My Blue Rose: Takes place while Rose is sleeping after the events of Father’s Day.

Chapter One

“No spectre assails us in more varied disguises than loneliness, and one of its most impenetrable masks is called love.” ~ Arthur Schnitzler, Buch Der Spruche Und Bedenken, p. 117

She hadn’t asked.

He stood at the door to her room. The TARDIS, in her sense of humor, had made it of weathered oak, deeply carved with images of roses and thorny vines. She was sleeping; he could hear her deep, even breathing. He closed his eyes and strained his ears, which were far more sensitive than a human’s, and could hear the slow, steady cadence of her heartbeat. He exhaled and relaxed, stiff posture replaced by hunched shoulders and bowed head.

For the last few hours he had been tense, firmly bastioned against the question (or demand) he knew was coming. He had even started lying to himself—Look at the power she has over you, you’re better off without her—trying to stave off some off the pain.

But she hadn’t asked.

After all she had been through, after his incredibly stupid concession —which had indelibly revealed that all his previous consequences for breaking the Laws of Time were a mere slap on the wrist by comparison—she hadn’t asked to be taken home. He had always been a lonely wanderer with a penchant for trouble and adventure. He had thought the Time War had forever robbed him of that, but Rose, to his delight, had proved him wrong. He thought the Time War had taken a part of him he’d never get back.

Until now, when he realized he loved Rose Tyler.