Frustration (1/2)

A/N:  Next in the Moments in Darkness series, so named because most of it takes place in the dark,  follows Need and Want.  This one is going to be two chapters and is set immediately following The Long Game.  And somehow a pesky bit of plot managed to slip into it.  Sorry.   I try to save plot for the epics. *grins*  Nine/Rose and Angst.

 

Frustration

 

Rose is relieved as the doors shut behind her, locking Adam Mitchell out of her life, their life, forever. And although she is happy that the Doctor referred to her as the best to Adam she knows that she is in for trouble as she slowly drags herself back up the ramp to face him. She’s made so many mistakes in the past week since they picked Adam up and she knows he will not hold his tongue in regards to this. She stops within arms reach of him but she does not reach out for his hand as she normally would, she simply stands and waits for the boom to fall.

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The silence stretches between them for agonizing seconds that turn into minutes and still he does not look at her. She wants to touch him so badly, to be reassured that he still wants her here and finally she breaks and speaks to him. “Are you taking me home, too, then?” she asks him.

 

“Don’t be stupid,” he says disparagingly.

 

“Can’t seem to help it,” she mutters darkly and he does meet her eyes.

 

“Rose, I’m not taking you home because you made one mistake.”

 

“I didn’t know he’d cause so much trouble,” she bursts out.

 

“Nor did I, or I wouldn’t have let you bring him,” he admits.

 

“But I shouldn’t have asked. This is supposed to be you and me, just you and me,” Rose says allowing her feelings for the Doctor to show both on her face and in her voice.

 

He stiffens and turns away from her. “I’ve got things to do. You should go to bed.”

 

“Alone?” Her voice hitches in the middle of the word despite her best efforts to keep it firm. She desperately wants him to come with her; to be sure he’s forgiven her for this whole debacle. He has gone to sleep with her every night since Adam came on board and now he’s not answering her question and trying to send her off by herself. She blinks hard and swallows her uncertainty down.

 

He doesn’t say anything and she realizes he’s back to brooding again, a scowl on his face. No need for him to mark her as his anymore, now Adam’s gone. She has her answer and tries to bury her frustration. “Will you--” she stops, clears her throat, starts again hesitantly, “Will you be in later?”

 

“No,” he says shortly and she feels the word hit her chest painfully.

 

“Doctor,” she begins, but he cuts her off.

 

“No,” he repeats sharply.

 

“Doctor, I--.”

 

“You gave him your key, Rose!” he bursts out and brooding has been replaced by full-fledged anger. “Your key!”

 

“I know. I’m sorry. I just thought…well, I was with you. I didn’t need mine and he might have needed to go back, it was all so much for him and they could have gotten the TARDIS and it would have been all my fault.” The words come out in a rush and she hangs her head and she can feel the tears start to form. His TARDIS, the only thing he has left of his people, and she could have lost it for him forever.

 

“Yeah, it would have been,” he spits out. “It would have been your fault. Because you gave him your key. Now. Go. To. Bed.”

 

She turns sharply on her heel and stalks out of the control room, vacillating between anger and frustration. She wants to talk to him, needs to, but there is no use in trying when he doesn’t want to sort things out. She makes her way to her room and yanks the little red and black jacket off over her head. She hisses in sudden agony and glances down at her arms in shock and disbelief at the angry red welts that have risen up on her skin.

 

How has this happened? How could she not notice something so painful? The adrenaline has been high since defeating the Jagrafess, dumping Adam home, fighting or not exactly fighting with the Doctor. It isn’t like she’s even had time to feel pain, but this? She should be feeling this more than when she drags material over it. She frowns as the pain dissipates, only returning when she pokes her finger into her arm.

 

It takes her a moment of thinking over the day’s events to realize when it had happened. When she’d been manacled next to the Doctor in some sort of futuristic standing set of stocks, the metal locked around her wrists and ankles, and the Editor had sent a tremendous volt of electricity through her body. That has to be it. It looks like electrical burns. She makes an ironic little moue with her mouth in reaction to the fact that she has become enough of an expert on various types of burns since joining her life to the Doctor’s that she can tell they are electrical by looking.

 

Slowly she eases off her jeans, fearing that her legs may be in the same shape and they are. There is no pain until she pushes on her skin. Carefully she lifts her shirt but there are no welts on her torso. She wonders if she should go back to the Doctor and show him the burns, but she knows he’s in no mood to see her right now. She sighs and settles down on her bed and turns off the light. They don’t hurt unless she moves wrong. She’ll be okay until morning and maybe he’ll be willing to talk to her then, help her with her injuries.

 

She bites her lip in the dark, wishing that she hadn’t messed everything up quite so spectacularly and finally falls into a troubled sleep.

 

 

 


 

The Doctor paces the console room wearily trying to get the sound of Rose’s voice out of his head, the way it had broken on that one word, ‘alone.’ He knows he’s hurting her, but can’t seem to stop himself. It isn’t so much the debacle of bringing Adam with them that bothers him, he shares in that idiotic decision and he knows it. It isn’t even the boy’s foolish, selfish, and dangerous choices that could have upset the balance of human history. It’s the key.

 

The key that he’d given to her as proof that he was coming back to her, that he’d not leave her behind, that he’d never leave her behind. He didn’t hand out keys willy-nilly to companions and never so early in a relationship. But Rose has never been just a companion, never been just a fellow traveler, has always been…Rose. Best friend from almost the moment he met her, fighter of his demons, source of his strength, comfort for his pain.

 

When he’d given her that key, it wasn’t a simple act of convenience. It was his way of saying he wanted her as a permanent fixture on the TARDIS, that the ship was her home now, that she was his partner. Not his romantic partner, but… He put his head in his hands and ran them down his face. Who was he fooling? He didn’t go into her bed at night just to keep away the nightmares. Not anymore. He knew it.

