amberfocus | You're What?: Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-five: Fallout

Rose woke to find the Doctor curled tightly around her. He was sound asleep and she was rather surprised at that. She was also surprised at the hum of the TARDIS. It had the slightly higher pitch that indicated they were in flight. Rose gently pushed his arm off of her and wiggled out from beneath the leg that was looped over hers. She hurried into the loo to pee, the baby moving insistently against her bladder.

When she returned she frowned. The duvet had pulled loose and the Doctor’s chest was rubbed raw, the skin bright pink and angry. Had something happened to him? Something that had caused him to flee Earth in a hurry? She frowned. She was tempted to wake him and ask, but it was so rare for him to be exhausted enough to sleep like this.

She sighed. She was still tired herself. The growth of the baby was taking a lot out of her. The Doctor had said the fetal brain was in a massive state of growth right now and it would be taxing her resources more than ever. He’d definitely been right. She was sleeping for two.

Rose slid back into bed, the desire to reach for him strong, but with the damaged flesh she wasn’t sure she should. She sighed and laid there without touching him, instead turning to face him so she could gaze on his slack features. He looked at peace for the first time in a long time. She could almost feel that same peace washing over her.

It was odd come to think of it. Most times when she returned to conscious thought she was never really at peace. There was always this niggling thought in the back of her head that despite everything seeming to have turned out for the best, the Doctor would change his mind again and leave her and Charlie behind.

As she thought about that a new wave of confidence overwhelmed her. Her Doctor would never leave her. He would never leave Charlie. He would love her forever, long after she was dead and gone. He would adore his child and any other children they might have together and he hoped there would be many and many grandchildren and…

Rose’s thoughts trailed off abruptly. These thoughts were not precisely hers even if they were coming from her own head. Rose glared at the sleeping form of the Doctor. He’d been in her head once or twice before and he always left footprints if she searched hard enough. Her complete about face of fearing he would leave her was a pretty damn big footprint. She reached out and whacked him in the arm.

His eyes flew open. “Ow! Rose? What?”

“You were in my head,” she said with narrowed eyes.

The look that crossed his face devastated her. Tears came into his eyes. “Yes,” he said so softly she almost didn’t hear him. “I was. And I’m so sorry. I should have asked.”

“Why did you go in my head?” she demanded.

“Jack said something and I…I needed to know if it was true.”

“What’d he say?” she ground out.

“That you were still hurting from what I did to you when you told me about Charlie.”

“Doctor, I forgave you for that!” Rose exclaimed.

“I know that you did. But it didn’t mean…it didn’t mean that you weren’t still hurting. I wanted you to know, I needed you to know that I am fully committed to you. That I love you and I won’t leave you and I won’t leave Charlie and I want this life with you even if I am being a stupid git about the wedding. You’re everything to me, Rose, you and this little babe.” He reached his hand out and stroked her belly.

“I went in there and even unconscious you tried to keep me out, sent me on all sorts of wild goose chases. But finally I found where you hid your pain--.”

“That was private!”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I saw it, Rose. It was like this giant gaping wound and it was bleeding and the emotions, oh, Rose, the emotions were so bitter, so lost, so confused and full of doubt and I couldn’t let you go on thinking I’d ever leave you again. I couldn’t! I left my love for you in that wound. I left my certainty. I wanted to heal you and I didn’t…I didn’t want to wait for time to heal that wound. I needed you to know the truth. I belong to you. I’ll never let you go.”

Tears leaked from the Doctor’s eyes as he begged her to understand what he had done. She sighed. “What happened to you?” she asked changing the subject.

“What do you mean?”

“Your skin,” she said. “You’re raw.”

He sighed. “When I was inside the room in your head, there was so much pain, so much misery, it covered me like sludge and blood and even though it was in my mind, I felt it on my skin when I came out. I had to get it off me. I took a shower and I--.”

“You did this to yourself?” She was horrified. “Doctor!”

“The pain, Rose. I did that to you. This is nothing.” He gestured down the length of his body.

“It’s not nothing. Come on,” she commanded in a no-nonsense tone. “We’re going to the infirmary.” When he made no move to get up she barked, “Now!” He sprang from the bed and meekly followed her down the hall.

A jar of thick cream waited in the middle of the counter where the Doctor often mixed medications together. “Thank you,” Rose said to the TARDIS with a grateful pat against the wall.

She opened the jar and scooped her fingers into it and then proceeded to rub it over the Doctor’s naked body. “What were you thinking?” she asked as she soothed the healing balm over his skin.

“I was thinking I deserved it,” he told her. “I hurt you. This is nothing compared to how much I hurt you.”

Rose sighed as she rubbed the cream into him until it disappeared. Already she could see that the damage was starting to repair itself. “Doctor, I think you need to forgive yourself.”

“But I--.”

“And you really need to stop going into my head without permission. I know you’ve done it before. You’re not exactly subtle. I can see your footprints everywhere, you big, clumsy Time Lord. And it’s not exactly fair, is it? You get to have access to my mind whenever you decide to go into it and me not having the same access to yours.” She shook her head.

“What if you did have?” he asked her.

“What if I did have what?” she replied.

“Access to my mind. Whenever you wanted it,” he told her.

“I’m not a telepath,” she said. “I can’t.”

“Well, but you could. If you want to. I can make it so you can,” he said.

“You can turn me telepathic?” she asked.

“Not as such. Just with me,” he said. “You’d know how I felt, all the time. All you’d have to do is form the connection. You’d never have to doubt me ever again.”

“I don’t doubt that you love me,” Rose protested. “I’ve always known that you love me.”

“I know you know I love you. But you were afraid I’d still leave you despite that.”

