I can tell by the way you reach your conclusions: you're the director of a mental institution…
The Vesmier is in the front lobby of the Kashtta Tower, sitting and waiting for... several people, actually. Though he suspects the person he needs to be, some hypothetical figure of authority who could offer a proper procedure for any of this, for all of it, will not appear
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Ruvin feels like there's someone attacking a butter churn in her stomach with entirely too much enthusiasm. She stops outside the Kashtta's doors, half-frozen the way she was when she went to see the Doctor.
Of course, when she went to see the Doctor, there was a ferret at the end of the walk, not an imposing, stony-faced man who may or may not have kept her from remembering burning people alive.
So. She'll just be... standing here. For a bit. Looking at the Kashtta's door... lever. Handle. Thing. What do you call those, anyway?
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Said imposing, stony-faced man is not actually dealing with this entire situation all that much better than Ruvin is, stonyfacedness notwithstanfing. He's still worrying at everything, trying to hunt down an answer in a morass of abstracts and subjectives which aren't eager to give him anything.
He notices Ruvin at the door after a few moments and stands to open it for her - unorthodox, according to the laws of Gallifreyan social interaction, with her his junior (and it's only become more disconcerting recently that that can be said for most of the people here), but this entire situation has passed all bounds of orthodoxy. What's another concession?
He taps the handicapped button to open the door, folding his hands back into his sleeves. "Ruvin."
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"Sir," she mumbles, because she can't bring herself to call him Vesmier. He oozes sir-ness. He just does. She hiccups again.
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He motions her in, stepping out of her immediate path. "You would prefer somewhere somewhat more private?" It's half a query. Half a suggestion. Privacy is good for this sort of discussion, especially if he's not eager to have it mind-to-mind.
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He's a diplomat; that's easy to see. He carries himself like one, talks like one. She was too, once, but those experiences--well. They carry distance and unfamiliarity with them now, words she can't quite pin down and missions that are only vague mumbles in her mind.
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He walks down toward Silent Hall with no intention of walking through it. It happens to be in the area with the offices, is all, and at least one of them has chairs. He walks to it already lining up what to say in his head, and motions her to a seat once they're there.
"I didn't have a chance to rebuild your mind as thoroughly as I would have preferred, needing to... address the Doctor, as I did," he says, which might be an explanation or an apology. Or just what needs to be said to lead up to the point where they actually talk about anything. "Please, sit."
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It's terrifying. The thought of someone--a stranger, now that she has the presence of mind to realize it--rebuilding everything that is supposed to belong to her. It's a brief and blinding moment, to realize she has no way of knowing who she was before what happened. If she'll ever be that person again, really. If anyone else can ever make her who she was before.
Do you trust me?
How could she have done that? Even if she did trust the Doctor, care about him--nothing should have made her so careless, so inconsiderate of the consequences of letting someone in that way.
She asked for this.
She asked for this, or who she was asked for this--who she was, who she was, god she feels like a stranger in this body now--and its her responsibility to find out the result. "What happened to the Doctor? What... did you need to address?"
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But she'd... that situation had been so far outside of anything he'd had experience with, and with her begging him to do something, and from the way something had already ripped across the Vortex...
She's asked what happened to the Doctor. He's not even sure if she should have that information, if she deserves to know, if he should be the one to tell her in anything but the vaguest possible terms. He does not know how to deal with this, and as a Time Lord who by rights should only be edging in on his second regeneration, it shouldn't fall to him ( ... )
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"Dan--Daniel Faraday--told me I had," she pauses, "that I'd altered the time line. How? I don't--" Her mind--rebuilt, her rebuilt mind, she still can't help boggling and stumbling over that fact--is going ten different directions at once. Even that makes her feel scattered. Considering all potentials, all possibilities at once, just kind of makes her feel sick. She takes a breath, closes her eyes, steadies herself.
"How could I have done what he says I did? What did I do?" There's a moment of hesitance, then, "What did I change?"
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For a second, she thinks, That's it? It's hard to pin down what she feels--relief, satisfaction, an ugly twist of pride.
But she hasn't lost everything. Hasn't lost all the memories of the park, of the people who came to see her, to listen or to argue or to ask her what she is, what people like her can do. People whose brothers or sisters or friends could have been CLF. People who might become CLF themselves, if pushed the wrong way.
Everything else fades and she sits back in her chair, closes her eyes.
"I killed them. After all I've said, all I've tried to do, when I was given the opportunity, I killed them." Silence, while she gathers herself to ask something else. She's not sure how to. She's tired already. Ruvin looks up at the Vesmier. "Then the dreams of things burning...?"
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She shouldn't be having those dreams. Not at all. And his first instinct is to go into her mind and fix it (certain things aren't meant for humans, for anyone but Time Lords to see), and his second instinct is to offer to, and he's not quite sure either instinct is correct.
"The... Doctor's homeworld," he says. "Mine, though in a different universe. It was eradicated, though not by you. The Doctor showed you." In an attempt to make you stop.
This situation is not, if it ever was, in his control.
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It makes her heart hurt, suddenly knowing what the Doctor lost--what Ves doesn't have any more.
At least you're not alone. She said that to him. She can't believe she said that to him. She closes her eyes again, as though the dark is some kind of shield against the Vesmier and his quiet stare. It's good, she thinks, that she has the fear and pain and loneliness snarling through her dreams. It's a reminder of what could happen, what she can do. What the Vesmier implied she could do.
Though not by you.
The idea that she might be capable of something like that--
"I have no idea who I am," Ruvin says. "I don't know that I ever did."
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Then again, he lived in a comfortable world of theory and abstracts, ideals and policy, on Gallifrey. It's rather different to reaching into someone's mind, burying part of their personality, and having to face the consequences.
"...significant portions of you memory," he offers, "were buried, when your ability was suppressed." A hasty job, but given the state of things he'd been more concerned with making things thorough than elegant. "Those memories... could be recovered."
Could, should, shouldn't, might, and he desperately wishes there was some external system of law he could refer to.
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He shoves all his own particular doubts firmly out of his mind. There will be time to dissect this later - and oh, he will dissect it, probably for hours if not days - but as it is, the conversation is rapidly deteriorating and he doesn't intend to let it.
"It isn't my intention to make of you a beggar," he says, perhaps more sternly than he intended. "You have, of course, the right to your own memories. As a Time Lord, however, I have a responsibility to caretake the extant timeline and the integrity of temporal causality. I will help you recover those memories, but..."
The but is the more complicated part.
"It is my duty to ensure that this incident does not repeat itself."
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