A/N – Good lord I can't believe my eyes! An update? From a dead fic? Well yes, I know it's been ten years but I found my old files and decided to brush them off to try to continue this story. I'll finish it eventually, my ideas for it are still fresh as ever, I'm just incredibly lazy. As such, this chapter is pretty short to help me get into the swing of writing this fic again but the next chapter will be much longer, I promise! Thanks a lot guys!
The moment Martha had taken off running after the alien who had kidnapped Rose, knocking one of them out in the process, the situation for Rose's team became a whole lot more complicated. The mother fled towards her son, and taking the distraction for what it was, Dean swung his legs over the side of the table, forcing himself to stand, though his legs very nearly gave way underneath him. Like Rose herself, each of the team all had secret pockets on their person which held something of importance to them. In Dean's case, it was an extra gun. You never knew when you'd end up disarmed, and it always helped to have some kind of defence upon your person. Normal pistols didn't tend to work well upon aliens, but at the least, it slowed some of them down, and that was all they needed.
"Let's get out of here!" Dean ordered, and the others began to struggle from their tables, still disorientated, but able to recognise a dangerous situation. "We need to get Rose back!"
"It took Rose?" Meredith's voice was thick from sleep; sluggish almost, but the realisation of just how dire the situation was seemed to wake her up completely. She pushed herself to stand, slowly wobbling on unstable legs before her expression hardened. "Which way?" She had a date with the blonde she planned to keep, and she wouldn't lose anybody else she cared about.
"None of you will LEAVE THISSSSS ROOM ALIVE!"
The alien mother's furious screech caught them off guard, but served to wake Bobby and Trent up. Though they couldn't understand a word the alien said without their translators, it was obvious she was angry. Lifting the gun, Dean fired, hitting S'lithma in the upper shoulder. She shrieked in pain and anger, her body beginning to twist and morph. She would destroy them all now, before they had the chance to escape.
With the feisty human female in their possession, they would no longer need the other humans as a food resource. 'Rose' would serve to sustain them for a VERY long time.
"Holy Shit," Trent's words were more than enough to sum up the general mood within the room as S'lithma transformed from her bipedal state into a completely terrifying wolfish monster. They'd faced a lot together but this was something else entirely. Fixating her gaze upon Meredith, S'lithma dove, claws extended and teeth bared. Meredith dove to the side, her training kicking in reflexively, leading S'lithma to crush two of the beds they'd been trapped upon with her leap. At the same time, Dean began to fire once more. This time, however, his bullets only seemed to ricochet from the alien's body, and he swore under his breath as her gaze roamed around to fixate upon him.
"GET DOWN!"
Immediately, the team took cover at the sound of a familiar voice to them all, ducking down to avoid the impending fire from the back-up squad. They'd arrived just in time, and as the shrieks of the furious alien mother came to an end, the team peered out from their cover, and Dean heaved a sigh, seeing Mickey quickly approaching.
"You've got no idea how good it is to see you, Smith."
The relief in Dean's voice was palpable, and Mickey grinned, reaching out a hand to help him up.
"I might have an idea."
Once the stunned aliens had been rounded up and contained in Torchwood's strongest bonds, The Doctor had approached, and before Mickey and Jake could greet him, they saw from the look on his face that something was obviously wrong.
Rose. Mickey thought instantly, and he knew even without confirmation that he was right. Something happened to Rose.
Staring impassively down at the stunned aliens, The Doctor slowly curled his hands into fists. He needed answers from them; he didn't know anything about this species of alien, and without information, he couldn't help Rose. He could still recall how cold her skin had been under his fingertips, and the thought he might lose her just when he'd gotten her back? It left little room for pleasant negotiations in his mind.
"Can you wake her up?" The Doctor crouched down, gesturing to the alien he'd been informed was in charge, and beside him, Jake and Mickey exchanged a look. They were restrained, it would be safe but… well, willingly waking up an alien they'd just captured wasn't something they did often. If it could help Rose, though, it was necessary.
"Sure can." Mickey moved forward, taking a syringe of some sort from Jake, who lifted his eyebrows slightly, but Mickey shook his head. "Might wanna move back a bit though, it works fast." He warned, but The Doctor didn't move from his spot, nor did he tear his gaze from the alien. Recognising the look on his face, Mickey nodded, slipping the needle into the neck of the alien, before he pressed the plunger, injecting a dark blue liquid into her body, before drawing back as her eyes began to open.
Once S'lithma regained consciousness, her situation seemed to hit her immediately, and her pupils shrank before she struggled in her binds, forked tongue leaving her lips in a furious hiss, trying to dart forward to attack the person closest to her; The Doctor. Jake lifted his gun instantly as S'lithma shrieked and writhed in her bonds, but The Doctor didn't flinch, choosing to simply stare at her.
"What did you do to Rose?" The Doctor asked quietly, and S'lithma sneered at her, tongue running over her sharp teeth slowly, though she didn't respond. The Doctor's eyes hardened, hints of the Oncoming Storm shining within his eyes, and he leaned forward slowly. "What did you do to Rose?" He repeated slowly, and though his voice was calm, there was something bubbling underneath the surface.
