You're What?: Chapter Ten

[amberfocus]

Chapter 9:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/76250.html

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“Get out,” Rose said flatly.

 

“What?” The Doctor was startled. She could see it on his face. He didn’t know what she’d say to his confession, but he hadn’t expected this. Well, bully for him.

 

“You heard me. Get the hell out.” She pulled her hand roughly away from his.

 

“But…I just told you I love you,” he said.

 

“I know.” Damn him. She wasn’t stupid.

 

“But…”

 

“That doesn’t make everything better, Doctor. It just makes it worse. Because if you love me and you still did what you did to me, than I just…” She glanced away from him and stared at the wall. “Just please, get out.”

 

“Rose.”

 

“GET OUT!” she roared.

 

The Doctor stood up and looked at her uncertainly. “I’ll, I’ll be back in a bit to, to check on the, the blood samples,” he stammered. Rose pointed angrily at the door. He fled.

 

Rose lowered her shaking arm to her side and held herself together until she could no longer hear his boot heels in the corridor as he retreated. Hot tears burst from her eyes and she covered her mouth with one fist, trying desperately to stifle her sob. What she wouldn’t have given for him to have said those words two months ago when she’d told him she was pregnant. Then it would have made everything all right.

 

Now it just hurt to hear them uttered. He had treated her like she meant nothing to him for too long, like the scum on the bottom of his shoe after tromping through a bog planet, and if he could do that while loving her, than she didn’t want his love. That kind of love was destructive, detrimental, dangerous, damaging, and if she thought about it hard enough she was pretty sure she could come up with a few more adjectives starting with D.

 

The stupid thing was that she still loved him. Even after everything he had put her through, she still loved him. She didn’t want to. Because loving him meant leaving her heart unprotected and she’d done that once and he’d ripped it to shreds. Apologizing wasn’t enough, because how could she be sure he even meant what he said? They were just words and she knew how easily the Doctor could manipulate words, how he could design them to wound or to destroy or to make you believe anything was possible.

 

It was how he acted that showed how he was truly thinking. And his actions had been devastating. He’d pushed her away over and over again until she’d stopped trying to change his mind, and then he’d shoved her at Jack. She adored Jack, but she’d never be secure in a relationship with a man who’d shagged half the galaxy, and as fun as Jack was to flirt with she’d never seriously looked on him as boyfriend or lover material. Certainly not as father to her child material.

 

She had no doubt Jack would be a good father. She’d seen him with children and he was good with them, but he’s always been able to give them back and walk away and how could she trust that Jack wouldn’t just walk away after a given amount of time? The Doctor, who she’d never have thought would, had done so. Jack would want to be tied to the domestic even less. Oh, he’d stay at first out of misguided loyalty or some protective impulse, but eventually he’d stray. How either man could not see that when it was practically stamped in neon on Jack’s forehead that he was not a one woman man, Rose didn’t know.

 

She wished she could desperately just rewind her life. Go back to that day when the Doctor had asked her to be his lover and just say no. She’d been thinking with her hormones and her heart and not her mind and she’d let him sweet talk her into changing their relationship against her better judgment. She’d also let him sweep away her fears about birth control when she should have stayed on the issue like a hound dog.

 

Of course, if she could rewind her life it would mean no baby. Her hand went down to her abdomen. A few weeks ago the prospect of not being pregnant would have been a happy one for her, but in the past two months she’d gotten used to the idea of being a mother.  And as she’d accepted it she had started having dreams for her child’s future and feeling some kind of maternal instinct that she’d eventually recognized as love for the unborn life within her womb.

 

Despite how the baby had been conceived, how the Doctor had acted towards her since the pregnancy had been confirmed, and all of her doubt and uncertainty, she’d come around to wanting to have this baby, actually wanting him. Even if it meant going it alone on Earth with just her mum to help her raise the child. Even if the idea of Jack helping her was tempting, she could never do that to him. How could the Doctor not see that?

 

“Rose?”

 

Rose tensed before she realized that the man poking his head into the room was Jack. “Come on in, Jack,” Rose said wiping at the tears on her face. He edged into the room a bit nervously and sat down in the chair by her bed.

