Okay, so this is a long chapter.
Sorry I haven't done my daily updating thing school and all that. But I'm on winter break tomorrow so expect more updates:)
And MEerry Feelsmas because Matt is regenerating:(
Anyways, HEADS UP READ THIS NEXT PART:
Inbetween this one and Amy's Choice, I will be adding my own adventure, just to add some plot lines and bring some characters back in, if just for this little bit.
I'm excited for it:) And I'm not going to tell you no more.
NO MORE
"Rose, I think I just upset some Vampires, let's go!"
"Doctor!" Amy had caught up to them, and the Doctor and Rose careened to a stop, panting, Rose still mulling things over in her mind.
"I just met some vampires!" the Doctor said, like a small child at Christmas.
"We just saw a vampire!" Amy said, just as excited. Rose decided to keep her adventure to herself. She couldn't tell him, that was obvious. She couldn't tell anyone, had to keep it a secret, because once things were said it felt like it made them true, and she didn't want there to be any truth in that tale of death and sorrow.
"And creepy girls and everything-" Amy fangirled.
"Vampires!" Rory came to a startled halt in front of the group. "We just saw vampires!" he exclaimed, and Rose laughed, but it was a hollow laugh, one without happiness or mirth. It was a laugh that signified the end of something, the end of her worry free days with the Doctor. (Not that they were worry free exactly...)
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." the Doctor waved Rory away, "Amy just told me."
"Yeah, yeah, the Doctor just went to their house." Amy said at the same time.
"Oh come on!" Rose rolled her eyes, "Both of you rude! And you're still not ginger." Rory gave her a grateful smile. He used to have doubts about the blonde woman, but they all disappeared, with her kind defense of his dignity.
"Whatever." the Doctor flapped his hands, "Right, we need to get in there."
"How?" Rose asked, not excited at the idea of going back there, in case of another encounter with her future self. And Jack. Well, she would like to see Jack again.
"What?" Rory was obviously confused. Rose felt a little bad for him. Usually you got the future on your first go in the TARDIS. At least, she and Amy had. Future visits had modern day plumbing at least. "Back in where?"
"Come and meet my new friend." the Doctor said, taking Rose's arm. "Shall we, dame Rose?"
"We shall Lord Doctor." she responded, trying to keep any note of worry or pain out of her voice.
"As you saw," the plump man looking for his daughter (Guido) said, "there's no clear way in. The House of Calaverri is like a fortress." he traced his finger on the map in front of him, "But there's a ladder underneath it, and a shaft that leads into the house, I tried it once, but hit a trapdoor."
"You need people on the inside." Rose and Amy said at the same time. They were quick to volunteer, mostly because they felt they should do something, something to prove to this time period at least, that women weren't useless.
"No!" Rory and the Doctor were just as equal. Annoying boyfriends.
"You don't even know what we were going to say!" Rose protested, but the Doctor put a finger on her lips, stopping her.
"Out of the question." he said, "Because you were going to suggest that you and Amy sneak into the school as applicants, and open the trapdoor from the inside."
"Oh."Amy rolled her eyes, "So you do know what we were gonna say." Neither of the girls sounded anywhere from giving up.
"Are you insane?" Rory asked her, all seriousness in his voice. Rose didn't blame him. Any normal human being would be running away from vampires, but then again, the Doctor never chose normal people. Or he did choose them, and make them not normal.
"We don't have another option." Rose argued, "And honestly, I'm just suggesting myself." the Doctor shook his head, and even Amy looked outraged.
"I said no Rose." the Doctor said, and Rose stood up.
"And what makes you think you can stop me?" she asked, all traces of the nineteen year old girl from London slipping out of her voice. This was Torchwood Rose, hard and abrupt because of the things she had see, the things she had done. "I'm going, and you can't stop me." the look in the Doctor's eyes told her that he knew he couldn't stop her.
"There is another option." Guido said, and the Doctor looked relieved when he pointed to some barrels. "I work at the arsenal. We build warships for the Navy." The Doctor walked over to the barrels, and sniffed deeply. A troubled cloud passed over his face.
"Gunpowder." he said, sighing, and Rose could see the wheels turning in his head, wondering what he should do. Which option he should choose. Risk her life, or use gunpowder? "Most people just nick stationary from where they work." he puffed out his cheeks, "Look, I have a big thing about guns and various explosions." Rose silently gave Amy a high five under the table.
"What do you suggest then?" Guido asked, slamming his hand down on the table. "We wait until they turn her into an animal?" He was worried about his daughter, and Rose didn't think it would be a problem to convince him to sneak them into the school.
"We'll be in there three, four hours tops." Amy bargained, throwing herself into the mix. Rose could see the eagerness to impress the Doctor in her eyes, but Rose didn't think that would be good for Rory.
