Chapter Four
The Doctor was kneeling down next to Rose after someone had attempted kidnapping her. She was breathing heavy and sweat was shining on her forehead. The thing was the Doctor wasn't paying any attention to Rose anymore. There was something far more interesting going on.
"Hello?" He asked the girl who stood above the two travelers, the one who stared down at the pair, barely flinching. She just stared. And she could keep going. Her eyes were a bright blue, as blue as the sky would have been if it hadn't been such a terrible day.
The Doctor watched her, waiting for her to say something. His hand was still resting on Rose's back. He could feel her moving beneath him. She too had clearly noticed the girl up above.
Finally the girl broke into a smile, which soon leads to a laugh. The Doctor and Rose watch her as she takes in rounds of laughter, moving her feet slightly as she let it fill her up.
"Sorry, is something funny?" He asked her. Confusion was etched upon his face. What had he done that had made her laugh? Was she laughing at Rose?
The girl stopped moving around on the grass but her smile was still present. She looked down at the two again. "Her face when she was taken, it was hilarious." She told them, chuckling quietly now. The Doctor raised his eyebrows and then turned to Rose. Rose had done the same thing and now they shared a confused look, hinted with intrigue. The Doctor then turned back to face the girl. She watched the two of them.
He slowly stood up, balancing himself on his own two feet. His hand gently fell across Rose's back, leaving her to her own. Now he was face to face with the girl, who was average height. Not too tall and not too small. Their eyes meet and the Doctor's mouth turned up in a grin. "Now, who might you be?"
The girl, who was still smiling, opened her mouth to speak but she soon closed it, rethinking her words. The Doctor watched her carefully. She was gazing off in the distance, in her own world. "I'm Felicity Barret." She met his eyes again, which were wide with excitement. The Doctor smiled, nodding his head. "Nice to meet you Felicity Barret." He told her.
He then started pacing around the two girls next to him, Rose and Felicity. Rose had stood up and was now across from the strange girl. She watched the Doctor as he walked slowly around them.
"Felicity, tell me, where you the one to take Rose?" He asked the girl. She too had been watching him. Now her face was flooded with confusion. "Who's Rose?" She asked him, more to the air I suppose. Rose, who was across from her, turned to face her. "That's me, thanks for asking." She answered for him sharply. Felicity quickly turned to her, eyes widening. "Oh, no, of course I didn't take her. I saved her life." She told the two of them.
The Doctor stopped walking. He was standing between them now. "That was you?" He asked her clearly surprised. "I thought it had been me." He mumbled right after. Felicity nodded then shook her head sadly. "You couldn't have. No one else knows how." She told him. "What, so there's a certain way? Pull her out, that simple." He said to her. She continued to shake her head, looking at him. "And could you get her out?" She asked. The Doctor raised his eyebrows, giving in. He hadn't had a clue about how to get Rose to safety. He had really thought that she was going to leave and he had been so scared.
"Alright, so I hadn't had a clue on how to get her out. To make sure that doesn't happen again, how about you tell me how?" He asked her quietly. She stared at him, her head racing with her choices. Should she tell him or should she not? Rose spoke up next to them. "What if it happened to you, wouldn't you want us to know how to save you?" She asked, proving a point. "We would all benefit from it."
"Alright, maybe you can help." She had made up her mind. What was happening around here was too dangerous for just her to handle. "There are these things that are growing beneath the ground. They're like plants I suppose. Big and green, sort of like flowers if you were looking for an exact description." She started. The Doctor and Rose listened carefully. "Plant like? Green?" He asked her. Felicity nodded. Rose stepped towards the Doctor, putting a hand on his arm to get his attention. When she had it she asked him a question. "It isn't the Slitheen, is it?" The Doctor shook his head. "No, doesn't match the description." Both of them continued to listen to the girl's story.
"I had just started noticing that people had been disappearing around here. I witnessed one for myself. It was an old man. No one even said a thing about it but at that point I was really worried. I figured that if they're plants, why not kill them. So I use this pesticide stuff from the store down the road. They've got tones of it." She told them reaching into her back pocket for the bottle. When she had it in her hands she held it up in front of the pair to see. The liquid inside was blue and see through, nothing special looking.
The Doctor bent down to have a closer look. He squinted his eyes, squishing up his face in the process. "It's just your basic pesticide, nothing special." He stated. "It's like I said, I just got it down at the store." Felicity told him.
The Doctor stood back up, turning his glaze back to Felicity. "Have you seen anyone around here lately, doing anything out of the ordinary or unusual?" He asked. Felicity's face fell blank as her mind began to race again. She thought back to all the times she had been here, laying flowers for her brother. There had always been the odd person here and there but no one was here regularly, except one.
"Lately, whenever I'm here, there's this women. She's older but not too old and she wears this dress. Its bright red and I've also seen her with an umbrella once or twice." Felicity told the two travelers about the women in the graveyard. The Doctor nodded, his mind searching for answers. "Alright, so she was here often?" He asked, double-checking. She nodded.
