Doubt (1/6)

[amberfocus]

A/N:  This story took a little bit of a U-turn from the plan and what I may have said in previous answers to comments, but I think the plan benefits from that.  I will warn you that the ending of this chapter is very painful.  I'm issuing a tissue warning.  I will make it better, but it's going to take time.

                                                                         Chapter One: Decision

Terrible hurt fills Rose as she stands there frozen for one long minute. Dread pools in her stomach, near the source of the very thing she so desperately wants to talk about. Has she waited too long? She rushes out of the kitchen. How can he just walk away from her like that when she’s about to tell him the biggest thing that’s ever happened to her? The biggest thing that’s ever happened to them? Damn it, he’d wanted this baby!

 

She knew the Doctor had been devastated when he’d thought they couldn’t have children, when he’d had that brief hope alive for such a short, short while. And now, now that she knew they could, knew they in fact would, he suddenly turned into some kind of idiot for some reason she couldn’t fathom at all. One minute he’d been snogging her into next week and a few minutes later he’d become all weird and quiet and then left her smack in the middle of the most important conversation of her life.

The corridor is empty so she heads for the console room sure she’ll find him burying himself under the grating, hiding from…well, what? Her? But why would he choose to hide from her? It’s not like she’s done anything wrong. Unless he doesn’t want her anymore. She had been the one to initiate that kiss come to think of it. Maybe he just wants to be friends after all. Maybe he no longer feels chemistry with her in his new body. But no, that doesn’t make any sense. She’d felt his arousal and he had kissed her back rather desperately, kissed her until she was nearly senseless. Maybe he had kissed himself senseless, too. That might explain his current lack of it.

He isn’t in the console room, so once again she begins searching all his usual haunts to no avail. Her eyes are beginning to get hot as she holds back tears. He has obviously hidden himself too well for her to find him. Remembering where he’d ended up the last time she couldn’t find him she heads to the wardrobe room. “Doctor?” she calls out. There’s no answer but that doesn’t stop her from poking her head around to the aisle where he’d been before. He’s not there.

She wanders down to the place where he first kissed her of his own accord in this new body. Her fingers automatically reach for and find the soft, battered leather of his old jacket. She leans down and inhales the scent, the richness of the man he’d once been clinging to the leather, the distinctiveness of honey, sage, cinnamon and engine grease. He still smells like honey, cinnamon and engine grease, but that deep sage scent is gone, replaced now with something more like nutmeg or cloves.

Part of her wants to take his old coat from the rack and wrap it around her body, find the comfort of who he used to be, but she knows instinctively that if he ever finds her like that it will devastate him. She does not know what is wrong with her Doctor at the moment but she doesn’t want to add to whatever has suddenly made him hurt. She reluctantly lets go of the leather and turns away, heading back to the console room one last time.

He’s still not there. She makes a small sound of frustration then catches sight of his big brown coat. She remembers the picnic on New Earth before everything went weird because of Cassandra and she walks over to where it is sprawled over one of the rails. She remembers how he’d cuddled her inside that very coat a few brief hours ago. She picks it up and clutches it to her, inhaling the new scent of her new, new Doctor. It reassures her in a way that is almost as solid as his arms around her would. She holds it open and slips inside it, wrapping it snugly about her body.

With a sigh she decides to give up looking for him and heads to her room. She’s too tired really to even cry, not sure why he’s left her alone or hidden himself from her or done whatever the hell it is he’s done. She lays down on her bed and strokes her belly. “I love your daddy,” she whispers softly, telling her baby something she’s never been brave enough to say out loud to its father, “but I don’t think I’ll ever understand him.” She pulls a pillow up against her, hoping against hope that some time during the night he’ll join her. He doesn’t.




Rose pulls herself together with steely determination the next morning. She doesn’t know what is wrong with the Doctor, what has made him make the decision to stay away from her, and she can’t beat herself up trying to figure it out. It won’t do her any good to make herself worried or heartsick about something she can’t change. The stress can’t be good for the baby and anyway, if she knows the Doctor’s stubborn streak, he’s come to some conclusion in his own mind that she’ll never be privy to. He’s made up his mind about her and there’s nothing she can do about it, so she might as well get on with accepting the fact that he doesn’t want to be anything but friends anymore.

