Author's Note: I do not own Doctor Who. Or a bread maker. Those two things are not related.
Royslady51: Not sure why that made me think of this, but "…Patrick Moore" "Apart from him!" Ninthsgirl: Thank you! I'm always so happy to hear I'm staying on track. Mauve Guest: Really, I just couldn't have the reunion be all bland and "normal." Rose only travels in style: TARDIS, barrage balloon, and air duct. Dreamcatcher49: As Rose so adeptly pointed out: aliens. It's always freakin' aliens. TK: I know, I'm trying really hard to capture a post Torchwood Rose. I mean, she was already getting bolder and crazier by the time she left her universe, then she goes all globe-hopping secret agent. But I still want her to be her, and I'm trusting you all to keep me in line, there. I'm not saying I don't particularly like River *cough*Idon'tparticularlylikeRiver*cough*, I just don't want Rose turning into her. Also, I'm sure that's why he has a second heart: a spare. :D
"So, what've I missed?" Rose asked. Looking around the room. She and The Doctor stood in front of the door, beyond which she could hear the shouts of the police officers. Martha was standing on the opposite side of the hospital gurney, alongside a rather familiar-looking nurse, "Hey, I know you."
"Jeff," the nurse smiled, "Nice to see you, again."
"Right. Likewise," Rose chuckled, then turned back to The Doctor who was still grinning broadly, "How'd you get here?"
"Followed the signal," he said, hands tucked in his pockets.
"What signal?" Rose asked.
"The telephone," he explained, passing by her to stand at the child's bedside, "The landlines are out, but the line wasn't broken. There was a signal underneath the dead tone, the static. Don't know what it's sayin', exactly, but I've an idea. The signal got stronger, louder as I went and it was clearest here."
"Who is she?" Rose asked, now looking at the young girl. Most of the equipment she was hooked up to looked familiar. Rose had been injured often enough to have a passing familiarity with the EKG, IV drip, and blood pressure monitor, but the skullcap with its dancing, aurora-esque lights and the dozens of cords trailing off was something new altogether.
"She's a Jane Doe," Martha supplied, and Rose saw that she'd picked up the girl's chart and begun examining it, "Says she's suffered head trauma and they're keeping her in a medically induced coma."
"She's a Goane," The Doctor informed, grimly, "A being of immense telekinetic ability. Their race is all but extinct. Took shelter on Earth millennia ago, gave rise to the pagan notions of gods who controlled the elements."
"She's causing this, then? What happened to her?" Rose asked.
"Someone captured her. Captured her and sedated her and stuck her here. Otherwise, there's nothin' physically wrong with 'er."
"What's that cap for?" Martha asked, "Jeff and I, we can bring her out of the coma safely, but is that thing going to hurt her?"
"It's just a message," The Doctor shook his head and reached out, stroking a thumb gently over the child's temple. Rose started a bit when he jumped back as if bitten, "Fear. The message is fear. Hate and anger and aggression on a constant loop. Just words, transmitted through the phone line, but real enough for her. She's creating the storm subconsciously to defend herself. To make it stop."
"It's not just words." Rose reached out and squeezed The Doctor's elbow. He glanced back at her and saw the concerned crease on her brow. She was staring at the girl, suddenly horrified, "Look at her eyelids, her eyes are movin'. It's REM sleep. She's dreamin'. She can see all of it; whatever they're tellin' her, she can see it." The Doctor looked back at the girl and saw, to his horror, that Rose was right. "Can you make it stop?"
"I will," The Doctor's tone brooked no disagreement, and Rose let go his arm as he withdrew the Sonic Screwdriver. "Martha, Jeff, do what needs doin'. I'm going to modify the signal, turn it down if I can. Her mind's panicking, and the drugs are the only thing keeping her heart rate regular. If we bring her out too quickly, the panic could kill her."
"Is there anything I can do?" Rose asked. Martha and Jeff busied themselves about the room, pulling out the crash cart and preparing the cocktails of drugs needed to bring her about.
