"Doctor! Doctor!" Rose screamed.
The Doctor could hear Rose crying his name but he found it took him a terrible amount of time to come to. The haze of the memories was so thick it made him disoriented and he struggled to find his way out. As he came out of the past it really did feel like falling and it was like he was waiting to land. When he finally was aware of the present and could make sense of his surroundings he immediately reached out for her. He gripped her by the arms. "Rose, what is it? I'm right here, it's alright. "
"You were crying..." she said her voice trickling off as she looked at him. "I came out of it first and I saw you were crying."
He reached a hand to his face and felt that his cheeks were wet. He'd never cried in front of her before and he could tell it alarmed her. He was still struggling to maintain some strength over the emotions that he had felt from her memories. He'd seen so much and he'd felt it all. They lingered still and it was hard to understand what he was feeling at the moment. It was difficult not to become overwhelmed. He had tried not to but it was obvious he wasn't doing a very good job.
He struggled just to come up with something to say and couldn't. In the silence Rose's face crumpled "I'm sorry," she said looking down as her shoulders slumped and she started to shake with quiet sobs.
She was still feeling what she had in that memory. She was still very much in that moment. He knew she was because he could feel it too. As he watched her crying looking so lonely in front of him, he fought to pull himself together so he could be strong for her. But it was overwhelming. He was very out of practice at knowing how to handle this.
He felt what she had felt. A slew of young human female emotions hit him. Anyone who downplayed the severity of them obviously had never felt them. He felt a crippling powerlessness, a feeling to which he was most unaccustomed to. It seemed it would never end, that it never could be escaped from. Self-loathing to a degree that rivaled even what he carried around himself was found in her. There was so much guilt coming out. She had always pushed it away but now that the barrier was broken it was spilling out.
He wondered desperately how he could not have known that she carried such a flawed picture of herself in her mind. She had felt she was stupid. She had thought she was ugly. She thought she was worthless in every way, unworthy and unlovable. She had been made to feel that way many times over and she began to own it herself. She honestly couldn't believe that anyone could ever love or truly desire her just for who she was. He felt those fears and insecurities now. He knew they were old and she didn't carry them on a daily basis anymore but they were always just under the surface and they could come out like they were now, if only she gave them attention. They were such a contrast to the way he felt about her he didn't know what to do with them.
Part of that girl was still inside of her. Though most of it had been eradicated through time some of it still lingered. He'd felt it from time to time in their various bonding sessions. He'd felt rare but powerful feelings of fear and doubt, feelings of abandonment and insecurity. And that was what scared her the most. She hated the girl she'd been then and hated that there was still part of that personality she would struggle with for the rest of her life.
The Doctor wondered, how had he not known? How could there have been so much inside of her that she had been able to keep from him? As close as they had gotten he should have seen this sooner. He felt terrible; terrible that she had experienced so much pain and that he'd never known about. He felt so guilty that he'd never seen. There had been hints of it along the way, clues if he'd been looking. And he'd seen them. Why hadn't he ever wondered about them more?
But those feelings of the past were fading slowly as they both came to face reality again. He could feel that the past was being put back in the past and she was returning to her current state of being. The fears and troubles of the past were going away but they were being replaced by ones in the present. To replace them were the feelings she was currently having over having revealed her secret to him. He could feel her exposure. He felt how bare she felt in front of him. She was so ashamed to have him see the person she used to be. He knew how hard it must be for her. Showing such a deep and painful memory was hard enough for anyone and this was the first time she ever had to do so telepathically. He felt her struggling, scrambling to compose herself and settle her nerves but she was not having much success.
The Doctor could feel shame and humiliation rolling off of her. His heart broke for her. The bond, it did not come without a cost. And here it was. But she had done it for them. She had given it up, she'd let him in to see, so that they could keep growing deeper in their connection with each other. And now it was it was his turn to take it from here.
"Now you know. Could you still want me?" she asked and these were the words that finally snapped him out of his daze.
"Rose...my sweet Rose. I still want you. I will always want you," he said reaching out to take her back in his arms. She tried to push him away at first, a reflex, before she clung to him urgently instead.
