Here's an extra long chapter for you all :) Please reveiw, I love to hear from you guys!

The ride back to the mainland was one of the most uncomfortable experiences that Rose and the Doctor had ever shared. To any outsider they would appear to be unhappy strangers. Rose had her back turned to the Doctor, ignoring him. She watched the now black sky and the tumultuous seas, thinking they very much were like the atmosphere between the Doctor and herself. This was not over; she hoped that the Doctor didn't think that he had gotten out of it. After being drug through the forest by the Doctor like an insolent child she didn't want to make a scene in front of everyone. But with the swirling wind and beginning rain drops Rose knew they were soon about to be closed in their hotel room for the night and the Doctor wasn't going to be able to run away like yesterday.

She had felt the Doctor's mind; she could feel his deep sadness and the fear that he would lose her. She wasn't sure how it had happened; she had felt the TARDIS' mind the first day they were here and she had felt the touch of Pete's mind while he'd been in the womb. But this was different somehow; she didn't understand it but she wanted to. As soon as the Doctor's mind had pulled from hers she had ached for it again.

As soon as the boat had docked, the Doctor was off, walking at a tremendously quick pace. He didn't glance behind him to see if Rose was following him. She struggled to keep up but was at least a little surprised when she saw his path leading to the hotel. She had half expected him to run off somewhere else even though the rain was beginning to beat down heavily, the wind making it difficult to walk.

Thunder was booming and lightening crackling through the sky as Rose reached their hotel room. The rain was heavy, soaking Rose to the skin as she opened the sliding door and entered their hotel bedroom. The room was dim but Rose could see the Doctor, drying off on the other side of the bed. He didn't turn when Rose came in, no doubt trying to ignore her. Rose walked around to the side of the bed that the Doctor was on and stood in front of him, shivering from the soaking wet clothes and her anger.

"What is happening, Doctor?" Rose asked, ripping the towel from his hands and tossing it across the room so that he couldn't focus on that. "What is happening to us?"

The room was silent, the only sound the violent rain crashing against the window before the Doctor finally spoke. "What do you mean, Rose?" he asked tiredly as if he really had no idea. She didn't buy it.

"What just happened?" Rose asked, her voice hard, keeping her anger at the forefront of her mind to avoid giving into her fear. "I felt your mind…..how did that happen?"

The Doctor looked at Rose, his eyes maintaining the hard look he had in the forest; now that she had felt his fear she knew this was to cover up his true feelings. "Just let it go, Rose" he urged her, caution in his tone.

Rose had never been one to give up and this certainly wasn't the time to change that. "I will not let it go, Doctor" she insisted, her voice rising. "Just talk to me! What was that whole ordeal, taking me out to that beautiful place and trying to be romantic but really not intending to get any closer to me?"

"Stop it" The Doctor said, scowling at her. "You're making this bigger than it has to be. Just drop it"

Rose hung her head; she couldn't believe him. "You know what, Doctor?" she asked, hurt creeping into her angry tone and making it hard to keep from doing something stupid like crying. "When we get off this planet, you take me back home and just leave" It hurt to even say it, but Rose meant it. If this was the way that they were going to be from now on then she couldn't handle it. She couldn't keep him at an arm's length any more.

"What?" The Doctor asked in astonishment.

"You heard me" Rose said, fighting to keep her fire. "If this is the way we are going to be now, I don't want any part of it"

"Don't be ridiculous" The Doctor said, anger fighting to hide his fear.

"I'm not" Rose insisted. Tears began to pull at her eyes again and she could hold them in. If she was losing him, really losing him, she couldn't be angry about it. She would just be dying. "I'm not being ridiculous. I don't even know you anymore, Doctor. We used to be close…..we used to be friends. Now we're not anything. I love you, you stupid alien" Rose chocked, swallowing back a sob. "I love you so much and I can't stand what we are now. We had a baby, Doctor. We had a baby and we lost him and we never talk about it. We never talk about anything"

Finally, Rose saw the anger melt away from the Doctor's expression at the mention of their child. His resolve was crumbling and it was shown in his pained expression. "I'm trying to protect you" the Doctor said, his voice strained.

"Protect me?" Rose asked, her voice cracking as a tear rolled down her cheek and fell off her face. "How is this protecting me? I'm hurting so much Doctor and I know you are too but ever since we left Earth, you've been running away. You never sleep…..you never let yourself slow down. You keep pushing me away" Rose swiped at her eyes, angry at her tears. "I want you to talk to me, to hold me…..I want to be able to spend a night with you. I want to know you're not going to leave again."