 

The key wasn’t like giving her a ring, he knew that. It wasn’t like saying forever, he knew that, too. He knew that she hadn’t exactly broken things off completely with Mickey, but he hadn’t smelled the boy on her since Rose had started travelling with him. She’d not been sleeping with Mickey on any of their visits home. He liked to think that was because of him. And she hadn’t even had the scent of arousal on her when she’d been around Adam, even if she had flirted with the boy. No, that scent only lingered in their—in her—bed at night when he held her.

 

He thought she understood the import of the key, but obviously she didn’t or she would never have given it away so casually. It wasn’t about the fact that it was the key to his ship or even that the Jagrafess could have gotten a hold of his ship and used it for evil purposes. And it worried him that it wasn’t about that much at all because it should have been a little more important than the part he was fixating on. It was about what it represented. What it meant between him and Rose. For Rose it meant nothing. Nothing.

 

Why did she let him in her bed at night? If that meant nothing…but she wasn’t having sex with Mickey anymore. So it had to mean something. True she wasn’t having sex with the Doctor, either but that was his fault more than anything. Or at least, he thought it was. She’d offered the once in actions if not words, tried to undress him and he’s stopped her, too unsure then to even think of taking advantage of her that way, though she was the one trying to initiate things, so he wasn’t sure how much of an advantage it would be. But he hadn’t wanted to hurt her, make her think it was more than it would have been then.

 

He wanted to think their relationship was above sex, especially casual sex, that it had a purity to it, a feeling of want and need, yes, but on a spiritual level and…oh, bloody hell, who did he think he was fooling? Rose was everything he wanted and everything he needed and it damn well was physical and he was just too scared of messing things up with the girl to pursue it because if he did anything, anything at all to make her leave him then his life would fall back into what it had been before he met her and he didn’t ever want to be alone in that darkness again. He didn’t dare make her want to leave him.

 

Fine job he’d done of it tonight, too, chasing her away from him in one of his moody sulks and blaming her for almost losing his precious ship, when really he was in a snit because of the key itself!  The TARDIS would have been near impossible to figure out to someone who didn’t have his knowledge and she had her own defenses against anyone non-Gallifreyan trying to abscond with her. So the ship had really been safe and he had made much more out of it than he’d needed to. The ship could have been held hostage for a long time, but that was really the extent of it. It would have made his life inconvenient until he’d found a way to rescue the ship, but it wouldn’t have been the end of his world because it was something he could fix. Not like Rose leaving him would be.  He might never be able to fix that.

 

He needed to go talk to her. She’d be asleep now, he was sure, and maybe she wouldn’t even let him into her bed after his venomous outburst, but he could try, he could explain what had truly made him so upset about the situation. He swallowed nervously. It would be a big step for him. He knew Rose cared for him, had heard that much in her loudly broadcasted thoughts, knew she was aroused by him, but what he didn’t know was how she really felt about him, whether she might care enough about him to be his. Humans were such confusing creatures.

 

Resolved, he made his way down the corridor to Rose’s room and found her door shut but not locked. She had taken him at his word that he wouldn’t come by and hadn’t left it ajar, but hadn’t been angry enough to lock him out in case he changed his mind, either.

 

He entered her room and made his way to the bed. “Rose?” he asked softly. She didn’t answer him and he spoke a little louder. “Rose?” His hand reached out and shook her shoulder and she awoke with a sharp cry of pain.

 

“Lights, low,” he ordered the TARDIS and as they came up in the darkness he gasped at the vivid red welts marring her body. “Stay there,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He ran to the infirmary.

Ch. 2:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/39661.html

Frustration (1/2)

A/N:  Next in the Moments in Darkness series, so named because most of it takes place in the dark,  follows Need and Want.  This one is going to be two chapters and is set immediately following The Long Game.  And somehow a pesky bit of plot managed to slip into it.  Sorry.   I try to save plot for the epics. *grins*  Nine/Rose and Angst.

 

Frustration

 

Rose is relieved as the doors shut behind her, locking Adam Mitchell out of her life, their life, forever. And although she is happy that the Doctor referred to her as the best to Adam she knows that she is in for trouble as she slowly drags herself back up the ramp to face him. She’s made so many mistakes in the past week since they picked Adam up and she knows he will not hold his tongue in regards to this. She stops within arms reach of him but she does not reach out for his hand as she normally would, she simply stands and waits for the boom to fall.

 ( Read more... )

 

The silence stretches between them for agonizing seconds that turn into minutes and still he does not look at her. She wants to touch him so badly, to be reassured that he still wants her here and finally she breaks and speaks to him. “Are you taking me home, too, then?” she asks him.

 

“Don’t be stupid,” he says disparagingly.

 

“Can’t seem to help it,” she mutters darkly and he does meet her eyes.

 

“Rose, I’m not taking you home because you made one mistake.”

 

“I didn’t know he’d cause so much trouble,” she bursts out.

 

“Nor did I, or I wouldn’t have let you bring him,” he admits.

 

“But I shouldn’t have asked. This is supposed to be you and me, just you and me,” Rose says allowing her feelings for the Doctor to show both on her face and in her voice.

 

He stiffens and turns away from her. “I’ve got things to do. You should go to bed.”

 

“Alone?” Her voice hitches in the middle of the word despite her best efforts to keep it firm. She desperately wants him to come with her; to be sure he’s forgiven her for this whole debacle. He has gone to sleep with her every night since Adam came on board and now he’s not answering her question and trying to send her off by herself. She blinks hard and swallows her uncertainty down.

