Doctor Who: Through the Glass 10
Nov. 17th, 2009 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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milieva_ficsTitle: Through the Glass 10
Characters: Ten, Rose, Martha, Jack, Mickey, and various Tylers
Rating: R
Beta: Her majesty,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sciathan_file, who is not a loser despite what Mils says. (Who writes her own beta credit, and therefore must be a loser--Mils)
Disclaimer: Only a small handful of these character belong to me, I am merely borrowing the others and plan to return them in much the same condition I found them in.
Summary: (post LotTL) Upon trying to return Jack to his team, the TARDIS falls through a tiny gap in the universe, taking its pilot to the woman he loves. But Rose’s life has been fraught with hardships and peril, and her future has hung in a delicate balance. Could the Doctor’s very arrival tear the threads that have been holding her together?
Previous Chapters
Author’s Note: I know it has been ages since I have touched this story. We can just say it was one of the victims of the outcome of Journey’s End, when I lost the will to write for some time. I have taken back up the pen now, and have not only put it to finishing this story, I am also cleaning up and adding a bit to the previous chapters of this story in the ways of descriptions and such.
The heat tore the breath from their lungs as the great looming shadow advanced on the team. However, they stood frozen in the entrance of the tunnel they had been traversing. Rose shuttered as she felt the familiar sort of tug at the back of her mind. Instead of the gentle sort of mental prodding she was becoming accustomed to during her encounters with the Doctor, this touch was almost violent.
She stumbled backward in an instinctual attempt to run from her aggressor. Dagger-like fingers tore at her consciousness, ripping her thoughts to shreds. Her foot caught on outcropping of rock and she swayed off balance before Pat reached out a hand to keep her from falling.
The burning pressure behind her eyes built slowly as her stomach turned over and she fell hard to her knees as muscles contracted in an attempt to retch. Clawing at the ground as the pain and darkness closed in, she gasped out a bleak, “Leave us alone,” before the world went black.
Rose collapsed into a heap on the ground at the same moment Jesse had shot the tranquilizer dart into the beast’s neck. Jake was just complimenting him on his aim, when they realized what had happened behind them. James had already turned around and was checking her vitals.
“She’s just unconscious,” he assured Pat who was looking quite anxious.
After a few moments of bickering about whether or not to call into headquarters about Rose’s sudden swoon, the four men did agree on removing two of their fire-retardant suits and tying them together as a make-shift gurney so they could pull her back out the tunnel with them. Pat felt a bit like a pack animal as he led the way out. The sleeves of Jake’s suit were tied around his waist so he could pull Rose along as they made their way back through the narrow tunnel. James was crawling close behind to be sure she wasn’t injured by the outcroppings.
*.*.*.*.*
Lillian’s head shot up as she jolted awake from her sound sleep. All the color was drained from her face save the red imprint of the cardigan she’d been wearing. She trembled as she stared wide-eyed at the Doctor.
He slowly set his cup down as he met her gaze. He’d felt a ripple of shock and surprise that was followed by complete silence. He had from the brief glimpse, however, a very clear idea of what his child had felt.
“Lily?” he asked, keeping his voice calm and even.
Without a reply she just kept looking at him, her lip quivering as she fought back tears.
The aluminum chair let out a harsh squeal as he shoved it away from the table to move toward his child with the most speed he could manage. She was in his arms before he’d even dropped to his knees beside her chair.
“Mummy,” she cried, clinging to him as if he were her one life line.
The Doctor rocked her gently in his arms as he attempted to comfort her with soft meaningless words. Something had happened to Rose, but she was still alive. Now wasn’t the time to be jumping to the worst conclusions. She would be alright. Everything would be alright.
Tish blinked in confusion as she jolted awake from the sound of the Doctor’s chair scrapping across the tiled floor. She didn’t remember exactly when she had drifted off, but she was a little annoyed with herself for doing so.
“It’ll be okay. Your mummy’s just fine,” the Doctor was whispering out of sight at the other side of the table.
Tish wasn’t the only one to have taken notice of the change in the room. Jack was leaning over in his chair looking in the direction of the two on the floor.
“Everything alright, Doc?”
The Doctor looked up at him, still stroking Lily’s hair as she held onto him. “Something has happened to Rose,” he answered slowly before raising his voice slightly. “Tish, can you call the team?”
Jumping to her feet, Tish grabbed for her jacket and pulled her communicator out of the pocket and snapped it onto her ear as she pressed the button and asked for someone to answer.
“There’s nothing but static.”
Lily trembled against his chest murmuring into his lapels, repeating a mantra that her mother wasn’t dead so she would be alright, trying to reassure herself that everything was going to be okay.
