A/N: Here we go. The big explanation. This chapter is LONG. I hope he and I manage not to screw it up... Let me know what you think when you're done. There will be no reminder at the bottom for a review this time.
As a side note, I may be deviating quite a bit from established canon says about what the Doctor's/Time Lord telepathy can and cannot do, is and is not, because, to be quite frank, this is my fanfic and I have a plan for it. If it thee offends, I do apologize, but it's not going to be changing. Hope that's not a problem for you. (You know I love you, right?) :)
Pain of mind is worse than pain of body.
~Latin Proverb
The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.
~Katherine Mansfield
I.
He glanced at her, then back down at his hands. He'd rehearsed this, recited bits of it to the various components of the TARDIS, felt prepared, but now that she was sitting there so still, waiting, he felt suddenly unready.
She looks like a judge, like the jury and the executioner, too, for that matter. Never mind the fact that she's a mere slip of a human woman-girl, so new she practically squeaks. Well, not literally, mind you...
The absurd thought made humor flash through him in a nervous little rill, and he fought the urge to laugh. Oh, that's not appropriate. Not appropriate at all, because if you laugh then you'll have to explain to her why you're laughing, and that's not going to get you anywhere that's good, either...
"I don't know where to start. I thought I did, but..." He looked up at her in mute appeal.
Amy didn't feel like making it easy on the Doctor. When he looked up at her, though, eyes full of the same confusion and nerves she felt clawing at her own insides, she felt something in her that had been tightly wound for the past few days, maybe much longer than that, even, relent.
Because he's the Doctor, and he knows everything, doesn't he? I mean he knows galaxies and moons, planets and time, races and species, all that stuff. He probably even knows why a raven is like a writing desk and how many angels can dance on the head of pin, but he doesn't know how to explain himself, does he? He never does it. He's gotten so used to tossing off orders and having everybody just follow along, tiny little rowboats tugged along in his wake, without questioning because he's brilliant that when it's come time to pull back the curtain and show the inner working of something closer to home, when that's necessary, he's all thumbs. He's the smartest man in the world, well, maybe worlds is better, until it comes to anything that really matters, isn't he?
She uncrossed her arms, and her face lost some of its distant sculpted look.
"How about if I ask some questions and you can answer them to get us going?"
He nodded, seized on that as if it were a life preserver in high seas. "Yes. Right. Good. You ask, and I'll answer. That should work."
She didn't have to think very long about the first question she needed answered. "How many times have you been in my head, Doctor?" She asked it very softly.
He flicked another glance at her. "Right to the lightning round, I see. No questions about Gallifreyan history first, or...or..." She continued to gaze at him steadily, calmly. "No. No, I suppose not." The carpet pattern became of supreme interest once again. He sighed, considered. "Technically, I think...three-and-a-half times. Yes. That's about right. Although, you could conflate the half time and round down, I suppose, as an ongoing part of one of the larger events. Yes. Let's do that. Let's call it three. I think that sounds better. Three." He braced himself, looked at her sideways, waited to see what she would do.
II.
"Three and a half times." Her voice sounded calm, peaceful even.
"Well, I think probably just three is better, more accurate..."
"THREE AND A HALF TIMES? YOU'VE POKED AROUND IN MY HEAD THREE AND A HALF TIMES WITHOUT TELLING ME YOU WERE GOING ABOUT THAT?"
"Amelia, it's not like that, listen..."
"What exactly is it like, then, Doctor? Because all I know is that I was kissing you, and all of a sudden I hear your voice inside my head. As clear as day. As clear as I'm hearing you right now. Only I know, I know, that it wasn't you talking, was it? Because your mouth was just a little too occupied to be having a conversation with me at that particular moment!"
She sprang up, crossed over to the mantle, leaned heavily against it. Her hands were white-knuckled with anger as she gripped the smooth cool stone of it, as she tried to calm down, tried to regain control.