 

He doesn’t say anything and she realizes he’s back to brooding again, a scowl on his face. No need for him to mark her as his anymore, now Adam’s gone. She has her answer and tries to bury her frustration. “Will you--” she stops, clears her throat, starts again hesitantly, “Will you be in later?”

 

“No,” he says shortly and she feels the word hit her chest painfully.

 

“Doctor,” she begins, but he cuts her off.

 

“No,” he repeats sharply.

 

“Doctor, I--.”

 

“You gave him your key, Rose!” he bursts out and brooding has been replaced by full-fledged anger. “Your key!”

 

“I know. I’m sorry. I just thought…well, I was with you. I didn’t need mine and he might have needed to go back, it was all so much for him and they could have gotten the TARDIS and it would have been all my fault.” The words come out in a rush and she hangs her head and she can feel the tears start to form. His TARDIS, the only thing he has left of his people, and she could have lost it for him forever.

 

“Yeah, it would have been,” he spits out. “It would have been your fault. Because you gave him your key. Now. Go. To. Bed.”

 

She turns sharply on her heel and stalks out of the control room, vacillating between anger and frustration. She wants to talk to him, needs to, but there is no use in trying when he doesn’t want to sort things out. She makes her way to her room and yanks the little red and black jacket off over her head. She hisses in sudden agony and glances down at her arms in shock and disbelief at the angry red welts that have risen up on her skin.

 

How has this happened? How could she not notice something so painful? The adrenaline has been high since defeating the Jagrafess, dumping Adam home, fighting or not exactly fighting with the Doctor. It isn’t like she’s even had time to feel pain, but this? She should be feeling this more than when she drags material over it. She frowns as the pain dissipates, only returning when she pokes her finger into her arm.

 

It takes her a moment of thinking over the day’s events to realize when it had happened. When she’d been manacled next to the Doctor in some sort of futuristic standing set of stocks, the metal locked around her wrists and ankles, and the Editor had sent a tremendous volt of electricity through her body. That has to be it. It looks like electrical burns. She makes an ironic little moue with her mouth in reaction to the fact that she has become enough of an expert on various types of burns since joining her life to the Doctor’s that she can tell they are electrical by looking.

 

Slowly she eases off her jeans, fearing that her legs may be in the same shape and they are. There is no pain until she pushes on her skin. Carefully she lifts her shirt but there are no welts on her torso. She wonders if she should go back to the Doctor and show him the burns, but she knows he’s in no mood to see her right now. She sighs and settles down on her bed and turns off the light. They don’t hurt unless she moves wrong. She’ll be okay until morning and maybe he’ll be willing to talk to her then, help her with her injuries.

 

She bites her lip in the dark, wishing that she hadn’t messed everything up quite so spectacularly and finally falls into a troubled sleep.

 

 

 


 

The Doctor paces the console room wearily trying to get the sound of Rose’s voice out of his head, the way it had broken on that one word, ‘alone.’ He knows he’s hurting her, but can’t seem to stop himself. It isn’t so much the debacle of bringing Adam with them that bothers him, he shares in that idiotic decision and he knows it. It isn’t even the boy’s foolish, selfish, and dangerous choices that could have upset the balance of human history. It’s the key.

 

The key that he’d given to her as proof that he was coming back to her, that he’d not leave her behind, that he’d never leave her behind. He didn’t hand out keys willy-nilly to companions and never so early in a relationship. But Rose has never been just a companion, never been just a fellow traveler, has always been…Rose. Best friend from almost the moment he met her, fighter of his demons, source of his strength, comfort for his pain.

 

When he’d given her that key, it wasn’t a simple act of convenience. It was his way of saying he wanted her as a permanent fixture on the TARDIS, that the ship was her home now, that she was his partner. Not his romantic partner, but… He put his head in his hands and ran them down his face. Who was he fooling? He didn’t go into her bed at night just to keep away the nightmares. Not anymore. He knew it.

 

The key wasn’t like giving her a ring, he knew that. It wasn’t like saying forever, he knew that, too. He knew that she hadn’t exactly broken things off completely with Mickey, but he hadn’t smelled the boy on her since Rose had started travelling with him. She’d not been sleeping with Mickey on any of their visits home. He liked to think that was because of him. And she hadn’t even had the scent of arousal on her when she’d been around Adam, even if she had flirted with the boy. No, that scent only lingered in their—in her—bed at night when he held her.

 

He thought she understood the import of the key, but obviously she didn’t or she would never have given it away so casually. It wasn’t about the fact that it was the key to his ship or even that the Jagrafess could have gotten a hold of his ship and used it for evil purposes. And it worried him that it wasn’t about that much at all because it should have been a little more important than the part he was fixating on. It was about what it represented. What it meant between him and Rose. For Rose it meant nothing. Nothing.

 

Why did she let him in her bed at night? If that meant nothing…but she wasn’t having sex with Mickey anymore. So it had to mean something. True she wasn’t having sex with the Doctor, either but that was his fault more than anything. Or at least, he thought it was. She’d offered the once in actions if not words, tried to undress him and he’s stopped her, too unsure then to even think of taking advantage of her that way, though she was the one trying to initiate things, so he wasn’t sure how much of an advantage it would be. But he hadn’t wanted to hurt her, make her think it was more than it would have been then.

 

He wanted to think their relationship was above sex, especially casual sex, that it had a purity to it, a feeling of want and need, yes, but on a spiritual level and…oh, bloody hell, who did he think he was fooling? Rose was everything he wanted and everything he needed and it damn well was physical and he was just too scared of messing things up with the girl to pursue it because if he did anything, anything at all to make her leave him then his life would fall back into what it had been before he met her and he didn’t ever want to be alone in that darkness again. He didn’t dare make her want to leave him.

