Author's notes: I do not own these characters. They belong to the BBC and/or Russell T. Davies. There are also some minor, loving tributes to a book I loved as a child: The Story of Helen Keller.

Rose wasn't quite sure when or how her whole world had been reduced to sound and pain. If she thought hard, she could faintly remember a blue box and her mother's voice. But it all seemed terribly far away.

Now there was constant pain – someone physically hurting her, agony in her stomach from near-starvation, and pins and needles all over her body from the cold. There were voices – she could only understand a word here and there; they shouted at her and ordered her about, despite her blindness.

Occasionally, there was sleep, but she only dreamt of the hell she lived in, so it gave her no rest.

However long her monotonous existence had gone on, there had been a change fairly recently. It seemed as though her quarters had been moved, and there had been snatches of talk about travel.

The changes were settling, though, and she was soon back to her usual routine. Rose wondered why she was even still alive, still conscious. And then, suddenly, the voices changed.

"Jack? I think you'd better see this."

"I'm a little busy. What is it?"

"We've found a human."

Rose puzzled over how she could suddenly understand the voices completely.

"Be there in a sec!"

"It's all right, sweetheart." Female. That voice was definitely female … how long had it been since she'd heard a female voice?

"She's blind, like the rest," that was the first man again.

There was a hand on her skin, touching her arm softly. "We're not going to hurt you. We're here to help. Everything's going to be all right." It was the female again – wait, why wasn't she being hurt? Things were getting much too confusing.

The woman spoke again. "Can you understand me?"

Rose opened her mouth but no sound came out. When was the last time she'd even tried to utter anything but a scream? Her tongue seemed to have lost all ability to form words. She shut her mouth and nodded instead.

"Good, you speak English," the man said. His voice was rather sharp, but she could hear something else in it, too.

Something soft was being wrapped around her body. She hadn't felt anything like it since … well, since she could remember.

The man was talking again, though Rose had started to let her attention drift, as she usually did.

"So, what've we got?" The second man had arrived.

"Human, maybe early twenties. Understands English. Blinded, like the rest of them. Fairly unresponsive. Bruises, internal bleeding, broken bones, sexual trauma. But given her physiology, I'd say she's from our time period."

"How is that possible? All of the other slaves were from the next century."

"I don't know, Jack. I'm just the doctor."

And then Rose was screaming, and she didn't know why. But she wasn't just screaming, she was saying one word over and over. "DOCTOR!"

Suddenly hands grasped her shoulders, and she was sure she was going to be hit. "Jesus Christ! Rose?!"

"Doctor," she whimpered. It was suddenly the only word that mattered in the whole world, though she still didn't know why.

She felt herself being lifted off the floor; she was starting to get light-headed.

"It's okay, Rose. We'll find him. Everything's going to be all right," the second man murmured, kissing what was left of her hair. "I've got you."

His voice seemed faintly familiar, but it seemed like nothing could fill the gaping wound inside of her. Something was missing, and she didn't know what it was. She'd forgotten something, and it was important. And she could sense that she was never going to whole again until she found it.

"So, you know her?"

"Yeah. I … traveled with her."

"Jack, what's going on? I think it's high time you leveled with us."

"Does she have family we should contact?"

"Oh, God. Jackie."

Rose listened to the buzz of voices around her. She nearly panicked at the lack of intense pain; was she dead? She was lying on something soft. Though she normally would have welcomed death, the recent revelation that she was missing something important pushed that feeling aside. She rolled onto her side, groping in the darkness.

She was rewarded with a slight sting and loud crash as her hand knocked something over.

"Rose!" Before she could move again, warm hands closed over hers. "Rose, it's okay. You're safe. Just relax. It's Jack, Rose. Jack Harkness. Remember?"

Rose stilled, trying to remember. She could recall the voice, but not the name or a face. Something warm was dripping on her arm.

"Rose? Can you hear me?"

Rose nodded, deciding that, for whatever reason, this man wasn't going to hurt her.

"Okay, good." His voice was wavering. "Everything's okay, sweetheart. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you. Owen is taking good care of you; you're gonna get better. I promise." He guided her hands to his face.

It was surprisingly smooth – not like the men before – warm, too. And it was wet, like hers when they'd been hurting her.

