amberfocus | Take It Back (1/4) (Reply)

A/N: Nine/Rose. Okay this is the sequel to Always Ask Twice. Whilst that was fun and flirty this is much more angsty. This was before I was comfortable with writing smut, so much is left to the imagination, though there will be sex in chapter two and there are consent issues which may bother some readers, though the fic deals with the issue of that. This takes place the morning after. It's on Teaspoon but I've polished it up and improved it since then.

She didn't expect much but this didn't even occur to her...

Chapter One: Broken

Rose had woken up to an empty bed and though she’d searched the TARDIS high and low, she hadn’t been able to find the Doctor anywhere. She had opened the doors to go outside and look for him but had been confronted with a rainfall so daunting and painful that she had hastily stepped back inside. Sometime during the night he had moved the ship and then he had left her alone in it. A black tinge of soot covered one side of the console and several wires were exposed. Obviously something had happened to the TARDIS last night, too.

She bit at her lip. She was scared she had ruined things with her ‘human stupidity.’ She hadn’t done anything as foolish as saying ‘I love you’ or ‘Gee, Doctor, does this mean I’m your girlfriend now?’ Or any of the other infinite awful choices she could have allowed to come spilling out of her mouth after a night of the most fantastic sex she’d ever had. No, she had simply told him that she’d enjoyed herself completely and that if he ever felt like doing that again he only had to ask.

He’d tensed up at her words, the thought of having a repeat performance with her any time in the future one he obviously wasn’t comfortable with. His eyes had shuttered and his gentle smile had drifted away, replaced by the dark, brooding expression she had so come to dread.

She’d managed to shrug it off when he’d flipped off the lamp and let her snuggle against him, pulling her closer even, his arms wrapping her in his meager warmth. His grip on her said the opposite of his expression, telling her he never wanted to let her go, and she’d wanted to trust her senses and her hope over her common sense. Next time she was going with her common sense.

It took the Doctor three days to return to the TARDIS. That day she’d been sitting curled up on the jump seat feeling lost and afraid and very much abandoned. She’d cried and screamed and she’d raged at the walls of the ship, until even the ship had tried to offer comfort but Rose hadn’t been reachable. When she’d calmed she’d attempted more than once to go out in the weather but each time she’d been unable to see more than a foot in front of her in any direction. After almost not finding her way back to the TARDIS she’d given up trying. She’d raged again, finally allowing the hum of the TARDIS to soothe her, so that when he at last returned she was calm.

He strode past her without saying a word. He didn’t even glance in her direction. When she trailed after him to the kitchen and paused in the doorway, opening her mouth to say something, anything to fill the silence between them, he slammed a mug down on the counter so hard it broke. She gasped and saw him flinch at the sound, but he didn’t turn to look at her.

“Doctor?” she asked her voice hesitant. He acted like he didn’t hear her but she could tell from the tension in his limbs that he had. What had she done to make him react this way? “Doctor?” she tried again. He continued to ignore her. Choking back a sob, for she wouldn’t cry in front of him, she turned and walked away, finally listening to that small quiet voice that had been telling her she’d been a fool. And she really had. From the day she had met him, he’d turned her into a little fool.

She’d sacrificed everything to travel with him these last few months. Her mum, her boyfriend, her planet for crying out loud! She’d walked away from it all without a second thought for him. To be with him. Then she’d given him all of her. She had nothing left to give. He had taken everything from her and now he no longer wanted it.

It had been a week before the Doctor would even look at her again. And even now he wasn’t really looking at her. More just in her general direction or through her and if he accidently made eye contact his gaze would flit rapidly away. It certainly didn’t linger long enough to see the pain he was causing her.

It was ten days before he started talking to her again, if you could call it that. He’d only grunt “yes” or “no” or “busy” and once “where’s the tea bags” when she attempted conversation. Rose didn’t understand what was going on with him, but what had been a fun and spontaneous evening, one she had thought would deepen their relationship and maybe move it on to one where she could let him know her true feelings for him, had done exactly the opposite.

She was dying inside at the way he was treating her, trying so hard to figure out what she could do to make things better, but he didn’t seem to want things better. Eventually, though it killed her inside, she stopped trying and let him get on with his repairs in peace. She went days without coming out of her room, days without seeing him, and the fun-loving happy-go-lucky girl she had been turned hard and cold.

