Disclaimer: I don't own the Doctor, Rose, the TARDIS, Gallifrey, or anything else Doctor Who. It all belongs to the BBC and the producers, directors, writers, actors, and anyone else I missed associated with Doctor Who.

Summary: Post "Fear Her". Doctor/Rose established relatonship. What is there to hide under, what is there to run to or from, when there is no alien plot to foil or disaster to avert, when she has broken down his defenses and he can't get up but he can't just lie here either, when the past is clawing at him but leaving and being alone with these wounds is not something he is sure he can bear.

A/N: Not a Christmas-themed fic, I'm afraid, but something that has been brewing in my mind for a while. Now, coming in as a new Whovian, all the knowledge I have of Who comes from wikipedia, fellow fans, the TV movie, and the New Series. Thus, any and all mentions of Gallifrey, the Time War, etc. are mainly my own musings. So, notice something glaringly wrong? Tell me! Like something? Mention it! And, most of all, enjoy!

A Storm That Was

Rose and the Doctor lie side-by-side in bed. They have just made love, and now he runs his thumb in slow circles across the back of her hand. She takes a deep breath, almost content, and closes her eyes. Then, making up her mind, she turns to the side and pushes herself up on one hand, the comforter held over her chest. She waits to speak until his eyes meet hers.

"Doctor," she says, "earlier when we were in the control room, you said somethin'. You said that… that you used to be a dad." His smile falls away, and she knows he thinks she's about to start demanding why he never told her, how many kids, what were they like, with who? "An' it's just… I jus' wanted to say, I'm sorry."

He frowns. "For what?"

Her eyes don't leave his, and when she speaks, she does so slowly, carefully, watching for his reaction. "For what must've happened to them. I'm sorry."

She can see the moment he understands. His eyes widen at first, but then his entire face goes blank, his mouth becoming a flat line. There is so much pain there, in eyes that look black in the darkness, and he no longer seems to be looking at her. Rose yearns to reach out, to put a hand to his cheek or plant a kiss onto the crown of his head, but something in that expression holds her back.

So she waits. Waits for him to look away, to jump out of bed with an, "Anyway!" and start jabbering on about cricket or Carrionites or talking llamas or the 41st century Olympics. She waits for him to bounce around and shut her out.

He doesn't.

For several moments, the Doctor stares at her —seeing her, not seeing her, Rose isn't sure which—and then he grunts out, "Thanks."

He does avert his eyes then, but he stays.

Not knowing whether she's done the right thing—but she had to do it, she had to, because she needs him to know that she's trying to understand, to help—she follows her instincts and cups his face, kisses his forehead. She pulls away and, for a long moment, the two simply look at one another.

"Thank you," he repeats, more softly this time, and puts a hand to her cheek. "I mean it." She nods slightly and places her hand atop his, turning her head so she can kiss his palm. Then she looks back at him and though she cannot quite read his face, she does she tenderness there, and maybe even fear. His eyes flick back and forth across her features and then he leans up and kisses her, just once, before settling back down again.

"What were they like," she asks, a bit hesitantly, "your family?"

"Oh you know, Time Lords," he responds, his voice so casual it might have fooled anyone but her. "Stuffy, above-it-all, a bit pompous really. Disowned me once or twice. Well, except Susan. My granddaughter, Susan." His voice almost cracks there, and he looks off somewhere to Rose's left. "Traveled with her, for a bit. She chose to stay on Earth in the end."

Rose nods slightly, a smile dancing around her lips. For all he says, it's what he tends to keep quiet about that matters.

Her neck aches, and she adjusts herself so that her head rests on her palm. "Is she still alive?" she asks. "I mean, on Earth, we didn't—"

"Everyone got called in for the war," he answers bitterly. "Even her. I stole her away before she even finished the Academy, but they still needed her. Even gave her a regeneration cycle."

Now, as he stares off into the distance, Rose knows that those memories he's reliving are not pleasant ones. War, destruction, guilt, his planet exploding, his own family dying. It's his fault, she knows, or at least he thinks it is. He had to do it, he had to finish it—she has figured that out at least, the Beast's words confirming the suspicion that she has held for so long in the back of her mind—and she feels a lump rising in her throat. She has brought back those memories. She has done that. "Doctor—"

"Anyway, doesn't matter." He pushes himself up into a sitting position, averting his face. "She's gone now. All gone now."

