....my thanking of Jael is becoming a ritual in postings. The end's for you lady, but you've already read it ^-^
Also: "This is me, speaking French again."
Chapter Seven
Rose was very aware of seconds turning into minutes and slipping by. But her chest hurt, her head hurt, her heart hurt and she couldn't get the tears to stop, now that she had finally let them out.
Everything had become so messed up. A week ago she would have been making her husband's tea with it's imitation sugar and they'd be getting ready for his birthday. A week ago she didn't have a punctured lung or a hole in her head, Chris didn't have a concussion and a sprained ankle, and Mickey didn't have to take care of them both.
"A week ago I wasn't a single mum," she said through her tears. It was a stupid thing to think: her sons were fully grown, middle-aged even. But they were still her babies.
And she hadn't been taking care of them. Well, that was going to change.
First though, she had to pull herself together. Something that was proving hard to do.
She felt anxious, nervous, hurt, grieved, tired, hungry, scared, calm, upset, lost… so many things. She let the steady rhythm of the tap settle in her mind. A concentration trick the Doctor taught her and the twins when they discovered the empathic ability they shared.
Slowly her break down eased off to silently falling tears. The jumble of emotions like a knotted ball of strings slowly unraveled until they were all separate and bare in her heart and mind.
She felt the sound of the water run through the emotions, taking all but hers away. The tears finally stopped and she opened her eyes.
Anxious, grieved, upset and lost she felt then.
She turned to look at the mirror. "Take care of the blood samples, and that takes care of the anxious feeling," she told her image. "Work on the rest when you have to."
That decided she turned off the tap and began pulling things out of her bag. While she hadn't packed three pairs of extra knickers, two extra shirts and a pair of jeans, she had packed one whole back up outfit. Pyjama's to be more precise. She had planned on sleeping on the flight, and in her experience jeans didn't make comfortable sleep attire.
She felt her lips twitch as she held up the black "Tea Solves Everything" cotton pants. They even had little pink smiling tea cups on them.
The matching shirt was pink with a black kiss-blowing kettle on it. The set had been a gift from the Doctor for her 70th birthday. They were worn in places, the material gone thin. But they were comfortable.
Of course, she hadn't planned on walking around a hospital when she'd packed them.
Not exactly an outfit for breaking into anywhere.
"I suppose I can borrow something of Chris or Mickey's," she muttered, holding the shirt up to her chest. "Or maybe get some scrubs of my own." She raised one hand to lightly touch the bruise on her jaw. "Not that they'll hide me anyway."
She put the journal and pyjamas back in her bag and opened the door.
"You packed sensibly, didn't you Mick?" She asked, leaning on the doorframe. She was beginning to tire already, which meant she had to do this now, before she passes out again.
"Course I did," he said, attention on a football match on the telly. Rose could hear the announcements, and while they were going to fast for her to understand, she knew Mickey was following it like it was in English.
If only she had the talent for languages he did.
Rose shook her head, reminding herself Chris wasn't any better then she was, and she was better at mechanics then Mickey- who was hopeless when it came to such things. How that happened with the Doctor as his father was another mystery she knew would never be solved.
She steeled herself and said, "I need to borrow something of yours."
Mickey looked away from the game and grinned. "Didn't pack any spare clothes in that bag, did you?"
Rose huffed and walked to the wardrobe again. She patted herself on the back for not shuffling. "I did," she said. Then quieter, "just nothing hospital sneaking appropriate."
"What was that?" His tone was cheeky and Rose decided to ignore him and borrow something whether he said she could or not. She was the mum. It was her right to use her child's things.
Squatting down, she pulled his bag forward, opened it and frowned. "There's no clothes in here," said, still rummaging though. "I thought you packed clothes."
"I did. One whole outfit. But my bag had been tossed clear. It was open. Couldn't find the clothes when we found it. I used it to collect some of Roy and Esteban's things for their families. We didn't trust the system to give them their wings or anything. And that's all the other things we could find."
There was three books, the small camera bag- "It still work?" She asked, inspecting the case. It didn't look like it was in a crash.
"Should yeah, we didn't exactly have time to check it. At least I didn't," Mickey said after a quick glance her way. Then his attention was back on the telly, and Rose went to Chris's bag instead.