The Doctor looked at her with pained anger. "I thought you forgave me for that" he said.

And Rose had forgiven him for leaving her on Earth while he had gone to protect her and Pete. But with his behavior lately she could be sure he wouldn't leave. "I did…..but how can I feel safe when you run off any time I try to get close to you? Look what happened yesterday."

"What about it?" The Doctor asked, his tone defensive.

"You finally started to let yourself get close to me!" Rose burst out. "But then just as quickly you pulled back."

"That's because you….." The Doctor started to argue but quickly cut himself off. He seemed to recognize he was revealing something and he pulled back.

"Because I what?" Rose asked, not caring if he got angry. She needed answers one way or another. "Because I responded when you touched me? You're the one that bloody started it! I tried to pull away but you seemed so into it I thought for once you wouldn't pull back. But you did…..like you always did. Just because I touched you."

"Because you touched my mind!" The Doctor retorted angrily. There was silence for several seconds as they both took in what he said. The Doctor's eyes widened as he realized what he let slip and Rose stared back at him in surprise.

"I-I can do that?" she asked, wonder obvious in her tone.

The Doctor rubbed his eyes, obviously upset at the turn their conversation had taken. "You're not supposed to be able to" he said. "It's like with…our son" He paused a long time before he spoke again. "You and I could touch minds, like you and he did. But I should have to be the one to initiate it. You shouldn't be able to do it…..and certainly not without trying."

Rose thought about the TARDIS and how she had spoken to her; maybe her time with the TARDIS in her head had changed her mind in some way. Her mind reeled at the idea that she could have the close, intimate connection with him that she had one time shared with her child. The idea thrilled her and she couldn't understand why this was a bad thing.

"You…..act like it's a bad thing" Rose said.

"It is a bad thing" The Doctor said, looking at Rose with a glare that begged her to understand. She didn't.

"What? It's bad because you want to hide yourself from me?" Rose asked. "You don't want me to touch your mind because then you wouldn't be able to hide everything from me"

The Doctor cursed, rubbing his hair in frustration. "You don't get it Rose!" he said angrily. "I'm trying to protect you…..I don't want to hurt you"

"You're hurting me by hiding from me!" Rose exclaimed. "I really just want to know what is wrong"

The Doctor stood up from where he was sitting on the bed and closed the space between them. There was fire in his eyes as he looked down at Rose and she felt a shiver run through her that had nothing to do with her wet clothes. "You really don't want to know" he said coolly. "That's your problem, Rose. That you just don't know when to stop. This time, I'm telling you…..you really don't want to know"

Something in Rose urged her to drop the subject but the larger, more daring part of her urged her to go for it. She put her hands on the Doctor's face before he could stop her and looked into his eyes. "I really do" she said.

The last thing Rose saw was the anger cross over the Doctor's face; the last thing she felt was his hands on her wrists, pushing her towards the wall. And then…..she got the answer she'd been asking for. And it took her breath away.

Anger, bursting, burning anger ripped through her mind, threatening to tear her mind apart. A memory, like a movie, began to play in her mind, over and over again. She could see the body of a Dalek laying on the ground, ripped from its casing. Its body was broken and bleeding and it was screaming the most horrible scream of a tortured soul. Rose could feel her heart breaking as she heard it, wondering why she was seeing it and why it hurt so badly. Then she saw him; the full force of the oncoming storm. Rage and fire burned Rose through the force of the dream; she could feel the power of the Doctor's mind as he had ripped through the mind of the Dalek. It hurt so badly Rose wanted to scream, maybe she was screaming. But all she could feel and see was what was in the Doctor's mind. It was terrifying, the furry and power in the Doctor. It was not the Doctor she knew. Had it been just the vision of this image, the Doctor mercilessly ripping a Dalek apart in cold blood, it would have scared Rose, made her fear the Doctor.

But it wasn't just this vision that she got; she also got with it everything the Doctor felt. She could feel the raging hate he felt for the Daleks as a species. She could see Gallifrey burning, could see children being murdered in the street by the Daleks. She could feel the Doctor's sorrow at watching so many deaths at the hands of this enemy. She could feel how tortured he was, given a choice that no one should ever have to make; in order to kill his most hated enemy he also had to put his own race to death.

As powerful as those feelings were and how justified they made his animosity of this Dalek, it was a revenge against this Dalek alone that had made him snap, had made him lose his mind in that moment. This Dalek alone had threatened Rose, had threatened their son. She could feel his overwhelming love for them and his crippling fear that he was about to lose them, fear that he would fail and they would die. Terror that they would die and resignation that if they did it would kill him as well. Failure was not an option.