She lays a hand on his chest, wishing, as she often does, that she could go back in time and somehow stop the War, destroy the Daleks before the Time Lords ever hear of them, save the Doctor's family and, for once, see him smile without that shadow behind his eyes. He puts his hand on top of hers. "You should sleep, Rose."

She shakes her head. "Not tired."

"'Course you are," he replies. "Silly humans, get tired out after 16 hours, and that's without the running and the sex. Big cat people, that's what you are. Well, without the whiskers and the claws. And the wimples. Though you do have some humans in wimples. Not you, mind you. Other humans. Nuns mainly."

"Doctor."

He stops, his teeth snapping together, and Rose isn't certain whether she should be relieved or worried. He doesn't usually give up so easily.

"Rose," he says, "go to sleep. I'm fine. Honestly, I'm fine. You, on the other hand, need rest."

She stays silent, not believing him for a moment.

He changes tactics and sits up fully, squeezing her hand. "Please go to bed? Please? Sugar on top, sprinkles, chips? All right, maybe not the chips, but the request still stands." He pauses, gathers his words. "I need some time Rose, just, some time, an' you… you need to rest." He breathes in deeply. "Please. Go to sleep."

Although she hates to do it, after a long moment, Rose nods. She kisses him on the cheek and pulls back to look him in the eyes. "I'll be right here, yeah? You change your mind an'—"

"Rose, I'm not going anywhere. I think I'll notice you burrowed into my side."

Her eyebrows go up. "Knowing you…"

He smirks, almost laughs, and so does she. "Would you prefer I tie myself to the headboard then?" he asks. "Not very conducive so sleep, granted, but I've got this excellent collection of Svorkian battle scarves in the closet…"

He shrugs suggestively—how, Rose isn't quite sure, but he manages it—and, grinning, she gives him another kiss. "Another night, yeah?"

"It's a promise."

Rose tugs on his arm, pulling him back down into a lying position, and snuggles into him, draping an arm across his stomach and pressing her forehead against his upper arm. The flirting was a cover, she knows, but she does not want to push him now. If she's reading the situation right, it will just turn into a screaming match that ends up with him, alone, in the control room and her fuming and guilty in her bedroom. When he wants to talk, she'll be here, but she's not going to push it anymore tonight.

Rose closes her eyes, running her hand across his stomach and smiling as he lets out an "Oi!" and squirms. Then she relaxes, but she knows that she will not fall asleep for a long, long time.

------

Twenty minutes later, and the only things keeping the Doctor still are Rose's arm on his stomach and the knowledge that, should he move, it will be gone. Time was, he'd be up and about right now, dismantling and rewiring and configuring the thermal buffer and installing a secondary thermal buffer and being just a little bit careless about it all, because when his finger got zapped or the TARDIS got tired of him fiddling, he at least had something else to focus on.

It had only ever worked just barely, though, and he knows that, at the moment, it would do more harm than good. Getting dressed in the dark, seeing Rose alone in bed, walking through the empty corridors, entering the control room—

Pulled the switch there. The Dalek fleet around Gallifrey, closing in like a noose, and he did it. His plan, his genocides, and he—

The Doctor squeezes his eyes shut, scrapes his fingers through his hair. It's better here, he thinks. At least here he can feel Rose beside him. Even as he stares off into the blackness of the room and listens to the distant hum of the TARDIS, he can feel her arm, her fingertips. She's here, she's staying, she's—

"You don't need to do this, Mintra. Let Lophys do it. I'll do it. But Susan needs her mother."

"Susan hasn't needed me in centuries, Doctor. Arcadia needs a pilot."

His daughter, her face—only her third form, her third form—still fixed in his memory. Freckles, blue eyes, red hair pulled back so tightly it was almost flat. Her jaw was set, her hands—such small hands—on her hips. She was his height then, more than able to stare him down, and he had not been particularly threatening in his eighth body. He couldn't make her change her mind then, not even with Susan's name. And then—

The Doctor runs a hand over his face. Rose, child-possessing aliens, string theory, sex, quantum mechanics, particles with minds of their own, particles that are everywhere and nowhere and dead and alive until you look and—

—then there was Romana on the com, telling him to get back to his TARDIS, get away from there and take whatever survivors there were and run, and she was so sorry but there was nothing they could do. Nothing. Please, Doctor, get back to the TARDIS, and I'm so sorry but Mintravetraldur is dead.