“Keep trying,” he urged as he pulled his daughter in a tight, cradling embrace.
*.*.*.*.*
James deposited his burden carefully on the exam table as the room filled with people. It had taken nearly two hours for the team to call for help because something about the creature had knocked out the communication system. He’d done what he could, but Rose still wasn’t waking up.
Two medics had rushed in as soon as it became clear that something had gone terribly wrong in the field. James had grabbed for one’s stethoscope, but the Doctor was faster. He had it out of the other man’s hand and was back at Rose’s side before anyone else had had time to really catch up on what had happened.
Satisfied her vitals were fine the Doctor shoved the stethoscope into James’s hands as the blond man indignantly stated that he was the medical officer on this mission.
“My wife,” the Doctor stated, glaring at him, as he ran his hands down one leg and up the other, checking for any sort of injury.
“Oh, let’s not start that,” Tish groused as she pushed forward. “Do we have a diagnosis, Doctor?”
The Doctor didn’t answer. He was busy climbing onto the exam table. What he needed to do was easier done from a position that made Rose’s colleagues a little uncomfortable. He straddled the comatose blonde, placed two fingers on each of her temples and pressed his forehead to hers as he pushed his way through her psychic barriers and tried to understand what had happened to her.
What he found was nothing like he was expecting. Slowly he began to see why it was that she was so terrified of this organization that seemed to have her one a very short leash.
He was trembling with Rose’s fear and his thinly veiled anger. Oh, when he got his hands on these people, they would wish they didn’t even know Rose’s name. Counting backward from ten in fourteen different languages, he took a few slow deep breaths before turning toward Tish.
“Psychic overload,” the Doctor diagnosed as he climbed slowly off the exam table, doing his best not to jostle Rose’s prone body too much.
“Something tried to get into her head, and none too gently.”
“She started screaming after it came into view,” Jake offered. He had had a feeling that the dragon had something to do with what happened to Rose.
The Doctor nodded knowingly and walked to the door.
“Show me.”
Jake quickly passed by the Doctor and led him to the lift at the far end of the corridor. “We were able to recover it and the nestlings. Though we are not sure how they have survived this long. Without the mother…”
“--they should be dead. But the father must have been doing what he could”
Pressing the button for the lower lever, Jake continued, “We found the remnants of a sort of bon fire. I think he was using the far end of the cave as an incubator.”
“You do what you have to. The young have likely adapted as well.” The Doctor thought of his own child and how she seemed to have adapted to a single parent situation. She was incredibly small, even for a part Galifreyan child. He hoped she would catch up. It would be annoying to be smaller than her little sister in a few years.
“Yeah.”
The lift doors squealed slightly as they opened. “Some one ought to get that fixed,” the Doctor stated in a casual voice as he followed Jake out into the new, dimmer corridor.
The walls of the corridor buzzed and pulsed with an invisible electric force. The Doctor supposed it to be some form of a shield. From the frequency he assumed it was more to protect the outside world from whatever was in here, rather than protecting the population of this subterranean cage from the outside world.
Jake paused outside a heavy bolted steel door and pressed a button on the keypad to the right of the door.
“Name, unit, number” asked the voice on the other side.
“Jake Simmonds, Torchwood One, Operative 376. I have the Doctor here for species identification.”
There was a beep from the speaker and the door unlatched, the sound of an air-lock pressure seal reverberating throughout the great warehouse room that the door revealed. In the center of the room, a great greenish black creature lay on the concrete floor. A massive amount of heat was emanating off of its skin.
The Doctor pulled his specs out of his pocket as he stepped forward. Jake was still keeping him within his peripheral vision as he glanced at the reports, perhaps afraid he might pull something and go about freeing the creature. The thought had indeed crossed the Doctor's mind. But it was brushed aside after he realized that the creature would never leave this place without its young.
“He doesn’t look well,” The Doctor commented as he walked around the head, puffs of steam from the creatures nostrils blowing back his hair.
As he made his way round, he found Jack standing at the tail looking at a vial of purplish blood in fascination. It took a hard shake of his head and a few happier thoughts—mostly of getting Rose and Lily out of this world—to erase the overlaid image of someone standing over his drugged daughter, looking at a vial of her blood.
He quickly decided he’d seen quite enough and had a strong urge to hold his child in his arms and never letting her go.
*.*.*.*.*
Martha set the cup of juice on the table in front of Lillian as she sat down beside the little girl. Lily had her feet tucked up on the chair and was scratching at the glitter on the forehead of the yellow pony in her hands. She looked lost in her own little unhappy world.
“She’s going to be fine,” Martha reassured her, even though she wasn’t quite sure of that herself. Rose had looked pretty bad when her team had brought her back.
“I know.”
