The Doctor was tumbling too until we collided into each other only to be torn apart from gravity and pushed into the harsh cold metal wall of the Med Bay. The whole room was turning upside down as he tried to grab me, but was thrown away again.
I childishly screamed as I came crashing to the wall, the whole room was twisting around us, throwing us off course while he was trying to get us back to a safer part of the TARDIS.
"What's wrong?! What's happening?!" I yelled as a flashing red light and booming alarm ran through the TARDIS. He reached for my hand and pulled me with him into the corner of the room. We were still tumbling a bit and so was everything in the room but I was lot safer in his arms.
"I don't know, but we need to get to the control room!" He shouted over the crashing of more machines.
By the time the crashing and tumbling had subsided, we were both curled around the railing just before the very entrance of the wardrobe.
He was careful to judge the gravity with his own nervous footing.
"Right. Well…that was…"
"What the hell was that?!" I interrupted. My injured arm was still injured but was no longer the colour it had been before. It wasn't as badly cracked either and I'd hazard a guess to say it was only fractured but still fragile.
Which meant he must have started to heal it before he'd even turned on the machine. I didn't know whether I should have felt cheated or grateful, right now he seemed to busy to want my thank you's. Which overall made the experience less awkward.
"I have no idea but we've landed."
I pulled myself up as he frowned at the console.
"Should we go investigate?" I offered. He frowned again.
"Your arm's still not healed properly."
"So?"
"So you're in pain." He answered. "I can't take you out there if you're a risk to yourself."
"Risk to myself?!" I muttered hysterically. "Your machine has been battered into a million pieces, the only healing my arm needs is time! Literal time."
"Still." I stood next to him and gently wiggled my fingers.
"Completely fine…" I lied. He seemed to buy it but reached into the pocket of his coat and found an arm sling.
"I really should start leaving the appropriate things in my jacket pocket rather than my coat."
I laughed as he fixed it awkwardly behind my messed hair.
"Rose, the sonic can't even fix it…you'd literally be walking in there damaged."
"Less talking, more walking " I argued pushing him towards the door.
"Rose. I'm being serious."
"Good, so am I."
He shook his head, as if to say no but I laid my chin on his shoulder and gave him my largest gaze, battering my eyelashes a few times to help the persuasion.
Looping my hand across to hold his, I fluttered my eyelashes a few more times.
"Oh, come on then. But if we end up running again…"
"Together?" I offered.
He rolled his eyes. "Doctor's orders!"
I saluted, dragging him outside.
I was surprised to find it was dark. Really dark. A house was only a few feet away and was captured by several trees. It creaked against the wind but was still picturesque. It was massive, absolutely huge but seemed empty and broken.
"Wow….it's night."
He pulled down his mouth. "So it seems? Well, I think we should give it a while before we go travelling off. Give her some time to fix herself." He patted the box but it almost growled at him.
"Seems like we should go meet the neighbours…" He nodded his head towards the creepy Victorian house and began walking towards it. I ran to catch up with him.
"What are we going to say, vehicle broke down?"
We were barely on the wood chipped porch when a mother in her thirty's, dressed in an old nightie, hair in rollers answered the door.
"I-We can't help you." She whimpered ready to slam the door. The Doctor ran to stop her.
"Oh no, please. We're lost, we need directions." He said, trying to get closer.
"If you want to stay safe, you'll run." She warned and went to shut the door again.
The curiosity coated his voice. "What do you mean by that?..."
She tried closing the door but he pleaded.
"Oh, please. Look me and my friend; Rose, maybe we can help. We're good at helping." He pulled me up to stand next to him and smiled as if offering me up as a gift of trust.
The woman was completely pale apart from her dark eyes. She obviously hadn't slept in a while.
"It's after us…it won't leave us alone. No matter where we go…" she confided, her voice choking her own breathing. I had an urge to run away but felt sorry for her. She was shaking, she was tired and she was on the verge of a break down. She needed our help.
He frowned and stepped closer.
"We can help." He stated, offering his hand as an introduction.
"No one can help us." She said eerily and slammed the door shut.
It was a slap in the face by the draft as bits of chipped paint hit me in the face.
The wind was biting at my bare arms so that Goosebumps rose on them. I tried to hide the violent shiver but it didn't work.
He raised an eyebrow at me then starting to bang on the door, furiously.
"Please? My friend needs …the loo?" He gave me a bewildered look to see if this was a normal human excuse "We're completely lost; I'm begging you, not for me, for her." He pulled me into his side and rubbed the top of my arm, smiling awkwardly.
He rapped his knuckles on the door so it made an echoing noise.
