"Picnic on Aix" (Nine/Rose) 3/5
Jan. 27th, 2012 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fannishlisstitle: Picnic on Aix, Part Three
author:![[info]](https://fannishliss.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=88.8)
fannishliss
pairing: Nine/Rose
rating: ultimately NC17
length: 11,100 words in all, broken into parts. Part Three is 3000 words and still rated G.
summary: The Tardis strands the Doctor and Rose until they deal with their unresolved tension (post Father's Day).
Part One ; Part Two :
"Please," she says, "stay with me. Lie down next to me. Please, Doctor," Rose begs.
He's truly helpless now. He takes off his jacket, hangs it on the doorknob, and lies down, spooning himself to her back, on top of the covers with the sheets and blankets between him and her naked skin.
"Thank you," she whispers, and with a heavy sigh, she falls back asleep.
===
The rest of the night is heaven and hell in one sweet-smelling, Rose-shaped package. She begged him to stay, so he can't refuse. Now, here he is, pressing against her through layers of cloth, his long body folded around hers, wide awake, all senses trained on her as she sleeps, imprinting her just this much more deeply into his awareness. He can hear her heartbeat now, her digestion; he's so close he can almost hear her dreams, muffled, as though from behind a closed door, and when they start to get louder and more unpleasant, he easily turns her back to sunshine and daisies without even reaching out with his mind toward hers, merely a stroke of his hand along her arm.
He knows the moment she begins to awaken, the changes in her body temperature and heart rate singing out to him, even before she takes her awakening breath and her eyes flutter open.
"Good morning, Rose," he murmurs, soothingly. What will she say?
"Oh, my god, I've never slept so well in my life," she says, stretching. She turns under the sheets to face him, her hair a delightful mess all around her face. "What did you do?"
"Do?" he says innocently. "You had a nightmare. You asked me to stay with you."
"I remember that," Rose says, "but then when I fell back asleep, I slept so well it was like no time passed -- I feel completely refreshed."
"Huh," the Doctor says. "I'll put that on the brochure if I ever need work. Guaranteed human sleep aid, me!" he teases. But he must've been regulating her bodily processes subconsciously with his own. He'd probably improved her digestion by twenty-five or thirty percent just by lying next to her. He doesn't know what she would think of that, so he doesn't say it.
"You want me to sonick your clothes fresh, Rose?" the Doctor asks.
Rose laughs again, running a hand through her wild hair. "Is there anything you don't use that thing for?" Rose asks in a low voice.
"Erm," he frowns, but his hearts beat faster at the playful tone of her voice.
"That would be very nice of you, Doctor," Rose says, smiling. "Right now, I want a shower."
There's no robe, so she wraps up in a sheet for the short walk to the bath, and while she's gone he carefully freshens her clothes. He folds them into a neat little pile and leaves them for her to find just outside the bathroom door.
Downstairs, Justine is nibbling at a croissant and coffee, already set up at her register for the day.
"Good morning, Doctor," she says.
"Good morning!" he smiles.
"Pleasant night?" she asks, knowingly.
"Yes," he says simply.
"How long might you be staying?" she asks.
"Long as the mood lasts," he answers which is true, only it's the Tardis's mood. "Is that all right?"
"Certainly," Justine answers. "You'll enjoy our little town. It has a bit of everything."
"Wonderful," the Doctor says, just as Rose appears, fresh and clean, wet hair divided into two loose braids.
"Ready for breakfast?" the Doctor asks.
"Yes!" Rose exclaims, taking his outstretched hand.
The world outside has been scrubbed clean by the rain overnight, and everything is fresh and dazzling, if more than a little damp. The sunlight sparkles off of millions of tiny droplets of water. Even the sidewalks and streets dazzle with reflections of the clear morning sky.
"It's amazing," Rose says, as they stroll toward the cafe for breakfast. "Here we are, walking down a little village street… it looks and feels almost like Earth, but it's like, there's something just a little bit different to the air, or the light…"
"Yeah, this sun's a bit warmer than yours, this planet's a bit further out… humanity has a talent for finding this type of planet, making a home."
"Mmm," Rose says, pondering. "Do they control the weather here? It's so much warmer and clearer than yesterday."
"Only in times of drought," the Doctor says. "Just because it's possible to control the weather, doesn't make it cost-effective."
