Rating: TeenPairing: Nine x RoseSummary: The Doctor is unable to resist the fall toward Rose after coming to terms with her desire to save his life.Tags: Emotional hurt/comfort; Protective!Nine; Sexual TensionWords: 1,394Find it: AO3Notes: NIGHTFALL. Thanks for the prompt! Read the rest at AO3!
Thanks to @lostinfic for the beta!
The night falls quickly, and a blanket of inky blackness permeates every empty alley and dark corner in the ruinous city. The Doctor holds Rose’s hand in a vice grip as they stride down long sidewalks on the way back to the TARDIS. The space between them is fraught with tension, the heavy kind that festers with long-forbidden emotions brought to the surface in those fragmented moments of fear and panic.
Earlier that day, Rose, his brave companion, had thrown herself in front of him to save his life in a moment when everything had gone awry. They’d been working with an insider to save a group of rebels from a ruthless dictator. In the end, it hadn’t mattered; they’d both made it out relatively unscathed, and the rebels had toppled the dictatorship. But now, hours later, the Doctor seethes with anger. Anger at Rose. At himself for getting them into another disaster of an adventure and throwing Rose into danger once more. At another bloody dictator trying to conquer the universe.
His mouth tightens into a grimace as his mind flashes images of Rose diving in front of him during the explosion – her arms thrown around his torso and her body covering his, while the force of the blast throws them off their feet. Miraculously, she’d survived, but her arms bear shallow scratches from bits of gravel, and a dark bruise spreads across her right cheek from the impact of the landing.
The memories swirl around his mind in a dangerous tumult, simultaneously dislodging other, somehow more dangerous thoughts about his companion. Want. Her whiskey-colored eyes gazing into his. Need. A flash of the smooth skin of her back. Desire. Fantasies of his hands caressing soft curves. Fear. The image of her on a street, lifeless and bloody. Nausea.
Find the rest of the story at: AO3