"Please?" he shouted.
He seemed more surprised than I did when the door sneaked opened. She looked guilty to the floor.
"Top floor second to your left."
"Thank you!" I yelled, miming desperation as I hurried towards the bathroom.
I was already half expecting him to be talking to the parents once I returned downstairs but was even more confused to see a family of seven, including herself, swamping the living room of the house.
"Rose, this is Kareen Miller and her husband Richard."
I held out my hand to which only Richard shook.
I couldn't help it; my eyes fell to the children curled up on the floor. There were five of them, all girls, from the ages of around fifteen to five; all sweet with rosy cheeks, freckles and varying shades of hair. A motherly sensation was screaming at me to protect them as they huddled up to each other.
The Doctor tore a worried glance from my awkward sling and sat on the sofa.
"How can we help?" He said, leaning forward.
"We're being haunted…" Kareen trembled, her voice shaking in rhythm to her knees.
I tried not to be disbelieving. Haunted? What a blissful word, if only it were haunted. They were usually only aliens. Or the Gelth. Never making that mistake again.
"Haunted?"
"Yes; haunted! Why you don't believe us?!" Richard hissed , standing over him in anger.
Kareen tried to pull her husband back to his seat.
When he next spoke, he was pleading: "Please. Our family needs help…"
The Doctor grinned. "We always help."
"How can you still be smiling? You still don't believe us, do you?!"
My knee stared shaking too as the Doctor widened his eyes.
"It's not that we don't believe you, it's just that we'll need to do a lot of tests before your suspicions are confirmed…"
"We do a lot of travelling, you see." I chimed in, feeling that I should be defending our situation rather than let him drown on his own. "We see a lot of things that turn out to be different from first expectations. We get rid of the rumours…"
"Rumour ridderers'" The Doctor added. I was hoping the side smile he shared with me was one of pride and not just agreement.
"Rumour ridder-ers." I repeated.
Kareen narrowed her dark eyes. "One night. You spend one night up there and then tell me it's a rumour…"
I couldn't help but let my eyes light up, all I wanted was to fall asleep, just to recover a little, recharge, reload.
Maybe a night in a creepy house would be nice.
"Is that an offer?"
Kareen didn't say anything, just looked to her sleeping children and let sobs take over her shoulders.
I instantly moved to comfort her one-armed.
"Hey, it's okay. We'll sort this…" I soothed, the tears streaked her face as exhaustion disallowed the coherent string of speech.
"It's after them. My children. My babies."
I swallowed the lump in my throat and continued to stroke her back.
"You say "it"?" The Doctor began, looking over to the cluster of girls as they breathed softly. "What makes you think "it" is after them?" She lifted a pointed hand to the foot of one of the middle children.
I couldn't help it, the gasp fell out before I even had chance to control it. The Doctor glared emotionless onto what Kareen was pointing at.
"Chloe, she woke up one night screaming, saying that something had grabbed her…" Kareen sobbed again and burrowed her face into my knotted hair.
Both I and the Doctor moved towards the girl. She was about thirteen at the most. She had short brown hair combed in an odd fashion but on her ankle was a large purple bruise the size of a male's fist.
He obviously couldn't help himself, throwing on his specs he looked closer at the girl's ankle barely covered by the aged nightie. Wow the family were old fashioned!
He lightly traced the outside of the bruise with the tip of his index finger. The girl woke up instantly and screamed.
"No-! No! It's fine. Don't worry. I'm here to help!"
Chloe continued to scream until her mum rushed to her side and smoothed her hair.
"Shhh. Shh, it's okay.."
The other girls promptly started to wake up, rubbing their eyes sleepily all in old nighties.
"Who are you?!" The youngest asked. She had large blue eyes and the sweetest frown, the other girls had enough sense to run to their parent's soothing words of comfort.
"We're here to help." I re-stated. "My name is Rose. Rose Tyler and this is the Doctor. Just the Doctor."
"Have you come to clean our house?" She asked in confusion. I was as equally confused. Did I look like a scrubber?!
Her mother answered before me. "Yes. They've come to get rid of "IT"." Her voice was a lot scarier now, plain, dull but threatening. Daring us that if we failed our mission we were to be destroyed. Or something along those lines, either way she was scaring me.
"Why are you dressed like that?" another girl of around seven asked me. She was a lot like her younger sister just she had long brown hair.
"Me? What do you mean?"
The Doctor suddenly breathed in understandingly and surveyed the room from his crouched position. He noticed the wall paper, the old brown wall paper, the ancient television the odd furniture.
"Rose…"He whispered, smiling to the family as they looked to me in confusion "We're in 1983".
