Umlauts weren't an option

“Rose.” The Doctor pulled back, breathless; she opened her eyes and saw his blue eyes were nearly black with desire.

“Yes, Doctor?” Her reply was just as breathless as his query.

“You’re sure you want this?” He pushed his hips into hers, and she felt the hardness of his erection press into her flesh. His naked skin was scalding hot against hers, and she felt her eyes drift down to where their bodies were pressed together. He leaned in and captured her lips, and she lost herself in their kiss for a moment...until he pulled away again.

“Once we do this, Rose, there’s no going back. Everything will change. I need to be sure you want this.” His voice was low and rushed.

Did she want this? She had thought so; had fantasized about it for so long she could barely remember a time when she hadn’t imagined what it would be like to shag the Doctor. This had been so sudden, so out of the blue, though...

She knew what her answer was. She raised her eyes back to the Doctor, and chewed her lip as she thought how to phrase it. The Doctor’s eyes looked at her lips, then back up at her eyes; she could feel the anticipation radiating off him.

“I...” She swallowed; she felt the Doctor’s hardness twitch against her as he watched her lick her lips. This was going to be difficult. “I think...maybe this is a mistake.”

“That’s not funny, Rose,” he growled. She noticed, however, that she could make out a bit of blue in his eyes now.

“I know it’s not.” The breathiness of her voice was starting to bother her. She meant what she was about to say, and wanted her voice to reflect it. She took a deep breath, released it slowly. “You’re right. This will change everything. And I...I don’t know that I want that.”

The Doctor’s surprise would have been comical in any other situation. His jaw literally dropped, his arms fell to his sides, and she thought that his eyebrows might actually be seeking refuge in his close-cropped hair.

“If this is your idea of foreplay, Rose, I am seriously unimpressed. Not turned on, either.” He took a step back; she noticed that her statement had done nothing to cool the more noticeable aspects of his ardour, but she took advantage of the distance to solidify her opinion.

“’s not a joke, Doctor. I’m not sure I want things to change. Maybe...maybe we can just put our clothes on and go back to being friends?” She gave him a small, hopeful smile; her expression was met with one of the Doctor’s fiercer gazes. She’d seen that gaze only a few times, and then only directed at a doomed despot or sadistic jailer.

He turned on his heel, searching the room for bits of clothing in silence; Rose tried hard not to let the sight of his lithe, naked form change her mind. Things would change. Permanently. She wasn’t sure that that was what she wanted, in spite of what her fantasies indicated. Shagging the Doctor...that path was fraught with complications she wasn’t sure she could handle. She only wished she’d realized it before it had come to this.

The Doctor spoke abruptly, his hands still empty. “So things will change less if we stop now? Than they would if we just went through with it?”

Rose stared at him, wide-eyed. “You…don’t think so?”

“I think things were changing when we were snogging on our way down the hallway. I think things were changing when we were tearing off each other’s clothing in the control room.” He advanced upon her. She would have backed up if she could have done it without it turning into an inelegant—and unattractive—scramble. “I think things were changing when you kissed me in the first place.” He leaned over her, bracing his hands on the mattress on either side of her, blue eyes boring into hers. “Don’t you think all that changed things, Rose?”

She gaped up at him, swallowed thickly. “Well, yeah, but…You know, not as much as…You asked me if I was sure,” she reminded him.

“Yeah,” he agreed, shortly. “That was a bit stupid of me. I probably should have asked you back when you took your top off.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she told him, trying to sound breezy and confident instead of still pretty damn aroused.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Rose looked at his mouth and thought that she kind of wanted it back on hers, wanted to nibble past the straight, unyielding line of it, until her tongue brushed against his and he groaned the way he had in the control room when she had suddenly lost her head and snogged the life out of him.

She shifted her weight enough to lift her head up to find his lips. The kiss was hungry and urgent, and she was vaguely aware of his weight as he lowered himself onto the mattress, as his body pressed against hers—

“So you’re sure then?” He drew back abruptly, demanded an answer in a harsh rasp.

She looked up at him, at the eyes that were once again dark with desire. “Well, I…”

He groaned—and not in a good way—and rolled away from her, digging the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Rose.”

She propped herself up on her elbows and frowned down at him. “Well, what d’you keep asking me for?”

“I need to make sure, don’t I?”

“But I’m not sure. I can’t lie about it. It changes things. A way kissing doesn’t change things.”

“A way lying on a bed naked together doesn’t change things?” he asked, speculatively.

“Yes.”

