lostwolf | Honey Trap - Chapter Five

Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four

Five: Counterfeit Truth
Like all valuable commodities, truth is often counterfeited. James Cardinal Gibbons

Rose gasped, sensation rushing in upon her in a torrent. Before she could process anything, though, she felt her mouth fill with a rush of fluid and she responded instinctively, rolling onto her side as, with punishing force, vomit burst forth, burning her throat and mouth and nose with its pungent acidic assault. Tears sprung to her eyes as her stomach heaved again and again, leaving her shaking and disorientated.   The hand at her forehead, though, the gentle touch against her belly, was familiar and welcome and she let it guide her until, at their soft insistence, her eyes drifted open and light and reality flooded in.

‘Ouch,’ she murmured, wincing at the taste and discomfort in her mouth.

The hands disappeared, with an apologetic murmur, only to return moments later proffering a bottle still half full of water. Those same hands guided her upright, holding her steady as she reached for the water and raised it to her lips.

As she sipped, long fingers swept her hair back from her face, deliciously cool against her flushed skin as her senses slowly began to return. She was on her bum in the sand, the Doctor’s firm torso at her side, one hand holding her tight against him, the other petting her head, the too fast thud of the Doctor’s hearts reverberating against her shoulder. She let her head drop against him as she lowered the water bottle to rest against her thigh.

‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor whispered, the fingers that had been caressing her soft hair dropping to rest on her leg, just shy of hand.

‘What happened?’ she asked, grateful that, though her throat still seemed to burn, the water had rinsed away the foul taste of sick.

‘I’m so sorry, Rose. I was… that is… well, I thought that…well, it’s more than I didn’t think… not that… well… it was a good theory…’ Rose frowned as the Doctor temporised, more and more of the world making its presence felt as unconsciousness loosened the final fingertip hold it had had on her. Her irritation warred with disgust at the sharp scent of her vomit and, despite a strong desire to thump the Doctor, disgust won and, pushing against his grip, she rolled free of him, finding her feet and getting to them despite the fuzzy uncertainty of her balance.

As the horizon settled back to horizontal, her gaze found the Doctor and she glared. He stopped in his ungainly lurch towards her, stilled by her clear displeasure.

‘Uh…’

‘Doctor,’ Rose warned, and with a gulp, the Doctor straightened, fingers twitching towards her before retreating to his hair then neck.

‘I… it was an experiment.’

‘An experiment?’

‘To test my hypothesis, a really rather brilliant one, even if I do say so myself. Hypothesis, that is, not experiment, because clearly that was a little bit, well, um, flawed, flawed would be the word. But the hypothesis, Rose, it was brilliant. But you see, well, it was, ah, based on empirical evidence, and while my evaluations based on purely empirical evidence are outstanding, seeing as how I’m a genius and all, well, there aren’t quite enough in a situation such as this and so I thought, ah ha, an experiment, that’s what’s needed here and…’

‘Doctor…’ her voice was dangerous now. She’d thrown up, one of the most singularly unpleasant things, and there was no way on Earth or any other planet she was prepared to listen to his usual blather.

‘Right, yes, well, um, you see…’ In the face of a stare so deadly he was fairly certain he’d lost a few decades off his regeneration, he rushed to the nub of the matter. ‘We’re trapped.’

‘What?’

‘We’re trapped.’

‘We’re what now?’

‘Trapped. Did you hurt your head? Is your hearing fuzzy, because sudden sensory disarmament and instantaneous neurological shutdown can be harmful.’ This time he did move towards her, needing to touch her despite her evident displeasure. With firm authority, he grasped her arm and, within moments, had the sonic screwdriver buzzing by her ear. Grimacing, Rose batted the device away.

‘No, I heard you, I just… stop it,’ she growled, as the screwdriver swooped in for another scan. She made an uncoordinated lunge for it and the Doctor flinched away, whipping it out of sight. Rose’s lunge turned into a nose drive, as her still shaky coordination abandoned her altogether and, with reflexes that, had she been in a better mood he would have loved to crow about, he caught her and pulled her upwards until she was securely tucked into his side.