 

Fine job he’d done of it tonight, too, chasing her away from him in one of his moody sulks and blaming her for almost losing his precious ship, when really he was in a snit because of the key itself!  The TARDIS would have been near impossible to figure out to someone who didn’t have his knowledge and she had her own defenses against anyone non-Gallifreyan trying to abscond with her. So the ship had really been safe and he had made much more out of it than he’d needed to. The ship could have been held hostage for a long time, but that was really the extent of it. It would have made his life inconvenient until he’d found a way to rescue the ship, but it wouldn’t have been the end of his world because it was something he could fix. Not like Rose leaving him would be.  He might never be able to fix that.

 

He needed to go talk to her. She’d be asleep now, he was sure, and maybe she wouldn’t even let him into her bed after his venomous outburst, but he could try, he could explain what had truly made him so upset about the situation. He swallowed nervously. It would be a big step for him. He knew Rose cared for him, had heard that much in her loudly broadcasted thoughts, knew she was aroused by him, but what he didn’t know was how she really felt about him, whether she might care enough about him to be his. Humans were such confusing creatures.

 

Resolved, he made his way down the corridor to Rose’s room and found her door shut but not locked. She had taken him at his word that he wouldn’t come by and hadn’t left it ajar, but hadn’t been angry enough to lock him out in case he changed his mind, either.

 

He entered her room and made his way to the bed. “Rose?” he asked softly. She didn’t answer him and he spoke a little louder. “Rose?” His hand reached out and shook her shoulder and she awoke with a sharp cry of pain.

 

“Lights, low,” he ordered the TARDIS and as they came up in the darkness he gasped at the vivid red welts marring her body. “Stay there,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He ran to the infirmary.

Ch. 2:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/39661.html

Hello, God? Is it spring yet? and Story Update info

The only reason I'm asking, mind you, is because of the inch of snow currently taking up residence in my yard.  I mean, I thought it was spring.  I have three daffodils and two hyacinths in bloom and oh, I don't know, the little thingy I hang on the wall that tells the date claims it's been spring for almost a month now, but since this is the second snowfall of April (the last being eight inches two Saturdays ago), I just thought I'd ask.

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Hello, God? Is it spring yet? and Story Update info

The only reason I'm asking, mind you, is because of the inch of snow currently taking up residence in my yard.  I mean, I thought it was spring.  I have three daffodils and two hyacinths in bloom and oh, I don't know, the little thingy I hang on the wall that tells the date claims it's been spring for almost a month now, but since this is the second snowfall of April (the last being eight inches two Saturdays ago), I just thought I'd ask.

( Read more... )

Hunger Moon: Chapter Eight

 

Accusations Fly

 

Rose punched the alarm code into the system and slammed into the house. “Mum?” she called out. “Mum!”

 

“Rose!” She heard the sounds of footsteps running towards her and her mother appeared in the kitchen. “Have you seen the twins? They’re not in the house anywhere. They didn’t go out to the TARDIS, did they?” Her mother was frantic with worry.

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“I’ve checked every room, Rose. They’re not. I was hoping they’d snuck out to be with you.”

 

“No.  There’s no one else in the TARDIS. Even the Doctor’s not there,” Rose said. “I was just looking for him when I heard you screaming.”

 

“Are you sure? That ship is huge, they could be…” Jackie trailed off at Rose’s insistent shaking of her head.

 

“The TARDIS would have told me,” said Rose. “What about their tree house?” asked Rose. “Did you check there? It wouldn’t be the first time they’d snuck out there at night.”

 

“No, I’ve just checked all the rooms in the house,” Jackie said.

 

“Including the servant’s quarters?” Rose asked.

 

“Yes. Wilson checked them all. They aren’t in the house.”

 

“Okay, well, I’m going to go check the tree house,” Rose said and with a nod from Jackie and a quick rummage in the junk drawer for a torch, Rose ran outside. She turned on the flashlight and fastened it around her wrist with its Velcro straps. It was Torchwood issue and strapped firmly in place, shining ahead of her as she climbed the ladder at the base of the twins’ tree house.

 

She heaved herself up through the hole in the floor and shone the light around the first room. It was empty. “Sarah? Kyle?” she called out. There was no answer but she had to be sure. They could both sleep like the dead and might not have heard her. Quickly she went through the curtain that divided the front room from the sleeping room with its little camp cots and sleeping bags. She shone the light on each bed but they were both empty.

 

Rose knew it had been a long shot, but her heart still sank with disappointment as she surveyed the little luxury playhouse Pete had put in the tree when the twins were five. He’d rented a crane and a construction crew to do it. It was a far cry from the cardboard refrigerator and washer and dryer boxes she and Mickey had played in the year she’d turned five. Still, she didn’t begrudge her siblings their more privileged upbringing. She had had a lot more freedom to roam than the twins ever had.

 

Her mother was waiting in the kitchen, dressing gown pulled tight about her. She shook her head. “They aren’t there. I’m sorry, Mum. You’d better call Dad. He can get Torchwood on it.”

 

“Torchwood?” Jackie looked horrified. “You think I should get Torchwood involved in this?”

 

“They’re good at rescue and recovery,” said Rose. “Far better than the police. They’ll find them.”

 

“I don’t want Torchwood in my house. The kids are afraid of them,” said Jackie.

 

“The twins aren’t here to be afraid of them,” reminded Rose.

 

“I’m aware of that,” snapped her mother.   Rose took a deep breath, picked up the phone and handed it to her mother.

 

“Call Pete,” she said. “Then if you still feel it’s necessary, call the police.” Numbly, Jackie did what Rose advised.

