That Which One Cannot Be Without (3/9)
May. 4th, 2009 03:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocusTitle: That Which One Cannot Be Without (3/9)
Author: Amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: Nine/Rose, Jack
Genre: Romance, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, smut (eventually)
Betas: Amyo67, JeopardyFriendly
Rating: Adult
Warnings: In this story Rose will be having flashbacks to a violent incident where she was beaten by a prison guard and hurt by another man. This is not rape fic and will not touch on that issue at all. I will keep the explicitness to a minimum, but I know this sort of thing can trigger memories in the victims of violence so wanted to post fair warning.
Summary: Rose has lost her equilibrium after a terrible experience and being back on a similar planet is not helping. The Doctor isn't quite sure what to do to rebuild her spirit, but he has to try because losing her is not an option. Neither is letting her go home.
Author's Notes: This fic was written for Wiggiemomsi who won me and 15,000 words in the Support Stacie Auction.
Ch. 1: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/240768.h
Ch. 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/241908.h
Chapter Three: Denial of Conclusions
Rose stared at his back in utter disbelief. She got to her feet and without a second’s thought she reached into the fruit bowl on the table beside her, grabbed up a ripe peach-type fruit and hurled it at the Doctor’s back. It splatted across his skin before falling to the floor. The Doctor whirled around and glared at her.
“Coward,” she said grabbing up another piece of fruit and hurling it at him. It impacted with a loud squelch and juice dripped slowly down his chest as the remains fell to the floor.
“What?” he growled striding quickly across the room and catching both her wrists up in his hands before he fell victim to another missile.
“You. Are. A. Coward.” She bit off her words.
“I am not! What’s gotten into you?”
“I finally manage to let you know what the hell I’m going through and you turn tail and run from me and not only that, you threaten to take me home! I don’t want to go home!” she said fiercely.
“It wasn’t a threat. You’ve made it clear that I can’t keep you safe,” he said flatly as she squirmed in his grasp.
“What and you think my mother will do a better job of it? Or Mickey?”
His eyes narrowed and he snorted derisively at the mention of her ex-boyfriend. “No, but you don’t trust me anymore. How can you keep living with me if you don’t trust me?” He looked at her bitterly, his own emotions far closer to the surface than they usually were.
“I never said I didn’t trust you,” she said quietly and the tears slipped from her eyes as she looked up at him. The expression on his face softened in the face of her tears.
“So I can’t keep you safe, but you trust me? What kind of twisted logic is that?” he asked softly.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant…I meant you didn’t keep me safe. Not—not that you can’t keep me safe. And I do trust you. I do.”
“How can you trust me? How can you have any kind of faith in me when I didn’t come for you? When I couldn’t find you in time to keep you from going through all of that? How can you ever trust me again, Rose Tyler?” he asked.
“I trusted that you’d come for me,” she said simply.
His hands loosened on her wrists and he slid them up to her shoulders. “How could you? It took me too long to find you.”
Rose bit her lip and looked down at his stomach and an inappropriate urge to reach out and touch it swept through her. She backed away from him and his hands slipped to his sides. “I knew you would come. It’s all that got me through. Every day, when the guard was hitting me, the one thing I could hold onto, the one thing that got me through the beatings and—and the torture, was that you’d find me, that my Doctor would come for me.”
"Your Doctor?” he asked slightly bemused. Rose looked up at him and saw the gentleness in his eyes, the same soft look he’d had for her when they’d woken up together the morning after Drifalia. She nodded seriously.
“Yes. And I know, I do know, Doctor, that you’ll always come for me,” she said. “No matter how badly I get lost, no matter how far away I end up from you or how long it takes, you’ll always find me. If I believe anything it’s that.”
“How can you know?”
“I know.” His face was guarded but she continued to speak. “I do feel safe when I’m with you.”
“But you just said—.”