His breathing is harsh, and if he weren't worried about waking Rose—she's half-asleep already but would probably shoot up the moment he moves—he would jump up right now. He'd find a problem, a war, anything. Not a glance back, never a glance back. Because she had to mention his family, didn't she? She had to make him remember. Oh, he never forgot, not really, but the memories didn't usually rise up to overwhelm him either. They were kept buried, trapped and whimpering beneath the rubble.

Tonight, Rose has shoved a good portion of that detritus away.

What is there to hide under, what is there to run to or from, when there is no alien plot to foil or disaster to avert, when she has broken down his defenses and he can't get up but he can't just lie here either, when the past is clawing at him but leaving and being alone with these wounds is not something he is sure he can bear.

The Doctor turns to look at the top of her head, the blond hair spread out across the pillow, much of it gray in the darkness of the room. He can just pick up her scent, and when he closes his eyes, he feels the warm breath on his arm, the brush of air in and out, in and out, so alive.

Dead? Mintra dead?"What happened?"

Silence.

His world spun, the Daleks were screaming right outside the doors and there was so much death, all he could hear was the screeching of weaponry and fighting, his own ragged breathing and, loudest of all, the silence on the line. "Romana! What happened? How—"

He let out a sob—he takes a ragged breath—and her response was drowned out by an "Exterminate" barely three feet away.

The Doctor had never killed in rage before in his life.

The Doctor looks at Rose, feels her warmth on his arm, and he knows there is one thing he can do. She's here, she's willing, and—

Romana now, shorter than Mintra, about Susan's height. "You have to do it, Doctor. If the situation becomes desperate, you have to end it on my command."

"I won't."

"If you don't, everyone dies."

"Rose," he whispers. She moans softly, her head moving. "Rose," he repeats, more loudly this time. He hopes she doesn't hear the desperation in his voice. Blearily, she looks up, and he kisses her.

The Dalek fleet around Gallifrey, closing in like a noose. "Doctor, please! Do it. You have to do it, do it now!"

Explosions—he wasn't sure if she was still alive.

The Doctor puts a hand to the back of her head, another on her lower back, and pulls her close, legs against legs, chest against chest. He keeps kissing her, hard, his tongue in her mouth, his fingers tangled in her hair. He can tell the moment she fully awakens, the way her half-responding mouth freezes, her body tenses. He doesn't let her pull away, he keeps kissing her, and eventually, she responds. One of her arms is trapped beneath her body but the other slides over his side and across his back, coming to a rest atop his shoulder blade.

"Grandfather!" A new voice. The Doctor's head jerked up, his fingers curling as he gripped the console. The blood that had been dripping onto the keyboard now dripped into his eyes, but he didn't wipe it away. "Grandfather, please. The President is right. You have to end it. Please."

"Damn you, Romana," he whispered. He didn't care if they heard him. To use his own granddaugther against him… "Damn you."

He looked up."Susan," he said, his voice hoarse, the TARDIS shaking, the walls splintering, the image of a Gallifrey overtaken in brilliant reds and whites playing out above his head. "I love you." He paused. "And you, Romanadvoratrelundar."

He swallowed.

"Goodbye."

Rose pulls away to breathe and the Doctor lets her, moving down her jaw to her neck, nibbling and sucking. He pushes her onto her back. She gasps as he hits a particularly sensitive spot just beyond the crook of her neck, and she does so again as his hand finds her nipple. He is hard against her leg, and she feels a wave of heat rush down to her groin.

"Doctor," she manages, putting a hand on his and moving it away from her breast. He doesn't respond, merely growls softly—the rumble makes her shudder—and pulls her closer, continuing his ministrations. "Doctor!" She puts a hand to his head and tugs at his hair. This time he looks up, his breath coming hard, and she gasps.

"Grandfather!"

"I love you."

"If you don't, everyone dies."

He pulled the lever and the TARDIS shook, collapsing around him. The console exploded, the time rotor shattered. The screen above him glowed white before crumbling in a haze of sparks and broken chunks, and he let out a grunt as something slammed into his chest.