 

Pete came home immediately and when he slammed through the front door of the house the look on his face was furious. “Where the hell are they?” he demanded. His eyes went immediately to Rose and she took a step back.

 

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “How would I know?”

 

Pete gave her a grim look before turning on Jackie. “How could you lose them?” he demanded.

 

“I didn’t lose them. They were asleep in their beds when I went to sleep,” Jackie said. “Don’t you dare accuse me of negligence, Peter Tyler!”

 

“Well, they didn’t just get up and walk out, did they?” Pete snapped back. “Have you checked the security tapes?”

 

“Wilson’s doing it now,” said Rose.

 

“Wilson’s done it,” said Gregory Wilson, walking into the kitchen with a heavy look on his face. “Come and see what I’ve found. You’re not going to like it.”

 

They followed Wilson in to the surveillance room and he brought up an image on the screen. “That’s your husband, I think,” said Wilson pointing to the monitor. Rose watched as the Doctor emerged from the TARDIS and started pacing around the house. He walked around it several times looking lost in thought. At one point his head snapped up and he looked towards the side gate. He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and the tip flared blue. Then the image went blank.

 

“There’s nothing after that for twenty minutes and then recording resumes,” said Wilson. The images flashing across the screen were of a quiet house with nothing of incident until Rose emerged from the TARDIS forty minutes later.

 

“So the Doctor saw something,” said Rose. “Someone must have broken in and he went to stop it and got caught up in it or something. He may be lying in the bushes injured. I should go look.”

 

Pete caught her arm. “Are you telling me the Doctor’s missing?” he asked.

 

“Not missing,” said Rose looking down at the hand that was clutching her arm a little too tightly. “He just wasn’t in the TARDIS when I woke up and she said he’d gone outside.” Pete’s fingers dug into her arm and Rose winced. “Ouch, let go. You’re hurting me.” She shook off Pete’s grip.

 

“I think it’s pretty clear here what’s going on,” said Pete. “Your Doctor took our children.”

 

Rose turned horrified eyes on Pete. “There is no way. He would never, ever do that!” She glanced over at her mother and realized with horror that Jackie’s face was covered with doubt. “He wouldn’t,” she insisted.

 

“But you don’t know that, do you, Rose?” Jackie said. “You’ve only known him four weeks. What do you really know about the man? He isn’t your Doctor, he’s different. A different man. How do you know he wouldn’t take the twins?”

 

“Because I know him,” insisted Rose.

 

“How can you? How can you really know him in four weeks time? Just because the sex is good between you doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy,” Jackie pressed on.

 

“He’s my husband!” Rose said. “I trust him with my life.”

 

“Do you trust him with the lives of Kyle and Sarah?” Pete snapped.

 

“Yes,” she said. “He didn’t do this. You have to believe me.” Pete turned away from her. “Mum?”

 

“How can I? You’ve shown such bad judgment in the past when it comes to any version of the Doctor. This one, well I think you’ve misjudged him. He must be bad,” said Jackie.

 

“No. He’s not bad anymore than Pete is!” said Rose.

 

“Don’t compare your father--.”

 

“But he’s not my father, is he?” snapped Rose. “He’s just like my husband. He’s a different man. Yet you trusted him from the start. Enough to conceive Kyle and Sarah the night you met him! Why can’t you trust that I know this Doctor is a good man?”

 

“Because my children are missing!” yelled Jackie as she lost control of her emotions in her fear for the twins’ safety. “My children are missing! Your husband is missing! I may not have a genius level IQ but I know enough to put two and two together and come up with four when I see it!”

 

“He wouldn’t do this! He’d never do this!” Rose yelled back. “You don’t know him.”

 

“You don’t know him!” fired back Pete.

 

“I do. I do know him. He wouldn’t--.” The sound of the TARDIS dematerializing stopped her mid-sentence and the expression on both her parents’ faces darkened in horror. Rose didn’t know what was going on but she was sure, one hundred percent sure, that her husband had not kidnapped her brother and sister.

 

“He didn’t.”

 

“He did,” said Jackie.

 

Pete looked at her grimly. “If any harm comes to those children,” he said in a vicious tone as his eyes raked accusingly over Rose, “I will kill your husband myself. And you…you will not be welcome in this house again.”

 

Rose turned to her mother but Jackie refused to meet her gaze. Her mum walked over to her dad and took his hand. “Mum?”

 

“You better hope you’re right, Rose.” 

 

“But I’m your daughter!”

 

For a moment Jackie’s face softened. Pete bit out, “But you’re not mine.” He pulled Jackie closer and she buried her face in Pete’s shirt. He stared at Rose with hard eyes, eyes Rose didn’t recognize.

 

Rose blinked back tears and reached for the link in her mind, found the little silver light and made it flare out strong. “Doctor!” she cried out mentally. “Doctor, I need you!” As she gave her psychic shout she glanced back at Pete. For a moment, some trick of the light made his face appear to ripple, but it was gone within a second. Very slowly his lips began to turn upwards in a grin. It chilled Rose to the bone.

 

 

 

The TARDIS materialized in the living room of the safe house and the moment she did, Mickey was leaning over the back of the couch clutching his stomach, pointing at the ship and laughing. The Doctor frowned down at Mickey but all the man could manage was, “Pink!” before he was off again.

 

The Doctor rolled his eyes and strode over to his ship. “All right, you’ve made your point already.  You can go back to being yourself any time now. I apologized.”

 

“In point of fact, you really haven’t,” the TARDIS said.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said putting one hand on the door. “Really, I am. Rose and I will never…” He trailed off and glanced at the three very interested observers. “Do that, there, again.  Now, will you please turn back?”

