Breaking Point

Let You Go

Rose knew that she was only avoiding sleep now. She walked down the halls, letting the ship guide her again. This time, she moved down the corridors with her eyes closed, just enjoying the feel of the ship. She ran out of wall and knew she had come to a junction between two corridors. She took two steps out to where she knew the center of the junction was, then turned slowly in a circle, feeling for directions. When she felt she was facing the right way, she started walking forward again. After a moment, she felt like she had to stop, that she was where she was supposed to be. She opened her eyes to see the Doctor standing there, grinning like a loon.

"Hi."

He had pulled her to the infirmary, despite her protests. That was the last place she wanted to be right now, but she couldn't protest too much, because that would also have him asking too many questions. It was time to face the music, with this Doctor, at least. He had been okay with the telepathy, but this might be too much, too fast. The TARDIS had been so "helpful" in bringing the infirmary closer.

"The Doctor will see you now." Oh my god, did he really just..? Well, it wasn't the first time. Come here. I think you need a Doctor.

"That was so cheesy." She was able to smile for a moment, before she went ahead and gave into the inevitable.

He hesitated for a moment, then decided on pushing her very loose pajama sleeves up her arm to expose her shoulder. Rose closed her eyes. Please, please, let let him be okay with this. She felt warm reassurance in the back of her mind from the time ship. It didn't stop her from being scared, though.

The Doctor was very gentle, no doubt remembering just how dark her bruise was just hours before. When he got to the place her bruise was on her shoulder, more on her arm than shoulder, really, she let out a breath she didn't even know she was holding and opened her eyes.

He looked at the spot, eyebrows furrowed, then he looked over to the dermal regenerator that he had planned on using, shook his head in a negative, and looked back at the bruise. Then she saw the understanding dawning on his face. He looked at her, back to the bruise, and then back into her eyes. She could practically see the thoughts swirling in his head. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, speechless, and Rose started chewing on her lip, worried about his reaction. Just say something, dammit!

Finally, he did say something, one word, "How?"

XxXxXxXx

Four months after being trapped in the parallel world:

Rose Tyler was making her way towards Torchwood Tower as fast as she could, breaking a couple of speed limits on the way. She had been called in ten minutes ago about a ship that had landed in Richmond Park. It had been a pretty rough landing, but the aliens seemed to be okay. As far as anyone could tell, these were just people having a breakdown. But Rose knew better than to believe that without seeing the aliens for herself, she'd seen very dangerous aliens use the, 'my ship has crashed,' trick before.

This wasn't normally something Rose would deal with, but the aliens seemed to have no speech that the translation software could work with for communication. They seemed to communicate purely through non verbal means. The most likely being telepathy.

Still, usually Rose wouldn't have been called in on this, but the person that would have, her friend and mentor Melissa Saroyan, had learned just last week that her husband and herself had finally conceived. It was Torchwood policy that a pregnant woman could not do any field work, deal with first contact situations, teleport, or be near dangerous or unknown technology for the sake of the unborn child. This mission was requiring three of the 4 banned activities to be done. Rose was the only one that Torchwood had who was a strong enough telepath to make contact with another telepath without touch and who had experience in first contact situations.