Chapter 13 - If No One Will Listen

Maybe no one told you there is strength in your tears
And so you fight to keep from pouring out
What if you unlock the gates that keep your secret soul
You think there's enough you would drown?

If you find you fists are raw and red from beating yourself down
And your legs have given out under the weight
If you find that you've been settling for a world of gray
So you wouldn't have to face down your own hate

If no one will listen
When you decide to speak
If no one is left
Standing after the bombs explode
If no one wants to look at you
For what you really are
I will be here still.

- Keri Noble, "If No One Will Listen"

There is no transition period or easing herself into her temporary prison. Things are horrible right from the start.

The lights are almost constantly off. There is just enough light in the room coming from the crack under the door that after a few minutes, when her eyes adjust, she can make out the general shapes of the few things that are in her cell. Rose hasn't been afraid of the dark in years, but the constant dark not only plays tricks on her mind, but reminds her as to just how alone she is.

The Master has untied the rope from around her wrists which causes her to lose some hope. To her, it means that he is confident her hands won't help her escape. She is now bound just by a rope around one ankle, attached to the pole.

Once a day the Master comes in and turns on the lights, momentarily blinding and disorienting her. He brings her a plate of food and a glass of water. He never speaks to her. He just stands by the door and watches her eat. He never comes close enough for her to try and fight him. She thought maybe she could get her hands on his screwdriver and get herself out. But he just stands right out of reach and slides her meal towards her. The first few days Rose just immediately throws it back at him. But when the hunger begins to consume her, she can no longer resist eating, despite not wanting to touch anything that man gives her. She still tosses the empty dishes back at him. This never fazes him. She actually thinks he almost enjoys her spirit. He simply smirks at her, picks up the empty plate and glass, turns out the light, and leaves.

It doesn't take Rose long to determine for just how mentally disturbed this man actually is. Occasionally he will be having a really bad day or something and when he goes to pick up her dirty dishes, he instead launches himself at her. He grabs her wrists and ties them up again, before she can even consider trying to fight him off. Then he starts kicking her. Hard. Repeatedly.

One day it is really bad. Rose tries to back away, but she ends up cornered against a wall. He is screaming something in Gallifreyan. The only word she understands is "Doctor". After what feels like an hour, he stops, takes a few deep breaths leaning over her abused body, turns, and slams the door shut behind him. She is left lying on the floor. It is many more hours before she can move from her position on the ground. Even though she can't see, she knows she is covered in bruises. She wouldn't be surprised if a few ribs are broken as well. It is at least three days before the Master comes back.

Things continue like that. Rose loses track of the number of days she has been here. She starts to go mad. Constantly being in darkness with nothing to do is driving her crazy. She tries to occupy her mind by thinking of the times she and the Doctor were happy together, like their picnic in New New (new new new new new new new new new new new new new) York or when they visited the planet of Barcelona. It doesn't take long for these memories to be more painful than they are helpful. Will she ever have days like those again?

She is constantly hungry and thirsty and in pain. But most of all, she longs for some social interaction. The isolation really gets to her. She even tries to talk to the Master a couple of times. But he just gives her that smirk and ignores whatever she has just said to him. After a few tries, she gives up. She starts thinking about how long it's been since she has felt the touch of another person. Whether it be a brush against a random person on the street or an embrace from the Doctor after a long day. What upsets her most is that she can no longer remember what the Doctor's hand feels like in hers as they would run.

One day, the Master comes in and does something he has never done before. He speaks to Rose.

"I'm slightly disappointed." His voice is loud after so much silence. "You've been here a month. I really thought he would have found you by now." His tone makes it sound like he is not surprised at all. "Oh well. Time to for us to have a little more fun."

He gives her food and water per usual. It has been at least two days since she has eaten, so she eats it quickly. Not long after she begins eating, she starts to feel odd. Dizzy. Tired. She stops eating and looks at the Master.

"Oh. Did I forget so tell you about the special ingredient I added? You'll just be taking a quick nap now. "

Then everything goes black.

When she wakes, she is lying down on her cot. Her hands are tied to the bed over her head. Each ankle is tied to one of the posts at the foot of the bed. She does not like being restrained like this. She hates feeling helpless and out of control.

The next thing she knows, the Master has climbed onto her and straddles her waist. She tries to scream and push him off, but the way she is tied up combined with how weak she has become from having such sparse, sporadic meals makes it a hopeless cause.

He places his hand over her mouth.

"Shhh! It's time for us to have a little fun!"

He runs his hands up and down the sides of her body.

Rose closes her eyes. A tear falls down her face as he pushes his mouth against hers and snakes his hands lower. She feels him unbutton her jeans and pull them, along with her underwear, down as far as her splayed legs will allow him. It's not a lot, but it's enough. He strokes the inside of her thighs, then runs his hands over her hips, up her stomach, and under her shirt and bra as he forces his tongue past her lips and teeth.

