amberfocus | Take it Back (2/4)

A/N: Nine/Rose. Here's the polisehd and updated version of chapter two. I think it's a lot better than the first version. A lot more...Rose, really.
Rose's anger rises to the surface and she lets the Doctor have it. Non-graphic sex.

Chapter Two: Anger

“You want to leave me?” the Doctor asked. Shock and a sudden fear had entered his voice. How could he honestly be surprised at this? Rose wondered. He had to have known just how far he’d been pushing her. Didn’t he see how his actions had torn her up from the very first day that he’d come back? He had to know it.

“Yes,” she said her voice hardened and her body shifting out of its defensive posture. She rose from the bed. “And that’s not a question you’ll ever have to ask twice.” She kept her voice quiet, contained, but the rage was there, boiling under the surface and she could tell from his expression that he was finally aware of it.

“I want to leave you. I want to go home. I want to pretend that I didn’t meet you, that I didn’t let you touch me, that I never ever let myself feel anything when it came to you.” She spoke calmly working hard to contain the fury welling up from the very heart of her.

Rose took a deep breath. “I want my life back,” she said simply.

“Your life? I didn’t take your life,” the Doctor said.

“Oh, but you did. You took everything I had, Doctor. Every single thing that I could possibly give up for you or to you, I gave. You’ve called me a stupid ape so many times.” He winced but she went on ruthlessly. “And I guess I have been, because you know what? I was happy to do it. I was happy with you until...” Her voice had begun to rise and she smoothed the anger back out of it.

“I was happy because you showed me a better way of living and it was for you and I…I thought it was worth it because it was for you. I thought you were worth everything.” Her eyes locked on his and her stomach knotted painfully. His expression was unreadable.

“I put my life at risk for you when I barely knew you!” Her voice had risen into anger and this time she couldn’t squash it back down. “I followed you onto this ship when I didn’t even know who you were. I wanted to be with you that badly!”

“And now?” he asked softly.

“It used to be worth it and now it’s not,” she said matter-of-factly.

“But why? What’s changed so much to make you want to leave me?” His bewilderment angered her.

“I know you’re not that oblivious, Doctor. Stop pretending!” she snapped.

“Rose, I’m not pretending anything. I need to know. Just tell me,” he said and his voice broke just a tiny bit.

“How can you ask me that? How?” She swiped the tears away from her eyes furiously. “You made love to me, Doctor. You made love to me all night long. Too many times for it to be a mistake or a lapse in judgment. You made love to me like I meant something to you and then you were gone. You abandoned me for three days. Anything could have happened to you. You could have been lying somewhere out there dead or hurt and I’d never have known what happened to you.”

She was losing the battle with her anger and a very Jackie-like snarl came into her voice. “I didn’t even care about me! Didn’t matter that I might be stuck on this planet alone for the rest of my life. All I was worried about was you! Losing you forever! Stupid, stupid, stupid little ape!”

“Rose, no--.”

“Then you came back.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper, broken in half and hauled along shattered glass. “You came back and I was so relieved to see you I could have forgiven you all of it if you’d only just talked to me. But you wouldn’t, would you? You wouldn’t talk to me or look at me or even acknowledge my existence. You made me feel like nothing, Doctor. And I won’t be nothing. Not to you.”

“You’re not nothing, Rose. You’re not!”

She took in another deep breath, her chest heaving. “I would have been okay with one night with you and that was it. It might have stung for a bit, yeah, but we were…I thought we were best friends. We would have found a way past it. More would have been nice but I could have lived with what we’d done and not ever been sorry about it. It’s obvious that you couldn’t. You made a mistake and you regretted it. You should have told me. I’m a big girl. I could have taken it. But you didn’t. What you did was wrong.”

“I know. I--.”