She really wishes he wouldn’t keep making these unilateral decisions, but in a way this one is her own fault. She hesitated too long and she lost him, but for the sake of the baby she’ll do whatever it takes to salvage the friendship. She still has no idea how she lost him. He’d really responded to those kisses like a drowning man to a life preserver. Perhaps that is it, though. Perhaps he is too afraid of needing her again like he did before when he was all ears and leather. Well, there’s nothing she can do about that.

If he doesn’t want to be her lover again then so be it. That doesn’t mean they can’t raise a child together. She’s seen people who were once lovers and managed to remain good mates co-parent children together. She would have wanted more for her child than that, but she’ll make the best of it. Maybe if she works on their friendship, always the heart of her relationship with the Doctor, it’ll be enough. They’ll muddle through and the child will have two parents regardless of how screwed up one of them is. She’s just not sure which one of them that is. Probably both of them.

She sighs and slips out of his jacket and folds it up, does her morning routine and then takes the coat back to the empty console room where she lays it down on the rail again. Rose heads to the kitchen next and is actually surprised to see him sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal and flipping through what looks like a boring old textbook. She makes herself breeze into the kitchen and forces cheer into her voice. “Good morning, Doctor,” she says offering him a smile that she hopes doesn’t look as false as it feels.

His eyes narrow but he says nothing, instead grunting non-committally. She moves to the fridge. “I’m going to make myself an omelet,” she continues on. “Want me to make enough for two? We can share.”

“I don’t like to share, Rose,” he grates out.

She stills having not expected a response. Forcing herself back into motion she gathers together the ingredients she needs and plunks them down on the counter. “You’ve never minded before,” she says firmly, proud of herself for keeping her voice steady.

“I’ve always minded.”

She turns around and finds his eyes on her, dark and almost cold. “I can make you your own,” she says in a small voice, “if you don’t want…” She can’t finish her sentence, shifting under his gaze and turning back to the eggs. “Just tell me what you want.” Her voice breaks, her resolution to be strong and accepting drifting from her grasp.

“I can’t have what I want,” he tells her.

“I don’t think you know what you want,” she nearly whispers.

“I’ve always known,” he snaps suddenly. “You’re the one who doesn’t.”

Anger rises up in her. “Me? I thought I made it perfectly clear last night that I wanted you back in my bed. Same damn way that you made it perfectly clear that you changed your mind!”

“I didn’t change my mind!” he growls angrily.

“Then why are we fighting?” she asks furiously.

“Because I know, Rose,” he snaps.

“You know? You know what?” she asks in confusion.

“I know. I know that you’ve been lying to me,” he grinds out.

“I’ve never lied to you in my life,” she says in honest confusion.

“A lie of omission is still a lie, Rose,” he says.

She startles. He can’t possibly mean that he knows about the baby? How can he? She’s not said a word and the kisses last night were not enough contact for him to have dipped deeply enough into her mind to know. Were they? “Oh, I know, Rose,” he tells her bitterly. “How long were you going to try to keep it from me?”

“I was trying to tell you last night,” she begins tentatively.

“You were trying to tell me something that I don’t want to know anything about!” he yells.

She blanches at the anger in his voice. “But…I thought…I thought you wanted…”

“Why would you ever think that I wanted that?” he snarled. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted was you. And you…you go and do…this, behind my back.”

Anger floods her veins at his words. “I didn’t do this on my own, damn it. There were two of us involved.”

“Do you really think, Rose,” and he sneers her name in a way he’s never done before, “that I’m not aware of that fact? I know it intimately. And it sickens me. I wish I’d never found out. I wish it had never happened. But it has…and now you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

“Alone?” she asks violently afraid now.

“Oh, you’ll never be alone, will you, Rose? You’ll always have Mickey.” The words drop like bombs in the air and she stares at him in devastating shock. How can he possibly think that Mickey would want to raise his child? Even if her friend would probably be willing how would that ever be something she could do to him? Without another word she puts the ingredients for the omelet back in the fridge. She’s lost her appetite. She’s not sure she’ll ever get it back again.

She pauses in the doorway on her way out of the kitchen. “I thought I’d always have you,” she says.

“Even after this?” The shock in his voice overwhelms her.

“Let me know when we get to Earth. I’ll take care of it,” she says hardening her heart against the pain of the only decision she feels is left to her. “You’ll never have to deal with it again. And if you don’t want to, you’ll never have to deal with me again, either.”

Ch. 2:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/170459.html