The Hidden Well, Chapter Thirty
Jan. 20th, 2008 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Betas:
ivydoor,
np_complete,
platypus, and
sensiblecat
Previous Chapters
In this chapter: The Doctor teaches Jonah about shields, and everyone gears up for the envoy's arrival.
Rating: PG
Betas:
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Previous Chapters
In this chapter: The Doctor teaches Jonah about shields, and everyone gears up for the envoy's arrival.
--
"So that's it?" asked Rose. "We're done?"
"Yep," the Doctor answered. He sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed with her feet in his lap. His attention was focused on the arch of one of those feet, which he was kneading with both thumbs. Rose had to focus to keep from jerking away. It tickled, but at the same time, she didn't want him to stop doing it. "You sound surprised."
She wrinkled her nose. "I guess I just expected it to take longer. I mean, we have a whole day tomorrow before the envoy arrives."
"Well," he drawled, "it's not as if this has been smooth sailing all along."
He was right, of course. One day earlier, he had been at the point of a gun, and a woman had been killed. She studied him carefully. He was unmarked, without as much as a single dark shadow under his eyes. In turn, he focused on her feet, putting the one he had been massaging down and picking up the other, altogether too casual.
"All right?" she asked.
"Always," he said briskly, then looked up and met her gaze for several long seconds. His fingers settled around her foot and he squeezed lightly. "And you?"
She nodded quickly and his strokes resumed. Searching for another topic, she leaned back against the pillows and stretched. "Jonah's better," she said happily. "Emelia was upset, and he wanted to go and take care of her." The Doctor's slow smile of approval made her flush with pride. "I can't believe how different he is now." A worry presented itself, and she shifted uncomfortably on the bed. "When we leave, will he be all right? I know he can hear everyone around him, but no one else talks back to him like I do."
He was so quiet and still for a moment that Rose thought he might not answer her. "They can't, not like you can." He sighed. "He's learning quickly. I should be able to teach him to shield his mind from others. If he can do that, then most of his sensory issues are solved, and he should be able to learn to communicate verbally."
She thought of the fluttering beat of Jonah's anxiety from earlier this evening, when he'd asked her to take him to his mother. As soon as they had entered Frances's office, he had been completely focused on Emelia. His touch on her mind had dissipated as he focused his energy on walking forward and reaching his mum.
"Besides," the Doctor continued, "I have an idea that might just prove to be useful." He didn't elaborate, and his cat's-got-the-cream smile told her that he wasn't going to.
"Mmm," she said and nudged him with her foot. He slid his hands around her ankle. In response, she sat up and took his tie in her hands, drawing him toward her.
His smug look deepened and he uncrossed his legs, rising on his knees to shift forward and meet her lips halfway.
…
With the boys safely asleep in their room, Emelia climbed in into bed and tugged the blanket up to her chin. Connor came into the bedroom and pulled his shirt over his head, letting it drop onto the floor behind him.
"We've got the converters running at the highest efficiency I've ever seen," he told her.
She couldn't believe that, as bad as things had looked earlier in the day, they were finished with a day to spare. Even the Doctor had looked doubtful in the morning. Had he been bluffing? If he could simply disappear somewhere in his ship and, in a moment, catch them up, couldn't he have done it all along? That was a very cynical thought, even for her, especially about the man who was saving her family and her project.
She rolled over onto her side and watched as Connor changed out of his trousers and into a pair of pajama bottoms. "What's the plan for tomorrow?"
"Back to normal for the most part. Everyone's fairly keyed up, but there's not much to be done now. The Doctor has some ideas, though. You should have seen everyone's faces when his ship appeared out of nowhere." He chuckled and pulled back his side of the covers to join her in bed. "They're eating out of his hand now."
We all are, she thought, and turned out the light.
…
The next day passed by uneventfully. Rose oversaw art projects, cleaned up messes, wiped runny noses, and read to the children. With the progress that the Doctor had made the day before, they didn't need to keep the nursery open late again, so the stream of parents came in at the usual time to collect their offspring and head back to their respective homes.
By the time all of the children except Ian and Jonah had gone home, Rose had started to wonder if she should take the boys back to the Trabanes' flat herself. She and Brandon had finished putting up all of the stray books back onto the shelves. She looked up at the sound of someone approaching and was somewhat surprised to see the Doctor appear in the doorway.
"Hello," he said brightly, and sat down in one of the miniature chairs beside Jonah. He was all long legs and angles, with his knees sticking up almost to his shoulders. "Hello," he repeated.
