The Hidden Well, Chapter Eleven
Aug. 12th, 2007 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalleahPairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: PG
Betas:ivydoor, np_complete, platypus, and sensiblecat
Previous Chapters
In this chapter: Emelia and Connor learn the truth about their son.
Rating: PG
Betas:
ivydoor, np_complete, platypus, and sensiblecat Previous Chapters
In this chapter: Emelia and Connor learn the truth about their son.
The portable communications device was set up with all the encryption algorithms that current technology had to offer, and yet, the two people talking across the parsecs spoke in hushed tones, as if they feared being overheard.
"You're certain he's not from the company?" came the transmission from Arisbe.
"Positive," said the disconnected voice from several solar systems away. "Arisbe is low on their project priority list right now, and they don't have the manpower to send anyone else at the moment." A quiet chuckle. "Their analysis team is quite busy at Regel at the moment, with all the problems there."
"If he's not from the company, who is he?" The words vibrated with tension in the vacuum.
The distant voice paused. "We are unable to make that determination at this time, but he is not working with us. Consider him a threat until proven otherwise."
"How much of a threat?"
"He's working with Trabane. That should answer your question."
…
Rose was used to keeping up with the Doctor's long strides, and so found herself able to keep pace with Emelia as they walked through the settlement to the operations office in Section A, just on the opposite side of the building from the Trabanes' habitation unit.
Emelia's office was a jumble of generic furniture and unfamiliar electronic devices. Rose picked up a piece of equipment from one of the chairs and set it carefully on the one exposed part of Emelia's desk so that she could sit down. Emelia, for her part, flopped into the chair behind the desk and pulled up the display panel.
She tapped rapidly on the screen and said, without looking up, "Ian likes you."
Rose was a little taken aback, but flattered at the same time. "I like him, too. And Jonah."
Emelia looked up from the display and studied Rose for a moment before returning her attention to the display. "Ian doesn't like everyone. He's very choosy. You should be very flattered."
"I am," said Rose, unsure of what else to say.
"He talked nonstop about you when he got home last night. He was very worried about your fall." She paused for a moment. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't ask how you were earlier, and that I was rude yesterday. I was upset that no one at the nursery took the time to make sure you were all right before you left."
"The Doctor did," Rose pointed out.
"Yes. The Doctor." Again, she looked up from the display briefly. "He's not my staff, and I don't trust his judgment." She scrubbed at her face with her hands. "Oh, I don't mean it like that. I just needed my own medic to examine you. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," said Rose. She felt a little braver, so she added, "You were awfully hard on Howard, too."
Emelia's lips pursed together and she sighed. "I was. He took entirely too long responding to the nursery and that's my responsibility. What if you had been seriously hurt? Every minute matters, and he wasted time –" She stopped, and laughed at herself for a brief moment. Rose wasn't sure she had heard Emelia laugh before. "There I go again. I wanted to apologize."
"Apology accepted," Rose told her.
"Thanks," said Emelia with evident gratitude in her voice. When she continued, some of the force had come back into her voice. "Connor said that the two of you were traveling together and came here by accident, that you faked your credentials."
"Yes," Rose admitted, feeling somewhat guilty herself. "I'm sorry we lied to you."
Emelia tapped out several more instructions on the display before easing back in her chair. "So who are you, then? Is your name really Rose Tyler?"
"Yes," Rose said, relieved that something hadn't been a lie. "I'm from Earth. London, actually." Emelia gave a brief nod of recognition and laced her fingers together, clearly waiting for Rose to continue her story. "I met the Doctor when the shop where I worked was sort of, well, attacked by aliens. He saved my life, and I guess I saved his, too. He asked me to come traveling with him."
"And the Doctor?" Emelia prompted, when Rose paused.
"That's more complicated," she admitted. "He's an alien." She suddenly sat bolt upright in her chair. "Are you – I mean, I guess everyone here isn't all human –"
Emelia shrugged. "Noxtirran on my mother's side, that's it."
