said, letting his tongue wander into her ear as his hands wound their way under her bra, pushing it up as far as possible and bringing both peaks to attention while he drove her crazy with his teeth and tongue on her ear. He pulled back from her far enough to pull the tshirt over her head and then forced her up so he could unhook her bra, which was quickly discarded somewhere on the opposite side of the library before carefully laying her back down again.

"Front-hooking bras, Rose. You'll learn," he said, nuzzling her next and placing a string of wet kisses down her collarbone toward her right breast, finally reaching it and winding his tongue around the pert nipple there. He wondered if this body would get as much enjoyment out of these activities as his last. Adding a bit more pressure from his teeth and pinching the other side with his fingers, Rose let out a low, deep moan and he found he didn't much care as long as she kept making sounds like that.

He continued his torment until she writhed underneath him and he let the breast go with a pop. "See?" he said, caressing it lightly, letting his fingers draw the moisture from his mouth across the darkened peak. "Mine," he whispered in the high Gallifreyan that he knew would ignite the claim in their mating bond. Rose gasped as the white hot link, his command and claim, burned into her mind, flared and she felt a wave of desire course through her so strong that she thought she might almost come. He grinned at her cheekily from his position halfway down her chest. "And this one?" he whispered, drawing his tongue over it roughly and then placing a sweet kiss there. "Mine," he whispered again.

Rose's hips bucked off the floor to collide with his, taking him by surprise and knocking him down on top of her. He laughed again and propped himself back up, letting his right hand linger on her stomach, while his left busied itself divesting her of her jeans. Her trousers off, he resumed his light touches, ghosting over her hips and thighs, applying just enough pressure for her to whimper in need of him but none in the spot she wanted him most. He was driving her arousal higher and higher than she'd ever imagined possible. How was he doing that?

"One hundred and forty seven years of experience," he murmured, lowering his head back to her neck and nipping lightly there on her collarbone.

Rose's mind reeled with that (and with what his clever fingers had just done, skimming over the silk of her knickers ever so slightly). No wonder he wanted her so much now. She could only imagine what an old bat she looked like at one hundred and seventy. To her surprise, his head came off her neck and his hands left her body as he began to laugh. He rolled over onto his back, clutching his sides leaving Rose confused and feeling a little bereft.

"What's so funny?" she asked, sitting up and drawing her knees against her chest.

"You!" he gasped between fits of laughter. "And you're always saying how vain I am!"

"You are vain!" she said. "Or at least you were." He sobered slightly at that comment but then exploded again.

"Old bat!" he sputtered through his hysterics. "Oh, you're so never living that down!"

Rose gazed down at the shaking, prone man and decided she had approximately three options. One: she could frown at him until he stopped laughing and explained to her what was so damn funny. Two: She could tickle him, helpless as he was to defend himself from her at the moment or three...

She chose three and his laughter turned quite suddenly into a surprised and elongated moan. "Rose," he panted, chest still heaving but she didn't think it was from laughter anymore. She squeezed him again in response, tracing her fingers up the silhouette of his erection through his trousers. Leaving one hand to stroke him, her other went up to undo the button and zip of his too-short trousers and left him only long enough to pull both the trousers and his pants off, returning immediately. Her hands were tracing one right after the other up his proud, stiff erection, twisting and stroking, chasing his ripples and his hands were flailing again, trying to find purchase in something, anything since she was too far away to touch. They settled on fisting in the plush rug and he moaned again as his hips rose off the ground to follow her hands.

"Rose," he panted. "Rose. Stop. New body. So sensitive. You. Ohhhh," he broke off as one of her hands traced down to cup his balls instead, squeezing lightly. "Been waiting all week. Want to come inside you. First time. In you. Need your heat. Please," he mumbled and one of his hands rose up to run through his floppy hair as he fought to keep his hips still.

Rose considered him for a moment. It would be easy and she thought fairly quick to finish him off like this but the knowledge that he'd held off all week even though the urge had obviously been so strong just so he could be with her for the first time made her want him there too. That and she really, really wanted to be doing that to his hair instead of him. She let go of him and he almost sobbed, though in relief or regret, she wasn't sure. She helped him remove his dress shirt and then very quickly she found herself on her back, knickers off and a Time Lord erection poised at her entrance. "Please," he said and she nodded, drawing her hands up to press against his back and then into his new, fabulous hair. His lips met hers with a burning passion and four deep strokes later his icy seed was pouring into her, wave after powerful wave. Before he was done, he pulled out of her, letting the rest spill onto her stomach as his hand replaced his member, plunging into her, curling fingers and searching thumbs and very quickly her body hummed with his actions and she was close, so close, keening as he suddenly removed his fingers and plunged his only slightly softened shaft back inside her, desperate to feel the tightly clenching walls of her screaming orgasm around him, rewarded with it almost immediately.

Both panting and spent, he rolled off her to the side and when she finally opened her eyes, his darted away. "I'm sorry," he said, looking embarrassed.

"About what?" she asked, confused. What in the world could he possibly be apologizing for after that?

His green eyes widened. "It's a new body and so sensitive and I've been wanting you all week and I'm afraid my control wasn't there. Went off like an idiotic youth before you even...I apologize," he said again, wanting to roll away from her.