He didn't move. He didn't get up, pursue her, try to pull her into his arms. He let her go, stayed still. She heard his voice a moment later.
"On Gallifrey, we have a high-level of native psychic potential. I suppose you could say the universe calls to us in a lot of ways. We're sensitive to the flow and ebb of time, to distortions and the warp of space, sensitive to the thoughts of each other and of other races in certain situations, just little exposed nerves running through the universe, we are." His lips quirked up in a painful smile, and then his eyes shadowed, the light in them dying. "Well, we were, anyway." The last was said softly, infinite sadness in it.
She did not turn away from the mantle, but he sensed her listening. It was enough for him to continue.
"When the first Council of the Time Lords rose, they began to train and hone our native abilities, strengthen them. A Time Lord is very much a creature of the mind. It is through the mind that they first bent time and space to their will. Much of our technology is based on a psychic link or imprint of some kind. That's why it only works for us or in our hands. It's just such a part of what we are...were...that none of us even though of it. It was so deeply ingrained in our culture that we took it for granted, just another sense, like sight or hearing. Our scientists used these abilities in their design, our healers used them in treatment, even our permanent records, the sum total of all Time Lord knowledge, the great Matrix, is...was...a modified form of mental energy." He paused here, and she could sense something, some memory there he left unspoken.
A moment later, he continued. "Anyway, because we were so sensitive and we were trained to be so strong, we were also trained first and foremost to maintain equally strong barriers between ourselves and the minds of others. It would have been the height of rudeness and poor taste for a Time Lord to lower his or her shields and just open his or her mind to everyone, a bit like running naked through a crowded public place on Earth, I suppose. By the time we entered young adulthood, keeping a basic shield up for the sake of politeness had become automatic, something nobody even thought about."
She turned around, wandered back to the couch. He was not looking at her. She had never heard him talk so much about his lost people. She had known only that he was the last. She knew that what he said was causing him pain, that this looking back was like walking across broken glass. Without saying anything, not wishing to stop the flow of this rare thing he was sharing, she sat on the far end of the couch again.
"So imagine what it's like to come to Earth, then. Varying level of mostly weak psychic potential all over the place, and nobody, but nobody really with any idea of how to manage even the most basic of shielding because almost nobody on the planet can tune into it. It's a bit like coming into a room with a thousand televisions and radios on. Most of the time I can tune them out, or at the very least sort of make it into a background blur. Trusty Time Lord training, and all that. But sometimes... Well..."
He looked at her directly for the first time.
"I want you to know that the first time I went into your mind was when Prisoner Zero took you over in Leadsworth. I did it because I had to do it. I formed a mild and temporary link with you to see what you were seeing. You won't remember it, although I suppose Rory might have told you about it at some point. He was there when it happened. It was nothing sordid, nothing evil, nothing involving any degree of mind control. I simply needed to communicate with you while Prisoner Zero was holding your dreaming mind hostage, more or less, and slipping into your mind like that was the only way I had to do it. I didn't go poking around into private corners, didn't open any closed doors. Nothing like that. I just found you where you were with Prisoner Zero, helped you change that dream, and got out. Honest."
She processed it a moment, nodded. "Okay. So that's one. Two and a half left to account for."
He hesitated. "Yeah. Well. These are the bits you're not going to like so much."
"Doctor..." Her tone became threatening.
"Okay. Okay. I promised full-disclosure, and full-disclosure you shall have. Fine. There will have to be more explanation of Time Lord biology now, if you can stand it, though."
She made a sweeping gesture with her hand, smirked a little. "Lecture away, professor."
He narrowed his eyes at her, and she saw a flash of temper. "Look. Don't think this a ball of fun for me, either, Amy..."
"Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead."
He grumbled something under his breath that the TARDIS did not choose to translate, one of the only times that had happened since she'd been on board, and Amy decided it was probably an obscenity of some kind. Despite the seriousness of their conversation, she couldn't help but be amused by his frustration. Yeah. Welcome to my world, Doctor.