"Right," Rose says, thinking. "It's just a little odd, how not odd things are."
The Doctor makes an outrageous face, puffing out his cheeks, crossing his eyes, pulling his chin down into his neck.
Rose bursts out laughing. "What are you doing!?" she exclaims.
"You wanted odd, I'm pulling a Gookie," says the Doctor. "Classic Harpo."
Rose stares at him. "You like Harpo, do you?"
"Kind of resembled him once," he admits. "More teeth, less honking."
Rose laughs. The Doctor is so happy to have this lightheartedness back between them.
"It's at least a little odd," he insists, and makes the Gookie again.
"No doubt," Rose says, laughing. Their hands swing comfortably between them as they walk smiling along the strangely ordinary sidewalk.
The cafe offers an array of freshly baked croissants and the delicious fruit preserves which have made Aix so prosperous, but the menu also offers smoothies, which the Doctor has recently learned he quite enjoys. The yoghurt on Aix is rich and delicious, and they have an impressive array of frozen fruit pulps for a planet with no tropics. The Doctor's smoothie is an eye-popping swirl of turquoise and purple. Even with no banana in, it's a meal in itself. Rose is amused by watching him sip the smoothie through the straw. He offers her a few spoonfuls, wishing he were the spoon as she hums in delight.
After breakfast, Rose wants to shop, since they're living out of their pockets.
"We could pick up a few necessities," the Doctor agrees. He's always made it clear that he'll provide for her on their travels; he's done the same for everyone who has travelled with him.
They meander through the streets of the little town, going in and out of different establishments.
"It's just hard to get it in my head," she says. "This town is over a hundred years old -- but it's on a planet, far from earth --but it looks so much like earth!"
"There are so many planets like Earth, Rose," the Doctor says. "Of course, none exactly like… but enough that human beings can easily find nice ones like this to colonize once they've got around the light barrier."
"How does that work again?" Rose asks innocently.
"That would be telling," the Doctor says loftily. "The Tardis does it by standing still."
"Right, what?" Rose laughs.
"Never mind, it takes years just to explain," the Doctor says.
At the center of town they find a wonderful market where farmers and craftspeople from the surrounding area ply their wares. Rose and the Doctor put together an incredible picnic, poring over the stands, selecting all kinds of goodies, from preserves and cheeses to bread and wine.
The Doctor stows the packages away in his pockets, which, as always, are bigger on the inside. Rose laughs as he adroitly performs a disappearing act with a loaf of bread, slipping it slyly into his pocket and looking around furtively, like a spy.
"Doesn't all that stuff weigh down your jacket?" she wants to know. He's already tucked away two bottles of wine, three rounds of cheese, and some really excellent looking pots of jam.
"No," the Doctor says, lightly swinging a bag that's cradling a pint of ripe berries. "The pockets aren't really inside the coat, you know -- they're elsewhere, so the mass of the contents is elsewhere as well."
"Huh," Rose says, with a grin.
They find a little store that sells linens, and Rose chooses a green checked picnic cloth, matching napkins, and an over the shoulder tote to carry them in, along with a few utensils and unbreakable wine glasses.
"This picnic will be perfect," she beams, and he smiles back at her.
They head out of town, back to where the Tardis is parked. The green wheat field is much more beautiful out from under the threat of thunderclouds.
The Tardis still won't let them in, but it's not the crushing bother it had been the day before. Today, they know they have a place to sleep; they know they can tap into the Doctor's unlimited credit stream for meals and purchases; they've even made friends of a sort at several places in town.
They walk on a little way, looking for the perfect picnic spot. The walk is pleasant. The sun has dried the grass, and they amble along, as birds or insects or whatever lives in the trees on this earth-like planet sing their homey hearts out. Spring, it seems, is universally spring. The Doctor thinks of tafelshrews and singing silver trees but hurries his thoughts along. None of that, not today, not with bright sunlight shining golden on the brown-eyed girl smiling up at him, bold as she ever was.
They stop under an oak overlooking a pasture with a few spoiled dairy cows sedately munching in the distance.
"An oak!" Rose murmurs, holding up a perfect acorn for him to inspect, a gleaming, nut-brown treasure.
"Yeah," he agrees, "beautiful."
"For an oak," she says with a smirk, tossing the acorn.
How he wishes he'd never done that to her.