Have they been hurting you, too? she wondered.

She cried out as pain lanced through her side.

"Christ, Jack, lie her back down. She's still hurt." She recognized that voice from earlier. Gentle hands eased her back onto the soft surface.

Jack's hand still grasped one of hers.

The female voice from earlier floated in. "Shouldn't we contact her family?"

Jack sighed. "Yeah. I don't know if she's going to stop at just slapping me, though."

"What?"

"Nothing, Tosh. Contact Jackie Tyler at the Powel Estates in London."

"What should I tell her?"

"Just say we have her daughter, and she needs to come here ASAP. Except … nicer than that."

"Shouldn't you do it, Jack?" a new female voice asked.

"Haven't actually met her," Jack answered. "Just heard the tales."

Rose felt herself drifting away again and clung on harder to Jack's hand.

"Shh, it's okay, Rose. You're safe. Go back to sleep."

"I'm so sorry, Jackie." It was Jack's voice but a different hand was grasping hers.

"Has she said anything?"

"Not really, no. She just started screaming for him out of the blue. She seems to understand us, but she's not communicating."

"When I find that man –"

"We'll find him. You said you had her cell phone number, right?"

"Course."

"We'll see if we can triangulate the point it was last used. Since we might be dealing with time travel, I can't make any guarantees …"

"I understand, Captain. You're doing everything you can. Are you sure … she shouldn't be in a proper hospital?"

"I know this isn't exactly what you're used to, but since alien technology was used on her, we can't risk moving her to regular hospital. Dr. Harper is taking great care of her, I promise you."

"What about … the other women?"

"We were able to send many of them home, using escape pods on the ship."

She could hear her mother crying, and Jack's voice moved as he went to comfort her.

Mum?

"My baby," Jackie sobbed. "My baby!"

Memories flittered just out of her grasp as she squeezed the hand holding hers.

"Rose! Sweetheart, can you hear me?!"

Rose nodded, not quite aware if her eyes were open or not.

Jackie's weeping continued. "Rose … oh God, Rose … speak to me, sweetheart. Say something!"

Try as she might, Rose couldn't force a sound from her throat. She squeezed her mother's hand again, trying to indicate that she at least understood.

"Why can't she say anything?!"

"Trauma. Conditioning. Screaming for him was probably just a fluke. She'll get there, Jackie. Give her time. There is something I want to know, though." Jack voice was a bit closer now. "Rose? You can just nod or shake your head. Do you know where he is?"

Rose's brow furrowed as she tried to put the pieces together.

"She doesn't understand," Tosh said softly.

"Rose," Jack tried again, "do you know where the Doctor is?"

Rose gasped as images flooded her mind, and the world snapped violently back into place. "Doctor!"

"That's right, Rose. Do you know where he is?"

She shook her head and started to cry.

Rose's world had changed; it was still permanently in darkness, but now there was much less pain. She was back in her old home with mum, though Jack stayed with them much of the time. She'd learned slowly and painfully how to function while blind and coping with her injuries.

Her memory had repaired somewhat, but Owen said the brain damage was permanent. She had been extremely resistant to any speech therapy. Despite Jack and her mother trying to make her feel at home, some days it seemed as though her tears would never dry or she'd fly into a frustrated rage when only Jack could handle her, calming her with strong, firm hands.

Rose didn't want to learn how to speak or walk with a cane. She wanted to run. Run and find the Doctor. Then everything would be right again. She wasn't sure how she knew this to be true, she only knew that it was.

She could hear her mum crying at night, while she lay awake, staring unseeing at the ceiling. When Jack was there, he would shush her quietly until she could sleep. She was glad that Jack was there to take care of her mum.

She felt useless, listless, paranoid, and angry. Maybe living in a constant monotony of pain had been better than this life.

"Rose."

"Jack?" Even her voice was different now, lower and slightly accented.

"Go to sleep, please. You need to rest."

"You don't," she said stubbornly rolling on her side away from him.

"Rose, what would he think of you now? Giving up? Lashing out? We may never see him again, but that doesn't mean he'd want your life to be like this. I know you can do this, Rose. You've got to try."

"He's coming back," she said with effort.

She heard Jack take a breath. "No he's not, Rose. And you have to learn to live with that."

To be continued ...