WHO: Octavius Pepper & Rose Knightley
WHAT: I THINK WE ALL KNOW
WHERE: Rose's flat!
WHEN: the 20th! very early in the morning

He didn't want to think about what Charlie had told him. When Charlie left, Octavius had cleaned up the mess and gone back to exactly what he had been doing before his friend's untimely visit. At least, he thought he had been. His memory started to turn a bit fuzzy after recalling Charlie walking out the door.

But then when he left the station, it was suddenly like a refrain he was unable to cast out from his thoughts. Over and over Octavius could hear it, replaying the conversation he'd had with Charlie, then replaying his visit with Rose. Reliving every moment from the fight before the supposed tryst 'til now. He hadn't quite been himself when he got home, hadn't even noticed his sister reading on the sofa. She made some comment to him, but he brushed it off and shut himself up in his room, grateful for the chance to sleep off the rotten day.

Only, he hadn't fallen asleep. For hours, he helplessly pictured what the scene at the party must have been like, how he was sprawled under a table for most of it, while she—No. Octavius threw off the covers and sat up, breathing hard. There was some other explanation and Charlie didn't know what he was talking about. Brookstanton was playing some game with all of them that he didn't understand, but there was an explanation for it, and it wasn't that.

It was somehow and -where along this line of thought that he found himself knocking, or perhaps pounding, on Rose's door. The time was late—or no, he hadn't yet been to sleep, so it was early—so early that the sun hadn't even begun to rise. Octavius hadn't let himself notice, as he refused to do so with anything that would belie the intelligence of what he was about to do.

"Rose!" Octavius called as he rapped on the door, feeling as if he was watching himself do so from a distance. He was mildly surprised that his voice was not in the least urgent or angered, merely curt.

Rose popped up from the couch in the living room, the repetitive loud noises bringing her to reluctant consciousness. Her sleep schedule had been lacking at best, so as of recently she had taken to sleeping... anywhere that wasn’t her bed. And at random intervals too, whenever exhaustion simply took over instead of... actually sleeping properly. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to get a good night's sleep happily, and that was why it took a couple of moments of blearily blinking in the darkness for her to realize that these sounds were coming from the front door, and not anywhere else.

She groggily rubbed her face, half hoping this was a strange dream and the noises would stop if she ignored them. Afterall, it was match day tomorrow (today?), so any sleep she could obtain would be ideal. Eyes half closed, Rose leaned sideways to grope around for her wand, her head lolling slightly as she felt the weight of the cat on her legs. Who could possibly be wanting her at this--- that was Octavius’ voice.

Her eyes snapped open as she now felt a sense of urgency fill her. What was he-- what was going--- how--- in a flurry, Rose jumped up and pulled the blanket out from underneath the cat to wrap it around herself. Putting too much weight into fetching her wand, Rose banged both her knees into the table. She held back letting out a loud groan, and pressed forward. Surely this must be important? She slipped through the dark, pointing her wand at the general direction above the foyer, lighting up the fixture before swinging the door open.

Despite now getting a shadowy glance of Octavius’ face, Rose still hadn’t thought to think of what this arrival might be about; all that her lagging mind could focus on was that he was here.

“Octavius--- ” Her eyes felt heavy-lidded, but the sight of him was quickly lightening them much faster than anything else could. “What’s going on? Is everything alright?”

His hand was still paused in the motion of knocking. Objectively, he knew he was knocking with the purpose that she should open the door, but he was still surprised when she did. He rather wished that she hadn't. All Octavius could do was stare at her, which was strange, as she must look exactly the same as the last time he'd seen her. A little more tired and sleep-mussed (though surely less than he), to be sure, but what significant physical change would there be to see in less than a week? But there was, and she did.

"Did you sleep with Rupert Brookstanton?" he asked in a very measured voice. Octavius dropped his hand from its frozen position and was at a loss as to what to do with them, just hanging by his sides. That felt very wrong, very loose. Instead, he folded his arms and, while it may have looked as if he was daring right at her, it was really at a some indescribable point just to the left of her head. "Is that true?"

If she said it wasn't, he would let her, he realised. If she said it wasn't, there was very good chance he would chalk it all up to Charlie not understanding something he'd heard or seen and let the whole ugly thing fade away.

