Because the world needs more fluff, because it's October, because OV asked, because I can, and because it was raining yesterday...

After the fourth interruption to her sleep in 3 hours, Rose decided the Doctor was not actually a nine hundred year old man after all. He'd been making that up. Obviously, he was a hyperactive toddler, just pretending.

Interruption number five, twenty-two minutes after the 3 hour mark. Right, that's it. "Can't you go conquer the French Antilles or something?" she asked crossly.

"Did that in 5967, not that it's worth it by then," the Doctor admitted. "Forgot you humans like ta sleep your lives away. I s'pose you want me to go away, again?"

Rose suddenly remembered what her mum had done to her when she'd been hyperactive and wouldn't be quiet as a child, and her hand caught his wrist before he could leave.

"What?" the Doctor asked and, apparently deciding that this was a new game and he liked it, let her tug him toward the bed.

The difficulty of dragging him, despite the fact that he seemed to be playing along, reminded Rose that her mum's measures, while she could work with them, really required the person doing the dragging to be bigger than the person being hyperactive. Still, he might be bigger and alien and scary and all that, but she had been in bed for 4 hours and slept a grand total of 45 minutes. At the moment, Rose Tyler was decidedly meaner. She gave a firm tug on his wrist and the Doctor, laughing lightly, tumbled down onto the bed next to her.

Rose smirked. "Now what?" asked the Doctor, and he sounded like he was smirking, too. Rose refused to open her eyes and check. Instead she tangled her legs into his and, quick as a wink, climbed on top of him.

Then, despite the rumors bits of her body were sending to other bits of her body (mostly on the unoriginal subject of bits of his body), Rose very quickly found a comfortable position that he was still unlikely to get out of without causing himself injury. "Close your eyes and go to sleep," she told the Doctor, in a gentle, soothing tone.

"'Scuse me?" the Doctor demanded.

He also didn't seem to have any intention of moving. Rose filed that away for later and put a hand up to his cheek, brushing it gently with the back of her hand. "Shh. Close your eyes. Time for tired Time Lords to go night-night."

"That's goin' a bit far, there, Rose," he said, all wounded dignity. The fact that his hand had found its way into her hair wasn't lost on her, however. "Night night? How much more condescending can you get?"

Rose started humming.

"She's singin' me a lullaby," the Doctor muttered. "Nine hundred years old, here. Not an infant, me."

She kept up the slow, soothing caress, and the humming. The Doctor continued the muttering and complaining. After awhile, she noticed that the Doctor's annoyed grumbling sounded a lot like a cat being comfortable. Surrendering, Rose opened her eyes to tell him off and ship him out.

His eyes were closed, his expressive eyebrows still. His hold in her hair, though she hadn't realized it before, had dropped, a calm solid weight, to her shoulder. His lips (so kissable) had a soft, almost delicate smile playing on them, and his features hadn't so much softened as solidified. It was as if he was more visible in his sleep; the masks separating the world from his saturnine beauty and his fundamental innocence were missing.

How long she lay there, sprawled on his chest, watching the Time Lord dream, Rose didn't know. She did know that she stopped some time after his lips parted and his voice breathed one word - her name - like a whisper carried on ocean wind. The purring - he really, honestly purred, like a giant house cat - stopped for the most part after that. She lay her head on his shoulder and, never having felt so safe in her life, Rose Tyler slept.

The one thing she forgot - the only thing - was that where there's truth (the Doctor actually needing sleep, for example), there are also consequences.

Startled out of blissful unawareness by sudden movement in a way that things under you shouldn't move, Rose blinked blearily at the world around her. Her first thought wasn't particularly coherent, just a garbled series of disjointed, unattached words. Love was there, and nice, as well as sleep, warm, comfy, and Doctor. That last confused the rest, enough that forcing her eyes open began to seem important.

"Mine," came the low, very nearly sub-vocalized murmur.

