Chapter 15

Doctor's diary.

Entry Date: Sunday, 14th October, 2018.

'That was a great weekend at the Tree House, I always enjoy relaxing there. This time, however, I couldn't wait to get back home to see how things had gone….'

Rose's diary.

Entry Date: Sunday, 14th October, 2018.

'No more nights now, that's a relief. It's been a nice relaxing weekend at the Tree House, but I think my hormones are getting the better of me. I got a bit tearful when I thought about my childhood without Dad.'

'John's up to something, I can tell. He seems keen to get home to check on something. I wouldn't be surprised if he's got an experiment running in the workshop….'

Northumberland Place,

Notting Hill,

London.

The TARDIS materialized in John's lower ground floor workshop. The door opened and they stepped out.

"Evening you lot," Donna-the-house, said. "Did you have a nice weekend?"

"Oh, it was lovely thanks," Rose said as she walked up the stairs. "We built sand castles and paddled in the sea."

As they walked down the hallway towards the lounge, Rose was looking towards the front door, and then back, towards the kitchen, a frown creased her brow. "John, does this hallway look longer to you?"

John ran his fingers through his hair and pulled his earlobe as he looked from one end to the other. "Er, I suppose so," he said hesitantly.

"You've been rumbled," Donna said.

"Okay, what's going on?" Rose said walking past the lounge, towards the front door. "Have you arranged one of those 60 minute makeovers while we were away?" She stopped at the front door and couldn't help noticing that, at the foot of the stairs, there was another hallway, which apparently led next door.

"John, have you secretly bought Brendan and Justin's house and knocked through?" She asked him.

"No, it's just this house." He had THAT smile on his face, the one that said 'I'm so clever, and you're going to love this'.

"So where does this lead then?" She leaned forward and poked her head into the new hallway.

"I don't know. Donna?" He asked, looking up at the ceiling.

"On this floor, the door on the left is the Library. The door in front is the Arboretum, and the door on the right is a Playroom."

Rose looked at John, wide eyed and open mouthed. "On this floor?"

"Yes," Donna said. "On the lower ground floor, the vault that you converted into a gymnasium now has an Olympic sized swimming pool which is accessed through the new archway. On the first floor, at the top of the stairs, there is a new hallway on the right which leads to two new bedrooms, bathroom, and sauna."

"And did you do all this Donna?" Rose asked the ceiling.

"Oh no, I was more like the project manager, the coral did all the work."

Rose went to the left hand door, opened it, and stepped inside. "Oh-my-God," John heard from inside the room.

EJ ran in behind her. "It's full of books," his voice announced from inside.

"That'd be the Library then, just like Donna said it was," John said with a laugh.

Rose came out, eye's and mouth wide open. "What have you done?"

"Well, when you said about giving up your office to make a nursery, it got me thinking about my old family home on Gallifrey."

"Lungbarrow?" Rose said.

"That's right. It was sentient, like Donna-the-house, and it was also transdimensional. So, before we left, I put some TARDIS coral in the walls, where it could tap into the electricity supply."

"You mean you've turned our house into a TARDIS?" She said, incredulous.

"Brilliant," EJ called out from the room on the right, it was full of his toys.

"Well, it was either that, or buy a bigger house, and I've grown rather fond of our home," he said, unsure how she was reacting to this bit of Gallifreyan DIY. "And, it's more of a Gallifreyan house than a TARDIS, but the principle is the same."

After the initial surprise, Rose started to get her head around the idea of having a house that was bigger on the inside. She giggled as she walked up to him and stroked his face. "I'm fond of our home too," she said as she kissed him on the lips.

They joined EJ in the Playroom, which resembled an indoor playground, complete with a ball pond, slides, and tunnels and large, foam building blocks. The Arboretum resembled an oversized conservatory, with stone paths meandering between varieties of trees. At the centre of the room was an ornamental pool and fountain.

Rose grabbed his and EJ's hands and ran up the stairs, where on the left was the landing that she knew, and on the right was a new arch, leading to a small hallway. She tried the first door on the left and popped her head around the door.

