"Rose River" AU
'Four Five Six'
Chapter Eleven
A/N: I know that day one was supposed to end with the 'back', but I'm not done just yet... sorry. Besides, days two through five just got abruptly changed from what happened on the actual show, so everything's out the window now. Muah-ha-ha-ha-hack-cough-wheeze..
Jenny's mind was on fire. There was a voice that was sickly sweet echoing from all over the place. It was like honey that went sour a very long time ago, and the sound of it was making her want to vomit. Her mind rebelled against the assault, and it felt like her throat was going raw for some reason.
She couldn't see anything, but her father and uncle were there in a sudden rush. They were followed by her mother not a second later. While she understood that this was a mindscape, hers specifically, it didn't alter the fact that everything felt so very very wrong.
'I'm here,' her father said, and her mental self grabbed him around the neck almost violently, clinging to him. She heard her uncle circling around, then felt her mother latch onto her from behind. 'Make it stop!' she pleaded to them.
The Doctor and Rose both threw shields up around the core consciousness of their daughter, and started looking for the source of the noise they were hearing. John saw it first and swore. They turned to look, and the Doctor was just as colourful with his language. Rose was initially confused, but then understood what she was seeing from her pair bond link with the Doctor.
The three of them form a very interesting triad of mental links and bonds. Rose could only feel John through her husband, and vice versa. But for the Doctor, it was a near equal measure of connectedness that he had with his wife and brother. When the twin link was wide open, he and John could coordinate with the speed of thought. However, with his pair bond link with Rose he didn't need to think at all. It just happened. And right now, both links were wide open.
This trinary, with the Doctor in the lead, was in both protective and analysis modes. While Rose had all of her effort on shielding her daughter, John was identifying the frequency of the telepathic barrage. The Doctor had his attention split between them, but it didn't really matter.
John finally heard the voice, and the language it was speaking was easily identifiable. This knowledge was instantly shared and known between them the moment it was recognized. At that point, all three of them spun a web of blocks in Jenny's mind against that particular frequency of telepathy.
Once the noise ceased, the Doctor looked closely at his daughter's mind. The raw telepathic talent she had far outstripped his own. However, she wasn't that experienced. Oddly enough, it reminded him of his granddaughter Susan, who heard nearly everything around her in the beginning. He made a mental note to attempt the same form of training regimen with Jenny once this was over.
For now though, they analyzed the frequency internally. The Doctor dismissed John's solution out of hand due to the brutality of it, but then again Rose was all for it. He didn't like it, but it could always become Plan B. John mused that they never back down when asked, but his brother still had to try. It was at this point that the Doctor realized just how far he would go to protect his daughter, and that epiphany scared him a little.
All the Torchwood team and the Brigadier saw, was the Doctor placing his right palm on Jenny's scalp a split second before John placed his fingertips on her right temple. Rose followed that a second later with her fingertips on Jenny's left temple. Once all three of them had a hand somewhere on her head, Jenny stopped screaming.
Jack didn't relax until Jenny's face calmed. Out of everyone in the room, he was the most disturbed since he could hear Jenny's mental shrieking. When she settled down, he noticed that both Gwen and Martha were half standing and leaning on the table like he was, fully prepared to jump in if needed. On the other hand, Mickey was gaping at Jenny with a terrified look on his face while Ianto simply looked worried. The Brigadier, on the third hand, looked trapped between being shocked and concerned.
It was only a minute before they removed their hands, but when they did almost everyone scooted away from them. John and Rose opened their eyes with such a look of murder, that it was far past disturbing when compared to the Doctor's blank calm. Add to the fact that the twin's were pitch black while Rose's were radiating gold light? Well, suffice it to say that it was... yeah.
Jack stood up straight when the Doctor turned those pitch black eyes towards him. It almost felt like he was accusing him of something. Only one word whispered out his lips, though. "Macra."
At the utterance of that word, nearly all the colour drained from Jack's face. His eyelids disappeared from how wide his eyes became. He murmured, "Oh God," as he fell backwards into his chair. His team gaped at him, wondering what in the world could scare him like that. The Daleks were high up on that list, but his reaction to this seemed worse for some reason.
The Brigadier wasn't all that concerned about the changing eye colours. He'd seen the Doctor's do that before, but he made a mental note to later ask about Dame Tyler's. That was extremely unusual to him since he wasn't informed about her biological change. However, when the Doctor said an unfamiliar word, there was a crackle of red that lurked underneath the blackness and that worried him. He'd only seen that once previously, and that was back when he wore that absurd multicoloured coat. "Is that a name or a species?"
John went back to his seat, and the Brigadier noticed that the crackle behind his eyes was blue instead of red. That was interesting. "Macra are the scourge of the galaxy you call M87," John said as he sat down. "Crustacean gas eaters that like to use other species as slaves for their various mines. Chemicals can either be food for them, or stimulants, depressants..."
"D'you mean like drugs?" Martha asked, interrupting his train of thought. John blinked his eyes to normal and nodded at her.
The mention of creatures that survived on gas sparked a memory in Alistair's mind, and he turned to the Doctor. "Just a moment. You mentioned something about them back when you wore checked trousers and that ridiculous fur coat of yours. Something about," he snapped his fingers repeatedly, trying to get the name off the tip of his tongue, "oh what was the name? Some Earth colony in the far future?"
"Maloria," the Doctor said, nodding. He was busy flooding Jenny's mind with love and comfort while he was hugging her from behind her chair. "Same galaxy, but a different race of the same species. There are five different races in the Macran Empire. One resemble spiders, another crabs, but the other three don't resemble any form of crustacean or insect you've ever seen here before."
Ianto mumbled quietly. "I'm almost afraid to ask which one found us so interesting." Mickey looked at him and nodded in silent agreement.