Before losing consciousness, the Doctor's last thoughts were of the silence in his head. Already, there was no one left.

All Rose sees is need.

Speechless, she can do nothing but stare. There is a manic look in his eyes, almost wild, and his fingers dig into her arm. His mouth comes down to claim hers again, and she barely responds. She has never seen him like this before, so obviously hurting but not jabbering away or locking himself off in some obscure part of the TARDIS. He has certainly never used sex as an escape before, not with her anyway, and she is worried. Too worried to give him what he wants.

"Doctor," she manages to ask between kisses, "Doctor, what's wrong?"

It's a stupid question, she knows, but asking him if he's "all right" has never worked particularly well. She curses herself for mentioning the Time War. All it's done is make old hurts new again. All it's done is cause him pain.

Once more, he pulls his face away, and again, Rose is shocked by the darkness she finds there. "Rose," he says. "Please.

With her eyes narrowed in concern, she scrutinizes him. His forehead is wrinkled, his eyes pinched, and his mouth is open, wrenching in air. She puts a hand to the side of his face, runs her fingertips along his skin as his eyes scrunch shut. His forhead and temples are moist, and she barely touches his neck before she feels the double heartbeat pounding there. If she didn't know better, she would think he was holding back tears.

She waits for his eyes to open again, and then she nods. She leans up to kiss him, and then the onslaught is back.

After a while, Rose loses track of what exactly he's doing. He's frantic, and first his hand is on her breast, then his mouth, then he's back to kissing her, then breathing hard into her ear, then she shivers from licks to her nipple, bites to her neck, nips to that spot right beneath her ear, and then there's a hand between her legs, then his knee, and then he's inside.

She gasps, her eyes snapping open, because she's not quite ready yet, and it hurts. Her fingernails dig into his arms, and he notices. Just one look at her face and, sticken, he pulls out of her and falls onto his back on his side of the bed, as far away from her as he can get. His eyes are on the ceiling. "I'm sorry."

"'S fine," she replies. "Just… jus' need a little more time, that's all."

He says nothing, and Rose knows that whatever happens next is up to her. She slides over, puts a hand to his jaw, and kisses him softly. When he finally responds, she deepens the embrace and lies on top of him. She still aches but ignores it—whatever pain there is will go away soon enough—and moves her hand across his torso, pausing at a nipple and then his groin. He moans into her mouth and she kisses him with renewed vigor, continuing to caress him. He writhes against her, and she stops, moving her lips across his neck and chest and giving him the same treatment that he gave her. Then she moves her hand back down to his groin, and after several moments of this, it is time.

Pulling her lips away from his, she sits up and slides down onto him. The whole time, his eyes are on her face, and as her eyelids flutter shut, all he can think of is how beautiful she is. He clenches his teeth to keep from moving until he is fully inside of her, and then he is. He puts his hands on her hipbones and waits for her to adjust.

"Arcadia needs a pilot," some distant voice rings, and another, "You have to do it. Do it, do it now!" In the background of his mind, Gallifrey burns, but the Doctor is more than happy to keep these thoughts there, away from true consciousness. He focuses on sensation, on the tightness of Rose around him, the tingling of his lips, the musk of salt and shampoo, the sight of her above him—eyes half-lidded—the shifting of angles as she bends down to kiss him.

Gallifrey burned, but for just one moment, he hardly cares.

Rose starts to move and the Doctor matches her. Her face is only a few inches from his, their breaths mingling, and he puts a hand to the back of her neck. He should be more in control of this, he knows, prolonging it and keeping a shield around his mind and his effects on time. Especially now, he should be doing this, because otherwise, she'll see. He has already broken so much of her, and the least he can do is protect what is left.

Except right now, he's so sorry, but he can't.

The Doctor leans up and snatches her mouth, pulling her back down with him as she groans at changed pressures, a changed rhythm. "Doctor," she whispers.

Then he flips her over and lets his body take control. Rose clutches at him, pulling him closer with her legs. She cries out as he rams into her, starting quickly and getting faster, jerkier, faster, losing rhythm, lost.

