You would think that once these lines of communication had been opened, I might have been able to keep them open. That once all the coaxing and cajoling had been done once, it would be a steady downward slide into meaningful exchange between two intelligent beings. You would have been wrong and stupid to think that and I could just kick myself, frankly.
I tried to open meaningful exchange by tearing apart the very tenets of Jessica's existence. All she has ever known, all she has ever been taught to live by, has been called into question. Anything she ever thought she had is hers no longer. She sits cross-legged at the end of the couch, stroking at the sore on her arm where the stake broke off.
Shouldn't forget she tried to stab River just now. But I keep thinking the phrase, 'extreme duress'. But that's probably not the argument I'll get if I go back to the hatch right now.
All I can do is start poking and prodding again, try and get her to explain a little more. It's not because of River anymore, either. Not because we're locked in here, not because I need to know what other pieces of Jessica should be scrapped and started again. Because I should have asked. Can't help but think to myself, I haven't handled this very well, so far.
"Please, Jessica, what other rules were you taught?" She's not even looking at me. She senses enough to know I'm talking to her and bats at me with one open hand. It's not a blow, not even an attempt at one. It's very simple, very clear, the language of the silent film for 'Go away'. "I can't go anywhere, same as you, though." But her head is down in her arms now and she has no chance of noticing. "River!" I call. No response. "River, you made her catatonic, can I come out now?"
No response.
Once is rude. Twice makes me get up and rap at the hatch. Which makes three no-responses and makes me worried. "River? Pond? Come on, now, this isn't funny. Pond? Rory?"
Three of them and three no-responses. Until just now River, at least, was there and listening in very closely. Why would they go away just as it got good, just as Jessica was getting to grips with the truth of her first rule. Three of them and three no-responses. I study very carefully the edge of the hatch, but it's slid right through and over the other side. No way to open it with big, cumbersome human fingers with all those layers to them, with the big round bones and all that muscle and the fatty tissue and layers and layers and layers of skin. No, totally useless, those are. Don't think I don't try.
I think of Jessica and her stakes and turn to get her.
Jessica is no longer catatonic on the sofa, but has fallen down and to her knees. I try to ask her what's wrong, but she can't see me. One hand holds her upright. The other arm is folded across her chest, as if trying to hold her heart in. It looks as though she's having trouble breathing, but her eyes are clear and her face hasn't reddened, so that can't be it.
I go to her and try to help her up. She looks at me, and her expression is familiar. The words are as obvious as subtitles, because I know it. Companions have given me that look. Friends and companions and all those other people along the way, dozens and hundreds of them have given me that self-same look and said, "Can't you hear that?"
Of course. It must be out of the range of human hearing. A change in pressure, perhaps. Without her ears, Jessica feels it echoing in the cavity of her chest. Most uncomfortable, I should imagine. Leaning on me she stands and staggers across the room. In the corner, she tries to move a leather wing chair, but loses her balance and sinks against the wall. I move the chair for her, and she crawls forward.
There's a little spot on the ground. Now, considering I never knew this room was here and it very probably wasn't before now, I've never seen this spot before. But it's like her face, I know what it is.
Jessica used to wear one around her neck, and one in her ear, and her future self stole one from the Silents at Stormcage and stranded them there.
A transmatter disc.
"Don't touch it," I tell her, but she's not looking. She's glaring at the disc, actually. I can only presume it is emitting whatever signal distresses her so.
From her left arm, the one that didn't attack River, a stake shoots down skinny and fine, and exactly what I was looking for re: hatch. It drives home at the centre of the disc and the disc shatters around it. Jessica sighs and falls away to the wall again.
"All over?"
She nods, makes a fist and beats her ribcage with it, as if trying to pop air bubbles trapped inside. Then mimics writing, so I bring her the pen again.
'It must not hear a sound. The beat of their hearts would destroy it.' That is the second rule. Then she draws a question mark at double size and circles it.
"No," I tell her. And I try not to think how I tormented her, chased her, with low pulses like the one that the disc just gave, and with the rhythm of the Time Lord's hearts. How I told her that's what it was. That they were all coming for her. When I open my eyes again she's looking at me, and thinking about the same thing. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, I grew up thinking you had no ears because- …Wait, you do have ears?"
I take hold of her head and tilt it down so I can look. She has ears, perfectly fine ears. Which isn't to say she couldn't possibly just be naturally deaf, because that is a possibility, but when I look down into the dark of those little shells, something glimmers. Something ripples when I test by shaking her head. I can test no better than that without the sonic, or the Tardis lab, but it tells me enough to say, "Surgical! They took them out! All your… ear bits, the hear-y bits with the little microphone bits and amplifier bits and wire bits, they took them out!"
Jessica nods. 'Tall People protected it from the hearts.'
She looks at me, wanting me to tell her I was wrong. That's okay. The Tall People protected her. How many of these rules are there going to be? How many times am I going to have to pull her down? Left without her mask and feeling like she's been mad all this time and all at once. It didn't have to be all at once. This could have been done gradually and steadily over the course of days or even weeks, and neither of us would have suffered like we do now.
Thinking of whose fault that is, I think of River.
Thinking of River, I think of 'no response'.
Thinking of all that, I haven't looked at Jessica in a while.
Then I hear her laugh. Which she doesn't, she can't, she doesn't know what it is. And it's a wry, nasty little laugh as well, which can't be hers. It is only slowly that I turn to see what's going on.
It's Jessica. It has to be Jessica. She can't have gone anywhere and I've been here the whole time. But she's looking down at the paper like she's never seen it before, with a mean smile on one side of her face. Looks up into my eyes without fear and with a malice I've never seen in her before.
"'Tall People,'" she laughs again. "Oh, Christ, she's a real little crazy, isn't she?"
That's not the voice I've heard her speak with in days to come. Or rather it is, but the accent is different. Crisper, and cool, an experienced and eloquent voice with both correct and colloquial Earth English.
"Jessica?"
"No," she smiles, or whatever the thing is in front of me smiles, "Not right now."
Two things, and two things only; firstly, I would like very much to know what is going on, please. Secondly, and more importantly, and the one I can't stop thinking, 'no response'.