Chapter 3 - Arms

How many times will you let me change my mind and turn around?
I can't decide if I'll let you save my life or if I'll drown
I hope that you can see right through my walls
I hope that you'll catch me 'cause I'm already falling
I'll never let a love get so close
You put your arms around me and I'm home

- Christina Perri, "Arms"

When Rose wakes, she is lying in her bed on the TARDIS. Or at least she thinks she is. She hasn't been certain of anything she has seen for the past couple months. She uses the evidence that her arms are down by her side and that she can move her feet freely as further confirmation that she is no longer in her prison. She turns her head to the side and sees the Doctor sitting in the chair across the room. His head is buried in his hands, rubbing his eyes in obvious exhaustion.

So it wasn't a dream. I didn't make it all up in my head. It actually happened.

Rose tries to sit up, but a pain in her ribs stops her and causes her to grunt. When the Doctor hears her and lifts his head to see that she is awake, he smiles at her and walks over.

"Yeah. You probably shouldn't try to move much. I wrapped your broken ribs up, but they'll be sore for a while. I'll get you something for the pain once you eat something." He rearranges her pillows and helps her sit up in a way that causes as little pain as possible.

He leaves. When he returns he has a bowl of warm broth and a cup of tea. He places it on the table beside her bed and then pulls up a chair beside her. "Do you know how long it's been since you've eaten?"

Rose thinks for a minute, and then shakes her head. All she knows it that is has been a while. She can't remember the last time she even just felt hungry, and not so hungry she feels sick. She reluctantly tries to think back to the past few months. It's all a bit fuzzy, but piece by piece the memories start coming back to her.

The first thing she remembers is from near the end of her captivity, when the Master came into the cell and told her he was leaving. He said that the Doctor should have been there by now and must have stopped looking for her. As much as she hated it and would never have admitted it to her terrorizer, she agreed with him.

The Master had been dosing the sporadic meals he would give her with drugs. Everything from the first night he drugged her on is discombobulated and trying to think about it makes her head hurt. She vaguely remembers brief periods of time near the end where she was somewhat lucid, but then she would realize how thirsty she was. She would pull on her ropes as much as she could in order to wrap her lips around the straw of a glass of water he had left by her bed. The water was also laced with hallucinogens. She would take a sip. Not a huge one, but one large enough to throw her back into her drug-induced haze and sustain her for another couple of day.

The day before the Doctor found her was the day she finished off the glass. She has no way of knowing how many days that was after the Master had left her alone to die. She hallucinated a lot during that time. That was why, when he finally came to rescue her, she didn't believe it was really him. She had finally learned to stop believing anything she saw. But that final mirage, which was not actually a hallucination, was different. She didn't just see and hear him, he interacted with her. She remembers the sting as her bindings were removed from her wrists. And when he sat her up, she realized she was free. How would she have gotten free if he wasn't actually there? There must have been the smallest amount of hope still left inside her, because she found it and held onto it as she allowed herself to question if it was really him and start to think that she might actually make it out of that room.

As he removed the bindings from her ankles, it felt as though he was ripping off her skin. The agony caused her vision to go black. When it came back, he was sitting behind her, holding and rocking her. He kept whispering in her ear, repeating the same phrases over and over, but she wasn't listening. She was wondering, Why now? What is he doing here now? What had taken him so long? She was so close to everything ending. She knew a few more days and she would be released from her hell. Now, even though he saved her, she will still spend every day of her life trapped in that room.

She doesn't remember much after that. The last bit of strength she had drained away when she realized she was free. Her subconscious knew she was safe now that she was with the Doctor, even if her conscious self didn't completely agree. She recalls him carrying her and the sound of his voice, but never what he was saying. All she knows is that somehow she ended up in bed, in her pajamas, feeling cleaner than she has in the past four months. She doesn't contemplate how that happened any further, embarrassed about what kind of marks the Doctor might have seen covering her body, showing him evidence of what she had suffered.

The Doctor, pulling her out of her memory and back to the present, gives her a sad smile and says, "Well, I brought you something to eat. It's not much, but I don't want to give you too much right away. It could shock your body. "

Rose simply nods as he pulls out a tray table and places it in front of her on the bed. He places the bowl and cup on the tray. Rose grabs the spoon and tries to feed herself. The pain in her ribs keeps her from leaning too far forward from her current position. Her arms are weak from being restrained for so long. Her hand shakes as she tries to get the spoon to her mouth. She is able to successfully manage the first mouthful. As she tries to get the second spoonful to her mouth, she drops the spoon and spills broth onto the bed.

She is embarrassed that she cannot even feed herself. The Doctor is sitting next to her, witnessing her struggle. Her eyes begin to fill up with tears of shame and frustration. The Doctor grabs a napkin and wipes up the spill. Then he places his hand against her cheek and wipes a tear away with his thumb. He grabs the spoon and feeds Rose. The thought of food is still making her feel slightly nauseous, so she only allows him to feed her a few spoonfuls before she shakes her head in refusal. He then picks up to cup of tea and slowly tilts it against her lips.

As the warmth trickles down her throat, Rose realizes how long it has been since she has had a cup of tea. It was a familiar, comforting taste, reminding her of home. Of her mum. She really wishes she could see her mum again. She wishes she could just go to her mum and she would hold her without Rose having to explain a thing. Throughout her entire life, it had always been her and her mum. Her mum had comforted her through cases of bullying, fights with friends, and heartbreaks coming from the pain of a first love. That's what she wanted right now. That's what she needed. To run to her mum and breakdown.

But she can't do that. Her mum is in an alternate universe. A parallel world that she can never get back to. She made that decision the day the held on to the lever in the Torchwood building until the void closed between her and her family. She had never regretted her decision until this moment, when the only thing she really wanted was the one person who had always been there for her, no matter what.

When the Doctor pulls the cup away, Rose leans back and rests her head against the wall behind her. She closes her eyes and wills herself not to cry. But with everything she has been through in the past few months and everything she is feeling now, she knows it is a lost cause. How can she be expected to live like this day after day? All alone without her family to comfort her. Just the man who left her alone and allowed this to happen to her in the first place. Barely even a few seconds go by before she feels the first tear stream down her cheek.

The next thing she knows, she feels a pair of arms wrap around her and hold her tightly. She is reminded why she made the choice she made. He too makes her feel safe and has been there for her whenever she needed him. It had been so long since she had felt those arms around her. She had forgotten just how perfectly they fit and how safe she feels inside them. She is wrong to blame him. None of what happened to her is the Doctor's fault. It is the Master's. This was his goal all along. To break Rose so far down that she loses all faith in the Doctor. To hurt him through hurting her. If she keeps blaming the Doctor, the Master will win. She cannot allow that to happen. She has to dig deep and find that little bit of faith that allowed her to believe the Doctor was really rescuing her. She has to hold on to that faith as tightly as she can and use it to believe that the Doctor did everything he could to get to her as soon as he could, and that, eventually, she will be okay again.

Although her broken ribs hurt her, she takes a deep breath, leans into his embrace, and allows herself to breakdown in his arms.