14 …So We Can Sing
Jack is jogging past rows and rows of containers. Doing the math in his head makes him want to wretch at the numbers of Ood currently jammed into these metal boxes like so many sardines. If he'd had any idea what really went on with the Ood, he might have already been here and done something about this.
With an ugly twist to his usually handsome mouth, Jack flashes to the irony of just how untrue that thought is. If he hadn't met Rose and then the Doctor, he would have shrugged and went about his business.
He needs to remember to thank them again for saving him from being a Time Agent. He likes who is now and who he is again later when Rose first meets him. Hell, if not for them, he wouldn't know Donna or Dougie. Yep, definitely need to send some appreciation their way soon.
He'd start paying it forward now, if only he could find Rose. How can she possibly get this far away, in such a short time; that woman is amazing.
Catching a glimpse of colour that doesn't belong amongst the repetitive palette of shipping containers, Jack veers off into the new direction. Coming to the end of the row, he sees Rose in her plum coloured dress standing before a locked door marked—13 Ood Processing.
"Hey, Rosie. Whatchya doing all the way over here? The Doctor's worried, and I left Donna with… Rose?"
He'd started babbling, but wound down when there'd been no response from Rose. Slowing his steps, Jack moves gingerly around her so he can see her face, fearing what he might glimpse.
Staring fixedly at the door, her lips are moving. She seems to be either singing or talking, but there's no sound. His movement is arrested though by her eyes, which are softly glowing gold.
He was afraid of this; Rose is having a Bad Wolf moment, and the Doctor is nowhere around. He'd warned Jack that Rose's connection with the Bad Wolf within her was permanent and sometimes unconscious. It could also potentially hurt the baby. So the Doctor had asked that Jack keep an eye on her since he has more experience with her in that state. The Doctor said not to startle or anger her, but to break her out of it as quickly as possible, should anything ever trigger it.
She had definitely been triggered, but she didn't appear to be in any discomfort and her expression was a bit blank; but if he had to put an emotion to it, he'd say…determined, relaxed even? Either way, the Doctor had been explicit that she couldn't stay like that long; so not exactly certain, Jack reaches out to gently touch her hand where it's hanging by her side.
"Rosie? Hey honey, can you hear me?" When he doesn't get a response, he slides his hand into hers and squeezes, sending a little telepathic flick her way, just a casual greeting sort of touch.
That, has an effect. Golden eyes sliding to his, She smiles at him calmly before saying enigmatically, "I have prepared the way." Blinking a few times, and swaying a little, Rose's own warm light brown eyes abruptly shine back at him, confused. Listing a bit to one side dizzily, he quickly puts an arm around her to help.
"Jack! Where am I? Where are the others?" She starts peppering him with questions, becoming frantic.
"Whoa, whoa! I left them back at the container filled with Ood, but that was a while ago now," Jack says, trying to calm her down. "What made you come here?" he asks, looking around.
"I remember the smell of all the Ood made me feel sick, so I moved to the side, which made me feel horribly guilty. Poor Ood. It isn't their fault. Then I saw something and thought it was you and Donna, so I went looking…Now, I'm here…at a door. What was I doing?"
"Well, you were singing or talking silently…to the door," he says with a little shrug, "And, you may have been a little Bad Wolf-y."
"Bad Wolf? I do sort of remember hearing a singing. Weird. Well…" She cuts herself off as she suddenly turns, looking up at the sound of the crane moving.
"The Doctor…he's being chased. We have to help him!" Taking off at a run, Rose heads in a new direction. Following her, Jack sprints to catch up. He'll try to remember to ask her what she meant by "the way is prepared" later; right now, the Doctor needs saving.
Seeing the crane move back and forth, dropping down a few times as they run, spurs Rose on and Jack picks up his pace to stay with her.
"Come on, I think they're trying to kill him!" Rose pants out, trying to pick up speed. They both hear an unhinged cackle of glee ring out through the otherwise still warehouse driving her point home,.
