Truth and Nightmares

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The Doctor was left standing speechless at the console. He could hardly believe what he had just seen! Not only that, but in the 'path that hadn't been taken' she had told him her name… And he'd just called her Rose.

Had to be out of habit, right?

He needed to talk to her. He needed to know what had happened to her. He needed to know who she was. It was driving him mad! - He involuntarily shivered at the memory of her falling apart before him with madness.

The Doctor strode down to her room that he'd begrudgingly stayed quiet about her staying in, and didn't bother to knock. Though he was planning on being nice, he couldn't afford to be too polite with pleasantries.

Stepping in, he saw her sitting on her bed, tears running down her cheeks, though they were no longer golden. And she had a glass of water in one hand, something else clasped in the other. Around them, the TARDIS was humming in distress. In a second he realised what was happening. He lunged forward and grabbed her by the wrist just before she put the pills in her mouth.

"What the hell are you doing?" he hissed angrily.

"I have a headache," she said in bewilderment and confusion. She sounded so broken and innocent.

"So you decided to commit suicide!"

She looked at him in confusion a moment longer, then her eyes widened in realisation. Her hand sprung open and the two painkillers fell to the floor.

"Oh!" she gasped in horror. "Oh god, I forgot!" She covered her mouth in horror at the thought that she had very nearly killed herself. Fresh tears came to her eyes and he jumped on the bed and pulled her to him. It was such a natural reaction that it took a moment for him to realise he'd done it. By then she was sobbing into his shoulder, and he didn't have the hearts to let her go. She needed the comfort.

At the back of his mind he wondered if she'd ever been kept in that cell they'd seen. He could all too clearly recall her muttering about being trapped. And Rassilon, he hoped she hadn't.

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A few minutes later, her sobs subsided and she became floppy and relaxed on top of him. When he brushed back her hair he saw her eyes closed, her deep breaths were sweeping evenly across his collarbone and he shivered. He made to leave, but she whimpered and her grip tightened. Once again, he didn't quite have the hearts, so instead he snuggled down and got them into a more comfortable position, kicking off his chucks in the process.

The movement seemed to wake her up a little and she squeaked sleepily, letting out a tired high pitch sigh.

"Theta?" she murmured quietly. He wasn't too sure if she was even half awake.

"Yes," he whispered.

"I forgive you," she told him, her voice hardly above a whisper. "I don't care you broke your promise. I'm just glad I have you back. I missed you." With that, she stilled and said no more, her breathing deep and even once again.

The Doctor had frozen beneath her as everything she'd said fell into place. That one sentence, 'I don't care you broke your promise'. He couldn't believe he'd been so blind as to not have seen it before.

He had made a promise that was out of his control, and it had been broke. She had gone mad when she looked into the Schism. She had only known him for a short time, yet cared for him more than anything. Things kept coming back to Drall, a man who had taken it upon himself to 'look after' her - if you could even call it that. She knew a horrid woman called Matron. She had said 'Z'… Z for Zeta.

Zeta, the long lost friend who had been taken away from him. The adorable, blue eyed girl who had taken his hearts, but never known it. He would never admit it, but when he had been younger and still held hope that she would recover and come back, he had hoped that he would have been matched with her. He cared for her so much one could almost say he was in love with her. He would never have seen it as an arranged marriage.

Gallifreyans held love for one another, especially their children. But they didn't really fall in love. They held respect for their friends and spouses'. Spouses that they had been matched with to maximise the potential of the offspring… Falling in love was rare, that love being requited was even rarer.

He almost laughed. He remembered at one point he had searched for Zeta's birth parents. He had never found out why they had been forced to give her up, but they had hated it. All he knew was that they had loved her, and they had loved each other. It was funny, looking back now, that it was in fact a couple that had fallen in love that were the ones to give birth to what was possibly the most powerful Gallifreyan in history.

…The most powerful Gallifreyan in history. It scared him… scared the both of them.

"Zeta," he murmured, pulling her closer to him. "Oh, my dear Zeta. What happened to you?"

?...DW…?

Fifteen minutes later the Doctor was pulled from his doze like state by the figure shifting restlessly in his arms. Zeta whimpered and curled into him tighter.

"No…" she whimpered, trying to fend away the nightmare by using him. Tears squeezed from her tightly scrunched eyes, down her cheek. "Let me out, please, let me go…" her voice was only a murmur, but it rose to a cry and her next desperate plea. "Theta!"

"Zeta," he called shaking her lightly. Her eyes snapped open. "I'm here. It's okay, look." Looking at him, she let out chocked sob. Then she grabbed him by the lapels and dragged him to her and she curled desperately onto his chest. She was no longer crying, she didn't have many tears left. But she needed the contact, this contact. She needed to know he was really here.

"It's not a dream, it's not a dream," she muttered. "This is real, that was the dream. I'm on the TARDIS."

"Yes, this is real, you're here," he told her comfortingly, stoking her hair.