At least he had a few shirts, sweat pants and jeans. She wondered why Mickey hadn't just borrowed something of his brothers as she pulled out the dark gray sweat pants.
She considered just wearing her Kissing Kettle top, but a kitchen appliance with painted red lips puckering up at people would attract much more attention then a woman in men's clothing.
She pulled out Chris's white button-up dress shirt; she wasn't going to go around wearing a shirt that said Vitex or his black hole shirt that had the gravitational field equation on it. Just the sight of that one hurt her head.
"Only Chris would pack a posh shirt for a family holiday," Mickey said as Rose used the door again to stand up.
"He's just prepared is all." She grit her teeth through the pain as her torso moved. "I'm going to get changed and find the lab," she said, looking over at her son. "Then I'm going to stop in on Chris. See if he's ready to get out of here-"
"But-"
She held her hand up to stall Mickey's protests. It was time she started being the parent again. "Fine or not-and I am fine-we are getting out of here and going back home. Your aunt and uncle must be out of their minds with worry and we can't call them from here, least someone wonders why the patients that look so much like the Vitex heir's are making calls to Tony Tyler, alright?
She didn't stay to hear his response, just walked confidently, and with more apparent ease then she actually felt, back to the loo and set about carefully changing into her borrowed clothes.
It was only her urgency and the small rush of adrenalin that it brought that had her going by then. She knew she needed to rest and let things mend, but she also knew she couldn't. Not yet. Not until they were home and safe.
X
Mickey was acting like a petulant teenager when Rose stole out of her room and down the hall, dressed in Chris's clothes with her hair up in a messy bun that mostly covered the bandage.
He wanted her to stay in bed and get well, and while she conceded the point that yes, she did need rest, it didn't change the fact that the longer they stayed the greater the chances were of someone finding out who they were.
They could have, in all actuality, used their real names. Or rather their real-fake names that is. While to Torchwood they were who they had been for decades, to the general public and Vitex they were an enigma of little background. Mickey and Chris became their own parents, and Rose became her own granddaughter, and one of their daughters. How Torchwood managed all that believably she couldn't even fathom.
'Humans, Rose. They're all so very human. Tell them something then back it up with words and figures on paper and they'll believe you one-hundred percent.' Rose never did remind the Doctor that he too was human.
It didn't seem to matter that photos of the grandchildren growing up never turned up, or that they were never seen with their parents. Or that they looked identical to their namesakes, who mysteriously vanished when they turned up.
They really do believe anything. She thought as she took the lift down to the lobby.
It was only the fact that they didn't want the media around that they used assumed names. And they never want the media around.
Eventually there will be another Sarah Jane in the lot, and then her family would have to go into hiding, cause anyone with half as much curiosity and smarts as Sarah Jane wouldn't just take anything at face value. They'd search and uproot things, find the non-ageing skeletons in their closet.
And that, the press finding out their family secrets, that's what Rose feared most in the universe. Even with Torchwood on their side, the government could take them, separate them. Experiment on them. Rose would be damned if she let the likes of UNIT touch a hair on her sons heads.
The lift dinged, and Rose collected herself before she walked out into the busy lobby like she belonged there.
Her pants were rolled three times, and she was wearing the hospital issued slippers, but the shirt at least looked stylish. She could be a frazzled mum-which she was- or a frazzled intern-which she planned to be, if asked.
The doors to the front entrance stood large and sunny in front of the main desk. Off to the left was a glass wall with the word 'Clinique' over it. To the right, a corridor that read 'Admission'.
Rose assumed that meant offices.
The main desk was a circle with a column in the middle; three nurses were there answering phones and making notes. And two doctors. One of whom just set her lab coat over the counter before she sat to help the other with a chart.
Rose strode purposefully forward and slipped the coat off the counter in one fluid move, hardly ruffling the other things beside it. The mass of people coming and going and inquiring about loved ones kept her anonymous as she shrugged into it.
She kept her hand on the smallish lapel to hide the picture on the badge. There was a bold plaque with the floors and what they did there, like she was hoping there would be, on the back side of the column and Rose nicked a file off the desk, pretending to skim it while she looked for the labs.
That they were generally all on the second floor was all she was able to discern before she heard the lady doctor wonder where her coat had gone to.
