Rose opened her eyes, she felt groggy and there was an ache in the side of her head. Not as if she'd been hit. It was something else…something…and then it came back to her. She'd been drugged, taken, but not by James. It was…
Adam! What the hell was he even doing there? How had he gotten there? The last time she saw him was when the Doctor dropped him back home after he almost let that creature get the TARDIS key on Satellite Five. He went behind their backs and got that thing put in his head. Then he proceeded to send future knowledge to his answering machine back home.
She was lying on something hard and very uncomfortable. The metal dug into her back. She sat up and that's when she realized her hands were bound. She examined the rope. She might be able to pull the knot apart with her teeth, but it would take a while.
The rope wasn't just around her hands it trailed to the frame she was sitting on, tied to end that was bolted to the floor. A bed. Well, it had been once. She glanced around the room. Someone torched the place, but the walls were made of brick so the structure was sound. There was a charred mess in the middle of the room that might've been a table and a couple chairs at one time. There was a chair resting against the far wall near the only door. It was plastic. New.
She had no idea where she was. An old hospital was her first guess, but the room seemed wrong. A prison? Maybe, but again it seemed off for that. The door opened and Adam stepped inside.
"You're awake. Lovely," he said, picking up the chair and crossing the room toward her.
He was different. Not the same man she remembered. Older, a few years at least. His eyes were a bit sunken and there were purple groves, as if he hadn't sleep much.
"Why are you doing this, Adam?" she asked.
"I thought you'd be happy to see me," he said, setting the chair down and then turning it around so when he sat down he was facing her and resting his arms on the back of the chair.
"It's hard to be happy to see someone who shoved a needle into your arm and then tied you up."
"That's just a precaution," he dismissed.
"A precaution?"
"You're not exactly the innocent girl you once were, are you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I've been watching you. Seen what you can do. Although, I didn't see the Doctor. Now that did take me by surprise."
So, he'd been watching her. Why? If he was trapped here and trying to find a way back he could've approached her. Asked. That's not what he did. He kidnapped her, leading her to believe that a way back wasn't what he was after.
"The Doctor?" she asked.
"That can wait. First," he leaned forward, "tell me how you got here?"
She wanted to find out exactly what he was planning on doing with her, but she had an idea…a frightening idea. Maybe, if she could keep him talking she could figure a way out of this. There was also the Doctor and Sherlock, but she couldn't be sure they knew who had her. They were focused on James and if the Doctor hadn't seen Adam take her then they wouldn't be looking for him.
"I jumped through a crack in the skin of the universe. How about you?"
"Well, that is something. I suppose I got here the same way, but mine was purely an accident. You see, after you left me with this thing in my head my mum walked in. She saw it, another accident, and, well, she didn't take it very well. She wanted to drag me to doctors. Hoping some plastic surgeon somewhere could fix it, she, of course, didn't believe my story about traveling in space and time, probably thought I was mad, a side effect from whatever surgery I had undergone. I knew I couldn't see a doctor because if any of them saw it I'd be one for the medical science books. Eventually I had to leave. Hide from my own mother and everyone else.
"I only had one choice. I'd worked for Van Statten so I'd been disassembling and repairing enough alien technology to understand the science behind it, although locating and obtaining the proper equipment wasn't exactly easy. It took years, five of them, but I finally had a rudimentary time travel device built. It was bulky and unpredictable, but I had to get back to that place to have this thing removed. It's the only way I'd ever have a life again. Only, something went wrong and well, here we are."
He was ranting and she could tell there was something off about him. He wasn't the same person she remembered. She knew she was in a very dangerous situation. She had to try to talk her way out, if she could.
"Look, Adam, I'm sorry. I had no idea you'd have to-" she began.
"Save your I'm sorrys for someone who might actually believe you," he snapped.
"But I am."
He laughed. That half manic, mad sort of laughter that made fear creep up her spine.
"Admit it. You didn't think twice about me."
"I…" she trailed off because she hadn't.
"That's what I thought."
He blamed her, but it wasn't her fault. He made a choice. She knew she couldn't appeal to him, not like that. He was too far gone for appeals.
"You can't put all the blame on me," she snapped. "You chose to do that to yourself."
"It was a mistake, Rose!" He yelled, jumping to his feet. "Haven't you ever made a mistake?" Then he scoffed. "No, of course not, you're perfect."
"I'm not perfect, Adam! I've made my own mistakes!"
The Doctor thought she used him once, the day she tried to save her dad. He thought that was the whole reason she came with him, but it'd been a spur of the moment decision. It was a betrayal of his trust, even if she hadn't planned it and it had shaken their friendship, if only for a short time.
"But he forgave you."
What she did was different than what Adam did. She tried to save someone she cared about. Adam, on the other hand, tried to use future knowledge to get ahead, for selfish reasons and that was something the Doctor couldn't forgive and neither could she.
"I-" she began.
"That's what you do," he cut in. "You make people trust you, believe you, do whatever you want and then you turn your back on them."
"I don't do that!"
"Yes, you do! That's what you did to me. Asked me to come with you and then one little mistake and you dropped me back home, but with this," he pointed to his forehead. "My life was over after that! You left me with less than nothing!"
"What's this about then? You wanted to bring me here to tell me how much I screwed up your life?"
He smiled.
"Oh, no, that's only part of it."
"And what's the other part?" she asked, fearing she already knew the answer.
The Adam who traveled with her wasn't like this. He was different. Could leaving him like that really have changed him that much? She didn't want to believe that he was capable of what she was thinking, but she wanted to believe that James was even less and they were the only two who knew about Henrik's.
"All in good time. First thing's first. I want to know about the Doctor."
"You already know about him."
"That he's an alien, Time Lord, that he travels in space and time in the TARDIS, but what I want to know is…how do I kill him?"
Wait. What?
"Kill him? Why would you want to kill him?"
"He's responsible too. Not as much as you are. After all he didn't want me there in the first place. Made no qualms about letting me know, but he's also responsible for ruining my life."
He wanted to know how to kill the Doctor. Well, she wasn't about to help him. She might not agree with the Time Lord and she might not be very happy that he'd changed so much, but she wouldn't betray him.
"I won't tell you anything," she snapped.
"Oh, you'll tell me. I guarantee that," he said, giving her another smile.
He turned and walked out of the room. There was no way in hell she was going to tell him anything. If he thought…a strange hissing sound filled the room. She looked around to try to locate where the sound was coming from. Some kind of gas began pouring through the vent, filling the room. She coughed. What the hell was he doing? Her eyes closed. She forced them open, but she knew she wouldn't be able to keep that up. She tried to stand. Her body felt heavy. The room swam and a moment later she was out.
Standard Disclaimer.
Thank you to all my brilliant readers!
If you have time reviews are always welcome. :)
