Listen to Me
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"Rose…?"
"I said 'shush'," she said, not quite as snappily as she had been. She realised that the Doctor didn't know why she was against this. He didn't understand why she was upset. But her voice must have startled Gwyneth, as she started making noises and stirred.
When her eyes opened, she began to sit up. "Whoa, take it easy," Rose told her gently. "Just rest, yeah? It's alright, it's over."
"But my angels, Miss?"
"They're not-" she tried to say, but Gwen didn't stop, didn't hear her.
"They came, didn't they? They need me?"
"No."
"They do need you, Gwyneth," the Doctor said over top of her. "You're their only chance of survival."
"I said leave her alone!" Rose turned on him angrily. "She's only a girl! She's exhausted. This isn't her battle, and I won't let you risk her life!"
"She won't be risking her life," he sighed.
"Are you sure of that? Are you absolutely positive? How do you know it won't hurt her?"
"Rose, it will be fine."
"You're asking her to channel the rift through her and let hundreds of aliens pass through her too, and use only her mind!" The Doctor looked at her levelly, realising she might have a point. But why would the Gelth ask this of someone they had spent years protecting if it was going to hurt her?
"What did you say, Doctor?" Sneed asked. "Explain it again. What are they?"
"Aliens," he said simply, finally tearing his gaze away from Rose.
"Like… foreigners, you mean?"
"Pretty foreign, yeah. From up there." He pointed skywards.
"Brecon?" Sneed said, completely clueless.
"Close," he said, going with it. "And they've been trying to get through from Brecon to Cardiff, but the road's blocked. Only a few can get through and even then, they're weak. They can only test drive the bodies for so long, then they have to revert to gas and hide in the pipes."
"Which is why they need the girl," Charles said.
"They're not bloody well having her!" Rose cried, ignoring the looks she was getting for swearing. "None of you are!"
"But she can help!" the Doctor said in exasperation. "Living on the rift, she's become part of it. She can open it up, make a bridge and let them through."
"Yeah, and die in the process!"
"Would you stop being so dramatic!"
"Incredible," Charles sneered, slightly intoxicated from the third glass of brandy he was drinking. "Ghosts that are not ghosts, but beings from another world, who can only exist in our realm by inhabiting cadavers!"
"Good system. It might work," the Doctor said, impressed by the ingenuity of it.
"It will not work! It's not going to happen!"
Rose knew she was almost having the same argument with him, but this time it was for a different reason. She could understand creatures needing the dead to survive. It was creepy, but she could handle it. Problem now, was she didn't trust them at all. Knew what they really wanted…
But it was hard trying to convince the Doctor of this when she couldn't tell him.
"Why not? It's like recycling."
"Seriously though," she said standing up. "You can't."
"Seriously though, I can," he countered. Ugh. This was getting nowhere!
"Let me rephrase that. What you're planning on doing, is letting a young girl, who barely knows what she can do, put her life at risk by ripping opening a crack in time and space. Letting traces of the Time Vortex go through her, not to mention all the potentially dangerous alien life forms. So that said aliens can inhabit dead people and cause an uproar! And yes, that last part was a euphemism. People are going to freak out!"
"It's only for a short while. People won't even have to know they were here. And there is nothing wrong with them using the bodes. It's just a different reality, Rose. So get used to it, or go home."
"Ugh! You're not listening to me!" she cried in exasperation. "I don't care about them using bodies. It's… it's like having a donor's card! But they aren't safe!"
"Why are you so hung up on thinking they're dangerous?" he half shouted at her.
"Because they are! Mr Sneed, how did Mr Redpath die?"
"…Mrs Redpath killed him…" he said hesitantly, not really wanting to be included in the fight.
"Before or after she died?"
"…After."
"See," she said, throwing her arm out.
"Time is running out for them, Rose," he said stubbornly. He was ignoring what was right in front of them, too set on fixing what he had done wrong.