"Sssshe would have made an excellent meal." S'lithma hissed in response, her eyes truly focusing upon him for the first time, before they widened ever so slightly. "Assss would you…" Her tongue flicked outwards, much like the tongue of a snake testing the air around it. "Sssso ssssimilar… your livessss stretching onwardsss with no end…"
"What does that mean?" The Doctor asked sharply, his fingernails now digging into his palms, trying to make sense of her words. Lives stretching onward with no end? It was evident from those words and from her mention of meals that whoever they were, these aliens fed on time energy, or rather, the lifespan of others. To them, he must seem like the ultimate meal, but Rose…? "Rose is a human, her life is finite." He ignored the pang in his chest as he thought of that inevitability; one day, Rose would die.
"Perhapssss, but I could taste her lifespan. It never fadessss." S'lithma let out a wheezy chuckle, and The Doctor tried to ignore the small bud of hope blossoming within him. That would only lead to disappointment, and he needed to focus on waking Rose before anything else. Once they were back in their own dimension, he could run some scans, just to… make sure.
"You didn't answer my question, what did you do to Rose?" The Doctor asked again, forced calm radiating from every inch of his body. Rose being in danger had never sat well with him, and knowing he was wasting time listening to cryptic words from an alien being he didn't know left him incredibly on edge.
"Mi'raani have wayssss of incapacitating our prey… our clawsss are filled with a poison which sendssss them into an eternal ssssleep." S'lithma smiled coyly, enjoying the effect her words were clearly having upon The Doctor. "We often hunt before we feed, then when we catch our prey, we send them to slumber, and we feed. Sssssleeping ensuressss several dayssss worth of food…"
"Hold on, if you can do that, then why did you have the agents hooked up to machines?" Mickey asked from behind them, and S'lithma fixed her gazed on him, blinking slowly in response, lips curling into an unhappy scowl. "How'd you even get all this tech?"
"We are scavengerssss. We built the machine, and we discovered ways to turn our venom into gassss… hunting on thissss planet is not easy… we knew of Torchwood. We chose to not hunt but lure our prey close then use gassss to keep them silent and sleeping, but the gassss is not as potent assss our venom so the machinesssss fed the gas into their mindssss…" S'lithma retorted, and slowly, The Doctor pushed himself up to stand.
"How do I wake her up?" He asked quietly, and he loathed the look of smug triumph on S'lithma's face at his question, because instantly, he knew the answer.
"You can't."
"The hell does that mean?!" Mickey stepped forward, eyes blazing, though The Doctor remained quiet. All this talk of Rose being hurt somehow, of Rose not waking up; he'd kept (mostly) quiet for The Doctor's interrogation but this? He couldn't keep quiet about this. "You better be able to wake her up, you did this to her, so you fix it!" The alien sneered in response to his shout, sharp teeth glinting dangerously.
"What part of eternal sssssleep do you not understand?" She shot back. "There isssss no need to wake our victims. We kept them ssssustained in sleep with the gassss so when they were nearing the end of their usefulness to ussss, we would wake them, and I would give my sonssss the thrill of the hunt once more. But the girl was too preciousssss to usssss to lose."
Rose certainly was precious to the Mi'raani if what S'lithma said was to be believed, but there was somebody to whom she was MUCH more precious, and that was The Doctor.
"Mickey, get all of their lab equipment back to Torchwood, including any samples of the venom you find. I'll need everything I can get to find an antidote." The Doctor turned from S'lithma, focusing his gaze on the other male instead. "If you don't find any, then we'll take it from one of them somehow. If humans can milk a snake for its venom, they can milk Mi'raani for the same thing."
"We'll figure somethin' out, boss." Mickey promised, nodding his head once. "We'll get you that venom somehow." If anybody could get Rose to wake up and do the impossible, it would be The Doctor, and Mickey would play his part to help his best friend, regardless of what that role was.
"Though I must say, ssssshe made for a good final hunt." S'lithma's tongue slipped out once more, running over her thin, pale lips. "Ssssshe was fierce and quick, teeth bared and hacklessss high when ssshe finally faced usss… A little wolf." The Doctor paused briefly, his fingers unclenching a fraction before he started to walk, tuning out her laughter, an unreadable expression on his face.
I'll wake you up Rose, just hold on.
Martha may not have completed her medical training back in her own dimension, but there was still a lot she knew about the human body. She knew normal vital signs of a healthy human, the reasonable temperatures they should be, the speed of a regular heartbeat and much, much more.
This… was not normal.
Rose's body still lay wrapped within the blanket she'd encased around her to try to warm her up, but now she was - well, she was glowing. Martha had never seen anything like it before, but Rose was definitely glowing, her body radiating a soft golden shimmer, and slowly, she inhaled, and instead of taking short breaths, as she had been before, Rose's breathing evened out. It matched that of somebody within a deep sleep, Martha noted, and the glow began to fade from sight, leaving the medical student utterly bemused.
Hesitantly, Martha dropped her head to Rose's chest, listening for the sound of her heartbeat. The Doctor had said it was slow, but judging from what Martha knew, it was completely normal; there was even colour returning to her cheeks, pale skin turning a soft rosy pink.
Still, despite everything seeming completely normal, Rose still didn't wake up.
That was definitely not right.
Though something in her gut didn't sit right with her, Martha kept the news of Rose's glowing skin to herself as Torchwood medical operatives rushed towards them, wheeling a stretcher as they went. Whatever was going on with Rose, Martha felt like The Doctor would have a much better chance of figuring it out.
Somehow.