"I will." Rose corrected , and the Doctor looked at both at them, contemplating.
"Amy's going too." he said, "You need another set of eyes watching you." Rose glared. She did not need someone watching over her! "We'll say you're my daughters." he amended , and Rory shook his head.
"Don't listen to him Amy. Please." Rose almost felt bad for the guy, it couldn't be easy being engaged to someone who was always running, from the world, from the wedding.
"Your daughters?" Rose asked.
"You look about nine." Amy added. "Too weird. Rose could be your Fiancé, and I could be your sister."
"Who am I?" Rory asked, and Amy pondered.
"You can be our brother." she suggested, and Rory looked offended.
"If they're going to be engaged,why can't we?" he asked, and she rolled her eyes.
"Because Rory."
Rose found that this period of times clothes were very itchy. Or maybe it was just her mind, pondering what the older Rose had said. That Rose had looked so much harder, tougher, with a steely glint in her eyes only earned from seeing thousands of deaths and horrors. Like she had seen a thousand sunsets without the Doctor, like all of her friends had died and left her. But she had heard Jack-
What was in her future?
"So, basically," Rory said, to the vampire. "Both of our parents died from the plague, and I'm just a gondola driver, so money's a bit tight, and my sister and my brother's soon to be wife thought they would be perfect for your school!" While this was going on, the Doctor pulled Rose to the side, pretending to be saying goodbye to her.
"Promise me something Rose." he said urgently, and Rose looked into those blue green eyes of his, and wondered how in the world she would lie to him. "Promise me you won't leave me." he said it like it was her choice the first time, but she cast that thought aside and smiled weakly.
"Course." she said, and he smiled.
"Right then!" he kissed her softly, and she ran her fingers through his floppy hair. "I'll see you later." the gates were creaking open, the guards were ushering Amy through the gate, and soon Rose was following her footsteps.
"Later." she whispered, fighting back tears at the lie she had told him. He had to be alone, she reminded himself. He had to meet this Clara girl. It was hard to imagine any version of the Doctor traveling alone in universe, without her.
"There are clothes on the bed for you. Change into them." the guard said, shoving Amy and Rose into the room. They nearly fell onto the hard wood planks.
"Blimey." Rose joked, and Amy giggled. It was really weird having a girl friend again.
"This is private education?" Amy nudged Rose, and both girls collapsed into giggles. When they heard a girl cough from behind them, they both turned around.
"Hello!" Amy said, "I'm Amy, and this is Rose. What's your name?" Amy sounded a bit... well overexcited.
"Isabella." the girl said quietly, probably wondering who the hell the bouncy ginger lady was.
"Listen." Rose bounced up and down on her mattress, "We're gonna get you out of here, but I need you to tell me what's going on first." Isabella looked nervously around her before kneeling beside Rose's bed. Rose sighed in relief. Maybe this would be easier than she originally thought.
"They come at night." she whispered as soft as she could, so no one could here, "They gather around my bed and they take me to a room with a chair, and straps as if a surgeon works there."
"What happens in there?" Rose asked urgently.
"I wake up in here. And my skin burns in the sunlight like candle wax." Isabella said, and the church bell chimed eerily.
"They'll be fine." the Doctor assured himself, and Rory as they pushed along in a gondola to the mansion.
"You can promise me that? Can you?" Rory asked abruptly, and the Doctor looked at him, his expression clearly nervous, because he couldn't promise Rory, or himself.
"We're here." Guido said, before the Doctor could respond.
"Right." the Doctor said, standing in the mouth of the tunnel, "I'll go in first, if anything happens to me, go back." If Amy and Rose were gonna die, he might as well let Rory survive, and live out the rest of his life in the past as if a weeping angel plopped him here.
"What happened, between you and Amy?" Rory was getting down to the real problems, the ones that would exist forever, unlike vampires in Venice, which they would eventually take care off. That, the Doctor was certain off.
"Do we have to do this now?" the Doctor whined, not happy about breaching this topic, as Rose had grilled him about it as well, for hours. She was certainly annoying sometimes.
"I have a right to know." Rory argued, "I'm getting married in four hundred and thirty eight years." He did the math?
They had found the trapdoor pretty easily.
Rose and Amy pulled on it, and it rose with a grinding noise, satisfied, they turned around- to run into the vampire boy.
"She was frightened." the Doctor was rubbish at explaining, "I was frightened, Rose was weak and scared, and from the relief of surviving she... kissed me." that was a very rubbish job, well done. He thought to himself.
"And you kissed her back." Rory said, getting straight to the point. Again.
"I kissed her mouth." the Doctor said, honestly trying not to get beat up by Rory. He didn't know if Rose would like this face with a black eye.
"Funny." Rory was so not amused.