"Alright then. I told you Time Lords had high psychic levels, yes?"
She nodded dutifully.
"Well, we are also touch telepaths. Do you know what that means?"
She tilted her head, thought about it a moment. "Does that mean that when you touch something you know about it?"
"Well, sort of. If it thinks, and if I am not actively blocking it out, then yes. That's what it means. Being in contact with something...or someone...makes it harder for me not to know what they're thinking. It sort of boosts the volume, as it were."
Amy thought about it. "So...when you touch someone, you know everything they're thinking."
"Usually not. I get fragments, images, sort of glimpses into them with most people. Some people don't give me anything at all. Some people," you, "yield more than others depending on the strength of their emotions. Again, how much I see when I touch someone depends on how stirred up the other person is, if there is a conductor in play, how long I am in contact, if I'm actively blocking or looking, and...and...um...certain other situations as well..."
She saw a faint blush creep along his cheeks. Well, this has to be good. "Such as..."
"Such as...such as...if...a...bond...is being formed." And the faint blush darkened.
Oh yeah. Definitely something good behind door number one. Let's just kick that lock down and see, shall we?
"And a bond would be..."
It was his turn to get up and pace. "The bit you won't like. The bit you definitely, definitely won't like." He did not elaborate further, however.
A thought dawned as she waited for him to sort out the next bit of his tangled explanation. "Your race is all about the mind, can connect through the mind, and it's like an inborn trait you said you all possess..."
He said nothing, froze, watched her agile thoughts chase it like a hunting hound with a slow and lame rabbit.
"...and you're all blushy and twitchy, trying to dance around something that's making you nervous..."
He looked affronted mildly, but said nothing.
"...and I heard you in my head these last two times when you were kissing me, when you were touching me..."
He started pacing again, long strides, back and forth in front of the fireplace.
"And you almost went berserk this afternoon when I touched you... where you were touching me the other day in the pool. And it was when you were touching me there that I felt that feeling..."
Damn observant Pond. Why couldn't she not have noticed that... Some part of him, though, was pleased. He couldn't deny it. He didn't have to like it, but he couldn't deny it... Because maybe if she knows, she'll do it again... He stifled the dark voice and the little shiver of pleasure the thought of her fingers running over that sensitive area triggered ruthlessly.
"So if I'm right then, basically, then...a bond would be..."
"Yes. Yes. Exactly. It's what happens when Time Lords wish to beget little Time Lords. Or, since we stopped reproducing that way quite a long time ago, practice said biological function for fun. Okay? Succinct enough? Or shall I draw you a diagram to go with it?" He ran his hands through his hair, leaving it standing up in several odd directions.
"Sit down."
"What?" He stopped pacing to look at her. "What?"
"You heard me. You're making me dizzy, and I need to think a minute. Sit down."
He grunted in consternation, but flopped down on the far end of the couch again. She was sitting cross-legged, twisting her fingers together as she thought, her long hair a flaming curtain hiding most of her face. He wanted to leave. He wanted to stay. He wanted to know what the hell she was thinking. This. This is intolerable. He'd never had to explain...biology...to anyone before. It made him feel ridiculous. Made him feel unbearably old. He brought his hands up and covered his face with them, closed his eyes.
He finally heard her take a deep breath, and he tensed waiting for her to start picking his soul apart again in little fractured pieces with her curiosity.
"Could you help it?" Her voice was very small as she asked.
He lowered his hands, startled, looked at her. "What? What do you mean?"
"Did you mean to? I mean the last two-and-a-half times. Were they...were they on purpose?"
He could tell that his answer was crucial, that he needed to be honest with her, that there was something essential and fundamental here that she needed from him, and as determined as he was to figure out why that was, he knew she needed the answer first. He turned to face her on the couch, pulled his long legs up to face her, mimicked her cross-legged position.