Without pause, Rose continued her discontented interrogation. ‘What do you mean trapped? We’re on our honeymoon?’

The Doctor’s feet shuffled in the sand and the hand on her hip twitched. ‘Yes. Well. Thing is… we’re not, quite, entirely, well, we may be a little bit not where I intended,’ he rushed. Rose blinked.

‘Not where you intended?’

‘No.’

‘This planet, this island, this isn’t where you intended us to be?’

‘Yes. I mean no. I mean… this planet is not where I intended us to be.’

‘Right,’ Rose muttered, feeling unutterably weary. She wanted nothing more than to curl into the Doctor, feel his cool, reassuring presence both within and without, and sleep. Since that comfort was obviously to be denied her, she forced herself to eschew even the small comfort of his touch, pulling free on him once more and tottering a few feet before turning carefully to face him.

‘Let me get this straight. We’re not where we were meant to be for our honeymoon and some bloke meets us and welcomes us and shows us to our honeymoon house and you don’t think its worth mentioning that in no way is this normal because we’re not meant to be here?’

The Doctor’s eyes widened, before dropping to study something fascinating in the sand. ‘Well – you seemed so pleased.’

‘We landed somewhere completely wrong with freaky aliens who know our names and everything – which, even if you ignored our ridiculous penchant for getting into trouble, would scream danger - and you didn’t think you’d mention it cause I seemed happy?’

The Doctor tilted his head, frowned, and then shrugged. ‘Um… yes.’ He paused, lifting his chin rebelliously. In his pocket, his fingers clenched round his sonic screwdriver. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

Rose’s gawked at him. ‘What’s wrong with that? Are you seriously asking me what’s wrong with that?’

‘You didn’t used to mind.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Rose’s voice veered towards shrill in a manner that was startlingly like her mother. The Doctor’s hearts lurched in what, had he been human, he would have categorised as flight or fight readiness but in him, a Time Lord and not an ape descendent, was clearly simply an effort to promote greater blood flow to his ears, so he could fully appreciate what his lovely wife was saying.

‘You didn’t… that is, we’re always landing somewhere other and…’ his courage failed him and he stumbled to a halt at her outraged look.

‘But I always knew… I do always know, don’t I? Doctor? Doctor? Oh my god! Do you make a habit of lying to me?’

‘Well…’ Rose stared at him and he felt himself begin to fidget and, if he wasn’t much mistaken, sweat a little beneath her intense glare. He shifted his feet, one hand worrying at his neck, the other playing absently with his sonic screwdriver in his pocket, drawing comfort from its steady, solid, uncomplicated presence. At her continued silence, he rushed to justify himself,   ‘I was trying to protect you!

‘From what? Disappointment that your driving had gone screwy again?’

‘From everything. From nothing.’ His shoulders rounded and for a brief instant his eyes fell closed, as if the outside world was no longer enough to keep at bay the clamouring of his internal landscape. ‘I don’t know, I just… I don’t…’ he forced his eyes open, forced himself to look at Rose, hoping she wouldn’t see the turmoil that seethed beneath the fragile surface and leeched life from his eyes ‘I just…’ .

The Doctor ground to a halt as their gazes locked. Something so like pain flashed in her face for a moment that the Doctor found himself pulling forth the sonic screwdriver, then Rose’s face shuttered and she turned away from him. He opened his mouth and she raised her hand to forestall him, before curling her arms around her middle and ducking her chin.

The silence was so absolute that he could hear her harsh little breaths. He waited. She failed to speak and so he waited. And waited, until he could hold back his voice for no longer. ‘Rose?’

‘You said the Beast lied, Doctor.’ Her voice was quiet, but the accusation within rang clear and loud.   ‘You said he lied and that I wasn’t gonna die, that he was just feeding on our fears.’

The Doctor took an inadvertent step backwards. ‘He was. He did. He…’

She turned on him angrily, her arms flailing in her frustrated need to be understood. ‘Then you have to start behaving like you actually believe that! You can’t keep lying to me to protect me. You can’t keep keeping things from me, you can’t…’ Her voice softened and her arms dropped, one hand reaching into the air between them. ‘I’m gonna die some day, Doctor, but you’ve gotta stop acting like someday’s tomorrow.’

