Despite the short distance from the hatch they entered through and the platform below, it felt like forever to Alba in the darkness. Once she had gotten her footing on the ladder, the Doctor had instructed her to pull the hatch shut behind them. She'd been reluctant, but his voice had gotten that quiet, flat tone to it when she'd protested and she had dropped it almost immediately, sensing that now was not the time to press him about these things. The sonic did little to eliminate what seemed like a vast darkness, and her heart thudding in her chest sounded impossibly loud. It was really, really dark on either side of and above her-the sonic was only illuminating straight up and down, and had a fairly weak radius relative to how dark and cavernous the space was.
When something pulled at the hem of her negligee from below, she shrieked, the sound echoing shrilly around them.
"Are you alright?" he asked from below her, shining the sonic up at her.
"Yeah, sorry," she said, feeling foolish for screaming like a little girl. "My gown got caught on a rock. It...startled me."
"Oh. Well, the ledge is just down there. If you fell from here, you'd probably even live. It's not much further, if you can avoid being startled by the local wildlife," he tittered wildly for a moment before stopping himself. "Sorry, was I being rude again?"
"Yes," she replied immediately and crossly.
"Hmm. Maybe that's why people are always idying/i to get away from me?" he mused out loud, and Alba felt her blood chill. At the same time, she was flooded with relief when she felt her feet touch ground again. That had been the longest ladder she'd ever climbed, literally and figuratively.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she whispered, hoping he hadn't heard the tremble in her voice.
"Nothing. I was being crude at my own expense. No harm will come of you here, I promise," he said solemnly. "However, I will not promise to not look up your skirtwhen we're climbing down ladders."
"That's very sweet of you," she replied, equally solemn. As unstable as he seemed, perhaps it was best to just humor him. She didn't want to find out what madness was capable of driving him to, especially not in the darkness. If he wanted to look at her knickers, that was his perogative.
The darkness opened up to reveal the cab of a large freight lift, lit by a single stark bulb. She didn't wait for him to usher her onto the lift, she made her way to it, eager to leave the darkness behind her. The Doctor shut the doors behind them, and pressed the button to take them down. The further they descended, the more dubious Alba became as to their supposed destination. The Doctor was eerily quiet, evidently lost in his own thoughts, which left her feeling even more unsettled. Tentatively, she reached out for his hand. He turned his gaze on her, startled. He looked down at their clasped hands, then back up at her, as though confused. He didn't make a move to remove his hand, though. He was peering at her intently though, as though he were searching her own expression for something. Another agonizingly long moment passed, and the lift finally ground to halt. The Doctor opened the doors, revealing yet another dark passageway, and Alba felt her stomach sink again. Would it never end?
"You don't happen to live at the center of the planet, do you?" she asked in as conversational a tone as possible.
"Not the center of the planet, no. Just the mountain. Well...not really the center, not quite. You'll see when we get there. It's not much further now," he said, leading her through the darkness to a nondescript metal door. He used the sonic to open this door too, and they stepped into what looked like some sort of pantry or dry storage room.
"Back entrance," he said, making sure the door was locked behind them. "Well, service entrance, I suppose. It's not the normal way I'd get in here, at any rate, but I didn't want to risk anyone seeing us coming, so here we are. Welcome home."
"Are you hungry?" she asked him.
"No, why?"
"Mmm, maybe we could leave the pantry then? Just a thought."
"Oh, right! Of course, yeah, let's do that," he said, winding his way around shelves stocked with dusty canned goods. "Sorry it's a bit dusty with disuse. Normally I would've had someone come in and turn the house, but again...I didn't really want anyone to know we're here. Safer this way, really."
iSafer for who?/i Alba wondered to herself, but didn't dare to say out loud. She also couldn't help but wonder if even Jack knew where they were right now, and felt another stab of fear twisting at her gut at the thought that she might be trapped here with a psychopath and no one to possibly help her if things went pear-shaped.
They stepped into a room that was almost a complete opposite of the sleek restaurant kitchen in the Doctor's penthouse flat. This room was just as large, but decorated in shades of cream and cornflower blue. A half-wall with a gap in the middle separated the kitchen and the dining room The most noticeable difference though was that this open and airy dining area's north wall was made entirely of windows that looked down and out on a vast cerulean ocean below. Something about the sea had always been magnetic to Alba, and she felt herself drawn to the windows to get a better look. They were several stories above the beach, a wide strip of burnt orange sand so fine it almost gleamed metallic under the light of the twin suns. The contrast of the sand against the water was frankly stunning. She didn't realize she was holding her breath until the Doctor stepped directly behind her and it startled her into exhaling. She hated that she was so nervous and on edge around him right now, when before it had seemed like maybe they were actually starting to get on better.
"What a view. I can already tell this will be my favorite room, no doubt," she said, attempting to sound lighthearted.
"Yes, the view is beautiful. The beach below is private, so no worries of anyone seeing you up here. The windows are one-way tempered privacy glass anyway, so it just looks like cliff face to anyone seeing it from below."
"So no chance anyone could sail by and see us here," she said, trying not to let the desperation creep into her voice.