Rose's head was spinning; she felt like she was on a roller coaster and she just wanted to get off but she couldn't. As anger and fear washed over her in waves, it was replaced by guilt. The deepest guilt, the kind that made you feel as if you didn't even deserve to live. The Doctor's guilt was so heavy, constant; it was like a blanket over him, strangling the life out of him. It was my fault he died…if I hadn't stayed…..he'd be alive. I wasted time when I could have made it back in time. It's all my fault our son died…..if Rose ever found out, I'd lose her too.

Rose gasped as her mind suddenly was quiet. All the air was sucked from her, like falling on your back and getting the wind knocked out of you. Rose struggled to breathe as her mind was suddenly back to being her own, raw and painful from the exposure to the Doctor's tortured soul. She stood pressed against the wall, staring at the Doctor who had pulled back, horror on his face.

"Oh my God…..Rose, are you alright?" he asked, self-loathing and fear in his voice. "I didn't mean to…..I wasn't trying to…Rose…say something"

But Rose couldn't say anything; her tongue was frozen as her lips began to wobble. She could feel the tears begin to run down her face of their own accord and she couldn't stop them.

"Rose…..I'm so sorry…..did I hurt you?" The Doctor's voice was desperate, aching for her to give him an answer but Rose simply couldn't produce one. She didn't know yet if she was okay; she didn't know if she was hurt.

Rose looked once more into the Doctor's eyes before crumpling to the ground, curling into herself and beginning to sob. The Doctor knelt beside her, words of sorrow and concern spilling from his mouth every few seconds but Rose didn't hear it. She covered her head with her hands as her mind struggled to cope with what she had saw and felt.

After several minuets she came to realize that she wasn't hurt. Not really; she'd be fine. But emotionally she was hurt. She had no idea what the Doctor suffered with each day. He held so much pain….incredible pain and fear and guilt. How did he go on? She'd had her own share of guilt that she had been responsible for little Pete's death; she'd held guilt that somehow she had done something wrong to cause her miscarriage. The simple fact that her body had become uninhabitable for Pete once the energy of the TARDIS has left her gave her the sense that her very body was flawed and dangerous, that it had killed him. But she had worked through those feelings in the past few months and while her pain was strong and still very vibrant, she didn't hold the guilt anymore. The Doctor, however, had felt more guilt as time went on. The Doctor had not only killed the Dalek who had sought to destroy his family; he had mercilessly tortured him. He had made him pay not only for his own transgressions but for the sins of his entire race. The Doctor held extreme guilt for this; not only did he feel terrible for doing it, he felt guilt for the time he had taken doing it. Had he not wasted time, he could have saved their son, at least in his mind.

Rose knew a long time must have passed before she finally opened her eyes and looked up at the Doctor. His face was a mask of panic and guilt and she wondered how long she had kept him waiting. She rubbed her eyes and stared at the Doctor as he reached down and stroked her hair. "Rose…..I'm so…so…..sorry" he said tenderly. "I never meant this to happen…..this is exactly what I was afraid of happening. How bad are you hurt?"

Rose sat up, the Doctor helping her into a sitting position, his eyes not leaving her for a second. "I'm…..not hurt." Rose said.

"Rose, be honest" the Doctor said. "My mind…..I couldn't hold it back…..it was like it exploded. It had to have hurt you"

Rose shook her head in the darkness. "I'm really fine, Doctor" she said. She reached out and put her hands on his cheeks. "But you…Doctor. You're not fine" She rubbed her thumbs along his cheeks as a fresh tear ran down her face. "You're not fine at all. Why didn't you tell me?"

Guilt and sorrow crossed over the Doctor's face as he pulled back slightly, looking down at his lap. "I'm fine Rose…there isn't anything wrong with me" he started. "You-"

"Stop lying, Doctor" Rose admonished him. "Stop lying to me…..I saw it all. I saw your pain so don't you dare sit there and tell me you're fine when I know that you clearly are not. You're in so much pain…Doctor, let me help you"

The Doctor closed his eyes; when he opened them she could see the unshed tears that he was fighting to hold back. "Help me…..Rose, how can you even say that? Didn't you see what I did? I deserve no sympathy" he said, his voice of self -loathing.

"I saw everything" Rose said, taking the Doctor's hand. He tried to pull back but Rose held tight to his hand. "I saw what you did to that Dalek…..I saw it all."