Lily ran her fingers through her pony’s hair a few times before looking up at her father’s newest companion and adding, “They just want us out of the way, you know?”
“Got that feeling.”
She ran her hand over the rim of the borrowed mug.
“If it were more medical he might have let you do something, but really it’s more likely some weird complication involving my sister.” Dividing the orange strands of the pony’s hair into three parts, Lily went about plaiting it.
Martha raised an eyebrow as she asked, “Sister?”
“I still don’t want a brother.”
She tugged at a few bits of artificial pink and orange hair so the plait laid flat. As soon as she ran out of hair to braid into the plait, she stuck her fingers in at the base and combed the entire thing out, so the hair was completely loose again.
Watching Lily’s work, Martha shook her head.
“It’s not your choice.”
“I know that,” she stated. She was tired of people telling her things she already knew. Most things in her life were not her choice. That was just a fact she had learnt to live with.
“But it is a girl.”
“How do you know?”
Rose was only a few days into a pregnancy, not even far enough for her body to really even be reacting yet, but her daughter seemed to be completely aware of it and knew more details than anyone should know at this stage.
“I know,” Lily stated, smacking the side of her head with her hand as if it were the only explanation needed. She sighed and gave Martha that ‘you just dribbled on your shirt look’ of her father’s and placed a hand firmly on her forehead and explained, “I can feel that she’s a girl.”
Lillian’s expressions were just far too aggressive and hard for a child as young as she. On her tiny toddler’s face, they didn’t seem to even fit. Such a little girl shouldn’t feel that sort of pain and distance.
Dropping her hands, she just shook her head and went back to the pony’s hair as she muttered, “Never mind, you just wouldn’t understand.”
“I have traveled with your…” Martha paused at the word. It just seemed so strange to think of the Doctor having a child. “…father. I’ve seen some strange things.”
“It’s a Time Lord thing.”
Lily shrugged. She didn’t know how to explain it any better than that. Her daddy would probably have better words, but she couldn’t think of anything.
“Same as what’s wrong with Mummy.”
Opening her mouth to question the statement, Martha found herself at a loss of words. She snapped her lips shut and just stared at the tiny girl in front of her in sheer astonishment.
Not another word was spoken in the conference room until the door opened and a familiar lanky figure leaned against the doorway.
“Daddy!”
Lily’s features brightened slightly as she recognized the Doctor. Bounding out of her chair, she ran for him.
He swept her into his arms and held her close, asking, “Are you ready to go see your mummy?”
“Yeah,” she replied.
“Doctor,” Martha started, noticing the drained expression on his face. “Is Rose alright?”
“She’ll live.”
He took a deep breath and carried Lillian out with him for the long walk down the unfriendly corridor.
Martha watched them, wishing there were something she could be doing. She hoped everything would work out, at least for the Doctor’s sake. Not to mention that little girl of his. Just what the TARDIS needed. Two melodramatic, brooding Time Lords.
*.*.*.*.*
The Doctor had stayed by Rose’s side nearly from the moment she was brought into the building. Lily sat in his lap for a good portion of that time, laying her sleepy head against his chest as he held her.
“Is Mummy going to be alright?” she asked him more than once. The sudden intrusion of the beast’s presence had nearly severed the connection Lily had had with her mother from birth. It left her feeling emptier than she had ever felt before, and that emptiness terrified her more than anything else.
“I think so,” he assured her, not as sure of his words as he would like to be.
Some of the others came in to check on them from time to time, but mostly everyone gave them their space. It had been some hours after Rose had been brought in that Jake came into the exam room with Rose’s mobile. He held it out to Lillian, giving the Doctor an apologetic look as he turned back toward the door.
It took two hands for her to keep it up to her ear.
“Hello?”
Lily’s little body went rigid as she listened to the person on the other side of the call. Her face contorted into an expression of anger and fear.
“Yes, sir…I did.”
Her lip trembled as she fought back tears. The person she was talking to was really making a very bad impression on the Doctor, in the few short moments he hadn’t even spoken to him.
“That’s not true,” Lily stated resolutely. “She’s going to be fine. I am going home. And you can’t stop me.”
She snapped the phone shut and threw it across the room as if it were going to bite her. She turned to bury herself into the Doctor’s shirt as she cried, “I don’t want to go with them. They can’t make me go with them.”
“Who’s going to make you go with them?”
“Them. Solomon. They said Mummy wasn’t going to be able to keep me much longer if I didn’t stop misbehaving.”
The Doctor rubbed her little back as she began to sob. His fingers grazed over the protruding knob on her shoulder. It was his fault it wasn’t tracking her like it should be.
“You didn’t tell them it was me,” he said, wondering at her for it, but having a good idea of her motive before she even replied.