She didn’t like how he was staring at her. In the short time before Octavius spoke, Rose noticed that he did not look... something was not right. He didn’t--- her mind slowly worked together how rare and unnatural this meeting was, which only forced her to worry the worst. What else could it possibly be, you didn’t bang on someone’s door at an ungodly hour to talk about uneventful things, you did that to talk about urgent, life-changing news that could not wait until the---

Immediately upon his calmly worded question, Rose felt a distinct bile rise in her throat, and the sudden urge to violently vomit took over her. But she did not move, as if staying frozen in her place would stop time, stop this moment, even for the shortest amount of seconds because--- it could not be happening. She didn’t want it to. For the past month, Rose had tried to desperately to act like it couldn’t, like it wouldn’t, because what she had done--- it had been a grievous mistake that she could not let be the reason why she and Octavius would never... be together again. But now it would be, because the unthinkable had happened, was happening right now, and he had--- he knew.

How did he--- how could he have-- who would even--- Rose felt her breath begin to leave her, and her chest tighten so much that it felt like someone had hexed her heart. The defunct wall in her mind that she had created to separate that night from the rest of her life, the part that included rebuilding her relationship with Octavius, was shattering, and it left her feeling.... like something she had never quite experienced before.

Was this what it felt like to have your worst secret confirmed only by the one person it was meant to be kept from all along?

He was going to hate her for the rest of their lives for this.

At this great thought, Rose’s face finally broke. It contorted severely, and she struggled to even piece together the thoughts necessary to form the proper words. Her arms and legs felt like lead, and despite having a thick blanket haphazardly wrapped around her body in a toga-style fashion, right here at her front door was suddenly the coldest place on earth. With Octavius’ arms crossed, staring at her expectantly because he hoped... it wouldn’t be true.

Her eyes swelled. How could she confirm this to him? Rose closed her mouth and shook her head slightly. The time to convey believably deniability had passed, not that she could lie to him anyway, leaving her only with the horrible truth neither of them wanted to be put out in the open.

“I didn’t--- it’s not what you think---” she mumbled quietly, badly unfit to look at him. “It wasn’t----” Rose cut herself, unable to go on any further.

It was not the denial that Octavius was hoping it would be. In fact, it almost sounded like a confirmation, if one ignored that her immediate response was "I didn't," and then clarified with "it's not what you think." He would have preferred "no," or "not a chance in hell," or even something more negative and bordering on profane.

He wished he hadn't come. This was a mistake, this was such a mistake. Turning up at Rose Knightley's flat unannounced was never going to serve him well.

"So it's not true, then?" he clarified quietly, needling at sores that were better left untouched. Then he wondered at the calmness of his tone. True, at this moment he felt detached, refusing to dwell on memories of what had been between Rose and he, but surely he could muster some rage, some annoyance, even during an out-of-body experience. Why wasn't he shouting? Shouldn't he be shouting? He'd certainly knocked on her door passionately enough. But then, really, Octavius thought it was because he didn't dare, because he wasn't sure what would happen if he unleashed all the frustration and confusion and, yes, anger simmering beneath the surface, particularly when he hadn't even had his answer yet. "What is it that I think?"

She closed her eyes tightly, tears forming as she pushed her eyelids together hard. He was going to make her say it, wasn’t he? Fully, without any... implications or doubts. But she couldn’t, Rose couldn’t give Octavius what he wanted. The shame, and humiliation, to confirm it all to him, it felt unbearable. And to even add more, she knew, she knew that he wouldn’t--- it would kill him, it would kill their relationship, what little was left of it, without any resemblance of hope left.. All because she didn’t have the capacity to make good choices intoxicated.

There was no one, no one else to blame but herself for her poor decision making--- for everything, all of it, even from the beginning, it was all her fault. And she couldn’t even--- that made it worse. Rose supposed she could become enraged and hone in on whoever it was that had told Octavius, but that would only take her so far. She would only be distracting herself, making herself feel better because then it would be someone else’s fault. It had been her responsibility to tell him, and she didn’t, couldn’t--- she could only blame herself.

So then, he at least deserved it then, didn’t he? The truth from her. After what she had done, Octavius deserved her wretched confession in full. And it was what she deserved, expelling the truth and dealing with the consequences.

With a shaky breath, Rose wrung her hands together distractedly. Well--- well---

“It’s true,” she whispered, her mouth twisting to form a painful frown. And then, she rushed her next words, the thought of him not letting her even attempt at explaining excruciating. “I’m sorry Octavius,” she whimpered, “I should have told you, but we had broken up and... I didn’t want to hurt you more--” But that sounded like she had planned it, or worse still, enjoyed it. “It didn’t--- I don’t---- it didn’t mean anything----” Rose stopped herself, hearing the hole she was digging herself into.