If he sensed her fear, he acted oblivious to it. "Nope. Total privacy, which was why I loved it. Well...it was total privacy once upon a time, til someone exploited a small security glitch that somehow got overlooked. Still, it's since been fixed. And I haven't used this house in years, so no one would think to come looking here for us here," he said, taking her elbow and guiding her out of the dining room past a large natural stone fireplace. The windows continued down a hallway, the other half of which appeared to be carved from the wall of the mountain itself.
"Loo's right there,"he said, gesturing to a door on his right. Full bath is off of the master bedroom and the nursery. That's a linen cupboard there. Just up here's the lounge."
"Hold on...did you say nursery?" she asked, biting her lip. She was almost afraid to see how he'd react to that, but considering he'd brushed off calling her Romana earlier, maybe there'd be no reaction at all.
He stopped dead in his tracks, gripping her hand tighter in his own as he did. "Did I? Freudian slip perhaps, I meant conservatory."
"So another greenhouse then?" she asked.
"Ummm yeah, sure," he said, waving a hand noncommittally. "To be honest though I think it's locked, and I don't know that I remember where the key is. Nothing's been alive in that room for a long time anyhow," he said, and his voice was so sad that she knew he had meant nursery after all. The room was locked, and would stay locked, she imagined. She didn't have the heart to press the fact that he'd said it was a Freudian slip, just figured it was related to his own guilty feelings regarding his daughter, whom she wasn't supposed to know about at all and certainly couldn't let on knowledge of, either. She wasn't going to dare suggest he use the sonic screwdriver and risk sending him into a blind rage or sobbing fit.
"Oh, okay," she muttered numbly, looking away so that he wouldn't see the tears of pity and fear prickling at the corners of her eyes.
"Anyway, the lounge is right up here, the library is just beyond it. It's smaller than the library in my flat, but it's comfortable. Our bedroom, the master bedroom, is just up here. Are you tired, Rose?" he asked.
She shouldn't have been, she didn't think, considering she had woken up right before he'd gotten home and Jack had sequestered her to her room. Still, for some reason she was, as though she'd come an incredibly long distance. She thought of the journey from the flat to the mountain, and frowned when she realized she had absolutely no concept of how they had gotten there, or how long it had taken. She remembered being in the flat, and him putting the blindfold on. And then the next thing she remembered was the stunning first view of Gallifrey when he'd removed her blindfold once more. As to what was in between? Well, that bit wasn't even hazy. There was just...nothing.
"Yes, I'm a bit tired," she said truthfully, not admittedly that she was also more than a bit terrified as well. There was no getting a read on the Doctor, and the events of the last day had her rattled significantly. She wanted to trust him, but didn't know that it would be possible anymore. She was now almost certain that the reason she was missing time was because he had drugged her. She'd turned it over in her mind, and it made sense. He was a chemist, after all.
"Me too. Let's have a bit of a lie down," he said, aiming the sonic at the door and pushing it open.
Stepping inside the bedroom, Alba was rewarded with yet another new and breathtaking view of Gallifrey. The whole of the wall opposite of the door was made of glass, and looked out on the other side of the mountain, which sloped steeply upwards, the highest peaks capped with snow. More of the silver-leaved trees dotted the side of the mountain, their branches waving softly in the light morning breeze.
This magnificent mountain would be the view from the oversized king bed, which was angled to face the window wall on one side and a mammoth fireplace on the other. The fireplace, like the rest of the room, looked to be carved out of the wall of the mountain and was so massive it ran along almost the entire length of the east wall. The shape of the room itself indicated it might have been a natural cavern-the ceiling was high and uneven, as were the walls, although the surface of the exposed rock was worn down so there were no sharp angles.. The floor too seemed to be cut from the rock, although that had been worn completely flat, save for steps that lead from the antechamber up to the bed and fireplace. A thick brocade canopy flanked the bed, although it was pulled open to reveal the plush comforter and overabundance of pillows. The Doctor went to move some of these pillows to a chest that was out of the way and behind the massive four-poster.
Alba, again, was drawn to the window to better take in the incredible view. Eventually, the Doctor came behind her, slipping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. Softly, he whispered in her ear.
"This room has the best view of the sunset. The kitchen has the best of the sunrise, but here you can watch the suns go down over the mountain and it's just..it's so lovely. I never got tired of that view. I've quite missed it, actually."
"I don't know how you could ever leave it," she said softly, wanting to relax against him but still feeling afraid.
"Well...maybe one day I'll tell you why I did," he replied, his voice equally soft although not with the dangerous edge it'd had previously. She let him lead her to the bed, and after undressing down to just his pants, he crawled in after her. She felt him move closer to her before he wrapped his arm around her side to draw her in closer and spoon her against him.
iOh great, here we go with the hot and cold all over again…/i she thought to herself. He didn't say anything though, and after a few minutes she thought maybe they might both just actually fall asleep when his voice pierced the silence again.
"You know, don't you?" he asked, although the way he said it it sounded rather more like a statement.
"Know what?" she asked him, honestly not sure what he might mean. He clarified though, and the icy feeling in her guts intensified.
"You know about them. My family. That they died," he said, his voice flat.
"What? You've told me almost nothing about yourself, I had no idea you had a family," she insisted, remembering Jack's warning of how furious the Doctor would be if he knew he'd told her this very personal information.
"No idea? Oh, I think you had some idea, Rose," the Doctor replied, tightening his hold on her.
