To the Anonymous reviewer who has asked a couple of times for Rose to appear in this story:
Sorry, but there are several practical reasons why Rose will definitely not be appearing.
1. As stated in the author's note before the very first chapter, this story takes place during the 2009 Specials of Doctor Who. At this point, Rose has been exiled to a parallel world... twice. As you must know, the Tenth Doctor chose not to travel with a companion during the last "year" of his life.
2. From a storytelling standpoint, it would be suicide. The walls between universes are closed, and for me to take a side-road to explain her presence would be totally inorganic, would interrupt the flow of events and would simply MAKE NO SENSE.
3. I am already juggling seven characters! Finding something for all of them to do has been a mighty task as it is, and these are characters who have actual skills, Ph.D's and/or real, formidable areas of expertise. Rose, arguably, has no practical skills. She sometimes couldn't even manage to stand still properly.
4. As you may have noticed if you looked over my previous Doctor Who stories, I do not like Rose as we have come to know her, and think that the Tenth Doctor is a much more compelling character without her. If I ship him with someone, it's with Martha.
If you're a Ten/Rose shipper, great! Only read something else for your Ten/Rose fix - this isn't your story! :-)
Speaking of shipping, the end of this chapter has a little bit of Booth/Bones sweetness! Awww.
Annnnd, on with the show! Enjoy... and review!
Chapter 10
"Whoa, you guys," Angela's voice sounded over the radio.
"What?" asked Booth, still on-alert.
"The shadows are retreating," she said.
"Are they?" asked the Doctor, still attempting to stare them down. "I can't tell. It all just looks like a big black blob to me."
"Oh, they're moving all right," Sweets assured them. "Wow, that is wicked! It's like the big black ring around the Jeffersonian just got wider."
"Well, I'll be damned. Those things can see," Agent Booth mused.
"Of course they can," said the Doctor. "I've seen them stalk prey in airtight suits, and hunt in formation. They rely heavily on vision. Light refraction and interaction of colour... it's all there."
"Weird."
A pause.
"Well, I guess they know me," the Doctor reckoned with a sigh. Then, "Wait, are you sure the whole ring around the Jeffersonian is retreating?"
"Yeah!" Sweets replied.
"Not just the ones that can see me?"
"No, it's all of them. They're terrified of you," Angela assessed. There was another pause, and then Angela reported, "Okay, they've stopped."
"Stopped moving?" asked the Doctor.
"Yep," she said. "They were backing away from you, and now they're still."
"Okay, so they're terrified of you, but just enough to retreat a few feet. Not enough to give up," Booth said.
"Looks like," the Doctor agreed. "Backing away, then stopping? Means time to regroup."
"That's just great. Time to go back inside," Booth announced. "Come on." He grabbed the Doctor by the arm and insisted they re-enter the Jeffersonian.
The Doctor did not resist.
Once inside, the two men sprinted for the TARDIS, as both had a sense that time was now running quite short.
When the Doctor pushed the door of the blue box open, he heard a squeal.
"Ow!"
"Bones, get out of the way," Booth whined. "What the hell are you doing?"
She cleared a path, and the Doctor and Booth entered the TARDIS, the former locking the door behind them.
"Since the Doctor was not willing to allow us to witness the action, I was attempting to listen, to ascertain whether your flesh had been ripped from your bones or not," she explained. "I find that the prospect of that happening to you is very unpleasant for me to think about."
Booth smirked, "Thanks, Bones."
"Dr. Saroyan, have the guards called to report on the shadows moving?" asked the Doctor.
"Yes, all four of them."
"Tell them to get away from the windows and retreat to the interior of the museum," he said, running up the ramp with the FBI duffel bag. He peeled off his suit jacket, then began tugging at his tie. "Now that we have Angela at the screens, I don't know why we left them there on the lookout. There's no sense risking it. Tell them to get somewhere well-lit."
"I'm on it," she said, pulling her phone from her hip again.
Booth, in turn, ran up the ramp and pulled the sheet, once more, off the body of the suicide victim. He lifted the body like a baby. He looked down uneasily at it, then stopped for a moment and shut his eyes.
"Booth, what are you doing?" asked his partner. "We're running out of time."
"I'm saying a quick prayer, Bones," he replied.
She sighed with exasperation, but he was finished within a few seconds. He made his way down the ramp carrying the fleshy corpse of a full-grown man, embalmed with psilocybin solution, and hemp. Hodgins held the door open for him.
"Um, you guys!" Angela's voice sudden burst out through the radio, frantically. "The shadows are in the building!"
All parties inside the TARDIS experienced a sudden rush of heartbeat and fear. They all looked at each other in panic.
Hodgins looked out the door. "I don't see any! What are you talking about?"