"Oh. My. God! You don't get it, do you? Would you please just listen to me! I won't let you use Gwyneth, and I won't let you bring them through to hurt everyone!"
"Don't I get a say in this, Miss?" Gwyneth asked from behind her. Rose turned to her.
"Gwyneth, you don't understand."
"I know you're scared, Miss," she said. "The things you see in your head. You're scared of the angels, that they will hurt us. And I know that you're scared for me. But you don't need to be. Right now, I know my own mind. I know what they are, and my angels need me. Doctor, what do I have to do?"
"You don't have to do anything," he said to her gently, giving her the chance to make it her own choice, and to show Rose he didn't want to do the girl any harm. He didn't understand why she thought that. Gwyneth had grown up on the rift, if she was a part of it, then it shouldn't hurt her. And the Gelth have been looking after her, so they would protect her.
"They've been singing to me since I was a child. Sent by my mum on a holy mission. So tell me." The Doctor smiled in reply, but Rose found tears coming to her eyes.
"Gwyneth, please don't do this," she begged quietly.
"I've made up my mind. Doctor?"
"We need to find the rift," he grinned. As he turned around and began questioning Mr Sneed on where the rift could be, Rose sunk into the chair next to Gwyneth. It had been painful standing on her foot that long. And losing the argument had made the exhaustion worse.
She was running out of options.
?...DW…?
It was a struggle getting down the stairs. No matter what she did, she couldn't stop the shooting pain that ran up her leg with every step. Gwyneth was in front of them, leading them down, Charles and Mr Sneed behind. And Rose hobbled slowly down, the cane in one hand, the Doctor supporting her on the other side.
The Doctor had noticed that she had been unusually quiet for some time now, and strangely sad. He got the feeling it his was fault.
"Rose," he said quietly, their situation begging for the eerie silence. "I'm sorry."
"What?"
"I shouldn't have yelled at you," he told her.
"It's okay," she replied flatly. She was in too much pain and spending too much concentration on how to save Gwyneth to put much emotion in her voice.
"No it's not, and what I said…" he seemed to struggle a moment, obviously wanting to say something different. "You don't have to go. I just… I don't understand what you've got against these Gelth. You were fine with all the other places we've been to."
Rose turned and looked at him, rather than the stairs she was walking down. "Maybe if you actually looked, and listened to me, you'd see they aren't quite what you think."
"Well, to me, they look like a race who is dying and need my help."
"…Okay, well, maybe what you see is right, but what about their intent?"
"They want to live."
"Yeah, but they didn't need to try and kill me to do it!" she hissed. She sucked in a breath as her cane slipped and her ankle went thudding to the concrete.
"I'll get that fixed up the second we're back in the TARDIS," he told her.
"Thanks." They didn't say more than that. The arguing was getting them nowhere. So they both just let it drop.
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Finally, after what was agonising minutes for Rose, they made it into the basement and opened the door to the morgue.
"Talk about Bleak House," the Doctor said.
"Gwyneth, you don't have to do this," she tried again.
"Rose…" Doctor sighed in frustration.
"No! I don't trust these things, Doctor. And I'm not going to let her get hurt. Can't we just find a way to close the rift?"
"No. They need our help. I don't expect you to understand. But it's my fault they're like this."
"You didn't start the Time War."
"No, but I was given plenty of chances to prevent it. And I was the one to end it."
"Doctor," Charles interrupted. "I think the room is getting colder."
"Here they come," Rose warned, turning to the archway. At that exact moment, blue gas flooded into the room, forming into the leader who stood in the archway Rose had faced.
"You have come to help!" she spoke in her child like voice. "Praise the Doctor! Praise him!"
"You can't hurt her, I won't let you!" Rose shouted at them. "Promise you won't hurt her this time!" She winced at her slip, but realised it could pass, considering Gwyneth had fainted at the séance.
"Hurry!" the Gelth ignored her plead. "Please. So little time. Pity the Gelth."
'Pity my ass!' she thought angrily.
