Part 04 - Chapter 07 - Pilot Fish
The rest of the day goes pretty quietly as mum and I catch up on what has been happening at the estates. A few more times I go down and check on the Doctor and, in spite of everything, he seems to be managing pretty well other than his continued unconsciousness caused by his healing trance and an intermittent fever which is worrisome as his temperature normally drops not rises when he enters one, but it's not unexpected there would be odd consequences considering the odd nature of and the extent of damage the Vortex energy did. Verity estimates it may be a few days before he gets back to feeling normal again, assuming everything goes well, so most likely sometime tomorrow he will be up and about.
We also are making good progress, for the most part, but by noon it is obvious how tired I am and mum finally convinces me to go rest and I haven't the heart to refuse as she makes up my bed in that violently pink bedroom that used to be both my kingdom and refuge as a child. At least a dozen times throughout the morning I have had to hide as I feel the vortex energy continue to be expelled and I try to ensure we don't have a repeat of the episode right before we went downstairs that I could tell was quite disturbing not just for me but her as well. As she leaves me to sleep I roll about a bit trying to get comfortable but there are so many thoughts running through my mind. I get up for a time to stare at myself in the mirror and think about what it will be like being with Theta in this body. I know from Verity’s memories and my own experiences so far that our senses are much sharper than humans and so much wider in scope and I can’t help shivering as I think of some of the possibilities, before finally surrendering to the creeping fatigue and sleeping.
*************************
It’s so hard to get my mind around. In so many ways she is still my Rose but she has changed in little ways that are hard to define. A gesture here, an odd phrase there, but as the day has progressed I have come to realize that, just as she said, she is still my Rose. The Doctor better realize what a gift she has given him or I may have to kill him myself. In so many ways it makes such sense that she would be willing to do this for him, but I still worry. I knew even before she ran off with the TARDIS, before she went back to that space station, that she was hopelessly in love with him, but I had always hoped that if he disappeared some day that she would be able to get over him - I now know that it was wishful thinking. She may no longer be human but it seems that in all the ways that count she still is my daughter and I don’t want to see her hurt.
As I think about the last few hours I know were going to have to talk about any possible food allergies she might have now that I should be careful of and I can’t suppress the shudder when I think about what she had showed me when I mentioned giving the Doctor aspirin. I am also pretty sure that there is something about her room in the flat here that is distressing her but as she refuses to say anything about it I figure it is for the best if I just wait for her to bring it up.
This is definitely turning into one of the strangest Christmas Eve’s I have experienced and I wonder what else is in store when that Doctor of hers wakes up. I wonder if he is going to put up a fuss about staying and insist they take off again, like he did when she first came back after being gone for a year, or if he is going to be marginally more tolerant, like the time when they came back to help us with the porcupine people - at least then he was willing to have a cuppa. I wonder if it would be too much to hope that they would actually stick around for a proper Christmas dinner?
As I look in on Rose sleeping she looks so much like the little girl who would head off to Henrick’s and who I had to remind not to be late for work only a year and half ago; my daughter the alien. As I watch another small curl of that golden mist drifts from her partially open lips and I wonder what it means and if it really will finally stop happening so she will be able to live as normal as she is going to be able to from now on.
I wonder how Mickey is going to take that Rose is no longer human. I mean it’s one thing to have your girl dump you for an alien and take off traveling with him, but it’s another entirely to know that she has been changed into one, but this news isn’t for me to tell him. It was obvious that it was hard enough for her to tell me, but still he did know that Rose and the Doctor were sleeping together so at least it won’t be like she is breaking up with him at the same time.
I hear the knock at the door and I figure it must be Mickey; it’s not like I am expecting anyone else, particularly after how she rushed out of here to go rescue the Doctor I didn’t have any idea whether she would even be back. Even though I hoped I couldn’t help but wonder if this would be another Christmas I would sit home wondering if my daughter would make it back and I couldn’t really muster the cheer to arrange any kind of party nor the desire to want to attend anyone else’s not knowing Rose’s fate.
“Hi Mickey, come on in.”
“Hi Jacks, how’s Rose?”
