Sweet as Sugar
folder
1 through F › Doctor Who
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
43
Views:
11,316
Reviews:
19
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
1 through F › Doctor Who
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
43
Views:
11,316
Reviews:
19
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Dr. Who, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
22
Sweet as Sugar Chapter Twenty Two
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Thanks for your patience! Just when I think I have my writing time scheduled in, stuff happens! Blah, lol. Muy grande thanks to Foxfeather for being a wondermous cross-genre beta!
Rose winced as the door slammed shut, the clang of metal surprising in this TARDIS, a sound so unfamiliar in the one she knew. “Friend of yours?” she asked flatly, her gaze shifting from Bara to Jack and back again. “You were on Venus,” she added, before Jack could respond. “You’re one of the higher ups… I saw you.” Her brow wrinkled and her lips pulled downwards into a frown. “No, I couldn’t have…”
“The gallery,” Bara said softly, his voice hissing slightly as air passed over the thin gill slits in his neck. The humidity in the TARDIS was sorely lacking and he was starting to feel the effects already, a soreness creeping down his throat and across his chest, his skin feeling itchy and raw. “I was in the gallery.”
“You saw him as you scanned the crowd,” the Doctor put in distractedly, running his hands over the door’s barely visible edges. “Damned changeable circuitry,” he muttered. “Each TARDIS is unique to it’s Time Lord. Or in this case Lady. And I use that word loosely!” He slammed his hands, palms down, against the door and swore under his breath. “The Rani is, surprisingly, not the most unstable Time Lord I know but she is the most dangerous. She knows her power, knows how the universe works…” He turned, his eyes narrowed to dark slits in his narrow face as he peered down at Rose. “She has a fondness for manipulation. And you, Rose, seem to have piqued her interest.” He dropped down to a squat before her in the confines of the room just off the control center of this particular TARDIS, their own little jail cell. “You’re human, you’re from pre-contact Earth, and you’re…” he paused, suddenly keenly aware of Jack’s intense gaze. “You’re beautiful. You’re the perfect catalyst for her ongoing world building experiment.”
“Hey,” Jack put in, feeling the tension instantly thicken, “I’m pretty too! What’s wrong with me then?” He puffed out his chest in mock-pride. “I’ve got a great butt, nice pecs, and I’m magic on the dance floor…”
“The list is too extensive,” the Doctor muttered, sliding him a glance that could almost be considered thankful.
“So she wanted me to be some sort of goddess for these people then?” she asked stiffly. “I gathered that much. What else is new?”
“She wants to enslave the planet,” the Doctor said as gently as possible, willing his voice to be modulated and his hands to be still and not shake Rose to make her understand what he had long since figured out. “And who knows how long this has been going on. If I could just get access to the data banks of her TARDIS…” He rocked back on his heels and chewed his lower lip for a moment, tapping his fingers rapidly against his knee. “Ah… Aaaaaaaah…”
“That,” Jack said in confidential tones to Bara, “is never a good sign. It usually means we’re about to do something painful, nerve-wracking, or both.”
“Will it involve water?” Bara asked in a slightly rasping tone. “If it does, I don’t mind what it is.”
“We’ll find you some humidity,” the Doctor said lightly, barely glancing at the amphibious being. “Rose…”
She straightened, swallowing hard. She was not scared anymore, she realized. She was excited. She felt powerful, being with him again, being with both of her best friends. Licking her suddenly too-dry lips, she found herself leaning towards him, felt her lips curling into a smile. “Yes, Doctor?” She could feel the pull of him; she had been feeling it keenly since the transformation. No, she corrected herself, since before then, since she came back for him, since they left Jack on accident, since she was the Bad Wolf. She wondered if he felt it to, if he could feel the thick golden remnants of the Time Vortex in her, the tiny sparks of power and light that danced in her veins and sent electric shocks of awareness through her when she stopped fighting so hard against the feelings.
The Doctor paused, his brows creeping upwards ever so slightly. He could see something shift in Rose, something ineffable moving through her. It was as if Jack and Bara fell away for just a moment, disappeared from his awareness long enough for him to see, truly see, Rose, then it was over. Reality snapped back into place and he was The Doctor again. The Universe spun around them, planets caroming through space and time and dimensions shifting in a dance older than time itself, and he felt it all again. “The Rani won’t leave us in here for long. She knows better than that; she won’t leave us enough time to plot and plan. When she opens this door, once she gets the coordinates set, we need to move.” He stood again, motioning for Jack and Bara and Rose to do the same. “Bara, you are her pet here. You were selected for your position on your home world, correct?”