They spread the picnic cloth out in the soft grass under the spreading arms of the oak. Rose sits cross-legged, holding her wine glass in her left hand, picking out delicacies with her right hand and popping them into her mouth. It's a lovely sight, and the Doctor's not hungry. He'd much rather feast on the vision in front of him.
Before long they're playing spot the cloud, and Rose's head is on his thigh, and she's laughing up at the sky as he claims to recognize all types of creatures and famous landmarks from distant planets and ancient or future civilizations.
"That's the famous third left appendage of the Emperor of Treem," he claims.
"You're so full of it!" she cries.
"Who, me?" he answers, feigning shock.
She's holding his left hand with her own, and his right hand has made its way into her hair.
"This tree is really lovely," she says. The sun, slightly bigger and hotter than the one she grew up under, is making its way down a sky just a bit bluer than Earth's. The sunlight is picking out every twig, every new green leaf, and making it into a gem.
"A spreading oak diagrams a fractal against the sky, mirroring the hidden roots that branch through the soil below," he comments.
Rose looks up at him seriously. "Is that a poem?"
"No, it's the mathematical structure of the universe."
"Beauty is math, math beauty?" Rose quips.
He's been reading Burns and Byron, but apparently she remembers her Keats. He nods, considering.
They stare up into the sky as the clouds drift, bright against blue. Birdsongs fill the air with secret melody.
"I don't know much about birds," Rose says.
"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!" the Doctor quotes.
Rose sticks her tongue out. "I read that one in school. Blech."
He runs the poem in his mind. The loveliness of the day, the tree, the sunshine, but most of all, the woman who's sharing it all with him….
"The poem's not so bad, but today, right here, right now, this is better."
Rose stares up at him. "Right here, right now…. you travel through time and space, never pausing to take a breath…. but what you really want is to live in the moment."
She's summed him up in a sentence. He simply nods.
"With a normal person, we can leave the past behind, and it doesn't do us any good to obsess about the future, but you…"
"Everything is now for me. All the possible nows are spread out to explore, an endless terrain… except for the rivers I've already muddied."
She frowns. "So once you've been somewhere…"
"Can't cross my own time stream. Or, I can, but shouldn't… part of being a Time Lord is being able to sense when the time stream can't be tampered with, when it's liable to collapse into paradox, or when possibilities are open."
"So it's not something that a person could learn…" Rose says.
"No. It's a sense, like sight, or hearing, or the way your birds navigate by following the magnetic poles." The Doctor doesn't hear accusation in her voice, but feels his guilt nonetheless.
"So I'll never know… if I can save someone, unless you tell me."
The Doctor frowns, and swallows. The pause must go on too long, because Rose sits up. His leg feels cold.
"Never mind," she says, trying to pull away, but he doesn't let her go.
"No," he says, touching her chin with one gentle finger, waiting till he has her full attention. "I was wrong to yell at you. I was the one who mucked it up. I was ashamed, lost my temper, pinned it on you. You made a mistake -- but in good faith. I'm the only one who can sense a paradoxical crux. I'm the one who's responsible. I'm sorry, Rose."
"I'm sorry, too," she says. Her voice is small. He doesn't like the sound of Rose feeling guilty and sad.
"You've nothing to be sorry for. Well, not nothing, but it wasn't your fault, not really," he says.
"I never knew my dad. I just wanted -- I liked him. He was nice, wasn't he?" Tears are in her eyes and she does pull away from him this time.
"He was brilliant," the Doctor says sincerely. "Everything I thought your dad would be."
"A stupid ape," she says, bitterly.
"No," he says, reaching out for her hands, but she folds them in her lap. "Please, forget I ever said that. A brilliant, courageous Human, just like his daughter."
"Cause if you ever, ever call me something like that again -- I'll smack you one, and you'll remember it!" Rose threatens, and over the tremor in her voice Jackie's strident tones ring out. He deserves it.
"Cross my hearts, slap me to the moon if ever I do," he swears.
"Pinky swear," Rose says solemnly, and the Doctor seals the vow with the girl he adores.
Rose lets out a heavy breath. Her cheeks are red as she begins to pack up the picnic. The Doctor hopes she'll take his apology to heart. He's not used to making apologies. He prefers to evade consequences rather than face them. But Rose is more than worth the humiliation of a retraction. He can bear it, or much worse, if it makes things between them all right again. Or better than all right -- better than ever.
