A/N: To my biggest fan, JasmineVsAngels: Hey. I love you. This is my only guaranteed way to get in touch with you-I'm not sure why my message didn't reach you (don't suppose it's floating around in your inbox?) and the website won't allow me to directly respond to your reviews. How's about you try sending me a private message from my profile and I'll respond to it.
Speaking of reviews, you should all consider it, fa la la. Just under 3% of readers review, did you know?

"No! Cross-shields! Shields!"

Rose awoke with a start and sat bolt upright, her hair lightly mussed in spite of the brevity of her sleep. The Doctor thrashed beside her, eyes wide open and wild, hands with fingers splayed. Thoroughly frightened, Rose scrambled to her knees and—and held back. What could she do? Oh, but he was going to hurt himself, he had almost certainly already done so. Words flew from babbling lips as he fought whatever demons only he could see. A memory of the past? A hallucination? She couldn't be sure.

"Doctor," she said, as she had said a dozen times the last few days, the concern in her voice so familiar by now. She reached out a hand to touch him, still him, but he flung out an arm and pushed it away.

"You are not my mother!" he growled. "You—are not—not—you are not my mother!"

There was something in his eyes, something behind the feverish sheen. He didn't recognize her, she was sure of it. And in spite of all his injuries, she was certain that he was, in that instant, dangerous.

"Doctor, please—" she said, cringing in anticipation of an attack, verbal or physical or both. He wasn't him, he wasn't the Doctor, he was a wounded man drowning in pain and delirium and there was no predicting what it would do to him. In spite of herself, she shifted closer and reached out a shaky hand. His eyes rolled this way and that and he closed them with a muffled scream and pounded the floor with his fists. When her open palm made contact with his skin, he snapped to look at her, panting.

"She's trying to kill me! You're trying to kill me! She's trying to kill me! Get her off me, she's trying—she's trying—she's trying to kill me, to kill me, kill me, get off, get her off of me!"

Rose recoiled. He was further gone than she had thought, the Doctor all but vanished to make way for this seething man who didn't see her, didn't trust her. When was he going to come back? Even from where she knelt, she could feel the heat emanating from his body, the fever burning inside him. He struggled on the ground, thrashing and turning his head this way and that, and Rose could do nothing but watch, horrified. This was what torture did, then. It wasn't the pain and the fear and the imprisonment, it was the gentle loosening of the locks in the mind, the inviting curled finger beckoning in fever and madness. But this wasn't madness, this was illness. But illness was madness. But….

Incomprehensible phrases scattered this way and that across the room as the Doctor shouted and snarled. If Adam was watching this…if the camera was on…. Well, Rose thought bitterly, he must be getting a good show out of this. For a time she wasn't sure what to feel: was it the seething anger towards their captors for what their actions had done to the Doctor, or was it terror that he wouldn't recover, that they wouldn't get out in time, that this infection would end up killing him?

But he would regenerate. And she would be left with a stranger of sorts, a new man who hadn't yet discovered who he was. Someone with a different face, a different hand to hold, and though she knew that his suffering was prolonged this way she wished desperately that he wouldn't change, that he would hold on for her. He couldn't leave her, not like this. Because regenerating would mean becoming a Doctor who wasn't her Doctor, not yet, and she needed him now more than ever. Someone familiar, someone in whom she had the utmost confidence. His presence in that cell with her, while not the only thing keeping her fighting, was the only thing keeping her sane.

It was a long hour before his cries tapered off into muffled moans and his thrashing was replaced by shivering. It was another five minutes before Rose was convinced that it was safe to approach him. She crept closer, eyeing him nervously. If he lashed out again…. And while she genuinely did fear for herself, she could only imagine how much damage he had done to his injuries in the oblivion of his fit. It occurred to her that maybe she ought to remove the bandages from the infected wounds of his back—wasn't there something about airing out wounds? Or was that only the less serious ones? What if they needed cleaning? There was still some water from the food and drink that—untainted and poison-less—had been provided earlier. Yet, if she used the water to wash out the wounds, there was no more bandaging to wrap him back up and hold him together like a broken doll. Not that she could roll him on his front; while it would no doubt be infinitely more comfortable—or rather, less painful—for him to lie on his stomach, his legs ensured that that could not be done. She didn't dare so much as roll him on his side.