“No. I let them think I did it again.”
“Why would you do that?”
She tugged harder at his shirt, as if she were not merely trying to hold onto him, but as if she wanted to climb right inside of him. Tears were streaming down her face as she looked up at him and whispered, “I don’t want them to take you away from me.”
The Doctor’s hearts ached as he realized how much responsibility this tiny child had taken on. Lily must believe everything she did would have some greater effect on everyone else around her. In her mind, it would be her fault, if anything happened to him or her mother.
“Oh, Lily,” he consoled, pulling her tightly to him, wishing with all his might he hadn’t let them come here, thousands of miles from the safety of the TARDIS.
*.*.*.*.*
Rose lay trembling on the exam table. She tugged at the paper thin gown she’d been provided. Her brain was foggy and disoriented and quite unable to remember exactly when she had been brought to this wing of the building. She ached all over and felt very much like she was going to be sick. The one bright light glared down her as if it could see into her very soul.
Equipment around her bleeped and burbled. In the distant corridors, she could barely hear the echoes of a baby’s cry. Weak and useless she raised her right hand to the wires and tubs protruding from her left arm. She gasped and strained with the effort, the muscle of her arm barely wanting to cooperate with her motives as she pulled the needles from her arm.
Her blood burned as it pumped again through her body. Still fighting for breath as she tore at the tubes in her right arm, she finally screamed in frustration at the wires taped to her head.
With each bit removed a machine near her would begin calling out an alert until the room was filled with a cacophony of alarms, but it took ages for anyone to come. She had already been able to force herself into an almost sitting position before the doors opened and two white coated men walked in.
“Ms. Tyler,” one scolded as he stepped toward her.
Rose slapped his hands away with renewed energy. “Where is my baby?” she demanded.
“She’s fine.”
“Where is she?” Rose repeated as she reached to strike him. Oh, what she would do if even one hair had been harmed on her child’s head.
“Woah!” He called out in a different voice as he caught her hand. Suddenly it wasn’t the white coated man who spoke when she heard, “It’s only me, not one of your monsters.”
She blinked a few times before her vision cleared and the Doctor came into view. The worry she saw etched on his face was worse than any she could remember. “What happened?”
“My guess is psychic feedback. I had forgotten maurgies communicate telepathically.”
“Maurgies?”
“That lovely great hulking creature you and your team encountered and brought back here. With the new baby, you barriers have weakened.” He stroked her cheek. “I shouldn’t have let you go.”
“Wasn’t your choice,” Rose muttered in frustration as she moved to sit up. “Where is my team?”
“Conference room one, preparing their report.”
He adjusted his position so he could help her up. If he had his way, she would stay lying down for a while longer, but he knew that wasn’t going to be an option. There were things she would say she needed to do, though he knew her team could handle it. He wasn’t up for a fight again so soon.
“Your ‘friend’ has been reporting in.”
Rose swung her legs over the side of the exam table, taking hold of his arm as she stood.
“Have they spoken to Lily yet?”
“Yes.”
With a sigh, she let him walk with her to the door. She told herself it was for the comfort of his touch, but really she knew she wasn’t quite steady enough yet to move on her own.
“They want the chip replaced,” he explained.
“They always do.”
She felt him reaching out to delve the meaning of her words, but she pushed him out of her head before clarifying, “She’s removed it twice. Cut it out with a kitchen knife once and then an art blade she found. There are scars on her neck, back, and shoulder.”
She swayed on her feet before stumbling backward toward the chair near the door. The Doctor was kneeling in front of her as she collapsed onto the seat.
Burying her face in her hands, Rose took a few slow breathes and tried to calm her trembling body. He was right there with her, stroking her shaking knees. When she had first fallen ill with Lillian, she’d stayed in bed for at least a week, under the assumption she’d come down with the Cardolian flu. The Doctor had waited on her hand and foot.
At the time she thought he had been feeling guilty about Barcelona, but now she sort of found herself wondering if there was some sort of instinct about his behavior. He’d never been that attentive when she was ill before. But that one time, he’d constantly been in her bed, reading to her, caressing and massaging her through the cramping and aching all the while plying her with medicinal herbs.
Again here he was, hardly leaving her side. Even when she’d punched him in the face, he didn’t stray too far from her. It was reassuring in a way, making her feel almost safe.
She was only just beginning to realize just how much she had missed him.
Chapter 11
Characters: Ten, Rose, Martha, Jack, Mickey, and various Tylers
Rating: R
Beta: Her majesty,
sciathan_file, who is not a loser despite what Mils says. Disclaimer: Only a small handful of these character belong to me, I am merely borrowing the others and plan to return them in much the same condition I found them in.
