The Hidden Well, Chapter Four
Jul. 21st, 2007 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalleahBecause misssara11 asked nicely ... and it's all about us ... I'm posting the next chapter of The Hidden Well a day or so earlier than I had intended.
Pairing: Ten/Rose.
Rating: PG
Betas:ivydoor, np_complete, platypus, sensiblecat
In this chapter: Rose's first day at the nursery, which begins with a certain amount of culture shock, includes bananas, furmots, and a silent boy, and ends with a mystery sandwich in the nursery cafeteria.
misssara11 asked nicely ... and it's all about us ... I'm posting the next chapter of The Hidden Well a day or so earlier than I had intended.Pairing: Ten/Rose.
Rating: PG
Betas:
ivydoor, np_complete, platypus, sensiblecatIn this chapter: Rose's first day at the nursery, which begins with a certain amount of culture shock, includes bananas, furmots, and a silent boy, and ends with a mystery sandwich in the nursery cafeteria.
Adjusting to local time meant waking up a good bit before Rose's body had intended to. The Doctor, fully dressed, sat in the chair across from the bed and presented her with his most dazzling morning-person grin. "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," he said cheerily.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes, resolving for once to put a good face on the morning. She stumbled out of bed and closed the door behind her. The Doctor had learned enough about her attitude in the morning to stay where he was.
After a moment, she re-emerged from the bathroom and stood with hands on hips. "How do I get the shower to work?"
He stood up and came to stand with her in the shower stall. "See here?" He pulled a door back and revealed two large sponges and a trio of dispenser nozzles. "Soap," he said, pointing to the first nozzle. "Water, and then a powder shampoo. Rub it in your hair and it brushes right out." He ran a hand through his own hair and waggled his eyebrows at her.
Perhaps, she thought wearily, I should have had him show me the gadgets last night. "So it's not a proper shower?"
"Water's entirely too precious here to waste like that. Oh, don't make such a long face, Rose. Think of the exfoliation! Sponge on the right's mine." With that, he left her standing a little forlornly in the stall, staring at the nozzles.
The little water she could use, at least, was warm, and the dry shampoo was much more effective than she had supposed it would be. She couldn't figure out a way to get any water out of the nozzle where the sink should have been, though, so she went back in the stall and cleaned her teeth with the warm water.
Despite the problem of the not-shower, she was significantly less muddle-headed when she emerged back into the bedroom. She tossed her damp towel onto the bed (which, she noted, had already been made with near-military precision) and ignored the soft cluck of disapproval from the chair behind her. When she finished pulling on the clothes she had selected the night before, he had retrieved the towel and hung it carefully on the hook behind the bathroom door.
"Breakfast," he said. "Most important meal of the day." He fished in one pocket and produced a banana, which he handed to her.
"You're as bad as Howard," she told him, but she peeled and ate the banana anyway. "What time is it?"
"Time," he said in a singsong voice, "is a never-ending, interconnected web –"
Despite her earlier resolution, she wasn't quite up for his sense of humour yet. "On Arisbe. Outside. Now. What time is it?"
He pretended to look at a watch he wasn't wearing. "7:14," he told her.
Sixteen minutes until she was due to be confronted by hordes of small part-alien children. "I need another banana," she announced. He handed over another one without comment and put the peel from the first one carefully in what she had come to think of as his composting pocket.
Just before they left the flat, he whirled around and caught her up in an unexpected, crushing hug, and she laughed and squeezed him back. "What was that for?" she asked, a little breathless.
"Oh, come on, it's always a good time for a hug," he responded, smiling broadly. "Do I need a reason?"
"Well, no, but that doesn't mean that you don't have one," she pointed out.
He shrugged, letting his arms drop. "I just won't see you all day, and I wanted to give you a hug. Is that reason enough?"
"Yes," she said, smiling back at him. She kissed his cheek, letting her lips linger on his freshly shaved skin. "Always."