Just as importantly, using the water on his back meant less water for drinking, and there was no knowing when they would be given more. If they would be given more. Which raised the question of how long they were going to be here. Was it a matter of patience? When Adam became tired of them would he throw them out the door and leave them to crawl home?

The Doctor took a deep, rattling breath; Rose realised that she had been staring into space and snapped back to the present. The Doctor's eyes had been closed since the shivering resumed, and now they fluttered open. He mumbled something, the noise a rumbling tremor in his throat, and Rose leaned closer.

"What?" she said tentatively, not knowing whether he was yet lucid.

"Is I'm…." He started again, looking confused. "Is I'm…I'm…. I am…. Cross-shields of Zio. Of Io. Io, Zio…." He cleared his throat, blinked, closed his eyes. Opened them again. Blinked at her. Recognition was only partly there, the rest a haze, and yet she thought he knew her. Enough, at the very least, to accept that she was not trying to kill him. That had been the worst of it.

"Hey," Rose said.

"Hello."

Rose made a brave attempt to smile. Was it too soon to touch him? Should she take his hand? She settled for adjusting the jumper that had fallen from him as he fought his own body. "Do you know who I am?"

"You're Rose," he said groggily.

"Do you know where you are?"

He swallowed and again cleared his throat. "Not really," he mumbled.

"And—and how are you feeling?"

The Doctor looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. "Not so good."

Not for the first time since they had been locked up, Rose found herself wondering what her mother would do. Nineteen years of caring for a daughter who had had her share of sick days and colds and fevers, scrapes, aches, pains, and there had been enough days spent at home on the sofa with a mug of tea and a blanket. Keep warm and hydrate.

Standing, Rose grabbed a bottle of water from the leftover food supplies and struggled to twist off the cap one-handed. Growling with frustration, she stuck it under her arm and found that the bottle simply turned along with the cap when she twisted. In the end she knelt and wedged it between her knees, managing to spill water on herself when at last the cap came off. She cursed; in the frigid air the water soaking her trousers was very cold. With a hint of anger she wished that she had dressed more warmly for their Christmas visit. Now that she was sans jumper, the air nipped at her bare arms. But if she had another layer, she would have given it to the Doctor in an instant.

Rose set the bottle down and scooted to a position just behind the Doctor's head. "C'mere, you. Up you get," she said, and she lifted his heavy head with her hand and shuffled forward to rest it on her thighs as she knelt. He grunted and, possibly because he was so weak, didn't resist. Rose picked up the bottle of water and brought it to his lips. "Drink this, all right?"

He looked at it and blinked, trying to focus.

"It's just water," Rose said.

Obediently he parted his lips and she tilted the bottle ever so slightly. In spite of her care a trickle of water dribbled down his chin and she wiped it from him with her bandaged hand, ignoring the twinge that the action caused. He drank until she gently tilted the bottle back upright and eased it from his lips to set it down, half full.

"Are you hungry?"

He shook his head silently and shivered.

"Is there anything I can do?" She pulled the jumper up around his neck as though it were a blanket, though of course it was far too small to serve the purpose of one.

"No need to mother me, Rose," he muttered, almost inaudibly, and Rose was so surprised that she laughed out loud. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards in the smallest of smiles; she thought she saw a little of his usual self and for the first time since she had woken from her nap she began to breathe normally, releasing what felt like ten years of tension in her chest.

"It's you," she said, laughing.

"A little bit of me," he said, voice raspy. He cleared his throat and closed his drooping eyelids.

Rose wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stave off the cold. "There must be something I can do for you. Tell me."

"I'd tell you to elevate the legs," he said with a touch of pained humour, "but please don't."

The statement made Rose want to laugh and cry at the same time but she did neither. Rather, she watched over the Doctor, who in spite of his current state of clarity looked positively wretched. There were dark circles under his eyes and the strain marked his face. Neither of them had bathed in what must have been three or four days—how long had it been?—and it showed. She could smell it, too, his sweat, a strange odour bearing a resemblance to human perspiration but mildly different; she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Because she didn't know what else to do, she once more felt his forehead, perhaps in a desperate hope of finding that the fever had broken. He was as hot as before. The absence of the delirium didn't mean a thing.