Rose set the file back down and rushed with professional quickness back to the lifts and hit the button for level 2. She bouncing on the balls of her feet, impatient.
When it arrived she hurried in, hitting the door close button before the number 2.
By the time it stopped, Rose had turned the badge over, just in case, and her head was starting to hurt like mad.
All she wanted was to curl up on her sofa with a cuppa and some reruns of old WestEnders episodes.
She paused a few steps from the closing lift door, almost stunned, and leaned against the wall.
When had she gotten so old?
Probably when you had kids She thought with a shake of her head that made her vision swim momentarily. Once upon a time, her injuries wouldn't have called for crawling home to watch a show that's not nearly as good as its alternate counterpart.
She pushed herself forward at the same time as she pushed the thoughts away. Her sons were her life. Growing old was worth it.
Only I'm not, Rose squashed the thought. It wasn't worth thinking about. Not now, of all times.
The hall was mostly empty, the exception being an ageing man pushing a large cart of cleaning supplies and a lab tech coming out of one of the labs. Most of the doors were closed, much to Rose's annoyance, and she didn't want to open each one to check. It would seem off.
She nodded cordially to the man and walked a little faster to take a discreet glance into the lab as he closed the door. She couldn't see anything: It was too dark in the room.
A small shake vibrated her feet; it hardly lasted a second. "Did you feel that?" She asked, in English, before she realized what she was doing.
"Pardon?" He asked, but his attention wasn't on her. He was looking down at the floor, brows creased in a frown. Well, that answered her question.
Another tremor, larger this time, saved her from trying to figure what to say in French. This one lasted longer. Though how long, Rose couldn't say. Not a minute, probably not 10 seconds.
Her already shaky legs didn't want to hold her anymore. She braced an arm on the wall beside the door and tried to remain upright. The tech reached out to steady her.
"Are you alright?" He asked, finally looking at her. She hopped her hair still covered the bandage.
"Yes," Rose nodded and it caused her vision to swim again. No. She most certainly wasn't alright.
Then the Earth was being ripped apart. Or at least that's what Rose thought it felt like. Which, for a moment, she thought it actually was. Wouldn't be the first time it tried to happen.
"Earthquake!" The tech shouted over the roar. The building rocked and swayed and for a moment it felt like a bumpy TARDIS right, like the zeppelin, moments before it went down.
There was a crash. The man-the caretaker- was trapped under his cart. Bottles of cleanser, bleach and soap hoped around like fish out of water. The mop was pushed at an angle under his side. He cried out and it broke Rose from her stupor. She ran as best as she could to the man using the wall to steady herself. Kicking bottles out of the way she grabbed an edge of the cart, her ribs screaming as she bent and tried to lift it.
The caretaker cried out again. Rose looked back at the lab tech, who'd opened the door and taken refuge in the doorway. "Don't stand there, help me!" She yelled at him, not bothering to try it in French. It hurt her throat, but she didn't have time to worry about that.
The man didn't move. "NOW!" She jerked her head at the cart and the tech finally moved. He swayed with the building as he ran to hear and skidded to a stop on the other end of the cart.
Together they got it off the man and Rose grabbed an arm and dragged him clear. The cart fell back down; they couldn't hear it over the other noise.
The technician lifted the old man easily, looping one arm around his waist, and raising the man's arm to his shoulder.
Rose copied the position, and they went to the nearest door. Glass clattered from shelves, machines danced off of surfaces; the lights began to flicker
"We stay here can't" Rose tried to say, knowing the accent was horrible and she probably didn't say what she meant. But the technician nodded as the caretaker slumped completely. She hitched him up higher to compensate the added weight and ignored the renewed pain it brought on.
"This way," said the tech, and they braved the room, dodging flying glass, to another door near the opposite corner, next to what looked like a refrigerator. "In here."
Rose took more of the caretakers weight, her legs feeling like jelly. The door opened, scattering fallen debris back, and Rose half dragged the older man into the room.
The room was small, no more than a cupboard, with a metal shelving unit full of books, extra scrubs, files, and plastic containers on the far wall.
This Rose learned when one cup bounced off a high shelf and hit her shoulder.
At least it's not glass she had time to think before the door slammed shut, causing them all to jump back farther into the room. Rose's legs trembled.