Go to part Four!
author:
fannishlisspairing: Nine/Rose
rating: ultimately NC17
length: 11,100 words in all, broken into parts. Part Three is 3000 words and still rated G.
summary: The Tardis strands the Doctor and Rose until they deal with their unresolved tension (post Father's Day).
Part One ; Part Two :
"Please," she says, "stay with me. Lie down next to me. Please, Doctor," Rose begs.
He's truly helpless now. He takes off his jacket, hangs it on the doorknob, and lies down, spooning himself to her back, on top of the covers with the sheets and blankets between him and her naked skin.
"Thank you," she whispers, and with a heavy sigh, she falls back asleep.
===
The rest of the night is heaven and hell in one sweet-smelling, Rose-shaped package. She begged him to stay, so he can't refuse. Now, here he is, pressing against her through layers of cloth, his long body folded around hers, wide awake, all senses trained on her as she sleeps, imprinting her just this much more deeply into his awareness. He can hear her heartbeat now, her digestion; he's so close he can almost hear her dreams, muffled, as though from behind a closed door, and when they start to get louder and more unpleasant, he easily turns her back to sunshine and daisies without even reaching out with his mind toward hers, merely a stroke of his hand along her arm.
He knows the moment she begins to awaken, the changes in her body temperature and heart rate singing out to him, even before she takes her awakening breath and her eyes flutter open.
"Good morning, Rose," he murmurs, soothingly. What will she say?
"Oh, my god, I've never slept so well in my life," she says, stretching. She turns under the sheets to face him, her hair a delightful mess all around her face. "What did you do?"
"Do?" he says innocently. "You had a nightmare. You asked me to stay with you."
"I remember that," Rose says, "but then when I fell back asleep, I slept so well it was like no time passed -- I feel completely refreshed."
"Huh," the Doctor says. "I'll put that on the brochure if I ever need work. Guaranteed human sleep aid, me!" he teases. But he must've been regulating her bodily processes subconsciously with his own. He'd probably improved her digestion by twenty-five or thirty percent just by lying next to her. He doesn't know what she would think of that, so he doesn't say it.
"You want me to sonick your clothes fresh, Rose?" the Doctor asks.
Rose laughs again, running a hand through her wild hair. "Is there anything you don't use that thing for?" Rose asks in a low voice.
"Erm," he frowns, but his hearts beat faster at the playful tone of her voice.
"That would be very nice of you, Doctor," Rose says, smiling. "Right now, I want a shower."
There's no robe, so she wraps up in a sheet for the short walk to the bath, and while she's gone he carefully freshens her clothes. He folds them into a neat little pile and leaves them for her to find just outside the bathroom door.
Downstairs, Justine is nibbling at a croissant and coffee, already set up at her register for the day.
"Good morning, Doctor," she says.
"Good morning!" he smiles.
"Pleasant night?" she asks, knowingly.
"Yes," he says simply.
"How long might you be staying?" she asks.
"Long as the mood lasts," he answers which is true, only it's the Tardis's mood. "Is that all right?"
"Certainly," Justine answers. "You'll enjoy our little town. It has a bit of everything."
"Wonderful," the Doctor says, just as Rose appears, fresh and clean, wet hair divided into two loose braids.
"Ready for breakfast?" the Doctor asks.
"Yes!" Rose exclaims, taking his outstretched hand.
The world outside has been scrubbed clean by the rain overnight, and everything is fresh and dazzling, if more than a little damp. The sunlight sparkles off of millions of tiny droplets of water. Even the sidewalks and streets dazzle with reflections of the clear morning sky.
"It's amazing," Rose says, as they stroll toward the cafe for breakfast. "Here we are, walking down a little village street… it looks and feels almost like Earth, but it's like, there's something just a little bit different to the air, or the light…"
"Yeah, this sun's a bit warmer than yours, this planet's a bit further out… humanity has a talent for finding this type of planet, making a home."
"Mmm," Rose says, pondering. "Do they control the weather here? It's so much warmer and clearer than yesterday."
"Only in times of drought," the Doctor says. "Just because it's possible to control the weather, doesn't make it cost-effective."
"Right," Rose says, thinking. "It's just a little odd, how not odd things are."
