“Please, Rose.  I need you.  Come on back to me.”

She stilled suddenly and shakily traced a hand down his arm to his fingers that held her around her waist with loving pressure.

“Doctor?” she turned abruptly onto her back, the Doctor moving quickly out of her way, and questioned him with wide, teared streaked eyes.

“I’m here.  You were having a nightmare,” his intense eyes bored into hers and his voice was soft and caring.

Rose seemed to shake herself fully to awareness at the realisation that she was being observed.

“Oh, gross!  The bed’s soaked.  I’m sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.  It was silly, irrational…the raven and the way I was touching…I should…hmmm…shower and change the sheets,” she was standing already, if unsteadily, on her feet and bumfling up bed clothes and padding around her room in bare feeted distraction.

He rose and took her hand stilling her, “That can wait.  Are you ok?”

She thought he looked beautiful in the diffused light, like something not entirely of this realm and maybe, she supposed, he was.

“Yeah,” she coughed and in a second the Doctor had her sitting on the edge of the bed with a mug of water.

“Sorry bout this,” she muttered through sips.

“Don’t be silly.”  The Doctor was rubbing her back in calming motions and she felt so young and embarrassed but blissfully safe and cared for.  She smirked at the thought of the Doctor, domestically ‘Mother Henning’ her.

He put his arm around her and leaned in to place a chaste kiss on her cheek but continued to rest his head against hers.  Rose began to shiver involuntary as the clinging cotton cooled against her flushed skin.

“Sorry.”

“Stop that,” he playfully chided and pulled a fragranced, fresh pair of pyjamas from her drawer.

“Here.  Go splash some water on your face and put these on, eh?”

Numbly Rose shuffled into the bathroom, emerging looking fresher and more content a few minutes later. 

He simply took her hand then and led her out of the room, down two corridors, around the fountain and across the hall.

He opened the door to his bedroom and guided her inside, “Sleep here tonight.”

“Where will you sleep?” she asked in a quiet, uncertain voice, feeling stupid at the assumption that he would sleep at all and at the timidity of her question.  She hated feeling vulnerable but that dream had been so vivid, the images still warred for dominance in her mind, and had left her reeling with confusion and anxious fear.

“Right here,” he said, “If that’s ok with you?”

Staring dumbly at the familiar spiky haired alien before her, Rose finally managed to nod her head.