The only conclusion that Jake could reach was that he did something wrong.
Of course, Jake always seemed to do things wrong. He had a list of mistakes that was longer than he cared to admit to. With Gramps gone, it now seemed paramount that he get the magical protector role right. Yet, after the funeral disaster, everything had seemed to calm down. There had been no magical incidents; the American Dragon had not been needed. It seemed as though the world was taking a breath, allowing him to mourn the death of his grandfather.
And he was, slowly but surely, he was rising from the ashes of grief.
But the constant ache in his heart was not the issue right now. The issue right now was Rose. There was something wrong with her. There absolutely had to be something wrong with her. Except, it was only with him that she acted differently than she had been. She was the same around Fu. He had called Nicholas and Kyle to see if they'd witnessed changes in her, but they hadn't. They said that she'd been getting better and had been more in control of herself but, no, they hadn't seen the Rose that Jake had been experiencing as of late.
The Rose that Jake was becoming acquainted with was cold and distant. She had barely spoken a word to him since the day he'd told her they needed to talk (needless to say, they hadn't had that particular conversation yet). That night, when he had been so used to crawling into his bed next to her, she had moved onto the floor without any explanation at all (after she'd fallen asleep, he'd moved her to the bed and taken the floor). She hadn't really looked him in the eye; she'd been avoiding conversation; she hadn't been affectionate at all.
It was crushing him.
They needed to talk.
He sent Fu off to spend the afternoon with Haley so he could corner Rose. She was, as per usual, in his room. She was curled up in the desk chair, her little tablet in front of her on the desk.
"We need to talk," Jake rumbled, stepping into the room.
Rose didn't even look up. "About what? Is something wrong?"
Jake crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. He really wasn't in the mood to avoid the subject. She knew what was wrong; he was completely in the dark concerning her mood swing.
"You tell me," he told her.
She finally turned the tablet off and looked up at him. "I don't think anything's wrong."
He raised his eyebrows at her. "Don't lie to me like that."
Her eyes flashed angrily. "Rich, coming from you."
"Coming from me?" Jake echoed. "What the hell did I do?"
"See! You're lying again!" She clenched her fists and told herself to breathe. "No, I don't want to have this conversation."
She'd been avoiding this. She didn't want to talk about the new girlfriend. She didn't want to have the letdown. If she avoided conversation with him then she got to keep him; more than she would have if he told her about it. But he didn't seem to want to tell her about it. He seemed to want to talk about something else, something on her end, but there was nothing on her end. She had been very careful to make sure that she was mundane now, controlled, so that no one would have a reason to worry that she was going to lose her mind again.
"But we need to," Jake exploded. "I can't live like this anymore, Rose."
He couldn't. He couldn't keep going with this life of footing around; of having her be lost to him. He didn't want her to be lost and cold. He wanted her close and in his arms. He wanted to love her again, no matter how much she seemed to be resisting the idea. He didn't want to let her go, but he knew that he could if he absolutely had to. He knew that he could, if she gave him a good reason. He could, if it was what was best for her.
But he needed to know that for sure.
Rose couldn't look at him.
"So talk," she urged him.
"I don't know what this is about! I wish that I knew because then I would know how to address it but I don't. You don't talk to me anymore. You don't even act like I'm in the room. What did I do, Rose? And how do I fix it? Because I want to fix it. Right now it feels like you're heading out of my life and I can't handle that."
"You're the one that pushed me away!" Rose returned, standing up to face him. "I didn't want this. I wanted the exact opposite of this. But I will not be lied to and I will not be played. I thought we'd gone through too much to lie to each other. At the very least, I thought we owed each other honesty. Why won't you give that to me?"
"What, exactly, have I been dishonest about?" Jake was growing more confused by the minute. He hadn't lied to her about anything. He knew, as well as she did, that communication was the only way that they would survive this – not only as a couple, but as the protector of the magical community and as the head of a very confused, villainous organization.