Six weeks passed and they were still on the same forsaken mudball of a planet where it never stopped raining. As far as she could tell the TARDIS wasn’t moving no matter what repair attempts the Doctor made. In frustration she had finally offered to help and the Doctor had told her off rather nastily with a lot of eye rolling on his part and a very snide attitude as he asked her what good she could possibly be to him.

Rose managed to keep a handle on her emotions, though she had wanted to smack that look right off his face. But slapping men was her mother’s forte. “None,” she said flatly. “No use to you at all. Proven that, haven’t I?” She turned on her heel and left him alone, ignoring the quiet utterance of her name from behind her.

She waited until she was under the downpour of the shower to cry. It wasn’t that she even wanted him anymore. The very thought of him touching her again in any way just made her feel incredibly sad and broken inside. The man whose hand had once been the greatest source of both security and excitement to her since he’d first taken hers and saved her life, was no longer welcome to even grasp her fingers. Not that he’d tried. But she missed the friendship and the adventure and the better way of living she’d gotten used to before everything had changed. She missed him. Her best friend.

She emerged from the shower red-faced from the shower and not from crying, or at least she hoped it appeared so. She wrapped a towel around her head, slid into her robe and nearly crashed into the Doctor on her way out of the bathroom. Rose didn’t even look past eye level, her gaze confronted by his leather jacket and woolen jumper, something she would have once buried her face in.

“Rose.”

She took two steps to the right and walked around him. She couldn’t stop herself from sniffling but she was not going to break down where he could hear her. He did not deserve to see her cry. Stoically she moved down the hallway and into her room, shutting the door quietly. The very absence of the door slamming seemed to echo through the TARDIS.

Slowly Rose dressed in a pair of worn, faded jeans and a ratty old grey hoody, yanked a comb through her hair and then twisted it up into an untidy knot on top of her head. She took deep calming breaths. There was no point in applying makeup. Even if she didn’t cry huge mascara tears and ruin it all, it wasn’t like there was anyone to attract anyway. The Doctor had proven that he didn’t want her anymore so there was no point in even trying. And she was done with trying for him.

Rose sat on her bed, knees drawn up to her chest, rocking back and forth as she tried to make a decision about her future. Something had to give and if she didn’t make a stand she was pretty sure it was going to be her. She heard a sudden change in the hum of the TARDIS and the lights in her room brightened. There was a triumphant shout from the direction of the console room. Whatever the problem had been, he must have finally fixed it. Good. Now they could get off this worthless planet. It was time to go home. Back to where she was needed. Back to where people actually loved her and wanted her around.

Rose ignored the knock the first time she heard it, sure it was just her imagination. No one would be knocking on her door. No one on the ship wanted to see her. It was just the TARDIS settling. A second knock made her look up, but she frowned, still not believing it was what it was. There was no third knock.

“I know you’re in there.” How odd it was to hear his voice. How unfamiliar.

“Rose!”

She jumped at the sound of her own name. Before today the last time he had used it he’d been crying out in passion. She didn’t even want to think about the last time he’d used it. His hand rattled the doorknob impatiently. She stood up and padded over to the door, unlocking it with a little snick. If she hadn’t he’d just have used the sonic screwdriver anyway. His ship, his rules. The lock had only ever been cosmetic, really. She’d never wanted to lock him out before.

She retreated to her bed and resumed her knee hugging posture. She was back in place when the door opened and the Doctor stuck his head in. She didn’t raise her head to look at him, her eyes staying stubbornly on her feet, noting the nail polish was almost completely gone. She hadn’t bothered retouching it in weeks, either.

“Rose, why didn’t you answer me?” he asked. His voice almost sounded normal. She shrugged. She wasn’t about to tell him he knew very well why. It wasn’t worth the effort. “The TARDIS is fixed. We can leave here now.” She tried not to notice the conciliatory tone he was using, refused to look at him. When he spoke again his voice was hesitant. “So, the universe is the limit. Is there anywhere you’d like us to go?”

“Us?” she asked as if she didn’t recognize that such a word existed. The sound of her own voice was foreign to her. She tried so hard not to show him any flicker of her hurt or anger or frustration, but a single tear fled her eye and tracked its way down her cheek. She closed her eyes tightly. She heard his footsteps coming closer and when he reached out and wiped the tear away she flinched, cringing away from him as if he had struck her.

Rose heard his sharp intake of breath and his step back from her. She took a deep breath and finally raised her eyes to his. Her voice was completely devoid of emotion when she spoke. “There isn’t any us. You can take me home, Doctor. For good. And then you can look up the coordinates for hell. And go there.”

Ch. 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/22317.html