The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket looking for his sonic screwdriver. His hands fumbled but finally they landed on the tiny machine. He pulled it out and then with both hands he switched a few of the settings. "I should be able to trace her origins back with the sonic, especially if she's been her often. It's the perfect trap. Never stay too long in one place, Rose." He told them both. Rose took in what he had said. Maybe that was one of the reasons he traveled so much, so that he couldn't be found. Things like this always bothered her.
He started to walk away from the two girls, with his screwdriver in hand. Rose and Felicity both exchanged looks and then they both decided to follow the Timelord. With the Doctor running wild up ahead of them they had a little bit of a chance to talk.
"Thank you for saving me." Rose said smiling to Felicity. Felicity raised her eyebrows and turned to Rose. She smiled back. "Oh, don't worry about it. I've sort of taken up that job around here." She replied. Rose's face was overcome with worry in an instant. "So there are a lot of these events happening? And, what, no one notices?" She asked. The girl shook her head. "I don't know why they're not. It's like the people don't exist at all, they just disappear. Nothing to be said." Felicity told Rose. Rose let her head fall a bit in front of her. All of it, all of this, was making her head hurt with frustration. How could people be so careless? How could everyone not notice when a loved one disappears?
"And this woman, do you know if she's from around here? Had you seen her before the graveyard?" Rose asked slyly. Felicity's eyes widened. "No, I've never seen her before."
"Rose! Felicity! Over here, come quick!" The two girls heard a yell from the other side of the graveyard. It was the Doctor.
Both of them shared a quick look at each other but then they were off, following the sound of their names. "Doctor!" Rose yelled out, panic searing through her voice. Felicity followed behind her but she was slightly slower than the time traveler. Also, she had no idea why in god's name Rose was yelling Doctor. Was the man hurt? Did he need a Doctor? She wasn't going to find one here. There wasn't a hospital in radius.
Finally, the pair reached the Doctor who was standing with his back to them. In front of him there was a lot of wind, leaves from the ground had been picked up and tossed along with dew that had stuck to the grass. Rose approached him from one side and Felicity was on the other. Rose noticed that he was holding the sonic with both hands, pointing it at the storm of wind and fall remains. "I've almost got her! She's so close!" He yelled when he could see the two girls from the corners of his eyes. Felicity stood next to him in silence, watching the storm in front of her. Her mind was full of questions. What was happening right now? What did he mean by tracing her? What was he holding in his hands and why was it creating a storm of wind? And Doctor? Doctor who?
"What do you want us to do, Doctor?" Rose had to yell to make her heard over the noise. The Doctor's face was scrunched up with excitement but also because the wind was hitting him so hard. "Just stay next to me! Don't leave! If you stay near, we'll all be able to go!" He yelled again, not looking at his companion. Rose's expression was one of confusion. "Where are we going?" She asked him but he didn't have any time to answer.
The wind picked up even more, this time pulling back like a bubble floating towards them. And it caught them inside. They were engulfed with the wind and the leaves and the water. Each one of the trio stood their ground, with trouble, to stay planted, not wanting to be taken by the wind.
Soon, Rose couldn't see her hands any more if she lifted them up to her eyes. She couldn't see the Doctor and the girl who had saved her. All she could see was grey, pure solid grey.
Soon that changed once again. Their surroundings had changed completely. Where they landed was not a graveyard, not the TARDIS, not engulfed with a wind storm and it wasn't Rose's home. It was a ship. All around her there was metal, bright red metal. There were also a few gold panels, complimented by the red ones.
Rose looked around her, her eyes wide with interest and quite possibly nerves as well. The Doctor stood next to her and on his other side was Felicity. She didn't turn to look at them, to see if they were alright. Her eyes darted around the room that they stood in. It was bright, unlike the graveyard they were just at. The light blazed down on her, she could feel herself warm up.
As she turned around slowly, taking in the full room, she noticed a shadow. There was some sort of entrance from where the shadow was but it was dark. Rose couldn't see into it. She just saw the figure.
She chose to begin her approach, slowly picking up her foot to start towards the dark corner. When her foot hit the ground on that first step Rose looked down quickly. There wasn't a floor to this ship, there was grass. Her foot had felt soft when she had stepped, unlike walking in any other ship she had been in. Maybe there was a connection between this ship and the graveyard. Maybe that was why the owner of this place was constantly down on Earth.
Rose continued towards it, picking up her pace slightly. The figure in the shadows didn't move, maybe didn't even acknowledge their presence. The closer she got the more nervous she felt. She could feel her heart beating harder and harder, almost out of her chest. But she wasn't like that, she was familiar with this sort of stuff, spaceships and traps, shadows following but not passing by. It was all ritual, for her at least.
She was about a meter away from the corridor were the figure was. The light was casting a shadow over it so she couldn't see even this close up. She had to force her legs forward in fear of what she would see.
When she was stood right next to the figure is when she could finally make it out. She wore a red dress from the Victorian ages and her hair was pulled up on top of her head. In one hand the lady held an umbrella that was tightly pulled shut, as if it was hiding secrets. But what scared Rose the most was the women's face, as cold as the North Pole in the dead of winter and as rigid as rock. She didn't expect the face to move and when it did Rose was taken aback. "Well, look who's found me, Doctor." The lady said with a wide grin.