Title: Manipulation of the Mind
Author: Trustno1
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. I'll let you know if and when they are.
AN: I haven't seen any other Doctor Who eps apart from this newest season, so if anything in this chapter is inaccurate, I apologize.
Chapter X
The Doctor raced along the corridors after Rose, who always seemed to be a turn or a corner ahead of him. He was silently begging his ship to make this easy for him, but she wasn't listening. This worried him even more – she always relocated doors and rooms if something was wrong and he was desperate.
The Doctor swore as he rounded another corner to be faced with yet another empty passage. There was a single door to his right; he tried it. No luck – it was locked.
Rose stumbled about in the pitch black room for a few minutes before her fingers touched a small button she thought may just be a light switch. 'I'm not hoping it is though, that would be stupid,' she thought, and was rewarded when the pressure at the base of her skull eased momentarily. Soft blue light flooded the room, revealing a long room, almost like a corridor, with stone flagstones and what looked like clay walls. It reminded Rose of the photos her mum had shown her of Spanish villas when she was saving up enough to go on holiday 'somewhere nice and sunny'. At sporadic intervals were piles of old books, new books, documents, journals, racks of assorted clothes and shoes, tools, odds and ends, pictures and even a few stuffed toys. It gave the air of a very old charity shop, or brick-a-brack store, except Rose was certain most of the items were alien. Peering at the closest book – which had a large colourful picture depicting a spiral shaped galaxy – the title looked to be a mixture of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Italian, and some of the tools surrounding it definitely looked strange.
Rose wandered the length of the room, the blue light casting an eerie glow on the items, and creating mysterious shadows within the stacks. Just when she was beginning to think the room went on forever, she came across a plinth, about four feet high, with a large glass dome enclosing its contents. She approached cautiously and peered inside.
The door slid open with a small whoosh. The Doctor pocketed his sonic screwdriver and stepped into the room he had tried hard to forget about. The area was bathed in a familiar blue light, but he couldn't see Rose anywhere. She must've gone farther in. He stared straight ahead, concentrating on the destination rather than the items around him. Occasionally, his gaze would wander to the side, and emotions swirled across his face: recollection, grief, pain. Then he'd return his eyes to the path, a steely determination in them, and continue onwards.
Rose gazed at the piece of rock, barely larger than a man's fist, in the glass case. It was a dull, light brown, unremarkable at first glance. But she kept her eyes on the display case. Shifting her body slightly to get a better look, she saw the blue lights catch something within the rock, some kind of mineral. They absorbed the blue light and shattered it into millions of fragments light, all the colors of the spectrum and more. The new lights projected onto Rose; her eyes, which were an empty brown, now shone as colors sparkled around the room. She gazed in awe at this tiny piece of rock, ignoring the incessant ache in her skull.
"Rose." Though the Doctor's voice was barely above a whisper, she jumped as if electrocuted. He reached out to her and it felt as though he were stretching across an abyss instead of little more than a foot, such as was the distance in her eyes. He took her hand, then dropped it immediately. She was on fire.
"Rose," he repeated, looking imploringly into her eyes that were still shining with color. "Please, come with me. You're sick, I need to look at you."
He wants to get rid of you, Rose. Don't let him, Rose; don't let him take you away.
"What… what's that?" she asked shakily, trying to ignore both the Voice and the Doctor and focus on something, anything else. He followed her unsteady hand to the plinth. A wave of grief swept over him and he struggled to remain upright. He held onto Rose's jacket-clad arm, and though she flinched, she didn't bolt.
"It's… erm… a piece of rock." He waited for her sarcastic return, before despondently realising she wasn't going to reply; she was simply staring at the display with dimly determined eyes.
Determined. Not empty. The fear inside him that had threatened to engulf him recoiled a little at the sight of any kind of emotion within her, and a small amount of hope asserted itself in him.
"I found it at a kind of junk shop. I forget where it was exactly. I think the owner knew why I wanted it – I could see it in his eyes, a slow realisation, followed by sadness and sympathy. Didn't say anything outright though. He gave it to me as a gift – said he didn't have much use for it anyway, wanted it to go to a good cause." His eyes hardened with grief and remorseful disgust. "And what do I do with it? Stick it in a room at the back of my ship and avoid it. The largest piece of Gallifrey, of my home, and I hide it in some long forgotten room with everything else that reminds me of what I lost, who I lost, the companions that inevitably left me alone. I hid them all together." His voice cracked with anger and grief and unshed tears. He didn't dare look at Rose, instead keeping his gaze on the plinth. "I've come in here about three times; one was when I threw everything in here. This is the first time I've seen all this stuff since you came with me."
Rose listened to the Doctor. Her voice in her head was beginning to get louder, but the other Voice was still shouting at her, yelling to be heard.
Listen to him, Rose! He said it himself: they're all gone. No-one's left. You're going that way too. You know that deep down, don't you? If anything seems too good to be true, it is. You should know all about that though, shouldn't you, Rose? Your first job – you thought that was brilliant; loads of money for a 14-year-old, wasn't it? And it was, for the first few weeks. Until the owner realised you'd do anything he wanted, take anything anywhere, and not just the papers. And you couldn't do anything but what he told you, because you needed the extra money, didn't you? Because your mum had lost herself another job. Something else you both thought was too good to be true. And speaking of losers; Jimmy. Your first real boyfriend. That was worth leaving school for, huh, Rose? The guy you loved, who 'loved' you back. Remind you of anyone, Rose? Just like you and the Doctor – fancy that! I wonder if this one will turn out the same way. Course it will. It always does – there's no hope for you and the Doctor, no hope that he'll suddenly love you, and no hope that he won't leave you on the first planet he finds.
Rose moaned softly. Her body felt like it was on fire; her head was pounding with every breath she took. Every time she attempted to think 'But what about the time…' and answer the Voice back with a time something good had happened to her, a fresh burst of pain would radiate from the base of her skull and spread through her body like wildfire.
She tried not to think at all. Not listen to the Doctor, her voice, the Voice. She just stared, letting her eyes lose focus on what was in front of her – the Doctor – and chanted in her head: 'don't think, don't feel, don't think, don't feel.' It was her own private litany.
But it wasn't working. Not well enough. Her head felt like it was going to explode; as if someone were inside her head, hammering to be let out. And every so often, when her mind began to deviate from its mantra, waves of guilt and pain and hopelessness would wash over her. They only subsided if she listened to the Voice, which was telling her to calm down. It hurt to listen to it, but it was a different kind of pain, one that she was hard put to describe properly. But listening meant the other pain – the fire; the throbbing; the guilt – was beginning to ebb a little. Not much, but enough. It felt wrong to listen to the Voice. Deep inside of Rose, somewhere the Voice couldn't quite touch, she knew she shouldn't be giving in this easily. But this feeling was becoming greatly overridden by the fact that listening to the Voice gave her some relief, and that was more important at the moment.
It still hurt so much though. Despite standing up, and with her eyes open, Rose felt like she was slipping in and out of consciousness. The Doctor's voice faded in and out like a badly tuned radio during a storm, and she only caught snippets of what he was explaining to her.
"… all over the TARDIS… put them here… one room… lock them away… you came… no need for this room… can't leave…"
End Chapter X