 

Mickey snorted as he sussed out just exactly what the word ‘that’ meant and Suzie asked him, “Why exactly is he talking to that box?”

 

“Because she’s his ship and she’s alive,” said Mickey.

 

“Kind of small, isn’t she?”

 

“You’d be surprised.”

 

“Well?” asked the Doctor.

 

“Don’t have time for it at the moment, but later on I will. Now aren’t you in danger? Why did you summon me?” the TARDIS asked.

 

“I’m not the one in danger.  But there’s a chance Rose is, so I brought you to me to keep her safe,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Doctor, Rose isn’t on board,” the ship said.

 

“She woke up and went looking for you. I told her you’d gone outside. She heard a scream from the house and went inside. A few minutes later her father came home and then you called me here.”

 

“Pete’s there? At the house? With Rose?” The Doctor was unlocking the doors immediately.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Go with him, Mickey,” Jake said. “Suzie and I can protect the kids but the Doctor might need help.”

 

“Yeah,” said Mickey. He hurried after the Doctor. “Nice dust ruffle,” he said, smirking at the pink lacy thing surrounding the console.

 

“Shut it,” said the Doctor.

 

“Right,” said Mickey, but the smirk didn’t leave his face as the Doctor programmed the coordinates and the TARDIS headed back to the Tyler Manse. The little hop didn’t take more than a couple of minutes and then the ship was appearing in the same spot in the back garden it had vacated moments before. Without a word the two men dashed out of the TARDIS and into the house.

 

 

 

Rose threw herself into the Doctor’s arms, feeling relief in every inch of her bones as his arms tightened around her. She buried her face in his shirt, her fingers fisting in his leather jacket and trying to pull him even closer.

 

“What the hell have you done with my children?” Jackie shouted advancing on the Doctor. She raised her hand threateningly.

 

“Mum, he didn’t take them.” Rose whirled on her mother. “Tell her, Doctor,” Rose ordered, backing into the Doctor until her back was flush against him. She spread her arms out in front of her husband, blocking him from Jackie’s reach.

 

“I didn’t take your children,” the Doctor said with mild surprise.

 

“They’re missing and you were gone,” Jackie accused.

 

“What’s going on?” the Doctor asked Rose through their mental link.

 

“The twins have gone missing and Mum and Dad think you took them,” Rose explained.

 

The evil smile on Pete’s face got larger and this time when his skin rippled the Doctor and Rose both saw it. So did Mickey. “That’s not Pete,” Mickey declared. “That’s one of those Monoc’teru.”

 

“What?” Jackie backed away from Pete.

 

“Look at him, he’s responding to your telepathic link. You were using it, right?” Mickey asked.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Do it again.” The Doctor murmured something telepathically to Rose and Pete’s face rippled yet again. “Look at him. He’s one of them. No wonder Pete’s been acting so strange. It’s a shape-shifter,” Mickey said.

 

“Jackie, come away from him!” ordered the Doctor.

 

“What?” Jackie was very confused and starting to look frightened for herself at last.

 

“Mum, that’s not Dad!” Rose said. “It’s…it’s an alien.”

 

“What?”

 

“Bit slow on the uptake, your mum,” groused the Doctor.

 

Mickey pulled a gun out of the inside of his coat and leveled it on the thing that was not Pete. “Get away from her,” he said. The not Pete dropped his arms away from Jackie and then shimmered and disappeared.

 

“Someone better explain to me right now what’s going on!” Jackie said shrilly. Her eyes took their turn boring through every other set of eyes in the room. The three of them moved together into a cohesive bunch under her glare. “Well?” she said crossing her arms and tapping one foot impatiently. “I’m waiting.”

Ch. 9:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/42713.html

Hunger Moon: Chapter Eight

 

Accusations Fly

 

Rose punched the alarm code into the system and slammed into the house. “Mum?” she called out. “Mum!”

 

“Rose!” She heard the sounds of footsteps running towards her and her mother appeared in the kitchen. “Have you seen the twins? They’re not in the house anywhere. They didn’t go out to the TARDIS, did they?” Her mother was frantic with worry.

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“I’ve checked every room, Rose. They’re not. I was hoping they’d snuck out to be with you.”

 

“No.  There’s no one else in the TARDIS. Even the Doctor’s not there,” Rose said. “I was just looking for him when I heard you screaming.”

 

“Are you sure? That ship is huge, they could be…” Jackie trailed off at Rose’s insistent shaking of her head.

 

“The TARDIS would have told me,” said Rose. “What about their tree house?” asked Rose. “Did you check there? It wouldn’t be the first time they’d snuck out there at night.”

 

“No, I’ve just checked all the rooms in the house,” Jackie said.

 

“Including the servant’s quarters?” Rose asked.

 

“Yes. Wilson checked them all. They aren’t in the house.”

 

“Okay, well, I’m going to go check the tree house,” Rose said and with a nod from Jackie and a quick rummage in the junk drawer for a torch, Rose ran outside. She turned on the flashlight and fastened it around her wrist with its Velcro straps. It was Torchwood issue and strapped firmly in place, shining ahead of her as she climbed the ladder at the base of the twins’ tree house.

 

She heaved herself up through the hole in the floor and shone the light around the first room. It was empty. “Sarah? Kyle?” she called out. There was no answer but she had to be sure. They could both sleep like the dead and might not have heard her. Quickly she went through the curtain that divided the front room from the sleeping room with its little camp cots and sleeping bags. She shone the light on each bed but they were both empty.

