Let Him In

The adults stayed close to the sleeping child as she rested, both deep in thought. He shuddered slightly as he recalled the moment he'd understood just exactly what had been done to her and the reasons for it. He hated the hopeless acceptance he and Rose had heard in her voice when she had explained. He was also pretty sure that much of what she'd told them were what she perceived as 'facts' or hard learned lessons and had repeated them by rote...as if she'd had to repeat them many times to many people.

Just cuz I can't walk right doesn't mean I'm dumb.

I'm not stupid enough to trust you, you know. I know how adults are, got that beat into me years ago...cripple girls can't run away so we take what we have to...

He recalled his first sight of her twisted feet as he'd picked her up and her ground-length skirts had fallen to the side. He'd had people fear him, certainly. Tons of them...but not children and not for the those reasons. He felt his gorge rising at the thought.

"Kids like me need dreams like you."

I wish you were real, but you're not. But I'll take what I can get cuz I'm not gonna get hurt in this one."

Said it was all I was good for. Couldn't work could I? Had to contribute.

Contribute?

He smelt salt and moisture and looked up. On the other side of the girl he met Rose's tear filled eyes with his own, overly moist ones. She wasn't the only one with wet cheeks. "Don't even look." She said quietly. "We're keeping her." Her voice had a finality in it he had only heard from her once before and recently at that.

"I'll make sure there's no cracks or fissures in the universal fabric. If there are, the TARDIS and I will close them...with her on this side of the Wall, with us. Yeah, we're keepin' her." The Doctor answered softly.

He kept cocking his head, listening for a not quite there sound he almost heard. It was driving him batty.

Better put her in her room, then? With a wheeled chair and better crutches than she has. She'll need them for now. I put it next to Rose's...and there's a Physical Therapy area on the other side of it. She'll have some work cut out for her for a while. And so will you, my Thief. It's the girl's mental voice you are hearing. In her universe, from what I'm picking up from her, about 10% of the human population are fully tele-empathic. She sensed the danger you can be when you have to be. Her telepathic ability reached out to me when you brought her into my console room. That is why she calmed.

"When did your mental voice take on Rose's speech patterns?" He asked his ship, got what he could only describe as a snigger in reply.

Do you realize you're the first two responsible adults she's ever met? She will base what she should be by your examples. Teach her well. You and my Wolf will be the first adults that she has ever been able to trust and it will not be an easy road for her. She will see the potential for threats in the smallest, most innocent things. Keep your temper under control, she will frighten easily.

"Yes, I know she will, poor lass." He answered his ship as he scooped the sleeping child up and headed toward the room that the TARDIS indicated had been prepared for her. It had a very large window through which the vortex could be seen when she woke.

:WHO:

Mary woke in the most comfortable bed she'd ever been in after the best dream of her young life. Slowly, her eyes opened and she stared out the window on the opposite side of the room from the bed. It took a few moments for Mary to realize what she was looking at. Hesitantly, she sat up and looked around, finally doing what almost any Whovian from a telepathic universe would have done...she lay the palm of her small hand against the wall and spoke. TARDIS?

Yes child, it's all real. You're safely in a room of my design and I just told the Doctor and Rose that you've woken. He will be at your door in a moment. I told him of your telepathic ability and he wants to make sure you've been well trained...self-taught are you? Well, he will teach you properly then. She paused and checked with Rose. Rose is starting breakfast. She wants to know, how do you like your new feet, Mary?

The girl pulled away her covers and stared at the pair of pretty, perfectly normal feet she now had. Her answer was wordless, sent in a very complicated flood of emotion to the great ship that cradled her now, emotion that the TARDIS passed on to both her Time Lord and her Wolf. When the Tenth Doctor opened the girl's bedroom door he was treated to a wet face and thin arms reaching for him. Most of the emotions were varying kinds of joy combined with disbelief, but the strongest was the feeling of safety. She knew she had a sanctuary that would not be breached. She trusted him, because of who and what he was and the shields between his mind and her's, the protective mental walls that had been leaking all night, dropped.

This was the way of the Human Telepaths of her home universe. If you trusted another telepath and acknowledged the fact they outranked you, you showed it by opening your mind. She would do no less for the Doctor and the barriers between herself and the TARDIS were already down.

"I have a Bidda." She whispered. "Bidda Doctor."

"It's a combination of teacher, caregiver, parent and guardian. Biddia is the plural."

"Yes. Yes, you do." He told her, moving to sit beside her instead of kneeling by the bed, to put an arm around her waist and let her lean against an adult male...in utter safety...for the first time that Mary personally had a clear memory of. She did not mind that the thought could be seen, one did not hide from one's Bidda. Biddia couldn't fix what they didn't know about. It was part of her culture for a child to leave their mind open to their acknowledged Bidda. He picked her up and took her to the kitchen where Rose was, settling the very young teen into a chair at the table and left for a moment to fetch a special kind of walker that had a seat. In order to move in it, one had to pull oneself along, forward, with one's feet. It was designed to strengthen her feet and teach her how they were really supposed to work...and it was the only way the walker would move since the brakes would lock if she tried to push with it...Mary wasn't stupid, she looked it over, figured out how it would work and sighed.

She didn't protest, though. For one thing, eventually, this first step would lead to her being able to walk on her own two feet and for another...The Doctor and Rose had promised to teach her how to run. As that amazing thought crossed Mary's mind, the Doctor got a good look at what he actually really meant to the girl and blinked tears away at the force of the emotions he caught, then ruffled her hair.

"I checked, there's no cracks or damages to the wall or the universal fabric. The few little rough spots the TARDIS located have been healed and closed properly...and Rose and I have have decided to parent you ourselves.

She raised her head and stared at him in utter shock, wondering if he had any clue how domestic that was going to be. If he hadn't, before, he did now as the many aspects of what that would probably entail crossed the child's mind along with the decision not to say anything. She wasn't at all sure that he was up to it though, since his opinion of all things domestic were quite well known. He also heard her make the private decision to go to Rose for most truly domestic matters. She wasn't even sure he knew the difference between what was domestic and what was just social. Shopping wasn't domestic...it was just social...unless you were going after groceries because that was part of household maintenance and as far as she knew he had no problem with that sort of shopping. Household maintenance, in all it's forms was definitively 'domestic' in nature.

She cleared her throat and met Rose's eyes...saw the laughter there and dropped her eyes to her plate. She didn't see the Doctor flush and stare at the top of her head, or hear the TARDIS tell Rose what he'd picked up from her, but she did hear the Timeship chuckling.

The Tenth Doctor sighed, but this child wasn't someone he could break a promise to...her soul and mind was far to fragile for that. He'd just have to buck up and accept that his life-long avoidance of domesticity was over. He'd manage, he supposed. He always did.