"I'll take you somewhere else after the transfer," the Doctor told them. "Somewhere you can build proper bodies. This isn't a permanent solution, alright?"
"My angels. I can help them live?" Gwyneth said hopefully. Fearfully, Rose took her hand. She could feel the girl's pulse beating rapidly at her wrist. She may look clam, but underneath she was probably as scared as Rose.
"Okay, where's the weak point?" the Doctor asked them.
"Here, beneath the arch."
Gwyneth went to go stand where she was told, but Rose pulled her back. "You can't," she said. "Please, you don't have to do this. You can't do this."
Gently Gwyneth slipped her hand from Rose's grasp and placed it on her cheek. "My angels," she said, as if confirming her decision. She gave Rose a small push, causing her to stumble back into the Doctor's arms. Then she went and stood in the archway.
Tears sprung to Rose's eyes as she knew what that meant. There were a lot of details that she didn't remember. Small conversations, a face, or a name. But this she could remember with sickening clarity. 'I think she was dead the minute she stood in that arch.'
A tear slowly rolling down her cheek, she walked over to Gwyneth. Grabbing her hand again, she checked for a pulse. There was none. Sadly, she placed her hand on the poor girl's cheek. "I'm so, so sorry," she croaked.
'I was supposed to save you,' she said in her head.
"You can't save everyone, Rose," Gwyneth replied aloud to her thought. "Be strong. Have faith."
"Establish the bridge," the Gelth suddenly ordered, causing Rose to startle and jump painfully back. "Reach out of the void, let us through!"
"Yes," Gwyneth said as Rose was pulled gently back by the Doctor. "I can see you! I can see you… Come."
"Bridgehead establishing."
"Come! Come to me! Come to this world, poor lost souls!"
"It is begun!" the Gelth cried in delight. "The bridge is made!" Gwyneth opened her mouth, which was glowing brightly and Gelth began to pour from her, flying around the room. "She has given herself to the Gelth!"
"There's rather a lot of them," Charles muttered, ducking to avoid them as they went over his head.
"The bridge is open. We descend!" Suddenly, just like last time, the blue gaseous Gelth burned like red flames, appearing almost demonic. "The Gelth will come through in force!" it hissed in a now deep voice.
"You said that you were few in number!" Charles said to them.
"A few Billion," it said snidely in its childlike voice, the deep raspy one echoing it. "And all of us in need of corpses." Around them the bright blue Gelth sunk into the bodies in the morgue, and the dead began to stir. They sat up and moved from their table.
"Oh, Gwyneth," Sneed whispered before his voice became firm. "Stop this! Listen to your master. This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, leave these things alone. I beg of you-"
"Mr Sneed! Look out!" Rose shouted as she saw the Gelth possessed corpse come up behind him. She lunged forward to help him. But it was too late. The Gelth grabbed him. At the same time she felt someone grab her. She almost screamed until she realised it was the Doctor pulling her safely back and holding her to him.
They watched in horror as the Gelth broke Mr Sneed's neck. She flinched and curled into the Doctor's chest at the sight. She looked back up in time to see the light of a Gelth pouring into his body. He fell to his knees and looked up that them with blank, dead eyes.
"Rose, I think you may have been right," the Doctor said, his voice weak with shock.
"May have been?" she cried in distress.
"I have joined the legions of the Gelth," Sneed's body said. "Come. March with us."
"No…" Charles whispered fearfully.
Slowly the Gelth corpse army advanced on Rose and the Doctor. "We need bodies. All of you. Dead. The human race. Dead."
"Gwyneth, stop them! Send them back! Now!" he attempted, not realising there was nothing she could do.
"Three more bodies. Make them vessels for the Gelth."
Charles was somewhat safe, right by the door to the basement. "Doctor!" he called. "I - I - I can't! I'm sorry! This new world of yours, it's too much for me! I'm so-" There was a scream, and fearfully, he fled.