The fact that the Doctor was an alien might be less problematic than Rose had assumed at the start of this conversation, which let her relax a little. "He's not human at all," she said. "He's a traveler. When he said we were sightseeing, remember, when we first met you? That was the truth. We weren't trying to get to Arisbe. He wanted to show me a sunset on a planet called –" She struggled to remember. "Lycoras. We ended up here by mistake. He isn't good with directions." That was an understatement. "We took a look around and then we ran into you, and you asked for identification. You know the rest." She omitted any mention of the telepathy that had so intrigued the Doctor, hoping that he would explain about Jonah's ability later on.
"Mmm," said Emelia noncommittally. "Sightseeing?" She seemed to be thinking very hard. "What was that scanner that he had?"
"Sonic screwdriver, like he said."
The sound that came out of Emelia's mouth was not a particularly feminine one, and she looked amused. "Screwdriver," she repeated.
"It's the truth," said Rose defensively. "He'll show it to you." She fervently hoped he would. "I'm sorry we lied, Emelia. Honest I am. Everything I've told you today is the truth. The Doctor can help find whoever's responsible for the sabotage. That's what he does. He finds things that need fixing and helps fix them."
Emelia removed a keycard from a slot under her desk. "Personnel files," she said. "I need to know, Rose. I need to know why those people died and who was responsible. I need to protect the people who are here. If the two of you can help me do that, then I'm willing to let bygones by bygones."
Rose nodded emphatically. "Let's get those back to the Doctor, then."
…
The two women returned to the restaurant and found the Doctor and Connor sitting impossibly close to the Doctor's invention and wearing identical expressions of intense concentration. Emelia tapped Connor on the shoulder and said "Excuse me," not at all loudly, but both men jumped as if she had shouted. The Doctor muttered something about "sneaking" and re-adjusted his glasses from where they had slid down his nose.
"Did you get it?" asked Connor eagerly.
Emelia rolled her eyes and held out a keycard. "Of course I got it."
The Doctor snatched the proffered card from Emelia's hand before Connor could do so and inserted it into a slot on the side of his machine. "Aha," he said, pleased. "We can cross-reference this with the access logs and run an analysis –"
Rose stopped listening and paid attention to her rumbling stomach. "Want to get some lunch?" she asked Emelia. "I'm famished."
"May as well." She shrugged. "We're here."
They went through the line and Rose selected something that looked like chicken (she fervently hoped it was chicken), some more of the fluffy carbohydrate from the other evening, and some peas. When Emelia added a thick slice of a dark cake with buttery-looking icing to her tray, Rose gave in and took one, too.
They seated themselves at a table next to where the Doctor and Connor were working industriously and ate quietly for a few minutes. Emelia spoke again only after she had finished her meal and was picking thoughtfully at her cake.
"Tell me about Jonah," she said quietly. "Please." It was not her usual command. Her words were carefully selected and spoken, with a gentleness and concern that indicated the depth of her emotions.
Rose had expected that the Doctor would be the one to explain Jonah's ability, and she hadn't thought about what she might say. "He's, well, he's telepathic. I don't know how it works at all." The other woman was silent, waiting. "I think he got upset yesterday when I stopped pushing him on the swing. There was this – broadcast. It sort of knocked me down when it happened."
Emelia dismissed that with a wave. "You're saying Jonah hurt you? That's ridiculous."
"No, no," Rose corrected quickly, "it wasn't his fault. I'm sure he didn't mean to. Not everyone," and at this, she swallowed, "not everyone can hear him. The Doctor can. That's why we stayed here. He heard this telepathy and we didn't know what it was and so we're here." She smiled wanly and stared down at her uneaten cake.
"Can you hear him?" Emelia sounded more apprehensive than curious.
"I did yesterday. Not when we first arrived."
Emelia took a long drink from her water glass. "What did he say?"
"Say?" Rose was confused and then realized what she was asking. "It's not like language, it's more like emotions, images, sensations." She cast back into her mind, trying to remember those moments as clearly as she could. "I could feel him on the swing, how happy it made him, and then when he stopped, it was like –" She struggled for the words for a moment. "It was like the volume on everything was up too loud. I could hear everything, feel everything, smell it, taste it, and all I wanted to do was get away. That's when I blacked out."
Emelia's eyes suddenly sparkled and she blinked several times, not looking at Rose. "Is it like that for him all the time?"
"I don't know," Rose admitted. She hoped the Doctor did, and that he could help.
