Take it Back (3/4)

[amberfocus]

  

Chapter Three:  Why

 

When Rose woke up to an empty bed the next morning her heart sank.  She felt the sheets beside her but they were completely cold.  “Damn it!” she whispered.  “I’m a fool again.”  She should never have given in to him the night before.  She hadn’t wanted to.  Well, she had but…no.  She had been so confused, because her body responded so intensely to the man, but her head had said no.  She had said no.  And he had pushed her, pushed her hard until she’d said yes.  Her feelings hadn’t mattered in this, not to him, not at all.  Not last night and obviously not now or he’d be here.  He wouldn’t have let her wake up like this again.  Alone.

 

Some tiny voice of hope tried to convince her that he had simply stepped out for a shower or to eat something or maybe he was even in the console room making a repair, but she knew what the TARDIS felt like when it was empty of anyone but her.  She’d had several days to live with that sort of isolation and it wasn’t a feeling she was likely to ever forget.  He was gone.

 

Despite her knowledge she searched the ship anyway, berating herself all the while for it.  It didn’t matter that the Doctor was a good tumble if this was the result every single time.  It didn’t matter if she still wanted him, still even loved him outside of her hurt.  He didn’t care what she felt, didn’t care what she thought, and hadn’t taken her repeated use of the word no seriously.  He’d smirked at her when she’d responded to his body, sure in his own arrogant and assuming way that she would.  Took her for granted again the way he really did in so many other ways.  But this way!  No!  She was not going to be taken for granted in the bedroom.

 

Rose was not going to let him do that to her.  She was stronger than that.  She didn’t need a dominating, emotionally abusive man in her life, who demanded sex when he wanted it and left her bereft and alone afterwards.  She’d fought too hard to get out of that kind of relationship with Jimmy Stones and she was not going to start a new one.  It was time to get out.

 

She returned to her room and pulled her rucksack out of the closet and tossed it onto her bed.  Decision made, she began packing up her room.  It was harder than she’d thought it would be, but she sought that spark of anger that would force her through it and strengthened her resolve.  Packing up her clothes was the easy part.  It was the mementos that hurt, literally caused an ache in her chest as she picked up each one.

 

There was the solid gold bookmark the Doctor had picked up for her for next to nothing on the metal heavy planet Oronia and the little necklace of pale blue seashells from the ocean planet Divo that he’d given to her for no other reason than because he thought it was pretty and would look good on her.  Her fingers grasped the slim volume of Emily Dickinson’s poems, first printing, and signed in person by the author.  A feat that had been quite difficult as they’d picked the book up at an auction house in the 27^th century, returned to the past before the author had written it, and gotten stuck in a time loop with her that had lasted a week and a half or four hours depending on how you looked at it.

 

But it was the clear paperweight with the hot pink air bubble trapped inside that was in the shape of an infinity symbol that made her close her eyes and think hard about what she was doing.  He’d given her that right after the time loop.  When she’d asked him why he’d given it to her he’d said simply that it reminded him of her, a hot pink little thing he wouldn’t mind being trapped with forever.

 

She hadn’t known quite how to take that.  She’d been dressed from head to toe in hot pink at the time, but something in his tone had made her think that maybe there was a comma in between the words hot and pink when he’d said them.  But nothing had ever come of it until that day a month later on Raston when he’d finally made it clear how he’d wanted her.  Or she had thought he had.  She had dared to hope it had symbolized his feelings for her, but it was far more likely it had been nothing but one of his usual flip and flirty comments that fell so easily from his lips.  So much more easily than anything real or true that might have been between them.

 

“No, there’s nothing there,” she whispered fiercely.  “Nothing between us but some lust.  Get over it, Rose.  He doesn’t love you.  And you can’t stay with him because this isn’t enough anymore.”  But it wasn’t true.  Not on her side anyway.