Heavy hearted, Rose rested her hands on his shoulders and took a deep breath. "What am I going to do," she said quietly. The Doctor didn't answer.

As it seemed her only option, Rose settled down to work on an escape plan. Things were harder now than ever, more hopeless, more risky. No matter how she did it, pulling the Doctor out of that cell would result in extraordinary pain for him. She had one useful hand, he had no legs to stand on, and it wasn't as though she could carry him up all those stairs herself. Even with the use of two hands, that would be a torment for both of them, especially him. She imagined his feet bumping against every step on the way up and grimaced at the thought. Yet, if it got them out…surely it would be worth it?

She lay down on the ground and curled up next to the Doctor, sharing his warmth and offering him hers. A symbiosis of heat and companionship. Getting out of this room was easy enough now that they had the sonic screwdriver, but Adam was watching and would either summon Alan and Paul or administer the electric shock through Jackie's anklet. He had planned it well: the fear of harming her mother kept Rose from action. He had made sure they knew that he was more than a distant image. As long as he was watching, he was a threat. Unless…. Unless she took out the camera. Without eyes, Adam wouldn't know for sure what was going on in their prison. He was too clever to assume mechanical failure. He would know straight away that something was up. If he suspected that they were attempting an escape, the first thing he would do would be to check for the screwdriver, see if it was where he had left it. And that would be the moment when Jackie was punished for Rose's actions.

It wasn't enough time. If there were a way for Rose to take out Adam's entire computer system, then they had a chance. Adam would be temporarily incapacitated, trapped in 2012 where he belonged until he could get the system running again, and from 2012 he couldn't harm Jackie. At least, that was Rose's assumption. An assumption that she desperately hoped was true. With Adam gone the only true obstacles were Paul and Alan. The stairs were a problem, but one less urgent. Rose was far more concerned about bypassing the people who aimed to hurt them for sport.

What was especially frustrating was the fact that it would have been so extraordinarily simple to remove the anklet from Jackie or to inhibit its functionality with a single zap of the screwdriver. But that required proximity, and there was almost no chance at all that Jackie would be allowed back in the basement cell. Her job was to act as a hostage to make Rose and the Doctor fearfully behave. Her presence in that hospital was Adam's threat to them. The only chance of her joining them in the basement, Rose thought, would be if Adam required an extra level of fun and sent her along with Paul and Alan to stand by the sidelines and witness the next round of torture. Because there would be a next round, Rose was certain of that. The Doctor was at his limit, his breaking point, and Adam knew this. This was what Adam had wanted all along, what he had been waiting for: for the Doctor to lose all courage, all strength and identity, to snivel at his feet. He was so close to defeating the Doctor and he knew it.

Rose was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't notice the change in the Doctor's condition. Had it been gradual? She couldn't say. But when her bare arm pressed against him as she shifted on the cold ground, she could feel the difference in temperature. She sat up, pushing her blonde hair behind her ear, and leaned over him. His eyes were closed; he didn't seem to notice. The only evidence that he was even alive came from the slight tremors as his body reacted to the cold. Only the shivering and restless breathing, in and out, such shallow, shaky breaths.

Gingerly, Rose extended an arm and placed light fingers on his neck. He twitched but otherwise there was no response. She held the back of her hand against his skin. It was cool and clammy, and she could feel his pulse throbbing against her hand. His heartsbeats were fast; too fast, even for him. What was this? A symptom of the infection? A complication from the legs? What was happening to him? If only she could turn him on his side, examine his back, she could try to flush out the infection, anything. There was nothing she could do for the legs, but he shouldn't be lying on his back. Things were getting worse. The burning heat that had so alarmed her earlier was in some ways less frightening than this cold skin, and she couldn't keep out the thought that when he was dead and gone his body would be just as cold, just as rigid. Flesh like death.

She muttered his name, needing a response, a verification that he was still with her. Quietly he said something in a language she couldn't understand. Gallifreyan, she guessed. She placed a hand on his face and his eyes fluttered open.

"You stay with me," she said, her voice shaking. "All right? Don't you leave me."

He wet his lips with his tongue. "I'm right here," he told her in a voice weaker than before.

"Just hold on, okay? Hold on, Doctor." She brushed his hair back from his forehead and pressed her lips to it.

"Is that a magic kiss?" he rumbled throatily, his eyes closing again.

