Whenever the Doctor had restless sleep, the TARDIS would often be restless as well.
She, the spaceship with a soul, would be tired and cranky and unable (or unwilling) to land on the correct street, or even in the correct star system. Consequently, the Doctor would have tried to get sleep for once the previous night, and in failing, he and all around him seemed to be chaotically affected.
"Why do you always do this to me? On days like this?" The Doctor would mutter with sad eyes whenever the TARDIS would violently rock him and Rose. "I'm just trying I get us to Cardiff!"
"Maybe she doesn't want me to go home!" Rose would yell over the noise, grinning.
"Maybe your mum's in a bad mood, and she's warning us," the Doctor would joke, despite his yawn of exhaustion.
"Could be."
But the Doctor knew it wasn't a foreboding of Jackie's temper (which could very well be part of it), or even a foreboding of any other disaster. On nights when he had many nightmares and no restful sleep, he knew it was the psychic link setting a firery weariness between him and his beloved time machine.
~~~
One particular week, the Doctor had some of the worst dreams he'd had in a long time. It was after their time on Krop Tor, the Impossible Planet under a black hole. He had almost lost his TARDIS, his Rose, and his life; and if he had lost the first two subjects, he wouldn't have cared about losing the last one.
The dreams-- or nightmares would be a better term-- consisted of the fears of the day mixed with other fears: losing Rose on an alien planet, or losing her to the mortalness of humankind; losing the TARDIS, the only thing he owned, which brought him to his companions and his beloved Rose Tyler; and of course, as always, being the last Time Lord alive. These were the thoughts that always haunted him, but in this week, they were the worst in a very long time.
Rose had only a few times before heard the Doctor struggle with his nightmares like this, and those times were in their early adventures: shortly after she had run away with him, shortly after the Time War. From across the hall, where she slept in her own bedroom, she heard his cries and strangled shouts. Before, in the early days, she had just left him alone, assuming that he would want to just return to sleep, and not be embarrassed by her interfering. But now, Rose knew that the Doctor would rather have, and needed, a hand to hold when he had these night terrors.
She was awoke with a start, as she had before, and nearly jumped out of bed at the sound of the Doctor in trouble. It was simply instinct to go to him when he was in trouble now, so she did.
Slowly opening his door, she crept into his darkened room. She had found him there only a few times, for he rarely ever slept. "Superior biology" and whatnot, she had always figured, but now she thought that maybe it could be because if the nightmares, too.
The Doctor was tossing and turning in his bed, still under the spell of whatever fear had decided to taunt him tonight. Rose switched on a nearby lamp, which turned out to be just the right amount of light; enough to see, but not enough to spook him awake.
Rose gently sat herself next to the Doctor on his bed. She reached out to shake him awake, but before she could, she was shocked to hear her name muttered through the tears he had been crying.
"Rose..." He mumbled. Was he awake? Had he seen her come in? Rose's hand was frozen in the air above him, not sure what to do.
"No... You can't take her..." he almost inaudibly said. Now Rose knew. Someone in the Doctor's nightmare was trying to her away from him. Rose was both touched and saddened by the words. She needed to wake him, to free him from the nightmare.
"Doctor," she spoke softly and gently moved his arm, "I'm right here. Wake up, it's me, Rose."
The Doctor sleepily protested, still believing that he was in the dream, and that someone was attacking him. He moaned and shook his arm away defensively.
"Doctor, it's just a nightmare. I'm right here. Me, Rose, in the TARDIS."
The Doctor turned toward her voice and opened his eyes slowly. "Rose?" He asked with drooped eyelids.
"Yep. You were having a nightmare," she said.
"I was." The Doctor said darkly, seeming to recall the bad dreams. He shook his head. "You can go back to sleep. I'm fine."
"No you're not," Rose replied. "You're just going to have more if you go right back to sleep, so I'll stay here and help you out. Besides, I won't be able to go back to sleep now."
The Doctor sighed, then smiled. "Thank you. Would you like to sit?" He scooted over and patted a spot next to him by the head of the bed. Rose nodded and complied, scooting close to him. The two began to speak quietly, for some reason, even though they were obviously the only two on the TARDIS, and had no need to be quiet.
"You wear banana jimjams?" Rose laughed as she looked at the Doctor's blue space-and-banana-themed night clothes.
The Doctor bashfully looked down and smiled. "Yeah... They're my favorites."
Rose chuckled. She was relieved that the Doctor could still smile so soon after a bad dream; she supposed any strong-hearted soul could. But there was an absentminded sad look in the Doctor's eyes that told her he was still not okay.
After a couple of moments of quiet, she asked, "Want to talk about your nightmare?" She knew it sounded childish, like a mother talking to her young son, but maybe that's just what the Doctor needed.
He let out a breath. "Well... Yeah. Okay." He nodded.
"Let's see. You were in it."
"I know. I kind of heard you say my name when I came in here." Rose smiled slightly, trying to keep his mood up.
"Oh, you did?" He tried to smile back, but sounded bashful. "What was I saying about you?"
"You were telling someone not to take me away."
The Doctor sighed. "Yes. That's what they were trying to do."
"Who were they?" Rose asked.
