[Scattered images. A doll cut in half from the waist down. His legs held apart by metal. A pet in its carrier. A syringe.]

Rage, enough to overwhelm her; the connection flickers out as she loses hold of it, twice, three times. There's a longer pause before the fourth connection; she's calmer - not calm, but the roiling wall of emotion has been pushed back a little, or perhaps she's just found the eye of the storm. In the background, she chants, over and over:

you deserve the space you are currently occupying,
the air in your lungs, the clothes on your back,
you deserve everything you have ever wanted
to be placed at your feet like an offering.
you deserve space, so much space,
room to manoeuvre and spread out and breathe.
if i could, i would bottle the stars for you.
if no one else will, then i will carve out a space for you,
use my own bare hands if i have to.
you deserve the space you occupy,
you deserve to occupy space, as much space
as you need, as you want, as you can,
you deserve to be comfortable. to be happy. to
have everything you have ever wanted placed at your feet.

[source]

All he can do is listen and cling onto her presence and her anger.

He doesn't know how many cycles it is before he can manage words.

it wasn't his.

it's not fair.

...occupy space, as much space; not fair, she echoes, firmly;
as you need, as you want...

He starts to repeat along with her, real lips moving as his mind forms the words.

One line stands out bright between the others:

i will carve out a space for you

use my own bare hands if i have to; a bloody promise.

She's calming down, slowly, slowly, the rage transforming into a fierce protectiveness, smouldering like banked coals, like the stubbornness he's already seen from her; this height of emotion may be unsustainable, but she'll neither forget nor forgive what's been done to him.

He almost feels like he can touch her. Her mind wrapped in his, though, is enough.

(Not enough to fix this, not enough to make it okay, but enough.)

He tries to bury himself in her feelings, in her desire to protect and her stubbornness and the grudge that he has not recovered enough yet to even begin to hold.

She's so strong; she's not filtering hardly at all, and he can feel, if he looks for them, all the sharp edges of inability, but none of them touch the fundamental strength of will that she's sharing with him - this is survivable; she'll carry him, just as much as he needs her to, that kind of strength is the one thing she has in endless supply.

He’s in awe.

He can make it, with this, with what she gives him.

(She made it a year: he just needs to make it through now, and now, and now...)

He finds her meditation: he doesn’t know if it was in him or her.

i am here, now; i am surviving this moment.

you are. we are.

it's the only thing we need to do.

this moment is survivable; we are surviving this moment.

He stays close as long as he can.

The droids bring him meals. The first one, he ignores. By the time the second one arrives he tries, fails, tries again to keep some of it down. He succeeds, the second time.

She stays close through all of it; if there are droids bringing her food, she's ignoring them so thoroughly as to not notice them at all.

By dinnertime, she's regained some of the clarity that suggests that she might be able to talk to him, though she doesn't seem to have anything in particular to say.

am i the first one like this?

Yeah.

guess you can't tell me what happens next, then.

Part of him is glad, though, that he's the first one to go through this particular torment here.

Do you really want to know?

i don't know.

It's not impossible to read his mind. I think I'm in good enough shape to do it safely.

...if he realizes i already knew you'd be in danger.

i think maybe it's better to just...

wait.

Yeah.

Small risk, but very bad if they do figure it out. And it won't change what happens, anyway; that would be worth it, no question.

I bit Master, today, she sends, a little point of pride. When you panicked I did too, got him good. She sends the memory: managing to surprise him, the taste of blood in her mouth, the momentarily-comforting full-body thud of being slammed into a wall, before the pain hit.

Another moment that he can forget fear.

good. proud of you.

His heart thuds like he's really there. It's thrilling.

Yeah.

It'd be easier if I could let them forget that I'm dangerous, but I like that they won't.

Yes. That's good.

scare em a little for me.

Will do. (No she won't; strategically inadvisable. But the sentiment is there.)

He savors that for a moment and then it becomes impossible again to forget.

he just 

took part of me.

it was easy