Summary: (post LotTL) Upon trying to return Jack to his team, the TARDIS falls through a tiny gap in the universe, taking its pilot to the woman he loves. But Rose’s life has been fraught with hardships and peril, and her future has hung in a delicate balance. Could the Doctor’s very arrival tear the threads that have been holding her together?
Previous Chapters
Author’s Note: I know it has been ages since I have touched this story. We can just say it was one of the victims of the outcome of Journey’s End, when I lost the will to write for some time. I have taken back up the pen now, and have not only put it to finishing this story, I am also cleaning up and adding a bit to the previous chapters of this story in the ways of descriptions and such.
The heat tore the breath from their lungs as the great looming shadow advanced on the team. However, they stood frozen in the entrance of the tunnel they had been traversing. Rose shuttered as she felt the familiar sort of tug at the back of her mind. Instead of the gentle sort of mental prodding she was becoming accustomed to during her encounters with the Doctor, this touch was almost violent.
She stumbled backward in an instinctual attempt to run from her aggressor. Dagger-like fingers tore at her consciousness, ripping her thoughts to shreds. Her foot caught on outcropping of rock and she swayed off balance before Pat reached out a hand to keep her from falling.
The burning pressure behind her eyes built slowly as her stomach turned over and she fell hard to her knees as muscles contracted in an attempt to retch. Clawing at the ground as the pain and darkness closed in, she gasped out a bleak, “Leave us alone,” before the world went black.
Rose collapsed into a heap on the ground at the same moment Jesse had shot the tranquilizer dart into the beast’s neck. Jake was just complimenting him on his aim, when they realized what had happened behind them. James had already turned around and was checking her vitals.
“She’s just unconscious,” he assured Pat who was looking quite anxious.
After a few moments of bickering about whether or not to call into headquarters about Rose’s sudden swoon, the four men did agree on removing two of their fire-retardant suits and tying them together as a make-shift gurney so they could pull her back out the tunnel with them. Pat felt a bit like a pack animal as he led the way out. The sleeves of Jake’s suit were tied around his waist so he could pull Rose along as they made their way back through the narrow tunnel. James was crawling close behind to be sure she wasn’t injured by the outcroppings.
*.*.*.*.*
Lillian’s head shot up as she jolted awake from her sound sleep. All the color was drained from her face save the red imprint of the cardigan she’d been wearing. She trembled as she stared wide-eyed at the Doctor.
He slowly set his cup down as he met her gaze. He’d felt a ripple of shock and surprise that was followed by complete silence. He had from the brief glimpse, however, a very clear idea of what his child had felt.
“Lily?” he asked, keeping his voice calm and even.
Without a reply she just kept looking at him, her lip quivering as she fought back tears.
The aluminum chair let out a harsh squeal as he shoved it away from the table to move toward his child with the most speed he could manage. She was in his arms before he’d even dropped to his knees beside her chair.
“Mummy,” she cried, clinging to him as if he were her one life line.
The Doctor rocked her gently in his arms as he attempted to comfort her with soft meaningless words. Something had happened to Rose, but she was still alive. Now wasn’t the time to be jumping to the worst conclusions. She would be alright. Everything would be alright.
Tish blinked in confusion as she jolted awake from the sound of the Doctor’s chair scrapping across the tiled floor. She didn’t remember exactly when she had drifted off, but she was a little annoyed with herself for doing so.
“It’ll be okay. Your mummy’s just fine,” the Doctor was whispering out of sight at the other side of the table.
Tish wasn’t the only one to have taken notice of the change in the room. Jack was leaning over in his chair looking in the direction of the two on the floor.
“Everything alright, Doc?”
The Doctor looked up at him, still stroking Lily’s hair as she held onto him. “Something has happened to Rose,” he answered slowly before raising his voice slightly. “Tish, can you call the team?”
Jumping to her feet, Tish grabbed for her jacket and pulled her communicator out of the pocket and snapped it onto her ear as she pressed the button and asked for someone to answer.
“There’s nothing but static.”
Lily trembled against his chest murmuring into his lapels, repeating a mantra that her mother wasn’t dead so she would be alright, trying to reassure herself that everything was going to be okay.
“Keep trying,” he urged as he pulled his daughter in a tight, cradling embrace.
*.*.*.*.*
James deposited his burden carefully on the exam table as the room filled with people. It had taken nearly two hours for the team to call for help because something about the creature had knocked out the communication system. He’d done what he could, but Rose still wasn’t waking up.
Two medics had rushed in as soon as it became clear that something had gone terribly wrong in the field. James had grabbed for one’s stethoscope, but the Doctor was faster. He had it out of the other man’s hand and was back at Rose’s side before anyone else had had time to really catch up on what had happened.
