Remember to Forget Me
by SomeKindOfNature [Reviews - 8]
Chapter or Story
- Teen
- None
- Angst, Drama, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Series
He brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “Nervous?”
She matched his pose and nodded. “I don’t know why. It’s not like we haven’t done this before.”
“We haven’t, Rose. This won’t be like the times before.”
His serious gaze made her straighten. “What do you mean?”
“You’re a full telepath now. The connection is going to be more…intense.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. What-“
He looked down at their joined hands. “Do you remember the Valiant? The first time we, uh… touched?”
Did she remember it? She dreamed about it, the overwhelming press of his mind against her, the sensation of their minds slipping together, twining delicate tendrils of connection between them. She remembered being awash in everything that he is. She was left in awe of him, the complexity of his mind and spirit, and humbled that he would ever feel such naked affection for someone like her. Combine that with the fervent press of his lips, the slight tug of his fingers in her hair, and the groan that rumbled from his chest; let’s just say, intense didn’t begin to describe it. The memory alone was enough to leave heat coiling in her belly.
The Doctor cleared his throat.
Rose’s amber eyes snapped up to his heated gaze as a blush stole up her neck and onto her cheeks. “Sorry.”
“You’re fine. It’s fine. Everything’s-“
“Fine?”
He released a nervous chuckle. “Yeah.”
Her brow furrowed at the anxiety she could sense from him. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re more nervous about this than I am?”
The Doctor cleared his throat. “Rose, there’s something you need to know.”
She paused, eyes narrowing. “What is it?”
“This is going to strengthen the bond between us.”
“But you said that you wanted this to go away, not get stronger. That was why you wanted me to wear the dampener in the first place.”
“Well, that was before I understood how much it affected you, wasn’t it,” he snapped as he dropped her hand and jumped to his feet. “I don’t want you to hurt, Rose…not the way you hurt today. It’s not fair that you have to cut off one of your senses. I thought that since you haven’t been a full telepath for long, that you wouldn’t notice its absence.” He began to pace, dragging his fingers through his hair in irritation. “Which, in hindsight, I admit was completely misguided. That’s like saying a deaf person who was suddenly given their hearing wouldn’t notice being deaf again. Of course, it was uncomfortable. But if you’re not going to use the dampener, you need to have some kind of psychic barriers in place. I’m the only one on this ship who can teach you and being in each other’s heads is going to make this bond stronger. There’s no way around it.”
Rose grabbed his hand as he passed, bringing him to an abrupt stop. His furrowed brow softened as she rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. “But if we make it stronger doesn’t that mean that we’re kind of stuck together, at least for the foreseeable future?”
He made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “I’m not monster. I never want you to hurt and I want even less to be the cause of it. If it comes down to hurting you like that or protecting my stupid boundaries…well, there’s just no contest, Rose. You’re going win that one every time.”
Rose was holding her breath, examining his tense expression. He was refusing to meet her eye and color was working its way out from under his collar. He was anxious and embarrassed, afraid that he had said too much…but he had said just enough. He felt something for her, even if he was afraid to define it. He was willing to put her needs before his and that was touching.
“Besides,” he continued, voice softening as he at last met her eye. “Stuck with you? That’s not so bad.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded and dropped his chin to study his feet. “So, can we skip the argument? I’ve already made up my mind.”
“Okay,” she replied, voice thick with unspoken emotions.
His head snapped up, surprise at her easy agreement evident in his eyes. “Really?”
Rose nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat. “Yeah.”
The Doctor resumed his position on the sofa with cautious movements. Rose scooted toward him until their knees touched and waited patiently for his instructions.
He swallowed, running his thumbs over the tips of his fingers. “Close your eyes.”
She obeyed and several seconds later, she felt the soft pressure of his fingertips cradling her head. She sucked in a sharp breath, hands reaching up to circle his wrists. Rose was diving into everything he was, feeling it wash over her like a warm breeze.
“Theta,” she breathed and pressed further into his mind, blinded by flashes of memory and deafened by clashing conversations. The soft words of a feminine voice caught her attention.
A door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction.
Curiosity having overwhelmed her sense of reason, Rose captured the words, following them back to the memory. An opulent room resolved around her, sporting the kind of décor that she would always remember. The copious quantities of gold made it hard to forget the palace of Louis XVI. Madame de Pompadour stood before her smirking at the shock evident on the Doctor’s face.
The scene ended abruptly as the Doctor in the real world wrenched away from her. Rose winced, rubbing between her brows as she struggled to gain her bearings. She looked up into his wary face and cringed, realizing what she had done.