But she plowed on as if she didn’t hear him. Now that she was saying it, it was all going to come out. “You asked why I want to leave you, but you have to know. It’s because you left first. And it hurt. Hurt so much I thought…” She squeezed her eyes shut, fought the tears down and then looked him straight in the eyes. “I didn’t ask you for anything. Not to do it again, not to have a commitment, not to pledge you’re undying love. I left you safe without the domestics that you so dread. These domestics right here.” She snorted disparagingly. “Guess you get them anyway, don’t you?”

She sighed. “I was content enough with what it was, knowing it might be all I ever got from you. It was good, Doctor. Not just the sex, though it was, but it was good because it was with you. And I thought it was for you, too. You seemed to enjoy it. I thought we’d be okay because you were my best friend, my kindred spirit, my…I don’t know what. But you weren’t supposed to hate me!”

“I don’t hate you,” he said quietly. “Oh, Rose, I could never hate you.”

Rose stared at him wide-eyed. “Then why did you treat me this way? What other excuse do you have for it? Why did you treat me like I wasn’t even worth your time, Time Lord?” She sneered his title. “You don’t want me. You certainly don’t need me. I’m someone you picked up to amuse you for awhile, someone to tell you how brilliant you are. I get it now.”

His face had gone blank, his expression unreadable, his eyes giving nothing away. The tears she’d been holding back spilled out of her eyes and she turned her back on him. She just wanted him to show some emotion, something other than bafflement to her hurt and anger. He really wasn’t human. Why did she always forget that? Why did she forget that he might not have the same types of emotions? Could he even feel love?

She knew he felt anger and fear and loyalty, sadness, regret and something that might at times be mistaken for happiness. He seemed to have great affection for the TARDIS and up until this had happened, she thought he’d had it for her as well. But love? For all she knew his language didn’t even have a word for it.

“I didn’t want you to love me.” He whispered the words.

She whirled on him. “I guess you got what you wanted then,” she said flatly, “Because I don’t. After what you did to me, leaving me and not talking to me or looking at me, I don’t think I could ever love you again.” He moved into her space and tried to pull her against him, but she raised her fists and began to flail at his chest. He caught her wrists and held them tightly.

“Again?” he asked his eyes searching hers.

“Let me go!” she told him.

“Again?” he persisted. Was that a smirk starting at the corners of his mouth? Tricking her into letting out what she’d felt and then laughing at her about it? Her eyes narrowed.

“I said let go of me!” Rose snapped.

“Are you going to try to hit me again?” he asked. She was sure she saw a twinkle come into his eyes. Damn him.

“No,” she said grudgingly. He let her go and she kicked him hard in the shin. He reached out for her but she backed up and brought her foot back to kick the arrogant sod again and he moved quickly, his leg snaking around and pulling the leg she was standing on out from under her. She grabbed his jacket as she lost her balance, falling and pulling him down with her.

He just managed to get a hand round to cradle the back of her head so that it didn’t strike the floor when the rest of her did. The wind was knocked completely from her and she lay still in shock for a moment. The shock deepened as she realized that the Doctor was lying mostly on top of her and a sudden hot flash of desire surged through her at the close contact of their bodies. How could she still want him?

His eyes were dark as they bore into hers and though she wanted to look away she found that she couldn’t. The Doctor made no effort to rise. Or rather, most of him was making no effort to rise. One part of him, the part that was pressing rather insistently into her right thigh, was making every effort. One might even say a very enthusiastic effort.

“Are you all right, Rose?” he asked in a voice thick with emotion.

“What do you care?” she asked trying to find the anger that had been there moments before. She wanted to be angry with him. It was her way of protecting her heart. She searched for the anger, remembering how horribly he had treated her. She was definitely still angry. She wanted nothing to do with him, with this, with his sudden show of…something for her. Her mind struggled to keep this in the forefront, but she found it hard to rage about how much he didn’t want her when there was hard evidence to the contrary that flagrantly contradicted her words.