“Resting right now but at least she isn’t quite so sick as she was last night. We even were able to go down to check on the Doctor and she seems content he too is doing okay. Fancy a cup?”
“Could murder one.”
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I hear voices coming from the other room and before I even move I know that Mickey has arrived. The faint scent of his aftershave, and the smell of tea wafting in from the kitchen tell me that mum is doing her usual when in doubt serve tea routine. In the other room I hear the TV announcing that some space probe is going to be displaying pictures of Mars in a few hours. Hearing a voice I recognize coming from the tele I finally get up. Looking at this excessively pink room I know that I don’t intend to be sleeping in here again tonight.
“Is that Harriet Jones, mum?” I ask as I head for the living room and am startled to find her speaking about the space probe. “Why’s she on the tele?”
“She’s Prime Minister now, I’m 18 quid better off now. They’re callin’ it Britain’s golden age. I keep on saying my Rose has met her.”
“I did more than that, I stopped world war three with her; Harriet Jones.”
I stand for a few moments wondering at both Harriet as Prime Minister and this space probe she is going on about. Some how it doesn’t seem quite as spectacular after everything I have seen, just getting to see a few rocks and dust on the surface of Mars. I know, though, that this is as close to the stars as most will ever get and I realize again how very special and unique my life is, even before I consider that I am no longer human. How very much my life has changed in the last two years. It’s still hard to believe at times that a little over a year and a half ago Earth time I was an ordinary teenager with dreams of settling down and trying to make a go of it with Mickey.
‘You were never anything other than special Rose even when you didn’t know what was in store for your future.’
‘I…’
‘No, Rose you have always been special, even if you didn’t realize it at the time.’ I can’t help but smile at Verity’s gently chiding tone in my mind and almost miss when Mickey suggests we go get in some last minute shopping.
He looks so hopeful, so worried and I can’t help feeling that he too will have some adjusting to the idea that his ex is now an alien. “Sure. Let me get dressed and pop down to check on the Doctor for a mo and I will be right back.
*********************
It seems impossible - one minute Rose and Mickey were walking along looking through the shops and street vendor’s goods, trying to figure out how to talk about what had happened and why we had been in the condition we had been when we got back from the Gamestation, the next we are running for our lives from homicidal Santas. I am unsure why they are chasing us but I know without question they are, and if they are after Mickey and Rose then Theta and Jackie too could be at risk. I mentally reach out to Theta, as Mickey directs the cab we have acquired back toward the estates. While I try to call my mum and constantly keep getting a busy signal, I feel Verity reach out to the Doctor.
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‘Verity? Where’s Rose? Is she okay?’
I am careful to hide Rose the best I can and minimize and my presence in his mind. He will think I am mad at him but I dare not let him know right now what has happened between Rose and I and the last thing we need is for him to discover what has occurred when we are not both right here with him. I am uncertain on how he is going to react when he discovers what we have done and I have no intention of having this conversation when Rose is not physically within touching distance of him.
‘She is fine right now’ and I feel him tense at my wording, ‘Theta, she went out for a bit with Mickey to get her mum a Christmas present and try to explain what happened at the Gamestation. But something is happening and she is worried about you and her mum’s safety. She and Mickey are coming back as quickly as they can to the estates…’ Before I can say anything further he is moving toward the front doors of the TARDIS clad in no more than a pair of jim-jams. I want so much to stop him from leaving, to try to protect him, but I can’t, knowing how scared Rose is that the deadly Santa’s may find their way back to Jackie before she gets back.
I feel how it takes a toll on him as he pushes up the stairwell to Jackie’s flat and how out of breath he is when he gets there, what he finds when he does though makes it clear letting him out of my walls was the right choice. As he steps in the door he uses his sonic to blow up a killer Christmas tree that seems to be intent on ensuring that Jackie stays in the flat. The damage already in evidence making it very clear that if she had tried to leave that more of the walls of the flat would have become only so much kindling wood and that it was more thing willing to ensure their hostage wouldn’t leave, even if that meant using deadly force.