“How far does this go? What other activities don’t change anything?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t think it goes as far as you’re thinking.”

“That’s a shame,” he said, and, when she flopped back onto the bed in irritation, he protested, “I was only asking!”

“Fine. Fine. You think everything’s changed already? Let’s do it and get it over with.”

“Oh, well, that’s…that’s…” He sat up grouchily. “When you put it that way, I’m not even sure I want to do it.”

“You want to do it,” she informed him, sitting up as well. “You’re not in a position to lie about that right now.”

He looked down at the irrevocable proof of his desire; not even Rose’s hot and cold act was going to dim that. He brought his eyes back to hers. “I do want to. Very much. But not because you feel some sort of obligation to get me off.” She blushed, her eyes dropping—involuntarily?—to his crotch. “That can be taken care of whether you’re involved or not, Rose.” Her eyes hurriedly slipped to a point on the sheets. “I won’t lie—I want to have sex with you. But if stopping is what you really want, I’ll cope. The problem here isn’t that—well, not completely, but I’ll get back to that. It’s that you’re sending mixed messages. You can’t snog a man, get him stripped, get him more than ready for a bout of vigorous shagging…and then decide to change your mind. That’s called ‘being a tease’ in every negative way.”

“But you asked…” Her voice wasn’t as strong as it had been.

“I did. And I’m happy to talk about it, if you’re that unsure. But not ‘talk-interspersed-with-snogging.’ Gets back to the whole ‘mixed message’ thing.”

Rose nibbled on her lower lip, thinking through what he said. She ached for him, no question; but the fear of the unknown was making her queasy. She moved her gaze to his face and found him giving her a serious look in return—the same look he gave her when he wanted her to work through things; the one that could change so easily to deep disappointment or beaming pride.

She swallowed. “’m scared.”

His eyebrows once more arched. “Of what?” His expression darkened. “Because I’m alien? Rose, you really should have—“

She cut him off. “No, ’s not that. Don’t really care about that, really. What’s going to happen after? What if you don’t like it, or I don’t like it? What if you decide tomorrow that it was a horrible mistake and you drop me off never to be seen again?” What if I like it so much I never want to let go?

He reached over and grabbed one of her hands. Playing with it, he spoke softly. “There are no guarantees in life. Not just our life, mind—any life. Y’never know what you’re going to get.”

Her lips quirked. “You going to trot out all the clichés, then?”

“Just because it’s cliché doesn’t make it untrue.” He dropped his hands to his lap, hers clasped in between them. “The question is, Rose—are you willing to take a chance on this? If not, I’ll stop. I’ll find my clothes and put them back on and I’ll stay your friend. I’ll never mention this again. I know I can do that. But if you are…” His gaze intensified, his blue eyes promising all sorts of things.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled, and opened them. “’k”

His eyes brightened as he processed what she meant. “You’re sure, then?”

“No.” His eyes darkened. “But I’ll take the chance.” She leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his full lips, silencing the rational part of her mind and focusing on the here and the now.

He returned the kiss, building the intensity slowly; she felt her body once more begin to flush, to grow ready for him. He gently laid her back on the bed, covering her body with his, as they took their chance.

*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*

They lay, exhausted, much later. Rose stared up at the ceiling, trying to catch her breath.

“Worth the chance, Rose Tyler?”

“Oh,” said Rose, breathlessly. “That puts it mildly. Thank God for Time Lord stamina.”

He looked pleased with himself. “Yeah.”

“Yeah. And, well, size.”

He smugly stacked his hands under his head, as he stared at the ceiling as well. “There is that.”

She was silent for a second, before saying, in shock, “How many orgasms did I have?”

“I didn’t keep count.” A beat. “More than two, I think.”

“That’s, like…” She suddenly burst into giggles.

“Oi,” he protested. “And what’s funny about it?”

“Oh, nothing, really.” She rolled to prop herself on his chest, teasing him. “It’s just…you and the clichés.”

“The clichés?” He looked torn between being delighted that she was happily sprawled on top of him and bewildered by what she was saying.

”Well,” she grinned. “It was the sex, right? Sex that spectacular is like cliché sex, you know. Like a scene in a romance novel.” She blushed suddenly. “Not that I read things like that.”

“Ah,” said the Doctor. “Well. What did I tell you about clichés?” He reached to pull her more fully on top of him, where legendary Time Lord stamina was beginning to reassert itself into mythical Time Lord size. “Just because it’s cliché doesn’t make it untrue.”