“I care, Rose.” He stroked a lock of hair back from her face. She was not going to feel anything for him no matter how he was looking at her right now. Not after what he’d done. She tried to channel her anger back into her fighting spirit when all she really wanted to do was kiss him. And he didn’t deserve that. She looked away from him.

“Get off me you dirty old man,” she told him without as much conviction as she should have had. She bucked against him, trying to throw his body off hers. In retrospect wiggling against him like that might just have been where she’d made her first mistake.

“I want,” he said grabbing her face and making her look into his eyes. “I need.” One hand moved to tangle in her hair. When she thought about it later, parting her lips, moistening them with her tongue and then looking at his mouth expectantly was probably her second mistake. “You,” he breathed.

His mouth descended, one hand still clutching her jaw in an iron grip. She tried for a moment to avoid it. She was not ready to forgive him this easily, no matter what her traitorous body was telling her. But he was determined and she gave in, telling herself that she would let him kiss her but she would not kiss him back. As his tongue crept into her mouth she decided that she would not move her own when he did that special little swirly thing. And she would most definitely not let him—give him—help him—oh, my.

Well, maybe she’d just let him have a minute, lull him into complacency that she had given in and then she could—really, he hadn’t done that the last time. Or that. Her eyes widened. And what on Earth had he been saving that for.

She felt his hand move against her stomach, pulling at the snap of her jeans and that was enough to bring her back down to Earth. Hard. She wrenched her head away from him. “No!” she said. “You cannot treat me the way you have treated me for weeks and just expect to…” He began laying a trail of kisses from the edge of her jaw line down to the pulse point of her neck and she forgot to finish her sentence. In point of fact she might just have forgotten how to speak English entirely. She could just barely feel the hint of his teeth as his mouth settled against the vein there.

Rose whimpered. This really wasn’t the least little bitty bit fair. He was too good at this and she was having a hard time trying to remember why he didn’t deserve her. Because it didn’t really matter how good it would be. He had been a complete and utter bas--. She gasped as his lips moved down towards her collarbone and his hand was busy again, this time trying to unbutton her blouse.

“No!” Rose said her annoyance coming back. “You need to stop, Doctor.” His lips trailed lower. “I mean it. You can’t just expect me to let you do whatever you want just because you’ve finally figured out you want it. It’s not fair. Not after how you treated me. Not with the way I feel.” She gasped, trying to hold onto her tirade but knowing she was losing the battle. “You…need…to really…really…keep doing that.” She groaned. That so wasn’t what she’d meant to say.

She felt him smile against her skin and she almost wanted to whack his head if it hadn’t meant moving his tongue away from the spot it had just gotten to and she was pretty sure if that happened the universe just might come to an end and she really didn’t want to be responsible for that. And she was pretty sure that she’d had more clothing on a moment ago but she didn’t have the faintest memory of how it had come that far undone. Maybe as his one hand had moved to counterpoint what his lips and tongue were doing with her right breast on her left one. That might have been just enough to distract her.

She groaned, losing herself in the sensations. It wasn’t until his hand moved again and back towards her jeans and had a firm grip on her zipper and was pulling it down that she said in a very soft voice, “Stop.”

He did. The Doctor pulled away from her enough to look her in the eyes. “Tell me,” he said gently.

“You can’t hurt me like that again, Doctor. Promise me; please promise me that you won’t turn away from me like that again. I couldn’t bear it.”

He stroked her face with careful fingers then moved to trace her lips. “I won’t, Rose,” he said. “I swear, I won’t. I don’t just want you, Rose. I need you.”

She nodded at him in acceptance of his words. “All right then,” she said. “We’ll do this. But you better make it worth my while.”

“Wasn’t it last time?” he asked curiously.

“That’s entirely beside the point,” she said. She pushed at his hand and he pulled her zipper down. Five hours later she could indeed say with what wasn’t exactly a clear and rational thinking mind, but with what was a definite degree of certainty that he had completely succeeded in making it worth her while.

However, that didn’t mean that he was completely off the hook.

Ch. 3: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/25688.html