Even as he sags against the wall in exhaustion, I can feel Rose and Mickey flying up the steps in a desperate attempt to get to Theta and Jackie, even though I have been careful to hide Rose from Theta, Rose is more than aware of the things I have been seeing and feeling through my connection with him. We both can feel this was too much for him too soon but he refuses to lie still until Rose and Mickey can get to him. Instead he forces his already overtaxed body to stand and move to the rail to insure their safety as they ascend the stairs. I see through his eyes as the robotic Santas materialize in the court directly below them and feel his steely determination as he forces his arm up to point the sonic in their direction. Rose and Mickey arrive just as the Robotic Santas acknowledge his threat and again disappear.
“Doctor!” I feel us both shout through Rose as he staggers back and slumps against the wall.
“Pilot fish.” He mumbles and I get the sense of a vicious predatory creature surrounded by small seemingly harmless fish.
“Doctor please,” I plead along with Rose as she tries to help support him. “Mickey help me get ‘im in the flat!” Even as they begin to turn to reenter I feel a ball of vortex energy surge forth to be expelled through his lips and his whole body doubles forward in pain nearly pulling him from Rose and Mickey’s supporting hold.
“What’s happening, Doctor?” Jackie’s panicked cry comes as Rose and Mickey try to navigate him to the closest room.
“I’m bursting with energy!” he groans out between gasping breaths as we stagger down the hall. “Too much exposure to the vortex. Haven’t finished purging the extra energy. The Pilot fish could smell it a million miles away. They eliminate the defense, that’s you lot and the carry me off. The could run their batteries off me for a couple of years.” As he says this both Rose and I both know that it isn’t the energy he has been expelling, as I had collected virtually all of that as he was sheltered within my walls. Instead the energy that was putting them all in jeopardy, the energy that had drawn them in, was that which has been working it’s way out of Rose’s system, not Thetas.
I can feel his thoughts growing more confused and chaotic as he continues to fight to stay conscious and help us understand the danger we are in, but with an additional cry of agony he buckles to his knees and I can now see the danger he is in as another surge of energy pours from his lips.
“Oh my head, I’m having a neuron implosion, I need…”
“Tea!” Rose exclaims as she sees the need as clearly as I do in his mind.
Mickey and Jackie stare at her like she has lost her mind but Theta’s vigorous head nodding quickly sends Jackie scurrying for the kitchen to prepare the much-needed beverage.
Even in spite of his desperate need to return to his healing trance he will not stop speaking and, if it was not for hearing his continued words through Rose, I would be completely panicked as suddenly I lose the connection with his mind.
“We haven’t got much time if there is pilot fish then,” another cry of pain from him sends terror streaking through my circuits. “The pilot fish mean…” his breath is now coming in harsh ragged gasps and I push Rose to urge him to rest.
“Doctor, please, you…” but he cuts her off and I can tell from the expression on his face that he is no longer really hearing her.
“That… that something is comin’.” Even as the words tumble from his lips his eyes roll back and he collapses into unconsciousness.
As quickly as they can they half drag, half carry, his now unresisting body to Jackie’s bed, hers being the closet room to the door. The loss of the connection to his mind tells me how deep a coma he has fallen into and I fear for his life at this point. The strain has been too much for him and waking early has released more energy at one time than he could safely manage to expel. I don’t know how much more he can take physically and much as I am desperate to have him with my walls so I can protect him I know that trying to move him now will do him more harm to then good. As I reach out to move myself closer to him I can feel how his injuries have affected me and the newly establish connection with Rose has yet to become stable enough for me to have any confidence in getting anywhere closer to him. I know with a sickening certainty that I am not in enough control yet to be able to try such a finely controlled jump as landing with the walls of Jackie’s apartment.
‘What can we do Verity?’ as I feel her almost timid thoughts I am acutely reminded that I am no longer alone in my own mind. Which both terrifies and comforts me simultaneously.
‘I need for you to get his vitals,’ and with that I show her how.