"How could you?" she cried and it was a bit muffled against his shoulder. "I'm everything you thought I wasn't. I'm weak and scared and selfish. I…my own baby, and I...," she said sobbing against him, unable to put it to words.
"Rose, you are so beautiful, so kind, so sweet, so smart," he said telling her exactly what he thought of her without reservation, telling her everything she was that she thought she wasn't. He held her as tight as he could against himself and brought to the surface all the warmth and love and understanding he could pull up from inside himself. He pressed it against her and wrapped it around her. "I adore you so much."
She sobbed harder at his words at first. She was still struggling to overcome the backlash of the memory. There was a war inside of her between the memories of her then and what he was telling her now. His words and acceptance were not the reaction she had expected and she didn't feel like she deserved them. He would say it as many times as he needed to help her overcome her doubt. "You shouldn't. I'm not..."she started to say.
"Yes, you are," he said firmly but gently. "You are so beautiful. Inside and out, in every way. I don't tell you that enough-" he said stopping a rare catch in his throat. He turned her in his arms so she was looking up at him, still holding her close. "I hope you know how amazing I think you are."
"I do. I do know," she said shaking her head with certainty, starting to cry even harder. But he was pleased to feel that the tears were less from sadness and more from being moved by his words.
"What you are feeling right now...that is what you used you to be. You chose to be different. Long before I met you. Even that night you made a choice to be someone different."
"I just can't believe I was ever like that. I would have done anything to keep him. Anything..." she said with repulsion. "What kind of woman does that make me?"
"You..." he said placing a hand on her face, "Were so lonely. Rose, I felt how much. So young, so sad, so lonely. I've never felt it like that..." he said his voice trailing off. Her human loneliness from that time was so powerful and so different than what he was used to he didn't even know how to describe it. "Loneliness is perhaps the most powerful and most dreadful force in the universe."
"That doesn't give me an excuse for what I did. Everyone gets lonely."
"Your heart is so tender. It's so lovely. But to have it abused in such a way..." he said holding a hand to her face as he felt the pain of knowing how she'd been hurt. It absolutely broke him to know that anyone had ever hurt her. How could anyone ever hurt her? Why did there have to be a time when she had not been under his protection? Right now he felt as if he would never let her go. He never wanted her out of his sight where anyone could harm her ever again.
"He never loved me," she said sadly, remembering. "He hurt me, he manipulated me, and used me. And I still loved him, I still stayed with him at all costs. I hate that it took hitting rock bottom for me to finally leave him."
"What happened? After that?" he asked.
"I went home that night. I told Mum that things weren't working out between me and Jimmy. She didn't ask a lot of questions and she let me come back. She was much better to me than I deserved after the way that I acted when I left. Jimmy was furious of course. He made a lot of threats but he never did anything. Soon enough he'd moved on to torment some other poor girl. Last I'd heard he was in prison for something, I don't even know what for. Things weren't perfect after that, you know, but they got a lot better."
"Your mum didn't know what happened?"
"I never told anyone," she said breaking his gaze and looking down. "I was so eager to leave that version of myself behind that I just wanted to pretend none of it had ever happened. I never even told Mum. I was too afraid."
The Doctor reached down and lifted her chin up with his hand. Are you afraid now? he asked, moving his mind back into hers again. Could she feel what he felt? Could she feel that things had not changed as she had feared they would? Did she know he still loved her beyond compare? Now more than ever?
His Rose was so fearless. It was so hard to imagine that she had ever been so afraid of anything or anyone. People changed but for someone to change their character so dramatically was rare. He could only imagine the strength that it had taken to leave that monster, the bravery it took to start over, and the humility it took to go back home to Jackie. She was amazing. She had feared he would think less of her after he'd seen this memory. But it had made her think more of her. It only proved the strength she had inside of her.
She paused before she answered but her answer was certain. No. She trusted him now. She had been afraid to tell him but now she could feel that he did still love her, did still accept her even with this knowledge.
He smiled, so glad to have her comfortably back inside of his mind again, speaking to him in their secret way.
I'm glad I had to tell you, she said and he was so glad there was a glint of happiness in her voice when she said it.
