He sat quietly in the dark of the control room. The only light from the central column green and pale, the Tardis had shut it down to its lowest level to allow him time to heal. He was in so much pain. He had been tortured; he should go to the med lab and heal himself. The pain he was feeling was almost more than he could bare, but he held onto it, held it close and lived it deep in his aching hearts.
He had sent her to her room, to sleep. After he had managed to escape, thanks to the help of a sympathetic soldier who hadn't liked what was happening, they had rescued Rose, before they could started to torture her. She didn't know he was hurt and he didn't want her to either.
The thought that she would have had this pain too is almost as heart breaking as the pain he carries so closely to himself. The thought of loosing her, because her little human body would have crumpled and died quickly under the onslaught they had put him through, and he lets out a moan of terror as an image of her dead body appears in his mind.
For once he has slipped his leather jacket off, it was too painful against the raw and bleeding wounds he has over his torso. He doesn't allow himself to think about the ones further down. He has been tortured before. Mentally and physically, but this is the first time some one has done the two together. All they had had to do was tell him his companion, his Rose, was going to be strapped to the table in front of the frame they had him tied to and that he would watch as they tortured her.
They had wanted the Tardis, had wanted him to hand it over to them. Had known who and what he was. Had been too well prepared to torture a Time Lord. These wounds would take a long time to heal. They wouldn't mend well under any of the devices in his med lab. He knew he could mend them to an extent and take the pain away, but he didn't.
He didn't realise tears had fallen down his cheeks as the pain intensified. It was part of the torture technique. Mental and physical anguish that grew over hours until the subject's brain or body explode. He can stop it. Can stop it reaching that level, and yet he embraces it as it builds inside him, as he stands there in the almost dark still and silent unwilling to help him self. It mirrors the pain he holds for the loss of his planet, for the loss of his people, the loss of his family. And he holds it close unwilling to let it go.
He is so settled in the pain he fails to notice the door open quietly and a small figure pass through on silent bare feet. Rose was in a simple pale pink t-shirt she wore for bed. She had realised something was wrong when he had dismissed her so shortly and rudely earlier. She had gone thinking that if she left him alone for a short while he would be in a better mood. She had watched him brood so many times, sat watching his eyes distraught in his own living nightmares. He never saw her, was always to wrapped up in his pain to notice.
But this was something different she realised. This time the pain didn't seem to be from nightmares. This time the pain echoes around the room, echoed in a long silent scream. She quickly realised something bad had happened to him whilst they were held separately.
She moved quietly, mounting the grilled walkway he was stood on, against the railing next to the consol. She felt pain in her feet for a moment from the grill. Normally she wore shoes, but tonight she had been worried about him and forgotten them. She walked slowly round to him. Put her hand out to his arm, placing her hand gently but firmly there so he knew she was there.
The scream that echoed through the Tardis was loud and shrill; full of agony and pain, and Rose jumped and screamed in terror at the look of such deep pain in his eyes as they suddenly found her stood there. She knew that was real physical pain he had felt. And before he could push her away, she grabbed his sleeve and pulled it up revealing a multitude of small razor like cuts, ragged and bleeding.
"Oh my god!" she whispers, "What did they do to you?"
He couldn't respond the pain is too much now. His head hurts too much. His hearts are almost at overload. He doesn't object as Rose orders the Tardis to raise the lighting so she can see, even though the what sulights make it worse. He doesn't object, just screams again as her hands swiftly lift his jumper off of his tortured body. He does feel the slight relief loosing the fabric rubbing against the wounds has given him.
His eyes are inwards as she looks him over, as she realises the wounds go below the level of his trousers. He is stood with his arms held out at angles, so that they won't come in contact with his torso. He doesn't realise she is on her knees on the floor quickly undoing his laced boots, Slipping them and his socks off with speed that another time would have made him think she loved him back. Then her fingers are undoing his trouser belt, snapping it back and pulling the taught leather through and out so that she can get to the button and zipper below.
He screams again as she pulls them down. This time she knows why he is screaming and she is in tears at causing him such pain, but she knows she has to get the clothing away from his skin. She leans back, her heart breaking at the wounds that trail all the way down both legs, over each foot. She ruefully thinks that going commando today would have just made those particular cuts worse than the others.
She wonders for a moment how she hadn't noticed the cuts on him before hand, until she looks at his hands and face. They are devoid of marks. He must be beyond agony. She stands, takes his hands gently in hers, and tries to get him to notice her and hear what she is saying.
"Doctor, I'm going to take you to the med lab. Doctor can you hear me? Doctor please just let me lead you." She begins to pull him from his silent solid position. Feeling him resisting for a few moments until he gingerly puts one foot in front of the other. His eyes never clearing of the agony or seeing her, gasps and small screams when something is too painful, "Tardis the med lab better be the first room I get to."