Jonah didn't look up. He had been sitting quietly at the table since Brandon had gently guided him out of the reading area. The Doctor looked briefly up at Rose and then directed all of his attention back to the little boy.
"Jonah, I'm going to show you more of what we did the other day, so you can control what you feel. It gets to be a bit much, doesn't it?" He rearranged the chairs, half-lifting up his own to face Jonah, then pulled the leg of Jonah's chair to face him as well. "All right, then?" he asked, and as before, placed his fingers on each of Jonah's temples.
They locked eyes together and the Doctor made a few soothing sounds. While the two of them were absorbed in each other, Rose heard Emelia's voice and went to intercept the other woman.
"The Doctor's working with Jonah," she told Emelia. "He wants to teach him more about shielding his mind."
Before she could answer, Ian interrupted her by launching himself at his mother with his typical enthusiasm. "Ian," Emelia laughed, giving him a hug, "I wish I had half as much energy as you do." She glanced over at where the Doctor and Jonah sat and her face softened. "I want this to work, Rose," she said quietly.
"I do, too."
Emelia nodded and squeezed Ian back. "Honey, why don't you and I go home, and Rose and the Doctor can bring Jonah in a bit?" She looked up at Rose with her eyebrows raised.
"Sure," Rose agreed.
Behind her, Brandon was pulling on his coat. "I'll walk with you, Emelia. Rose, are you all right to close up?"
"No problem." She waved all of them good night and went to sit in an equally tiny chair on the other side of Jonah.
"You should know some of this, too," the Doctor said without shifting his gaze away from Jonah's. "It would give you some protection against any particularly powerful psychic broadcasts." He said this without any indication that the source of the last powerful broadcast she had encountered was sitting between them.
"What do I do?" In the time she had spent in close contact with his mind, he had shown her how to prevent him from seeing anything she didn't want him to by visualizing a closed door, but she didn't think that technique would protect her from other people's thoughts.
One of his hands came away from Jonah and came to rest on her temple. At once, the usual buzz of Jonah's mind became exponentially louder and coupled with it, she could feel the rush of the Doctor's myriad thoughts, the ones he usually suppressed for her. The sensation of a hundred kittens climbing up her body with their sharp claws extended jumped immediately into her mind. She jerked back from his hand and stared at him in astonishment.
"I know," he said. After the din in her head, his voice sounded unnaturally quiet. "Let's try again. When I touch you, visualize a bubble around you. Jonah's is deep blue. Yours is pink, of course. You're inside, and everything and everyone else – me, Jonah, the whole project – is outside."
He reached for her and with some trepidation, she remained still. The roaring wave of thoughts from him and Jonah again swelled to fill her mind and with an effort, she imagined a protective bubble around her. It shimmered into place and some of the thoughts deflected off of it.
"Good," the Doctor said. "Now, think of it growing thicker and pushing back against everything coming toward you."
She did, and the wavering walls of the bubble grew more solid and expanded. Its shape distorted with the pressure of the onslaught, but it stayed intact. With it in place, the chaos flooding toward her was muffled, as if it were a long way away.
"Oh, very good, both of you," he said, and she was so pleased with herself for a moment that she lost her mental grip on her bubble and it burst. Everything pressed back into her at once and she yelped, pulling back from the Doctor so hard that she toppled her chair over, sending her sprawling across the floor.
"Ouch," she said, rolling over into a sitting position and wincing. The Doctor let go of Jonah and stood, offering her a hand. She took it and let him pull her upright. "I'm fine," she told him. "That was harder than I thought."
"It takes time to develop the mental discipline to hold a shield in place. You did well for your first try."
"Mmm," she said. "How did Jonah do?"
"Well, he's got some genetic advantages over you in that area." He rested his hand on Jonah's shoulder. "He's still holding his in place." He smiled and Rose stepped close to him. His arm came around her.
"What colour is your bubble?" she asked curiously. "I mean, you've got one, yeah?"
"Oh, I haven't needed a bubble in centuries," he said with a wrinkle of his nose. She rolled her eyes. "Honestly! I can tolerate a great deal more than the two of you can."
"Crusty outer shell?" she teased.
"Something like that. Now, I think we've probably done enough for one day. Let's get our young one back to his parents and get something to eat." He set the tipped chair back upright and pushed it under the table.
…
They ate with the Trabanes that night, which seemed less surreal and more intimate the second time. Ian said "please" and "thank you" and even the Doctor behaved.