"God, I hope so."

"Is there a morphine substitute?"

"N-not exactly." She forced a smile that he didn't see and took his hand. It was still relatively warm; that seemed like a good sign. One good sign in the midst of a dozen bad ones. Did that still make it a good sign or did that make it a false hope?

She had known that the door would open again. That Paul and Alan would be back, and that for once Adam would be joining. She had suspected that Adam would want a front row seat this time, that he hadn't finished with them. He would want to see the Doctor break up close. He would want to be there in person to watch the Doctor beg for mercy. But the last session had been so recent, and Adam had set an ugly pattern: torture, then wait. Then torture again. This was too soon, she hadn't had time to think up a proper escape plan, she needed time.

Adam strolled in first, followed by Paul and then Alan, who had evidently been tasked with holding the door open for Adam. Paul headed straight for the bulging bags set against the wall, while Adam gleefully strode towards the cage where Rose and the Doctor sat waiting with bated breath. The Doctor kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling rather than acknowledge Adam's presence, but Rose was unable to look away as Adam curled his fingers around the bars and peered in.

"Hello, darlings," he said, his lips drawing into a smirk.

"Adam," Rose began, forcing her voice into a calm tone. "Please, let us go. Whatever we did to you, I'm sorry. We can make it right, we can fix this, just—please, let us go."

Adam tilted his head to the side. "Do I detect desperation?"

"I'm asking you to look at what you're doing. You're human, Adam, you're not a monster!"

"Answer the question, Rose," he said mildly.

"You want me to say it out loud?" Rose said, looking up at him from the floor. "Yes, I'm desperate. I am desperate, because I'm stuck in this bleedin' cellar while you torture my best friend and make me deal with the aftermath. I'm desperate because he's lyin' here with a raging fever and who knows what else, and I haven't got any medical supplies, and he's going to die if he doesn't get help. Desperate? Yeah, maybe a little bit."

The Doctor stirred beside her and tilted his head back to look at her. There was an odd expression on his face that she couldn't read. Then he blinked and it was gone. Adam stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned casually against the bars.

"You're right," he said with a faint snicker. "He doesn't look so well."

"You bastard!" Rose screamed, snapping. She leaped at the bars, trying to reach Adam through them, to claw at him or punch him, to harm him in any way she could. He merely took a step back and watched her efforts from just beyond her reach. Rose was aware that she was losing control, but she didn't care. This man—this thing— She couldn't organize her thoughts, everything was anger with a touch of panic. He was never going to release them. He would watch as the Doctor died or regenerated, and then he would keep going. He was not going to stop, because Adam Mitchell was a sadistic, power hungry madman.

Adam laughed loudly, pointing and turning his back on her to look at his hired thugs. "Careful, Alan!" he laughed. "You've got a handful with this one." He swivelled to face Rose again. "See, at first I told him, 'No, Alan, you can't take her.' And he whined and fussed for a time, you know, but now that things are getting interesting, well, you can't blame me if I let him have his turn. After all, you did make him a promise. Didn't you, Rose? You promised sex. Are you a whore? Are you a filthy whore, Rose?"

Rose let out an inhuman snarl and clutched at the bars, seething. If he came just three inches closer, she would shred his skin with her fingernails. A hand clutched her ankle, and she looked down. The Doctor locked eyes with her and shook his head no, lips drawn tightly together. No what? No, don't fight them? No, it won't happen? Rose took a deep breath and let it out slowly, backing away from the bars. The Doctor's grip on her ankle loosened and he released her.

Paul and Alan stepped forward and Alan cleared his throat. Adam smiled and took two or three steps back to make way for them. It was time.

Rose wasn't aware of when she started shaking, but once she noticed she couldn't stop. Her hands, her legs…. She felt like she was crumbling, deteriorating from unstable foundations. She was falling apart.

"Right here will do," Adam said. He pointed to a space on the floor just beyond the door of the larger cage. A space where, conveniently, Rose would be able to see the torture in high definition. "She should have a nice view, don't you think?" he asked of his henchmen. Alan grinned. Paul went to fetch one of the bags, hauling it over to the designated spot.

"Stop it, Adam, please, stop it," Rose begged, knowing that he wasn't going to listen. "Please!"