His ragged breathing, convulsive shivering and suddenly spiking fever tell us of the battle he is fighting to hold his own against the damage and still too high energy levels in his system that need to be corrected. Long minutes later we have determined he is his far worse than we had feared as his left heart has actually stopped beating. As we work with Mickey to help to get it restarted and I finally feel it’s first stuttering arrhythmic beats we know it is going to be a very long night indeed.
Chapter 08 - The Christmas Invasion Moving Forward Index 1
We also are making good progress, for the most part, but by noon it is obvious how tired I am and mum finally convinces me to go rest and I haven't the heart to refuse as she makes up my bed in that violently pink bedroom that used to be both my kingdom and refuge as a child. At least a dozen times throughout the morning I have had to hide as I feel the vortex energy continue to be expelled and I try to ensure we don't have a repeat of the episode right before we went downstairs that I could tell was quite disturbing not just for me but her as well. As she leaves me to sleep I roll about a bit trying to get comfortable but there are so many thoughts running through my mind. I get up for a time to stare at myself in the mirror and think about what it will be like being with Theta in this body. I know from Verity’s memories and my own experiences so far that our senses are much sharper than humans and so much wider in scope and I can’t help shivering as I think of some of the possibilities, before finally surrendering to the creeping fatigue and sleeping.
*************************
It’s so hard to get my mind around. In so many ways she is still my Rose but she has changed in little ways that are hard to define. A gesture here, an odd phrase there, but as the day has progressed I have come to realize that, just as she said, she is still my Rose. The Doctor better realize what a gift she has given him or I may have to kill him myself. In so many ways it makes such sense that she would be willing to do this for him, but I still worry. I knew even before she ran off with the TARDIS, before she went back to that space station, that she was hopelessly in love with him, but I had always hoped that if he disappeared some day that she would be able to get over him - I now know that it was wishful thinking. She may no longer be human but it seems that in all the ways that count she still is my daughter and I don’t want to see her hurt.
As I think about the last few hours I know were going to have to talk about any possible food allergies she might have now that I should be careful of and I can’t suppress the shudder when I think about what she had showed me when I mentioned giving the Doctor aspirin. I am also pretty sure that there is something about her room in the flat here that is distressing her but as she refuses to say anything about it I figure it is for the best if I just wait for her to bring it up.
This is definitely turning into one of the strangest Christmas Eve’s I have experienced and I wonder what else is in store when that Doctor of hers wakes up. I wonder if he is going to put up a fuss about staying and insist they take off again, like he did when she first came back after being gone for a year, or if he is going to be marginally more tolerant, like the time when they came back to help us with the porcupine people - at least then he was willing to have a cuppa. I wonder if it would be too much to hope that they would actually stick around for a proper Christmas dinner?
As I look in on Rose sleeping she looks so much like the little girl who would head off to Henrick’s and who I had to remind not to be late for work only a year and half ago; my daughter the alien. As I watch another small curl of that golden mist drifts from her partially open lips and I wonder what it means and if it really will finally stop happening so she will be able to live as normal as she is going to be able to from now on.
I wonder how Mickey is going to take that Rose is no longer human. I mean it’s one thing to have your girl dump you for an alien and take off traveling with him, but it’s another entirely to know that she has been changed into one, but this news isn’t for me to tell him. It was obvious that it was hard enough for her to tell me, but still he did know that Rose and the Doctor were sleeping together so at least it won’t be like she is breaking up with him at the same time.
I hear the knock at the door and I figure it must be Mickey; it’s not like I am expecting anyone else, particularly after how she rushed out of here to go rescue the Doctor I didn’t have any idea whether she would even be back. Even though I hoped I couldn’t help but wonder if this would be another Christmas I would sit home wondering if my daughter would make it back and I couldn’t really muster the cheer to arrange any kind of party nor the desire to want to attend anyone else’s not knowing Rose’s fate.
“Hi Mickey, come on in.”
“Hi Jacks, how’s Rose?”
“Resting right now but at least she isn’t quite so sick as she was last night. We even were able to go down to check on the Doctor and she seems content he too is doing okay. Fancy a cup?”
“Could murder one.”
