The Green Soul

Chapter 22

The first thing Rose felt when she came to was a fury so blinding that she could only feel the hands that had stopped the progress she had surely been making. There was only one person it could be, one person stupid enough to stop something so important because he was trying to 'save' her.

Still lacking the ability to see, she shoved away from him, stumbling back into the end table by the bed and  the same hands on her again. Around now, she was accustomed to the cold latching onto her, but now, she felt only anger, burning hot, through her whole body, devouring her whole before she could even formulate a real, proper thought.

So, without thinking, and not being able to form rational thought, only knowing that she was so angry at him, for so many reasons, for leaving her and coming back and leaving and coming back just in time to stop her doing some good for this damned universe, she slapped him.

She felt him stumble back, and as a result, she no longer had a support and fell onto her hands and knees into the crumpled sheets she had dug the sonic screwdriver out of. She curled her fingers into the material, hoping against hope that Marie had left the room, since she still couldn't see, and why couldn't she see, exactly?

Lunging at him again, she let it all pour out of her, getting another good smack in, not being able to punch him, never to hurt him more than the chastising she was giving him now, because, God help her, she loved him so much.

He seemed to be trying to stop her, but he wasn't fighting back, only trying to grab at her, not push at her or hurt her in return. She could hear his voice in the back of her head, behind the buzz of anger, and he sounded frantic and scared and that was good. He deserved it all.

She pounced on him one last time, getting a good whack at the side of his head before collapsing onto the floor, completely spent and shaking with rage. She felt his hands at her, shaking her shoulders. His voice was still there, he was still talking to her, anxiety creeping through the tones.

How dare he. How dare he pretend that he wanted to help her, when she was so close to doing something useful, and without him for once. She felt as he tried to lift her, and knew she was fighting and pushing him away from her, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

He deserved it, to feel sorry, he should feel sorry, for leaving her like that, after... After everything that had happened. He was holding her, trying to hug her, she could tell, but she was still fighting him. Did he really think it was that easy, after all this? Give her a hug and everything would be fine?

With a force she didn't know she had, she shoved violently at the Doctor's chest and effectively pushed them away from each other, her head knocking against the nightstand. She blinked and her vision started to come back, blurry at first, but shades of brown coming slowly into focus.

"Rose."

She pushed back harder against the table, her senses coming back to her more clearly as the moments passed. She found herself glaring at him, completely furious, as he sat sprawled on the floor, the first two buttons on his shirt torn off and an angry bruise already starting to form just under his eye.

"Rose!" He was trying to get her attention, knew he had it physically, but not mentally.

"What?" She spit out, backing herself up further.

He prodded the skin beneath his eye, wincing when he found it tender. "Rose, why did you do this?"

Any cold she may have been feeling shot out of her in that instant, and she shot a gaze like daggers at him. "I was trying to save the world, you know, like we usually do. Was bloody close to getting that thing in the sonic before you busted in."

"That's... Completely the inappropriate thing to do," the Doctor retorted. "You should've waited for me."

"Well, to be fair, Doctor, I didn't know when you were coming back, if you were coming back at all." She crossed her arms defensively, not sure if she was trying to make herself bigger or smaller. "So I thought I'd just go ahead with it."

The Doctor simply stared at her for several long moments, neither of them breaking the other's gaze, as if they were afraid to. Then the Doctor brought in a heavy breath through his nose, watching her carefully. "You thought I wasn't going to come back?"

Rose blinked. That hadn't been the reaction she had been expecting when she'd started all this. Of course she'd known he was coming back, because he always came back, but that really wasn't the point. She was furious and had every right to be. She shifted backwards so her back was against the end table.

"How was I supposed to know that?" Rose asked. "No note, no nothing. How was I supposed to know that you were coming back? I thought maybe you were downstairs, I come down and Matthew says you've just sauntered out, muttering to yourself."

"But even with all of that, you had to know that I-"

"No, Doctor! How was I supposed to know anything?" Rose asked, her tone frustrated and pitched. "What else was I supposed to feel besides-" She clamped her mouth shut and glared at him.

The Doctor looked at her curiously for a moment. "Besides what?"

"It's not important," Rose snapped back, getting to her feet. "I'm going for a walk."

"Are you cold?" The Doctor asked, almost as if he were analyzing her.

"No. Maybe I would've been if you let me finish what I'd been doing. We could've been out of here and on the TARDIS by now if that were the case."

"You were the one that wanted to come here."

"And now I just want to leave," Rose bit back tears. She couldn't stop thinking about how none of it was fair, how clearly it had all meant nothing to him, what had happened. She walked to where Marie had laid the sonic screwdriver and tossed it to him. "You can take care of your injuries with that, I'm sure."

He caught the tool and slid it into his inside breast pocket, never breaking his gaze from hers. "Rose, I really think that it's best if we talked about this. I want to know what you're feeling, and you should really rest, doing that twice in one day. It was taxing on you, whether you think it was or not."

"I'm feeling fine," Rose said finally, feeling energized by what had happened, still angry, but letting it simmer in the back of her brain as she turned towards the door again.

"Rose?" The Doctor asked, now all of a sudden sounding timid, as if he were afraid to talk to her about whatever this was, this thing they weren't addressing but both thinking about, mostly because neither of them could seem to stop thinking about it.

She turned slightly, making it clear that she was still going to go for that walk and nothing he said, or was going to say, was going to change her mind. She cocked her eyebrow at him, urging him to continue.

He approached her, taking her by the shoulders and turning her to face him. She let him, only because he looked so fragile, with the beginnings of a black eye and his eyebrows drawn together in worry.

"What?" She asked quietly, all the fight gone out of her, just wanting him to hug her.

"Do you... Do you want to go home?"