Her hearts surged with love for him. She caught his shoulder and forced him to face her instead. "Doctor, it's sweet of you to feel that way but that was still great. You took care of me and blimey, I'm impressed that it was so quick as it was. Magic hands, you've got there," she said, trying to ease his ego.

He preened a little bit and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, lots of experience as I said. I'm very studious," he said. And making Rose Tyler scream was one of his very favourite subjects.

"So, one hundred and forty seven years, huh?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't start laughing again.

His eyes twinkled but he didn't laugh. "Don't worry, you're still just as beautiful as you are right now," he said.

"How -" she began but he pulled her lips to his and she forgot her question for a moment.

"Can't tell you. Spoilers," he said, grinning mischievously, pulling her over to drape on his chest, seeming completely comfortable in his nakedness with her. Well, she supposed, he probably was. "Went through a faze, a few years back, where we tried walking around here naked," he said and she started. She kept forgetting he could hear her thoughts.

"And?" she asked.

"And...we never got anything done. Don't think we left the TARDIS for two weeks straight. In the end, for the safety of the universe, we decided clothing was mandatory," he said, brushing her hair back from her face and placing a light kiss on her forehead.

She traced light patterns over his chest for a few moments, simply enjoying the double thrum under her hands and the comforting press of his body on hers. "Is the first one always that...strong?" she asked, suddenly, almost startling him from the peaceful doze he'd slipped into.

"Rose Tyler, you minx," the Doctor said, grinning down on her. "You tell me. You've been around me, literally, for three out of the last four," he joked.

Instead of laughing, he felt her stiffen and her hands stopped their wonderful light traces over his chest. He worked his way through the statement and then saw, quite clearly in Rose's mind, who she thought the other had been with as she sat up and locked her arms around her knees.

"Oh, no! No, no, no, Rose!" he said, scrambling to sit up.

"S'okay, Doctor," she said in the voice he knew quite clearly that mean 'it's not okay'. "I know you fancied her," she sighed and all of her inadequacies reared their heads at him. Rassilon. He'd forgotten that Rose, this Rose, didn't know all of his stories, didn't know how he felt about her, didn't know...

"Rose, I did not sleep with Reinette. I didn't love her and, yes, she kissed me but it didn't mean anything. She took me by surprise and I was fighting with my feelings for you and I punched myself for it. Did you know that? I don't think I ever told you back then," he said, stumbling over his words to try and make her understand.

"You didn't have sex with her?" Rose asked, wanting desperately to believe him but not quite.

"I did not," he replied, rising to his knees in front of her and cupping the sides of her face. "And even if I'd wanted to, which I didn't," he hastily added, "I wouldn't have been able to. At that point for me, I'd claimed you and you'd claimed me even though I didn't know it then. Just being kissed by her felt wrong and remember what I said earlier about the mating bond? About it rendering other attempted mating ineffectual?" he said, leaning on the last bit meaningfully. Last him probably would have just blurted it out but this slightly more old-fashioned body didn't want to spell it out for her.

"Oh," she said. "You mean you couldn't..." she gestured down below him in the general vicinity of his bits.

"No," he said. "My arousal is biologically bound to you," he said, glad that she'd figured it out on her own.

She let go of her legs and he gathered her to him in a tight hug, feeling her shiver slightly even with the fire right there. "Hold on," he said, standing up and striding across the room to a large comfortable chair covered in a soft, warm blanket. He brought it back over to where they were sitting and wrapped her up in it, drawing her back down to lay on the soft rug with him, her head resting in the crook of his shoulder. Funny how it always felt as though it belonged there, no matter the crook, no matter the shoulder.

"What did you mean you punched yourself for it?" Rose asked after a minute. He had been studiously blocking out her thoughts, letting her work through the situation without his prying, as hard as it had been.

His chest rumbled slightly as he laughed. "Didn't you ever wonder how I got back to that spacestation?"

"You wouldn't tell me," she said, prodding him in the ribs.

"With good reason," he replied. "I managed to cobble together a communication device and sent out an SOS to all the past me's, trying to get someone to come pick me up and get me back to you as soon as possible. Just so happened that the closest one was ol' big ears," he said.

"What?" she asked, incredulously. "When?"

"Just a few days ago for you. While you were in the library reading about Time Lord customs and I was out in the console room trying to figure out how exactly to make up for being such an idiot. As you can probably guess, those two versions of me didn't get along very well...especially after I told him that Madame Du Pompadour had snogged me."

Rose laughed, imagining the scene. "So when was it then? That first time?" she asked, returning to her original question.

"Ah, something else I can't tell you, I'm afraid," he said, teasing her and dropping a kiss into her hair.

"Why not?" Rose said petulantly. "I'm gonna have to forget all of this anyway, right?"

"Because, Rose Tyler," he said, his voice going low and husky again, right next to her ear. "I remember, very distinctly the experience of telling you that story for the first time and I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise." She sighed into his chest and moved so her arm was draped over his waist and her leg was trapped between his. "C'mon then, little human," he said, pulling her tight against him. "Go to sleep. I know you want to."

"Fine," she said, snuggling down into his chest. "But only because I want to, not 'cause you told me to," she said and he grinned. Somethings never did change.