“I wasn’t with you then. You can’t keep me safe when I’m not with you, but when I am…it’s the safest place in the world.” Their eyes met and a suspicious moisture gleamed in the Doctor’s. “Please don’t take me home. I don’t want to go.” She reached out and took both of his hands in hers. “I want to stay with you.”
“Rose, I—.”
“And I don’t want, Jack,” she said. “Not like you think I do.”
“I know that,” he admitted.
“Then why did you say—?”
“Because I’m a jealous old man, Rose.”
“Jealous? Of Jack? Why?” she asked, eyes wide.
“He’s Captain Flash, isn’t he? Always got some gizmo or gadget that he’s showing off and—.”
“Is this sonic envy again?” Rose asked.
“No, this is not sonic envy!” he snapped and Rose recoiled. “Sorry.” He brought his volume back down. “I’m sorry. It’s the way that you act around him, Rose. You light up, you smile, and yeah, you flirt and I don’t like it ‘cause I know that he wants you.”
“Doesn’t matter what he wants, Doctor. I love Jack, but not like that. Not like I—not like that.” She turned away from him and walked over to the dresser. “You gonna let me stay with you, Doctor?” she asked.
“Yeah. ‘Course I am, if that’s what you want.”
“It is. And you’ll be here when I come out? You’ll sleep here tonight?”
“If you want me then here is where I’ll be,” he reassured her.
She turned back around to look at him. “I want you.”
“Then I’m here.”
“Ought to get ready for bed, then,” she told him.
His hand moved to his belt and unbuckled it and he pulled it free of his jeans. Rose turned away with another blush when he unfastened the fly even though she’d much rather watch as he stripped down to whatever it was he wore under the heavy denim. The Doctor wasn’t a particularly modest man, but she’d never had the opportunity to peek and her curiosity was making her want to. If she’d still been her old self she’d have her back turned but she’d be looking in the mirror over the dresser and she’d be querying him about boxers or briefs. Where had that girl gone to? Better yet, when would she be back?
She sighed and reached for the sleeping shift that’d been laid out for her by their hosts and picked it up with shaking hands then headed for the bathroom. Her mind flashed on the last time they’d shared a bed. All she’d wanted was for him to hold her so she could feel safe. He was the one person in the world she trusted to do that, even if…well, even if he hadn’t been able to do that on Drifalia. She hoped that she’d been able to get that across to him. Her harsh words still rang in her own ears.
She meant what she said about trusting him. She did. She really did. It was just that everything was still mixed up in her head and she honestly didn’t know what to do about it. As bad as things were, she needed him. She needed to wake up in his arms like she had the morning after. It had had such a feeling of rightness to it, a feeling she desperately wanted to get back.
“Rose?”
“Yeah?” She stopped, hand on the bathroom doorknob.
“You okay with this? I didn’t ask and maybe I should have,” he said.
“This?”
“Sharing a bed with me?”
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she said a little too quickly. “I can share a bed with you.” It was the least of her worries as she tried to sort out her feelings.
“I promise you I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”
“Yes, I’m all too well aware of that,” she muttered as she strode into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, wondering where the hell those words had come from and leaning hard against the door in disbelief over the fact that she’d actually just spoken them out loud.
The Doctor stood there for a moment with his mouth hanging open. Rose’s words seemed to be implying that she didn’t want him to be a perfect gentleman. That couldn’t possibly be what she meant, though, could it? He stared at the bathroom door in consternation. No, he must have misheard her.
He picked up a towel and wiped up the mess from the fruit Rose had thrown at him, both from the floor and his body. He slipped under the covers of the bed, stretching his lanky frame out, clasping the back of his head with his hands, and waiting for her to emerge. There were twin aches where Rose had pelted him, but with his physiology by morning it would be gone with nary a bruise to remind him by. The girl had a pretty good arm on her, he had to admit.