 

Tears fell down her face.  She wanted to find him, hold him, tell him how she really felt about him, but once again he’d taken that option away from her.  She wanted to lie beneath him again as he buried himself in her body and cried out her name at the height of passion.  She wanted to rake her nails down his back and urge him on.  She wanted too much and he didn’t want enough.  She wanted more than he could ever give her.  He wanted an occasional night with her body whether she was determined to stop him or not.

 

Rose shivered at the thought as again her mind drifted back to her asking him to stop and his steady and slow seduction of her until she’d given in to his need.  Why had she?  Why would she?  Lust?  Love?  It was all so confusing.  And what if she hadn’t changed her mind?  Would he have done it anyway?  Taken her despite her saying no?  She was afraid he might have.  He was an alien, after all.  What if his concept of no was circumvented by the smell of her arousal and the obvious signs of her desire?  What if he was just a bloke after all who was going after his own need and damn the consequences?  He was dangerous.  He was forever telling her he was dangerous.  She couldn’t trust him anymore, couldn’t trust herself to be alone with him, either.

 

Yet, still she wanted him.  How could she be so stupid?  She’d really qualified for his little role of stupid ape this time.  She was clearly just a means to an end for him.  He’d ignored her protests and her telling him no.  He’d wanted her body.  He’d taken her body.  And he’d left her.  Again.  And that, that was really all it boiled down to.  That’s why she was leaving him.  That’s why she had to leave him.

 

As she hauled the rucksack off her bed a folded piece of paper fell to the floor behind her.  In the console room she dropped the bag on the floor by the doors and knelt down to pull out the paperweight.  There was not going to be a forever for her and the Doctor.  She walked quickly to his bedroom and left it lying on his pillow then returned to the console room.

 

Rose had been prepared to sit on the jump seat and wait however long it took for him to return this time, so she could ask him to take her home, but she noticed that the view screen was on.  The image was of the back side of the Powell Estate.  She was already home.  She glanced at the corner of the monitor and checked the date.  Her present day, only a week or two after the last visit home.

 

With relief she realized there was no need to wait for him to come back then.  No need to tell him--.  She swallowed abruptly trying to force down the sob that threatened to erupt from her throat.  She forced herself to finish the thought.  No need to tell him good-bye.  His message had been received loud and clear.  He didn’t want her.  She took off her TARDIS key and looped it around one of the main levers he had to use to dematerialize.  As she did so she heard a change in the pitch of the hum emanating from the TARDIS.

 

As she heaved her bag up again, she tried hard to hate him.  He deserved that.  He really did.  But she knew in that moment that she never could, because no matter how little he deserved it, she’d already been in love with him for too long.  And she hated herself for it.  Half-blinded by tears she walked out of the TARDIS and straight into the Doctor.

 

“Rose?” he said.  “What?”

 

“I’ll just be getting out of your way now, Doctor,” she said choking on a sob.  She tried to step around him, but he moved back into her way.

 

“What’s going on here?  What’s this all about?” he asked taking in her bag and her tears.  “Is something wrong?  Did someone hurt you?”

 

“Yes, damn it.  You did!” she told him.

 

“I thought I…fixed things,” he told her.

 

“Fixed things?  Fixed things!” she said in a rapidly rising voice.  “You fixed nothing with that stunt last night.  Now get out of my way.  I’m leaving you.”

 

The Doctor frowned at her then took her bag away from her and pitched it back inside the TARDIS.  “No,” he said flatly.  “You’re not.”  She thought for a moment he might pick her up and pitch her back inside as well.  Instead he grasped hold of her wrist firmly and dragged her back inside the ship and over to the console.  He dropped the bag he’d been carrying on the jump seat.

 

Rose struggled.  “Let me go,” she said.

 

“No.”  His hand slammed down on the emergency dematerialization circuit and the ship launched itself into the Vortex.

 

“You can’t keep me here against my will, Doctor,” she told him furiously.

 

“We both know it’s not against your will, Rose.”