It was her turn to jump when she felt a pair of hands rest briefly on her shoulders. The Doctor pulled a chair up beside her and eyed the leftovers on her plate. She scooted it over toward him and he began eating, cake first, as Connor sat down on the opposite side.
"We've got a few places to start," said the Doctor, between mouthfuls of cake. "I'd like to interview Connor's staff, for one. That coupled with the access logs should help us narrow down our pool of suspects."
"I hate to think of any of them being involved," said Connor regretfully, "but at least we may be able to rule some of them out."
Rose looked at Emelia, who was staring down at the table and seemingly not following the conversation around her. She wanted to ask the Doctor if he had told Connor about Jonah, but she expected that he'd gotten too involved in their project to bring that subject up. She sighed. She was going to have to explain this, too.
She restated what she had told Emelia in a few brief sentences, with Connor utterly silent until she drew to a close. He seemed as stunned as Emelia had been. Still was.
"I'd like to talk to him," the Doctor added. Both parents nodded their assent, distracted.
"He's still Jonah," Rose said. "You still love him. This doesn't change anything."
"We never knew," said Emelia finally, her eyes still fixed on the table in front of her. "Even before his parents died, he didn't speak and had trouble focusing. He's been somewhat responsive through play therapy – Brandon's been wonderful with him. You've seen that." She swallowed audibly. "What if he's been trying to communicate this whole time and we just couldn't hear him?"
Connor put his arm around his wife and drew her close against him. The lines on his face seemed to be etched more deeply than they had even a few moments before, and Rose was terribly sad to have helped put them there.
"You're certain he's not from the company?" came the transmission from Arisbe.
"Positive," said the disconnected voice from several solar systems away. "Arisbe is low on their project priority list right now, and they don't have the manpower to send anyone else at the moment." A quiet chuckle. "Their analysis team is quite busy at Regel at the moment, with all the problems there."
"If he's not from the company, who is he?" The words vibrated with tension in the vacuum.
The distant voice paused. "We are unable to make that determination at this time, but he is not working with us. Consider him a threat until proven otherwise."
"How much of a threat?"
"He's working with Trabane. That should answer your question."
…
Rose was used to keeping up with the Doctor's long strides, and so found herself able to keep pace with Emelia as they walked through the settlement to the operations office in Section A, just on the opposite side of the building from the Trabanes' habitation unit.
Emelia's office was a jumble of generic furniture and unfamiliar electronic devices. Rose picked up a piece of equipment from one of the chairs and set it carefully on the one exposed part of Emelia's desk so that she could sit down. Emelia, for her part, flopped into the chair behind the desk and pulled up the display panel.
She tapped rapidly on the screen and said, without looking up, "Ian likes you."
Rose was a little taken aback, but flattered at the same time. "I like him, too. And Jonah."
Emelia looked up from the display and studied Rose for a moment before returning her attention to the display. "Ian doesn't like everyone. He's very choosy. You should be very flattered."
"I am," said Rose, unsure of what else to say.
"He talked nonstop about you when he got home last night. He was very worried about your fall." She paused for a moment. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't ask how you were earlier, and that I was rude yesterday. I was upset that no one at the nursery took the time to make sure you were all right before you left."
"The Doctor did," Rose pointed out.
"Yes. The Doctor." Again, she looked up from the display briefly. "He's not my staff, and I don't trust his judgment." She scrubbed at her face with her hands. "Oh, I don't mean it like that. I just needed my own medic to examine you. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," said Rose. She felt a little braver, so she added, "You were awfully hard on Howard, too."
Emelia's lips pursed together and she sighed. "I was. He took entirely too long responding to the nursery and that's my responsibility. What if you had been seriously hurt? Every minute matters, and he wasted time –" She stopped, and laughed at herself for a brief moment. Rose wasn't sure she had heard Emelia laugh before. "There I go again. I wanted to apologize."
"Apology accepted," Rose told her.
"Thanks," said Emelia with evident gratitude in her voice. When she continued, some of the force had come back into her voice. "Connor said that the two of you were traveling together and came here by accident, that you faked your credentials."
"Yes," Rose admitted, feeling somewhat guilty herself. "I'm sorry we lied to you."
Emelia tapped out several more instructions on the display before easing back in her chair. "So who are you, then? Is your name really Rose Tyler?"