 

“How are you doing?” He eyed the bag of nutrients that was slowly dripping its way into her body. “Feeling any better?” he asked.

 

“Not really,” she said. “Well, not emotionally. Physically, I think I can feel a bit of a difference in my blood sugar anyway.” She sighed. “The git had the nerve to tell me that he loves me.”

 

“He does love you,” Jack said.

 

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Rose snapped. At the hurt look on Jack’s face her expression softened. “I’m sorry, Jack. I don’t mean to take it out on you.” She reached out and patted his cheek gently. “I know he loves me. I’ve always known. It’s just, I think he’s using it to try to make everything all better, now he’s decided yet again, he knows what’s best for me. He’s not saying the words just to mean them; he’s saying them to try to fix the mess he made.” She frowned. “I don’t even know if there is a fix to this.”

 

“Do you want there to be?”

 

“I don’t know.” She plucked at the blanket the Doctor had put over her when he’d first set her down on the exam table. “A few weeks ago, I’d have said yes, no question. It’s what I wanted. But now I’ve got to think about more than how I feel or what I want. I have to think about my baby and whether or not raising my child with the Doctor is something that is good for him or not. And I’m leaning towards not. If the Doctor can turn on me as nastily as he did, what’s to stop him from doing it to our child when he develops ideas of his own that conflict with his father’s? You know how well the Doctor accepts other people’s opinions. What if he acts out against our child when he becomes a teenager? Or a young man with his own ideals and morality that don’t match up with the Doctor’s?”

 

“You’re afraid,” Jack said cautiously.

 

“Of course, I am. At this point it’d take a tremendous leap of faith to tie myself to the Doctor again and I’ve lost that. I don’t have faith in the Doctor anymore that good will out or that he’ll do the right thing. He’s proven over the last two months that he doesn’t even recognize what the right thing is, let alone how to do it. He was mean to me, Jack. Mean. And on purpose. He spoke to me in a way that was designed to do the most damage he possibly could. And whether he meant it or not, whether he was sorry for it or not, the damage has been done. I don’t—I can’t—trust him with my heart again.”

 

“I think you need to be telling this to the Doctor, Rosie,” Jack encouraged.

 

“I will,” she said determinedly. “Just as soon as I can see straight when talking to him. He just made me so angry.”

 

“If it’s any consolation, Rose, I do think the guy is pretty torn up about how he’s been acting. You know how hard it is for the Doctor to apologize about anything,” Jack said.

 

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Rose complained.

 

Jack splayed his hand across Rose’s belly. “I think I’m on this little guy’s side,” Jack replied. “As willing as I am to help you raise this baby as my own, he’s a Time Lord, Rose. And he’s going to need a telepathic mind available to him. Half of the Doctor’s behavioral issues arise from being completely alone in his own head. Your son doesn’t have to go through that. Not with the Doctor finally willing to step up. You have to think of what’s best for the baby.”

 

“That’s all I’ve been doing!” exclaimed Rose. “Haven’t you even been listening?”

 

“I have, but--.”

 

“I suppose you think I should just throw myself back into his arms with nary a question and just get on with the making up part?” Rose snapped. “It doesn’t matter how much I still love him. I don’t trust him, Jack! And I’m not sure I ever will again!”

 

 

 

The Doctor froze in the corridor outside the infirmary. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on Rose’s conversation with Jack, but his hearts had swelled at Rose saying she still loved him. He hadn’t even been one hundred percent sure she’d loved him to begin with. They’d never exchanged the words when things were still good, still so new between them. He’d hoped, but he’d not known. Knowing she did love him, well, that would go a long way toward keeping him going over the next few months while he tried desperately to find a way to restore her trust in him.

 

He was the one who had put the wall up between himself and Rose. Now he was just going to have to find a way to break it down, even if he could only do it one brick at a time. Piece by piece, step by step, moment by moment. He retreated down the hall and stopped off in the gardens. With a judicious use of his sonic screwdriver he put together a bouquet of flowers and headed to the kitchen to find a vase. He’d never done anything the least bit romantic before in his original pursuit of Rose. This time, he was going to go all out to win back her heart, and maybe somehow along the way he’d figure out how to win back her trust while he was at it.

Chapter 11:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/77463.html