"Rory." the Doctor placed his hands on the other man's shoulders, "Rory. She kissed me because I was there. It would've been you. It should've been you. I'm with Rose!" He flapped his hands and moved on.
"Yeah it should have been me." Rory agreed.
"Exactly!" The Doctor seemed relieved he was agreeing with him for once. "That's why I brought you here. Now can we go see the vampires please?"
"Control yourself child." the man, who's name was Carlo said to Amy, who was putting up one hell of a fight.
"Take your hands off me!" she snarled back. Rose wasn't even fighting. No point, She wasn't going to die, not if she was going to be taken by a weeping angel.
"Physic paper." a tall, elegantly dressed woman said in front of them, "Did you really think that would work on me?"
"Push!" the Doctor urged Rory, who was standing on his shoulders, reaching up for the trapdoor, which they could see, slight traces of moonlight peeping through the cracks. It must lead up into a courtyard.
"I got it!" Rory gasped, as he pushed himself out into fresh air. "Amy? Amy?" The Doctor pulled himself, no thanks to Rory, and immediately looked for a shine of blonde hair in the darkness. A whisper of his name, the quick press of her lips against his.
"Rose?" he whispered, voicing the feelings, but couldn't see anything.
"Can't see a thing." Rory said, peering around in the dark. "Good thing I brought this." he pulled a small penlight from his pocket and shined a tiny pin prick of light into the dark. The Doctor pulled his portable sunlight out from his bigger on the inside pockets, and grinned at the surprised look on Rory's face. "Yours is bigger than mine." Rory said, a dejected look on his face.
"Let's not go there." the Doctor said quickly. He would win that competition, he was sure of it.
"Where are you from?" the elegant woman demanded, drawing a clawed fingernail against Rose's cheek, but Rose didn't say anything as blood dripped down her cheek. "Did you fall from the chasm?"
"Mother this is pointless." the vampire boy from earlier said, "Let's just start the process and-"
"Silence Francesco." the woman held up a hand, "I need to know what these girls are doing in a barbaric world with psychic paper." she stalked over to Amy's chair. "Who are you two with?" she asked in a low whisper. "You see, I scarcely believe your idiotic brother sent you." she knelt down now close to Rose's face, "What are you doing here?" her breath smelled like blood. "You have something of time about you. Who. Is. With. you?
"Okay." Rose spat, "I'll tell you where he's gonna send you if you hurt me or Amy!"
"And where is that dearie?"
"You'll go to hell." Rose spat, and the woman looked disgusted.
"Oh, make a sport of me shall you?" the woman cackled. "Tease me as if I were a dog?" she grinned, baring her sharp fangs, "Well this dog has teeth. Francesco! Feed!"
"DOCTOR!" Rose screamed, as she bent low and bit her neck, it hurt, hurt more than anything else she had ever felt.
"RORY!" Amy screamed.
The Doctor flung open a nearby chest. A dead arm flopped out, lifeless and completely drained of blood. "I'm so sorry." he whispered to the dead body, "It's drained dry." he said in a louder tone to Rory.
"That's what vampires do though? Drink your blood and replace it with their own." Rory shrugged, looking at the decaying corpses. The Doctor supposed he'd seen worst, being a nurse and all. Nurses and Doctor's were the bravest people. That was why he was called the Doctor.
"Yeah," the Doctor said, "Except these people have all the water taken from their bodies as well." he closed the chest lid, on the humans final resting place.
"Why did they die?" Rory asked him, as if the Doctor knew everything (and sometimes he did, but for this once he really didn't) "Why aren't they like the girls in the school?"
"Maybe not everyone survives the process." the Doctor bit his lip. Why the hell did he send Rose down there? He didn't know anything.
"You know what's dangerous about you?" Rory demanded, his voice hard, and the Doctor slightly turned around, curiosity filling his eyes as if this stupid ape knew what he'd been through. "It's not that you make people take risks, it's that you make them want to impress you."
Rose grabbing the lever, latching her hands on, looking back at him with fear in her eyes, Donna, touching his hand, becoming the Doctor Donna, Jack, fighting the Daleks with everything he had, only to get shot down. Everyone else he had ever hurt, and even Amy Pond, who's live he was ruining even now.
"You make it so they don't want to let you down."
Blonde hair, hazel eyes, Amy's laugh, Martha's arm around his, Donna's sarcastic comments, Jack's rude jokes, leather jackets, and yet it all ended. Because of HIM.
"You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around!"
But this is the truth Doctor, you take ordinary people, and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your children of time, transformed into murderers. How many more? Just think. How many have died in your name?
Maybe Darvos was right.
The Doctor turned slowly around to face Rory. He had no idea, no IDEA! This stupid ape didn't know what he had done for this planet, what things he had sacrificed, he hadn't wanted to fashion them into warriors, hadn't wanted to see them die, but what other choice did he have? He couldn't be alone, just couldn't because terrible things happened when he was alone. Bad things. He committed Genocides when he was alone, for fun! The Time War happened because he was angry and wanted to be a warrior, it was his fault.
