Doubt (3/6)

[amberfocus]

A/N:  Rose gets mad, the truth comes out, and finally a real conversation follows.

                                                            Chapter Three: Disillusion

Rose is done feeling sorry for herself. Her numbness has faded. In its place a slow burning anger is filling up every organ in her torso and settling deeply into her bones. How dare he put her in this position? How dare he be so unyielding? How dare he treat her like…like this isn’t her decision to make? How dare she let him?

When the phone rings again she snatches it up. “All right sweetheart, I got you a date and a time.”

“I’m not doing it,” she tells her mother, her decision clarifying in the same instant she says it. “I’m not doing it, Mum. I’m gonna have it.”

“Oh, Rose, are you sure?”  The sympathy in her mother's voice almost undoes her.

“Never been surer,” she says with grim determination. “I’m gonna come home and have it and raise it and I’m done with him. Done travelling. Done everything. You’ll help me?” Her voice is strong and some of her anger slips through.

“I’ll do whatever it takes, Rose. I just want you to be happy.”

“That’s not going to happen. I’ll be home as soon as I can. First I gotta go deal with him,” she says.

“Okay. Smack ‘em a good one for me, will you?” she asks.

“I just might,” Rose replies. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah.” Quick good-byes are exchanged and Rose hangs up the phone and rises from the bed. Mentally she girds herself up for the coming fight. This time she’s going to be on the offensive. This time she gets to speak her mind. She will not allow him to ride roughshod over her. She is the Bad Wolf for crying out loud! She channeled the Time Vortex through her body to save the world and his worthless hide. She’s done with letting him cow her.

She finds the Doctor in the control room, his feet sticking out from underneath the console. She stands over him, effectively trapping him so that he can’t get out without her moving. She starts out calm and collected.

“I have something to say and you’re going to listen to me, Doctor,” she begins in a hard voice. He starts to slide out from underneath but is balked by her presence.

“Rose, can you let me out?” he asks.

“No,” she says simply. She takes a deep breath and continues. “What you want me to do, I can’t. No, I won’t. I won’t do it. And I don’t care what you think. This is my life and I get to choose and I’m saying no. And if you want to send me home because of it, then so be it. Mum says she’ll help me. I’ll need a list of things I should avoid and if there’s anything I should be taking, and maybe what to expect as I go along. You will get it ready and you will give it to me. And any books you might have on the subject, too. Other than that, I don’t expect any help from you. I don’t even expect to ever see you again, but I need to be prepared. Do you think you can manage that much?” she asks.

“What?”

“Damn it, aren’t you listening to me?” she asks.

“Let me out of here,” he snaps back. “I can’t even understand half of what you’re saying.”

She doesn’t believe him. They’ve had too many conversations this way before where he’s been able to hear her perfectly fine. But she backs away and sits down on the jump seat, her arms folded across her chest and her mouth set in a hard line. He emerges from beneath the console and wipes his hands on a rag before turning to look at her.

One look at her posture and his changes. He pulls in on himself and his arms cross. “You mind repeating that?”

“I said I’m not going to do what you want me to do,” she says belligerently.

His eyebrows rise so high they disappear beneath his fringe. “What?”

“You heard me. I’m not doing it.”

“You’re just going to throw us away then?” he demands to know. “Like we never counted for anything?”

“I’m not the one who wants to throw something away. I’m the one who wants to keep it!” she snarls back finally losing her cool.

“You’ll destroy us,” he says calmly. “That’s your choice, but you know how I feel about this--.”

“Yeah, I do. You’ve made it abundantly clear, Doctor,” she sneers his name. “But this isn’t just about you. Despite what you might think my whole world does not revolve around you!” she snaps. She finds words she once used to hurt him a long time ago and throws them at him hard. “For once you’re not the most important man in my life!”

“Yeah, that’s something you’ve made rather clear yourself. If you’re choosing…him over me, than I don’t think there will ever be any coming back for us.” His cool reserve is starting to slip and she smiles. Her smile is filled with malice.

“I don’t have any intention of coming back, Doctor. I’m going home. You can help Mickey with his damn aliens, but after that I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to ever see you again,” she says.

