lostwolf | Acquainted with the Night

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Chapter 4. Room for the Night

The suite they had been assigned was magnificent; it looked larger than her mum’s flat and had a lounge area as well as a palatial bathroom with a luxurious looking claw-foot bath and separate multi-jet shower and an impressive bedroom. The bed, a four-poster, was enormous and draped in diaphanous silks which were tied back in elaborate swaths at each post. It would also, Rose noted with relief, comfortably hold the pair of them, dramatically reducing the likelihood of her embarrassing herself. If the worse came to the worse there was always the comfortable looking sofa in the lounge area.   While the bed might be large enough to prevent unnecessary physical contact, there was one small problem; neither of them had anything with them but the clothes they stood up in. She bit her lip and turned to the Doctor who was staring broodily out of the large panoramic window that formed one entire wall of the lounge.

‘Doctor, what are we gonna do about, you know, essentials?’

His eyes caught hers in her reflection in the window and he frowned, ‘Essentials?’

Rose sighed; the Doctor was so impractical sometimes, he might be happy wearing the same thing day in and day out, but she needed clothes, and underwear and toiletries. ‘You know, change of clothes, tooth brush, stuff like that?’

‘Oh, I really don’t think we’ll be here for too long, Rose. We can buy a few bits and pieces tomorrow, if you want.’

‘What about tonight?’

‘Shops are shut, Rose,’ he said wearily.

She shook her head impatiently, ‘I mean, what am I gonna sleep in?’

His lips formed a perfect ‘o’ as his forehead wrinkled and eyes widened. Then the comical expression was gone and nonchalant and somewhat condescending indifference replaced it. Wordlessly, he stripped off his jacket and jumper, revealing a white t-shirt. He whipped it over his head and chucked it at her, before shrugging back into his jumper.

‘That do you?’ He asked. Rose simply gawked at him, still reeling from the brief but mesmerising sight of his firm, muscled, naked torso. ‘Rose?’

At his second question, with its vague undercurrent of amusement, she snapped her mouth closed and nodded hurriedly, clutching the t-shirt tight against her. ‘I’ll …I’ll just go…’ she gestured vaguely towards the bathroom and, as he raised an eyebrow, swung away from his reflection and his dancing eyes and fled, as quickly as she dared, from the room.

The Doctor watched Rose’s embarrassed retreat, wondering what on Earth had possessed him to offer her his t-shirt and, more importantly, why he had seen fit to strip it off in front of her. There were bound to be robes in the bathroom, he could have just suggested she sleep in one of those, but no, he’d felt compelled to give her his clothing, to see, against her skin, something that had also been against his own. To see her clothed in something that smelt of him, that was his.

He screwed up his eyes and ran his thick fingers through his close-cropped hair. He really needed to get control of himself, but nearly losing her on Phoses had stripped him of all pretence and it seemed as if the Universe was conspiring against him as he fought to re-establish some distance.   He was no longer under an illusion that he could manage without her but he had hoped, by dragging them back into the vortex, he would have time to get his wayward emotions under control. This small little human child had inveigled herself into his hearts until he didn’t understand how he had ever functioned without her by his side. Her hand in his was the most magical sensation, holding her in his arms as close to peace he had experienced since the Time war, perhaps since before even then. He knew she wasn’t his, but he wanted her to be, more than he dared acknowledge. He was a foolish old man who had just behaved like a callow youth. He forced his thoughts away from his companion and the sound of preparations for a bath that were drifting from the bathroom, and concentrated instead on the excellent view of the city.

Rose sank into the bubble filled bathtub, groaning in pleasure as the deliciously hot water enveloped her limbs, its scented goodness rising up her body in a bubble crested tide. Sniff sat on the toilet seat, watching her curiously, and she waved at him, giggling as his little tail beat frantically in response. His eyes reminded her of the Doctor’s in his least guarded moments, piercingly blue and tender. They were also dewily soft and filled with a devotion she yearned to see in her Doctor’s eyes. She just wished he could feel for her half of what she was slowly realising she felt for him. He cared for her, she knew that. Could save the world, but lose you. He cared. More than he wanted to. But, as she looked at Sniff, took in his exuberant attachment to her, she suspected that the affection she felt for the small dog was rather like the affection the Doctor felt for her. He loved her, in his way, but it wasn’t the love of a man for a woman, it was the love of a superior being for a pet. A cherished pet, but a small, uncomplicated, lesser creature nonetheless.