It was a few minutes before she came back out and he tamped down on his reaction when she did, keeping his expression neutral even as his hearts skipped a few beats at the blush staining her cheeks. Her hair hung free of her earlier pony tail, a golden curtain around her face. The sleeping shift she wore was simple and white, thick straps at the shoulder but sleeveless, and it fell loosely to not quite the middle of her thigh. He gulped as his eyes made their way down her legs.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen them before but it was suddenly more interesting to him then he’d ever let it be before. Her face was scrubbed free of makeup, the way he liked seeing her best. She was beautiful. She approached the far side of the bed and she was biting her lip, something she did only when she was uncertain, nervous, or scared.
“Do you have that stuff with you for my scar?” she asked him.
“It’s in my coat pocket. The left one,” he said.
She rooted through the pocket and after pulling out several things that were not what she was searching for she removed her hand with a small container of ointment. She opened the jar and dipped a finger inside then carefully rubbed the salve on the healing scar on her throat. Her injury had been so severe that even his dermal regenerator hadn’t been able to heal it on the first go. The salve would make it fade to nothing, but it needed to be applied daily for six weeks. She finished up and returned the pot to his jacket then turned to face him.
He pulled back the bedding on her side of the bed and patted the mattress gently with one hand and watched her intently, seeking any sign that what Rose had said earlier had meant she might actually want him to do…something, anything. Her breath hitched noticeably as she saw the revealed parts of his body. At least he thought that was why it hitched. She swallowed hard then slid in with the simple grace that was Rose and tugged the blankets up under her arms. She brought them down on either side of her, creating a barrier of fabric between them.
Rose turned her head to look at him and he was startled by the confusion in her eyes. He looked down quickly, saw the fingers of her near hand twitching, saw her begin to reach out and then stop and pull back. She’d been like that a bit lately. Despite clinging to him in public, in private she was reluctant, maybe even scared, to take his hand. He almost always was the one reaching to take hers these days. He turned away from her and reached for the candle and blew it out. “Night, Rose,” he told her.
“Night, Doctor,” she replied, her voice slightly strained. He listened to her breathing in the quiet, the lack of the TARDIS’ hum never more apparent than now, and then felt her shifting as she tried to get comfortable in an unfamiliar bed. He reached out in the darkness, finding her hand on the first try as if by magic, and threaded his fingers through hers. She sighed softly and settled down and finally he heard her shallow, even breathing and was glad she’d finally reached sleep.
Careful not to wake her he edged closer to her in the bed, rolling onto his side so his body was turned towards her. He allowed his leg to brush against hers. The hand not holding hers crept around her waist. Reassured by more physical contact he settled his head against the pillow and tried to figure out just what exactly it was that was going on between him and his young companion.
He loved her sure enough and if he looked at it objectively he knew that he was also in love with her and had been since long before Jack came on board. Not quite as soon as in that cellar in Cardiff waiting to die at the hands of the Gelth, but well into it by the time he confessed on 10 Downing Street that he could save the world but lose her.
He’d been trying ever since to backtrack, to not let Rose know precisely what she meant to him, and he’d succeeded pretty well. Then Jack had come along and he’d had to walk a fine line between keeping the man from sniffing around Rose and keeping Rose from finding out that he was holding Jack at bay so he didn’t have to explain why. Of course that made everything much more complicated.
He couldn’t quite figure the girl out. Sometimes she acted like she wanted him, she flirted like crazy with him, but then she was always dragging in strays. Strays that never worked out, strays that he’d always managed to scare off. Jack was the only one with staying power and Jack knew better after that first week to even try to con his way into Rose’s bed. Rose had shown very little sign, aside from a few well-placed innuendoes, of wanting Jack there, despite what he’d accused her of. And she’d told him flat out tonight that she didn’t want the other man. That didn’t mean she wanted the Doctor either, though. Did it?
Maybe it was time to stop listening with his ears, because she was obviously saying things he didn’t understand and meaning things she wasn’t actually saying. It was time to start watching with his eyes; observing far more closely how she acted and reacted around him until he figured it out. He was probably just seeing hope where he wanted there to be some. Either way it was going to be a tightrope to walk until he figured it out. And even when he did, if Rose did want him, he knew she wasn’t ready to act on her feelings. Not until she healed.