For a minute, she is frozen. She knows what is about to happen and can't stop it. This is the moment. It has to be. This is the moment the Doctor will find and save her. They've always had a connection, she and the Doctor, hadn't they? Shouldn't he be able to sense that she is suffering and find where she is? Maybe she is wrong about her relationship to the Doctor. Maybe she is just another traveler. Maybe he doesn't even care and has moved on to someone else.

The Master's tongue sliding over her own pulls her out of her mind and back to reality. To the now. She can't lose faith in the Doctor. It's what he wants and she can't let him win. She has to believe the Doctor is still looking for her. It dawns on her that she can still fight him, but before she can act on her thoughts and bite down on his tongue, he removes it.

He lifts his head up. She immediately turns her head to the side. Eyes still shut tight. Tears still streaming.

"I can most definitely see why the Doctor keeps you around," he whispers just centimeters away from her ear. She can feel his hot breath on it. She tries to turn away even more, but it is no use with the way she was restrained. "If I knew you could be this much fun, I might have arranged to keep you to myself even longer."

She doesn't respond. She keeps her face turned and eyes shut. He grabs her face on either side and harshly turns it back towards him. "LOOK AT ME!" he screams at her, so close to her face she can feel his saliva. She keeps her eyes closed. He slaps her. Hard. "I said, open your eyes and LOOK AT ME!" he repeats. Slowly, she opens her eyes, looking anywhere but at him. This is not what he meant and she knows it. He squeezes his hand around her neck so she cannot breathe. "Look. Into. My. Eyes." She struggles as much as she can against her bindings. When nothing works to get her oxygen back, she has no choice but to look at him. He loosens the grip on the neck, but doesn't completely remove his hand.

He smiles. "This is a special moment for us. I want to be looking into your eyes as I watch the hope and strength drain out of them. And I want you to be looking into my eyes as that hope and strength transfer out of you and into me." He uses his other hand to unzip his own pants.

She has no choice but to look into his eyes the entire time. If she looks away for even a second, he stops what he is doing and tightens the grip around her throat again. He suffocates her until she is just about to pass out. When she is looking into his eyes again, he resumes what he had previously been doing. It doesn't take Rose long to determine that the less she looks away, the quicker the whole thing is over.

Things continue that way. Rose never knows if the food her is giving her is going to be laced with the sedative or not. Even if she remains conscious after eating, there is still the chance he will use her as a punching bag.

She eats as infrequently as she possibly can. There are many times she considers starving herself and giving up. But she still has hope. Hope that the Doctor is not far. Hope that he will save her soon. She can handle anything the Master puts her through physically as long as she believes she will be with her Doctor sometime soon. Still, she longs to go back to the days where a human touch was something she wanted, and not something she is dreading. Now it always leads to pain of one sort or another.

After another month goes by, the Master decides he is bored again.

"Now in addition to all the other fun we've been having, I am going to be spiking your food and water with a cocktail of drugs, hallucinogens to be more specific, from Gallifrey. I should probably warn you that they are really intense. You'll stop knowing what is real and what is not. It's up to you whether you want to eat and drink and hallucinate, or whether you want to starve to death."

And with that he places a plate of food and a glass of water just within her reach and leaves the room.

She tries to resist the temptation, but her hunger gets the better of her. She still has some hope, net very much, but some, that the Doctor will save her soon. So she gives in and eats.

It doesn't take long for the effects to kick in. The Master wasn't kidding when he said how intense her hallucinations would be. She drives herself even crazier thinking she hears the TARDIS or the Doctor's sonic screw driver. She even thinks she sees the Doctor himself many times. Only to be disappointed moments later when the vision fades or transforms into something else.

Her mum. Her dad. Mickey. The Doctor before he regenerated. These hallucinations are almost worse than when she sees things that scare her. At first she thinks she is going to get out of there. Then they fade away, always taking a little bit of her remaining hope and faith with them.

Cybermen. Daleks. The Master. She sees everything. It terrifies her. One day, when she thinks she is being attacked by Daleks, she claws at her own arms so hard that she draws blood.

After that, the Master decides that for her own safety, her hands should be tied behind her back again. This only lasts for so long until an intense vision causes her to feel the most fear she has ever experienced.

She is groggy to begin with. Sitting on the hard floor with her back against the pole. She sees the red converse first. Her eyes flit upwards over the pin striped suit and trench coat to his dark hair and eyes. He heart speeds up. He is finally here to rescue her! But as she looks into his eyes she can tell something is wrong. There is hatred and anger in his eyes. And it is directed at her.

"I can't believe what you've let him do to you," the Doctor spits at her. "Letting him touch you like that. Not fighting him. I thought you were better than that. But now I realize how weak you are. I can't have someone like that on my TARDIS. I only take the best. You're the worst person I've ever allowed on my ship. I'm over 900-years-old. I've been to every galaxy and time period. And you very likely the weakest creature I've ever met. I've met slime mold with more fight in it than you."