Connor had cooked dinner and Rose was secretly relieved not to eat yet another meal of protein paste sandwiches. The novelty had definitely worn off. They ate symmetrical strips of grilled, marinated meat that reminded her of beef, in a distant sort of way, and as usual she summoned her courage and ate it without asking what it was. The pasta tossed with herbs was spicier than she had imagined and she ended up drinking too much of the cold, sweet not-wine that the Doctor had warned her about when they first arrived.
When she stood up from the table, she understood why he had warned her. Her knees buckled under her and the world swayed alarmingly from side to side.
"Easy there," said the Doctor, who caught her before she crashed to the floor. He stood behind her, arms hooked under hers for support, holding her up. She giggled. "I think someone's had a bit much tonight."
Ian shot out of his chair and said, with great enthusiasm, "Rose's drunk!"
"Ian!" said both of his parents simultaneously.
"Mnot," she said, slurring and grinning. "Not drunk."
"Oh no, of course not," the Doctor soothed. "Just a little inebriated, that's all." She leaned back into him, not because she had to, but because she liked it.
"Right. It's the beef. It wasn't beef, was it?" She giggled again.
Connor started to say something, but the Doctor cut him off. "Oh no, let's not have that conversation right now, all right? Not unless you'd like to see dinner all over your floor." He shifted to lift her a little higher against him. "Think you can walk?"
She harrumphed in displeasure at the idea that he thought she wasn't able to take care of herself. "Mfine."
He held her up with one arm and slid around to stand next to her. "Sorry for the eat-and-run routine here," he said to Connor and Emelia, "but I think it's high time someone went to bed. I've got a few hangover remedies and I may need to use all of them before tomorrow morning."
"Of course," Connor said, grinning. Rose squinted. His teeth looked shinier than they normally did. She blinked and giggled again. "We'll see you in the morning, then."
"At least one of us," the Doctor said. Rose looked over at him. His smile was crooked, one side of his mouth higher than the other, and his eyes were all scrunched up with amusement.
"G'night," she said, and burst out laughing at how funny her own voice sounded.
They all stopped dead, however, when there was an unexpected echo of Rose's laughter from the table. Even Ian turned to look.
Jonah, swaying slightly from side to side, was laughing. No, more properly, he was giggling.
"Now you've gone and done it," the Doctor murmured into Rose's ear. "Drunk with a very susceptible telepath within range?"
Jonah fell out of his chair.
"So that's it?" asked Rose. "We're done?"
"Yep," the Doctor answered. He sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed with her feet in his lap. His attention was focused on the arch of one of those feet, which he was kneading with both thumbs. Rose had to focus to keep from jerking away. It tickled, but at the same time, she didn't want him to stop doing it. "You sound surprised."
She wrinkled her nose. "I guess I just expected it to take longer. I mean, we have a whole day tomorrow before the envoy arrives."
"Well," he drawled, "it's not as if this has been smooth sailing all along."
He was right, of course. One day earlier, he had been at the point of a gun, and a woman had been killed. She studied him carefully. He was unmarked, without as much as a single dark shadow under his eyes. In turn, he focused on her feet, putting the one he had been massaging down and picking up the other, altogether too casual.
"All right?" she asked.
"Always," he said briskly, then looked up and met her gaze for several long seconds. His fingers settled around her foot and he squeezed lightly. "And you?"
She nodded quickly and his strokes resumed. Searching for another topic, she leaned back against the pillows and stretched. "Jonah's better," she said happily. "Emelia was upset, and he wanted to go and take care of her." The Doctor's slow smile of approval made her flush with pride. "I can't believe how different he is now." A worry presented itself, and she shifted uncomfortably on the bed. "When we leave, will he be all right? I know he can hear everyone around him, but no one else talks back to him like I do."
He was so quiet and still for a moment that Rose thought he might not answer her. "They can't, not like you can." He sighed. "He's learning quickly. I should be able to teach him to shield his mind from others. If he can do that, then most of his sensory issues are solved, and he should be able to learn to communicate verbally."
She thought of the fluttering beat of Jonah's anxiety from earlier this evening, when he'd asked her to take him to his mother. As soon as they had entered Frances's office, he had been completely focused on Emelia. His touch on her mind had dissipated as he focused his energy on walking forward and reaching his mum.
"Besides," the Doctor continued, "I have an idea that might just prove to be useful." He didn't elaborate, and his cat's-got-the-cream smile told her that he wasn't going to.