Me too
He pulled her to himself again. As he held her against himself he could feel the guilt radiating off of her. She had trusted him with her secret but it did not take away the guilt she felt. He hated to feel that so much lived inside of her. He wished he could take it all away.
It was then that he remembered something. He had forgotten something that he was capable of. How could he have forgotten this? When he remembered it, he realized why she had been pushed into sharing this with him. She had been forced into sharing the memory with him because of this guilt she carried and what he could do about that. He had forgotten he had the power to take it from her. It had been so long since he had done this he wondered if he still could, if he still knew how. But he immediately began to try.
He reached down inside of her, getting himself deeper and deeper into her guilt, planting himself in the midst of it. It was so strong now to him; it clung to him and made it hard not to feel it was his own. When you got this deeply down into someone's emotions you started to feel them and own them. But he focused hard reminding himself that these were Rose's feelings and he was here for a reason. He pushed the guilt off of him, so that it wasn't clinging to him and visualized it in front of him.
He reached out and grabbed hold of the guilt, such old guilt he could see the time written on it, see how long it had resided here, and pulled on it. When he pulled on it, it moved. He pulled on it harder, hard enough to pull it out of her. He drew it out of her and pulled it into himself, where it would stay. It had worked. He had taken some of her guilt, literally taken it away from her. He now bore some of her burden.
Rose felt as the Doctor reached inside of her and pulled. What are you doing? she asked in barely a whisper, anticipation in her voice at what he was doing. He didn't answer, he only continued to move, his movements full of love and intention.
He pulled and pulled, taking as much as he could into himself. He smiled as he felt her getting lighter as he did so. He was so glad it was working. This was one of the most precious gifts of having a bond with someone; you truly did not have to bear your burdens alone. He could not take it all away from her; there was a limit. A person could never get rid of all of their emotions, good or bad in this way.
But he took as much as he could. Guilt had a long standing home in his heart; he would not find this burden out of place. He knew exactly where to put it. And he knew he could bear it. It was always easier to bear another's regrets, failures, shame and guilt. Not because you took another person's failures easier than your own; when you loved a person like this, enough to be able to do this, you took theirs much more seriously than your own. But it was easier because you were always the hardest and cruelest to yourself. Her guilt did hurt him; that was for certain. It stung on its way in. But he would hold it in a different way than she would. Only when she had been relieved of it, would she have space for forgiveness.
She gasped as that deep set regret and guilt inside of her started moving. She knew what he was doing now. He was pulling it out of her. The guilt had been inside of her for so long, a constant pain that flared anytime she gave it attention, that she could easily feel that it was leaving, actually leaving her body. It was becoming less and less. Nothing had ever reduced it and she thought nothing ever would. But he was doing it right now.
Wonder filled her mind as she tried to figure out how this could be happening. There was so much about their bond that amazed her but this had to be the thing that had surprised her the most. Maybe it was because she had needed it so much but never even dreamed it were a possibility. It felt so good to be emptied of this darkness. So good that it overshadowed her realization of how this was happening. He wasn't pulling it out just to dispose of it; in order to pull it out of her, he had to take it into himself. It had to go somewhere; it couldn't disappear.
She knew she should stop him. This wasn't just happening on its own; he was doing it by choice. She could feel his purpose in the way he pulled it out of her. But she should stop him. She knew he carried so much guilt already. He blamed himself for everything that happened it seemed. This was her burden to carry and she should take the full responsibility of it. She shouldn't let him carry it for her.
But she didn't stop him; it felt so good. She had wanted it gone for so long, and she felt so weak that she didn't want him to stop. And she realized that he didn't want her to stop him either. She could feel how special a thing this was and she didn't dare speak now or stop it. This was a private benefit of the bond that they shared. The bond had forced this memory out of her, it had required she give it up to him in order to proceed down this road with him. There were costs to having this bond; you forfeited your right to privacy.
But it wasn't a cost alone. It hadn't prompted her to have this memory just to pay some due for the privilege of being together in their minds. It had prompted her to have the memory so that they could have this. She had to share the memory in order for him to be able to do this very thing for her. If she hadn't let him see her guilt he could never have taken it from her like this. It was a way to show her love. She could feel that he'd done this before. There were whispers of times he'd done this for others he had bonded with so long ago, those people he had loved most. And he wanted to do it for her now.