"Who are you?" Vampire girls descended upon them, fangs bared.
"Run." he told Rory, "Just run."
"This is how it works." the Mother said, moving on the the educational part of their capture and torture. "First, we drink you until you're dry."
"Lovely." Rose muttered, but everyone ignored her, just as they always did.
"Then we fill you with our blood," the woman seemed positively cheerful about it. "It rages through you like fire, changing you into one of us."
"Or you die." Francesco said, shrugging. "That sometimes happens."
"And if I survive?" Amy asked, a tone of pure confidence in her voice. Rose remembered when she'd had that tone, but no more. Torchwood had changed even that.
"Then there are ten thousand husbands waiting for you in the water." the Woman said proudly.
"Yeah," Amy said, contemplating, "But I'm kinda engaged." Rose kicked out at the woman, and to her surprise, the woman flew back, hitting the opposite wall. Thank god for those scans, she thought to herself. Never been able to do that before. The woman flashed, one second she was the elegantly dressed headmistress, next she was a scaly fish thing.
The Doctor and Rory had found their way into a building, and the Doctor was still wondering whether that was a good thing, or not. He decided on not good when he heard a body slam against something, and the three top vampires wheeled into the hall.
"Cab for Amy Pond?" he said weakly.
Isabella, bless her soul, came down, untying to two girls from their chairs.
"She bit us." Amy said, examining the two puncture holes in Rose's neck.
"This rescue plan," the woman said, as she and her advancing cohorts forced the Doctor and Rory to back up. "Not exactly watertight is it?" The Doctor reached into his pocket. If these were vampires- "AH HA!" he yelled, whipping out his portable sunlight. The vampires recoiled and flinched. Rose, Amy, and a dark skinned girl ran into the room.
"Rose!" he said, tossing the sunlight to Rory, and enveloping Rose in a tight hug.
"Amy." Rory said cooly.
"Rory." she responded.
"Quickly through here." Isabella said, gesturing towards the trapdoor.
"Didn't make it far did you?" Rose asked, and the Doctor looked down at her in offense.
"Oi!"
"Come on Chinny boy." she laughed, and slid through the hatch.
"They're not vampires." Amy said, as they dropped down into the tunnel from the trapdoor. "I saw her true form, not vampires, aliens." The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the trapdoor hatch, sealing the vampires out, and them in.
"Classic." he muttered, slipping the screwdriver back into his pocket. Rose brushed her blonde hair, which she had allowed to grow longer behind her ear, and pulled her nightgown more firmly over her knees. She felt so exposed in the thin fabric, as if people could see through it.
"Are you two finding this amusing?" Rory looked from Rose's guilty face, to the Doctor's, and finally to Amy's. "Unbelieveable." he muttered.
"Come on Rory! Move!" Amy finally said, pulling him down the tunnel.
"Quickly!" they'd found the door, and Isabella was ushering them out, "Quickly, out there!" her Father stood a this boat, his face hopeful at the possibility of his daughters return. Isabella made to follow them, but hissed and retreated where the light touched her skin.
"Come on." the Doctor begged her, "Run."
"I can't." she said, and slammed the door shut, leaving herself inside. The Doctor, refusing to give up hope, touched the door handle, ready to pull her out into the sun with his bare hands.
He immediately flew back, hitting the boardwalk, electricity running up and down his body. He only let out one cry of pain, before going completely still.
"DOCTOR!" Rose cried out. Rory felt the man's chest.
"Still breathing." he said, and Rose decided to try to wake him up in the only way she knew how.
"Doctor," she whispered into his ear. "Help me."
"And so, in memory of the children lost to the Silence," the vampire man paused, his voice rough but firm as they pushed Isabella on to the plank. "The traitor is delivered in to the arms of those she betrayed." Isabella stumbled a little, her long nightgown blowing slightly in the wind. She was on a plank of wood that was suspended over blue water, and wondered. They did know she could swim, didn't they?
"Do you expect me to drown?" she mocked them, her dark hair blowing across her face, "I'm a Venetian. I can swim." she bragged, knowing the others were afraid of the water. A sharp jab from the men's pole sent her spiraling into the water, but true to her word, she stayed afloat, laughing. Bubbles rose to the surface, and something touched her leg. At first she dismissed it as some sort of weed at the water's bottom, but then it bit her. "What touched my leg?" she shrieked, "It bites!" She tried to keep to the surface but it was dragging her under, and ripping her apart...
Poor girl. Painful deaths are never fun.
I have big plans for this story, so please keep following, I am so insanely happy with the sheer amount of people following this story.