“I’m sorry,” she groaned. “I didn’t mean…I wasn’t intending to…”
He raised a skeptical brow.
Rose looked down at her lap, ashamed by her behavior and hurt. He was thinking about her?
She heard him sigh and felt his fingers under her chin, lifting it until she met his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking about her,” he assured with soft words. “I was thinking about what she said.”
“A door, once opened, can be stepped through in both directions.”
He nodded. “That’s going to be double true for us. The mind’s natural inclination is to protect itself from anything foreign but for us, because of this bond, our instinct is going to be to discover…everything about each other.”
“And you don’t want that.”
He shrugged, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. “Rose, there are some things, some memories, that I would never burden you with and there are others that,” he trailed off.
“What?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, Rose. You’ve lived for thirty-three years. Haven’t you done something that you were ashamed of?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, shouldn’t we be allowed to decide when we share those things with each other?”
Her cheeks flamed pink and her hands came up to cover her face. “Of course. Doctor, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize. I understand how overwhelming the temptation can be and, like I said, most of it boils down to instincts that aren’t easy to ignore. It’s difficult for me to resist but, aside from the consent aspect, it’s not what we were here to do today. We need to make sure that you have psychic defenses in place and it’s not going to be easy. It will require focus and practice.”
She nodded in agreement. “Okay. I’m ready.”
“Alright, let’s try this again. I think it might help if I give you a little more direction,” he replied. “Close your eyes and try to visualize your mind.”
She obeyed, listening to the soothing lilt of his voice.
“If you had to picture all of your memories, thoughts, ideas, what would that look like? It should be comfortable; it should relax you.”
Rose thought of the TARDIS library, with its rows and rows of books. She was comfortable there, wandering shelf after shelf, running her fingers along the ancient spines. It was her favorite place in the universe; she always felt safe there. She could picture it in her minds eye. Suddenly, it was there. She was standing in front of case after case of dark wood shelves and each one had different door set into its front. Rose walked toward the first one and examined it. This was the door to her room on the estate. A pink piece of construction paper was taped to its surface displaying her name drawn in large block letters, decorated with crudely drawn hearts and flowers. She smiled. Her childhood memories lay beyond this door, a time filled with light and laughter.
She looked across the way to the door on the opposite case. It was the same door, but the childlike scribbled sign was replaced by her name in elegant scripted letters. Intricate colorful flowers twined through the letters, each one penned and shadowed with painstaking detail. Beneath the artwork, in bold block letters read: PLEASE KNOCK FIRST. She shook her head, mouth twisting into a wry smile; ah adolescence. That would hold some of her most cringe worthy memories. She wasn’t what you would call an easy teen. Looking back now, her mother was a saint for even putting up with her.
Rose stepped back, looking down the center walkway, seeing all of the doors that contained a period of her life. The longer that she focused, the more that details began to sharpen. The veins of gold in the marble floor brightened, glittering in the flickering light of the sconces affixed above each door. She turned around and saw the large fireplace and the cozy seating area before it. With each passing second, everything gained clarity.
“Got it,” the Doctor asked.
“Yeah,” she breathed in reply.
“Brilliant. Now I want you to pay attention to what it feels like when I enter your mind.”
“Wait, I thought you were always there?”
“Very good question,” he replied. “That is why this is going to feel a bit different than if a foreign presence was trying to gain access to your mind. Ideally you would work through this with someone that you didn’t already have a connection with but we’re working with what we have. This will feel different than normal though. It’s a deeper connection and it might feel uncomfortable in the beginning.”
“Okay.”
“Ready?”
“Yeah.”
In her physical body, Rose felt the soft weight of his fingers against her temple but that was the last that she was aware of her body as his mind pressed forward into hers. Rose sucked in a breath and released it on a soft long moan. It was almost indescribable; being bombarded all of him to the point of being overwhelmed. Her mind felt like it was stretching to accommodate his essence. It was the kind of feeling that left you breathless, waiting on that razors edge of pleasure and pain, wondering which way you’ll fall. It felt like…
“Rose.”
She startled, whipping toward the sound of his voice. He stood beside her in her mind’s library, staring down at her with heat in his eyes and a smile tugging at his lips.
“Hi,” she said on a breathless whisper.
“Hi.” He looked exactly as he had in the TARDIS library, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, collar undone, and feet bare.
A single lock of hair fell over his forehead and she sighed. His brows quirked upward in question and Rose shook herself out of her dreamy haze. “Sorry.”