Rose looked down at her hands which were clasped tightly in front of her. “Yeah, I am. Or was. I don’t feel it anymore and yes, it’s a relief, but I don’t like you tinkering with my thoughts like you did to change my mind like that.”

“I didn’t change your mind,” he said. “I laid down reassurances so you’ll always know I’ll never do that to you again. That’s all I did, Rose. I promise you.”

“It makes me angry, Doctor, that you won’t respect my privacy,” she said after a long minute. “I get that you think what you did was for the best, for my benefit, but…you need to ask me. It’s not that I don’t want you in my mind. It’s that I want you to respect the fact that I need to be asked.”

“It’s lonely,” the Doctor said apropos of nothing.

“What?”

“Up here. In my head.” The Doctor tapped his fingers against his temple. “I’m a telepath, Rose and my people are gone and there’s no one here where a million voices once sang. I miss it. And when I go into your head, for that brief amount of time, I’m not alone.”

“You’re not alone. You have me,” Rose said fiercely. “And when Charlie is born, you’ll feel him in your head, won’t you?”

He nodded. “It’s not enough, Rose. I want you there, too. I want to feel you in my mind.”

Rose bit her lip. “How’s it even possible?” she asked.

“There’s a ritual. A ceremony that we’d participate in. It’ll link our minds to each other in an unbreakable bond. If we did it, we’d always be able to feel each other, to know the other was there, alive in our minds.”

“But I don’t want you reading my thoughts!”

“It’s not like that. Not unless you invite me to. Even when I went in, Rose, I wasn’t reading your thoughts. I was just following your emotions, hunting for your agony to soothe it. I’ve never read your actual thoughts except after you fell off the cliff,” he told her. “I might have gone in without asking, but I’d never do that again without asking.”

Her expression softened as she looked at him. “Yeah?”

“Of course not.”

“So what is it then, this ritual? What’s involved?”

“It’s a life bonding; a linkage of body and mind, an intertwining of souls, if you will. It’s an ancient Gallifreyan custom for those who chose to take a marriage contract beyond the standard DNA exchange for genetic material to be sent to the looms to create children.”

“Did you have it with Alethe?” Rose asked warily.

“Sort of,” he told her. “Though it would be different for you and me.”

“Because I’m a human?” she asked.

“No, it has nothing to do with your species. You see, Alethe and I participated in the ritual and bonded on the physical level and the emotional level, but we never quite achieved the mind linkage. There was a level of fear in her that blocked it. Too many Outcasts had had their minds tinkered with for her to fully trust a Time Lord. Even me. So it remained incomplete between us and that was always a source of heartache for me. It was still more than a common Gallifreyan marriage allowed for, but it wasn’t what I yearned for and it isn’t what you and I would have if you agreed to it.”

“Is that why you wanted me to heal? So that fear would be gone and we could do this life bonding thing?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to risk forming an incomplete link with you, Rose. I want the whole thing. I want to give that to you. If you want it.”

“I do, but you really went about this the wrong way. You should have talked to me about it, told me what you wanted to do, that there was a way to heal my pain and make me feel safe again.”

“You do feel safe again? It worked?”

“Yes, Doctor, it worked. And that’s probably the only reason I’m not furious with you. It’s like…” She paused to think about it for a moment. “There’s this sense of comfort in me now. Even when I think about how you reacted to the news of the pregnancy, it doesn’t hurt like it did before. And I like that it doesn’t hurt. I like feeling secure in you again. It feels right and so much better than what I’ve been feeling. So as much as you deserve me to be really, really angry at you for violating my mind like that, again, I can’t be. I’m trying to work up a righteous indignation and it’s not coming.”

Rose narrowed her eyes as a sudden thought struck her. “This doesn’t mean I won’t be able to get mad at you when you act like a git again, does it?” she asked.

“No, it doesn’t. It just means you won’t ever doubt your place in my life again. We’ll still row as much as we ever have, but underneath it all, you’ll know nothing can ever be bad enough for me to leave you,” he explained.

“That’s good, because I want to be able to get angry with you if I need to.”

“I hope you won’t need to often,” he said softly.

“Me, too,” she said folding her arms and giving him a good glare. “But it’s nice to know I can if you start acting like an arse again.” At his hangdog look she softened and smiled at him. “Come on, Doctor, let’s get you back to bed. Your skin needs a chance to heal up.”

“Don’t need to go back to bed,” he said stubbornly. “The cream is already working with my superior Time Lord Physiology and ow! Rose!” She’d reached out and scraped a fingernail lightly across his arm.

“Bed, Doctor. Now. But don’t worry. I’ll be joining you.”

He perked up remarkably, including the part of his anatomy that thought it was getting lucky. “Not for that!” Rose admonished. “Not until you’re better and my irritation with you has worn off. Just for company. And you can tell me all about this ritual and what’s involved.”

Deciding that was the best deal he was going to get the Doctor acquiesced and let Rose lead him back to bed.

Ch. 36: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/161882.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sammie28.livejournal.com

Am I first? Am I first? .:looks about wildly:.

From:

sammie28.livejournal.com

I actually did intend on typing a real response...I hit "enter" to start the actual review and suddenly the whole thing's reloading and blah blah blah...me and computers is like the Doctor trying to pilot the TARDIS.

Anyhow, I wanted to say I liked this chapter - both were so in character. I can see the Doctor doing the "I'm responsible for all hurts and must fix! must fix!" and Rose (1) being upset about her privacy (2) but being forgiving (3) and stressing that the Doctor forgive himself. It was poignant, though not sappy.

And Kudos to an absent Jack. He ought to get paid for his couples counseling.

From:

Not Rose-Colored Glasses

You're What?: Chapter Thirty-Five

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