The lone light fixture held, and Rose cast it's flickering light a weary glance.
Her breathing became laboured, almost wet sounding again. She could feel it-it tickled her chest, making her want to cough. The extra weight tore at her ribs and legs. The building grinding and moving echoed in her already hurting head.
The technician took the caretakers weight from her and she dropped to the ground, no longer able to support even her own weight now that she didn't have to stand.
He looked at her with worry as he laid the unconscious man down.
Rose was too exhausted to notice it. Her mental barriers she'd affected earlier in the loo tore like soaked paper. Her mind flooded with a rush of worry and fear. Fear for her.
The shelf rattled dangerously; the tech stood quickly to hold it up.
They'll be alright, Rose She thought firmly as she managed to drag herself over and shield the mans head.
And then, as quickly as it started, it was over; the room plunged into darkness. It couldn't have lasted longer than a minute.
Silence reigned and it was almost deafening. Rose couldn't decide if the ringing in her head was from her surgery or the sudden quiet. She decided it didn't matter which, she just wanted it to go away; it was making her nauseous.
A few seconds later the light came back on. Dimmer, but on.
"Back up generators." The tech paused. "You're English," he said without a trace of a French accent. In fact, Rose thought he sounded a bit Welsh.
He was still holding the shelves up and she managed to turn her head though it's pounding to look at him. He looked almost familiar, but it was probably the lighting.
"So are you," She looked down at the unconscious man again. "So you a doctor? Cause he could use one."
"Aren't you?" Rose winced. Right. The lab coat.
"Gynaecologist," she improvised. Though a tiny part of her wondered why bother?
The technician cautiously lifted his hands away. When the shelves stayed where they were, he kneeled down opposite her and looked the man over.
"He'll be alright," he said a few seconds later. Rose had watched him turn the mans head and feel around the back. His hand came away clean. "Just took a knock to the head. Should wake up before long."
Rose didn't nod-she knew better by then. "Mm," she hummed instead. She let herself slump against the wall.
"What about you? Are you alright?" She watched him stand and take a step towards her.
She moved a specimen cup from behind the small of her back. "Are you a doctor?" She asked, instead of answering.
"Nah, I'm just a lab rat." He looked like he wanted to go on- and Rose was a little curious as to how a Welsh lab technician found his way to work in a Swiss hospital- but he only asked again if she was alright.
"Yeah, I'm fine. We should get out of here. I…" She said, then gave a mental sigh. Best to use some truth. "I have family in here. I have to make sure they're okay."
He stared at her for a second before he nodded and headed to the door.
Twisting the handle, he pushed. Nothing. He pushed harder. The door still didn't budge.
"What's wrong?" Rose asked. She'd closed her eyes to concentrate on her breathing. Taking care to not make them too deep.
"The door. It's jammed." There was a loud thud just as her eyes popped open.
The tech tried kicking the door again and Rose used the wall to heave herself up and walk over.
"Never trust a bloke to do a simple task," she muttered to herself, thinking of the time Chris couldn't get the lid off the jam. Rose had managed it first try. His defence was he was just getting over the flu.
She turned the handle and pushed. Nothing happened. Frowning she used both hands and tried again.
"It's jammed," she stated. She thought about trying to kick it herself, but she knew a futile move when confronted with one. Had her ribs not been broken, she still might have tried. She glared at the door.
"That's what I told you," the now amused looking tech said. Rose turned her glare onto him and watched with satisfaction as he took a small step back.
She didn't know it was because her eyes swirled with gold. That he had been scared for a reason he didn't understand when he saw the golden glow.
She blinked and it was gone. The tech shook his head, unbelieving of what he just saw; dismissing it as a product of the trauma, and looked around at the scattered mess.
"I'm stuck in a cupboard," she said, more to herself then her either of trapped companions, and slid slowly down the door. Her legs stretched out in front of her, slipper-clad toes just brushing the caretakers leg. She could imagine she saw the aching muscles twitching.
"I'm Gary, by the way. Since we might be in here a while," the tech said, going over to the caretaker. He gathered some of the scrubs and put them under the man's head.
Rose closed her eyes again with a gutsy sigh. "I'm trapped in a cupboard with Gary."
Well, isn't this fantastic?
Reviews are love, and so is the color red