He pulled and pulled until it stopped preventing him from puling any more. When his movements stopped she could feel that he had taken almost all of it. There was a part that was deeply embedded inside of her, a part that could never be removed. And while it was still very dark it now seemed so small it was no longer as imposing. With most of it gone she felt so empty and freed up inside.
And now that it was gone there was space for other things. The guilt had covered it up but now she could see it. The best parts of her had been born of that terrible time in her life. It was only because she had been so weak that she had worked to become strong. It was only because she had been hurt that she wanted to stand up for the vulnerable. This was where her compassion had grown to full capacity. Only because she had been a victim could she recognize and help others who were. Only because she had made a terrible mistake could she keep herself from turning that way again. She'd not been able to see it before but now that she could she felt she could finally let go of the last bit of guilt and forgive herself.
"Thank you," she whispered, out of breath and unable to make her mind do the talking at the moment. Her giving up the memory had been required for them to move forward but him taking it from her had not. Technically, a person did not have to offer to take it away but when someone was this close to you, how could you ever refuse? Still she did not take it lightly or for granted.
"It was my pleasure," he said quietly back. He was gasping for breath, fatigued from his efforts. She reached out to his mind and held on to that place in his mind, that place where he now housed her hurt. She knew where it was and she placed her hand over that part of his head. It was such a large space and already so full and yet he had chosen to put her remorse there. She massaged that place, both inside and out with gratitude.
"You gave me this..." she said her voice trailing off. He had given her a new way to see herself. Because of him she could see that there was good in her born from the bad. With his help she now forgave herself.
"I wanted to," he said. He didn't need her to finish. He knew what she meant. "I knew it was there the first time I touched you. Without even knowing what happened I still knew that's where the strongest part of you was born."
"Because of you...I..." she said struggling with her words of gratefulness. Because of him she could now forgive herself.
"I know," he whispered back. It's all he had wanted for her and had been his very intention.
Rose was amazed. For so long she never thought that anyone would love her. She could have never imagined that anyone could love her as much as the Doctor did. Not only had he looked at the darkness inside of her and accepted her in spite of it, he had taken as much of it as he could from her to lighten her load.
She was so filled with love for him. She was just about to tell him so when she felt something move inside of him.
A memory was coming to the surface, coming up from inside of him and he was not fighting it off. It was his turn now. He had wished to share this with her, he had wanted to go first to spare her. But now that it was actually going to happen he was afraid. He knew that this was going to be his darkest memory. He had so many dark ones he wasn't sure exactly which one it was going to be but he did know that he didn't want her to see any of them.
He didn't try to fight it though. He knew he would not be able to stop it any better than she had been able to stop hers. This was supposed to happen. He needed to share it with her. Right now things were unbalanced. He had to give something up too. But even if he hadn't been required to give it up he would. She'd shared her biggest mistake with him and now it was his turn to do the same. That still didn't mean that he wasn't afraid to do so.
But he was strengthened by what she had already done for them and used it to give him the strength he needed to do the same. He was glad now that she had gone first. If she hadn't maybe he wouldn't have been strong enough to share this with her.
Rose felt it coming on too. It's alright, she encouraged. She eagerly stepped up to take his place, their roles now reversing. Her mind was open for the memory. She reached out and pulled his head to rest on her shoulder and held him safely against her.
He held her back as he felt anger, sorrow, hate, pain, and fear building up inside of him. So many things he had thought he'd left behind. He'd made it so far and yet right now it felt as if he were back at day one. He knew he had to do this for them but it didn't mean that the experience would be any less agonizing for him. And in turn for her as well.
I'm sorry, he said, already apologizing for the things she would have to see, for the things she was going to feel.
She could feel it build up too. He could tell it was already starting to affect her. She was already starting to feel the things he was feeling. We'll get through this. Everything will be alright, she said trying to reassure them both.
I hope it will be, he said but his voice was not at all strong as they tumbled back in time again, this time into his past.