"Good," he said, and held out his hand for her second banana peel.
…
They parted company in front of Section 11, which differed from the other sections in several ways. Instead of a row of paneled doors, there was a set of double doors in the middle of the building, flanked on either side by a series of boxy windows. The fence lined off a yard that ran the entire length of the building, and there was a small sign to the right of the double doors that read "Nursery" in plain block letters.
Hands in pockets and whistling a merry tune, the Doctor headed off toward where they had met up with the carrier ship the day before. Rose pulled open the right-hand door and entered cautiously into a brightly lit entryway.
To her right, there was a clear door that led into a small office. Beside the door, a sign read "Office," quite unnecessarily. To Rose's left were a solid door and a corresponding sign that read "Staff Only," with a card reader along the side. She supposed she was staff, but she stepped forward and looked down the long hallway on each side. There were several open doors along the hallway and she could hear bustling, busy sounds coming from one direction in particular. She shrugged and set off in the direction of the sound.
She ran, almost quite literally, into Frances Wittener, who flew out from one of the doors with her arms full of books.
"So sorry," they said in unison, and laughed together.
"You're right on time," said Frances. "I'll show you around in a few minutes. Could you help me with these?" She handed off several of the books to Rose, who followed her back down the hallway and into the office.
The office was furnished plainly, with a large desk sitting at an angle in one corner and a couch along one wall. Frances busied herself putting away books in a shelf next to the desk for a moment.
"All right," she said, sitting down behind the desk, "we'll get the day started, then." She shifted some papers on the desk to uncover a display set down in the surface, which she lifted up to a comfortable reading angle.
"You're assigned to the room with Brandon Turner. You'll like him. He's so very good with the children. And single, but I guess that doesn't matter to you." She gave Rose's left hand a look, and Rose wondered self-consciously for a moment if the lack of a wedding band had any deeper significance on this world. "Let's go and meet him, then."
Brandon, as it turned out, was probably only a bit older than Rose, with dark hair and softly slanting dark eyes. When they came into the room, he was sitting behind the teacher's desk in the corner, writing studiously in a large notebook.
"Morning, Brandon," said Frances, and he started slightly at the sound of her voice. "This is Rose."
He shook her hand and offered her a gentle smile. "It's nice to meet you," he said.
"Nice to meet you, too." There. She said it again.
"I'm going back up front for check-in," said Frances. "We should start seeing the children any minute." She sailed out of the room, leaving Rose and Brandon looking somewhat awkwardly at one another in her wake.
"So," said Rose, to break the silence. "What can I help with?"
"Nothing really until the kids get here," he told her, shifting his eyes downward. "I was just writing out some lesson plans." His voice was pitched low, almost musical.
"Don't let me stop you. I'll just get myself settled, yeah?" He nodded hesitantly back at her and took his seat again behind the desk.
She explored the room around her, which was decorated with the art projects of small children. She recognized one or two of Ian's paintings, which with their graceful lines and light touch stood out in the middle of the crayon scratching and line drawings like masterworks. In time, she thought, they might well be.
In the middle of the room, miniature chairs stood around a large round table that only came up to about her knees. The left side of the room was lined with cubbies filled with toys, art supplies, and other items. Short bookshelves divided off the back corner of the room, opposite where Brandon's desk sat, into a dedicated reading area. The floor was strewn with soft cushions and a few leftover books.
To make herself useful, Rose picked up the books and looked at the ones already on the shelves. "Brandon?" she asked. "How are these sorted?"
"Alphabetical by author, in theory, but it's a bit of a mess right now," he responded. He sounded apologetic. She started to explain that she wasn't being critical, but their first arrival of the morning appeared before she could do so.
For several minutes, they were both busy, with small children saying goodbye to their parents and putting their day packs away in cubbies. Rose said "Nice to meet you" to a procession of adults and tried to learn the names of their offspring. The children seemed perfectly normal, all around five or six years old and chattering animatedly with one another.