Satisfied her vitals were fine the Doctor shoved the stethoscope into James’s hands as the blond man indignantly stated that he was the medical officer on this mission.
“My wife,” the Doctor stated, glaring at him, as he ran his hands down one leg and up the other, checking for any sort of injury.
“Oh, let’s not start that,” Tish groused as she pushed forward. “Do we have a diagnosis, Doctor?”
The Doctor didn’t answer. He was busy climbing onto the exam table. What he needed to do was easier done from a position that made Rose’s colleagues a little uncomfortable. He straddled the comatose blonde, placed two fingers on each of her temples and pressed his forehead to hers as he pushed his way through her psychic barriers and tried to understand what had happened to her.
What he found was nothing like he was expecting. Slowly he began to see why it was that she was so terrified of this organization that seemed to have her one a very short leash.
He was trembling with Rose’s fear and his thinly veiled anger. Oh, when he got his hands on these people, they would wish they didn’t even know Rose’s name. Counting backward from ten in fourteen different languages, he took a few slow deep breaths before turning toward Tish.
“Psychic overload,” the Doctor diagnosed as he climbed slowly off the exam table, doing his best not to jostle Rose’s prone body too much.
“Something tried to get into her head, and none too gently.”
“She started screaming after it came into view,” Jake offered. He had had a feeling that the dragon had something to do with what happened to Rose.
The Doctor nodded knowingly and walked to the door.
“Show me.”
Jake quickly passed by the Doctor and led him to the lift at the far end of the corridor. “We were able to recover it and the nestlings. Though we are not sure how they have survived this long. Without the mother…”
“--they should be dead. But the father must have been doing what he could”
Pressing the button for the lower lever, Jake continued, “We found the remnants of a sort of bon fire. I think he was using the far end of the cave as an incubator.”
“You do what you have to. The young have likely adapted as well.” The Doctor thought of his own child and how she seemed to have adapted to a single parent situation. She was incredibly small, even for a part Galifreyan child. He hoped she would catch up. It would be annoying to be smaller than her little sister in a few years.
“Yeah.”
The lift doors squealed slightly as they opened. “Some one ought to get that fixed,” the Doctor stated in a casual voice as he followed Jake out into the new, dimmer corridor.
The walls of the corridor buzzed and pulsed with an invisible electric force. The Doctor supposed it to be some form of a shield. From the frequency he assumed it was more to protect the outside world from whatever was in here, rather than protecting the population of this subterranean cage from the outside world.
Jake paused outside a heavy bolted steel door and pressed a button on the keypad to the right of the door.
“Name, unit, number” asked the voice on the other side.
“Jake Simmonds, Torchwood One, Operative 376. I have the Doctor here for species identification.”
There was a beep from the speaker and the door unlatched, the sound of an air-lock pressure seal reverberating throughout the great warehouse room that the door revealed. In the center of the room, a great greenish black creature lay on the concrete floor. A massive amount of heat was emanating off of its skin.
The Doctor pulled his specs out of his pocket as he stepped forward. Jake was still keeping him within his peripheral vision as he glanced at the reports, perhaps afraid he might pull something and go about freeing the creature. The thought had indeed crossed the Doctor's mind. But it was brushed aside after he realized that the creature would never leave this place without its young.
“He doesn’t look well,” The Doctor commented as he walked around the head, puffs of steam from the creatures nostrils blowing back his hair.
As he made his way round, he found Jack standing at the tail looking at a vial of purplish blood in fascination. It took a hard shake of his head and a few happier thoughts—mostly of getting Rose and Lily out of this world—to erase the overlaid image of someone standing over his drugged daughter, looking at a vial of her blood.
He quickly decided he’d seen quite enough and had a strong urge to hold his child in his arms and never letting her go.
*.*.*.*.*
Martha set the cup of juice on the table in front of Lillian as she sat down beside the little girl. Lily had her feet tucked up on the chair and was scratching at the glitter on the forehead of the yellow pony in her hands. She looked lost in her own little unhappy world.
“She’s going to be fine,” Martha reassured her, even though she wasn’t quite sure of that herself. Rose had looked pretty bad when her team had brought her back.
“I know.”
Lily ran her fingers through her pony’s hair a few times before looking up at her father’s newest companion and adding, “They just want us out of the way, you know?”
“Got that feeling.”
She ran her hand over the rim of the borrowed mug.
“If it were more medical he might have let you do something, but really it’s more likely some weird complication involving my sister.” Dividing the orange strands of the pony’s hair into three parts, Lily went about plaiting it.
Martha raised an eyebrow as she asked, “Sister?”
“I still don’t want a brother.”