Rose grinned. "Yours?" she teased in the softest tone she could use. If he was still sleeping and talking in his dreams, she didn't want to wake him, but she would love to know why he'd say that. If he was awake and aware, she wasn't sure she was ready to find out what was his in her bed and her room. Aside from the whole thing, technically, it being his ship and whatnot.

The Doctor's eyes, when she looked up his body to meet them, were sparkling blue mischief and something else, though Rose wasn't sure she could identify it. "Yours?" she asked again.

The Doctor grinned and, the very next thing Rose knew, the man she'd been using for a pillow had suddenly reversed their positions. "Mine," he enunciated, voice firm and tone leaving no room for debate. He snickered a little and kissed the tip of Rose's nose.

"No, that's mine," Rose corrected with a giggle.

"Nuh," the Doctor protested and wrapped his arms around Rose's shoulders. Rolling in the covers with her until they were tied up in their own blanket cocoon, he kept her laughing and confused until he stopped with Rose as wrapped around him as the blankets were both of them. "Mine!" he said, triumphantly, and dropped a playful kiss onto her forehead.

"No!" Rose managed to blurt between gasps of laughter. "I'm mine!"

"Shows what you know, Rose Tyler," the Doctor said, his chest rumbling with barely suppressed mirth. "Alien, me, an' you never asked what my culture says 'bout sleepin' together."

"But..." Rose started laughing again, helplessly. "But we didn't sleep together!" she exclaimed. "We just... slept together."

"Oh, that clears it up." The Doctor managed to turn them one more time in their blanket bundle, somehow planting himself comfortably on the pillows. This left Rose sprawled across his chest again, but this time she appeared to be completely pinned as well as he was. "Mine," he repeated, and wrenched his arms up to wrap them around her waist.

"So, you're saying that sleeping on a Time Lord makes me his personal plushie? Strange sort of rules, your lot."

"But you're perfect," the Doctor said, and tickled her sides. "All pink and yellow and... cuddly."

Rose squealed and tried to fight him off for a few minutes, and finally gave in. "Fine, I'm yours," she said, laughing even in her resignation. "No more boots in the bed, though, just so you know."

"Mine," the Doctor said sweetly, and their eyes met. Somewhere in the rarified air between them, laughter stopped. Their eyes locked.

Rose felt her heart pounding hard against her ribs, felt her love for him tugging at her lips to part them and speak. "Does that mean you're mine?" she whispered.

The Doctor's smile was tender and special, a look Rose was beginning to believe he reserved just for her. "Nothing new to that," he answered in the same soft tone, a hand working free to trail up and touch her face.. "Been yours since 'Run'; s'nothin' new at all."

Everything seemed to freeze there for an instant, and it hung, teetering on a precipice. And then, all at once, he moved - or she did? - one of them merely breathed funny and their mouths met.

Rose had always rather expected that if she ever kissed the Doctor, it would be a stolen, fleeting thing, or worse, a frantic, last minute desperation. Either way, it would be sloppy, hurried, and one of a kind.

This wasn't. It started off with sipping touches, like hummingbirds at flowers, lips brushing and feathering away, then sliding together again. It said very, very clearly that it was not anything like unique, only the first of its kind. It would lead the way, this kiss, and it would be followed by millions.

Gradually, that careful kiss evolved. Rose let her tongue brush the Doctor's mouth. His teeth grazed her lips, bringing pleasure and longing at the same time. Lips parted then, tongues entwined and learning.

The kiss wasn't the only thing beginning between them. The Doctor, having already freed his hands, was able to explore, and he did, but gently, almost tentatively. He brushed her face, cupped her cheek, touched her hair as he often did. The intimacy of the familiar touch had always been there but now it gained a new level. His eyes were shining, almost over bright, and when he lowered his head again, it was not to kiss her this time but to rest his forehead against hers.

"What're you thinkin'?" The inquiry was soft and hesitant, like he was afraid to find out the answer, but didn't dare keep the question inside. His eyes drifted away from hers, seemed afraid that meeting her gaze would be fatal.