"Say it again," she demanded brokenly. "I need to hear you tell me that I'm not going to wake up back in that…"

"Cell?"

"No. No they hadn't put me in the cell yet. But I heard them talking about it… I was held in Drall's homes. My room was the only one with a decent window. It was the only one that my paintings would stay on. Everything else was white. Never ending white walls that closed in on me… I told you that fear wasn't irrational."

"And you were there the whole time?" he asked. "After you looked into the Schism, they kept you there?"

"I did try and escape," she smiled. "Nearly succeeded eight times."

"What happened?"

"If I got too far for them to stop me… they'd shoot. I didn't really care. I would have used up all my regenerations trying to get back to you. You were the only good thing in my life before I became human."

The Doctor mulled over those words… over everything she'd said that day.

"You're wrong you know," he told her quietly.

"What?" she looked up at him with fear in her eyes.

"You said that I didn't care, that I never tried looking for you. I did. We were eighteen when I was allowed my first leave from the Academy. Koschei didn't really bother. He just accepted that you'd been driven mad and thought you'd be better off alone. But I had to see you. I couldn't believe what they said. So I came to see you. The whole mansion was heavily guarded. I didn't get why they were so adamant not to let me in. I told them seeing me would probably help you… I tried coming back every day that month I was out. At least once a week every leave after that. They'd never let me in… Some-sometimes I heard you screaming…"

She ducked her head in and curled in even tighter - if that was possible. "I'm so sorry, Zeta."

"Don't call me that," she told him. "I hate that name. It was a name I was given, and they used it to hurt me."

"Then what am I supposed to call you?"

"Rose." He groaned and opened his mouth to argue. "I. Am. Rose," she growled sliding up to look him in the eye. "I always have been. Something must have gone wrong with the change, or the TARDIS felt sorry for me or something. Because I was a baby, I didn't need a rewrite of my personality. Just a memory wipe and species change. And changing back was different because to me it's not a dream. It was all real. I love Jackie. Thinking of Pete dying in my arms still makes me want to cry. I look at you and I am so in love that I would rather die now then leave you. Why won't you see that I am Rose Tyler!" She grabbed his hands from around her and pressed his fingers to her temples. "Look!" she cried, her voice almost coming out as a growl.

"I - I can't," he stuttered.

"You have my permission. Everything, I'm not holding anything back. Now look!"

She gave his mind a little nudge forward. He felt the warmth and comfort it provided, and that was all his curious mind needed. Almost of its own accord, his mind went all the way into her mind.

Then he was drowning as memory after memory washed over him. He watched her grow up in the hands of her uncaring Matron. The happiness in her life as she ran through her childhood with him. He finally understood why she never wanted to go home, why she would have rather stayed at his side forever. He was her hope in a loveless life. Then he saw the torture her life became when she was taken away from him and locked away. It made his blood boil to see how cruel his kind really had been.

Then everything changed. All her memories were gone and she was starting life anew. It wasn't the best life, bought up by a broke single mother on a council estate. But she was loved. She always felt lucky for what she had. No matter how things went, how dull or horrible her human life became, she had always felt happy and optimistic, and glad that things weren't worse. Because part of her knew that there was something worse.

Things became even better when a man with large ears and a leather jacket came into her life. He felt her joy of seeing so much, her wonder of the universe. He felt her excitement as they stepped out onto a new planet. He felt her fear that something was going to happen, not to her, but to him. He felt her grow closer and closer and even grow to love him. He felt her fear and confusion and loss when he had regenerated. And he felt the joy when she realised he was still her Doctor. He felt her love grow more and more…

He felt…

That was what he noticed. He felt. He shouldn't be able to feel, because those memories should have no emotion attached. But he did. He had felt all her emotions, because they were still there.

"But… that's not possible," he rasped.

"Isn't it?" she said gently, running a hand along his jaw. She felt him shudder and knew that he was trying to quash the hope. He'd lost so much he wouldn't be able to handle a false hope. She didn't know if she would be able to handle it if he still refused to believe her.

"But-but how could - there's no way that - it's never- how-?" he was at a loss for words as he battled with the unbelievable hope swelling in him. Because what he had seen had only meant one thing.

"I don't know," she said cupping his face in her hand and making sure he looked her in the eyes. She could see the anguish in his and wanted it gone. "It's never happened before, but then again, neither has the way that I was changed. I'm just glad it did happen. I would hate not really being a part of the best years of my life. And it turns out I was still me either way, it's no wonder I fell for you so fast."

He hadn't kept eye contact with her since she had changed back. He couldn't stand to look at her and see someone else looking back at him from her eyes. But looking at her now pushed him over the edge. Seeing the pure 'Rose' in her eyes, he pulled her to him and buried his head in her shoulder.

"I love you, Rose," he mumbled into her neck after a long moment. And he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it really was her.

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About bloody time! Just a few more chapters left. Hope you enjoyed it!