“If you think I’m going to work with Mickey after what you two…” He trails off. Her anger slips for a moment and she raises her eyes to his face and she looks at him in utter confusion.

“Why wouldn’t you work with Mickey?” she asks. “He has nothing to do with this.” The look on her face is too much for him.

“He has everything to do with this!”

“What? He does not. What the hell, Doctor? You don’t think this is his…?” Horror fills her.

“At Christmas, when I was sick,” he says on a rush, “you and Mickey…”

“Me and Mickey what?” she asks still looking puzzled.

“You and Mickey got… You and he got back together, didn’t you?” he blurts. She furrows her brow. “Only when we left he kissed you good-bye on the mouth, Rose. And now he calls you last night and you want to come running and you and I, well, we haven’t been…I thought…”

Comprehension dawns on her and then something else that she doesn’t recognize at first because it is pure fury and she’s never felt it before in her life. She’s seen it though, coming from him. They call him the Oncoming Storm when he’s like that. This is different. The wolf rises within her. She locks her gaze on his. “No,” she bites out. “I told you a long time ago. Mickey and I are over. How could you think that?”

“I heard you, on the phone, what you said to him. He was urging you to tell me something. You said it wouldn’t change anything between you and him when you told me so why was he so anxious for you to tell me?”

“You were eavesdropping?” she grinds out.

“Yes.” He doesn’t even bother trying to deny it.

“And from what I said, you got that I had an affair with Mickey? That I betrayed you?” Her rage is barely veiled now. It pulses through her bloodstream like liquid fire.

“You didn’t want me anymore,” he says quietly. “Maybe that was why.”

She explodes. “It wasn’t. I told you why I needed to wait! You said you were okay with it.” Her words come out harshly, her fingers digging into her palms. She smells iron and copper, knows that she’s drawn blood with her nails as she seeks to keep some small control over her fury, a fury she can taste as the adrenaline pumps through her veins.

“I wasn’t.”

“Yeah,” she tells him. “That’s obvious. Now.” Sarcasm drips from her like liquid running down her skin. “Well, get this through your thick, Time Lord skull. I have never lied to you. I have never been unfaithful to you. I have never once planned to leave you until today. I asked for time because I needed time. And last night I was ready,” she told him. “I got my head on straight, finally, about who you are, that you are the same man, that you are my Doctor, and I was ready for us to be lovers again. I just had to tell you something first and you wouldn’t let me.”

She takes a deep breath. “But I was wrong, Doctor. I thought I’d figured out who you are but…you’re just a stranger to me.”

“I thought you were going to tell me that you’d slept with Mickey,” he admits sheepishly. “I didn’t want to hear it.”

“I thought you trusted me, Doctor.”

“I do, Rose. With my life, I do.”

“Just not with your hearts. Not anymore.” She finally breaks the lock she’s had on his gaze. “Fine, whatever. I want to go home. Just give me the list of things I need to do and what I need to avoid and if there’s anything like aspirin that’s deadly that I should know about. I’ll muddle through this on my own.”

He gives her an odd look. “What? What are you talking about?” he asks. “List for what?”

“The baby, you idiot! I told you, I don’t care what you think, I’m not having an abortion!” she yells at the top of her lungs. “But I need to know what to do to keep this pregnancy safe and you are damn well going to tell me before you dump me off and walk away from your responsibilities,” she roars. “I’m not giving in to your ultimatum!”

“What?” His voice is barely above a whisper and his face is stricken when she meets his eyes again.

“Your ultimatum. Your demand that I end it now and I can stay with you. Your demand that I never let it happen again. Well, I’m not going to end it. I’m keeping this baby. I can only hope he or she doesn’t turn out like you, you bastard!”

“Rose?” Her name comes out in three broken syllables, so hushed she can barely hear him and yet the impact of it echoes through the control room. “Are you pregnant?”

“What the hell do you think we’ve been fighting about?” she screams at him.

“Mickey,” he breathes out slowly. “Ending things with Mickey. Ending the affair I thought you were having with Mickey.”

She is silent for a long time, her eyes not meeting his. Then she gets up and walks out of the control room. “Rose?” he calls after her. “We have to talk through this.”

“Not now,” she tells him.

“Then when?” His voice is anguished.

“Later,” is all she will say.