*************************
I hear voices coming from the other room and before I even move I know that Mickey has arrived. The faint scent of his aftershave, and the smell of tea wafting in from the kitchen tell me that mum is doing her usual when in doubt serve tea routine. In the other room I hear the TV announcing that some space probe is going to be displaying pictures of Mars in a few hours. Hearing a voice I recognize coming from the tele I finally get up. Looking at this excessively pink room I know that I don’t intend to be sleeping in here again tonight.
“Is that Harriet Jones, mum?” I ask as I head for the living room and am startled to find her speaking about the space probe. “Why’s she on the tele?”
“She’s Prime Minister now, I’m 18 quid better off now. They’re callin’ it Britain’s golden age. I keep on saying my Rose has met her.”
“I did more than that, I stopped world war three with her; Harriet Jones.”
I stand for a few moments wondering at both Harriet as Prime Minister and this space probe she is going on about. Some how it doesn’t seem quite as spectacular after everything I have seen, just getting to see a few rocks and dust on the surface of Mars. I know, though, that this is as close to the stars as most will ever get and I realize again how very special and unique my life is, even before I consider that I am no longer human. How very much my life has changed in the last two years. It’s still hard to believe at times that a little over a year and a half ago Earth time I was an ordinary teenager with dreams of settling down and trying to make a go of it with Mickey.
‘You were never anything other than special Rose even when you didn’t know what was in store for your future.’
‘I…’
‘No, Rose you have always been special, even if you didn’t realize it at the time.’ I can’t help but smile at Verity’s gently chiding tone in my mind and almost miss when Mickey suggests we go get in some last minute shopping.
He looks so hopeful, so worried and I can’t help feeling that he too will have some adjusting to the idea that his ex is now an alien. “Sure. Let me get dressed and pop down to check on the Doctor for a mo and I will be right back.
*********************
It seems impossible - one minute Rose and Mickey were walking along looking through the shops and street vendor’s goods, trying to figure out how to talk about what had happened and why we had been in the condition we had been when we got back from the Gamestation, the next we are running for our lives from homicidal Santas. I am unsure why they are chasing us but I know without question they are, and if they are after Mickey and Rose then Theta and Jackie too could be at risk. I mentally reach out to Theta, as Mickey directs the cab we have acquired back toward the estates. While I try to call my mum and constantly keep getting a busy signal, I feel Verity reach out to the Doctor.
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‘Verity? Where’s Rose? Is she okay?’
I am careful to hide Rose the best I can and minimize and my presence in his mind. He will think I am mad at him but I dare not let him know right now what has happened between Rose and I and the last thing we need is for him to discover what has occurred when we are not both right here with him. I am uncertain on how he is going to react when he discovers what we have done and I have no intention of having this conversation when Rose is not physically within touching distance of him.
‘She is fine right now’ and I feel him tense at my wording, ‘Theta, she went out for a bit with Mickey to get her mum a Christmas present and try to explain what happened at the Gamestation. But something is happening and she is worried about you and her mum’s safety. She and Mickey are coming back as quickly as they can to the estates…’ Before I can say anything further he is moving toward the front doors of the TARDIS clad in no more than a pair of jim-jams. I want so much to stop him from leaving, to try to protect him, but I can’t, knowing how scared Rose is that the deadly Santa’s may find their way back to Jackie before she gets back.
I feel how it takes a toll on him as he pushes up the stairwell to Jackie’s flat and how out of breath he is when he gets there, what he finds when he does though makes it clear letting him out of my walls was the right choice. As he steps in the door he uses his sonic to blow up a killer Christmas tree that seems to be intent on ensuring that Jackie stays in the flat. The damage already in evidence making it very clear that if she had tried to leave that more of the walls of the flat would have become only so much kindling wood and that it was more thing willing to ensure their hostage wouldn’t leave, even if that meant using deadly force.
Even as he sags against the wall in exhaustion, I can feel Rose and Mickey flying up the steps in a desperate attempt to get to Theta and Jackie, even though I have been careful to hide Rose from Theta, Rose is more than aware of the things I have been seeing and feeling through my connection with him. We both can feel this was too much for him too soon but he refuses to lie still until Rose and Mickey can get to him. Instead he forces his already overtaxed body to stand and move to the rail to insure their safety as they ascend the stairs. I see through his eyes as the robotic Santas materialize in the court directly below them and feel his steely determination as he forces his arm up to point the sonic in their direction. Rose and Mickey arrive just as the Robotic Santas acknowledge his threat and again disappear.