Ch. 4: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/242950.html
Author: Amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: Nine/Rose, Jack
Genre: Romance, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, smut (eventually)
Betas: Amyo67, JeopardyFriendly
Rating: Adult
Warnings: In this story Rose will be having flashbacks to a violent incident where she was beaten by a prison guard and hurt by another man. This is not rape fic and will not touch on that issue at all. I will keep the explicitness to a minimum, but I know this sort of thing can trigger memories in the victims of violence so wanted to post fair warning.
Summary: Rose has lost her equilibrium after a terrible experience and being back on a similar planet is not helping. The Doctor isn't quite sure what to do to rebuild her spirit, but he has to try because losing her is not an option. Neither is letting her go home.
Author's Notes: This fic was written for Wiggiemomsi who won me and 15,000 words in the Support Stacie Auction.
Ch. 1: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/240768.h
Ch. 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/241908.h
Chapter Three: Denial of Conclusions
Rose stared at his back in utter disbelief. She got to her feet and without a second’s thought she reached into the fruit bowl on the table beside her, grabbed up a ripe peach-type fruit and hurled it at the Doctor’s back. It splatted across his skin before falling to the floor. The Doctor whirled around and glared at her.
“Coward,” she said grabbing up another piece of fruit and hurling it at him. It impacted with a loud squelch and juice dripped slowly down his chest as the remains fell to the floor.
“What?” he growled striding quickly across the room and catching both her wrists up in his hands before he fell victim to another missile.
“You. Are. A. Coward.” She bit off her words.
“I am not! What’s gotten into you?”
“I finally manage to let you know what the hell I’m going through and you turn tail and run from me and not only that, you threaten to take me home! I don’t want to go home!” she said fiercely.
“It wasn’t a threat. You’ve made it clear that I can’t keep you safe,” he said flatly as she squirmed in his grasp.
“What and you think my mother will do a better job of it? Or Mickey?”
His eyes narrowed and he snorted derisively at the mention of her ex-boyfriend. “No, but you don’t trust me anymore. How can you keep living with me if you don’t trust me?” He looked at her bitterly, his own emotions far closer to the surface than they usually were.
“I never said I didn’t trust you,” she said quietly and the tears slipped from her eyes as she looked up at him. The expression on his face softened in the face of her tears.
“So I can’t keep you safe, but you trust me? What kind of twisted logic is that?” he asked softly.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant…I meant you didn’t keep me safe. Not—not that you can’t keep me safe. And I do trust you. I do.”
“How can you trust me? How can you have any kind of faith in me when I didn’t come for you? When I couldn’t find you in time to keep you from going through all of that? How can you ever trust me again, Rose Tyler?” he asked.
“I trusted that you’d come for me,” she said simply.
His hands loosened on her wrists and he slid them up to her shoulders. “How could you? It took me too long to find you.”
Rose bit her lip and looked down at his stomach and an inappropriate urge to reach out and touch it swept through her. She backed away from him and his hands slipped to his sides. “I knew you would come. It’s all that got me through. Every day, when the guard was hitting me, the one thing I could hold onto, the one thing that got me through the beatings and—and the torture, was that you’d find me, that my Doctor would come for me.”
"Your Doctor?” he asked slightly bemused. Rose looked up at him and saw the gentleness in his eyes, the same soft look he’d had for her when they’d woken up together the morning after Drifalia. She nodded seriously.
“Yes. And I know, I do know, Doctor, that you’ll always come for me,” she said. “No matter how badly I get lost, no matter how far away I end up from you or how long it takes, you’ll always find me. If I believe anything it’s that.”
“How can you know?”
“I know.” His face was guarded but she continued to speak. “I do feel safe when I’m with you.”
“But you just said—.”
“I wasn’t with you then. You can’t keep me safe when I’m not with you, but when I am…it’s the safest place in the world.” Their eyes met and a suspicious moisture gleamed in the Doctor’s. “Please don’t take me home. I don’t want to go.” She reached out and took both of his hands in hers. “I want to stay with you.”