It sounds close, so she veers off down another shorter hallway, when they see a dark haired woman scurry past the opening at the far end from them. Reaching the end of the stack, Jack and Rose peer around it to see the stairway that leads to the crane controls. Inside the control room, the young dark woman is chewing the guard up one side and down the other. He definitely looks defiant while grudgingly shutting the crane down.
"That's Solana, the woman from the presentation; she must be some kind of Operations Manager,"Jack tells Rose.
Looking around, Rose can see where the crane's descent was arrested as it sways in the air above its target.
"That way! He was aiming for the Doctor." Running again, they zigzag through the stacks of containers, trying to reach the Doctor, and presumably, Donna and Dougie. Coming to the end of the row, they see the Doctor just opening a container holding a screaming, pounding Donna in it just as they're surrounded by guards with guns. Jack stops Rose from calling or running forward when they see Donna come rushing out of the container, followed closely by several dozen red-eyed Ood that begin targeting the guards with their glowing translator globes.
The Doctor grabs Donna's hand and drags her off in exactly the opposite direction of Rose and Jack's, leaving the now rabid Ood and the guards with lots of bullets between them. Rose can't watch the guards cut the Ood down, rabid or otherwise. Moving back around the corner of the stack they'd just exited, she leans against the corrugated metal.
"I don't think I can run that much anymore, Jack," Rose says dejectedly.
"Just going out on a limb here, Rosie, but isn't that why you insisted we all have phones?" Jack points out, glad to not be chasing after Donna and the Doctor at the moment.
Snorting to herself and rolling her eyes, Rose digs in her pocket for hers. "I could kiss you," she tells him, smiling.
"You could, but that position doesn't currently have an opening," he replies cheekily.
Snorting again, she texts Donna.
/Donna. Saw you and Doctor escape. Jack and I are on opposite side from you now. There's a door over there labeled 13 Ood Processing. Dougie?/—^-}*
They listen for a couple of minutes and finally the shooting stops. There's some yelling and then the sound of booted feet running again. Jack glances around the corner as Rose gets a text in reply. The guards are following the Doctor and Donna, so Jack leaves them where they are.
*Oi! Where the hell did you go? DR unhappy! Do you have JK? We don't have DG. Heading to 13 now*
With a grimace, Rose replies to Donna, still worrying about them as well as Dougie.
/Have Jk. We'll catch up to you at 13 from the outside. Guards heading your way./ —^-}*
"They don't know where Dougie is, either," she tells Jack.
"Can't you guys talk to him here?" he asks, tapping the side of his head.
"The Doctor is better with him than I am, they have some sort of clearer connection. I have to be touching him, but I might be able to at least tell where he is," she explains.
Feeling out with her mind, concentrating on Dougie, Rose senses him, but that's all. The Ood and the psychic turbulence are only getting worse, and she pulls back to herself with a gasp, clutching her head. Seeing stars for a few moments, Rose can't immediately respond to Jack's inquiries.
"M'okay, Jack, really. I can feel Dougie, but that's it. I just gave myself a headache, is all. The telepathic field around here is getting more and more unstable. I have no idea how you're not feeling it," she says grimacing at the pain.
"What makes you think I'm not feeling it?" he asks with a brittle smile. "The noise in my head right now is making it hard to think and I constantly feel like I need to remind myself to breath. I just didn't want you to worry, is all."
"Oh, Jack, I'm sorry. I swear being pregnant makes me just as rude as the Doctor. I had no idea you were in pain," Rose says, putting up another layer between her and all the psychic noise. Reaching out her hand, Jack takes it, and she slaps a temporary shield in place for him.
"Oh! What did you do, that's amazing," he exclaims, eyes round in surprise.
"A little trick Dougie showed me. I basically just spackled over your telepathic receptors for a while," she explains. "Your own brain will remove it soon enough. Let's hope we're finished and out of here before then." With a smile, Rose pushes herself away from the container.
