amberfocus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amberfocus) wrote2008-05-18 06:54 pm
amberfocus) wrote2008-05-18 06:54 pm
Entry tags:
Repercussions (32-35 of 55)
Banner by Megz33
Chapter Thirty-two: Mate
I step in front of the Doctor. “You will not harm my mate.”
“He does not concern me unless he interferes.”
I feel a feral grin come onto my face. My Doctor will always interfere. A light green mist begins to exude from the Sower in front of me, his presence expanding and encompassing my body. It strengthens around me, blocking the Doctor physically from me.
The mist creeps inside my mouth and nose and ears, filling the empty spaces, bringing such tremendous cold with it. I feel it diving down my throat into my stomach and it sickens me as it ghosts across the inside of my body. It creeps across my skin and up my legs, and in horror I feel it enter me from below. I shiver and begin to shake. I feel a painful surge of rage directed at my pelvis and I scream out. He finds something there neither of us is expecting and I race to cradle the tiny little presence from his blow, a thick strand of golden light wrapping it carefully.
I feel the unwelcome thoughts of this alien intrude on my mind, hacking at the edges of my awareness, trying to batter his way into my mind, seeking out a way to destroy life. I can sense the Doctor trying to break through the encompassing bubble and I know that it is not the way. This cannot be done physically. It is all of the mind.
I reach for the Doctor, feeling his silver/amber/orange fire reinforcing me, but Jasz continues to ram against my senses and I know it will not be enough. I open a part of my mind I have been hiding from and a surge of golden fire surrounds me, a surge I have felt once before when I rewrote the genetic code of the Dalek back on Earth. Her power, augmenting mine, her memories showing me how, Bad Wolf reaching for me, Rose Plus fighting for me, and then the most powerful thing I have ever felt in my life hits me: The Oncoming Storm.
Another silver flame, pure and true, recognizable as Doctor but not my Doctor, her Doctor, flaring, merging, joining, firing towards me and suddenly we are four fighting against the onslaught of invasion, repelling the Sower from my body and my mind.
My eyes focus for the first time in minutes and I feel the fabric of reality tear under my glowing golden hands. I shove this supposedly powerful being through the hole and feel the power of four flowing from me to knit the rip closed. A whirlwind of power comes to a close and the presence of the Oncoming Storm and Rose Plus withdraw from me, leaving only the broken man against the frightened wolf. Her memories go with her leaving me with only an echo of the moments now gone.
I am myself again and as my eyes meet with his I can see in them a horrible knowledge. Because although we were safe, his devastating secret was revealed in that merge. He knows what he did to his TARDIS. He knows what he did to a universe. I see the power of it begin to overwhelm him, feel his sanity start to slip.
“No,” I tell him. “I need you here.” I take his hand though he tries to flinch away from me. I can tell he thinks he is unworthy of my touch. To reel him back from the edge I begin to speak. “I killed myself,” I tell him. “When my Doctor died, I didn’t want to live and I killed myself. I let go and fell into the Void. I felt myself die. I wanted it. I didn’t want to live without him. It was too much. She gave me another chance. She gave me you. She gave you to me. Don’t take that away.”
“But I…I made a universe burn, Rose. I destroyed my own TARDIS.”
“In your heartbreak. In your sorrow. You could not lose another thing after all that you had lost.” I swayed a little, feeling a weakness spreading down my legs.
“But my TARDIS…”
“She would not have let you do what you did if she had not believed it was the right thing to do, that you belonged with the woman you loved. She sacrificed herself, I think.”
His protest dies on his lips as he considers this factor. “But it’s still my fault.” I can see him beginning to drown in the violent emotions that are overwhelming him.
“Please, Doctor, I need you right now. I can’t have you fall apart on me. I need you to take me back to the TARDIS.” I sway again, falling into him. “And I think you’ll have to carry me.”
“What?” His equilibrium rights for a moment as he looks at me, really looks at me, noting the green residue all over my skin. “What did he do, Rose? What did he really do?”
I bite my lip, not wanting to tell him exactly what the creature has done. I focuss on the one thing that stays with me, the one thing I had discovered during his violation. “We need to find out if he hurt the baby.”
“Baby? But we’ve only just… We were only in the Vortex two weeks.” He trails off, his hand moving to cover my abdomen.
“Guess Time Lord sperm works fast,” I say, a wash of dizziness hitting me. I feel something cold trickle down my leg. “Please, Doctor. Help me.”
I collapse against him and he swings me up in his arms and racesback to the TARDIS.
Chapter Thirty-three: How to Save a Life
The Doctor puts me down on the examination table and strips off my clothes from the waist down, cringing for a moment at the sight of blood on my thighs. I try not to be frightened. It is less than an hour since I learned I was pregnant, less than an hour since the alien had tried to rip the baby from my womb. A womb he had expected to be empty. A womb he had wanted to fill himself.
The Doctor moves rapidly, running a scanner over my pelvis, his facial muscles relaxing in relief as it discovers a still viable embryo. But the bleeding is still of concern and he hooks my arm up to an IV line.
“The embryo had only begun the process of implanting into the uterine wall, Rose. When Jasz hurt you he knocked the baby loose and part of the endometrial lining began to shed. The medication I’m giving you will stop it from shedding and encourage the embryo to reattach. It should make you pretty sleepy, too which should help limit your movements. If we’re lucky, the baby won’t abort.”
I feel tears coming into my eyes. It is all too much and they overflow. “You’ll have to stay on bed rest, Rose. No running for our lives for awhile, I’m afraid.” The look in his eyes scares me. It looks like disappointment to me. He doesn’t want this.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m tying you down, aren’t I? Not just the bed rest but the baby. I know domestic isn’t something you ever wanted. You can take me back to Mum as soon as I’m better.”
“What are you talking about Rose? This from the girl who claimed me as mate less than an hour ago?” He looks angry.
“A lot happened in that hour. I found out I was pregnant. I was…” My mind skitters away from what Jasz did to me. “Hurt.”
“Well, get it out of your head, Rose Tyler, that I’m anything but happy about this baby. And I have no intention of sending you away. You belong to me. You’re mine!”
His hand clutches at mine and I gasp at how tight his grip has become on me. “Yours?”
“You will always be mine, Rose. I want you. I want this baby. I want this life. Unless…unless you don’t want me?” And fear creeps into his voice. “You know what I’ve done. Maybe you think I’ll make a bad father? Maybe you think you’re better off without me in your life? Maybe you’re right.”
“NO!” I am crying. “No, Doctor. You’re my everything. I love you. I want you. I want this life with you. You’re more than I ever expected to have. The second chance I never thought I deserved.”
“The second chance I didn’t deserve,” he whispers.
“She thought we deserved it. She gave it to us. Maybe…maybe we do? I think we owe it to her, to give this everything we have. I think we owe it to this baby. I think we owe it to us.”
He nods, finally accepting the truth that I want him. A slow smile moves across his face as a soothing sensation spreads from my heart outwards. “Then we’ll do it.” He sighs. “Now, I need to get you cleaned up.”
Very carefully he washes the blood away from my thighs, gently inserts a catheter, and then he has me catch hold of my IV pole and he carries me to his bed. Our bed. He puts me down and carefully wraps himself around me, the palm of one hand spread protectively over my abdomen.
I feel myself begin to drift off to sleep. “Marry me, Rose Tyler,” he says softly, his lips against my ear.
“’kay,” I say, barely awake through the drug haze, but awake enough to tell him that. He kisses my ear and I know no more.
Chapter Thirty-four: The Frightened Wolf
Three weeks of bed rest take their toll on me. After one the baby has safely reattached and the Doctor has at least taken me off the catheter, automatic blood pressure cuff and pulse monitor, but he refuses to let me get out of bed for more than a trip to the bathroom unless he carries me.
The Doctor tries to spend as much time with me as he can, tries not to leave me alone for longer than it takes to make meals or make necessary repairs on the TARDIS. But inevitably there are times when I am left alone and my mind runs wild during those times.
I know that I am dealing with post traumatic stress. It has taken me nearly the full three weeks to face up to what Jasz did to me, to put the proper name on it, to stop hiding behind words like hurt and assault. Alien method of doing it or not, he had raped me with every intention of impregnating me. The word makes my thoughts scatter, but in an endless cycle they still return to it over and over.
There is no physical damage other than what was done to my baby and that has been repaired. When you are taken by a big ball of icy green mist it leaves no physical signs, but the emotional fall out is omnipresent. I am unsure if the Doctor knows precisely that this is what happened to me. I suspect he thinks only that my womb was attacked, not the method.
I am afraid to tell him, afraid that one more thing might push him over the edge, away from me. He has learned too much of his own past horrors for me to want to burden him with mine. The broken man has started healing in my love for him, and the future of his race growing in my body, and I do not want to do anything that might tip the scales back towards madness. I cannot lose my world again.
He holds me at night through the nightmares and the shakes and I seek what comfort I can from his physical presence. When the third week has passed he deems it safe for me to resume a normal existence. I wonder if I’ll ever feel safe outside his presence again.
That night as he pulls me into his arms he says, “I think we should go back to Earth, visit your parents, and find you a counselor.”
I go very still. “Wh--.” My voice shakes. “Why would I need to see a…a counselor?”
“You don’t seem to want to talk to me about getting raped, Rose,” he says matter-of-factly. “But you need to talk to someone.”
The ugly word hangs in the air between us and I gulp in mouthfuls of air, trying to stop the crushing fear from coming down on me. “Breathe slower, Rose. You’ll hyperventilate.”
“You know?” I manage.
“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”
“How?”
“Your mind is completely open to me when you dream, Rose, especially if I’m holding you. I’ve known since the first night.”
“I thought…I thought you…”
“You thought it would push me over the edge if I knew?” I nod against his chest and his arms tighten. “I’ve got too much to hold on for. I’ve got you and the baby and we’re getting married as soon as possible.”
“Married?”
“I do remember proposing to you, Rose Tyler. And you agreed,” he said with a touch of humor in his voice, despite the heaviness of our discussion.
“But you never brought it up again. I thought--.”
“You’re problem is you think too much. ‘Course we’re getting married. If you’ll still have me.” I nod again.
“No backing out of it now.” I sigh. “I’m not sure I’m ready to talk to anyone, though. Isn’t it enough I talked to you?”
“The fear won’t go away if you don’t deal with it.”
“Can’t you just take it away?” I ask.
“You want me to erase the memory?”
“Can you?”
“I can, but haven’t you had enough with your memories being messed with?” the Doctor asks.
I consider for a moment. “Can you take away the pain and the fear and leave my mind intact?” I want to know.
“That I can do.”
“Then do it.” Hesitantly he places his hands on my temples and soothes the frightened wolf inside my mind.
Chapter Thirty-five: Still Shaking
The days become almost normal, but the nights…Despite the Doctor’s interference in my memory, at night I still react to what has happened. I can feel the presence of that green mist creeping into my body and the absolute fear that overwhelms me, knowing what he is doing, knowing that he is going to kill my baby.
I wake trembling far too often. The Doctor worries. I seem to be adding lines to his face nightly. The return to Earth seems slower than normal, as if the TARDIS herself is resisting the trip through the Vortex.
I want to banish what happened to me. To leave it all behind and have this time with my Doctor, time when I should be happy at the new life growing within me. I want to not fear the idea of making love again. The Doctor does not ask, does not press. He waits for me to be ready. He will not push me and at times I wish he would because I fear I’ll never get through this darkness without his touch to erase what happened.
I think he is right that I need to see a counselor. I wish I could tell my mum but I don’t think I can. She worries enough about me without having to feel devastated about this. And Dad, if he knew, I think it would kill him.
There is one way around it. If I don’t sleep I won’t dream. I go seventy-eight hours without sleep and when my body shuts down I don’t dream. When I finally wake up the Doctor is angry at me. “You can’t abuse your body that way, Rose! Humans need sleep. Daily. Especially pregnant ones. You could endanger the baby!”
His anger turns to shame when I burst into tears. “I’m sorry, Rose. I shouldn’t have yelled.” He pulls me into his arms and I will myself to stop shaking.
“It’s the dreams, Doctor. I can’t make them stop.”
“Tell me,” he says slowly, picking me up and cradling me in his lap.
So slowly, haltingly, I do. “I’m standing there in the marketplace and I’m paralyzed. I feel the mist creeping into my body from every entry point. It turns cold inside me, like it hardens to iron. It wants to choke me, suffocate me, fill my lungs and my stomach and my womb. I can’t fight it. I have no control. It’s all I can do to just breathe.”
I stop talking and his arms tighten around me. “Go on,” he whispers.
“He is in my mind and he tries to put his stamp of possession on me and when he discovers that I already have one, that I already belong to someone, to you, it sends him into a rage. But when he finds the baby, he wants to kill it and if he can’t kill it, he wants to kill me. I feel it like a malevolence. Inside me and on my skin. I can’t escape it. I try to break away over and over again, but I can’t. Sometimes when I wake up I can still feel him crawling through me, over me. I just want it to end. I just want it to all go away. Like it never happened. But it did. And it’s never going to go away.”
The Doctor kisses my hair. “You did fight back, Rose. You called forth every asset you had. You stood strong against him. You protected our baby and you didn’t let him kill you. You are stronger than the monster. You won.”
“Then why do I feel like I lost everything?” I say, trying not to wail.
“You didn’t. You’ll never lose me. Never.”
“How can you still want me?” I ask, so very afraid of the answer.
“What he did to you does not take away from who you are, Rose Tyler. And who you are is the love of my life. There is nothing that could ever make me stop wanting you. And when you’re ready, I’ll show you just exactly what I mean by that.”
I sigh and wipe the tears from my eyes against the front of his shirt. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about, sweetheart. Nothing he did can make me stop loving you. I will love you with my last breath,” the Doctor insists.
I look up into his eyes and I believe him. “I love you, too,” I say.
I feel the unwelcome thoughts of this alien intrude on my mind, hacking at the edges of my awareness, trying to batter his way into my mind, seeking out a way to destroy life. I can sense the Doctor trying to break through the encompassing bubble and I know that it is not the way. This cannot be done physically. It is all of the mind.
I reach for the Doctor, feeling his silver/amber/orange fire reinforcing me, but Jasz continues to ram against my senses and I know it will not be enough. I open a part of my mind I have been hiding from and a surge of golden fire surrounds me, a surge I have felt once before when I rewrote the genetic code of the Dalek back on Earth. Her power, augmenting mine, her memories showing me how, Bad Wolf reaching for me, Rose Plus fighting for me, and then the most powerful thing I have ever felt in my life hits me: The Oncoming Storm.
Another silver flame, pure and true, recognizable as Doctor but not my Doctor, her Doctor, flaring, merging, joining, firing towards me and suddenly we are four fighting against the onslaught of invasion, repelling the Sower from my body and my mind.
My eyes focus for the first time in minutes and I feel the fabric of reality tear under my glowing golden hands. I shove this supposedly powerful being through the hole and feel the power of four flowing from me to knit the rip closed. A whirlwind of power comes to a close and the presence of the Oncoming Storm and Rose Plus withdraw from me, leaving only the broken man against the frightened wolf. Her memories go with her leaving me with only an echo of the moments now gone.
I am myself again and as my eyes meet with his I can see in them a horrible knowledge. Because although we were safe, his devastating secret was revealed in that merge. He knows what he did to his TARDIS. He knows what he did to a universe. I see the power of it begin to overwhelm him, feel his sanity start to slip.
“No,” I tell him. “I need you here.” I take his hand though he tries to flinch away from me. I can tell he thinks he is unworthy of my touch. To reel him back from the edge I begin to speak. “I killed myself,” I tell him. “When my Doctor died, I didn’t want to live and I killed myself. I let go and fell into the Void. I felt myself die. I wanted it. I didn’t want to live without him. It was too much. She gave me another chance. She gave me you. She gave you to me. Don’t take that away.”
“But I…I made a universe burn, Rose. I destroyed my own TARDIS.”
“In your heartbreak. In your sorrow. You could not lose another thing after all that you had lost.” I swayed a little, feeling a weakness spreading down my legs.
“But my TARDIS…”
“She would not have let you do what you did if she had not believed it was the right thing to do, that you belonged with the woman you loved. She sacrificed herself, I think.”
His protest dies on his lips as he considers this factor. “But it’s still my fault.” I can see him beginning to drown in the violent emotions that are overwhelming him.
“Please, Doctor, I need you right now. I can’t have you fall apart on me. I need you to take me back to the TARDIS.” I sway again, falling into him. “And I think you’ll have to carry me.”
“What?” His equilibrium rights for a moment as he looks at me, really looks at me, noting the green residue all over my skin. “What did he do, Rose? What did he really do?”
I bite my lip, not wanting to tell him exactly what the creature has done. I focuss on the one thing that stays with me, the one thing I had discovered during his violation. “We need to find out if he hurt the baby.”
“Baby? But we’ve only just… We were only in the Vortex two weeks.” He trails off, his hand moving to cover my abdomen.
“Guess Time Lord sperm works fast,” I say, a wash of dizziness hitting me. I feel something cold trickle down my leg. “Please, Doctor. Help me.”
I collapse against him and he swings me up in his arms and racesback to the TARDIS.
Chapter Thirty-three: How to Save a Life
The Doctor puts me down on the examination table and strips off my clothes from the waist down, cringing for a moment at the sight of blood on my thighs. I try not to be frightened. It is less than an hour since I learned I was pregnant, less than an hour since the alien had tried to rip the baby from my womb. A womb he had expected to be empty. A womb he had wanted to fill himself.
The Doctor moves rapidly, running a scanner over my pelvis, his facial muscles relaxing in relief as it discovers a still viable embryo. But the bleeding is still of concern and he hooks my arm up to an IV line.
“The embryo had only begun the process of implanting into the uterine wall, Rose. When Jasz hurt you he knocked the baby loose and part of the endometrial lining began to shed. The medication I’m giving you will stop it from shedding and encourage the embryo to reattach. It should make you pretty sleepy, too which should help limit your movements. If we’re lucky, the baby won’t abort.”
I feel tears coming into my eyes. It is all too much and they overflow. “You’ll have to stay on bed rest, Rose. No running for our lives for awhile, I’m afraid.” The look in his eyes scares me. It looks like disappointment to me. He doesn’t want this.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m tying you down, aren’t I? Not just the bed rest but the baby. I know domestic isn’t something you ever wanted. You can take me back to Mum as soon as I’m better.”
“What are you talking about Rose? This from the girl who claimed me as mate less than an hour ago?” He looks angry.
“A lot happened in that hour. I found out I was pregnant. I was…” My mind skitters away from what Jasz did to me. “Hurt.”
“Well, get it out of your head, Rose Tyler, that I’m anything but happy about this baby. And I have no intention of sending you away. You belong to me. You’re mine!”
His hand clutches at mine and I gasp at how tight his grip has become on me. “Yours?”
“You will always be mine, Rose. I want you. I want this baby. I want this life. Unless…unless you don’t want me?” And fear creeps into his voice. “You know what I’ve done. Maybe you think I’ll make a bad father? Maybe you think you’re better off without me in your life? Maybe you’re right.”
“NO!” I am crying. “No, Doctor. You’re my everything. I love you. I want you. I want this life with you. You’re more than I ever expected to have. The second chance I never thought I deserved.”
“The second chance I didn’t deserve,” he whispers.
“She thought we deserved it. She gave it to us. Maybe…maybe we do? I think we owe it to her, to give this everything we have. I think we owe it to this baby. I think we owe it to us.”
He nods, finally accepting the truth that I want him. A slow smile moves across his face as a soothing sensation spreads from my heart outwards. “Then we’ll do it.” He sighs. “Now, I need to get you cleaned up.”
Very carefully he washes the blood away from my thighs, gently inserts a catheter, and then he has me catch hold of my IV pole and he carries me to his bed. Our bed. He puts me down and carefully wraps himself around me, the palm of one hand spread protectively over my abdomen.
I feel myself begin to drift off to sleep. “Marry me, Rose Tyler,” he says softly, his lips against my ear.
“’kay,” I say, barely awake through the drug haze, but awake enough to tell him that. He kisses my ear and I know no more.
Chapter Thirty-four: The Frightened Wolf
Three weeks of bed rest take their toll on me. After one the baby has safely reattached and the Doctor has at least taken me off the catheter, automatic blood pressure cuff and pulse monitor, but he refuses to let me get out of bed for more than a trip to the bathroom unless he carries me.
The Doctor tries to spend as much time with me as he can, tries not to leave me alone for longer than it takes to make meals or make necessary repairs on the TARDIS. But inevitably there are times when I am left alone and my mind runs wild during those times.
I know that I am dealing with post traumatic stress. It has taken me nearly the full three weeks to face up to what Jasz did to me, to put the proper name on it, to stop hiding behind words like hurt and assault. Alien method of doing it or not, he had raped me with every intention of impregnating me. The word makes my thoughts scatter, but in an endless cycle they still return to it over and over.
There is no physical damage other than what was done to my baby and that has been repaired. When you are taken by a big ball of icy green mist it leaves no physical signs, but the emotional fall out is omnipresent. I am unsure if the Doctor knows precisely that this is what happened to me. I suspect he thinks only that my womb was attacked, not the method.
I am afraid to tell him, afraid that one more thing might push him over the edge, away from me. He has learned too much of his own past horrors for me to want to burden him with mine. The broken man has started healing in my love for him, and the future of his race growing in my body, and I do not want to do anything that might tip the scales back towards madness. I cannot lose my world again.
He holds me at night through the nightmares and the shakes and I seek what comfort I can from his physical presence. When the third week has passed he deems it safe for me to resume a normal existence. I wonder if I’ll ever feel safe outside his presence again.
That night as he pulls me into his arms he says, “I think we should go back to Earth, visit your parents, and find you a counselor.”
I go very still. “Wh--.” My voice shakes. “Why would I need to see a…a counselor?”
“You don’t seem to want to talk to me about getting raped, Rose,” he says matter-of-factly. “But you need to talk to someone.”
The ugly word hangs in the air between us and I gulp in mouthfuls of air, trying to stop the crushing fear from coming down on me. “Breathe slower, Rose. You’ll hyperventilate.”
“You know?” I manage.
“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”
“How?”
“Your mind is completely open to me when you dream, Rose, especially if I’m holding you. I’ve known since the first night.”
“I thought…I thought you…”
“You thought it would push me over the edge if I knew?” I nod against his chest and his arms tighten. “I’ve got too much to hold on for. I’ve got you and the baby and we’re getting married as soon as possible.”
“Married?”
“I do remember proposing to you, Rose Tyler. And you agreed,” he said with a touch of humor in his voice, despite the heaviness of our discussion.
“But you never brought it up again. I thought--.”
“You’re problem is you think too much. ‘Course we’re getting married. If you’ll still have me.” I nod again.
“No backing out of it now.” I sigh. “I’m not sure I’m ready to talk to anyone, though. Isn’t it enough I talked to you?”
“The fear won’t go away if you don’t deal with it.”
“Can’t you just take it away?” I ask.
“You want me to erase the memory?”
“Can you?”
“I can, but haven’t you had enough with your memories being messed with?” the Doctor asks.
I consider for a moment. “Can you take away the pain and the fear and leave my mind intact?” I want to know.
“That I can do.”
“Then do it.” Hesitantly he places his hands on my temples and soothes the frightened wolf inside my mind.
Chapter Thirty-five: Still Shaking
The days become almost normal, but the nights…Despite the Doctor’s interference in my memory, at night I still react to what has happened. I can feel the presence of that green mist creeping into my body and the absolute fear that overwhelms me, knowing what he is doing, knowing that he is going to kill my baby.
I wake trembling far too often. The Doctor worries. I seem to be adding lines to his face nightly. The return to Earth seems slower than normal, as if the TARDIS herself is resisting the trip through the Vortex.
I want to banish what happened to me. To leave it all behind and have this time with my Doctor, time when I should be happy at the new life growing within me. I want to not fear the idea of making love again. The Doctor does not ask, does not press. He waits for me to be ready. He will not push me and at times I wish he would because I fear I’ll never get through this darkness without his touch to erase what happened.
I think he is right that I need to see a counselor. I wish I could tell my mum but I don’t think I can. She worries enough about me without having to feel devastated about this. And Dad, if he knew, I think it would kill him.
There is one way around it. If I don’t sleep I won’t dream. I go seventy-eight hours without sleep and when my body shuts down I don’t dream. When I finally wake up the Doctor is angry at me. “You can’t abuse your body that way, Rose! Humans need sleep. Daily. Especially pregnant ones. You could endanger the baby!”
His anger turns to shame when I burst into tears. “I’m sorry, Rose. I shouldn’t have yelled.” He pulls me into his arms and I will myself to stop shaking.
“It’s the dreams, Doctor. I can’t make them stop.”
“Tell me,” he says slowly, picking me up and cradling me in his lap.
So slowly, haltingly, I do. “I’m standing there in the marketplace and I’m paralyzed. I feel the mist creeping into my body from every entry point. It turns cold inside me, like it hardens to iron. It wants to choke me, suffocate me, fill my lungs and my stomach and my womb. I can’t fight it. I have no control. It’s all I can do to just breathe.”
I stop talking and his arms tighten around me. “Go on,” he whispers.
“He is in my mind and he tries to put his stamp of possession on me and when he discovers that I already have one, that I already belong to someone, to you, it sends him into a rage. But when he finds the baby, he wants to kill it and if he can’t kill it, he wants to kill me. I feel it like a malevolence. Inside me and on my skin. I can’t escape it. I try to break away over and over again, but I can’t. Sometimes when I wake up I can still feel him crawling through me, over me. I just want it to end. I just want it to all go away. Like it never happened. But it did. And it’s never going to go away.”
The Doctor kisses my hair. “You did fight back, Rose. You called forth every asset you had. You stood strong against him. You protected our baby and you didn’t let him kill you. You are stronger than the monster. You won.”
“Then why do I feel like I lost everything?” I say, trying not to wail.
“You didn’t. You’ll never lose me. Never.”
“How can you still want me?” I ask, so very afraid of the answer.
“What he did to you does not take away from who you are, Rose Tyler. And who you are is the love of my life. There is nothing that could ever make me stop wanting you. And when you’re ready, I’ll show you just exactly what I mean by that.”
I sigh and wipe the tears from my eyes against the front of his shirt. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about, sweetheart. Nothing he did can make me stop loving you. I will love you with my last breath,” the Doctor insists.
I look up into his eyes and I believe him. “I love you, too,” I say.