Noticing the almost dungeon like bared door to the next room, the Doctor pulled it open and half dragged, half carried Rose through before slamming and locking it. Still they went back as far as they could, pressed back against a wall and the drainage grate. The Gelth advanced until they were stretching their arms in to get them.
"Give yourself to glory. Sacrifice your lives for the Gelth."
"I trusted you," the Doctor said angrily. "I pitied you!"
"We don't want your pity!" they snapped. "We want this world and all its flesh."
"Not while I'm alive."
"Then live no more," they hissed.
"Because that wasn't obvious," Rose muttered. With her hand she searched around for some sort of tap. They had beaten them with gas last time, they could do it again. Finally she found one and twisted till it would go no more, and searched for more. "I'm not going to die."
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "Unless we find a way out of here, that could very much be the case. And it's all my fault. I bought you here."
"It's not your fault," she told him.
"I didn't listen to you. I should have listened to you. And now you're going to be hurt because I didn't. Because I was too blind to see what you were telling me… And what about me? I saw the fall of Troy! World War V! I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party! Now I'm going to die in a dungeon!" A horrified, disgusted look came over his face. "In Cardiff!"
"What is wrong with Cardiff?" She said in exasperation. She jumped as they Gelth frightened her by rattling the bars loudly. "But it's worse than that," she said quietly. "We don't just die… We'll become one of them. And I'm not letting that happen." She let out a small cough as the gas started to get to her. "We'll go down fighting, yeah?"
"Yeah," the told her.
"Together?"
"Yeah," he said. Almost at the exact same time they reached for each others hands and held tight. And for a moment, he stared down at her fondly. "I'm so glad I met you," he told her.
"Me too," she grinned at him. She held his hand tighter. She was feeling light headed. She let out another cough.
A worried look came across the Doctor's face. "Do you smell gas?" he asked.
Right then, Charles rushed back in, a handkerchief pressed to his nose and mouth. "Doctor! Doctor!" he cried. "Turn off the flame, turn up the gas! Now fill the room. All of it, now!" He rushed off and began fiddling with all the lamps.
"What are you doing?" the Doctor said in confusion.
"Gelth are made of gas," Rose said wearily, indicating to the dead lamp beside her that was spewing gas.
"Brilliant! Gas!" he cried. Then he seemed to realise something. "How long have you been breathing that in?" he asked in horror. Rose just shook her head in reply, trying not to choke.
"Am I right, Doctor?" Charles asked.
"Fill the room with gas, it'll draw them out of the host. Suck them into the air like poison from a wound!"
Finally the Gelth seemed to notice Charles standing unprotected and slowly turned to him.
"I hope… oh, Lord. I hope that this theory will be validated soon… If not immediately."
"Plenty more!" the Doctor cried. He turned and ripped the gas pipe off the wall beside him. And immediately all the bodies fell to the floor as the Gelth were sucked from them with a scream.
"It's working," Charles nodded happily. But the Doctor didn't have long to agree as Rose slumped heavily onto him.
"Rose?" he asked, holding her up. Rose could barely focuses on him, let alone keep her eyes open. "Rose, look at me. Come on, stay awake." Her only reaction was to collapse into his chest. "Charles! Get her out of here!" he cried in distress.
Rose was vaguely aware of being handed from one pair of arms to another. Her feet felt like led as she attempted to drag them where she was being taken. But it was getting harder to breath and she was no longer sure what was going on or if she were standing, or lying down, or flying in the sky.
Black crept in around her, and she fell into the darkness.
?...DW…?
"-Come on, Rose, please. Wake up." She groaned as she was dragged back into consciousness. Her head was thumping and she felt slightly nauseous. "That's it. It's okay." Opening her eyes, a bury Doctor swam before her. Carefully, he helped her sit up on the cold, snow covered cobblestones.
"Gwyneth," she muttered the first thought in her head aloud. The Doctor's face fell.
"I'm so sorry, Rose. I tried. She closed the rift, sacrificed herself to do it. But she was already dead."
"I know," she whispered, her throat rough.
"How do you feel?"