"Not the first of those times, no. You had been battering me for days with images of...of...well, of us, I suppose is a delicate way to put it, and when you came into the pool room and got into the water with me, my barriers were already naturally low. The water acted as a conductor, and next thing I knew, I was tuned in to Radio Free Amelia Pond." His lips turned up, but there was little humor in the gesture.
Her eyes closed in embarrassment. "So you saw...you saw what exactly?"
"Ah...Amelia, don't ask me that." He looked away, embarrassed.
"No. I want to know. I have that right, don't you think? I mean, you've crawled all around the inside of my head, made it your own little play palace, so I don't think this is too much to ask..."
"Stop. It wasn't like that." His tone was angry as was the gaze that snapped back to clash with hers.
"Wasn't it?"
"No. No, Amy. I've never seen anything you weren't trying to show me, at least unconsciously. I haven't climbed into your head and pilfered around. It doesn't work like that. Well, okay, yes, it could work like that, but I don't work like that, anyway. Look, it's...I...you were broadcasting so loudly. Even before the pool, even with my shields in place, sometimes, I could catch glimpses of it. But I always did the appropriate thing, the proper thing, and I... I turned my eyes away. Well, I'm sorry, but that day in the pool, I just couldn't anymore. You were there, and you wanted me, and... I... I wasn't as noble as I should have been."
"What did you see?"
He sighed. "You really want me to do this? Fine." His tone was flat and his eyes slid away from hers again. He gestured idly, tiredly. "In one of the visions you showed me, I saw you and me. Lots of you and me, actually, since we were both stark naked. I saw me pin you to a wall, which I'm assuming was a corridor of the TARDIS, judging from the architectural detail, and then I just sort of lifted you up a bit, and you wrapped your..."
She was looking at him with eyes gone saucer-big in a face bone white. "Stop. Just stop," she choked out. She drew her knees up and buried her face in them. Her voice came to him muffled a moment later. "You saw a lot of this sort of thing, yeah?"
"Quite a bit, yes. Variations on a theme, you might say. If it's any consolation whatsoever to you, I must say that you have a very colorful imagination."
She raised her head like a shot. "Thanks, Doctor, but no. I'm sorry. At this particular moment in time, I can't say it's any comfort at all." Her tone would have cut steel.
"Right. Sorry. Another one of those things that sounded better in my head than it did out and about in the real world..."
They were silent for long moments, both of them staring into the green fire. He finally broke the quiet.
"Would you do me the favor of answering a question of my own, Amy?"
She looked at him warily. "Maybe. You can ask it, and I'll see."
"Other than the obvious ickyness of having someone muck about in your head without your permission, what else is it about this that is bothering you so?"
She shifted on the couch, started to get angry, and he made a placating gesture with his hands. "No, no, no. I'm not trying to downgrade it. Please. I am trying to understand. There is something else here that matters, and I need you to tell me what it is. Why are you so afraid of my having been in your mind, Amelia? Help me understand. You have to know that I'd...I mean I hope you understand that I'd...I'd never hurt you..."
She put her chin on her knees, stared off at one of the stained glass windows, one with a little girl offering a rose to a giant beast of some sort. She had decided it was a variation on "Beauty and the Beast" probably. Either that or the little girl was bringing flowers to something where she was about to be served up as the main dish. That was the problem with fairy tales, wasn't it? It could always go either way...
"When I was little, after you were gone," she paused, wet her lips, started again. "When I was little, they kept telling me that there was something wrong with my mind. You know, basically that I was crazy. My aunt tried everything the experts suggested to "cure me" of my delusions. There was no Raggedy Doctor. There had been no blue box, no crack in the wall, no psychic paper, no fish sticks and custard. She was well-intentioned. I don't blame her. And, I was stubborn, and I guess not-so-smart looking back at it now, or I would have just told them what they wanted to hear and believed whatever I liked privately. But these are not the sorts of distinctions you make when you're ten, twelve."
He said nothing, continued to look at her, fought the need to grab her into his arms.