She looked up to see Emelia Trabane in the doorway, and she smiled in relief at a familiar face. Emelia smiled back, seeming a little less intimidating this morning. Ian streaked past her. "No running, Ian," called his mother, and he subsided into a brisk walk.
"Rose," she said, bringing another small figure forward, "this is Jonah."
The boy was older than the others, but still small, with short, dark ringlets of hair surrounding a serious, pale face. He was the most perfectly beautiful child Rose had ever seen. His features were graceful, not effeminate, but striking, and she couldn't help but wonder how he would grow into that face.
"Hello, Jonah," she said to him. He seemed to take no notice of his name, and his gaze drifted just past Rose's face to a point in the distance.
Brandon had come to stand beside her, she realized, and he reached down to take Jonah's free hand and tug him into the room. "Let's go and sit down, Jonah," he said with his soothing voice. Emelia let the small hand drop with some obvious reluctance, and the boy let himself be led into the room, seemingly taking as little notice of Brandon as he had of Rose.
"He doesn't speak," said Emelia evenly. "He may or may not react to what happens around him." She looked at Rose with a mother bear's fierceness. "His parents died and Connor and I took him in rather than let him go to some institution."
Rose answered carefully, recognizing that her response to Jonah was incredibly important to the other woman. "I'm so sorry. Is that why he doesn't speak?"
"No, but it couldn't have helped, either." She looked Rose straight in the eyes. "Be careful with him. And Ian." Rose just nodded, and Emelia whirled in her dramatic way and headed back down the hallway.
Jonah was sitting on a cushion in the reading corner, carefully arranging blocks in a row. The other children clustered around Brandon, who had transformed from a shy, almost bookish young man into a commander.
"Everyone," he said, in a carrying tone. The children immediately subsided. "I want you to meet someone." He gestured at Rose, and a dozen small faces turned to look expectantly at her. She smiled back and waved. "This is Miss Rose." He mouthed what she took to be "All right?" at her and she nodded.
"Good morning, Miss Rose," chanted the children in unison.
"Hello," she said tentatively. Her experience with children, for all her past posturing to the Doctor, was rather limited to a few cousins. Brandon, however, took charge and Rose was perfectly content to let him do so. For the rest of the morning, he led the children in working on their letters and numbers and other basic lessons, and Rose fetched supplies as needed. She kept one eye on Jonah, who seemed absorbed in his work. She couldn't describe his careful alignment of the toy blocks as "play," not with the seriousness on his face and the precision of the stacking.
Late in the morning, Brandon spoke quietly into her ear as the children chattered and cut shapes out of paper with blunt scissors. "I usually read them a story before lunch," he told her. "Would you like to read today?"
"Sure," she said. "What book do they like?"
"I hope," he said with a smile, "that they like all of them, but here's a popular choice." He handed her a thin volume with a happy, somewhat unusual looking creature on the front cover. Freddie the Furmot Goes Adventuring. She wasn't quite sure what a furmot was, but she figured that one children's book about a small adventuring furry animal was probably much like another.
She was right, and Brandon was as well; the children were delighted to see the book make an appearance. They all clustered into the reading area, leaving a small empty circle around Jonah and his blocks.
Rose read dramatically, pausing to turn the book toward the admiring group and show off the illustrations. To the best of her abilities, she tried to vary her tone and pitch for Freddie and his friends, furry or scaly animals of uncertain species. The children listened to her with rapt attention.
After she finished, Brandon designated Ian as the leader, and the children formed a somewhat winding queue behind him and pattered off down the hallway toward the cafeteria. At the end, Rose and Brandon walked, both holding hands with Jonah. The little boy's hand was warm and soft in hers, and she squeezed gently. He didn't squeeze back, and his attention wandered as they walked.
Inside the cafeteria, the children squealed and fussed, and finally sat down at their scaled-down tables and chairs to eat some sandwiches alongside several other classes. Brandon made sure Jonah was settled in a chair and put a sandwich in his hand. The little boy began to eat the sandwich slowly, seemingly without paying any attention to it at all.