"It didn't mean anything," Octavius repeated faintly. There was an echoing sort of noise all about his ears, and then it was as if he'd just woken up. The echoing became a ringing sensation, and his blood started pumping in double time, and he didn't care about containing the fury anymore. "It didn't mean anything?"

He laughed a bitter, ugly sound. "How does that work, Rose? No, I'm so interested to know! How is sleeping with the one man in the world I hate more than anyone meaningless? A man I was pretty certain you hated as well."

When Octavius thought of the times he'd mentioned Brookstanton to Rose, the times he'd done something or said something belittling or just plain rude, and the times she'd talked about him—she said being stuck in a lift with him was one of the worst experiences of her life, and then this? Had she been lying—had something happened even then? He felt sick to his stomach.

"Because you see, Rose," he braced himself between the doorway and leaned forward, almost sneering, "I would think that meant quite a lot, actually." He jerked back and brushed his hands off. "I notice you left this out of your rather effusive apology when you came to my office."

No she hadn’t--- that wasn’t--- Rose felt her throat promptly close up, and her head begin to pound. That hadn’t--- been the right words, she had meant that... there wasn’t anything going on, there never would be!

“I did--- I do!” she squeaked, barely pushing in her words before he continued. She did not like Rupert Brookstanton, they were not friends--- they did not speak! They were not--- “It’s not---” It wasn’t like she had hand picked him, it had just--- happened, and she hadn’t been thinking straight, she hadn’t been thinking at all---- “I wasn’t---” Rose rushed, trying desperately to interject. But his tone made her feel sick, and with each passing second she felt less and less capable of defending herself. How could she--- it was horrible, she had done a horrible thing, and apart of her just wanted to shut down and let him yell his mouth off, but... he had to understand.

Rose frowned deeply, unsure whether his words or the steady sneer on his face hurt more. Without thinking she leaned back as he leaned forward, not because she was afraid of him, but because his words and manner were that biting. It hurt. He was successfully forcing a painful issue further and further into the center of her heart.

“I know, I meant it’s not---” Rose stammered, hands moving to clutch her opposite arms. She had never seen him this angry, this spiteful, before. “How was I--- you said that you wanted to stay apart, and I didn’t want to create--- it wasn’t a conscious decision! I didn’t just go up to him and---” she stopped herself, fearing for the worst with from her words already. “I was going to tell you, but I didn’t want to if---” Rose closed her eyes, though that didn’t help much; his angry expression was already burned into her mind.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you if we were going to stay apart.” That, also, sounded much worse than she had been thinking it was. “I wasn’t---” she started again, hoping for the best this time. He at least had to know this entire ordeal hadn’t been an absolute act of revenge. “-- in the right state of mind, I was upset, over our fight and I just---” Rose’s entire body had begun to shake slightly, and she tried to hold herself together.

“I wish I could take it back, I wish it had never happened-- you have to believe me.”

Too little, too late, he thought. It was too little and much too late.

"I wish it hadn't happened, too," he said, stepping away. "I wish you could take it back, all of it back, but you can't, Rose. You can't take back anything."

How could this have happened? What a fool he must have looked like, sitting at her kitchen table a week ago and asking if she could find it in her heart to be friends with him again. What had been running through her head, Octavius wondered. He would have immediately objected that it couldn't be mean or spiteful, but wasn't that exactly what she had just confessed to doing? Wasn't sleeping with a man they mutually loathed not two days after a hazy break up both mean and spiteful? He hadn't thought it possible of her before, but clearly he was wrong. Clearly he didn't know Rose at all, and this was the last time he made the mistake of trying to remedy that.

Octavius was shaking his head. What was he still doing here? He'd gotten his answer, he'd gotten the scathing words out, he should just turn around and walk away, before he did something he would regret.

"I suppose we finally know the answer to the question you asked, don't we?" His voice was still the hollow, mocking sound that he hated and he didn't know how to get it to stop, but he was so angry, and he wanted to hurt her somehow, hurt her like he was hurt right now. "We can't be friends. We can't be anything."

Rose’s chest choked, and she experienced a deep sense of urgency when Octavius stepped back. He couldn’t--- leave, this couldn’t be over, they weren’t over, they couldn’t be! This wasn’t--- Rupert Brookstanton meant nothing, he was nothing compared to Octavius Pepper, did he not understand that? It would always only be about him, she only cared about him--- but this one mistake---

Tears began to spring from her eyes, and Rose could not control herself enough anymore to stop them. She couldn’t take anything back, and he wouldn’t forgive her for what she had done, and he didn’t--- seem to want to do anything except extract what verbal revenge he could. And she understood, Rose understood that he had every right to be upset, she didn’t expect him to be accepting, and she knew that his sharp words were coming from a hurt place, but that didn’t change that she could not--- they couldn’t end this way.