"They fed me drugs that made me sick, sleepy, forgetful, throw up, even. I didn't feel like myself half the time, couldn't think straight, couldn't even feel straight or true with all that crap blocking my emotions. When that didn't work, they tried hypnotherapy, planting suggestions, all sorts of things. I think that by the time I was getting old enough to rebel against it all that if a traveling shaman had come into town, my aunt would have taken me in to see him for the whole works." She laughed, but there was despair in it.
"And then there was Prisoner Zero, all those years silently worming its way into my mind, making some sort of horrible invisible tunnel inside me so it could dart in and hide if it needed to. And then it needed to..." Her voice trailed off, and she shuddered at the memory of the feeling of Prisoner Zero's mind slipping into hers, forcing hers to feed it images as it desperately tried to hide from the Atraxi.
"So the integrity of my mind became something I value very highly, Doctor," she said very softly, looking at him for the first time, direct, intense. "Have you ever had anybody muck around inside your head?"
"I...yes. I have. Yes." Memories of a thousand conflicts with enemies who also fought with the mind, a hundred moments when his will had been stripped from him by beings more powerful than he or who used machinery or manipulation, of endless combats that had taken place inside the scarred landscape of his own mind flickered, like a horror show, brief, gruesome, permanently etched. This was not the time to share. It was enough to say simply yes.
She studied his face, saw what she needed there apparently, and nodded. "So you know, then. You know."
And he did. He knew it all too well. He had never considered, never even thought of this fragile, ephemeral little Earth-child carrying scars like this around with her. Folly and arrogance, Doctor. You're not the only one in this world who carries pain. You don't have the sole lease on a past with hurt in it.
Worse still, he'd been the instrument of hers. Accidentally, to be sure, but the cause nonetheless. Instead of saving that little girl with the scary crack in her bedroom wall, he'd somehow managed to set her up for years of pain instead...
"Amelia Pond," he said softly. She looked at him curiously. "I really was the big bad wolf in your story, wasn't I? Huffed and puffed and blew all your houses in. I left you out in the cold with no refuge at all. And I've no way to make it better, you know. I would if I could, but there's no way to go back, and I...I..." He shook his head, looked down at his lap, felt the creeping hand of misery and guilt rising to choke him, felt his own self-hatred blossoming like bright black flowers, thorns ripping, gouging. Another life blighted, destroyed...
She looked at him sitting there in abject misery, and she thought about his words, his explanations. She knew there was more for them to discuss, hadn't missed the fact that he hadn't yet told her about the last time he'd been in her head, hadn't explained the sensations she'd felt in the pool to her satisfaction, either, but she thought she had a pretty good indication of what all that might be about all on her own.
And it's not like I'm not going to get all that out of him in time. Ha. And that's the one thing we really do have, isn't it? Time? Can't stand seeing him there like this...
He heard her move, unexpectedly felt her hand lightly touch his own, hesitate a moment, then slip firmly around it to grasp, twine his fingers and her own together. He raised his eyes to hers, not understanding.
"No, Doctor," she said with a gentle sigh. "Look. What is, is. I don't regret what happened in the past. I'd be regretting meeting you, wouldn't I?" He winced, tried to pull his hand away, but she clung firmly, refused to let go. "Stop it. I mean it. There were parts that were...okay, so not so much fun, to be perfectly honest, but I survived it. And maybe I needed them so I would be ready for just this time, just this moment, just this conversation."
"Amy," he whispered. "All the pain you've been through, all the drugs, the therapists, Prisoner Zero, all of it, that was because of me. You do see that, don't you? How can you keep saying that..."
"Because pain comes to everyone, Doctor, in some form or another. But not everyone gets so much wonder to balance out the scales. So if I choose to count myself lucky for having had a crazy man in a blue box fall out of my sky one night when I was a wee girl, who are you to tell me otherwise?"
And she pulled him gently forward into her arms, held him tightly to her.