Rose followed Brandon to the counter, where they took sandwiches and two glasses containing some pale, watered-down looking liquid and then sat at a slightly larger table in the corner with some other staff. She studied her sandwich, which appeared to be some sort of brownish paste. She took a bite, and while she still wasn't sure what it was, it had a lightly meaty flavour and was considerably better than she had expected. The liquid was something akin to apple juice.
"How long have you been here?" she asked, wanting to make conversation.
"Since the project started," he answered readily. "That would be, what, about two standard years?" He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully before continuing. "It doesn't seem that long, but I enjoy my work."
She smiled. That much was obvious, watching him interact with the children this morning. "How did you end up on Arisbe?"
"Opening for a teacher, and the chance to get off Orinous Four." He winced at the memory. "Once the project is done and the real estate sales start, we'll need some proper schools. I'd like to keep working with the younger ones, and maybe to specialize in some art programs."
"Ian's your ideal student, then," she observed with a smile, and took another bite of her mystery sandwich.
Brandon's face lit up. "You can tell he's a genius, even at his age. The other kids have fun, and it's a great way for them to learn through play, but Ian – well, Ian is talented." He took a long drink of his juice. "And how did you end up here?"
Perhaps she should have been better prepared for that rather inevitable question than she was. "My – uh – well, the Doctor's an engineer, working on the atmospheric converters. I'm just along for the ride." Not exactly true, but not exactly untrue either.
Brandon accepted her answer for what it was worth, and for a moment, the two of them let the conversation of the other staffers wash over them.
"Jonah," Rose began again hesitantly. "How much is he aware of us?"
He focused his attention back to her and nodded. "I don't know," he said sadly. "I've had a few moments where I felt like I almost broke through to him, but I'm not sure if they're real or just wishful thinking."
Her eyes drifted across the tables, across the bouncing, happy children and the messy lunch plates, and settled on the child who was so alone in a crowd. He had finished his sandwich and was sitting stock still in his chair, staring out above the heads of the other children. For a moment, his head cocked to the other side, and his eyes moved, and she thought that he might meet her gaze.
Then, as Brandon had said, the moment passed, and Jonah was again a small boy lost in his own world.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes, resolving for once to put a good face on the morning. She stumbled out of bed and closed the door behind her. The Doctor had learned enough about her attitude in the morning to stay where he was.
After a moment, she re-emerged from the bathroom and stood with hands on hips. "How do I get the shower to work?"
He stood up and came to stand with her in the shower stall. "See here?" He pulled a door back and revealed two large sponges and a trio of dispenser nozzles. "Soap," he said, pointing to the first nozzle. "Water, and then a powder shampoo. Rub it in your hair and it brushes right out." He ran a hand through his own hair and waggled his eyebrows at her.
Perhaps, she thought wearily, I should have had him show me the gadgets last night. "So it's not a proper shower?"
"Water's entirely too precious here to waste like that. Oh, don't make such a long face, Rose. Think of the exfoliation! Sponge on the right's mine." With that, he left her standing a little forlornly in the stall, staring at the nozzles.
The little water she could use, at least, was warm, and the dry shampoo was much more effective than she had supposed it would be. She couldn't figure out a way to get any water out of the nozzle where the sink should have been, though, so she went back in the stall and cleaned her teeth with the warm water.
Despite the problem of the not-shower, she was significantly less muddle-headed when she emerged back into the bedroom. She tossed her damp towel onto the bed (which, she noted, had already been made with near-military precision) and ignored the soft cluck of disapproval from the chair behind her. When she finished pulling on the clothes she had selected the night before, he had retrieved the towel and hung it carefully on the hook behind the bathroom door.
"Breakfast," he said. "Most important meal of the day." He fished in one pocket and produced a banana, which he handed to her.
"You're as bad as Howard," she told him, but she peeled and ate the banana anyway. "What time is it?"
"Time," he said in a singsong voice, "is a never-ending, interconnected web –"
Despite her earlier resolution, she wasn't quite up for his sense of humour yet. "On Arisbe. Outside. Now. What time is it?"
He pretended to look at a watch he wasn't wearing. "7:14," he told her.
Sixteen minutes until she was due to be confronted by hordes of small part-alien children. "I need another banana," she announced. He handed over another one without comment and put the peel from the first one carefully in what she had come to think of as his composting pocket.
Just before they left the flat, he whirled around and caught her up in an unexpected, crushing hug, and she laughed and squeezed him back. "What was that for?" she asked, a little breathless.
"Oh, come on, it's always a good time for a hug," he responded, smiling broadly. "Do I need a reason?"
"Well, no, but that doesn't mean that you don't have one," she pointed out.
He shrugged, letting his arms drop. "I just won't see you all day, and I wanted to give you a hug. Is that reason enough?"
"Yes," she said, smiling back at him. She kissed his cheek, letting her lips linger on his freshly shaved skin. "Always."
"Good," he said, and held out his hand for her second banana peel.
…
They parted company in front of Section 11, which differed from the other sections in several ways. Instead of a row of paneled doors, there was a set of double doors in the middle of the building, flanked on either side by a series of boxy windows. The fence lined off a yard that ran the entire length of the building, and there was a small sign to the right of the double doors that read "Nursery" in plain block letters.
Hands in pockets and whistling a merry tune, the Doctor headed off toward where they had met up with the carrier ship the day before. Rose pulled open the right-hand door and entered cautiously into a brightly lit entryway.
To her right, there was a clear door that led into a small office. Beside the door, a sign read "Office," quite unnecessarily. To Rose's left were a solid door and a corresponding sign that read "Staff Only," with a card reader along the side. She supposed she was staff, but she stepped forward and looked down the long hallway on each side. There were several open doors along the hallway and she could hear bustling, busy sounds coming from one direction in particular. She shrugged and set off in the direction of the sound.
She ran, almost quite literally, into Frances Wittener, who flew out from one of the doors with her arms full of books.
"So sorry," they said in unison, and laughed together.
"You're right on time," said Frances. "I'll show you around in a few minutes. Could you help me with these?" She handed off several of the books to Rose, who followed her back down the hallway and into the office.
The office was furnished plainly, with a large desk sitting at an angle in one corner and a couch along one wall. Frances busied herself putting away books in a shelf next to the desk for a moment.
"All right," she said, sitting down behind the desk, "we'll get the day started, then." She shifted some papers on the desk to uncover a display set down in the surface, which she lifted up to a comfortable reading angle.
"You're assigned to the room with Brandon Turner. You'll like him. He's so very good with the children. And single, but I guess that doesn't matter to you." She gave Rose's left hand a look, and Rose wondered self-consciously for a moment if the lack of a wedding band had any deeper significance on this world. "Let's go and meet him, then."
Brandon, as it turned out, was probably only a bit older than Rose, with dark hair and softly slanting dark eyes. When they came into the room, he was sitting behind the teacher's desk in the corner, writing studiously in a large notebook.
"Morning, Brandon," said Frances, and he started slightly at the sound of her voice. "This is Rose."
He shook her hand and offered her a gentle smile. "It's nice to meet you," he said.
"Nice to meet you, too." There. She said it again.
"I'm going back up front for check-in," said Frances. "We should start seeing the children any minute." She sailed out of the room, leaving Rose and Brandon looking somewhat awkwardly at one another in her wake.
"So," said Rose, to break the silence. "What can I help with?"
"Nothing really until the kids get here," he told her, shifting his eyes downward. "I was just writing out some lesson plans." His voice was pitched low, almost musical.
"Don't let me stop you. I'll just get myself settled, yeah?" He nodded hesitantly back at her and took his seat again behind the desk.
