What It Is And Isn't

Chapter 14

Rose awoke with the Doctor's hand over her mouth.  She tried to let out a squeak of surprise, but he was sitting up, and turned to look at her, his eyes wide.  He placed his finger to his lips and shook his head.  

She sat up slowly, and reached and took his hand from her mouth, holding it in both of hers.  He was shaking.  She raised her eyebrows in confusion and he shook his head again.  He leaned over and drew her close to his side.  

Then she heard it.  

Thump.  Thump.  Thump.

Rose burrowed closer to his shoulder then.  Something had gotten into the TARDIS, which was pretty much impossible.  But it had happened, and so he held onto her, slightly in front of her. There was no where to hide, of course, because it was just a bedroom, and there was no place to go that they would not be found immediately.  The TARDIS had panicked and locked Rose and the Doctor into her room.  

A rumbling voice sounded through the hallway, and Rose could just barely hear the voice and understand what it was saying.

"Find the girl."

"I cannot," another, smoother voice said, "Someone has built her mental walls up, I can not seek out her mind."

"Well, what about him, then?  Can you find him?"

"His barriers are ever stronger than hers!" the voice cried frustratingly. 

The Rake. Rose knew it was the Rake, and now it spoke instead of screamed.  She grabbed the front of the Doctor's shirt, her fingers curling into the fabric and making her feel a bit more grounded.  She still couldn't say that she felt safe, though.  The way the Doctor's hearts were pounding under her fist, she had a feeling that he was feeling quite the same way.

They sat in silence, stiff, three hearts racing. The Doctor considered weakening his own barriers in order to protect Rose's, but it appeared that the TARDIS was doing a fine job of that all by herself.  He was alight with anger at the thought that Gren wanted them to be in the room they had stayed in originally. If they had been there, Rose would've been taken in a heartbeat, and he may not have even noticed. 

Just to reassure himself that she was there, he tugged her closer to his side, tips of his fingers digging into her ribs. If she minded him being a touch rough with her, she did not protest at all, in sound or action.

"Fine.  Shall we leave?" the Rake asked, surprisingly sophisticated in comparison to how it had sounded when Rose had been in the forest with it. 

The other voice replied, "I think so. It is not as though they can stay in their ship forever. They will feel bound to help the people here.  And when they exit, we can take the girl."

"Very good."

The two left then, and the TARDIS doubled her defenses on the door, not letting anybody in or out until she said so.  The Doctor sagged back, falling onto the pillows. Rose looked at him worriedly before he mustered up the strength to sit up again and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

Her brows furrowed. She did not think that he had ever behaved like this with her before. She reached up and rested her hands on the back of his neck, smoothing his hair and trying to calm him down, as well as herself. She realized how close she had been to capture, and sit made her incredibly frightened. She had not been as scared of the Rake when she thought it was an imbecile, but now?  Now it was sophisticated, and that made her more frightened than any other opponent.

"They're right, you know," she whispered.

The Doctor pulled back from her and stared into her eyes, the dark of the room forcing his eyes to glint at her.  "What do you mean by that?" He asked in a rather demanding tone of voice.