When she awoke, light was seeping in through the dusty window. Rose sat up immediately, wincing at the discomfort this action brought. Her belly felt heavy and tight, and after a moment she rolled her eyes in annoyance. She must be bloated.
With a sigh Rose swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood. She was still wearing the Doctor's jumper, and she hoped that her own clothes—at least her jeans—were dry. She looked around to find the small building empty. Her clothes were draped over the counter, and she was pleased to find them nearly dry. She slipped on her tank top and hoodie, then she pulled on her jeans, pushing the chill from their slight dampness away. They were tight, and she had to inhale to zip them. She flinched at the pain this action caused. She pressed her hand over her belly, eyes moving to the door.
It was time for her to return to where she belonged. The thought didn't so much as strike her as it did well up from deep within her. She had always known where she needed to go, hadn't she? This was not the place for her.
She opened the door and walked out into the wan sunshine, her shoes and socks still lying on the floor.
When the Doctor returned to the building his mood was dour. He had hoped that he could find at least a trace of porquarnium on some of the mining equipment, but he'd had no such luck. That meant that he would have to take Rose to the next mine. The scans from the TARDIS had suggested that the third mine was still in use; he'd seen indicators of humans on the scanner screen. But he'd wanted to avoid interactions with the miners if possible. He disliked the thought of Rose being exposed to them; most were former prisoners, many convicted for violent crimes and choosing to come here to work rather than remaining in prison for the rest of their lives. Of course, he had not told Rose any of this. He had anticipated that they could find a few grams of the element in one of the abandoned mines then be on their way.
His mood deteriorated further when he found the building empty. He looked about quickly, noting the shoes on the floor. Perhaps Rose had gone out to one of the lavatory shacks at the edge of the complex. Sometimes he forgot that humans occasionally had to obey biological functions. They did not possess a Time Lord's supreme control over his body.
He walked toward the outhouses, looking for traces of her footprints on the muddy ground. He found none. Still, he went up to each little shack and tapped tentatively at the door as he spoke her name. When he got no response, he opened each door to check inside. Rose was not there.
Now he began to call out for her, anger and concern growing simultaneously. She should know better than to wander off… But even if she had, why would she leave her shoes? A knot of fear began to gnaw at his stomach as he remembered the men they had encountered the previous day. Rose might have been taken away against her will.
He ran back to the building where they had spent the night. Here he found tracks in the mud, but they had been made by a single individual, and she had been barefoot. They led away from the complex and away from the mine.
Frowning deeply, he retrieved his jacket and shoved his arms into the sleeves. In his haste the hem became twisted, and he straightened it absently as he began to walk. His fingers brushed against the inner pocket, and he reached inside. He pulled out the chocolate bar, unwrapped but untouched.
Rose had told him that she ate it. She had lied. He couldn't imagine why she had done that.
His pace increased as he realized that her footprints were leading back the way they had come, toward the first complex they'd found.
"Damn it, Rose, you could've at least waited for me!" he muttered when he realized that she must have decided to return to the TARDIS. "And why the hell didn't you take your shoes?"
Rose barely felt the cold mud as it squelched against her bare feet. She kept walking, her legs carrying her unfalteringly. Her stomach had begun aching even more fiercely as she started walking, but now the pain was receding. It was gradually becoming more of a warm pressure. But she did not stop to register the precise feeling. She had to continue on.
As the buildings from the hastily deserted complex came into sight, her pace increased. She was nearly there. The pressure was growing, and she placed her hand over her belly. Her other hand reached out before her as though she could grasp a necessary object that would pull her forward.
When the four men emerged from the secondary ventilation shaft, Rose stopped. She saw them, and for an instant she felt afraid. They began walking toward her, and she blinked, trying to remember why she had feared them the previous day.
Something far down in her mind urged her to turn and run, and she began to obey, but a deep pain stabbed at her abdomen, and she had to stop and bend over. She fell to her knees, trying to breathe. When she finally looked up, the men had surrounded her.
Their hands reached for her, taking her by the shoulders and arms to pull her up. She opened her mouth to protest, but the pain intensified. They led her, stumbling, a few steps, and the discomfort began to ebb.
She remembered again where she was supposed to be, and she began to relax, permitting the men to lead her to the ventilation shaft. She smiled; she was going home.
The Doctor was surprised when he found that Rose's footprints did not lead all the way back to the TARDIS. Near the deserted complex he saw that she had stopped then apparently walked around in circles. No, that wasn't right; he stooped to examine the prints more carefully.
"Damn!" he hissed when he realized that Rose's bare feet were only one set among the marks in the mud. Several pairs of larger feet, oddly also bare, had joined her. They veered away from the buildings and toward the mine.
The miners must have reappeared and taken her with them. He knew that thieves and trespassers were punished harshly on the barely civilized outer planets, but that wasn't what made him clench his fists at his sides. Rose would be one of the only women on the planet—the only woman among a group of isolated men who hadn't seen a female in a very long time.
Damn it, why the hell had she gone off on her own? He had only been at the mine for a short time. He always returned to her. She should have known better.
As he followed the prints out toward the mine, he was already programming the TARDIS in his mind. He was going to take Rose back to London the moment they were finished here… the moment he knew that she was safe.
The men kept their hands on Rose as they led her to the ventilation shaft, but really there was no need. She walked along willingly, her expression tranquil as she understood that she was returning to the place where she belonged.