"Yes," Rose said, relieved that something hadn't been a lie. "I'm from Earth. London, actually." Emelia gave a brief nod of recognition and laced her fingers together, clearly waiting for Rose to continue her story. "I met the Doctor when the shop where I worked was sort of, well, attacked by aliens. He saved my life, and I guess I saved his, too. He asked me to come traveling with him."
"And the Doctor?" Emelia prompted, when Rose paused.
"That's more complicated," she admitted. "He's an alien." She suddenly sat bolt upright in her chair. "Are you – I mean, I guess everyone here isn't all human –"
Emelia shrugged. "Noxtirran on my mother's side, that's it."
The fact that the Doctor was an alien might be less problematic than Rose had assumed at the start of this conversation, which let her relax a little. "He's not human at all," she said. "He's a traveler. When he said we were sightseeing, remember, when we first met you? That was the truth. We weren't trying to get to Arisbe. He wanted to show me a sunset on a planet called –" She struggled to remember. "Lycoras. We ended up here by mistake. He isn't good with directions." That was an understatement. "We took a look around and then we ran into you, and you asked for identification. You know the rest." She omitted any mention of the telepathy that had so intrigued the Doctor, hoping that he would explain about Jonah's ability later on.
"Mmm," said Emelia noncommittally. "Sightseeing?" She seemed to be thinking very hard. "What was that scanner that he had?"
"Sonic screwdriver, like he said."
The sound that came out of Emelia's mouth was not a particularly feminine one, and she looked amused. "Screwdriver," she repeated.
"It's the truth," said Rose defensively. "He'll show it to you." She fervently hoped he would. "I'm sorry we lied, Emelia. Honest I am. Everything I've told you today is the truth. The Doctor can help find whoever's responsible for the sabotage. That's what he does. He finds things that need fixing and helps fix them."
Emelia removed a keycard from a slot under her desk. "Personnel files," she said. "I need to know, Rose. I need to know why those people died and who was responsible. I need to protect the people who are here. If the two of you can help me do that, then I'm willing to let bygones by bygones."
Rose nodded emphatically. "Let's get those back to the Doctor, then."
…
The two women returned to the restaurant and found the Doctor and Connor sitting impossibly close to the Doctor's invention and wearing identical expressions of intense concentration. Emelia tapped Connor on the shoulder and said "Excuse me," not at all loudly, but both men jumped as if she had shouted. The Doctor muttered something about "sneaking" and re-adjusted his glasses from where they had slid down his nose.
"Did you get it?" asked Connor eagerly.
Emelia rolled her eyes and held out a keycard. "Of course I got it."
The Doctor snatched the proffered card from Emelia's hand before Connor could do so and inserted it into a slot on the side of his machine. "Aha," he said, pleased. "We can cross-reference this with the access logs and run an analysis –"
Rose stopped listening and paid attention to her rumbling stomach. "Want to get some lunch?" she asked Emelia. "I'm famished."
"May as well." She shrugged. "We're here."
They went through the line and Rose selected something that looked like chicken (she fervently hoped it was chicken), some more of the fluffy carbohydrate from the other evening, and some peas. When Emelia added a thick slice of a dark cake with buttery-looking icing to her tray, Rose gave in and took one, too.
They seated themselves at a table next to where the Doctor and Connor were working industriously and ate quietly for a few minutes. Emelia spoke again only after she had finished her meal and was picking thoughtfully at her cake.
"Tell me about Jonah," she said quietly. "Please." It was not her usual command. Her words were carefully selected and spoken, with a gentleness and concern that indicated the depth of her emotions.
Rose had expected that the Doctor would be the one to explain Jonah's ability, and she hadn't thought about what she might say. "He's, well, he's telepathic. I don't know how it works at all." The other woman was silent, waiting. "I think he got upset yesterday when I stopped pushing him on the swing. There was this – broadcast. It sort of knocked me down when it happened."
Emelia dismissed that with a wave. "You're saying Jonah hurt you? That's ridiculous."
"No, no," Rose corrected quickly, "it wasn't his fault. I'm sure he didn't mean to. Not everyone," and at this, she swallowed, "not everyone can hear him. The Doctor can. That's why we stayed here. He heard this telepathy and we didn't know what it was and so we're here." She smiled wanly and stared down at her uneaten cake.