"Like crap," she replied.
"Bluntly honest. We need to get you back to the TARDIS." He picked her up in his arms.
"I can walk, you know," she told him, ignoring her spinning head. The Doctor rolled his eyes.
"Actually, ah…" Charles stuttered. "I fear your ankle is a little worse off than before. I'm an old man, I'm not as young as I once was. I'm afraid it was a little difficult for me to carry you after you collapsed." He looked extremely sheepish.
"It's okay, Charlie," she told him. "Come on, let's get me to that beautiful blue box of yours. And then I can give you a kiss for being a very, very nice alien and fixing up my foot. Do you have those little glowing things like Jack? I never paid attention last time."
"You don't know what you're saying, do you?" the Doctor asked in amusement.
Rose hesitated. "…I was saying something?"
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When they reached the TARDIS, the Doctor set Rose down so he could get out his key. "Right then, Charlie-boy, I've just got to go into my, um… shed. Wont be long!"
"Are you with anyone for Christmas?" Rose asked him, leaning against the blue box.
"No. But I will be. I shall take the mail coach back to London. Quite literally post-haste. This is no time for me to be on my own. I shall spend Christmas with my family and make amends to them. After all I've learned tonight, there can be nothing more vital."
"Good on you," she grinned.
"You've cheered up!" the Doctor commented happily.
"Exceedingly!" he replied enthusiastically. "This morning I though I knew everything in the world, and now I know I've just started! All these huge and wonderful notions, Doctor! I'm inspired. I must write about them!"
"Well, you do write good ghost stories, aliens are just the next step," Rose encouraged.
"Of course, I shall have to be subtle at first. 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' still lacks an ending. Perhaps the killer was not the boy's uncle. Perhaps he was not of this earth. 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the Blue Elementals'. I can spred the word! Tell the truth!"
Rose let out a small laugh at his joyous expression. The Doctor grinned and shook the man's hand.
"Good luck with it. Nice to meet you. Fantastic."
"Bye, Charlie. Thanks for everything." She hobbled over to him and gave him a kiss on his cheek. He looked pleasantly startled.
"Oh, my dear… How modern. Thank you. But, I don't understand. In what way is this goodbye?"
"You'll see. In the shed."
"Upon my soul, Doctor. It's one riddle after another with you. But after all these revelations, there's one mystery you still haven't explained. Answer me this… Who are you?"
"Just a friend. Passing through," he replied after a moment.
"But you have such knowledge of future times. I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you. My books, Doctor. Do they last?"
"Oh, yes!"
"For how long?"
"Forever!" the Doctor told him honestly. Charles looked down at the ground, looking very pleased. "Right. Shed. Come on, Rose." He picked her up again and she let out a shrieking giggle.
"In - in the box? Both of you?" Charles said, slightly scandalised. Rose winked at him and his mouth fell open.
"Down boy," the Doctor told him. "See ya."
He carried Rose through and placed her on the jump seat while he set the dematerialisation sequence.
"It's so sad that he doesn't get to finish that book," she said.
"I know, but at least we gave him this. He's more alive than ever, right now. Hey, let's give old Charlie-boy one last surprise." He turned the screen so she could see it and launched the TARDIS. They watched his face as they faded from sight and he disappeared. Both of them had grins on their faces. "Alright you. Let's get you fixed up."
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Is it just me, or did it seem like the whole way through that episode, Rose was the only one with her head screwed on right? She clearly didn't trust the Gelth. It was fun sort of playing around with Mark's idea of it being a moral situation. Taking way the mystery turns it into fact, but it still had the two headstrong people saying 'I know what's right'.
I know lots of you wanted me to save Gwen, but there really wasn't a way to do that. Plus, it shows Rose that she can't save everyone, that no matter what she does, even knowing the future, she can't stop some things from happening. Ultimately, this makes her doubt if she CAN stop the separation.
Got an in-betweener coming up next. Just very short, but hopefully a bit of a Rose / Doctor moment in there.