The Doctor makes an outrageous face, puffing out his cheeks, crossing his eyes, pulling his chin down into his neck.
Rose bursts out laughing. "What are you doing!?" she exclaims.
"You wanted odd, I'm pulling a Gookie," says the Doctor. "Classic Harpo."
Rose stares at him. "You like Harpo, do you?"
"Kind of resembled him once," he admits. "More teeth, less honking."
Rose laughs. The Doctor is so happy to have this lightheartedness back between them.
"It's at least a little odd," he insists, and makes the Gookie again.
"No doubt," Rose says, laughing. Their hands swing comfortably between them as they walk smiling along the strangely ordinary sidewalk.
The cafe offers an array of freshly baked croissants and the delicious fruit preserves which have made Aix so prosperous, but the menu also offers smoothies, which the Doctor has recently learned he quite enjoys. The yoghurt on Aix is rich and delicious, and they have an impressive array of frozen fruit pulps for a planet with no tropics. The Doctor's smoothie is an eye-popping swirl of turquoise and purple. Even with no banana in, it's a meal in itself. Rose is amused by watching him sip the smoothie through the straw. He offers her a few spoonfuls, wishing he were the spoon as she hums in delight.
After breakfast, Rose wants to shop, since they're living out of their pockets.
"We could pick up a few necessities," the Doctor agrees. He's always made it clear that he'll provide for her on their travels; he's done the same for everyone who has travelled with him.
They meander through the streets of the little town, going in and out of different establishments.
"It's just hard to get it in my head," she says. "This town is over a hundred years old -- but it's on a planet, far from earth --but it looks so much like earth!"
"There are so many planets like Earth, Rose," the Doctor says. "Of course, none exactly like… but enough that human beings can easily find nice ones like this to colonize once they've got around the light barrier."
"How does that work again?" Rose asks innocently.
"That would be telling," the Doctor says loftily. "The Tardis does it by standing still."
"Right, what?" Rose laughs.
"Never mind, it takes years just to explain," the Doctor says.
At the center of town they find a wonderful market where farmers and craftspeople from the surrounding area ply their wares. Rose and the Doctor put together an incredible picnic, poring over the stands, selecting all kinds of goodies, from preserves and cheeses to bread and wine.
The Doctor stows the packages away in his pockets, which, as always, are bigger on the inside. Rose laughs as he adroitly performs a disappearing act with a loaf of bread, slipping it slyly into his pocket and looking around furtively, like a spy.
"Doesn't all that stuff weigh down your jacket?" she wants to know. He's already tucked away two bottles of wine, three rounds of cheese, and some really excellent looking pots of jam.
"No," the Doctor says, lightly swinging a bag that's cradling a pint of ripe berries. "The pockets aren't really inside the coat, you know -- they're elsewhere, so the mass of the contents is elsewhere as well."
"Huh," Rose says, with a grin.
They find a little store that sells linens, and Rose chooses a green checked picnic cloth, matching napkins, and an over the shoulder tote to carry them in, along with a few utensils and unbreakable wine glasses.
"This picnic will be perfect," she beams, and he smiles back at her.
They head out of town, back to where the Tardis is parked. The green wheat field is much more beautiful out from under the threat of thunderclouds.
The Tardis still won't let them in, but it's not the crushing bother it had been the day before. Today, they know they have a place to sleep; they know they can tap into the Doctor's unlimited credit stream for meals and purchases; they've even made friends of a sort at several places in town.
They walk on a little way, looking for the perfect picnic spot. The walk is pleasant. The sun has dried the grass, and they amble along, as birds or insects or whatever lives in the trees on this earth-like planet sing their homey hearts out. Spring, it seems, is universally spring. The Doctor thinks of tafelshrews and singing silver trees but hurries his thoughts along. None of that, not today, not with bright sunlight shining golden on the brown-eyed girl smiling up at him, bold as she ever was.
They stop under an oak overlooking a pasture with a few spoiled dairy cows sedately munching in the distance.
"An oak!" Rose murmurs, holding up a perfect acorn for him to inspect, a gleaming, nut-brown treasure.
"Yeah," he agrees, "beautiful."
"For an oak," she says with a smirk, tossing the acorn.
How he wishes he'd never done that to her.