"No, they're coming through the World War II artifacts," she said. "Completely on the other side of the museum. A stream of them. I think they're going to try and ambush you from behind!"
"What the hell, Doctor, I thought they moved as one!" Hodgins cried out, slamming the TARDIS door.
Booth strained with the weight of the corpse. "Guys, let's figure this out... soon!"
"No, they don't. They think as one, and that was just a hypothesis. This is proof!" the Doctor said, now unbuttoning his cuffs and peeling off his shirt. He then bent his knees to untie his red high-top Converse. "The organisms in front of the museum saw me, and collectively, there was a reaction - they all retreated. But once we came inside, like I said, they regrouped a little. As a collective, they must have hatched a plan!"
"Damn it!" Hodgins shouted.
The Doctor removed his shoes, then moved for his socks. "It's all right, Dr. Hodgins. It might work to our advantage, actually. And they're still rather bloody slow. Now let's get dead body number one out of here!"
Hodgins re-opened the door, and Booth moved through it carefully, reverently, so as not to bruise the body.
"Ha!" shouted the Doctor, now standing beside the console only in his underwear. He snapped his trousers away from his body with flourish, announced, "Dr. Brennan, you're on!" then tossed her his trousers.
Without a word, she walked up the ramp and gathered the rest of the Doctor's blue pin-striped suit, his navy blue shirt, his burgundy-and-blue tie, his red shoes and white socks. She put the entire pile of clothing on top of the now-empty gurney and wheeled the whole thing back down the ramp.
Meanwhile, the Doctor was pulling pieces of an expensive black suit from the FBI duffel.
"Dr. Saroyan, if you could please lay out the Doctor's suit anatomically, then I can get started laying out the bones anatomically," Brennan said.
Cam nodded, and began to straighten out the garments, starting with the socks and shoes. Brennan gathered up the foot bones and deposited them into the socks, then deposited the socks inside the shoes.
"It seems like we could do a better job of sorting..."
"It's fine," Cam interrupted. "We don't have time to wrestle with the socks and the bones, and... Doctor, the Vashta Nerada aren't going to notice, are they?"
"I very seriously doubt it," he said, pulling Dr. Sweets' white shirt on, and beginning to button it.
The two women set about filling the Doctor's suit with skeleton, making it movable on the gurney.
Hodgins went up the ramp to grab the large coolers that had been brought aboard with the body, then set aside. He allowed his eyes to unabashedly explore the array of weird controls on the console.
"Dr. Hodgins," the Doctor said, pulling on a pair of black suit trousers, tailored to fit an FBI psychological profiler, but that seemed to work just fine on the Doctor. "Are you all right?"
"I am, thanks," said Hodgins, though without his usual wide-eyed smile. "Just a bit awestruck. And overwhelmed."
He began to drag a cooler down the ramp, and Booth had returned without the body. "How are we doing in here?" he asked.
"Booth, I haven't done this in a while. Would you mind?" asked Cam, struggling with the Doctor's tie on the gurney.
He moved to help, and just when it seemed as though everything would be silent for a few minutes, Angela's voice came crackling over the radio again.
"Hey, team, they're leaking in all over the museum!"
"What do you mean all over?" the Doctor asked her.
"I mean, on all sides. They're soaking in, like the Jeffersonian is a sponge, and they're some kind of ugly, black, flesh-eating liquid!"
"Including here in the lobby?"
"No, actually," Angela said, her tone betraying surprise. "That's the only place where they're still holding off. They're obviously trying to lull you into thinking they're not coming, but Doctor, it's just a matter of time before they get you from behind."
The Doctor pulled on Sweets' dress shoes. "We'll have them on the run before that happens."
"Wait, Doctor, what about us?" asked Sweets himself. "We're not with you, all safe-and-sound in your ship. We're sitting ducks in here!"
"The comm room you're in is much closer to the middle of the museum than to any outside wall," the Doctor reminded him. "Again, we will have them out of here, before they get to you. And anyway, they're gunning for me, specifically now. They aren't going to slip under any closed doors just to take a peek 'round."
"God, I hope you're right," Sweets said uneasily.
"How's it coming, ladies?" The Doctor was addressing Drs. Brennan and Saroyan.
"Fine," Cam said. "Dr. Brennan just finished the vertebrae and ribs, and is now buttoning the shirt. "All that's left are the arms, hands and skull."
"And the bones of the inner-ear," said Brennan."
"Brilliant," said the Doctor, discarding Sweets' jacket and tie onto the console. Hodgins now set about dragging the last of the coolers down the ramp.
"Let me help you," said the Doctor. He moved, and picked up one side, thus relieving some of the pressure on Hodgins' back.
"You know what, dude?" Hodgins said as he faced the Doctor, walking slowly backward down the ramp. "If I were you, I'd flatten my hair."