"Hang on, this is EJ's room," she said puzzled.

Her son pushed past her legs. "Oh yeah…. Cool."

"So, what's happened to his old room then?" They all traipsed across the top of the stairs and onto the old, familiar landing, where they turned left and went to EJ's room. (The original one, not the new, duplicate one.)

"What?" Rose said in amazement.

"Surprise!" Donna said. It was a nursery, and not just any old nursery. It was beautifully decorated in pastel shades that unmistakably said, 'this is a girl's room'.

"Oh. Donna, it's…. Beautiful."

"You have been busy," John said. "I never realised the effect would spread to the rest of the house as well."

"Oh yes," Donna said in her authoritative voice. "Those little coral blighters didn't know what hit 'em. I had 'em working night and day to get this ready for when ya got back. Now go an' look at the rest of it…. Go on," she encouraged.

They went back to the new hallway, tried the door at the end, and walked into a wood panelled sauna. Fortunately, it wasn't active, and therefore, wasn't full of hot steam. They tried the final door, and walked into a scene from a health spa. It had a walk in shower, changing cubicles, and sunken into the floor, was a Jacuzzi, made from natural stone, with water bubbling up, and a babbling brook of warm water pouring into the pool.

"John, it feels like the TARDIS here now, y'know, like when it's in yer head," Rose said.

John was grinning at her, when she heard a familiar voice in her head. ["Hello,"] Donna said. ["Am I inside your head, Rose?"]

["Donna, is that you?"]

["Yeah, good in here, innit? All echoey. ECHO, ECHo, ECho, Echo, echo…."]

Rose snorted a laugh. ["Knock it off, you."] She turned to John and hugged him around the neck. "I love it, absolutely love it. Thank you."

Jackie approached the front door of John and Rose's Notting Hill house, to be greeted by Donna's voice from the brass intercom on the wall.

"Hello Jackie, how are you today?" she asked.

"Hello Donna. Is Rose in?" Jackie enquired, as she stepped through the opening door.

"She's in the Arboretum."

"In the what?"

"The Arboretum. They've got an Arboretum now," Donna told her proudly.

"Is that what they're callin' that little patio at the back of the house now is it? Gone and bought some potted trees, and called it a fancy Arboretum," she muttered as she went along the hallway, heading for the kitchen.

"Hi Mum," Rose called from behind her, which made her jump.

"Oh my Gawd, you made me jump. I never heard you comin' down the stairs."

"I didn't come down the stairs, I was in the Arboretum. Didn't Donna tell you?"

"I did," Donna said, "but then she started goin' on about patios and trees in pots."

"Now you're at it," Jackie said. "What's all this about an Arboretum?"

Rose was laughing now. "C'mon Mum, I'll show you." She took her mum's hand and led her to the foot of the stairs. "It's just down this hallway."

"What hallway?" Jackie asked looking at her daughter as if she had suddenly lost her hold on reality. 'This wouldn't be hard', she thought, 'considering who she was married to'. The look of concern turned to a look of shock when Rose walked through the wall.

"Aaargh!" Jackie gave a scream of surprise, and Rose's head popped back out of the wall.

"Sorry, my fault," Donna said. "Forgot to mention that the new extensions are perception filtered."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked, "I can see the extension, no problem."

"Yeah, but all Jackie can see is a wall. Hang on; I'll just get in her head."

"No you bleedin' well won't!" Jackie said in protest.

"Oops, already done it. Sorry," Donna said, not sounding sorry at all.

"It's alright Mum, she's just allowing you to see the house as it really is."

As Rose reassured her, the wall faded away and the new hallway appeared. "What's that daft alien gone and done now?" Jackie was under no illusion as to who had turned this normal, Edwardian house, into a version of Hogwarts.

"He's not daft, Mum, and he's built us an extension so that we don't have to move to a bigger house."

Rose took her hand and they walked down the new hallway, showing her each new room in turn.