She explored the room around her, which was decorated with the art projects of small children. She recognized one or two of Ian's paintings, which with their graceful lines and light touch stood out in the middle of the crayon scratching and line drawings like masterworks. In time, she thought, they might well be.
In the middle of the room, miniature chairs stood around a large round table that only came up to about her knees. The left side of the room was lined with cubbies filled with toys, art supplies, and other items. Short bookshelves divided off the back corner of the room, opposite where Brandon's desk sat, into a dedicated reading area. The floor was strewn with soft cushions and a few leftover books.
To make herself useful, Rose picked up the books and looked at the ones already on the shelves. "Brandon?" she asked. "How are these sorted?"
"Alphabetical by author, in theory, but it's a bit of a mess right now," he responded. He sounded apologetic. She started to explain that she wasn't being critical, but their first arrival of the morning appeared before she could do so.
For several minutes, they were both busy, with small children saying goodbye to their parents and putting their day packs away in cubbies. Rose said "Nice to meet you" to a procession of adults and tried to learn the names of their offspring. The children seemed perfectly normal, all around five or six years old and chattering animatedly with one another.
She looked up to see Emelia Trabane in the doorway, and she smiled in relief at a familiar face. Emelia smiled back, seeming a little less intimidating this morning. Ian streaked past her. "No running, Ian," called his mother, and he subsided into a brisk walk.
"Rose," she said, bringing another small figure forward, "this is Jonah."
The boy was older than the others, but still small, with short, dark ringlets of hair surrounding a serious, pale face. He was the most perfectly beautiful child Rose had ever seen. His features were graceful, not effeminate, but striking, and she couldn't help but wonder how he would grow into that face.
"Hello, Jonah," she said to him. He seemed to take no notice of his name, and his gaze drifted just past Rose's face to a point in the distance.
Brandon had come to stand beside her, she realized, and he reached down to take Jonah's free hand and tug him into the room. "Let's go and sit down, Jonah," he said with his soothing voice. Emelia let the small hand drop with some obvious reluctance, and the boy let himself be led into the room, seemingly taking as little notice of Brandon as he had of Rose.
"He doesn't speak," said Emelia evenly. "He may or may not react to what happens around him." She looked at Rose with a mother bear's fierceness. "His parents died and Connor and I took him in rather than let him go to some institution."
Rose answered carefully, recognizing that her response to Jonah was incredibly important to the other woman. "I'm so sorry. Is that why he doesn't speak?"
"No, but it couldn't have helped, either." She looked Rose straight in the eyes. "Be careful with him. And Ian." Rose just nodded, and Emelia whirled in her dramatic way and headed back down the hallway.
Jonah was sitting on a cushion in the reading corner, carefully arranging blocks in a row. The other children clustered around Brandon, who had transformed from a shy, almost bookish young man into a commander.
"Everyone," he said, in a carrying tone. The children immediately subsided. "I want you to meet someone." He gestured at Rose, and a dozen small faces turned to look expectantly at her. She smiled back and waved. "This is Miss Rose." He mouthed what she took to be "All right?" at her and she nodded.
"Good morning, Miss Rose," chanted the children in unison.
"Hello," she said tentatively. Her experience with children, for all her past posturing to the Doctor, was rather limited to a few cousins. Brandon, however, took charge and Rose was perfectly content to let him do so. For the rest of the morning, he led the children in working on their letters and numbers and other basic lessons, and Rose fetched supplies as needed. She kept one eye on Jonah, who seemed absorbed in his work. She couldn't describe his careful alignment of the toy blocks as "play," not with the seriousness on his face and the precision of the stacking.
Late in the morning, Brandon spoke quietly into her ear as the children chattered and cut shapes out of paper with blunt scissors. "I usually read them a story before lunch," he told her. "Would you like to read today?"
"Sure," she said. "What book do they like?"