The Doctor sagged, his hands seeking refuge in his pockets, his eyes seeking his feet, where they worried at the sand. He drew in a deep breath, fighting the urge to run. ‘He did lie, Rose, it’s just… sixty, seventy, eighty years with you, that’s not enough and… I …’

Rose sighed and stepped forward, reaching for him. She felt him stiffen as she drew him into her arms, pulling him tight despite his uncooperative elbows and resistant limbs. He reminded her of a defensive child, reluctant to relinquish their anger or be comforted in case they cried, and she wondered if he’d always been this impossibly vulnerable, or if it was a recent thing. Slowly, in the face of her persistence, she felt him unbend a little, his body leaning into hers slightly, his angles becoming a tiny bit less sharp.

‘I know you’re scared, but we’re married now, that means no more treating me like the human pet – it means telling me stuff.’

The Doctor sniffed, struggling for levity, to sound affronted rather than simply frightened and out of his depth. ‘We were married before – and you’ve never been a pet. Pet’s are obedient!’

Rose prodded him impatiently.   ‘You’ll be lucky,’ she snorted, before easing back and placing a soft hand against his cheek. ‘You felt married before, now I do – and it’s different.’

The Doctor blinked at her in surprise. He’d thought, well assumed, once he’d explained what his possession of her meant, what level of commitment it signalled, that she’d felt as he did about it. ‘You didn’t feel married after the bond?’ His confusion and hurt was evident in his tone.

Rose sighed, letting her fingers brush up into his hair, before falling to rest on his shoulder. ‘No. I felt, well, different, I guess, cause we were bonded and you were in my head and stuff, but that was just… alien. And it was difficult, and it wasn’t exactly mutual, was it? No asking, not until after, anyway. And it was all tied up with something horrible,’ at his stricken look she hurried to explain, ‘Not you, you could never be horrible, and it wasn’t, the bonding, I mean, it was just – we did it because of… because of the Darvians and…’ she let her head drop against his chest. ‘Marriage is – it’s human. It’s about choosing to say things to each other, planning to. It’s a symbol and I guess I’m just a stupid little ape – I needed a silly ceremony.’

The Doctor softened a little. He didn’t think he understood, not really – he’d never been one for ceremonies and traditions and oaths, but if Rose needed it, well – he decided Jackie was a much much smarter woman than he had ever given her credit for and he owed her a great deal. If she hadn’t insisted, they never would have had a wedding and Rose would have continued to feel… well, whatever she had been feeling. He rested his chin on her crown.

‘It’s not silly. Nothing you want or need could ever be silly.’

Rose smiled, warmth flooding her at the utter sincerity of his words. She hugged him tighter, feeling him let go of a little of his tension. After a few moments she pulled back enough to grin up at him.

‘Have to admit, I’m kind of relieved.’

‘Relieved?’

‘Yeah.’ She eased back further, moving so that she simply stood in front of him, both of his hands clasped in hers. ‘Shareen and I used to chat about marriage and stuff and she always said we shouldn’t, because sex dried up completely once you were hitched. Way you were this morning, I thought, uh oh, there goes the nookie.’

The Doctor gaped at her, before grinning, his head dipping forward to bring his lips up close against her ear, ‘Believe me, Rose, nothing will ever stop the nookie!’

Rose shivered in delight as a peal of pure mirth bubbled forth from between her lips. ‘Good to know,’ she informed him, as her laughter subsided. She squeezed his hands fiercely, before looking up at him, her countenance becoming serious.

‘So,’ she said, her eyes sparkling despite her solemn expression, ‘time to escape paradise?’

The Doctor smiled, relieved and invigorated by her mere presence beside him, ‘Yep,’ he popped, almost giddy with the joy of it – being with Rose, solving a puzzle, holding her hand.

‘Got a plan?’

‘Nope. Figured we might wing it.’

Rose beamed, gripping his hand tight. ‘Fantastic,’ she pronounced.

Chapter Six

Current Mood: sick

Tags:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Date: 2009-01-19 06:47 pm (UTC)

From:

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags