taxonomites | seventeen | location: around taxon | someone who appears to save the day

For the most part she's fine. There are bruises on her wrists and her ankles, one on her shoulder from being shuffled around like baggage but over all physically Rose made out much better than anyone else. That's the problem. The guilt and the hopelessness that she felt and still feels will eat at her much longer than a bruise or a cut could ever take to heal.

She pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them as he runs the sponge over her shoulders. Her eyes fill up with tears and she chokes them back. She doesn't have a right to cry. Not over this. Not when everyone else is so hurt.

"I tried to help them, Doctor. Tried to think about what you'd do and how you'd help. I tried. Promise."

It's important to her that he knows she didn't just let this happen.

"I know," he says, touching the sponge lightly to her bruised shoulder and squeezing it to run the warm water over her skin. She shouldn't have had to go through it. None of them should've had to go through it.

He reaches out to touch a lock of her hair behind her ear. She's so fragile, Rose, and he's let someone break her. He hates himself for it.

She's still for a long while, letting him run warm water over her skin and trying to abstain from crying. She would argue that she's not fragile but right now that argument wouldn't hold much weight. Without wanting to she turns over everything in her mind that she saw, heard and said. That brings her to the thing that caused her more personal pain than any other.

"The Master said--" She stops because once she asks the question she can't ever take it back. Regardless of what the answer is, she can't ever unhear it. "He said that you and Morgana--you connected with her."

Before it's even out of her mouth she knows it's true. She knew it when the Master was telling her about it. "Let her walk 'round in your head." And the tears well up in her yes, finally winning their battle and trickling down her cheeks in slow tracks.

It explains a lot. Why Morgana was the only one utterly unconscious at the site, why her injuries were so extensive. The Master didn't like sharing, and while he could probably handle sharing Rose romantically, he wouldn't share the psychic connection he once had with the Doctor. Morgana suffered for the Doctor's curiosity.

His hand on her shoulder, he takes a breath. For the first time, lying doesn't even feel like an option.

"Sort of," he says. "It's not that simple."

She bites her bottom lip so hard she thinks her teeth are going to cut through. They don't. Not quite but her lip tingles even after she's stopped biting it. "Yeah. Didn't imagine it was. Something like that never is."

She can barely force herself to form the words and push them past her lips. She feels like she's going to drown in all the pain in her chest right now.

He hasn't betrayed Rose, he thinks. Not really, not properly. Connecting is different from, well, other things. And while the thought of snogging Morgana has crossed his mind, he hasn't. Not that it would matter, he's not Rose's boyfriend. Is he?

"I was trying to show her," he says. "Trying to show her that I knew---something in the past. Knew she wouldn't believe me, so I decided to show her."

A pause.

"The first time."

Sorry, Doctor but in Rose's head, in her heart, whether she'll admit it or not, she does consider him her boyfriend. Something even more than her boyfriend. He's hers. At least as long as she's here.

"How does showing her something in the--" And then she stops because there was more than one time. She pulls away from his touch, curling to one corner of the tub. "The first--he told me. He told me what it was like. He told me--" And she stops again. This time because emotion overwhelms her. She presses her hand to her mouth. She will not cry like this. She will not. Or at least she's going to make her best attempt at not crying.

"Whatever he told you, he told you to hurt you, Rose," the Doctor says, firmly. "Connecting isn't---it isn't---well, it is, but it isn't. It was the easiest way to show her, to understand her. She's a ridiculously un-understandable individual!"

He pulls his hand back, hurt by her movement. He knows he shouldn't be. It's his fault she was hurt in the first place, and his fault that the Master had that ammunition to injure her with.

"If it weren't everything he says it was then why did you lie to me," Rose asks accusingly. She understands that she was told those things because they would cause her pain but that doesn't make her feel any better.

"I didn't lie to you," he says. "I just...I didn't tell you."

Partially because he didn't think of when he could bring it up. Partially because, despite what he says now, he felt guilty for it. He still feels guilty for it.

The look she gives him clearly says that she isn't buying the 'didn't lie' line.

"I confronted you about it. That day with your jacket. I asked you what happened and you avoided telling me. Might as well be a lie, Doctor." A thought crosses her mind and her face takes on something slightly akin to horror. "Is that why you--we--because of what you--Because of her?"

"What?" the Doctor says, his face mirroring her horror. "No, Rose, it was---it's not like that! We just...shared a few memories, she kept a bit of my personality from it, that's why she acted off to you."

He's not explaining himself well, and he feels like pacing or flailing, but that would mean moving away from her, and part of him is terrified to do that, too.

"It's---it's not her fault. I just thought I could help. And it did! It helped, she---trusts me, sort of. Which, in the end, is why the Master must've picked her, too."

"That's not what the Master said. He said it was exactly like that. More intimate even," Rose tosses back at him. "Why is it so important that she trust you that you'd--" She stops and bites her lips to hold everything in. She tries not to question the Doctor about other companion-like people. She knows she's not the only one. She's not the first or the last and pretending to be more than that is only going to get her hurt in the end.

"It can be," he admits, defensive. "Sometimes it is, in the right situations it can be, but this time, it wasn't. It was just two people sharing things psychically. Things like images and memories, they're things you trust, things you understand. And I wanted her to see that she could trust me."

She presses her hand against her mouth, thinking about this for a little while. Everything still hurts, inside and out. She wants nothing more than to let this all be over, to forgive and to pretend none of it's real. "What is she to you, Doctor? I can't suss it out. You try so hard to win her over and I don't get it. Why does it matter if she trusts you? There's a whole city full of people who don't trust you and yet you don't let them traipse through your head. You don't let--" She bites off her words again before she says me. She's trying not to make this about her. She's trying to step outside of herself and that's a difficult thing for Rose.

"I don't know," he admits, trying to make it seem unimportant. "She's a good person, she's interesting, she's got a lot of things she can use that can help us."

It doesn't touch the surface of the reasons, and he hopes Rose doesn't notice that.

"And I didn't let her traipse through anything. She was just supposed to see one memory, but---things got---" and this isn't going to sound good at all. "Complicated."

It's not that she doesn't notice. It's more that she doesn't understand it. "Complicated? If it's not intimate and it's not everything the Master said then why is it complicated?"

And then another thought occurs to her. "What else did she see, Doctor? Why does she look at me the way you do?" Now there's panic in her voice. There are things in the Doctor's head that she would never want anyone to see. "What does she know about you and me?"

"I don't know," he admits, and he hates admitting it. "There was...something happened, and I don't know everything she saw. Maybe nothing."

Rose squares her jaw, teeth setting a bit. Her tone is colder, harder now. To be honest, it's easier focusing on something like this rather then everything that happened. It all hurts but in a very different way. There's a hollow feeling that's eating at the pain in her chest. She's not sure whether that's a good thing or not.

"Something? Care to clarify Doctor because I assure you whatever that 'something' is, I'm assuming it's much worse."

He has a very funny feeling the next thing he says isn't going to make Rose happy.

"I can't tell you," he says. "I promised."

She looks like she's been slapped. It takes her several seconds to form words.

"Can't tell me what happened except that it's complicated and it's something that made you lose control of a situation then I come home and we shag like bunnies. The Master hurt her worse than anyone else. If the point was to hurt you through us then what's that say? I come out with a couple of bruises and she comes out--"

She stops because she doesn't like this path she's going down but she's also afraid it's the right one to take.

"Explain that to me, Doctor. You love me. You've all but said it so if you love me and I was hurt the least...what's that mean she is to you?"

"It wasn't just shagging, Rose, we---I---it wasn't like that with you, I promise," he says. He hates talking about this. Sex is something he doesn't do particularly often at all, much less ever talk about.

"I don't know," he says, putting his hand to his head to try to stop his wildly spinning emotions. "I don't know. All I know is that the Master's favorite torture is emotional torture, and you think you got off easy, Rose, but he didn't hurt you because of how it makes you feel. He did this because he wanted to wound you where it hurts the most. Inside."

He takes a breath. "I know. He'd done the exact same thing to me, too."

He has replied to her, but he's managed to not mention Morgana at all.

Edited 2010-06-01 05:32 (UTC)

She knows that. It's just paired with this new information everything is crashing down around her right now. Emotionally she's raw and she hasn't slept in more hours than she can currently add up. She's hurt and she's just worn down enough to speak all the fears and doubts boiling inside of her. Tears well up in her eyes again because she doesn't know how everyone else is faring but she knows she's still very much being tortured. It's almost like automated torture at this point the Master set her up so well for it.

"When did he hurt you?"

It's easier and instinctive to be protective of him, to jump to his defense even when he's the only one around to hear it. She realizes he didn't answer her question about Morgana and the way he's dodging it leaves a sinking feeling in her gut. Finally she takes a deep breath and just summons up her courage to ask the question that's reverberating in her head.

"You've fallen in love with her, haven't you? She's like Reinette and--" She stops short of saying 'everything I'll never be'.

"It doesn't matter," he says. It doesn't matter, because he hates thinking about the Year. It doesn't matter because he's already forgiven the Master for that. It doesn't matter because this isn't about the Doctor being tortured at all, it's about her and what she's going through.

Her next question takes him by surprise. Is he in love with Morgana? No, he doesn't think so. But maybe he is? He certainly fancies her. Maybe he's---no, no, it's not that way at all. In a way, it would be easier to talk about the Master, to talk about someone he's already long since admitted his own twisted feelings for. Morgana is different, Morgana is new and confusing and frustrating.

He does know one thing: He loves Rose. In moments like this, he doesn't really like being on love with Rose because that means she ends up hurt, but he knows that's true.

"I haven't been unfaithful to you," he says. He clarifies: "Not that we've, you know, considered what we have as something that needs to be faithful or otherwise, but apart from Drusilla tricking me into believing she was Romana, I haven't---I wouldn't. Once we leave Taxon, things will change, but for now---"

Rose shoves wet hands through her hair, pushing it back off her face. She'll let the year slide because he's here and he's alright and he hasn't answered her question about Morgana. Not directly anyway. She's still trying to keep all of her tears at bay without much success. At least she's not sobbing.

"You'll let me know if that changes yeah?" It comes out higher pitched and more choked than she intended it to. "If you're not--if you'd rather--" She stops and stares up at the ceiling a moment trying to order the thoughts in her head so that her words come out comprehensible. "If the rules change here; you'll let me know right?"

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