Rose almost laughed. She wasn't exactly sure she was thinking at this point. Mostly, she was just bubbling over with love that ached and burned in her breast, her heart so full she could barely breathe from the pressure of it in her chest. She finally understood what people meant to call something agony and ecstasy at once.

She was going to live her entire life in this love, with this man. Even if tomorrow all this ended and she was back in her mundane beginning, the Doctor was going to be her heart, her hope, her home, forever. She would never leave him. Even if she was gone, she would spend the rest of her life reaching for him.

"I love you," she breathed, incredulous. She hadn't meant to do it, hadn't even realized how deep it went.

The Doctor froze, then slowly met her eyes again, as shy and suddenly vulnerable as if he'd never heard those words before. "But..." he started.

"But what?" Rose wanted to know. His gaze shot off into space again, and his eyes went strange and dark and burning. She needed to touch him, so she wriggled and wrenched and finally got a hand free. She didn't know what she'd planned to do with it, but when she had it, all she could think was what was right for them.

Hands entwined, running. But it was too late to run, at least for Rose, so she was here, wrapped up in her covers and her Doctor and her love, and nervously content to be so. She wreathed her fingers through his, tangling them up just like their bodies. "What are you thinking?" Rose whispered his question back to him.

The Doctor snorted. Rose bit back a gasp at the sensation of his breath ghosting over her face. "There's a hole with no bottom," he muttered.

Rose frowned now, not sure what she should think about a statement like that. The game was apparently over; it was time to get out of this bed and this day dream, and back to the real world. She started to try to figure out how to do just that.

The Doctor's hands seized her shoulders. "Rose, don't. It's not..." He shook his head, shrugged, looked into her eyes again, baffled and disturbed. "It's not that I don't return the sentiment. It's just... I dunno what to say."

"I love you, too, Rose Tyler?" she suggested playfully. She made a point of trying to imitate his accent, grinning at him with her tongue in the edge of her smile when she finished.

"But... Well, I s'pose you mean you're fond of me?" He looked hopeful and helpless at once, completely broken and crushed. Yet her next words could shatter him further unless she was very careful.

She thought for a moment about what to say, how to make him understand, how to protect her heart, if she even should. "You know, I dunno what to say, either," Rose began as the light came on. Honesty was the only thing that was going to get both of them through this fairly, and if she didn't come out in one piece, she was young and human and she'd mend. She'd mend differently, harder, sadder, but she'd be a whole, if slightly wrecked, person. He didn't have that option. "I want to protect my heart; I only have the one. I want to keep it safe. But it's too late for that, 'cuz I don't have it with me anymore. I gave it away. And because of that, because you've got my heart and all my love, every piece of me, you can decide what I mean with it, ok? If it'll hurt you too much, then I don't mean anything. We blame the kiss on the time of day and just messin' around, and we're still friends, and we move on."

"But?" The word might've been wrenched from him by the proverbial wild horses.

"But if you want, I'm all yours."

His eyes were very intense and very, very sad. "Oh, I want," he said, his voice darker and bluer than his indigo irises. "That's a given." He quirked the corner of his mouth up, a small half smile that suggested that tears weren't far off. "Wanting you, loving you, needing you... that was never a question, Rose Tyler, but..."

Rose raised her hand, lifted her finger to cover his lips. Then, she raised her head and kissed him. "Not asking for the moon, here," she said gently, when she broke the kiss.

The Doctor chuckled again. "Nah, that'd be easy. Time Lord, me. Can do six impossible things before breakfast, an' then run you out ta Milliways." He looked away, then, and his thumb came up to brush lightly across her lips. "Ever seen something so beautiful you didn't dare touch it for fear you'd break it?"

She knew what he meant, but she wasn't going to give him that one. "Just you." She watched his eyes go huge as they shot up to meet hers, like she'd suggested the world was flat and she could prove it. For a second, she could see a wry amusement in his eyes, and then it happened. The masks crumbled, that happy-go-lucky facade just faded away. Then, he was looking out at her instead of just peeking, joy and terror and awestruck wonder all glowing into her.