"What?"
"If you want to confuse the Vashta Nerada, you'll need to change your hair. That up-'do is just as distinctive as that suit and those red Converse."
"You think?"
"Yep. Some of your more fervent internet followers have identified you and photographed you based on your height and hair alone."
"If Angela were here, she'd take care of that for you," Brennan offered. "She's very good with all cosmetic and aesthetic matters. And she probably finds you attractive, and would want to touch your hair."
"Well, who wouldn't?" the Doctor quipped. "But she's not here, so... I'll just nip down the hall. Back in a mo'. Don't touch anything."
He ran off around the console, disappearing through an archway that the group presumed led to another part of the ship. Hodgins began unpacking the coolers, and Booth bent to help.
"I still don't understand what all that is for," Brennan said.
"The meat?" asked Hodgins, holding up packets of raw meat that the kitchen staff had brought to the lab.
"Yes, the meat."
"Are you kidding? We're about to give the Vashta Nerada a serious case of the munchies!"
"Better raw meat from the kitchen than from our bodies," Cam reminded her.
When the Doctor returned, five minutes later, he looked decidedly different. His clothes were slightly more loose-fitting than he was accustomed to, his white sleeves were rolled up, and he wore black trousers and dress shoes, rather than his usual, distinctive pinstripe-and-trainer combo. And to top it all off, his hair was now damp and slicked down, rather than mussed and spiked.
"Whoa, you look like a stockbroker," Hodgins commented.
The Doctor wrinkled his nose. "I know."
"I think everything is in place," said Booth. "I think we're ready to deploy."
"Deploy," mused the Doctor. "Spoken like a man with extensive training in special ops. Okay, good. Dr. Hodgins, have you set out the munchies?"
"I have. Don't worry - I was careful."
The Doctor walked down the ramp, then opened the door and look outside the TARDIS. There was a trail of beef jerky, raw chicken, lunch meat, various fast-food goodies, meatballs from the cafeteria, Slim Jims and the like, leading from the dead body where Booth had placed it, all the way to the TARDIS.
"Good man," the Doctor said. "And you have some leftovers, don't you, just like we planned?"
"Yep," Hodgins answered, indicating a small stash of meats left in the bottom of one of the large coolers.
"Then, Agent Booth, are you ready to pull the trigger?" the Doctor asked.
"Yep. Let's do it.
"The rest of you, get out of sight. Get to a place that's not too far into the museum, that's well-lit, round a few corners, and if you can manage it, airtight."
"All of that, plus airtight is a pretty tall order," Cam told the Doctor.
"You know what we're dealing with, Dr. Saroyan," the Doctor reminded her. "Keep the criteria in mind, and use your considerable brains, that's all I'm saying."
"What will you be doing?" Brennan asked the Doctor. "You have no body armor, and you believe that these organisms are, to use your words, gunning for you."
"What's your point?" the Doctor asked with annoyance.
"You're exposed. Shouldn't you be hiding with the rest of them?" she wondered.
"The rest of them?" asked Booth. "Don't you mean the rest of us?"
"No," she shrugged. "I was planning on telling you to join Cam and the others and find a good place to keep yourself safe from the Vashta Nerada. I will pull the trigger, as it were."
"Are you crazy? Absolutely not," Booth said. "Nope, mm-mm. Out of the question."
"I wasn't asking your permission, Booth. I'm telling you what I'm planning on doing. Now move away from the gurney, please."
"Bones, I am not letting you go out there into the path of flesh-eating monsters!"
"Unless you believe that you have some kind of right to dominion over me because of our genders, then you must agree that I could, with the same protective air, say the same thing to you."
The Doctor tried to put a stop to the little row, but with no success.
"Bones..."
"Booth, you already risked your life once when you accompanied the Doctor out the front doors of the museum, and again when you carried the body of the suicide victim, embalmed with hallucinogenics, out into the lobby. I am the one who put the skeleton together to create this piece of the ruse. I am the one who leads all work with skeletons. There is no logical reason why I shouldn't be the one to escort the skeleton out into the path of the Vashta Nerada. Now, move away from the gurney."
There was a long silence while the partners attempted to stare each other down.
The Doctor moved toward Dr. Saroyan, leaning over to ask, "Is there something there, is or is it my imagination?"
"It's not your imagination," she answered.
"Ah. What would you do, if you were me?" he asked her.
"Let it play out," Cam whispered. "The only person who can change Dr. Brennan's mind is Booth. Might as well give them the room they need."
"This is their way of saying what they can't say," Hodgins whispered, joining in.
"Fighting?" asked the Doctor.
"Yep."
"Okay. I get it. I just hope they can fight quickly," said the Doctor.