"Here," The Doctor was hovering over the skullcap with the Sonic, "I can't shut down the signal, not from here. But I can disrupt the connection one wire at a time." Rose squeezed in between Himself and the EKG, "When you see the light go out, pull the wire." Just as he said that, the connection directly under the Sonic's glowing blue light went dark, and rose reached forward and pulled the cord from the cap with a satisfying snap.
"Easy enough," Rose said, examining the loose end of the wire and tossing it aside, "Next." One by one, The Doctor disrupted the signal feeding through one of the dozens of wires and Rose yanked it out. By the time Martha and Jeff approached, a third of the wires were gone.
"Can't you just, I don't know, yank that cap off her head?" Martha asked, watching them and waiting her turn to work.
"Don't know what would happen," The Doctor said, concentrating wholly on his task, "Might put her in shock. This way, the signal just gets quieter and quieter until it finally goes away."
"How do we know any of it is working?" Jeff asked, "This room doesn't have a window." As if in answer, they heard the building, from its foundation to the helipad above, groan under the stress of the wind. Martha, Jeff, and Rose all looked up, warily.
"Rose," The Doctor reminded, still at his work, "I need you."
"Right, sorry," Rose returned her attention to the task at hand, pulling another dead wire.
"It's bound to get worse before it gets better," The Doctor tried to reassure them all, "She's been bombarded with all the most terrible thoughts she could imagine, and now somethin's changin' and she's no way to know it's good; that we're here to help her. Not until she's awake." Thus, Rose and The Doctor continued, working in tandem, and Martha watched them carefully. They were so intense, so focused that they hardly noticed their heads were only an inch or two apart. She glanced down at the girl, eyes darting more furiously beneath her lowered lids than ever before. The building shook.
"Doctor…" Jeff warned.
"Almost there," The Doctor insisted.
"Sir, the intruders have locked themselves into the child's room. We can't get in; we're not sure why," the officer who'd stood guard at the little girl's door had largely recovered from being half-strangled by one of the intruders.
"Well, I imagine they locked it," a cool, calm voice radioed back.
"Except we have the master-key, sir, and it still won't open," the officer explained, and he thought he heard a brief chuckle in response over the radio crackle.
"Not to worry, Officer Charles. The storm is getting worse. You should evacuate your men."
"Sir?"
"That's an order, now. We'll need you when this is all over. I won't have good officers stranded in the hospital when the rest of the city needs help." Officer Charles chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. They'd been placed on emergency detail, here, twelve hours ago, and all of a sudden he was being told this assignment wasn't a high priority.
"What about the child, sir?" Officer Charles radioed back.
"Leave that to me," The Commissioner's tone had grown heavy and stern, "Retreat from that hospital. That's an order."
"Yes, sir." Officer Charles replied. He looked around at the half-dozen men who'd been assigned to the ward. After a brief pause, he gave the order to move out, and the men did as they were bid.
Some miles away, leaning back in his leather office chair and watching the storm batter the magnificent city, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner smiled a secret, enigmatic smile. Then, he turned back to his desk and pressed the intercom.
"Ms. Forsythe, I need the head of every public works department on the phone, immediately. Fire, police, corps of engineers, water, sanitation, all of them."
"Yes, sir. Right away, sir," came the tinny, echoing response of his secretary.
"Thank you, Ms. Forsythe," still smiling, he released the intercom button, "Today's a good day to be a hero."
"There!" The Doctor crowed as Rose pulled the last wire from the skullcap. All the brilliant, iridescent light was gone, and only a matte gray expanse of cloth and empty sockets remained. Carefully, he got his fingers under the edges of the cap and gently peeled it off her head.
"Is it our turn?" Martha asked.
"Yeah," The Doctor balled up the cap and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, "Jus' be careful." He reluctantly stepped away, taking Rose's hand as he went, and stood back, leaving Martha and Jeff to their work. They both watched in tense silence as Martha switched out IV bags and injected a small amount of the drug cocktail into the injection port. The next several minutes were spent checking her vitals and gradually adding more of the drug. When the heart monitor began to spike, Rose's grip tightened, and The Doctor squeezed back in response. There were no words, just then, for any of them. Martha was intent on her work, firing requests and directives at Jeff, words Rose didn't understand.