He shrugged. "It was just thousands of different people and creatures; they were mostly my enemies, like the Daleks and the Cybermen. But there were also friends who have...left. And the Time Lords were definitely there, demanding that I hand you over--" the Doctor's voice cracked and he suddenly grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight. Rose was surprised, but she began to rub her thumb over the back of his hand. This seemed to soothe him, even though tears were now falling freely from his eyes. He was holding in sobs, she could tell.
"Doctor, you don't have to be strong for me," Rose whispered. "You can let it out."
The Doctor nodded and breathed out, which sounded close to a sob.
"I just--" he was looking down, his voice definitely woven with crying now, "--I can't bear the thought of losing you."
Rose, as shocked as she was by the sight and sound of the Doctor weeping, quickly wrapped her arms around him in an embrace. The action practically popped the lump he had felt in his throat and he breathily sobbed. He tightened his arms around hers and buried his face into her shoulder.
"Don't you worry about that, Doctor." Rose ran her hand down the back of the Doctor's head and smoothed the other one up and down his back. "I'm never, ever going to leave you by yourself."
"Someone could still take you from me," he muttered. "Someday, some horrible, terrible day, I might not be able to save you." He sniffed and squeezed her to him even tighter.
"I won't let that happen," Rose said sternly. "I'm can fight for myself too, you know."
The Doctor let out a small laugh. "I know you can. But the universe is cruel to me, and it takes everyone I ever love away from me. I don't want that to happen to you."
"You know what I think?" Rose pulled back from the hug and set her hand in his own. "I think that, while that is true, about the universe, the universe needs us to be together." Rose smiled confidently at him. "Remember how we escaped that black hole? Krop Tor, just yesterday? That was amazing. 'The stuff of legend', you called us two when Ida asked who we were, remember? And remember when we defeated those Cybermen in the parallel world were my dad was alive? We could have done it if my dad wasn't part of it."
Rose took the Doctor's other hand, so she was now tenderly holding both. "And the Bad Wolf? That was practically destiny, Doctor!"
The Doctor sat thinking for a while. The tears were still streaming out of his eyes, but he wasn't sobbing. After a couple moments, he smiled. A bright, wide, ear-to-ear grin that was contagious into Rose.
The Doctor laughed and shook his head. "I don't know what I ever did to deserve you, Rose."
"Must've been something great!" Rose laughed along. "Like saving the universe a couple hundred times! Which you do."
They laughed and hugged again, and we're soon sitting on the bed in an awkward silence.
"Well, I guess I'll get back to my own dreaming now," Rose said and stood up to leave the room.
"Wait, Rose." The Doctor grabbed her wrist.
"Yes?" She turned back to him.
"Will you-- that is, would you mind...sleeping in here with me tonight?" He looked down. "I know it's childish, but I think it will really repel the nightmares-"
"It's perfectly fine, Doctor," Rose said, chuckling at his bashfulness. He smiled and let go of her hand. "Just let me get my pillow."
"Okay."
She returned within a minute, a pink pillow under her arm. The Doctor moved his own baby-blue pillow over to make room for her, and she laid her head down on her own and snuggled her way under the Doctor's matching dark blue blankets.
"Is this okay? Not too weird for you?" The Doctor asked hesitantly as he turned to face her.
"We've shared a bed before, Doctor," Rose remarked as she herself turned to face him. "On our little adventures, like the one on Amorilite 2?"
"Oh, right," the Doctor practically blushed. "Those Amorilitans just love their bed-sharing..."
"Now that was just out of hand," Rose laughed.
"I quite liked their customs!" The Doctor objected. "Such a cuddly, loving race. I could do without the all-year mating season though."
"Oh God, that was mortifying!" Rose laughed. "Can you believe they wanted us to...you know?"
"I've been in worse situations," the Doctor relied.
Rose raised an eyebrow at the Doctor and smiled. "So, you quite enjoyed that, then?"
The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, but smiled. "No! Well, like I said, I like their cuddly culture, that's all."
"Fine. Let's get some sleep. You may not need as much rest, but I sure do."
"Goodnight, Rose. And thank you." He kissed her forehead.
"Anytime, Doctor."
~~~
And anytime it was. Whenever Rose would hear the Doctor having nightmares, she would immediately go to him with her pillow tucked under her arm, snuggle under his blankets and continue her sleep there until morning. It even seemed as though the Doctor was trying to get better sleep more often. Soon, it was close every night that Rose slept in the Doctor's room, the only exception being when the Doctor didn't need sleep himself.
The TARDIS wasn't in a bad mood because of the Doctor's nightmares anymore either, for the Doctor rested easy with Rose at his side. His subconscious was always calmed whenever Rose was nearby in his resting and waking hours. The psychic link between the Doctor and the TARDIS was no longer distressed because of the his restless dreaming.
Add that to the long list of things Rose Tyler has made better, the Doctor thought.
~~~
Hiii guys! Hope you enjoyed that.
I do way too many TenRose shots, sorry. I just love them too much!
I'm on summer break now, so I'm going to try to get a lot of my ideas done (I have a lot). Also, some requests from sooo long ago.
Thanks for reading! :)