Her heart beat faster, hammering in her chest. She dropped to her knees and clutched at the Doctor protectively, grabbing fistfuls of his coat. "They won't take you, they won't, I won't let them," she murmured. She could hear his rapid breathing. They were both frightened, though he hid his fear much better than she. In spite of it all, he was still brave. But he wouldn't be for much longer.

With a gesture, Adam sent his men to fetch their victim. Alan pulled the key from around his neck. Paul stood by with a knife, perhaps as a warning to Rose not to resist. She glared at him and he smiled slowly. Adam watched as Paul and Alan entered the cage and Alan grabbed Rose, pulling her off of the Doctor.

"This'll be us later," he breathed into her ear with his peppermint breath. She shuddered and struggled, but he had her arms clamped against her chest and her efforts to kick him were in vain.

"No!" she shouted. "Get off!"

Alan laughed and mashed her body against his. She felt something hard prod into her lower back and, repulsed, she struggled all the more.

Meanwhile Paul had the Doctor's wrists in both hands and was dragging him out the door of the cell. Too weak to fight back, too injured, the Doctor panted and yelped as his injuries met fresh pain. Alan shoved Rose against the wall, hard, and she cried out as her head collided with the concrete. Dazed, she was dimly aware of Alan closing the cage door behind him and locking her inside, alone.

There was no need for restraints now. Handcuffing the Doctor would have made no difference. He was utterly helpless, lying on the ground with legs broken and back torn. He could only watch as they began their gruesome exercise. Rose, on the other hand, would not watch. She could not. It was too horrible. They had forced her to be close by for the torture but they couldn't make her look. She turned her face to the wall and rested her forehead against the cold surface, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. But she could hear everything. She heard a zipper as Alan opened one of the bags of instruments. She heard metallic clanging as he shuffled through it in search of a particular tool. And most of all she heard the screams of the Doctor as he was mutilated, screams that seemed to last forever.

Adam got what he wanted. Because the Doctor began to beg, after a time. He begged and he screamed and he cried.

"No more. No more, please. I'll do anything. Anything you ask, please, please, no, stop!"

Rose didn't see it but she could imagine the smug grin on Adam's face, slowly becoming a full, wide smile as all of his planning and scheming paid off.

"Not that! Not that, please! Please. Please!"

The screams and the harsh laughter tore through her. She dug her nails into her arms and curled into a ball on the floor.

"No. No. What are you doing—what are you— No!"

She thought of her mother and bit her lip until it bled and there was blood on her chin and on the floor and on her hands.

"I can give you money—technology—anything, anything, just please, don't, NO—"

Rose wanted to use the sonic screwdriver then and there. She wanted to open the cage and fight them, to protect her Doctor. She would kill them all. She would tear them apart with their own tools, starting with the crowbar. And even when they were on the ground, begging her for mercy, she would keep going. She would give back everything that they had done to her and the Doctor, until every bone had been broken, every inch of skin scarred. She would hurt them until they didn't know their own names.

The torture lasted an hour, and when they had finished the screams tapered off and gave way to sobbing. About two-thirds of the way through the Doctor had begun speaking in Gallifreyan, perhaps unaware of the transition, and through his sobs foreign words were interjected like prayers.

The precise nature of the proceedings remained a mystery to Rose. She had heard many things, all of them terrible, but to know what they had done would have been a torture in itself. She couldn't bring herself to look. She didn't want to see the damage

And then there was the final comment, made by Adam, who had to raise his voice to be heard over the moans:

"No, leave his teeth. I want him to be able to smile at me when we're done."

The sound of metal on metal. A tool had been dropped back into the bag. There were footsteps, and Adam's voice breathed into the room, soft and cruel.

"Just change your face again. It's a healing process, isn't it? Your little hospital visit in 1996 says yes. So why not change?"

Rose could hear the struggle in the Doctor's voice, the trembling and the pain, as he gave a response that broke her heart.

"For…her."

Adam paused. "Come again?"

"For…her…."

There was silence for a moment, filled with the Doctor's ragged breathing and Rose's own heartbeat. Then Adam laughed, and there was a thud, and the Doctor cried out, and then the cage door was creaking open and a heavy body was thrown inside. Three pairs of footsteps made their way to the door and left. The door shut with a bang. It was over.

Rose knew one thing: within the next twenty-four hours, they were going to escape.