"Aren't you terrified?" The Doctor asked, a tremble in his voice. He was the one that sounded terrified.

"No" Rose said quickly and with sincerity. The sight of it in her mind had been scary; the kind of power that the Doctor held was not something that she had ever known about. But the reason behind it made her not scared of him.

The Doctor pulled his hand away from Rose with force. "Well…..you should be" he said with anger on his tone. He stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the destruction of the storm outside. Rose could see him illuminated in the light of the lightening as he watched the rivers of rain run down the window and everything blow around from the strong wind.

Rose got off the floor of the bedroom and walked over to the window, standing behind the Doctor, rapping her arms around his waist from behind and laying her head on his back. "Doctor…..I'm not afraid of you. I never will be. I know you are so afraid that I would be scared of you…..that I would come to hate you for what you did. But I don't Doctor; because while I saw what you did, I also felt what you felt. I felt your fear…..you were so afraid of losing me and our baby. I felt how your greatest fear was that you would lose us…and how devastated you felt when you realized our baby died. I know how guilty you feel; you feel like if you hadn't done what you did that he'd still be alive. But Doctor, you can't blame yourself for that"

The Doctor detached himself from Rose's hold and turned around. His face was broken and tears were brimming on his eyelids. "Why can't I?" he asked in agony. "It's true…..if I had been here I might have been able to prevent your miscarriage."

"That's not true" Rose said, urging him so desperately to believe it. "You told me that yourself. That even if you were here…you couldn't have done anything. You've got to believe that yourself…you made me believe it"

A tear made its way out of the Doctor's eye and ran down his cheek, making Rose hurt. He swatted at the tear as soon as it appeared, seeming embarrassed by its appearance. "I can't…..every time I close my eyes…..it's there to remind me I failed." He said miserably. Another tear appeared and the Doctor clawed at his face to make it go away. "I wasn't going to let it happen again…I was going to save my family this time"

Rose heart broke; she knew, at least vaguely that the Doctor had had a family a long time ago. They had died and he felt responsible; he had tried to do everything that he could to keep that from happening this time. And while Pete had died as the result of an accident that no one could have prevented, the Doctor blamed himself for it.

Rose never wanted to see the Doctor as vulnerable as he was now, his face looking so much younger than it normally did in the glow of the lightening, with occasional tears running down it, but Rose hoped if he was this openly vulnerable, it might mean that they could finally get somewhere. Rose took the Doctor's hand and led him over to the bed. He reluctantly lay down and Rose lay behind him. She put her arm around him and pulled him close to her chest, glad when he didn't pull back. "Doctor…..why didn't you tell me? About the nightmares?" she asked.

"You know….." The Doctor said, his voice more raw now that his face was hidden from Rose. "I didn't want you to know what I did. Every time I sleep I see…..that Dalek and what I did. How could I tell you that and expect sympathy?"

Rose had been so lost and confused these past few months; the Doctor's distance from her had hurt her terribly. She couldn't understand after all that they had been through how he could possibly distance himself from her. But now she did; the in depth look into the Doctor's mind had explained it all. He had been so afraid of getting close to her because she would see him for who he was that he pulled away from her. In his mind, having a cold relationship was better than getting close and then losing it all. "Is that why you've been pulling away from me?" Rose asked, a slight tremble in her voice.

The Doctor didn't answer her question; the silence in the room was almost too loud. Rose felt her throat close when she thought about how painful the Doctor's distance had been lately. If she didn't tell him now she might not ever have the courage to tell him. She knew completely what he was feeling but he didn't know what she had been feeling; not if she didn't tell him.

"Doctor…..I have needed you more these past three months than I have ever needed you" Rose said, her voice shaking from nerves and sadness. "But you haven't been there. You've been there, technically, but you have done nothing but run from me. You told me you loved me and then you left me. You won't talk to me, you won't…..touch me. I feel like I didn't just lose our baby but I lost you too"

There was a long pause and Rose thought the Doctor was going to remain silent again. She wasn't sure what she would have said if she had poured out her heart and he had said nothing. "You haven't lost me" the Doctor said quietly. "I'm just…..afraid of hurting you"

"What hurts me is you keeping your distance" Rose admitted. She couldn't expect the Doctor to be honest with her if she wasn't honest with him. "Talk to me…..tell me what you are feeling. Don't pull away when I try to touch you…..to love you."

"But if I get close to you…" The Doctor started but he didn't finish. He seemed scared; a scared Doctor was not something that she was used to seeing.