His voice was a whisper, trembling and trusting at once, a prayer and a plea as he bowed his head before her. "I've fallen so far. Please don't let me go."

"Never," Rose vowed fiercely, tears starting to stream freely down her cheeks. "I'm here and I'm yours for as long as you want me."

Through a voice as thick as hers, the Doctor said, "Good, then you'll stay forever."

Rose nodded and sniffled, laughing through her tears or crying through her laughter, she didn't know which. The Doctor's eyes were too bright, his smile so beautiful that Rose honestly believed she could drown in it. Happier than she had ever been in her life, she lay there with him, basking in the way they felt, the way they were, together.

His hand came up to stroke her face, to draw her down for one more kiss. When they broke apart this time, Rose could see the question in his eyes, could feel the answer inside her in so many ways. "Make love to me, Doctor," she whispered. "Let me make love to you."

The noise he made sounded like surrender and triumph all at once. The kiss that followed that sound was so intense Rose could feel it all the way to the soles of her feet. The damp, tingling ache that had been simmering inside her since she woke build up to a full, rolling boil. She wanted - needed - to touch him, but...

Her wordless cry of frustration was answered by a similar noise from the Doctor as he broke away from the kiss and surveyed the situation. Rose's mouth twitched at his consternated expression. The Doctor's grin started, his eyes glowing with jewel bright mirth, and all at once they were both laughing.

"Bundling," the Doctor observed, when they finally stopped laughing and he set to untangling them.

"Do what?" Rose wondered, shoving determinedly at a layer of fluffy fabric.

"Old custom in some places where winters were cold, the engagements were short, an' the priests were few and expensive. Sort of a pre-marriage rite, where the prospective couple gets tied up together in bed, pretty much like this. Used to get blamed for a lot of unexpected little 'uns." The Doctor shrugged. "Haveta take that idea back to the drawing board, obviously."

Rose laughed and shook her head. "S'a bit hard to get it together when your clothes are pinned in place between you," she agreed. Abruptly, she sobered as the thought came to her. "Um... I'm not ready to be a mum just yet, if that's something we have to think about?"

"You're safe," the Doctor promised. He studied her face. "D'you believe me?"

Rose nodded without hesitation. "If you were anyone else, I wouldn't, you know that, right?"

He nodded, slowly and seriously. "I won't let you get hurt, not even accidentally."

The Doctor rolled over and managed to unwrap the duvet on one side. With a yell of triumph, he managed to get their bodies separated. Rose didn't know if his movements were calculated to leave her breathless or not when he wriggled out of the duvet the rest of the way, but it worked.

"I'm cold," he complained almost immediately.

Rose couldn't help laughing at that statement. "You'll adjust," she said, rolling her eyes.

"You can warm me back up," he suggested playfully.

"I like that idea," Rose admitted honestly. "Lose the boots."

Rose could honestly say that she'd never played in bed before, and never ever like this. It was natural to the Doctor's personality, she thought, mischief and joy, enthusiasm and curiosity. Getting the two of them naked was like a game and like a quest, with kisses and exploring touches and humorous asides all being the rewards for each new success. He had a lot more clothes to lose than her, but by the time they were naked, Rose was certain that this was what sex was supposed to be like.

They weren't perfect by any means, not even a little bit. But they were them, and maybe that was what was right about it. She didn't know, but Rose did know that she would always think of this as real love making, and they'd not even gotten started.

"Do I look all right?" Rose asked, hiding her serious worry under teasing the Doctor because he hadn't stopped staring since she'd taken off her pants. It had just occurred to her, somewhere in all of this, that she wasn't the only one in this bed about to have sex with an alien. "Everything where you think it should be?"

He chuckled. "You're amazing, you know that?"

"Sure," she agreed, and gave him her best grin. "Why'm I amazing?"

"Just when I think I know what to expect from you." He shook his head, knelt on the edge of the bed to look down at her. "You're beautiful," he assured her, his hands following the path his eyes had already taken. "You're beautiful and you're fantastic and I'm completely in awe of you."