She wanted more, though. She wasn’t sure how much more, but she wanted to be more than a pet, a companion. Her father acting as if the Doctor was her boyfriend, so closely followed by her loss of the Doctor, albeit only temporarily, had made her confront the fact that the reason people kept mistaking them for a couple was at least in part because she wanted them to. In her head they kind of were. She’d flirted with Adam but it had been shallow, meaningless. He was cute, but where once she was sure there would have been a spark there had been nothing. Well, not nothing, there had been the Doctor. Every moment she spent with Adam she’d resented, because he wasn’t the Doctor. When he’d tried to kiss her when she’d shown him to his room, she’d immediately pulled back, wondering what the Doctor would think. She’d been relieved when his behaviour meant a quick journey back to Earth to dump him off; it meant it was just the two of them again. She slipped beneath the surface of the water in exasperation, trying to still the thoughts bothering her head in the muffling sensation of being submerged. She stayed underwater for as long as she could, waiting until her heart thundered in her ears and she was desperate to draw breath, before erupting upwards, sucking in oxygen, her mind silenced in the roar of rushing blood. Mission accomplished, she pulled herself upright and stepped from the bath, tugging a hot fluffy towel around herself and gently swiping herself dry. She could almost pretend, as she pulled the Doctor’s t-shirt over her head, that she did not inhale the ineffable scent of him that lingered there; it was just her lungs still seeking oxygen after being so recently deprived of it.

The Doctor looked up as Rose emerged from the bathroom, only to hastily avert his eyes at the sight of her, all pink and warm, clad in only the bright white of his t-shirt. It skimmed her legs at mid thigh, swamping her lithe body in what, he discovered, was the most delectable manner imaginable. He kept his eyes carefully averted, trying not to watch the ghosts of her movements in the window’s reflection. Only when he heard the bedcovers being drawn over flesh and fabric did he turned back, walking to bedroom door, reaching for the doorknob. He lingered for just a moment, drinking in the picture she made, laying against the pillows in a fairy-tale bed. Even the small curled form of the ghastly mutt somehow fitted the fantastical mood of the moment.

‘Good night, Rose,’ he whispered, drawing the door towards him.

‘Doctor?’ He paused at her soft question, hand still holding the doorknob, door partially open, ‘Aren’t you going to come to bed?’ She blushed moments later, realising how intimate her question had sounded and he grinned, trying to ignore the sudden hiccup of his hearts.

‘Nope. Time Lord, remember, don’t need as much sleep as you silly apes,’ he said with a nonchalance he was far from feeling.

‘Oh, okay.’

He smiled, ‘Night, Rose.’

‘Night, Doctor.’ He pulled the door closed and walked back onto the lounge. He’d told Rose the truth, at least in part, he didn’t need as much sleep as her. Still, it was almost a week since he’d last grabbed a nap and a lot longer than that since he had managed any quality sleep and even his superior physiology would need some rest soon. He was losing his edge, getting distracted too easily. Getting distracted by her too easily. He daren’t sleep here, though, outside the protection of the TARDIS. He would dream, he always did, and there was nowhere here where that could be done without Rose knowing. The TARDIS soundproofed his room, smothered his cries, dampened the psychic broadcasts of his night terrors, but here there was no such protection. If he slept, then Rose would know, she would see. And there was no doubt in his mind that, should she see the true darkness of his soul, she would leave him. He stood and walked to the window, staring out over the darkening city. He hoped that the Judoon would be gone soon, because he would not be able to sleep until they were.

Grabbing his jacket from the chair where he had flung it earlier, he moved silently to the door and stepped from the suite, shutting the door softly behind him. Time to find out exactly what the Judoon were doing on Babel.

First, the Doctor sought out the manager of the hotel. His psychic paper had proclaimed him to be a significant shareholder in the Babel Estoria which, in fact, he was, and he knew the manager would therefore be disposed to tell him anything he knew. Unfortunately, anything he knew turned out to be virtually nothing.

‘I am sorry, Doctor,’ the manager said mournfully, his blue skin paling with grief at his failure to be of more use to his esteemed guest, ‘but I know little more than you. The Judoon have isolated the city from the rest of the planet. There is a curfew imposed, from dusk until dawn. The planetary government has obtained assurances that activity will not be restricted during daylight hours.’

‘The force field will be lifted?’ the Doctor asked in surprise.

The manager shook his head rapidly, ‘No, no. Forgive me for being unclear. The shops will open and patrons will be able to take their recreation as normal. They will not, however, be permitted to leave until the Judoon lift the lock-down. Commerce will, however, be unaffected. If anything, business will likely improve.’ The manager grinned, ‘Captive audience,’ he chuckled, ‘Profits will most likely soar.’ The Doctor looked at the man with barely concealed disgust, was this man really so ignorant of the considerable threat the Judoon posed? They might go under the moniker of galactic police, but they were little more than thugs, dim, methodical, quick to anger and even quicker to pull the trigger.   Innocence was no defence against the Judoon; if you got in their way you were as likely to be trampled or incinerated as the felon they were after.

‘What are the Judoon after?’

‘I have no idea. It is of no concern to law abiding folk such of us. They will conduct their business and be gone. I must hope that they do not take too long finding whomever it is that they seek, however. They intend to shrink the barrier as they declare an area clear. The outer most circles contain the less popular shops, but should patrons be denied the delights of the four and fifth circles, I am afraid that they will not be happy. They have assured the government that profits will not be adversely affected, however.’ The communication port buzzed and the manager excused himself to answer. The Doctor nodded his goodbye and moved out of the manger’s office and back into the reception area. He did not share the manager’s optimism. The Judoon did not care for government imperatives. They would do whatever they needed to to apprehend whomever or whatever they sought and if that meant gradually penning in those souls unlucky enough to be resident at the heart of the city then so be it. They might be content to search only at night for the moment, but if their quarry remained elusive he doubted that magnanimity would last either.   This situation could get dangerous fast.