"Can you hear him?" Emelia sounded more apprehensive than curious.
"I did yesterday. Not when we first arrived."
Emelia took a long drink from her water glass. "What did he say?"
"Say?" Rose was confused and then realized what she was asking. "It's not like language, it's more like emotions, images, sensations." She cast back into her mind, trying to remember those moments as clearly as she could. "I could feel him on the swing, how happy it made him, and then when he stopped, it was like –" She struggled for the words for a moment. "It was like the volume on everything was up too loud. I could hear everything, feel everything, smell it, taste it, and all I wanted to do was get away. That's when I blacked out."
Emelia's eyes suddenly sparkled and she blinked several times, not looking at Rose. "Is it like that for him all the time?"
"I don't know," Rose admitted. She hoped the Doctor did, and that he could help.
It was her turn to jump when she felt a pair of hands rest briefly on her shoulders. The Doctor pulled a chair up beside her and eyed the leftovers on her plate. She scooted it over toward him and he began eating, cake first, as Connor sat down on the opposite side.
"We've got a few places to start," said the Doctor, between mouthfuls of cake. "I'd like to interview Connor's staff, for one. That coupled with the access logs should help us narrow down our pool of suspects."
"I hate to think of any of them being involved," said Connor regretfully, "but at least we may be able to rule some of them out."
Rose looked at Emelia, who was staring down at the table and seemingly not following the conversation around her. She wanted to ask the Doctor if he had told Connor about Jonah, but she expected that he'd gotten too involved in their project to bring that subject up. She sighed. She was going to have to explain this, too.
She restated what she had told Emelia in a few brief sentences, with Connor utterly silent until she drew to a close. He seemed as stunned as Emelia had been. Still was.
"I'd like to talk to him," the Doctor added. Both parents nodded their assent, distracted.
"He's still Jonah," Rose said. "You still love him. This doesn't change anything."
"We never knew," said Emelia finally, her eyes still fixed on the table in front of her. "Even before his parents died, he didn't speak and had trouble focusing. He's been somewhat responsive through play therapy – Brandon's been wonderful with him. You've seen that." She swallowed audibly. "What if he's been trying to communicate this whole time and we just couldn't hear him?"
Connor put his arm around his wife and drew her close against him. The lines on his face seemed to be etched more deeply than they had even a few moments before, and Rose was terribly sad to have helped put them there.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 03:25 pm (UTC)Also, boys and their toys and the women who love them FTW.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 09:36 pm (UTC)boys and their toys and the women who love them FTW
I have to agree, but then again I've just watched DH spend most of the day playing NCAA football on our Wii, so I'm probably biased.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 04:25 pm (UTC)Otherwise this is still wonderful.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 09:40 pm (UTC)I'm glad that came across here. I'm quite fond of her, really.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 05:26 pm (UTC)And, hee! Boys and their gadgets. I could so see that scene happening.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 09:41 pm (UTC)Exactly right. Rose is an exceedingly good sympathetic listener, and she and Emelia have been getting along fine for the most part all along. Emelia may seriously question Rose's choice of life partner, though. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 08:17 pm (UTC)Really like the way the inter-character relationships are developing.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 09:41 pm (UTC)You and
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Date: 2007-08-12 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 11:59 pm (UTC)An excellent point. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-12 11:07 pm (UTC)i'm curious to see who was talking at the begining of the chapter :D
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 12:00 am (UTC)Of course! We've got a ways to go before we get into that, but yes, all will be revealed :)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 12:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 02:10 am (UTC)Yes. She's got guilt from the death of his parents, who were her people. Then you add on top of it the knowledge that Jonah could communicate, and she's got some issues. But it's all love, and defensiveness.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 02:42 am (UTC)I also love the Doctor eating off of Rose's plate. Love.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-13 03:38 am (UTC)LOVE IT, as usual! And can't wait to see the next part :)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 01:10 am (UTC)Good God, I'm wordy.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 01:07 am (UTC)I'm glad to see I was wrong about Emelia (I was kind of afraid for Rose when she left with Emelia last chapter)
I'm glad there was some doubt -- there is certainly legitimate acrimony between Emelia and the Doctor, mostly because they both want to be in charge.