She tugged at a few bits of artificial pink and orange hair so the plait laid flat. As soon as she ran out of hair to braid into the plait, she stuck her fingers in at the base and combed the entire thing out, so the hair was completely loose again.
Watching Lily’s work, Martha shook her head.
“It’s not your choice.”
“I know that,” she stated. She was tired of people telling her things she already knew. Most things in her life were not her choice. That was just a fact she had learnt to live with.
“But it is a girl.”
“How do you know?”
Rose was only a few days into a pregnancy, not even far enough for her body to really even be reacting yet, but her daughter seemed to be completely aware of it and knew more details than anyone should know at this stage.
“I know,” Lily stated, smacking the side of her head with her hand as if it were the only explanation needed. She sighed and gave Martha that ‘you just dribbled on your shirt look’ of her father’s and placed a hand firmly on her forehead and explained, “I can feel that she’s a girl.”
Lillian’s expressions were just far too aggressive and hard for a child as young as she. On her tiny toddler’s face, they didn’t seem to even fit. Such a little girl shouldn’t feel that sort of pain and distance.
Dropping her hands, she just shook her head and went back to the pony’s hair as she muttered, “Never mind, you just wouldn’t understand.”
“I have traveled with your…” Martha paused at the word. It just seemed so strange to think of the Doctor having a child. “…father. I’ve seen some strange things.”
“It’s a Time Lord thing.”
Lily shrugged. She didn’t know how to explain it any better than that. Her daddy would probably have better words, but she couldn’t think of anything.
“Same as what’s wrong with Mummy.”
Opening her mouth to question the statement, Martha found herself at a loss of words. She snapped her lips shut and just stared at the tiny girl in front of her in sheer astonishment.
Not another word was spoken in the conference room until the door opened and a familiar lanky figure leaned against the doorway.
“Daddy!”
Lily’s features brightened slightly as she recognized the Doctor. Bounding out of her chair, she ran for him.
He swept her into his arms and held her close, asking, “Are you ready to go see your mummy?”
“Yeah,” she replied.
“Doctor,” Martha started, noticing the drained expression on his face. “Is Rose alright?”
“She’ll live.”
He took a deep breath and carried Lillian out with him for the long walk down the unfriendly corridor.
Martha watched them, wishing there were something she could be doing. She hoped everything would work out, at least for the Doctor’s sake. Not to mention that little girl of his. Just what the TARDIS needed. Two melodramatic, brooding Time Lords.
*.*.*.*.*
The Doctor had stayed by Rose’s side nearly from the moment she was brought into the building. Lily sat in his lap for a good portion of that time, laying her sleepy head against his chest as he held her.
“Is Mummy going to be alright?” she asked him more than once. The sudden intrusion of the beast’s presence had nearly severed the connection Lily had had with her mother from birth. It left her feeling emptier than she had ever felt before, and that emptiness terrified her more than anything else.
“I think so,” he assured her, not as sure of his words as he would like to be.
Some of the others came in to check on them from time to time, but mostly everyone gave them their space. It had been some hours after Rose had been brought in that Jake came into the exam room with Rose’s mobile. He held it out to Lillian, giving the Doctor an apologetic look as he turned back toward the door.
It took two hands for her to keep it up to her ear.
“Hello?”
Lily’s little body went rigid as she listened to the person on the other side of the call. Her face contorted into an expression of anger and fear.
“Yes, sir…I did.”
Her lip trembled as she fought back tears. The person she was talking to was really making a very bad impression on the Doctor, in the few short moments he hadn’t even spoken to him.
“That’s not true,” Lily stated resolutely. “She’s going to be fine. I am going home. And you can’t stop me.”
She snapped the phone shut and threw it across the room as if it were going to bite her. She turned to bury herself into the Doctor’s shirt as she cried, “I don’t want to go with them. They can’t make me go with them.”
“Who’s going to make you go with them?”
“Them. Solomon. They said Mummy wasn’t going to be able to keep me much longer if I didn’t stop misbehaving.”
The Doctor rubbed her little back as she began to sob. His fingers grazed over the protruding knob on her shoulder. It was his fault it wasn’t tracking her like it should be.
“You didn’t tell them it was me,” he said, wondering at her for it, but having a good idea of her motive before she even replied.
“No. I let them think I did it again.”
“Why would you do that?”
She tugged harder at his shirt, as if she were not merely trying to hold onto him, but as if she wanted to climb right inside of him. Tears were streaming down her face as she looked up at him and whispered, “I don’t want them to take you away from me.”
The Doctor’s hearts ached as he realized how much responsibility this tiny child had taken on. Lily must believe everything she did would have some greater effect on everyone else around her. In her mind, it would be her fault, if anything happened to him or her mother.
