A/N:-Okiiiiiie. This is vair awkward. I promised you QUICKER updates, but ended up posting thr- "two" weeks later. And is that a mob of flaming torches and purple rhubarbs I see in the distance? YES? Oh dear. Yeah, you see, I actually- *runs for life*
Did I forget to mention that Derren Brown is alien?! HE HAS TO BE! I mean that whole advert he did was dangerous enough and he got through it all ALIVE, then there was the guessing of the lottery numbers AND THEN the whole live(!) stuck-in-your-seat thingamajig...
Disclaimer: Me ownie Doctor Who? Well, I must've been pretty drunk AND deluded when I let Journey's End go on the air... Either that or I must've had a vair massive argument with Catherine Tate, Billie Piper, David Tennant and the whole crew that I threw a CABOT CIRCUS SIZED moody-fit, angrily forced RTD to scribble down the script to JE and give everyone (especially Donna!!) such a crap ending … I mean they didn't even mention Mickey ONCE in CoE.
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Chapter 29 – Almost Paradise
Gun raised to the air in well-tanned hands, Captain Jack backed himself up against the nearest boiler and scanned the area for any signs of the one scape Weevils who'd – in the spur of the moment – sneaked down into the basement. No signs of life yet.
Spotting the Doctor.5 on the other side of the room, Jack nodded at him. The Doctor (point 5) nodded back, hands dug into his pockets, moving along in a incredulously casual stroll and the slightest of manic grins breaking through the surface. Captain Jack knew that look; human Doctor or not, it was the same look he wore every time he had some madly "ingenious" plan up his sleeve.
Whilst he and Doctor.5 were on Weevil patrol down in the basement, with Ianto taking care of the ground floor – and the people quite literally trapped there, Gwen and Mickey had taken to patrolling the first floor trying to hunt down the second of the scape Weevils. They went equipped with two small but tough sacks – near enough the perfect fit for a Weevil's head - and just the one tranquilliser gun with only enough sedatives for one shot. Meanwhile, Martha had been assigned to discreetly take care of the one Weevil mauled victim – luckily, the attack had been a discreet one where nobody was around . Ianto had been given the task of improvising and covering up the situation, by spitting out some excuse to the confused, worried, nervous patients, whilst Aryl was outside attempting to contact Torchwood and call a Weevil Removal Van down to the hospital.
Not that the situation hadn't already been dealt with. Mostly. It was just the patients that needed the convincing. You see, Doctor.5 had already did the honours of deadlocking all the doors leading out of the hospital's ground floor with his Sonic Pen.
Apparently, he'd "gotten a bit bored" whilst sitting by a unconsciousness Rose's bedside one day and the Sonic Pen was born. He'd constructed out of a PVC – that had been sneakily extracted from a nearby remote control, a fountain pen – deftly plucked from the reception desk, some solder – the engineer wouldn't miss it, and a piece of string – well, half of one of his shoelaces to be exact.
…
"Why didn't you mention you had one earlier?" Jack asked him. "It would've saved a hell lot o' time, Doc. You never even said!"
"You never asked!" the Doctor.5 answered simply.
…
"Ianto," Jack said, pressing the tiny button on his Bluetooth earpiece, "how's the situation up there?"
Ianto had rounded up the remaining patients of the ground floor and lured them into the reception area, which they were all now locked in. For the time being.
"It's contained."
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…
A little earlier
"What the hell was that orange thing?!" yelled a man.
"That was an early costume preparation for the Halloween party this year." Ianto explained. He added quickly, "The hospital likes to prepare … early."
"Halloween's six months away!" a young boy chipped in.
"OK, a very early Halloween preparation then."
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Emerging out of yet another empty and Weevil-free room, Mickey dug both his hands deep into his pockets and carried on down the corridor. He had the provided sack tucked loosely into his back pocket, for easy access, in case the said Weevil spontaneously happened to come charging out. Gwen had the other sack, but also – after a argumentative debate with Mickey concerning who should have it - had the tranquilliser.
Suddenly, he heard the harsh pitter-patter of hard leather against marble resonate behind him..He spun around on the balls of his feet, seeking out the owner of the footsteps. His dark hazel eyes were greeted by the sight of a blurred figure heading towards him, while his ears drank in each resounding patter of footsteps. The bright pink head of the loose Weevil stood out loud-and-clear against its bleak white background.