"But aren't we in next doors house now?" Jackie asked as they walked around the Arboretum.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you, but no, we're still inside the walls of our own house."

"This is barmy," Jackie said, rolling her eyes.

"Yep, completely, utterly, and brilliantly barmy. And I love it. And more importantly, John loves it. It's how his family home on Gallifrey used to be."

Rose had taken Jackie down to the lower ground floor and shown her the swimming pool that now adjoined the gymnasium. They had then climbed the stairs to the first floor, where she was showing her the new suite of rooms, when Rose sensed John and Eyulf returning from nursery school.

"John's back with EJ, I'll have to go and make some lunch," Rose told her.

Jackie raised an eyebrow and smiled. "I love the way you do that mind talkin' thing."

Rose returned the smile. "Yeah, me too, it's just so intimate."

They went downstairs and headed for the kitchen.

"You've still got a kitchen then?" Jackie asked in her sarcastic tone.

Rose laughed. "Of course we've still got a kitchen."

"Well, I don't know, thought you might 'ave had a drive through McDonalds or somethin'," Jackie said with a grin.

"Grandmother," EJ called as he bustled through the front door.

"Grandmother? That's a bit posh an' formal," she said, scooping him up in a hug.

"The teacher said that's your proper title, Grandmother," he said in a lecturing tone of voice.

"Well, yeah, I suppose it is, but tell you what, you can call me Gra'ma if you want."

"Okay."

John and Rose kissed. "I've been showin' Mum the new extension."

"Ah, and what do you think?" John asked, raising an uncertain eyebrow.

"It's very you," she said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Oh, thank you," he said with a smile.

"Weird, alien, and completely barmy," she finished with a smirk.

Rose spluttered a laugh. "Are you stayin' for lunch Mum?"

"Yeah, go on, you've twisted me arm."

John was visualising Rose twisting Jackie's arm in a painful, martial arts sort of way, when he remembered a call he'd had from Pete while he was waiting for EJ at the nursery.

"Pete phoned, he's asked if I wouldn't mind dropping by and checking the universal translator. Apparently, the alien in the cocoon hatched last night and the translator is coming up with a syntax error when they try to speak to him."

"But it's our week off Love," Rose reminded him.

"I know, but it won't take long to fix. The translator already has the words; it's just the grammar and sentence structure that it doesn't understand. All I have to do is have a chat to the alien and the software will learn the rest."

"Okay then. Tell you what, let's have some lunch, and then we can all go."

TorchwoodHospital Wing.

2nd Floor, TorchwoodTower.

John stepped out of the lift into the reception area of the hospital with Pete, Rose, and EJ. Pete led the way down the corridor and onto the low dependency ward.

"Kesh nar kway harrap tow barran?" A woman in a bed to their left said. The universal translator at the foot of the bed said, ["infinite is the yearning for material of the body building."]

She had human features, but her skin was marble white, with piercing blue eyes, and grey lips. Her wavy, shoulder length hair was silvery white.

John was momentarily distracted from his mission to speak to the man from the cocoon. "I see you have another translation problem," he said to Pete. "Hello, I'm John, the Doctor. Am I correct in thinking that you are hungry?"

"Affirmative is the voice in speaking truly," the translator said as the woman smiled.

"Have you eaten Earth food before?" he asked.

"Affir… Yes," the translator corrected. "Bake-ed legumes on burnt slices of baked wheat."

"Beans on toast. Brilliant." John attracted the attention of a nursing auxiliary and requested a meal of beans on toast for the patient.

"Right, that's that taken care of. So, Pete, where's the guy from the cocoon then?" John asked, looking around the ward.

Pete nodded at the woman in the bed. "You're looking at him," he said with a smile.

John did an imitation of watching a tennis match as he looked at the woman, back at Pete, back to the woman, and finally, back at Pete. Even wearing a hospital gown, John could see that this alien had all the attributes that a human would recognise as female.