"I hope," he said with a smile, "that they like all of them, but here's a popular choice." He handed her a thin volume with a happy, somewhat unusual looking creature on the front cover. Freddie the Furmot Goes Adventuring. She wasn't quite sure what a furmot was, but she figured that one children's book about a small adventuring furry animal was probably much like another.
She was right, and Brandon was as well; the children were delighted to see the book make an appearance. They all clustered into the reading area, leaving a small empty circle around Jonah and his blocks.
Rose read dramatically, pausing to turn the book toward the admiring group and show off the illustrations. To the best of her abilities, she tried to vary her tone and pitch for Freddie and his friends, furry or scaly animals of uncertain species. The children listened to her with rapt attention.
After she finished, Brandon designated Ian as the leader, and the children formed a somewhat winding queue behind him and pattered off down the hallway toward the cafeteria. At the end, Rose and Brandon walked, both holding hands with Jonah. The little boy's hand was warm and soft in hers, and she squeezed gently. He didn't squeeze back, and his attention wandered as they walked.
Inside the cafeteria, the children squealed and fussed, and finally sat down at their scaled-down tables and chairs to eat some sandwiches alongside several other classes. Brandon made sure Jonah was settled in a chair and put a sandwich in his hand. The little boy began to eat the sandwich slowly, seemingly without paying any attention to it at all.
Rose followed Brandon to the counter, where they took sandwiches and two glasses containing some pale, watered-down looking liquid and then sat at a slightly larger table in the corner with some other staff. She studied her sandwich, which appeared to be some sort of brownish paste. She took a bite, and while she still wasn't sure what it was, it had a lightly meaty flavour and was considerably better than she had expected. The liquid was something akin to apple juice.
"How long have you been here?" she asked, wanting to make conversation.
"Since the project started," he answered readily. "That would be, what, about two standard years?" He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully before continuing. "It doesn't seem that long, but I enjoy my work."
She smiled. That much was obvious, watching him interact with the children this morning. "How did you end up on Arisbe?"
"Opening for a teacher, and the chance to get off Orinous Four." He winced at the memory. "Once the project is done and the real estate sales start, we'll need some proper schools. I'd like to keep working with the younger ones, and maybe to specialize in some art programs."
"Ian's your ideal student, then," she observed with a smile, and took another bite of her mystery sandwich.
Brandon's face lit up. "You can tell he's a genius, even at his age. The other kids have fun, and it's a great way for them to learn through play, but Ian – well, Ian is talented." He took a long drink of his juice. "And how did you end up here?"
Perhaps she should have been better prepared for that rather inevitable question than she was. "My – uh – well, the Doctor's an engineer, working on the atmospheric converters. I'm just along for the ride." Not exactly true, but not exactly untrue either.
Brandon accepted her answer for what it was worth, and for a moment, the two of them let the conversation of the other staffers wash over them.
"Jonah," Rose began again hesitantly. "How much is he aware of us?"
He focused his attention back to her and nodded. "I don't know," he said sadly. "I've had a few moments where I felt like I almost broke through to him, but I'm not sure if they're real or just wishful thinking."
Her eyes drifted across the tables, across the bouncing, happy children and the messy lunch plates, and settled on the child who was so alone in a crowd. He had finished his sandwich and was sitting stock still in his chair, staring out above the heads of the other children. For a moment, his head cocked to the other side, and his eyes moved, and she thought that he might meet her gaze.
Then, as Brandon had said, the moment passed, and Jonah was again a small boy lost in his own world.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 04:02 am (UTC)She gave Rose's left hand a look, and Rose wondered self-consciously for a moment if the lack of a wedding band had any deeper significance on this world. Hee:) Maybe the Doctor will have to do something about that.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 04:08 am (UTC)You'll have to see. I will say that we'll see quite a bit more of Jonah.
Maybe the Doctor will have to do something about that.
Perhaps, perhaps not. He is blissfully oblivious to a lot of human niceties.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 04:04 am (UTC)Yes, yes it is. And thank you!