“Rose, I—.”
“And I don’t want, Jack,” she said. “Not like you think I do.”
“I know that,” he admitted.
“Then why did you say—?”
“Because I’m a jealous old man, Rose.”
“Jealous? Of Jack? Why?” she asked, eyes wide.
“He’s Captain Flash, isn’t he? Always got some gizmo or gadget that he’s showing off and—.”
“Is this sonic envy again?” Rose asked.
“No, this is not sonic envy!” he snapped and Rose recoiled. “Sorry.” He brought his volume back down. “I’m sorry. It’s the way that you act around him, Rose. You light up, you smile, and yeah, you flirt and I don’t like it ‘cause I know that he wants you.”
“Doesn’t matter what he wants, Doctor. I love Jack, but not like that. Not like I—not like that.” She turned away from him and walked over to the dresser. “You gonna let me stay with you, Doctor?” she asked.
“Yeah. ‘Course I am, if that’s what you want.”
“It is. And you’ll be here when I come out? You’ll sleep here tonight?”
“If you want me then here is where I’ll be,” he reassured her.
She turned back around to look at him. “I want you.”
“Then I’m here.”
“Ought to get ready for bed, then,” she told him.
His hand moved to his belt and unbuckled it and he pulled it free of his jeans. Rose turned away with another blush when he unfastened the fly even though she’d much rather watch as he stripped down to whatever it was he wore under the heavy denim. The Doctor wasn’t a particularly modest man, but she’d never had the opportunity to peek and her curiosity was making her want to. If she’d still been her old self she’d have her back turned but she’d be looking in the mirror over the dresser and she’d be querying him about boxers or briefs. Where had that girl gone to? Better yet, when would she be back?
She sighed and reached for the sleeping shift that’d been laid out for her by their hosts and picked it up with shaking hands then headed for the bathroom. Her mind flashed on the last time they’d shared a bed. All she’d wanted was for him to hold her so she could feel safe. He was the one person in the world she trusted to do that, even if…well, even if he hadn’t been able to do that on Drifalia. She hoped that she’d been able to get that across to him. Her harsh words still rang in her own ears.
She meant what she said about trusting him. She did. She really did. It was just that everything was still mixed up in her head and she honestly didn’t know what to do about it. As bad as things were, she needed him. She needed to wake up in his arms like she had the morning after. It had had such a feeling of rightness to it, a feeling she desperately wanted to get back.
“Rose?”
“Yeah?” She stopped, hand on the bathroom doorknob.
“You okay with this? I didn’t ask and maybe I should have,” he said.
“This?”
“Sharing a bed with me?”
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she said a little too quickly. “I can share a bed with you.” It was the least of her worries as she tried to sort out her feelings.
“I promise you I’ll be a perfect gentleman.”
“Yes, I’m all too well aware of that,” she muttered as she strode into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, wondering where the hell those words had come from and leaning hard against the door in disbelief over the fact that she’d actually just spoken them out loud.
The Doctor stood there for a moment with his mouth hanging open. Rose’s words seemed to be implying that she didn’t want him to be a perfect gentleman. That couldn’t possibly be what she meant, though, could it? He stared at the bathroom door in consternation. No, he must have misheard her.
He picked up a towel and wiped up the mess from the fruit Rose had thrown at him, both from the floor and his body. He slipped under the covers of the bed, stretching his lanky frame out, clasping the back of his head with his hands, and waiting for her to emerge. There were twin aches where Rose had pelted him, but with his physiology by morning it would be gone with nary a bruise to remind him by. The girl had a pretty good arm on her, he had to admit.
It was a few minutes before she came back out and he tamped down on his reaction when she did, keeping his expression neutral even as his hearts skipped a few beats at the blush staining her cheeks. Her hair hung free of her earlier pony tail, a golden curtain around her face. The sleeping shift she wore was simple and white, thick straps at the shoulder but sleeveless, and it fell loosely to not quite the middle of her thigh. He gulped as his eyes made their way down her legs.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen them before but it was suddenly more interesting to him then he’d ever let it be before. Her face was scrubbed free of makeup, the way he liked seeing her best. She was beautiful. She approached the far side of the bed and she was biting her lip, something she did only when she was uncertain, nervous, or scared.