 

Rose knew it had been a long shot, but her heart still sank with disappointment as she surveyed the little luxury playhouse Pete had put in the tree when the twins were five. He’d rented a crane and a construction crew to do it. It was a far cry from the cardboard refrigerator and washer and dryer boxes she and Mickey had played in the year she’d turned five. Still, she didn’t begrudge her siblings their more privileged upbringing. She had had a lot more freedom to roam than the twins ever had.

 

Her mother was waiting in the kitchen, dressing gown pulled tight about her. She shook her head. “They aren’t there. I’m sorry, Mum. You’d better call Dad. He can get Torchwood on it.”

 

“Torchwood?” Jackie looked horrified. “You think I should get Torchwood involved in this?”

 

“They’re good at rescue and recovery,” said Rose. “Far better than the police. They’ll find them.”

 

“I don’t want Torchwood in my house. The kids are afraid of them,” said Jackie.

 

“The twins aren’t here to be afraid of them,” reminded Rose.

 

“I’m aware of that,” snapped her mother.   Rose took a deep breath, picked up the phone and handed it to her mother.

 

“Call Pete,” she said. “Then if you still feel it’s necessary, call the police.” Numbly, Jackie did what Rose advised.

 

Pete came home immediately and when he slammed through the front door of the house the look on his face was furious. “Where the hell are they?” he demanded. His eyes went immediately to Rose and she took a step back.

 

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “How would I know?”

 

Pete gave her a grim look before turning on Jackie. “How could you lose them?” he demanded.

 

“I didn’t lose them. They were asleep in their beds when I went to sleep,” Jackie said. “Don’t you dare accuse me of negligence, Peter Tyler!”

 

“Well, they didn’t just get up and walk out, did they?” Pete snapped back. “Have you checked the security tapes?”

 

“Wilson’s doing it now,” said Rose.

 

“Wilson’s done it,” said Gregory Wilson, walking into the kitchen with a heavy look on his face. “Come and see what I’ve found. You’re not going to like it.”

 

They followed Wilson in to the surveillance room and he brought up an image on the screen. “That’s your husband, I think,” said Wilson pointing to the monitor. Rose watched as the Doctor emerged from the TARDIS and started pacing around the house. He walked around it several times looking lost in thought. At one point his head snapped up and he looked towards the side gate. He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and the tip flared blue. Then the image went blank.

 

“There’s nothing after that for twenty minutes and then recording resumes,” said Wilson. The images flashing across the screen were of a quiet house with nothing of incident until Rose emerged from the TARDIS forty minutes later.

 

“So the Doctor saw something,” said Rose. “Someone must have broken in and he went to stop it and got caught up in it or something. He may be lying in the bushes injured. I should go look.”

 

Pete caught her arm. “Are you telling me the Doctor’s missing?” he asked.

 

“Not missing,” said Rose looking down at the hand that was clutching her arm a little too tightly. “He just wasn’t in the TARDIS when I woke up and she said he’d gone outside.” Pete’s fingers dug into her arm and Rose winced. “Ouch, let go. You’re hurting me.” She shook off Pete’s grip.

 

“I think it’s pretty clear here what’s going on,” said Pete. “Your Doctor took our children.”

 

Rose turned horrified eyes on Pete. “There is no way. He would never, ever do that!” She glanced over at her mother and realized with horror that Jackie’s face was covered with doubt. “He wouldn’t,” she insisted.

 

“But you don’t know that, do you, Rose?” Jackie said. “You’ve only known him four weeks. What do you really know about the man? He isn’t your Doctor, he’s different. A different man. How do you know he wouldn’t take the twins?”

 

“Because I know him,” insisted Rose.

 

“How can you? How can you really know him in four weeks time? Just because the sex is good between you doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy,” Jackie pressed on.

 

“He’s my husband!” Rose said. “I trust him with my life.”

 

“Do you trust him with the lives of Kyle and Sarah?” Pete snapped.

 

“Yes,” she said. “He didn’t do this. You have to believe me.” Pete turned away from her. “Mum?”

 

“How can I? You’ve shown such bad judgment in the past when it comes to any version of the Doctor. This one, well I think you’ve misjudged him. He must be bad,” said Jackie.

 

“No. He’s not bad anymore than Pete is!” said Rose.

 

“Don’t compare your father--.”

 

“But he’s not my father, is he?” snapped Rose. “He’s just like my husband. He’s a different man. Yet you trusted him from the start. Enough to conceive Kyle and Sarah the night you met him! Why can’t you trust that I know this Doctor is a good man?”

 

“Because my children are missing!” yelled Jackie as she lost control of her emotions in her fear for the twins’ safety. “My children are missing! Your husband is missing! I may not have a genius level IQ but I know enough to put two and two together and come up with four when I see it!”

 

“He wouldn’t do this! He’d never do this!” Rose yelled back. “You don’t know him.”

 

“You don’t know him!” fired back Pete.

 

“I do. I do know him. He wouldn’t--.” The sound of the TARDIS dematerializing stopped her mid-sentence and the expression on both her parents’ faces darkened in horror. Rose didn’t know what was going on but she was sure, one hundred percent sure, that her husband had not kidnapped her brother and sister.

 

“He didn’t.”

 

“He did,” said Jackie.

 

Pete looked at her grimly. “If any harm comes to those children,” he said in a vicious tone as his eyes raked accusingly over Rose, “I will kill your husband myself. And you…you will not be welcome in this house again.”

 

Rose turned to her mother but Jackie refused to meet her gaze. Her mum walked over to her dad and took his hand. “Mum?”

 

“You better hope you’re right, Rose.” 

 

“But I’m your daughter!”

 

For a moment Jackie’s face softened. Pete bit out, “But you’re not mine.” He pulled Jackie closer and she buried her face in Pete’s shirt. He stared at Rose with hard eyes, eyes Rose didn’t recognize.