So, Jonah, I'm intrigued. I have a suspicion about him but could be totally wrong about that. We'll see. Of course whatever you decide to do, I'll most likely love it.
Psst...Kevin Spacey wasn't really a gimp and is Keyser Soze. Sorry, I've ran out of obvious ones for the moment and have gone to the independent movies.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 04:09 am (UTC)Wait and see. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 04:22 am (UTC)Now, I'm not entirely sure what a 'snorfle' is, but it's the best word I can think of to describe the noise I made at this. I really enjoy the way you write the little, everyday moments between the Doctor and Rose - not only are they adorable, but they're an excellent foundation for all the fun, plotty-type things. (Right, that's barely coherent...)
Anyway, I'm enjoying this very much and eagerly look forward to more. Also, I'm sort of geekishly excited that Rose and I now have the same job - when I'm not writing obnoxious papers about 19th cent British literature, I spend my time asking four-year-olds to please blow their noses, and would they mind not wiping that on my sleeve?
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Date: 2007-07-22 04:26 am (UTC)Hee. Always good to provoke the random amused sound.
I'm sort of geekishly excited that Rose and I now have the same job
I don't think Rose shares your enthusiasm, but there you go. ;)
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Date: 2007-07-22 04:47 am (UTC)Powdered shampoo would be weird...I'd probably get it in my eyes ....or up my nose . I bet that would sting...
Really enjoy this story :)
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Date: 2007-07-22 08:50 pm (UTC)Bet it would. Ouch.
I spent a fair bit of time googling how astronauts bathe in space to develop the bit of crack!showering here, although obviously, the gravity isn't a factor here.
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Date: 2007-07-22 09:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 11:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-22 08:52 pm (UTC)I've written this dynamic between the Doctor and Rose before, but it never gets old to me ... poor Rose.
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Date: 2007-07-22 02:43 pm (UTC)Good chapter, full of sunlight. The nursery sounds like a nice place for children.
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Date: 2007-07-22 08:54 pm (UTC)I had to come up with something, and the book title is a faint nod to Monty Python's Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying (http://www.epicure.demon.co.uk/bookshop.html).
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Date: 2007-07-22 11:31 pm (UTC)its all very domestic with them in the morning, it was cute The Doctor wanted to give Rose a hug because they weren't gonna see each other all day, again very domestic but really sweet :).
really liked reading this chapter, looking forward to reading more and find out about Jonah.
Will we get to read The Doctor's day?
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Date: 2007-07-22 11:37 pm (UTC)My mom used to have this spray shampoo that you did brush through. No idea if it works. Talcum powder is supposed to work too if you like the powdered wig effect. To each her own.
Will we get to read The Doctor's day?
Oh, absolutely, but not from his POV (she says, teasingly).
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Date: 2007-07-22 11:38 pm (UTC)cool, sounds interesting :)
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Date: 2007-07-23 09:46 am (UTC)Oh - and the "composting pocket"! What does he do with it all, I wonder?
For someone who is (apparently) childless, you are brilliant at capturing the tone and detail of working with small children - and I'm very intrigued by Jonah. Your OC's are always strong, they quickly come to life and merge seamlessly with the canon characters. I wish I was so talented (and that's not fishing for compliments, truly!)
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Date: 2007-07-24 12:05 am (UTC)Ewwwww. The things we do in the name of beauty.
What does he do with it all, I wonder?
I suspect some of it stays in the pockets. He was carrying around the camellia leaves he picked in tCbtS for quite some time.
For someone who is (apparently) childless, you are brilliant at capturing the tone and detail of working with small children
Thank you. I don't have kids, but I studied child psych back in college (although that has been a while). They are not in fact small adults, although we sometimes treat them as such.
Your OC's are always strong
I appreciate that. I've gotten used to writing just the Doctor and Rose, and Jacob has been around for so long that I know him quite well. This story has several OCs and I don't want them to be throwaways, or cardboard.