Title: Make it Count
Characters: Rose, Jimmy Stone, Eleven, Ten II
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst
Spoilers: Journey's End
Disclaimer: Doctor Who © BBC.
Summary: His life is pulsing against her back and she feels the murmur along his heart, against her back. It's almost like the illusion of a double heartbeat.

***

Something strange is pulsing through Rose; fear, exhilaration, want – no deeper than want; need. It's so frightening, the will to lose control, to let go and just be.

Her hands crawl through his dark hair, smoothing over his cheeks. She buries her head into his collar as his arms work their way up to her bra.

"They say you never forget the first time," she breathes into his neck.

When he looks down at her his eyes are burning with a fire she doesn't recognize. "Then let's make this count," he whispers.

The first time Rose loses her virginity. She is sixteen, and more in love than she's sure she'll ever be.

***

"Is it dangerous?"

"Is what dangerous?" He's scratching away at a piece of paper. He might be drawing something; she's not sure.

"That heart murmur you told me you had last night," she replies, head tilted.

He looks up to smile at her. "It's not catching, Rose."

She laughs a little. "I meant for you!"

His eyes sparkle with light, bridging out the darkness she pretends she doesn't see. "No," he says. When she looks doubtful, he smiles and puts his hand on hers. "Promise," he says.

She smiles back and her eyes dip down to the paper in his hands. The drawing is of her, smiling a bright smile. Odd, she almost looks a little older and yet he's made her much more beautiful than she actually is. "That's amazing," she tells him, slightly breathlessly. Behind the drawing of her is another; she sees a flash of blue. She frowns, but before she can get a good look, his hand hides it away.

He gets up then and kisses her once on the nose. "I have to go," he says.

"Band practice?" she asks, a knowing grin on her lips. He's told her he's a musician… though she's never heard him play.

He hesitates. "Yeah," he says finally. "I'll see you later." He stops in the doorway for a moment to look at her. He's hesitating, as if wavering on whether or not to leave. "I'll see you later," he repeats, voice somehow heavier than before. Giving a last nod, he leaves.

The silence is so sudden, it's as if he was never there at all. "See you later," Rose echoes in a whisper.

***

"You know what I want?"

"Hm," he mumbles into her hair. "What do you want?" His chest is against her back, bodies intertwined on a lazy Sunday morning. He is whispering kisses into her neck.

"You," she says softly. "Forever."

She feels him shift, fingers stroking over her shoulder. "You have me," he tells her earnestly, and she pretends she didn't hear his brief hesitation. The words carry such sentiment after all; she can't deny he believes it.

His body suddenly pulls close. His life is pulsing against her back and she feels the murmur along his heart, against her back. It's almost like the illusion of a double heartbeat.

***

"I missed you." Her arms wrap themselves around his waist, nose pressing itself into his hair. He smells like shampoo and old leather.

She feels him laugh against her. "I've only been gone an hour."

"Still missed you," she says.

He puts his hand under her chin and tilts her head to look up at him. He swallows. "Can I tell you something?"

She nods, brow furrowing as she eyes his serious expression. "Anything," she tells him.

He opens his mouth. "I need... I..." His mouth snaps shut again. He gives a sigh and holds her cheeks in his hands. "The way I feel about you," he tells her, "will never change, whatever happens. Understand?"

Slowly, she nods. His arms are strong and forceful as they bring themselves to wrap her in an embrace.

***

His loving is fierce yet gentle that night, almost as if it's holding a warning; like the deadly calm before a powerful storm.

His hand moves against her hair, and there's a subtle touch against her temple, making her feel slightly less lucid. His eyes bore into her, and she sees pain. He blinks and it's gone. Another illusion.

The way he moves, with fierce touches and gentle kisses, a cry for release, continues on into the night.

***

The following morning, she wakes and it's cold next to the heat of the previous night. Beside her, the bed is empty. Sitting up, she sees all is the same except for the single slip of pale paper on her bedside table. It lies there; innocent and yet sending such fear through her she doesn't move for several minutes.

Her fingers shake.

Three words written in scrawled familiar writing:

I'm sorry. Jimmy.

***

Outside, he's running. His feet pound against the concrete, his eyes wide and breathing heavy. He wants to rip his own chest open, and maybe if he keeps running that'll be what happens. Maybe he'll run and run until there's nothing left of him, and everything he knows, everything he's done, will be gone.

It was all a case of mistaken identity that went oh, so right, and yet oh, so wrong.

He'd visited because he'd wanted a change of scenery, not because he missed her. Or so he told himself.

She was smoking as she leaned against the building of her block of flats. Her hair was long and her eyes carried enough inexperience to make his throat tight. "Are you Jimmy Stone?" she'd asked with a coy smile. "A friend of mine told me her mate Jimmy might be moving here. Are you him?" She was flirting subtly; the pout of her lips; the fluttering of her eyelashes.

Seeing her was like seeing a ghost. "Yes," he whispered, almost without thinking, and everything had gone so wrong, so right.

Before he knew it, he was with her all the time. It wasn't until later he began to remember the day in his past and her future that he'd asked her who the man called Jimmy Stone she once or twice mentioned was.

"Ah, Jimmy Stone, my first true love," she had joked, but he had easily noticed the tortured scars in her eyes.

How odd he had been jealous of a man she had never truly met – a man who was in fact himself.

He stops running when he sees the familiar blue of the TARDIS. He can't do this anymore. He thought the regeneration might have helped him to stop thinking about her, but it didn't. Nothing ever does.

And yet, if he's let go of her twice before, he can do it again. Even if it kills him. He can't go on pretending, letting her believe he's someone else. Hearing her call out someone else's name in a night of passion, just for a bit longer with her. It's too painful.

It's the first time he breaks her heart, and it hurts even more than he would ever think possible to know it's not the last. Not for her.

***

Ten years later, in a whole other world, an older, wiser Rose blinks open her eyes, breathing heavy and heart racing.

"Rose?" The Doctor puts his hand over her chest, squinting through the dark at her pale features. "What's the matter?" He is suddenly wide-awake, body shifting towards her.

"I…" Rose looks up at him and swallows something stuck in her throat.

A memory she has barely thought twice about for so, so many years is suddenly so clear, it could have happened yesterday. She stares at the man next to her, so different from the man in her dreams, and yet… and yet…

"Oh my god," she whispers. "Doctor… but he was him… it was you."

"What was?" he frowns, clearly concerned. "Rose, what is it? What's wrong?"

But Rose doesn't answer; she can't, it's all she can do not to cry. She stares at him, at his deep tortured eyes so entirely focused on her, and all she can say is, "He was you…"