"We're WHAT?!"
That was exciting!
The family weren't listening to our arguing, just watching us in fear.
"1983…We're in…yeah.." He caught the frown of the mother. "Anyway. Please continue Kareen."
She asked Chloe to prove the harsh bruise of her leg.
"It was in our room. Mine and Leann. It spoke…" Chloe's voice had hushed to a whisper. She seemed to trust us now; she was comfortable with her mum's sudden trust in us and had taken that as a sign to trust us, or rather him.
"What did it say?" The Doctor was leaning on the top of his feet now, unable to free the manic glee from his eyes.
"It said it wanted to kill my family…"
The whole room turned eerily silent before a door slammed shut behind me, blowing out the candles in the room with its draft. One of the girls (Leann I think) screamed. The shudder was trying to rip my shoulders apart.
The Doctor had jumped up and was pointing the whirring blue light of the sonic screwdriver around the room. I was offering a bit of support to the girls.
"It's come back!" One of them whimpered.
"It's going to kill us!" Chloe cried hiding against her mother and her sisters for comfort. They'd all shifted backwards.
"It's okay. You're safe." I couldn't help but look at him trying to hide all disbelief from my face. "You're all safe." I promised. Richard jumped right behind the Doctor.
The Doctor seemed to become aware that he'd given all of us a blank expression so turned to me and winked to ease the tension. "That's us. Rumour ridderers, right Rose?"
The youngest girl (the bravest of them) covered her face with a giggle.
"It's just wind." He said, sitting down near me so that he was to the same level as all the girls.
"That was no wind!" Richard muttered, standing to peer around the corridor of the living room door.
"Sure it was." He lied. The Doctor was ignoring me and instead held out his hand to the youngest. She shook it eagerly.
"My name's Evelyn." She said, catching the drift and smiling a toothless grin.
"Beautiful name," The Doctor complimented, grinning to Kareen who still clung to the shoulders of a shaking Chloe.
No one else offered their introduction. Evelyn rolled her eyes dramatically. "That's Chloe and Leann. They're twins!" She pointed to the girls.
"No way!" The Doctor scoffed, enjoying her excitement. It was clearly obvious the two were twins, they were the spitting image of one another except one of them had longer hair.
"Then there's Maria," she pointed to the girl a little older than her with the long hair "and Anita. We call her Annie though."
The Doctor continued to shake the hands of the girls who now studied him in curiosity rather than fear. I was glass.
"Well, now we are on first name basis I can let you into my plan."
The oldest, Anita, was still shaking whether from the cold or from fright, I didn't know. She was coldly pale and listened to the Doctor intently as if every word depended on her life.
"Me and Rose. Rose and I. We are going to investigate upstairs. Which room is it?"
Kareen answered. "The first to your right."
"Right-We're going to investigate-"
Feeling a little fed up of letting myself become a bit of a silent soul I chose to interrupt him. "What exactly are we looking for?"
"It'll find you." Chloe stated. Her brown eyes darted right through my own as if battling through every thought I had ever possessed. I shivered again.
"But what about if they die!" Evelyn burst in. Her excitement would have been a lot more appreciated had this sentence been whimpered. She seemed in hope of our death.
"They won't die!" Anita chided, she was staring at the Doctor and despite myself I felt a little protective.
Maria who had been totally silent since the slamming of the door, was pulling onto her mum's sleeve, hushing something about my arm.
"What? What is it?" I asked carefully.
"You're arm. It's injured." She stated in a small mouse voice.
"What does that mean?" The Doctor inquired for me. He was mirroring Evelyn's excitement.
"It means that if she survives tonight, that arm won't."
If that was supposed to scare me, it failed. I was completely calm as I muttered a disinterested "oh." Was it wrong to laugh out loud into the face of a melodramatic seven year old?
The Doctor had already stood up.
"Okay, well. I'm sure we'll be fine. We'll return with our results in the morning."
"At three thirty…"Richard mumbled, leaning on the fireplace watching us ready to leave.
He very good at moving around the place without being noticed. It was weird.
"What?"
"That's when it comes. Three thirty every morning."
A small breeze bit at my arms again despite being indoors. We both nodded and walked up the landing to the room.
"After you." He said politely, letting me lead the way just so he could give the five girls a small support of a grin.
"Three thirty, then." I offered as a goodbye.
The only thing I heard was Richard's mutter of "good luck".
The one thought I had has we left room was that the family were either ridiculously naive to be trusting us or desperate. Utterly and shamefully desperate and the doctor and I were the only ones to believe them, we were the only help. The only hope.