"Quadrupeds with an upright stance similar to a mythical centaur," John said.
Rose nodded. "I saw a set of pincers that were held up by arms that looked to be nearly straight up. That, or it had three heads." She frowned. "Reminded me of an angry lobster or something."
"Highly telepathic," the Doctor said quietly as his eyes receded to normal. "And you were on the mark with your second description there, Rose. Three brains in three heads."
Gwen looked alarmed. "You saw them?"
Rose nodded, but John spoke up before she could reply. "Doctor, that felt partially artificial to me. Almost like they're using some form of technological boost or something."
The Doctor kissed Jenny's cheek, then went to his chair. Rose took his place in hugging her from the side, since Jenny still had tears running down her face. "That makes sense, though," he said. "They are a hell of a long way away. Plus, they had to use something to be called 'the 456'," he finger quoted with disdain.
"How can you be so sure?" the Brigadier asked. "Couldn't they be in orbit?"
"They don't develop intergalactic travel for another eight hundred years, Alistair," John explained. "While they can go between their own star systems, the Milky Way is simply too far for them just yet."
"However," the Doctor mused, "If they are after more children and they aren't using a ship of some sort, then they would definitely need a subspace transmat. One with a tremendous amount of power."
Alistair tilted his head. "I know what a transmat is, but what is a subspace transmat?"
"Subspace is what most civilizations use for interstellar travel, Brigadier," Jack said with a worried frown. "And like with regular space, a transmission or beam of light is a lot faster than a ship."
"Damn," John blurted. "It's at times like this I wish the old Unit team was still together." He leaned on the table and ran a hand over the side of his face.
"Who are you thinking about?" the Doctor asked.
"Whom do you need?" the Brigadier asked at the same time.
"That annoying, petulant weasel of a technician," John said. "Had no tact, but was far too brilliant." He pointed at the Doctor, "Your old verbal sparring and chess partner."
"Paul Dekker?" the Doctor asked with a look of disgust. "What the hell for?"
John looked at the Brigadier. "He was with Unit for a long time before my brother worked as an advisor. Was he involved with project Bright Star?"
"Yes he was," Jack said. "He was worse than you on hypervodka, Doc. Surly doesn't even come close to describing that man."
"I want my room," Jenny said quietly, interrupting the flow of the conversation. Everyone turned to look at her when Rose got up. Pulling her from her chair, Rose led Jenny out. Before they were through the door, Jenny made eye contact with Jack. 'Hurt them. Please hurt them a lot.'
'I will,' Jack replied without even thinking about it. The look of frightened pain on Jenny's face pissed him off to no end, and her mental voice sounded like she was about to break down crying at any moment. If it wasn't for the others in the room, he'd have hugged her already. However, there wasn't time for that, and other things to think about.
Martha stood up and went to the bay window overlooking the interior of the hub. When Rose and Jenny entered the TARDIS, she turned around. "All right, explain something to me." She walked over to sit down next to the Doctor. "Is this an age thing or hormonal? Jenny can't be that old, but she's physically an adult... So, how did she hear them?"
John frowned, not knowing the answer to that. He simply did what everyone else did, and looked at the Doctor. 'I haven't a clue, do you?'
The Doctor raised his eyebrow at John. 'Surprised you haven't noticed.' He turned to Martha. "It's not because she's eight, Martha. Jenny's a raw telepathic talent the likes of which even I've never seen." He took a quick sip of his coffee. "However, she's inexperienced in dealing with it. Were she physically eight years old in appearance, I doubt she would've reacted any differently. While human children wouldn't have any defence against that level of telepathic assault, our Gallifreyan physiology has natural telepathic shields. However, it's my fault that Jenny doesn't have any control over them. We set up blocks in her mind against that particular telepathic frequency. While it's a stopgap measure, she shouldn't have any more of those incidents with them."
Mickey's eyes were doing their best to pop out of his head. "She's a child? Where's her mother?" he practically shouted.
John rolled his eyes. "She just took her to her room, you prawn. Do we have to do this now?"
Martha added to John's outburst by glaring at Mickey. Sufficiently chastised, he sat back in his chair and practically hid behind his coffee mug.
"She both is and isn't a child, Mickey," the Doctor explained quietly. "Even though she's considered one by Time Lord Standards, she has the emotional maturity of someone in their mid twenties, in relation to humans that is."
Mickey didn't quite know how to take that, and looked confused at that statement. Jack, on the other hand, felt a bit more relieved. Ianto saw him relax and got worried about the competition.
The Doctor closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Unfortunately, John's right, Alistair. We need to talk to Paul if he's still alive. Is there any chance you could see where he is now? Working or retired, it makes no difference."
"I'll see to it," the Brigadier said. Standing up, he pulled a mobile out of his jacket pocket and stepped outside the conference room.
Once he was out, the Doctor spoke up again. "I don't know about anyone else, but I'm knackered. If there aren't any berths here in the hub, anyone who wants to can sleep in a nice bed in the TARDIS."
The Brigadier stuck his head back into the room. "They tell me that there's a Rhys Williams at the door. Does anyone know who that is?"
Gwen shot out of her chair. "That's my husband. Let him in!"
Once Rose got Jenny inside the ship, they weren't through the console room before Jenny started to shake and hitch her breath. Rose sent a silent plea to their home to shield her husband and brother in law from this, in order to keep from distracting them. She sat them at the jump seat, and wrapped Jenny up tight in her arms.
"It hurt so much!" Jenny sobbed into Rose's shoulder.
Rose rocked from side to side as she held her. "I know, swee'hear'. We're going to fix it, I promise." Jenny was clinging to her so tightly, that it was almost painful. While she wasn't sure what they were going to do to resolve this, Rose wanted nothing more than to give the Macra as much pain as they caused her daughter... if not worse.