"No." Rose mumbles. "This isn't right. You can't be real. The Doctor would never say that to me."

"That's where you're wrong, Rose. I am saying these things to you. And you know they're true. I'm off to find a companion who can keep up with me and won't get herself kidnapped. She'll be prettier too. I need something new to look at. I just thought it would be decent of me to tell you to stop waiting for me to rescue you because I'M NOT COMING!" Those last words come out as a snarl. "I'd put you out of your misery, but to be honest you're not even worth my time. I've spent over two years with you. Those are two years of my life I will never get back."

"No." Rose tries to protest that he is not the Doctor, but she can no longer keep her head up and it lolls backwards, smacking against the pole. During the moment of impact the not-Doctor's form fizzles away, but comes back as quickly as it left.

So she does it again. And again. And again. Each time the image stays gone for longer until all that remains is the sound of his voice. Egging her on.

"Yeah. Keep doing that. Take the coward's way out. You've always been a coward, Rose."

"SHUT UP!" she yells as loud as she can manage, which isn't very loud.

She bangs her head against the pole until she loses consciousness. This is the point where the Master decides it will be better if she remains constantly tied to the bed.

She is so weak and disoriented from all the drugs that she can barely move, let alone fight him or attempt to argue. He has to spoon feed her while she is tied down. She has no choice but to consume more of the drugs. After a little while longer the amount of drugs coursing through her veins makes it all but impossible for her to move. The Master doesn't need to tie her down anymore, but he tells her he finds it more fun that way.

Each day and each hallucination take away more hope from her that she will ever leave this room, not that she had much hope left after her intense hallucination of the Doctor. If there was a small part of her that was sane and lucid enough to realize that he was a hallucination, it would still be questioning whether there was any other explanation for why he hadn't found her yet. The Master continues to rape her, but most of the time she cannot determine if it is really him, or a hallucination. He removes all of her clothing and leaves her bound to the bed, naked, to make things easier for himself.

At the end of the third month, or maybe it is partway into the fourth month, she isn't really sure. It could actually have been much longer, the Master enters her cell for the final time.

"He really should have been here a while ago." This time, she can tell he is not just saying that to try and break her down more. He actually means it. The Doctor should have been here by now. "Maybe he stopped looking." She hates herself for it, but for the most part, she agrees with him. "Anyway, I've gotten bored. He doesn't seem to be playing the game right. So I'm leaving. I came to give you one last goodbye."

He climbs on top of her for the final time. This time, she doesn't even have the strength to cry.

When he is finished, he unties all her ropes and pushes her off the bed onto the floor. He starts beating her again and commenting on how the Doctor ruined his life by taking what he cared about most and he just wanted to repay him for the favor. But if the Doctor wasn't going to play right, he'd just have to take her life instead. He continues beating her until she loses consciousness.

When she wakes up again, she is back on the cot, completely dressed. The Master has retied her wrists and ankles to the bedposts with his sonic screwdriver. Tighter than he has ever tied them before.

He leaves a glass of drugged water with a straw next to her, that she can just reach it if she really pulls against her bindings.

"Make it last." That is the last thing the Master says before he turns out the lights for one final time and shuts the door, leaving a drugged up and broken Rose alone in the dark, confused, pained, and struggling with every breath.

There are moments during the connection where present-day Rose is vaguely aware of the real world. As all these memories come back to her, Rose is not sure she can handle it. Her hands slide down from the Doctors shoulders and cling to the front of his coat. If her mind wasn't so occupied, she might have noticed that the material doesn't feel quite right. But the only tactile feeling she is aware of in the real world is his forehead pressed up against hers. Keeping her from falling forward. A reminder that he is right there, helping her through this. He knows she is strong enough to get through. And she trusts him. So she knows she can make it through as well.

None of this is real. She keeps telling herself during these moments of lucidity. She can feel herself shaking and is aware of the tears rushing down her cheeks. It's all just a memory that will be over soon. Still, she's not sure how much more she can take.

Finally they reach the memory of the Doctor coming to rescue her and he breaks the telepathic link. She collapses into his arms, too mentally and emotionally drained to remain upright by her own volition, and he holds her against his chest. He climbs onto the bed with her and they rearrange themselves so they are both lying down, him never loosening his grip on her.

She is sobbing into his chest, convulsing with each breath she manages to take. All the memories she has been trying to repress are back, even stronger than before.

But it's going to be okay. She knows it will be. Because her Doctor is there. Telling her everything will be alright, in a calm soothing voice. Not like the voice of the Doctor from her hallucination. He has one hand holding her head against his chest and is running the nails of the other up and down her spine. And while it almost tickles, it relaxes her.

And although she never looks at his face, she knows he is crying as well. She feels the teardrops as they fall onto the back of her neck.