"Mmm," she said and nudged him with her foot. He slid his hands around her ankle. In response, she sat up and took his tie in her hands, drawing him toward her.
His smug look deepened and he uncrossed his legs, rising on his knees to shift forward and meet her lips halfway.
…
With the boys safely asleep in their room, Emelia climbed in into bed and tugged the blanket up to her chin. Connor came into the bedroom and pulled his shirt over his head, letting it drop onto the floor behind him.
"We've got the converters running at the highest efficiency I've ever seen," he told her.
She couldn't believe that, as bad as things had looked earlier in the day, they were finished with a day to spare. Even the Doctor had looked doubtful in the morning. Had he been bluffing? If he could simply disappear somewhere in his ship and, in a moment, catch them up, couldn't he have done it all along? That was a very cynical thought, even for her, especially about the man who was saving her family and her project.
She rolled over onto her side and watched as Connor changed out of his trousers and into a pair of pajama bottoms. "What's the plan for tomorrow?"
"Back to normal for the most part. Everyone's fairly keyed up, but there's not much to be done now. The Doctor has some ideas, though. You should have seen everyone's faces when his ship appeared out of nowhere." He chuckled and pulled back his side of the covers to join her in bed. "They're eating out of his hand now."
We all are, she thought, and turned out the light.
…
The next day passed by uneventfully. Rose oversaw art projects, cleaned up messes, wiped runny noses, and read to the children. With the progress that the Doctor had made the day before, they didn't need to keep the nursery open late again, so the stream of parents came in at the usual time to collect their offspring and head back to their respective homes.
By the time all of the children except Ian and Jonah had gone home, Rose had started to wonder if she should take the boys back to the Trabanes' flat herself. She and Brandon had finished putting up all of the stray books back onto the shelves. She looked up at the sound of someone approaching and was somewhat surprised to see the Doctor appear in the doorway.
"Hello," he said brightly, and sat down in one of the miniature chairs beside Jonah. He was all long legs and angles, with his knees sticking up almost to his shoulders. "Hello," he repeated.
Jonah didn't look up. He had been sitting quietly at the table since Brandon had gently guided him out of the reading area. The Doctor looked briefly up at Rose and then directed all of his attention back to the little boy.
"Jonah, I'm going to show you more of what we did the other day, so you can control what you feel. It gets to be a bit much, doesn't it?" He rearranged the chairs, half-lifting up his own to face Jonah, then pulled the leg of Jonah's chair to face him as well. "All right, then?" he asked, and as before, placed his fingers on each of Jonah's temples.
They locked eyes together and the Doctor made a few soothing sounds. While the two of them were absorbed in each other, Rose heard Emelia's voice and went to intercept the other woman.
"The Doctor's working with Jonah," she told Emelia. "He wants to teach him more about shielding his mind."
Before she could answer, Ian interrupted her by launching himself at his mother with his typical enthusiasm. "Ian," Emelia laughed, giving him a hug, "I wish I had half as much energy as you do." She glanced over at where the Doctor and Jonah sat and her face softened. "I want this to work, Rose," she said quietly.
"I do, too."
Emelia nodded and squeezed Ian back. "Honey, why don't you and I go home, and Rose and the Doctor can bring Jonah in a bit?" She looked up at Rose with her eyebrows raised.
"Sure," Rose agreed.
Behind her, Brandon was pulling on his coat. "I'll walk with you, Emelia. Rose, are you all right to close up?"
"No problem." She waved all of them good night and went to sit in an equally tiny chair on the other side of Jonah.
"You should know some of this, too," the Doctor said without shifting his gaze away from Jonah's. "It would give you some protection against any particularly powerful psychic broadcasts." He said this without any indication that the source of the last powerful broadcast she had encountered was sitting between them.
"What do I do?" In the time she had spent in close contact with his mind, he had shown her how to prevent him from seeing anything she didn't want him to by visualizing a closed door, but she didn't think that technique would protect her from other people's thoughts.
One of his hands came away from Jonah and came to rest on her temple. At once, the usual buzz of Jonah's mind became exponentially louder and coupled with it, she could feel the rush of the Doctor's myriad thoughts, the ones he usually suppressed for her. The sensation of a hundred kittens climbing up her body with their sharp claws extended jumped immediately into her mind. She jerked back from his hand and stared at him in astonishment.
"I know," he said. After the din in her head, his voice sounded unnaturally quiet. "Let's try again. When I touch you, visualize a bubble around you. Jonah's is deep blue. Yours is pink, of course. You're inside, and everything and everyone else – me, Jonah, the whole project – is outside."