The Doctor collapses onto the jumpseat. He can still feel the heat of Rose as it rises out of the place she had been sitting in at the same time as his blood is running colder from her words as they echo through his mind. “She’s pregnant?” he asks the air disbelievingly. The TARDIS makes an affirmative noise. “You knew this?” he asks.

The ship gives him the mental equivalent of a shrug. “It’s not possible,” he mutters. “I tested her myself. Her DNA was off by one receptor.” The image of the TARDIS console opening and Blon being reduced to an egg after threatening Rose is inserted into his mind. He watches as the golden light rushes briefly over Rose.

“You changed her, too?” he asks. There is a smugness in the ship’s response. “You should have told me,” he says accusingly. The TARDIS forbears to answer that he’d been tuning her out more often then not of late. He ran his hands over his face then let them fall into his lap. “The things I said to her. What she must have thought.”

He replays their last three conversations in his head and his stomach turns over. He shuts his eyes tightly. What if it hadn’t come out in time? What if she’d gone and got the abortion thinking it was what he wanted? When it was the furthest thing from the truth? And how could she think he’d order her to do such a thing in the first place? Did she have that little faith in him? He can’t think about that right now. It hurts too much.

He knows everything is turned all to hell but…Rose is pregnant. She isn’t cheating on him and she is pregnant with his child. His baby. Their baby. A baby with Rose. Something he thought he could never have and now here it is before him, just within reach. He wants it so badly he can taste it. And he can have it if he didn’t treat her so badly that she still wants to walk away.

He sits there for a long time, giving her time, giving her space, until he can no longer bear it. His mind is in tatters at the idea that she might yet still leave him, taking herself away from him and with her, their child. She has spent the past few hours thinking he doesn’t want the baby. He has to at least let her know that he does. “Where is she?” he asks the TARDIS meekly.

He flashes on the conservatory and thanks his ship, heading off to find Rose. He stands in the doorway for a long while watching her. She is laying back in the grass, propped up on her elbows and staring up at the false sky. It is much like her starscapes only on a far more massive scale. The room is lit only by starlight. He must make some small noise because she turns to look at him, her eyes glittering in the dark and then she turns her head back up to the sky. She doesn’t tell him to go away.

He takes that as tacit approval of his presence and walks into the room, dropping down on the soft grass beneath him. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I know it’ll never be enough, not with what you thought I meant, but I am. I’m sorry. I want you and I want our baby and I hate myself so much right now you don’t even know. Whatever you want, Rose. Whatever you need, even if it isn’t me. I’ll do it.”

She is silent for so long he is ready to get up and leave when she speaks. “You were mean to me,” she says. “I understand that you thought I had betrayed you and I understand why that would upset you so very much, but…you were cruel. I’m not sure how to deal with that, Doctor.” Her voice is soft but devoid of emotion. It is like she is all worn out and maybe she is.

“I’m sorry. I’ll give you as much time as you need, Rose, as much space…”

She looks at him then. “You said that before, but you didn’t mean it. You resented it. So much that you manufactured an affair between me and Mickey out of thin air. I don’t know that you were made to give anyone time and space. Ironic, that, for a man who has so much of it at his fingertips.” But she doesn’t laugh at that irony.

“Can I…?” He can’t continue.

“Can you?” she repeats.

“Can I ask you…how long have you known?” He keeps any trace of accusation from his voice. That’s not what it is about. He wants to know how long she’s been afraid to tell him. How long he’s made her be afraid to tell him.

“You mean how long did I keep it a secret?”

“No. How long have you known?” he repeats softly.

“Not long. About ten days, I think. I suspected towards the end of our time in Kyoto. I found out when you sent me home from the game station. It’s why I fought so hard to get back to you,” she says.

“You shouldn’t have.”

“You shouldn’t have sent me away.  You’d be dead if I hadn’t come back.”

“You nearly died because you came back,” he counters.

“I had to come back because I was pregnant. You get suicidal around Daleks. You needed to know what you had to live for. The TARDIS put everything she had into protecting the baby for as long as she could. Then what you did, when you took the vortex out of me, the life force you expended healed the remaining tears in my DNA and in the child’s. The TARDIS told me so,” Rose says.

“She spoke to you?”