 

He finally released his hold on her and moved around the console.  His breath hitched as he noticed her TARDIS key wrapped around a nearby lever.  “I want to go home,” she told him firmly.  “I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

 

“Tell me why.”

 

“No big speeches, no long good-byes, no explanations; isn’t that your way?  Amazing what you’ve taught me in just the few short months we’ve been together, isn’t it?”  Her voice had hardened as she’d found her anger again.

 

“I don’t understand,” he said softly closing the distance he’d put between them.

 

“Makes two of us then,” she said stubbornly refusing to look at him.

 

“Rose.”  He pulled her into his arms and tried to kiss her, but she stiffened her body and turned her head away from him.

 

“Just let me go while I still have a shred of dignity left.  Don’t make me hate myself, too,” she told him softly.

 

“Please,” he said and there was desperation in his voice now.  “I need to know why?  I thought last night took care of all this…I can’t…I can’t lose you, Rose.  I don’t understand.”

 

She wrenched her body out of his arms.  “No, you don’t.  You never have.”  Despite her resolve she was crying.  “You don’t get it, but I do.  I made the mistake of letting you be everything to me when I’m nothing to you.”

 

“Rose, no.  That’s not true.  You can’t believe that.”

 

“Don’t tell me what I can’t believe.”

 

“I’ll prove it to you, Rose.  I’ll make you see--.”

 

“The way you made me see last night?” she bit out.  “The way you ignored me when I said no and pushed and pushed until I let you have your way with my body when I didn’t want to?” she spat.

 

“But…you did want to, Rose.  I could smell it.  I could sense it.  It was all over you.  Your pheromones were practically assaulting me with your want.  You did want to,” he protested.

 

Rose wanted to slap him.  He was so infuriating.  She should have known he’d pull his stupid alien senses out of his little bag of tricks.  “You’re a right git, Doctor.  On my planet we have a word for men who force themselves on women,” she said sharply.

 

The Doctor stepped away from her in horror, circling to put the console between them.  “Is that what you think I did?  Forced myself on you?”

 

“I said no.  A lot.  And we ended up doing it anyway.  Doesn’t matter what my body was ready for, Doctor.  I said no.  My head said no.  And you didn’t care.”

 

“I waited until you said yes, Rose.  Until then it was just…convincing.”

 

“But it wasn’t.  I mean, I really didn’t want to do that.  I wanted to go home.  Or…or talk to you, have you talk to me, but you weren’t having any of it.”

 

“You attacked me, Rose.  It wasn’t like you were being reasonable.”

 

“So it was okay for you to attack me?”

 

“I didn’t…I wasn’t…Rose, I would never have forced you!” he exclaimed.  “Don’t you understand, don’t you know how I feel?”  The words burst out of him.

 

“No.  I don’t know how you feel,” she snapped.  “You’ve never told me how you feel.  You’ve gone to great lengths to avoid telling me how you feel.  Instead, you disappear on me every morning after without a word, leaving me thinking I’ll never see you again.  Come to think of it, that shows me pretty clearly how you feel.”

 

“Don’t think that.”  Whether he’d meant it to come out sounding like an order or not, it had.  Rose’s hackles rose.

 

“Stop telling me what to think!  And what else am I supposed to think, anyway?  I woke up alone again.  No sign of you anywhere on the ship.  The same damn thing that happened last time.  Only thing I don’t get is why you came back this time and why you’re talking to me now,” she told him.

 

“I came back because I said I’d come back.  I left you a note, Rose.”

 

“A…a note?” she nearly whispered as the fury died back to a dull roar.

 

“On your bed.  I left you a note,” he said earnestly and he was slowly approaching her again.

 

“I didn’t see it,” she said and suddenly she was shaking.  He held his hand out to her and she hesitated.

 

“Come on,” he said gently, dropping his hand to his side where it twitched at its emptiness.  “Let’s go find it.”

Ch. 4:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/25945.html