They spread the picnic cloth out in the soft grass under the spreading arms of the oak. Rose sits cross-legged, holding her wine glass in her left hand, picking out delicacies with her right hand and popping them into her mouth. It's a lovely sight, and the Doctor's not hungry. He'd much rather feast on the vision in front of him.
Before long they're playing spot the cloud, and Rose's head is on his thigh, and she's laughing up at the sky as he claims to recognize all types of creatures and famous landmarks from distant planets and ancient or future civilizations.
"That's the famous third left appendage of the Emperor of Treem," he claims.
"You're so full of it!" she cries.
"Who, me?" he answers, feigning shock.
She's holding his left hand with her own, and his right hand has made its way into her hair.
"This tree is really lovely," she says. The sun, slightly bigger and hotter than the one she grew up under, is making its way down a sky just a bit bluer than Earth's. The sunlight is picking out every twig, every new green leaf, and making it into a gem.
"A spreading oak diagrams a fractal against the sky, mirroring the hidden roots that branch through the soil below," he comments.
Rose looks up at him seriously. "Is that a poem?"
"No, it's the mathematical structure of the universe."
"Beauty is math, math beauty?" Rose quips.
He's been reading Burns and Byron, but apparently she remembers her Keats. He nods, considering.
They stare up into the sky as the clouds drift, bright against blue. Birdsongs fill the air with secret melody.
"I don't know much about birds," Rose says.
"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!" the Doctor quotes.
Rose sticks her tongue out. "I read that one in school. Blech."
He runs the poem in his mind. The loveliness of the day, the tree, the sunshine, but most of all, the woman who's sharing it all with him….
"The poem's not so bad, but today, right here, right now, this is better."
Rose stares up at him. "Right here, right now…. you travel through time and space, never pausing to take a breath…. but what you really want is to live in the moment."
She's summed him up in a sentence. He simply nods.
"With a normal person, we can leave the past behind, and it doesn't do us any good to obsess about the future, but you…"
"Everything is now for me. All the possible nows are spread out to explore, an endless terrain… except for the rivers I've already muddied."
She frowns. "So once you've been somewhere…"
"Can't cross my own time stream. Or, I can, but shouldn't… part of being a Time Lord is being able to sense when the time stream can't be tampered with, when it's liable to collapse into paradox, or when possibilities are open."
"So it's not something that a person could learn…" Rose says.
"No. It's a sense, like sight, or hearing, or the way your birds navigate by following the magnetic poles." The Doctor doesn't hear accusation in her voice, but feels his guilt nonetheless.
"So I'll never know… if I can save someone, unless you tell me."
The Doctor frowns, and swallows. The pause must go on too long, because Rose sits up. His leg feels cold.
"Never mind," she says, trying to pull away, but he doesn't let her go.
"No," he says, touching her chin with one gentle finger, waiting till he has her full attention. "I was wrong to yell at you. I was the one who mucked it up. I was ashamed, lost my temper, pinned it on you. You made a mistake -- but in good faith. I'm the only one who can sense a paradoxical crux. I'm the one who's responsible. I'm sorry, Rose."
"I'm sorry, too," she says. Her voice is small. He doesn't like the sound of Rose feeling guilty and sad.
"You've nothing to be sorry for. Well, not nothing, but it wasn't your fault, not really," he says.
"I never knew my dad. I just wanted -- I liked him. He was nice, wasn't he?" Tears are in her eyes and she does pull away from him this time.
"He was brilliant," the Doctor says sincerely. "Everything I thought your dad would be."
"A stupid ape," she says, bitterly.
"No," he says, reaching out for her hands, but she folds them in her lap. "Please, forget I ever said that. A brilliant, courageous Human, just like his daughter."
"Cause if you ever, ever call me something like that again -- I'll smack you one, and you'll remember it!" Rose threatens, and over the tremor in her voice Jackie's strident tones ring out. He deserves it.
"Cross my hearts, slap me to the moon if ever I do," he swears.
"Pinky swear," Rose says solemnly, and the Doctor seals the vow with the girl he adores.
Rose lets out a heavy breath. Her cheeks are red as she begins to pack up the picnic. The Doctor hopes she'll take his apology to heart. He's not used to making apologies. He prefers to evade consequences rather than face them. But Rose is more than worth the humiliation of a retraction. He can bear it, or much worse, if it makes things between them all right again. Or better than all right -- better than ever.
Go to part Four!