"The girl!" Rose shrieked, trying to keep down her sorrow at the fact that this was over. All that she and Jake had ever had between them was over. She, who had never thought she could fall in love; she, who had been designed and raised to never feel something of that caliber; had fallen in love with him – just him, only ever him – and it was all gone now. "I saw you and her. I saw that kiss. Why couldn't you have just told me? It was going to kill me either way but finding out like that was so much worse. I get it. She's beautiful and she's probably magic and she definitely won't try to kill you and I know that's what you need in your life right now and I'm sorry I couldn't be that. I just … I didn't want to talk about because I didn't want to hear the end of us. I wanted to keep it and I thought that if I avoided the conversation then I would be able to keep you, just a little bit. And I don't know what kind of logic that is but it's what I was going on. I'm sorry, okay? I'll just … stop everything now."
Jake was very tempted to whack himself in the forehead as a punishment for his stupidity.
Rose had collapsed back onto the desk chair, spinning it so that her back was to him. Jake approached her very slowly, crouching down by the side of the chair so that his head was level with her ribs. He began to speak to her in low, even tones, making sure that she was listening to every word that left his mouth.
"Her name is Danika. She is magic. But she's not my girlfriend. She kissed me out of nowhere, which sounds like a poor man's excuse; I know. It's the truth. We walked back. She wanted me in a relationship because of my dragon status. She never even tempted me. I told her I was in love with you, because I am. I'll never be in love with anyone else and that's the truth. Remember when I told you I wanted to talk to you?" She nodded, but she wouldn't look at him, hiding her face in the crook of her arm. "I wanted to talk to you about a relationship again. None of this bullshitting around; I wanted you back to where we were, before all of this crap. I need you. Not a lot of people understand it and I doubt they're ever going to but I honestly couldn't care less. You're what I need in this world, Rose, and I'm not fucking stupid enough to let it go."
She was peeking down at him, one blue eye visible over the top of her bare arm.
"I need you to believe me," he whispered.
She studied him for a long, long time. Long enough that he began to get nervous that she didn't believe him and this truly was the end.
Then, she popped her entire head up so he could see her clearly.
"And I need you to kiss me," she sighed.
He could do that. He grabbed her arm and pulled her down on top of him, so that she was nestled squarely in his lap. He kissed her gently at first, heart palpitating wildly at the feel of her being back here, with him, exactly where she belonged.
And then their kisses became rougher.
She couldn't get enough of his skin; he couldn't get enough of hers. She was biting at the sensitive skin of his lips as he laid her out on the floor beneath him. He slid his hands reverently up her ribs, taking her thin shirt with it. He couldn't help but linger on the still rough skin of her healing abdomen; he would never be able to get over hurting her. Even when she curled up into him, so that her mouth was breathlessly whispering to his ear, "it's all right; I understand; I forgive you".
They had committed this act many times. He'd held this body many times. He knew what she liked and he knew what she didn't. Yet, he knew that it was, really, the second time that it was he and Rose – fully themselves, fully in love, fully what they should be together – having sex; making love.
It was one of the most beautiful things either of them had ever been a part of.
(-.-)
She had missed wearing his t-shirts.
She never had, when she was in her brainwashed state, though before then she'd stolen them often. Now, she was back in one, surrounded by the amount of fabric that was far too vast for her small frame; the fabric that emanated his smell.
"You could help, you know," Jake teased.
Rose hopped up on the kitchen counter, surveying the stir-fry that he was throwing together from all of the ingredients left in the house.
"I'm helping by being a distraction," she laughed, kissing his neck.
The easy familiarity had swept back into their relationship with full-force. It had been a stress for Rose; wondering if normal could ever be applied again after what she had done. Yet, here they were. He was cooking and she wasn't lingering at the table, thinking of when she used to stand beside him, laughing and distracting him. Now, she really was beside him, laughing and distracting him.
Jake took her hand in his and kissed the inside of her wrist, smirking over the intake of breath the simply gesture caused.
"I love you," he told her, for the first time in what felt like forever.
"I love you too," Rose answered, because she did; she so did.
He turned and faced her, kissing her deeply.
"I'll love you, forever."
"I'll love you longer," Rose joked back, tickling at his sides.
He leaned against her, chuckling and Rose took the chance to ask, "Do you really think it'll be okay this time? Do you really think that we can do this?"
Jake took a moment to answer; taking stock of what the last few months had done to them and what the future would like have in store. At the end of the day though, he only knew one thing. His love and devotion to her would never fade.
"Yeah," he told her, completely confident in his words. "We're really going to be able to do this."
And then he kissed her again.