The ache in her belly had not diminished; it was still there but it felt warm and alive, and it was telling her that she was doing the right thing. It was pulling her toward the shaft, then leading her down the ladder. Her arms and feet moved purposefully, catching the rungs without fear, taking her into the mine. When her feet touched the hard ground at the base of the tunnel, she relished the rough coldness of the stone. It meant that she was close, that her journey was almost over.
The tunnel was dark, but Rose did not need light. She knew where to go, and her legs took her down the passageway as surely as if she'd held the brightest torch. Three of the men walked ahead of her and one behind, although his presence was unnecessary. She would never try to leave, not now, not when she was so very close…
The Doctor reached the ventilation shaft and knelt at the edge to listen. His hearing was keen, and if anyone down there were yelling, crying, or even talking, he would be able to discern it. But he heard nothing.
He knew that Rose had descended. The mud from her feet was on the edge of the shaft, and when he reached down to touch the upper rungs of the ladder his fingers came away with more sludge. It looked as though the men had gone down into the shaft with her, forcing her to come along. She must be gagged; otherwise he was certain that she would be struggling and her vocalizations would be fierce. She was a fighter, his Rose.
And if she wasn't gagged, she was unable to cry out. She could be unconscious or… He steered his mind away from the thought. He swung his legs over the edge and found the top rung of the ladder with his feet. He began to climb down, still listening intently, and still hearing nothing but a slight rustling, possibly feet moving along.
But as he descended, the smell grew stronger. It had floral hints now, which he had not sensed the previous day. But mixed with the sweetness was the fetid odor of decay. It too had grown in strength. He hurried to finish the climb, relieved yet anxious when his feet touched the ground.
He switched on the torch. He had found some old batteries at the second complex and had been able to cobble together a single fairly strong power source he thought would provide light for at least thirty minutes. He shone the beam around the tunnel, quickly noting the remnants of muddy footprints. They seemed to lead back toward the main shaft—back to where Rose had fallen.
A very nasty feeling had begun to scritch at the back of the Doctor's mind, and it was quickly clawing its way to the surface. It was probably the smell that had first alerted him to the possibility—to the chance that Rose had not been brought here at random. And the danger she was facing was worse than anything a few men, even a few men with ravenous desires, could do to her.
He hurried forward, toward the permeating odor, hoping that he was not too late.
Rose's belly was on fire. The glow had exploded into a flame of writhing heat. She wanted to keep moving, to reach her destination, but her legs betrayed her. She sank down to her knees with a low moan, a noise of abject frustration more than pain.
She still could not see in the darkness of the tunnel, but she could hear the men moving just ahead of her. There was a rustling, and a heavy smell assaulted her senses. She was trying to stand, to force her legs to bring her up. She knew that she was close, that she would be home in a moment, if only she could get there.
A hand locked around her arm and pulled her up. She shuffled ahead, moving against the pain, drawn inextricably forward. The center of her consciousness was no longer her mind. It had shifted downward, down into her belly, where the heat told her what she needed to do. If she listened carefully, she could almost hear it speaking… Was it saying her name?
From somewhere very far away, she heard a voice calling "Rose!" It seemed for an instant as though it came from behind, from where she had been, but that was impossible. She would never go back there; she could not. The voice must be calling her forward. She moved ahead.
A dim light shone through the blackness, pale against the stone walls. Rose lifted her eyes to look at her surroundings, knowing without thought or consideration that she was home. And there ahead was the nest, the womb that welcomed her.
The leaves began to part, the thorns withdrawing back into the stalks as the vines twisted away from the pod in the center. There was something curled up among the soft shoots that lined the inside of the pod. Rose could not quite make it out—a bit of light material at the top, all white below.
The light was growing stronger, and now she could see more of the massive plant. It stretched across the base of the shaft, covering the width of the tunnel and creeping up the sides, at least four meters tall. The vines moved about, almost caressing the walls. And when she was inside, in that beautiful pod, they would caress her, soothing her, taking away the pain.
She could see one of the men kneeling to one side of the pod, parting the leaves with his hands, although they were moving back on their own. The smell—the one that made her nose wrinkle—grew stronger, and for an instant her instincts kicked in and she took a step forward to see what was causing the fetid odor.
As the man parted the vines completely, she saw a pale figure lying in a second pod. At first it appeared completely white, but then, as the light strengthened, she caught a flash of darkness in the center. She watched, transfixed, as the man fell to his knees and leaned forward, reaching out for the figure.
Rose stepped closer, drawn to the first pod almost as though a magnet pulled her. Her belly was burning even hotter, and it seemed as if it something inside of her was propelling her forward, driving her of its own volition. She tried to see the figure in the first pod more clearly, knowing that it was a part of her, that it was calling to her.
But the light shifted, and the interior fell into shadow. The second pod was suddenly illuminated. Her eyes automatically followed the light. In the pod lay a man, naked and pale, curled up upon his side. His eyes were open, staring straight ahead, and his hands lay limply at his sides. His stomach was dark, a distinct contrast to the pallor of his face, arms, and legs.
The light grew stronger, and Rose's gaze fell upon the curled man's face. It was familiar to her, somehow. She had seen it before… She blinked in confusion. She was not supposed to think, not supposed to do anything but go toward her own pod, the first one she'd seen. But that face—
The kneeling man turned slightly, reaching out to rest his hands on the head of the curled figure, and Rose saw both faces at once. They were exactly the same. She wanted to gasp, to cry out, but she could not. All she could do was obey the call within her and move to stand before the other pod.