“Do you have that stuff with you for my scar?” she asked him.
“It’s in my coat pocket. The left one,” he said.
She rooted through the pocket and after pulling out several things that were not what she was searching for she removed her hand with a small container of ointment. She opened the jar and dipped a finger inside then carefully rubbed the salve on the healing scar on her throat. Her injury had been so severe that even his dermal regenerator hadn’t been able to heal it on the first go. The salve would make it fade to nothing, but it needed to be applied daily for six weeks. She finished up and returned the pot to his jacket then turned to face him.
He pulled back the bedding on her side of the bed and patted the mattress gently with one hand and watched her intently, seeking any sign that what Rose had said earlier had meant she might actually want him to do…something, anything. Her breath hitched noticeably as she saw the revealed parts of his body. At least he thought that was why it hitched. She swallowed hard then slid in with the simple grace that was Rose and tugged the blankets up under her arms. She brought them down on either side of her, creating a barrier of fabric between them.
Rose turned her head to look at him and he was startled by the confusion in her eyes. He looked down quickly, saw the fingers of her near hand twitching, saw her begin to reach out and then stop and pull back. She’d been like that a bit lately. Despite clinging to him in public, in private she was reluctant, maybe even scared, to take his hand. He almost always was the one reaching to take hers these days. He turned away from her and reached for the candle and blew it out. “Night, Rose,” he told her.
“Night, Doctor,” she replied, her voice slightly strained. He listened to her breathing in the quiet, the lack of the TARDIS’ hum never more apparent than now, and then felt her shifting as she tried to get comfortable in an unfamiliar bed. He reached out in the darkness, finding her hand on the first try as if by magic, and threaded his fingers through hers. She sighed softly and settled down and finally he heard her shallow, even breathing and was glad she’d finally reached sleep.
Careful not to wake her he edged closer to her in the bed, rolling onto his side so his body was turned towards her. He allowed his leg to brush against hers. The hand not holding hers crept around her waist. Reassured by more physical contact he settled his head against the pillow and tried to figure out just what exactly it was that was going on between him and his young companion.
He loved her sure enough and if he looked at it objectively he knew that he was also in love with her and had been since long before Jack came on board. Not quite as soon as in that cellar in Cardiff waiting to die at the hands of the Gelth, but well into it by the time he confessed on 10 Downing Street that he could save the world but lose her.
He’d been trying ever since to backtrack, to not let Rose know precisely what she meant to him, and he’d succeeded pretty well. Then Jack had come along and he’d had to walk a fine line between keeping the man from sniffing around Rose and keeping Rose from finding out that he was holding Jack at bay so he didn’t have to explain why. Of course that made everything much more complicated.
He couldn’t quite figure the girl out. Sometimes she acted like she wanted him, she flirted like crazy with him, but then she was always dragging in strays. Strays that never worked out, strays that he’d always managed to scare off. Jack was the only one with staying power and Jack knew better after that first week to even try to con his way into Rose’s bed. Rose had shown very little sign, aside from a few well-placed innuendoes, of wanting Jack there, despite what he’d accused her of. And she’d told him flat out tonight that she didn’t want the other man. That didn’t mean she wanted the Doctor either, though. Did it?
Maybe it was time to stop listening with his ears, because she was obviously saying things he didn’t understand and meaning things she wasn’t actually saying. It was time to start watching with his eyes; observing far more closely how she acted and reacted around him until he figured it out. He was probably just seeing hope where he wanted there to be some. Either way it was going to be a tightrope to walk until he figured it out. And even when he did, if Rose did want him, he knew she wasn’t ready to act on her feelings. Not until she healed.
Ch. 4: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/242950.html