Rose was about to make a flippant comment to that, but the Doctor's hand brushed over her breast, stopping to tease her nipple to a hard and tingling little peak. "Time to stop talking?" she suggested breathlessly.

"Good idea," the Doctor agreed. He lay down next to her and his mouth replaced his hand.

Rose gasped and her hand went to the back of his head, her fingernails scratching lightly. The Doctor's buzzy purr in response to that was something she thought she'd have to ask about later, but for now, she just wanted what he was doing to never stop. She brushed her fingers over the curve of his ear, her other hand exploring his skin everywhere she could reach. She felt like she could spend hours, days, years traveling the length of his body with her hands and her eyes and her lips. She would never be tired of that journey and she could only hope it would never end.

Dragging the Doctor up for a deep and hungry kiss, Rose wrapped a leg around his waist, just to feel his hard body closer to her, just to relieve some of the pressure building within her. The Doctor was breathing hard when she broke the kiss, rocking against her, his eyes closed tight as if in supreme concentration. His hands were everywhere except where Rose wanted them the most. He whispered words, some she could understand and some she couldn't, but she tried to go along with any of them she could understand.

Close as they were, it still wasn't enough. They writhed together, reaching for some place that seemed to be just for them. Rose was almost certain she was going to go mad with lust, spontaneously combust from the heat building within her. She was dizzy with want and lost with confusion, and catching the hand the Doctor was using to support himself above her seemed like a good idea at the moment.

The Doctor tumbled down onto his back, laughing. Rose knelt next to him, and he tugged her closer, kisses decorating her face while they got situated. "Rose," he murmured, his voice like a prayer while one hand tangled in her hair.

Rose straddled the Doctor's hips, taking a moment just to sit back and admire him. His eyes drifted open slowly and he looked up at her. His hands slowly traveled the length of her body to settle on her hips. His smile was a plea and a promise at once, and Rose again felt tears start in her eyes as she quickly shifted herself.

Her heart sang when she sank down over him, and the gasping noise he made was the music. His eyes were all the light she would ever need, his touch was all the sensation. She was in love, so in love, and her love was with her and in her and filling her up, heart and body and, just, everything.

He helped her move, his hands guiding her to a careful, steady rhythm. At first she stayed on her knees, controlling herself with the strength of her thighs. She wanted to be closer and when one of the Doctor's hands traveled up to rest between her shoulder blades and try to pull her toward him, she gave in. Leaning forward and trying not to lose her pace, Rose kissed his lips, kissed his throat, kissed his chest between his hearts.

Her release was fast approaching now, this new angle being just right to press her against his body in the very best way. She felt crazy with lust for him, felt herself growing impatient, clumsy, and drenched for him. Every breath hitched, hers and his.

His fingers found her nipples again, so sensitive on her small breasts. He spoke to her in his singing language and he might have been encouraging her or he might have been reciting recipes. She didn't know; all she knew was that it was his voice and that sensual sound drove her even higher.

He shouted his love for her as he fell. His words, his movement, his voice, him... it brought her with him in that same heart beat, clenching and grasping and lights dancing behind her eyelids.

The Doctor liked to talk after sex, which didn't surprise Rose in the slightest. That he wasn't much different from a human male and therefore couldn't be bothered to get up or even stay awake for too long didn't surprise her. What did surprise her was the discovery that good sex was a complete upper for her.

"C'mon, we need a shower, and I want some tea, and I really want to see that planet you were just talking about, Myasenethi; it sounds beautiful..."

The Doctor's arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her down on top of him. "Close your eyes and go to sleep," he murmured soothingly.

"Isn't this where you came in at?" Rose asked playfully.

"Now, now, Rose Tyler, s'time for shagged out humans ta go to sleep."

"Not shagged out, Doctor, I promise." She grinned and tapped him on the nose. "In fact I... are you humming? You've got a good voice."

"Thanks," he murmured, then went back to humming.

"Not shagged out." Rose picked up where she had left off. "In fact, I could go again, no problem."

The humming stopped. "Well, in that case..."