 

Rose blinked back tears and reached for the link in her mind, found the little silver light and made it flare out strong. “Doctor!” she cried out mentally. “Doctor, I need you!” As she gave her psychic shout she glanced back at Pete. For a moment, some trick of the light made his face appear to ripple, but it was gone within a second. Very slowly his lips began to turn upwards in a grin. It chilled Rose to the bone.

 

 

 

The TARDIS materialized in the living room of the safe house and the moment she did, Mickey was leaning over the back of the couch clutching his stomach, pointing at the ship and laughing. The Doctor frowned down at Mickey but all the man could manage was, “Pink!” before he was off again.

 

The Doctor rolled his eyes and strode over to his ship. “All right, you’ve made your point already.  You can go back to being yourself any time now. I apologized.”

 

“In point of fact, you really haven’t,” the TARDIS said.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said putting one hand on the door. “Really, I am. Rose and I will never…” He trailed off and glanced at the three very interested observers. “Do that, there, again.  Now, will you please turn back?”

 

Mickey snorted as he sussed out just exactly what the word ‘that’ meant and Suzie asked him, “Why exactly is he talking to that box?”

 

“Because she’s his ship and she’s alive,” said Mickey.

 

“Kind of small, isn’t she?”

 

“You’d be surprised.”

 

“Well?” asked the Doctor.

 

“Don’t have time for it at the moment, but later on I will. Now aren’t you in danger? Why did you summon me?” the TARDIS asked.

 

“I’m not the one in danger.  But there’s a chance Rose is, so I brought you to me to keep her safe,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Doctor, Rose isn’t on board,” the ship said.

 

“She woke up and went looking for you. I told her you’d gone outside. She heard a scream from the house and went inside. A few minutes later her father came home and then you called me here.”

 

“Pete’s there? At the house? With Rose?” The Doctor was unlocking the doors immediately.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Go with him, Mickey,” Jake said. “Suzie and I can protect the kids but the Doctor might need help.”

 

“Yeah,” said Mickey. He hurried after the Doctor. “Nice dust ruffle,” he said, smirking at the pink lacy thing surrounding the console.

 

“Shut it,” said the Doctor.

 

“Right,” said Mickey, but the smirk didn’t leave his face as the Doctor programmed the coordinates and the TARDIS headed back to the Tyler Manse. The little hop didn’t take more than a couple of minutes and then the ship was appearing in the same spot in the back garden it had vacated moments before. Without a word the two men dashed out of the TARDIS and into the house.

 

 

 

Rose threw herself into the Doctor’s arms, feeling relief in every inch of her bones as his arms tightened around her. She buried her face in his shirt, her fingers fisting in his leather jacket and trying to pull him even closer.

 

“What the hell have you done with my children?” Jackie shouted advancing on the Doctor. She raised her hand threateningly.

 

“Mum, he didn’t take them.” Rose whirled on her mother. “Tell her, Doctor,” Rose ordered, backing into the Doctor until her back was flush against him. She spread her arms out in front of her husband, blocking him from Jackie’s reach.

 

“I didn’t take your children,” the Doctor said with mild surprise.

 

“They’re missing and you were gone,” Jackie accused.

 

“What’s going on?” the Doctor asked Rose through their mental link.

 

“The twins have gone missing and Mum and Dad think you took them,” Rose explained.

 

The evil smile on Pete’s face got larger and this time when his skin rippled the Doctor and Rose both saw it. So did Mickey. “That’s not Pete,” Mickey declared. “That’s one of those Monoc’teru.”

 

“What?” Jackie backed away from Pete.

 

“Look at him, he’s responding to your telepathic link. You were using it, right?” Mickey asked.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Do it again.” The Doctor murmured something telepathically to Rose and Pete’s face rippled yet again. “Look at him. He’s one of them. No wonder Pete’s been acting so strange. It’s a shape-shifter,” Mickey said.

 

“Jackie, come away from him!” ordered the Doctor.

 

“What?” Jackie was very confused and starting to look frightened for herself at last.

 

“Mum, that’s not Dad!” Rose said. “It’s…it’s an alien.”

 

“What?”

 

“Bit slow on the uptake, your mum,” groused the Doctor.

 

Mickey pulled a gun out of the inside of his coat and leveled it on the thing that was not Pete. “Get away from her,” he said. The not Pete dropped his arms away from Jackie and then shimmered and disappeared.

 

“Someone better explain to me right now what’s going on!” Jackie said shrilly. Her eyes took their turn boring through every other set of eyes in the room. The three of them moved together into a cohesive bunch under her glare. “Well?” she said crossing her arms and tapping one foot impatiently. “I’m waiting.”

Ch. 9:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/42713.html

Post Pomp (5&6 of 22)

Chapter Five:  One Hundred Days

I haven’t seen you again since I found the hydroponics chamber, Cara. I think that’s a good thing. It threw me quite a bit less than it should have. I shouldn’t be taking a hallucination in stride like that. At least I don’t think I should be. It made me question my sanity a bit. But it’s sane people who question their sanity, right? The insane ones never do. They just get on with the quietly being insane. Or the not so quietly being insane.

( Read more... )

Post Pomp (5&6 of 22)

Chapter Five:  One Hundred Days

I haven’t seen you again since I found the hydroponics chamber, Cara. I think that’s a good thing. It threw me quite a bit less than it should have. I shouldn’t be taking a hallucination in stride like that. At least I don’t think I should be. It made me question my sanity a bit. But it’s sane people who question their sanity, right? The insane ones never do. They just get on with the quietly being insane. Or the not so quietly being insane.

( Read more... )