One more squint and it was confirmed: the pink-headed beast was coming – no, hobbling - towards him. Because Mickey was quite completely sure that the Weevil's husky, carnivorous growls and display of dangerously sharp, yellow teeth wasn't a strange Weevil tradition of saying "I come in peace". In fact, he was certain of it.
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"Any sign of our beastly, pink-headed friend?" Jack asked, his American accent floating into Gwen's ear via the earpiece.
"Nope," Gwen replied, inching down the corridor. Reaching yet another door, she promptly hurled it open with one swift kick. However, finding nothing but an empty, unmade bed, a small closet, a bedside table and two plastic chairs inside the room, she moved onto the next. "Not even blinkin' trace of Mr. Ugly anywhere."
"Yet," Jack corrected.
"Yet," she repeated. "Nothing from Mickey, either."
Jack broke the connection, and the air was basked in dead silence once more .
CRASH!
Abruptly, the noisy clatters and bangs of fallen objects hitting marble invaded the air space, the raucous echoing in great thunders down the corridor.
"What the hell?" Gwen muttered, and quickly made her way down the current corridor – skidding sharply into the first one on her right – in an attempt to track down the source of the sudden commotion.
She deeply suspected that the culprit of the commotion was - in fact - one Mickey Smith, but then again there was a pink-headed Weevil on the loose, after all …
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"There we are!" the Doctor exclaimed cheerily, pulling the flimsy blue sheets over Rose, as he perched on the edge of the hospital bed. He bounced up and down a little, as if to test how springy and comfortable the mattress was – which he was – but he was more nervous than anything. Eyes still closed, Rose giggled – the laugh being, to the Doctor at least, the most beautiful and attractive sound in the Universe.
He grimaced at how corny that had just sounded. He really needed more practice at this, or all of his speech would soon end up in danger of sounding like something out of those cheap Earth romance movies ... He shivered. He most certainly couldn't let that happen.
Oh yes, back to reality, where was he again? Ah, yes, that was it.
"Oh, c'mere, you."
Without a moment's hesitation, the Doctor reached forward and wrenched Rose into a bone-crushing embrace. Rigid and unresponsive with what could only be described as surprise, Rose took a moment to assess the situation and – soon enough – responded to the hug with much enthusiasm, wrapping her arms around his back – not as easy as it sounded when in her blinded condition, enjoying the comforting warmth of his body. She really did have her imagination to thank on this part; this felt so real. She wished it was.
Rose gripped him tighter, resting her head on what she could only assume was the Doctor's shoulder. It wasn't too easy trying to see when she – quite clearly – couldn't. She opened her eyes, but all she was greeted by was darkness. All Rose wanted was to see his face, just once, but this stupid, stupid dream wouldn't even let her have that It wasn't fair. She crushed her eyelids together tightly. Trying to think and wish her eyesight back, even if it was just for a moment, but - just as dreams didn't usually go the way you wanted it to – she released her eyelids and pried her eyes open hopefully. Nothing.
It didn't work. She breathed in deeply, swallowing back a large lump in her throat, holding back a sob, restraining the tears.
"I missed you," she heard the Doctor mutter.
"Me too," she agreed, squeezing him even tighter in their embrace and burying her face in the crook of his neck. "Just wish this was real," she muttered under her breath. The Doctor heard her anyway but he didn't reply, dampening down those pessimistic, resigned thoughts and ideas already forming in his head.
Slowly, the Doctor peeled her away from him, but still holding her close to him.
Her eyes slowly fluttered open again – and for the first time, he noticed.
The Doctor held Rose at arm's length, eyes urgently scrutinising her. He frowned, blinking rapidly – checking twice, just in case his eyes were deceiving him; they weren't. But it couldn't be ...
Oh no. Oh yes. This was bad. This was very, very, very bad. Bad couldn't even begin to describe how bad this was. There was just the one thing the Doctor was concerned about right now: this was bad. And not very good at all.
And the only thing that stopped his mind, from conjuring up whirlwinds of theories to convince him that what he was seeing was just an optical illusion, was the solid hard evidence in front of him.
"Rose, you're ..." He stopped mid-sentence, unsure how to continue. As if finishing his sentence through actions as an alternative, his dark eyes searched for her light, chocolate-brown ones. However, instead, all that the Doctor found were a pair of hollow, glassy white orbs devoid of any colour or life – and the exceedingly faint, circular silhouettes of once shining, beautiful, brown pupils were just about visible through the white emptiness. She was blind.
"You're ..." And he still couldn't finish his sentence.