“Octavius, please---” she cried, as it was becoming more and more difficult to not let his tone effect her. She wanted to reach out to him, touch his hair and hold his face, to hopefully help him understand that she felt nothing but remorse, and embarrassment, and had truly kept this from him not for selfish reasons but because she couldn’t bare the thought of putting him through what he was experiencing now. But Rose held her arms, extending them only a bit before they stopped and hovered. Her fear for how he might react, how poorly he might take to her touch was too great.

“Don’t say that,” she begged, her words coming out strangled. “Octavius--” This last month had been utter misery without him, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like knowing that he hated her, knowing he wanted nothing to do with her for the rest of their lives. She couldn’t--- they couldn’t... be nothing.

“I made a horrible drunken mistake, I can’t---- Octavius I love you, don’t say---” But Rose cut herself off, as within her tears she had slipped something that she had promised herself she would not say, if this fight had ever come to pass--- he would hate her even more, now.

"Don't," he warned her quite coldly for all her protests made his heart twist. "It's not fair. You can't just—actions mean things, Rose. Words mean things, and if you hadn't wanted to—If it didn't—" Octavius gave one shake of the head and threw his hands up, as if they would ward against her and her meaningless words and her meaningless actions.

"If you loved me," he stressed the ordinarily four-lettered word almost as if it disgusted him, "you couldn't have done that. Not for a second. Not any of it, not Brookstanton, not any other man, not in the corner of some dark party barely two days after you tell me not to talk to you anymore."

He studied her dispassionately, the tears, the bedclothes, the whole picture of her, and felt his heart choke and stutter. "I thought it would be different this time," he said softly, honestly, without the bite. "I don't know why, but I really thought it might be."

Octavius looked down and closed his eyes, finally feeling the cracks in his armour begin to swell and gape with the growing force of these violent emotions he wished he didn't understand.

"It's over, Rose."

Through her tears, Rose watched Octavius, every passing second becoming more wretched than the last. He had a tight grip on her heart, and he was-- destroying it, single-handedly crushing it into tiny indiscernible pieces. He was breaking her heart with a such coldness that it struck her deeply. He had never-- he had always been so caring, kind, and considerate that this foreign manner was not-- it was from that point on that she could no longer protect herself from his words, and took in everything.

“No-- no no that’s not true---” Rose cried, shaking her head pathetically. He wasn’t being fair. It hadn’t been like that, it wasn’t like that! She did love him, she did, and it might have taken longer than it should have for her to realize it, but that didn’t change--- things happened, he had hurt her too--- she closed her eyes, and attempted her best at ignoring how repulsed he sounded. “It wasn’t like that---” she stuttered, “It’s not like that, I didn’t mean that---

"Don't do this, don’t ruin--- it was, it is!" her voice cracked as a new intenseness filled her. Why was he saying these things? What they had-- it was good, it made sense, and it most certainly did not deserve being flung through the mud. As his tone shifted, Rose unconsciously stepped forward, stepped out from the doorway and closer to him because--- she couldn’t let go. She couldn’t let him go. This wasn’t--- it couldn’t be over. “We work--- we make sense----” Which she couldn’t say for almost all of her other past relationships...

He didn't want her. She had to accept that.

But she couldn’t, she couldn’t, it was too bitter a potion to swallow, too difficult--

“I can’t--- without you--- Octavius---” Rose sobbed, so desperate to touch him that her arms hovered awkwardly in front of her chest.

He recoiled from her, recoiled from the idea that she would even think of touching him right now. Touching him ever. If she so much as laid a finger on him, Octavius couldn't say what he would do, but he was fairly certain he could not be responsible for what would follow.

"You already ruined everything there was," he said numbly, backing up. "Or anything else that could've been."

There had to be something he could say that he hadn't already, something to make her see that there was no "we," no "us." Rose had taken care of that quite effectively. In fact, Octavius couldn't think of anything else she might have done, done so exactly, that would have destroyed what they had. The fact that she'd hidden it from him, the fact that she must have known exactly what it would mean, and to just—

"I don't want to see—" he managed, as coldly as he could, even though the rage and the grief and everything else made him feel as though he were dying a little on the inside, "—hear from you, again—" He was walking away now, far away from her, far away from this terrible scene he'd created, uncaring if they'd disturbed the neighbours, as long as it meant getting out.

"We're done."