When the child began to murmur and twitch her hands, Rose broke away from The Doctor and came to her bedside. Taking up the small hand in both her own, Rose cooed reassurances to the girl. Immediately, the building was rocked by a massive gust. For a moment the lights flickered and the monitors beeped in alarm until the power came back up seconds later. Rose still hung on, staying out of Martha and Jeff's way as best she could, and brushing a hand over the girl's forehead as she did her best to calm a fevered mind.
"The power's been knocked out," Martha informed, "Running off the generator, now."
"How is she?"
"She's coming 'round. Need to get this feeding tube out before she chokes on it." The child convulsed slightly as the tube was pulled from her nostrils, and Rose gagged a bit.
"No idea that went through the nose."
"It's not pretty," Martha agreed, still busy at work. Finally, Rose thought she saw the child's eyelids flutter.
"There!" Rose said, gripping the small hand more firmly, "Come on, then. It's OK. You're safe. Just wake up for us, sweetheart." Martha and Jeff both paused to look, and The Doctor stepped up to Rose's side, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing it reassuringly as the drowsy brown eyes slowly opened. "Hi. Good morning," Rose gave her broadest smile.
"Keep talking to her, Rose," Martha had moved around her, examining the machines, "Her heart rate is normalizing and her blood pressure is coming down. Keep talking.
"We're so glad you're awake," Rose reached out and soothed the hair back over the little girl's brow, "How are you feeling?" The girl muttered a groggy, indiscernible response, and Rose just smiled and continued stroking her hair, "'S all right. Just relax. You'll be able to talk soon enough. You're awake, now, love. It's all over."
"I don't get it. What happened to the police?" Rose asked. She was sitting on the edge of the helipad, legs dangling over the empty street below as the sun began to disappear behind the looming skyscrapers of London's financial district. The sky was clear, the oblique light of early evening blinking off the snow and ice that buried all of London's streets. Across the way, nearly half the windows in a brick high-rise had been shattered or blown out completely.
"I don't know," The Doctor replied, squinting into the declining light, "They may have been called off to help elsewhere. They may have gotten scared and run off." He offered no other explanation, but Rose knew him well enough to know his thoughts didn't end there.
"Or," she prodded.
"Or, someone high up in the police department was behind all of this," he added, lips set in a grim line.
"What about the girl?" Rose asked, looking up at him, and The Doctor diverted his attention from the city skyline, looking at her with those sharp blue eyes.
"She'll be all right," he smiled, "Martha's not one to give up." Rose smiled at that.
"Some things never change." For awhile they sat in silence, basking in the light despite the chill. A stiff breeze picked up, and Rose shivered.
"We should go back in," The Doctor made to stand up.
"No," Rose said, "Not yet. I didn't –" The Doctor settled himself again, watching her profile closely as she struggled to explain, "I didn't know if I'd ever see this again." Rose admitted, "The city. Even if I survived."
"Fair enough," he admitted. She was dirty, disheveled, her hair half fallen out of the up-do, and he still hadn't asked what happened to her knee, but just at that moment, she was so very lovely. As the breeze kicked up again and she hunkered herself down against it, he huffed at the stubborn little yellow and pink human and took off his jacket. He held it up for her, "Come on, then. Arms." The look she gave him was more than a little surprised, but she complied, sliding her arms into the far-too-long sleeves and pulling it tightly around herself as he settled it on her shoulders.
"Thanks," she smiled, and his hearts skipped a beat.
"Jus' don't lose it," he said, "Love that jacket."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," she countered, returning her gaze to the skyline.
"All I'm sayin' is, you're a hazard," his admonishment had the desired effect, as Rose whipped her head back around.
"Me?!"
"Yes, you," he continued with all feigned dignity, "Come clompin' in through the air ducts, covered in grease and dust, and what happened to that knee, anyway."
"Not my fault," Rose insisted.
"Really? Whose, then?"
"No one's. I slipped in the snow."
"Instead of stayin' put," he pointed out, "I looked for you. Would have found you if you hadn't gone wanderin' off."
"Yeah, well, if I hadn't wandered off, Martha wouldn't be here."
"What?" The Doctor asked, suddenly serious. Rose cringed slightly.
"Well…"