"What, Doctor?" Rose asked. "What bad thing could possibly happen if we got closer?" She ached deep down inside when she thought about how much she longed to be closer to him.

"You would see everything…everything that I was and am" The Doctor said. "I couldn't let myself touch you…..hold you too much. If I let my barriers down I would show you more than I wanted to"

"What do you mean, Doctor?" Rose asked gently. He had already shown her something terrifying about himself, something he was sure would drive her away. What more could possibly be holding him back? Rose longed for that warm, closeness in her mind that she didn't understand but that she wanted more than anything from him.

"Time lords aren't…intimate…..the same way humans are" The Doctor said, his voice shy and embarrassed. "Physical intimacy is only a very small fraction of it. The biggest part for us is the mental aspect of it. Time lords could…..open their minds to each other and see everything the other one was feeling and thinking"

"Is that like what happened…..between us on accident?" Rose asked "The day you…..went off alone"

The Doctor turned in the bed so that he was facing Rose. Guilt flashed on his face as he replayed the memory in his mind. "That was a very small taste of what it could be like" he said. "After we started to be physical with each other I became…frightened….because I wanted that mental connection with you. It wasn't fair to ask that of you and I wanted it so much that I was afraid I wouldn't ask it of you. I was afraid I'd just take it. A mental connection of that sort is very intense; it could hurt you. Humans are not normally able to even experience that connection; what you did by connecting to me without even trying is unheard of between time lords and humans"

Rose felt her heart beat speed up at the Doctor's words; she was sure that the Doctor was intending to alarm her by telling her of his intense feelings but it had the opposite affect. He wanted to be close to her just as much as she wanted to be close to him. She resisted the urge to close the small space between them and kiss him; she wanted to handle this moment as delicately as possible so she didn't frighten him away. "That's a good thing, right?" Rose asked, hoping that he saw it as something good. "If it's easy to make that connection we can by that close, right? Because I want that Doctor"

A slight flush came to the Doctor's cheeks and Rose saw that flash in his eyes right before he normally ran. She feared he would do that now; run from her when they were so close to getting to the place that they needed to be. Rose desperately wanted him to believe that even with his broken, damaged parts she loved him and wanted nothing more than for him to feel that. She was glad when he didn't run but opened his mouth to respond. "Rose….I don't think you understand what you're asking for" the Doctor said, urgency in his tone.

"I understand that I love you, Doctor" Rose said, feeling her eyes tear up slightly. "That no matter how much you think what you showed me should make me not love you, I do. I've loved you for a long time Doctor and I just want you to let me show you. If that's as close as we can get, I want to do it"

"But you'll see everything" The Doctor said, as if it was all the reason in the world not to do it. But to Rose it felt like all the reason to do it. The Doctor had always been a man of many mysteries; much of his past and who he was was hidden from her. She wanted to know who he was, who he really was. But she could see in his face, in his ancient eyes that he had built barriers around himself from the world for a long time and they made him feel safe. To be exposed was something he felt was very uncomfortable about.

"I know….that's why I want to do it" Rose said, giving him an encouraging smile. "I don't want you to hold back anymore. I want you to let go; be a mystery to the rest of the universe but don't be a mystery to me. And if I see everything about you, you'll also see everything about me, right?" Rose did feel fear at the prospect of the Doctor seeing who she really was too; she had a lot of secrets, a lot her own darkness. But this was the Doctor; if she could be honest with anyone it would be him.

"Yeah…..but…" the Doctor stumbled, trying to think of a reason not to do it. He didn't seem to be coming up with a convincing argument.

"I'm not asking a lot Doctor…..let's just take things slow?" Rose asked. She could sense that the Doctor was just at the edge of letting himself fall and she wanted him to. She leaned down and pressed the feather of a kiss to his lips. "Please?" she whispered, her lips brushing his as she spoke. Rose felt like her heart was in her stomach, wishing with all that she had that the Doctor would give in. Even baby steps would mean they were going in the right direction.

"Rose…" The Doctor said, his arms around her. His tone spoke volumes more than his words. Rose, I can't fight it…..I want to fight it but you're making it so I cant. Stop. She could feel his breath on her lips and made her shiver. She was so lonely and she wanted him so much. She had no intentions of pulling back when he was begging to be able to run still.

"Doctor…..please. I miss you…..please just let me do this" Rose almost begged him. She let her fingers trace along his temples for a mere fraction of a second, not long enough to make a connection but enough that he shivered.

Rose stood up, taking the Doctor's hand. When she pulled him toward her she was glad that he followed her.