“Oh, Lily,” he consoled, pulling her tightly to him, wishing with all his might he hadn’t let them come here, thousands of miles from the safety of the TARDIS.
*.*.*.*.*
Rose lay trembling on the exam table. She tugged at the paper thin gown she’d been provided. Her brain was foggy and disoriented and quite unable to remember exactly when she had been brought to this wing of the building. She ached all over and felt very much like she was going to be sick. The one bright light glared down her as if it could see into her very soul.
Equipment around her bleeped and burbled. In the distant corridors, she could barely hear the echoes of a baby’s cry. Weak and useless she raised her right hand to the wires and tubs protruding from her left arm. She gasped and strained with the effort, the muscle of her arm barely wanting to cooperate with her motives as she pulled the needles from her arm.
Her blood burned as it pumped again through her body. Still fighting for breath as she tore at the tubes in her right arm, she finally screamed in frustration at the wires taped to her head.
With each bit removed a machine near her would begin calling out an alert until the room was filled with a cacophony of alarms, but it took ages for anyone to come. She had already been able to force herself into an almost sitting position before the doors opened and two white coated men walked in.
“Ms. Tyler,” one scolded as he stepped toward her.
Rose slapped his hands away with renewed energy. “Where is my baby?” she demanded.
“She’s fine.”
“Where is she?” Rose repeated as she reached to strike him. Oh, what she would do if even one hair had been harmed on her child’s head.
“Woah!” He called out in a different voice as he caught her hand. Suddenly it wasn’t the white coated man who spoke when she heard, “It’s only me, not one of your monsters.”
She blinked a few times before her vision cleared and the Doctor came into view. The worry she saw etched on his face was worse than any she could remember. “What happened?”
“My guess is psychic feedback. I had forgotten maurgies communicate telepathically.”
“Maurgies?”
“That lovely great hulking creature you and your team encountered and brought back here. With the new baby, you barriers have weakened.” He stroked her cheek. “I shouldn’t have let you go.”
“Wasn’t your choice,” Rose muttered in frustration as she moved to sit up. “Where is my team?”
“Conference room one, preparing their report.”
He adjusted his position so he could help her up. If he had his way, she would stay lying down for a while longer, but he knew that wasn’t going to be an option. There were things she would say she needed to do, though he knew her team could handle it. He wasn’t up for a fight again so soon.
“Your ‘friend’ has been reporting in.”
Rose swung her legs over the side of the exam table, taking hold of his arm as she stood.
“Have they spoken to Lily yet?”
“Yes.”
With a sigh, she let him walk with her to the door. She told herself it was for the comfort of his touch, but really she knew she wasn’t quite steady enough yet to move on her own.
“They want the chip replaced,” he explained.
“They always do.”
She felt him reaching out to delve the meaning of her words, but she pushed him out of her head before clarifying, “She’s removed it twice. Cut it out with a kitchen knife once and then an art blade she found. There are scars on her neck, back, and shoulder.”
She swayed on her feet before stumbling backward toward the chair near the door. The Doctor was kneeling in front of her as she collapsed onto the seat.
Burying her face in her hands, Rose took a few slow breathes and tried to calm her trembling body. He was right there with her, stroking her shaking knees. When she had first fallen ill with Lillian, she’d stayed in bed for at least a week, under the assumption she’d come down with the Cardolian flu. The Doctor had waited on her hand and foot.
At the time she thought he had been feeling guilty about Barcelona, but now she sort of found herself wondering if there was some sort of instinct about his behavior. He’d never been that attentive when she was ill before. But that one time, he’d constantly been in her bed, reading to her, caressing and massaging her through the cramping and aching all the while plying her with medicinal herbs.
Again here he was, hardly leaving her side. Even when she’d punched him in the face, he didn’t stray too far from her. It was reassuring in a way, making her feel almost safe.
She was only just beginning to realize just how much she had missed him.
Chapter 11
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-18 04:02 am (UTC)Take responability!
no subject
Date: 2009-11-18 04:04 am (UTC)I jus like to write, dam it!
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Date: 2009-11-18 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-18 04:14 am (UTC)Ohhhhh .. Brilliant .. and Squeeeee from Me! .. I am reading his in the middle of my exam and I don't give a hoot what they say!
no subject
Date: 2009-11-19 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-18 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-19 01:40 am (UTC)I'm glad you are enjoying it. I am working on the next chapter, but I gave up promising a timely release. Hopefully there won't be somthing to kill the story ideas like Journey's End did.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-20 04:56 pm (UTC)Well, I will say things may prove to be a bit darker that some might have expected. It has been five years for Rose, and many things have happened to her since she first set in Pete's World.
I'm glad to have intrigued you.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 08:24 am (UTC)