"The custody sergeant said it was a male, even if this is a male, a human would mistake it for a female," he said, working through his reasoning.

"How you say? I am all woman now," the female alien told him.

'Now', she had said 'now'. John grinned in realisation. "Metamorphosis, you've changed your sex. That's brilliant that is."

"To be speaking in accuracy, I have gained sex," she said.

"Oh, even better. A tri state species. What were you, an asexual worker drone, or something?"

"I was servant to the family of Kitcalag, one of the child care assistants."

Rose approached and stood at John's shoulder, holding EJ's hand, while he stood by her side. "Do you have a name?"

"I do as of now, I am Angel."

"That's a beautiful name," Rose said, "but I can't help noticing that you keep saying now."

"Let's pull up some chairs," Pete said, "I've got a feeling some explanations are in order."

They all found chairs and sat around the bed, EJ sat on Rose's lap, fascinated by the woman's appearance. John introduced everyone, and then she began to explain.

"I was in the service of the Kitcalag family, where I had been from the time of birth," she started.

Rose was troubled. "Are you tellin' us you were a slave?"

Angel considered the translators view on slavery as her beans on toast arrived. "Not slavery, service. It was my purpose in life. I was happy, I was treated well and with respect, fed and clothed." She eagerly cut into the bread, and scooped up the beans.

"So where are you from?" John asked, thinking that a quick trip in the TARDIS might be in order.

Angel swallowed her food and looked at him as though he were a dolt. "Did you not hear," she said kindly, "from the family of Kitcalag."

"Rightttt," John said, pulling on his earlobe and realising that she had no idea which planet she was from. "And tell me Angel, while you were in service, did you ever go to school?"

She stopped chewing as she tried to work out what that question meant. "School?"

"Education," Rose added. "Y'know, learnin' things."

"I go to school," EJ said proudly. "My teacher says I'm smart."

Angel gave a gorgeous, bubbly giggle. "Oh, how adorable, you must be very proud," she said to Rose with a smile. "I was taught how to care for the children, and I did it exceptionally well, until…."

"Until what?" Rose asked, expecting a tale of mistreatment or injustice of Roman proportions.

"I had a favourite child in my care, we are not supposed to have favourites, and they are all equals until puberty, when they attain their sex. However, like your son, Kinos was adorable and had a lovable personality. One day, I found a book from the library that he had left lying around; it was a text on science, a forbidden text for servants. Kinos loved to read, and I was curios, so I read a few pages and assimilated the information. That was when I was caught."

"But surely they can't stop you from readin'?" Rose said, getting quite annoyed at the injustice of it all. "What did they do to you?"

"You have to understand that our society exists on social order. I had assimilated data beyond my station; I could spread discontent and become a subversive element. It could lead to civil unrest, anarchy, war, and collapse of our peaceful civilisation."

"I'm sorry, but any society based on slavery cannot be called civilised," Rose said with fire in her eyes.

John put a hand on her arm. "Rose, calm down," he said quietly. "You are imposing human values on an alien society." He tried to think of an analogy that she would understand. "Think of it like a bee hive, all the bees working for the good of the colony. When the individual bees start working independently, the hive collapses and everyone suffers."

"Yes, that's it John, thank you. So, I was immediately dismissed and left on the nearest habitable planet."

"I must say," Pete, said, "that it seems a bit harsh."

Rose reached out and held Angel's hand. "Oh Angel, I am so sorry, I know how it feels to be stranded here, it happened to me a few years ago, and it was agony." Angel's hand felt strange and she looked down to inspect it. "Oh, you have six fingers."

"Hexadactyl appendages, brilliant," John said. "So, what was the deal with the cocoon then?"

"It happens when a drone is separated from the family that they serve, we transform and gain our sex."

"Mmmm, must be some sort of suppressive pheromone," John theorised.

"Oh, and these," Angel said, as the open back of her hospital gown fluttered, and a pair of bat like wings spread out either side of her.

EJ's eyes and mouth were wide in amazement. "Cor, it's Bat Woman. Cool."