His eyes swept the foyer, seeking a communication port. He spotted an unoccupied booth near the bar, and strode into it, positioning himself so that his broad back shielded his actions from prying eyes. Whipping out his sonic screwdriver, he interfaced with the console, stripping away its security barriers and patching into the citywide security network. Although the Judoon were a law unto themselves, the local police force ought to have at least a rudimentary idea of what they were up to, it would have been politically necessary; the Judoon were unsophisticated but even they knew better than to alienate as rich a government as the Raxophilian authority. Within moments, he was scrolling through the police data. Information was, as he had suspected, somewhat spare, but more fulsome than the manager had been able to provide.

The Judoon were seeking five humanoid fugitives; thieves and murderers, they had plundered another popular tourist resort planet, killing six prominent guests and three members of the local constabulary who had made the mistake of getting in their way. Babel was believed to be their next target and the Judoon had sought and found their spaceship’s energy signature in the atmosphere. Armed and extremely dangerous, the fugitives, four men and one woman, were wanted dead or alive.   He grimaced. He hoped the Judoon found them soon; if not, things had the potential to get very nasty.   He scrolled though the rest of the database but found nothing further of interest. Shutting the console down and wiping the record of his activity, he headed back to the hotel room; until the fugitives were caught he wasn’t letting Rose out of his sight.

Rose only realised that she had fallen asleep as she was stirred from her slumber by the sound of the Doctor’s heavy boots returning to their suite and his muffled curse as he walked into the calf height coffee table in the middle of the lounge. She rubbed her eyes and rolled sideways to look at the clock at the bedside. It was a little past one in the morning. The Doctor had been gone for over two hours. ‘Lights, low,’ she whispered, and gentle light suffused the room. She slipped her legs out from beneath the covers and slid to the floor, her toes curling in the plush carpet beneath her feet. Sniff looked up from his position curled at the end of the bed and she reached forward to fondle his head.

‘Stay,’ she whispered, gently urging the small dog to relax. Sniff shifted to face the door, but lowered his head to sit on his front paws obediently; the message was clear, he would wait for her on the bed, but he would be keeping an eye on her. Rose grinned, thinking that Sniff was rather like a miniature Doctor, without the broody moodiness. Giving Sniff one last caress behind his floppy ears, she moved silently across the richly carpeted floor and pulled open the door.

The lounge was cast in darkness, the only light coming from behind her and through the enormous window. The Doctor was standing before the window again and, if she had not known that he had gone out, she would have imagined that he had not moved. His face was almost entirely in shadow, lit only by the sweeping beams of what she assumed were searchlights, catching his profile at odd angles and giving the hard lines of his face an eerily alien cast. He looked so stern, so forbidding that she was almost afraid to disturb him, but only almost. She moved into the room, knowing he was aware of her even though he did not acknowledge her. As she drew level with him his hand slipped towards her and she placed her own within it.

‘What did you find out?’ She asked quietly, following his gaze, taking in the splashes of what she knew must be torches, and the harsh white light of search beams.

‘There are five fugitives, killers, somewhere down there. The Judoon are searching for them. They’re pushing them inwards, moving through each street, driving them towards the centre. As they move through a street, the force field closes behind them. There’s no escape.’

‘Will it take long, to find them I mean?’

‘Nah. Bit dense, but efficient, the Judoon. We’re be out of here before you can say Raxacoricofallapatorius.’

Rose frowned, ‘But I can’t say Raxacorico … Raxa… I can’t say that, Doctor.’

He grinned at her, a little bleakly, ‘Exactly,’ he said brightly and Rose frowned even harder, trying to fathom out whether she was meant to be reassured or not.

More for his own reassurance than hers, the Doctor pulled Rose closer to his side, holding her arm rigidly straight against his own so that her body was as close to his as he could get it without embracing her.

‘It’ll be okay you know,’ he said, squeezing her fingers gently, suspecting that she did not need his reassurance but knowing that he needed to say it, needed to believe that the worry fermenting in his gut was entirely without reason.

‘I know.’

Despite the fact her voice was without doubt, or perhaps because of it, he felt compelled to strengthen his reassurance, ‘Really, we’ll just be stuck here for a while, until they catch these felons. Nothing to worry about.’

His words had barely died on his lips before the sound of gunfire split the air, the light of blaster fire and sparks of more primitive weaponry lighting up the darkened streets below.

He swallowed, ‘Right. Nothing to worry about as long as you stick with me. Should have been more specific there.’

Rose grinned, leaning into his arm. ‘We’ll be fine,’ she assured him, her tone forbidding all possibility of doubt. Since when, he wondered, had she become the one to offer reassurance? Surely that was his job? He was the Time Lord, after all. But as the night was broken by the sound of fighting once more he found himself clinging to her comforting words, her simple faith in him. Perhaps if he believed hard enough it would be sufficient to protect her from the perils of life in his company.

Chapter 5

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Date: 2008-02-23 07:25 pm (UTC)

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