“So,” he asked like she had any idea what he meant.
“So?”
He rolled his eyes. “Did you pay attention?”
“Oh! Yeah…um…”
His gaze turned expectant, as if asking her to elaborate.
“It feels like…err…um…” He gave her that stupid dribbling on her shirt look and Rose snapped. “Sex. Itfeelslikesex.”
His eyes grew wide, brows arching into his hairline.
Rose slapped a hand to her forehead and groaned. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“No, no,” he squeaked, rubbing at the back of his neck. “That’s not a horrible description. Although, I think it feels that way because…welllll…it’s us. It won’t feel like this with someone you don’t know well or if someone is trying to force their way into your mind.”
“Well, that makes sense with the sex metaphor doesn’t it? Being forced into sex is painful, sex with someone you don’t know well would be uncomfortable, and sex with a lover is…” She trailed off, realizing that she was rambling about the similarities between telepathy and sex to the Doctor.
An awkward moment of silence settled between them as they stared at each other in shock. The Doctor cleared his throat, but it didn’t help to lower the register of his voice when he said, “Let’s move on.”
Rose cringed. “Okay.”
He stuffed his hands back into his pockets and slipped past her down the center aisle of her library. She scurried after him. He passed shelf after shelf, noting the doors at the end of each stack.
“Looks nice,” he praised, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. “Very organized.”
“Thank you,” she replied with a tight smile.
As they approached the last of the stacks, the large door at the end of the main walkway became harder to ignore. The Doctor approached it, brushing his fingers over the golden wolf embossed on the wooden surface. He turned to look at her in question.
“That’s the part of my mind that’s connected to the TARDIS and the Time Vortex,” she explained.
He nodded and ran a fingertip over the seam of the doors. Bright golden light arched out of it, caressing his skin. The Doctor’s eyes lit up and he turned back to her with a bright grin.
“That is fascinating.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Stay focused. Where do we start?”
“Welll,” he replied, jogging back toward the first door with the childlike sign. “As I said before, the connection that is already established between us makes this training difficult. We’re so intwined already, it would probably be more difficult to try and push me out of your mind altogether. So, instead we will start with trying to keep me out of specific thoughts or memories. Think of a memory, let’s make it your first memory.”
Rose scoffed. “Come on, can anyone really know what their first memory is? Time gets all jumbled after a while.”
“Just think.”
“Okay, well…”
“No, no, don’t tell me. Just think.”
Rose cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “Okay.”
“That memory is behind this door and your job,” he said, walking backwards toward it. “Is to make sure I can’t open it.”
“What? How am I supposed to do that?”
“Keep it locked.”
“Okay, but how?”
“A lot of telepathy is instinctual. It’s almost impossible to explain the feeling to someone who doesn’t already know. It’s gonna feel like flexing a muscle that you didn’t know you had. Just give it a try. Keep the door locked.”
The Doctor reached for the handle and jiggled it. Rose felt a slight twinge behind her eyes, but the door stayed closed.
He smiled. “Good.”
Rose almost beamed before he grabbed the handle again and wrenched. A sharp burn bloomed in her mind as she tried to keep the handle from turning. Her breaths became choppy, sweat beaded on her brow. Her hands were shaking, and she clenched them in tight fists. Suddenly, her control slipped, the handle turned, and both were sucked into the memory beyond.
Bright white light blinded Rose and she lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun filtering through the trees. She looked around. They were in a park; sounds of laughter and excited chatter were ringing in her ears. A soft breeze floated through the branches, brushing against her cheeks.
A squeal of laughter from behind had her whipping around. The Doctor stood next to her mother as she pushed a toddler Rose in one of those child safe swings, a giant smile plastered on her face. She pulled the swing back high and the little girl inside squealed with delight.
“Look how high you are Rose,” her mother cooed. “You want me to let go?”
“Yes! Yes!” Young Rose clapped in anticipation.
“Here ya’ go! Wheee!”
Her mother released the back of the swing and she giggled in abandon, flying through the air.
The memory faded and they both found themselves in her mind’s library once again, staring at the door to her childhood.
The Doctor turned toward Rose with a grin. “You were an adorable child.”
She rolled her eyes. “I failed. That wasn’t adorable.”
He offered a gentle smile. “Don’t get discouraged. It’s difficult. We’ll try again.”
He looked across the aisle to the next door and waggled his brows. “Rose Tyler, the teenage years?”
She groaned and followed after him as he bound toward it. This was going to be a long night.