He reached for her and with some trepidation, she remained still. The roaring wave of thoughts from him and Jonah again swelled to fill her mind and with an effort, she imagined a protective bubble around her. It shimmered into place and some of the thoughts deflected off of it.
"Good," the Doctor said. "Now, think of it growing thicker and pushing back against everything coming toward you."
She did, and the wavering walls of the bubble grew more solid and expanded. Its shape distorted with the pressure of the onslaught, but it stayed intact. With it in place, the chaos flooding toward her was muffled, as if it were a long way away.
"Oh, very good, both of you," he said, and she was so pleased with herself for a moment that she lost her mental grip on her bubble and it burst. Everything pressed back into her at once and she yelped, pulling back from the Doctor so hard that she toppled her chair over, sending her sprawling across the floor.
"Ouch," she said, rolling over into a sitting position and wincing. The Doctor let go of Jonah and stood, offering her a hand. She took it and let him pull her upright. "I'm fine," she told him. "That was harder than I thought."
"It takes time to develop the mental discipline to hold a shield in place. You did well for your first try."
"Mmm," she said. "How did Jonah do?"
"Well, he's got some genetic advantages over you in that area." He rested his hand on Jonah's shoulder. "He's still holding his in place." He smiled and Rose stepped close to him. His arm came around her.
"What colour is your bubble?" she asked curiously. "I mean, you've got one, yeah?"
"Oh, I haven't needed a bubble in centuries," he said with a wrinkle of his nose. She rolled her eyes. "Honestly! I can tolerate a great deal more than the two of you can."
"Crusty outer shell?" she teased.
"Something like that. Now, I think we've probably done enough for one day. Let's get our young one back to his parents and get something to eat." He set the tipped chair back upright and pushed it under the table.
…
They ate with the Trabanes that night, which seemed less surreal and more intimate the second time. Ian said "please" and "thank you" and even the Doctor behaved.
Connor had cooked dinner and Rose was secretly relieved not to eat yet another meal of protein paste sandwiches. The novelty had definitely worn off. They ate symmetrical strips of grilled, marinated meat that reminded her of beef, in a distant sort of way, and as usual she summoned her courage and ate it without asking what it was. The pasta tossed with herbs was spicier than she had imagined and she ended up drinking too much of the cold, sweet not-wine that the Doctor had warned her about when they first arrived.
When she stood up from the table, she understood why he had warned her. Her knees buckled under her and the world swayed alarmingly from side to side.
"Easy there," said the Doctor, who caught her before she crashed to the floor. He stood behind her, arms hooked under hers for support, holding her up. She giggled. "I think someone's had a bit much tonight."
Ian shot out of his chair and said, with great enthusiasm, "Rose's drunk!"
"Ian!" said both of his parents simultaneously.
"Mnot," she said, slurring and grinning. "Not drunk."
"Oh no, of course not," the Doctor soothed. "Just a little inebriated, that's all." She leaned back into him, not because she had to, but because she liked it.
"Right. It's the beef. It wasn't beef, was it?" She giggled again.
Connor started to say something, but the Doctor cut him off. "Oh no, let's not have that conversation right now, all right? Not unless you'd like to see dinner all over your floor." He shifted to lift her a little higher against him. "Think you can walk?"
She harrumphed in displeasure at the idea that he thought she wasn't able to take care of herself. "Mfine."
He held her up with one arm and slid around to stand next to her. "Sorry for the eat-and-run routine here," he said to Connor and Emelia, "but I think it's high time someone went to bed. I've got a few hangover remedies and I may need to use all of them before tomorrow morning."
"Of course," Connor said, grinning. Rose squinted. His teeth looked shinier than they normally did. She blinked and giggled again. "We'll see you in the morning, then."
"At least one of us," the Doctor said. Rose looked over at him. His smile was crooked, one side of his mouth higher than the other, and his eyes were all scrunched up with amusement.
"G'night," she said, and burst out laughing at how funny her own voice sounded.
They all stopped dead, however, when there was an unexpected echo of Rose's laughter from the table. Even Ian turned to look.
Jonah, swaying slightly from side to side, was laughing. No, more properly, he was giggling.
"Now you've gone and done it," the Doctor murmured into Rose's ear. "Drunk with a very susceptible telepath within range?"
Jonah fell out of his chair.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-20 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-21 02:39 am (UTC)