"Do you still have that map? Let's try to find a way to warehouse 13 and Ood Processing. I don't know what that is, but I guarantee none of us will like it," Rose says as Jack digs the map out of his coat pocket and they plan their route.
Within a few meters of the door Rose mentioned, the Doctor stops in his tracks, clutches his skull and does a little circle, groaning.
"Oi! I never needed a map! I should have just listened better," he growls, shaking his head to clear it. Pulling out his sonic, he stumbles the last few steps to the door and starts working on the lock.
"What are you goin' on about, Spaceman? Other than the bastards shooting those poor Ood, I don't hear anything," Donna says, clearly unhappy.
This day just keeps getting worse, and she feels like nothing is under control. Humans are horrible, Ood can be gentle and scary, her friends keep going missing, and now, something's happening and she can't hear it with her inferior human ears! For the first time since leaving London, she wants to go home. Missing her Gramps fiercely, she hugs her parka closer, wishing Jack was there.
Getting the door open, the Doctor gasps and sways in the doorway. Catching himself on it and taking a deep breath, he steps through into a room full of cages. The Ood Song is so strong he can nearly see the waves of telepathy ripple through reality around him. It's distorting the timelines which are in a serious state of upheaval. The Song is actively working to alter something, and he can almost see it without even engaging his other Time Lord senses.
Donna follows him through and he turns to sonic the door shut behind her, fusing the locking mechanism.
At Donna's startled expression, he says, "It won't keep them out forever, but hopefully it will buy us enough time to find out what's going on. Blimey!" Putting his hands to his temples, he focuses inward for a moment before opening his eyes again, looking much more clear headed. "Right, that will help for a bit. Let's see what we can find."
Donna's brow is creased, wondering what he's going on about, but she follows him through the empty cages in the near dark.
"Look, Doctor, over there," she says, pointing. Locked in a cage under one of the few lit bulbs are huddled a few Ood. They're dressed differently than the others and they stay turned in toward themselves, shuffling to keep their bodies between something they're holding and those outside the cage.
"What are they doing, Doctor?" Donna asks. Not getting a reply, she bumps him on the shoulder to get his attention.
Glancing in her direction and starting like he'd forgotten she was there is the last straw. "What are you so distracted by? What's this song you and Rose and Dougie keep goin' on about?"
"The Ood are telepathic, Donna; they sing to each other. Most of them sound like they're out of tune, or don't sing at all; but these Ood are singing like the world will end if they don't," he tries to explain, gazing sadly into the cage.
"What does it sound like?" Donna asks in curiosity. She can tell the Doctor is unhappy; hell, everyone's been unhappy since they landed here, it seems. She'd like to understand. She needs this day to start making sense.
"Would you like to hear them?" the Doctor asks her.
Nodding hesitantly at first before deciding, "Yes, I think so…yes, I want to hear them sing."
"Do you trust me?" the Doctor asks, gazing intently into her eyes, waiting for her.
"Of course," she answers immediately, earning herself a small but very sincere smile from the Doctor.
"They are singing of captivity, Donna. Are you sure?" he asks, giving her one last chance. Nodding, she steps closer to him.
Placing both hands on either side of her face, fingertips to temples, he reaches for her mind.
"Open up to me, Donna. Let yourself hear them. That's it," he says softly into the dark room.
Suddenly the most plaintive, gorgeous, and terrifyingly sorrowful melody fills Donna's mind—it's all she can hear and it takes her breath away. Gasping, she turns wide-eyed to look at the Ood. A couple of them blink at her, somehow sensing that she can hear them now.
"Oh my God, Doctor. It's so sad." Eyes filling with tears, she turns away from them, gasping. "Please take it back. I can't do it…It's too much," she chokes out between sobs. Pulling her to him, he slides his hands to her temples quickly and closes the connection between them. Hugging her close for a couple of moments, he whispers soothingly that it's all okay; everything's going to work out fine. Past the worst of the sobbing, she pulls back from him, and he hands her a hanky from his pocket. Taking it gratefully, she wipes her eyes and nose, apologising all along.