The Tardis has already moved the doors so when Rose pushes on the door into the corridor she finds herself immediately in the med lab. Standard protocol and the least she can do for this little human who is trying to help her beloved Doctor, when he had locked her out of his thoughts earlier. She has the tools Rose can use to aid the wounds out and ready, A syringe full of a pain killer that will help him. But she knows he is close to the end of this particular torture and he has to fight mentally to not allow it to consume him. He is shut to her, is shut to the Tardis. The only one who might get through to him is Rose. But how to let Rose know she has to work on him mentally.
Rose backs into the room, pulling him slowly until he is stood in the centre of the space that would normally have a medical couch. That is pushed against a wall out of the way. Rose lets go of his arms and notices the equipment out on the side, notices the syringe filled and ready. She walks over to look at it and doesn't know how to administer the medicine, and tears run down her face in regret and deep fear that she would loose him. Be focused she tells herself. She knows the Tardis is telepathic; she has all the help she needs if she can open her mind to the Tardis.
She relaxes and listens quietly for a moment, hearing the different tones of the humming around her. Then her head is filled with images. A blinding flash of how to, a blinding flash of concern and fear from the Tardis. Then an even more fearful mental image of what she had to get him to do. She had to get him to focus on her, to focus on anything but the pain, because the pain was going to destroy him from the inside out.
Rose feels sick, but she shakes the feeling and the tears away, as she grabs the syringe and quickly stabs into his arm, releasing the liquid slowly into the muscle there. The painkiller wouldn't subdue everything only he could do that. But it would make working on the cuts easier.
She picked up a tool that looked like the sonic screwdriver but had a pink glow at the end rather than blue. She knew she had to run it over every single cut on his body. She knew it wouldn't heal it totally it would dull the poison that was in each individual wound would allow his body to begin fighting.
And she knew she had to talk. Had to talk as she worked, had to get his subconscious to allow her in, to allow him to begin to fight it. She knelt on the floor and started on his right foot. She started to count. Every wound as she ran the machine aver it and it stopped bleeding and covered over with a tiny scab. She got to 25 on his foot alone before she gently lifted the foot to see if there were any on the souls of his feet. That brought the total to 46. The left foot brought the total to 98.
She gave up counting, just worked hard and long. Her knees ached from being on the floor with nothing between them and the cold floor. But she refused to stop. Carried on and on until the right leg was done up to the knee, then the left was.
She stood them and turned to grab a small stool with wheels to sit on whilst she worked on the right calf, then the left. 2 hours had gone by, and he hadn't moved or made a sound. The Tardis reminded her she needed to talk to him. And she did, started to telling him about her life as a child growing up in London, anything that came into her head. The calves and thighs done, she moves around him on the stool to do his behind. She feels sick when she sees the ones around him there. Tears mist her eyes and she gulps back anger and fear that he will never be all right again.
Round to the front and she realises she is going to have to touch him intimately to be able to get to the wounds between his legs and around his balls and penis. She just starts telling him he better get the use of that back soon cause after this he was definitely not pushing her away anymore. In the melee of words that come out of her nervous and not quite connected mouth, as she concentrates on mending what she can, she doesn't realise she says the words I love you.
But he heard, through the deadened pain, thanks to the syringe of painkiller, he is beginning to fight back, hears her voice, but only hears three small words, I love you. He focused on those words and began to fight mentally in earnest. He was not going to allow this to destroy him. She loved him.
As she stood to go round to his back, she realises his just too tall and she begins to moan that she's going to have to get stepladders to do the rest.
"Do you want me to sit on the stool?" he says in a pain filled voice that was barely a whisper. And she runs round to his eyes and sees that he can focus on her even through the fight. She has to stop herself hugging him or touching him, she just grins and says yes pleased. Moves the stool for him, and then looses the happiness when he screams as he moves and sits down. His eyes are back to the mental fight and she sighs and goes to work on his back.
His back takes along time. They obviously enjoyed making it a ragged mess. She was exhausted. But she carried on; each individual wound mended and scabbed. Round to his stomach and chest. She finds herself on her knees between his legs and she grins at how much that dream had filled her sleeping hours. And she finds herself telling him about her dreams about him. About what she wants to do to him, and what she hopes one day he will do to her.
The right arm takes less time; they seem to have not spent much time on that one. The left seemed to have more to compensate, and her talking trailed off as she worked endlessly. Then she was working on his neck, around his head, checking for wounds through his short hair, nothing. She suddenly realises she has finished.
She stands back and looks him over, her eyes looking out for anything still bleeding. She can see nothing. She looks back at his eyes. They are him again. Him watching her. Him listening to her. She smiles at him and he smiles back, his hands reaching suddenly for hers, he brings her down to kneel in front of him. And he kisses her, his lips claiming hers for the first time and she drowns in the raw passion and need he fills it with, and the heartfelt thanks he gives as well. She doesn't wrap her arms around him, in case she starts any of the wounds bleeding again. But she knows he will be all right now. They both will.