“Doctor!” I feel us both shout through Rose as he staggers back and slumps against the wall.
“Pilot fish.” He mumbles and I get the sense of a vicious predatory creature surrounded by small seemingly harmless fish.
“Doctor please,” I plead along with Rose as she tries to help support him. “Mickey help me get ‘im in the flat!” Even as they begin to turn to reenter I feel a ball of vortex energy surge forth to be expelled through his lips and his whole body doubles forward in pain nearly pulling him from Rose and Mickey’s supporting hold.
“What’s happening, Doctor?” Jackie’s panicked cry comes as Rose and Mickey try to navigate him to the closest room.
“I’m bursting with energy!” he groans out between gasping breaths as we stagger down the hall. “Too much exposure to the vortex. Haven’t finished purging the extra energy. The Pilot fish could smell it a million miles away. They eliminate the defense, that’s you lot and the carry me off. The could run their batteries off me for a couple of years.” As he says this both Rose and I both know that it isn’t the energy he has been expelling, as I had collected virtually all of that as he was sheltered within my walls. Instead the energy that was putting them all in jeopardy, the energy that had drawn them in, was that which has been working it’s way out of Rose’s system, not Thetas.
I can feel his thoughts growing more confused and chaotic as he continues to fight to stay conscious and help us understand the danger we are in, but with an additional cry of agony he buckles to his knees and I can now see the danger he is in as another surge of energy pours from his lips.
“Oh my head, I’m having a neuron implosion, I need…”
“Tea!” Rose exclaims as she sees the need as clearly as I do in his mind.
Mickey and Jackie stare at her like she has lost her mind but Theta’s vigorous head nodding quickly sends Jackie scurrying for the kitchen to prepare the much-needed beverage.
Even in spite of his desperate need to return to his healing trance he will not stop speaking and, if it was not for hearing his continued words through Rose, I would be completely panicked as suddenly I lose the connection with his mind.
“We haven’t got much time if there is pilot fish then,” another cry of pain from him sends terror streaking through my circuits. “The pilot fish mean…” his breath is now coming in harsh ragged gasps and I push Rose to urge him to rest.
“Doctor, please, you…” but he cuts her off and I can tell from the expression on his face that he is no longer really hearing her.
“That… that something is comin’.” Even as the words tumble from his lips his eyes roll back and he collapses into unconsciousness.
As quickly as they can they half drag, half carry, his now unresisting body to Jackie’s bed, hers being the closet room to the door. The loss of the connection to his mind tells me how deep a coma he has fallen into and I fear for his life at this point. The strain has been too much for him and waking early has released more energy at one time than he could safely manage to expel. I don’t know how much more he can take physically and much as I am desperate to have him with my walls so I can protect him I know that trying to move him now will do him more harm to then good. As I reach out to move myself closer to him I can feel how his injuries have affected me and the newly establish connection with Rose has yet to become stable enough for me to have any confidence in getting anywhere closer to him. I know with a sickening certainty that I am not in enough control yet to be able to try such a finely controlled jump as landing with the walls of Jackie’s apartment.
‘What can we do Verity?’ as I feel her almost timid thoughts I am acutely reminded that I am no longer alone in my own mind. Which both terrifies and comforts me simultaneously.
‘I need for you to get his vitals,’ and with that I show her how.
His ragged breathing, convulsive shivering and suddenly spiking fever tell us of the battle he is fighting to hold his own against the damage and still too high energy levels in his system that need to be corrected. Long minutes later we have determined he is his far worse than we had feared as his left heart has actually stopped beating. As we work with Mickey to help to get it restarted and I finally feel it’s first stuttering arrhythmic beats we know it is going to be a very long night indeed.
Chapter 08 - The Christmas Invasion Moving Forward Index 1