"I'm sorry. It was just too much. I care, really I do; I just…"
"Donna, it's okay. I'm sorry it was so overwhelming," he interrupts her apology with his own.
She swats him halfheartedly. "Both of us apologising is stupid," she says, trying to smile.
He returns her smile with a wan one of his own, and she notices how tight the skin is around his eyes. "You can still hear it, can't you?" she asks in sudden understanding.
"All the time," he replies sadly, staring at the Ood. Sighing, he moves to the cage door, using his sonic to get it open. Kneeling down near the Ood, he stretches out a hand toward them as Donna moves up beside him.
The Ood, for their part, stop jostling and a couple of them turn toward the Doctor and Donna.
"I'm the Doctor, and this is Donna," he says, smiling gently and pointing back and forth between them. "Doctor and Donna are friends. What do you have there? What are you holding? May I see it? That's right…we won't hurt you…let me see…"
The stream of gentle questions and wordy nudges entices the Ood nearest them to turn toward them fully. This close, they can see the range of emotions flash across the expressive brow as it moves above the Ood's beautiful hazel eyes. Eyes that are trying very hard to communicate with the Doctor.
"That's right. We're here to help. There are more of us, and we're going to fix this whole bloody mess. Now, let me see what you're protecting," the Doctor cajoles the Ood, speaking to him in calm, kind tones.
Coming to a decision, the closest Ood holds out his cupped palms to the Doctor, and then lifts his one hand away from the other, revealing a small pink, pulsing secondary brain attached by another of his flexible tentacles.
"Umm…Doctor, is that another brain?" Donna asks after her initial gasp.
"A hind brain, in fact. Ood…are born with a secondary brain," the Doctor says in excited wonder as several very unsavoury facts slide into place; the puzzle beginning to take shape. "Like your amygdala, Donna, it processes memory and emotions. Without it, you'd be like…well you'd be like an Ood…Sorry, like a processed Ood."
"You mean Ood Operations is cutting off their brains and stitching on the translators?" Donna asks, growing more indignant by the second.
"Yes, they essentially lobotomise the Ood, making them pliant and the perfect servants for humankind." The bitterness in the Doctor's tone is hard to mistake, and for once Donna is not at all inclined to defend her own race.
"You know, Doctor, I thought traveling with you was going to be amazing, moving from one miraculous event to the next. I thought everything was going to be wonderful in my naive little human mind; but we humans, we're like a virus, spreading our hate and misery all over the Universe! How do you stand it?" she asks in self-disgust. Seeing what's happening here to the Ood, and what happened between Human and Hath on Messaline, makes Donna question herself. Are all Humans this worthless?
"No," the Doctor instantly replies, as if he heard her inner thought. "Because more humans than not, are like you, Donna. Filled with compassion, wonder, and a deep joy like no other species is capable of. We all have skeletons in our genetic closets; but you, Donna Noble, are one of the best humans I have ever had the privilege to meet, and I hope you're up for it…because I think we're about to be captured!"
The door he'd soniced shut earlier slams open and a dozen or more guards burst into the room, guns at the ready.
Stuffing her into the cage with the Ood, the Doctor slams the door shut after himself, locking it. Then he proceeds to challenge and mock the guards on the other side. Donna rolls her eyes at his antics, knowing he's just trying keep them off balance while he figures something out.
Kneeling down amongst the Ood, she smiles at them as they make room for her. The one nearest wrinkles its brow at her in what she thinks might be a smile. Grinning, she pulls out her phone to see where the hell the cavalry is.
A/N: Happy Friday! I hope everyone has a glorious weekend. Thanks for reading and letting me know what you think. Monday's chapter is: Transmogrification. :-)