The Doctor was aware of the ever-so slight wetness pushing through the surface of both his scleras. Swallowing a small lump in his throat, he swiftly blinked back the tears. That was when his brain jerked back into motion again, the complex cogs of his mind turning rapidly, as his intelligence and instinct forced its way through the boundaries and determinedly shoved the Doctor's emotions aside for a moment.
The Doctor's face was instantly transformed into a picture of confusion. Rose was blind … Rose was blind. Rose – was – blind! She was absolutely, positively not blind before, but now ... SHAZAM: she was blind. How could that be possible? Exactly! It wasn't!
Even if the Bad Wolf had projected herself via Rose's body, it still would've meant that she was only using Rose as the host – just using Rose's image, so if Rose was blind before the Bad Wolf have been too. But, she – she being none other than pesky ol' Bad Wolf herself, of course - clearly wasn't.
That would mean that her blindness was an instant, a recent, a completely utterly spontaneous happening. That was the thing: it was quite rather physically impossible to just go blind in the space of – ooh, how long had he been "chatting" to Jack and Gwen for? - what, two minutes. Then again, he knew better than anyone and everyone in the entire multiverse – weeeeeell, probably, anyway - that nothing was impossible.
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"Doc," Jack yelled down his earpiece, at the said Time Lord, whose tall, wild mane of hair was visible over the tall, grey boilers, "we've got a Weevil at 2 o'clock!"
Panting slighting, Jack jetted after the Weevil, who was speedily hobbling away around fifteen feet in front of him.
"2 o'clock?" the Doctor's voice rang back out at him – if Jack wasn't mistaken, he sounded very nearly shocked. "But it's barely noon! More to the point, out of all of my one year, five months, fourteen days, thirteen hours, twenty-seven minutes and ... thirty-eight seconds in this universe, I have never had the pleasure of meeting a Weevil who lived at the numerals of a clock."
"Doctor!" Jack growled irritably.
"Ow, I wish you wouldn't do that. Not good for the ears – they are rather annoyingly human after all." The Doctor (.5) cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Ah yes, you were saying, Weevil."
Suddenly, Jack's ears were met by the sound of a silence, followed by the thick crackle of static and a gruff, distinct growl.
"Doctor," Jack sniggered, "I didn't know you 'ad it in you."
Despite his words, the Captain had the niggling suspicion that the growling had nothing to do with Doc.5.
"Jack, that wasn't me."
"Kinda figured. The neon pink-head I can see behind you sorta gave it away." There was an uncomfortable silence, accompanied by another low snarl. "So … ya need any help?"
"I'd deeply appreciate it, thanks, Jack. Now, if you don't mind, I think I'm just going to … RUN!"
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Mickey leapt onto the raving Weevil's back and, with some difficulty, whipped the small "sugar" sack from his back pocket before he yanked it over the Weevil's bright pink head. And that was where Mickey knew that his whole plan had gone to pieces.
Digging long, sharp talons into Mickey's upper back as he struggled with the sack, the Weevil writhed and rived, obviously not giving up without a fight.
The thing was, Mickey was having problems stretching the rope-like material over the actual Weevil's inconveniently fat head. Mickey, too, wasn't prepared to give up without a fight. However, the young man's plan soon backfired on him as one of the Weevil's knife-like nails pierced through the wool of his jumper and right into soft flesh on his upper torso, lacerating the delicate layers of skin and leaving a dirty red gash. Mickey yelped in pain, instantly leaping off the Weevil.
Impatient, the Weevil made a half-hearted effort in wrenching the tight sack, that was trapping its head, off its face. However, the vicious yet particularly boneheaded beast only ended up pushing the material half way up its face, before it gave up, the material bunched up at its nose. The Weevil growled angrily, before whimpering. It scratched effortlessly at the sack that was shielding its eyesight, as if it would simply fall off its face by doing so. Howling, and stumbling around dementedly as it struggled to locate its bearings, the Weevil limped off speedily down the corridor.
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A/N:- Someone must really, really hate me, because the past two weeks of mah life have been absomoosely JINXED to the max. (JINXED, I tell you!) And I can't seem to crop up any other plausible explanation. ;) Hehe.
SORREEEEEEEES, not muchio of Ianto in this chapter!
Been a-talking for the past couple of hours with mon pally who's moved up North , who I also haven't talked to since July … I seem to come up with a new excuse every time, eh? And surprisingly they're all true! Shortish, plot-straying chapter = an update tomorrow?!?!? If I continued this now, I would NOT get this chapter up at