Fire. Fire, and so much darkness. So alone. A flash of a woman, short black wavy hair and a round face—all angles—sobbing. Her chest hurts, oh God her chest hurts, and her arm, something there, something wooden, she is buried in darkness and so cold—

Rose gasps as time stutters, the sensation of him inside of her coming too fast—everywhere, too much, too much, he's in her mind, God, what… she's so close, so…

His hands, his thrusts, they're like staccato notes, and Rose cries out.

"Doctor, please!"

His breath hitches, just above her lips, and with eyes that snap open, she watches his forehead scrunch up as he groans and finds his release.

Her arm hurts. Her chest hurts. She hurts.

"Goodbye."

The Doctor collapses atop her, breathing hard. Trembling, her head, her whole body, aching, yearning for a release that never came, she holds him close. She kisses his cheek, his hair, his ear, his shoulder, anything she can reach. She thought she knew. She thought she knew.

I'm sorry, she thinks. Oh God, Doctor, I'm so, so sorry.

The Doctor slides out of her and falls to the side. She keeps hold of him, placing butterfly kisses across his forehead, his eyelids, his nose, his cheeks, his lips, his chin. Only after she is afraid that she has made his skin numb with the sensation does she pull back, and even then she does not remove her hands from his face. Her eyes meet the Doctor's, and after a long moment, he leans in and kisses her tenderly, his fingers stroking her hair. Then, slowly, so that each of them can feel every bit of flesh part, he pulls away.

They lie together, forehead to forehead, still breathing hard. Rose thinks of what he's been through, her Doctor, and how she can possibly help him. So much pain.

The Doctor wonders how to apolgize.

He could say "I'm sorry," he knows, just like he always does, but while it never seems adequate, it seems even less so now. He strokes the side of her face, her hair, his palm and thumb brushing over her temple—her skin is so soft—and she smiles, catching her hand with his. Somehow, she still smiles, and the Doctor watches her in awe. He doesn't know the specifics of what she saw, but he knows it was something about the War, something about what he did and those he lost. Perhaps it was even—and he shudders at the thought—the act itself.

He could find out if he wanted to. Just put his fingers over her temples and take a peek inside. He could even take the memories away from her. To preserve that innocence and preserve his seclusion—it would be so simple.

But he has never been that cruel, even when to do so would probably be a kindness. He can't do it, he wouldn't. And yet, he still owes her something. He owes her so many somethings, and there is one thing in particular that needs to be said.

"Gallifrey," he whispers, not looking away. "My planet's name was Gallifrey."

She is surprised at first, but then her smile widens. "That's beautiful," she tells him.

"It was."

She nods and, for a long moment, says nothing. "What was it like?" she asks at last, her voice quiet and only slightly quavering. "I mean, if you wanna talk about it. What was your planet, what was Gallifrey, like?"

Time passes, and the Doctor stays silent. Human beings are so frail, he thinks, continuing to watch her. A week to heal a cut, a month for a bruise, two months for a broken leg. And, even if they survive all that, disease after disease and pain after pain, they live less than a century before they're gone forever, reduced to dust with the turn of the universe. Whatever they see, whatever they feel, it cuts into them that much more for all their brevity. They treasure whatever they can, whether they should or should not.

Rose, too, will be gone some day, perhaps someday soon. Perhaps sooner than he's ready for. A storm's approaching, he can sense it, and he wonders if this is the one that will tear her away from him. He wonders if she will survive.

He is the Oncoming Storm, after all. He burned Gallifrey, he burned it, and in doing so he slaughtered his own people. He has no doubt that, whatever this imminent danger is, he has brought it upon them. Just as he eviscerated his own people, he has no doubt that losing her will be his fault.

"You would have loved it, Rose," he manages. "They called it the Shining World of the Seven Systems. Two suns, and every morning they'd rise, one after the other, in a burnt orange sky. The first came early, glistening off the mighty glass dome. That was where we lived, the Citadel of the Time Lords, enclosed and glorious, with towers that let you see for miles and miles…"

He closes his eyes, remembering, and after he opens them again, he keeps talking. With his hand in hers, Rose listens, and every once in a while, she asks questions, she smiles, she even cries. The Doctor lets her. He keeps talking, describing, reminiscing, because it hurts, but it helps a little too.

The Doctor keeps talking because a storm is coming, a storm of his own creation, and he owes her this much.