“She sang in my head. Sometimes she still does.” She smiles softly at the thought and it twists his hearts. He wonders if that smile will ever be directed at him again, if he’ll ever earn the right to have it bestowed on him again.

“Why did you think I’d order you to have an abortion?” he asks hesitantly. “How could you—how could you ever think I’d do that to you, Rose?”

“You said you knew my secret. And you said to end it or I’d lose you. What else was I supposed to think?” Her words are simple but they cut so deeply through him.

“Why did you think I’d go to Mickey?” she asks. There is only a faint hint of curiosity in her question, almost as if she’s asking because she thinks she has to and not because she really wants to know.

“I didn’t think I was enough for you,” he replies honestly.

“Why? Because I didn’t want to sleep with you?”

“Because I need you, Rose, far more than you have ever needed me.” She startles at the naked truth of his words.

“And that scares you?” Her eyes drill holes right through him.

“Yes.”

She looks away. “I don’t cheat,” she says. “I wouldn’t. I won’t.”

“I let my imagination run away with me,” he admits.

“Yes.” She sighs.

“Do you think you can forgive me? Someday?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “I’d like to go home when we land.”

“Are you leaving me?” he asks.

She looks at him and reaches out, takes his hand and squeezes it before dropping it again, almost like the touch burns her. “No.”

“That’s something.”

“It may not be enough.”

“But it’s a start.”

“I want you to promise me something,” she says a few minutes later.

“What?”

“That you’ll talk to me. If you get one of these crazy ideas in your head again, just ask me. I won’t lie to you, Doctor. If you had just asked me about Mickey I would have told you. It would have saved us so much grief,” she tells him.

“What about you?” he asks hesitantly. “If you’d told me about the baby right after Christmas this wouldn’t have happened. I’m not blaming you,” he adds quickly. “But you kept it from me for a while.”

“I know. I was reeling from the changes and trying to figure out a way to tell you. I was waiting until I could trust you again,” she answers.

“You stopped trusting me?”

“You never told me about regeneration. That was a huge thing to leave out of our relationship. And it felt like you didn’t trust me enough or…care for me enough to prepare me for it happening.”

“No, Rose, that’s not why. Most bodies, they last for a couple hundred years if I’m lucky. It hadn’t been that long since I’d regenerated into that body. Not long before I met you, really. I honestly thought there would be time. I thought…I thought you’d die long before I did,” he says. “And I didn’t want to scare you over something that I didn’t think was ever gonna happen.”

“But it did and it scared me more, the not knowing, than knowing ever would have.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“You never mean to hurt anyone, but you so often do,” she replies.

He’s quiet at that thinking back on all the ways he’s damaged this girl. “Rose, you have no idea what you mean to me,” he begins.

“No,” she agrees, “I really don’t.”

“I’m not good with words, me,” he says and she flashes back on his last body at his wording. “Even if I seem to have a million more of them that come pouring out of my mouth now. I try to show how I feel through my actions, but sometimes I even cock that up. Like today. I swear, though, that if you let me, I’m going to make this up to you.”

“Can you?”

“I can try.”

“I suppose you can at that.”

A change in the pitch of the engines alerts them both to the fact that the TARDIS has left the vortex. “Time to land?” she asks.

“Time to land.” He scrambles to his feet and then offers her his hands to help her up. She hesitates only briefly before putting them in his. He hauls her up and she loses her balance, continuing into him. He steadies her and his hearts pound beneath her ear at the impact of her body into his. She pulls away from him and gives him a wan smile that doesn’t meet her eyes and then follows him into the control room. Rose braces herself against the jump seat as the Doctor brings them in for a landing.

“Here we are, Powell Estates,” he says. Rose nods and follows him out of the TARDIS. He reaches his hand out and gives her a questioning look but she marches off ahead of him, hands firmly in her pockets. He follows her up the stairs. At the scratch of Rose’s key in the lock, Jackie Tyler throws the door open. She takes one look at him and drives her fist squarely into his jaw. He goes down hard.

Rose turns and looks at him. “Huh, didn’t think of that,” she muses. She steps over his feet and into the flat. “You coming in?” she asks. “Or are you going to lay there all day?”


Ch. 4:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/172250.html