“I suppose,” he replied in a neutral tone, not meeting the Doctor’s eyes directly, staring at some point past the Time Lord. “I am here on a fool’s errand it seems.”
“Right, your role here is going to be most important then.” The Doctor beamed at him and patted his arm in a masculine gesture of inclusion. “Claim Jack as your property. Demand to be released to your dome on Venus.”
Jack straightened, his brows furrowing in immediate annoyance. “Hey! The property begs to differ!”
“Jack, think about this. You’ll be planetside. You can start liberating the enslaved immediately while we deal with the Rani up here.” He smiled tightly, hoping.
Rose was too busy looking around the small space to listen closely to the Doctor, but she heard what he was saying, some part of her brain putting it away to analyze in a few moments. _Surely she’s listening to us… If she’s as devious as the Doctor says she is, she won’t leave us alone in here to our own devices… _ She turned to say as much to the Doctor and found him pinning her with a hard stare. The words died in her throat as he nodded slowly, drawing her into the gesture. She nodded in return and swallowed hard again. “Right,” she said in a broken sigh. He knew, she thought, her glow dying rapidly. This was the fool’s errand, she thought. He was putting them all in danger.
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Thanks for your patience! Just when I think I have my writing time scheduled in, stuff happens! Blah, lol. Muy grande thanks to Foxfeather for being a wondermous cross-genre beta!
Rose winced as the door slammed shut, the clang of metal surprising in this TARDIS, a sound so unfamiliar in the one she knew. “Friend of yours?” she asked flatly, her gaze shifting from Bara to Jack and back again. “You were on Venus,” she added, before Jack could respond. “You’re one of the higher ups… I saw you.” Her brow wrinkled and her lips pulled downwards into a frown. “No, I couldn’t have…”
“The gallery,” Bara said softly, his voice hissing slightly as air passed over the thin gill slits in his neck. The humidity in the TARDIS was sorely lacking and he was starting to feel the effects already, a soreness creeping down his throat and across his chest, his skin feeling itchy and raw. “I was in the gallery.”
“You saw him as you scanned the crowd,” the Doctor put in distractedly, running his hands over the door’s barely visible edges. “Damned changeable circuitry,” he muttered. “Each TARDIS is unique to it’s Time Lord. Or in this case Lady. And I use that word loosely!” He slammed his hands, palms down, against the door and swore under his breath. “The Rani is, surprisingly, not the most unstable Time Lord I know but she is the most dangerous. She knows her power, knows how the universe works…” He turned, his eyes narrowed to dark slits in his narrow face as he peered down at Rose. “She has a fondness for manipulation. And you, Rose, seem to have piqued her interest.” He dropped down to a squat before her in the confines of the room just off the control center of this particular TARDIS, their own little jail cell. “You’re human, you’re from pre-contact Earth, and you’re…” he paused, suddenly keenly aware of Jack’s intense gaze. “You’re beautiful. You’re the perfect catalyst for her ongoing world building experiment.”
“Hey,” Jack put in, feeling the tension instantly thicken, “I’m pretty too! What’s wrong with me then?” He puffed out his chest in mock-pride. “I’ve got a great butt, nice pecs, and I’m magic on the dance floor…”
“The list is too extensive,” the Doctor muttered, sliding him a glance that could almost be considered thankful.
“So she wanted me to be some sort of goddess for these people then?” she asked stiffly. “I gathered that much. What else is new?”
“She wants to enslave the planet,” the Doctor said as gently as possible, willing his voice to be modulated and his hands to be still and not shake Rose to make her understand what he had long since figured out. “And who knows how long this has been going on. If I could just get access to the data banks of her TARDIS…” He rocked back on his heels and chewed his lower lip for a moment, tapping his fingers rapidly against his knee. “Ah… Aaaaaaaah…”
“That,” Jack said in confidential tones to Bara, “is never a good sign. It usually means we’re about to do something painful, nerve-wracking, or both.”
“Will it involve water?” Bara asked in a slightly rasping tone. “If it does, I don’t mind what it is.”
“We’ll find you some humidity,” the Doctor said lightly, barely glancing at the amphibious being. “Rose…”
She straightened, swallowing hard. She was not scared anymore, she realized. She was excited. She felt powerful, being with him again, being with both of her best friends. Licking her suddenly too-dry lips, she found herself leaning towards him, felt her lips curling into a smile. “Yes, Doctor?” She could feel the pull of him; she had been feeling it keenly since the transformation. No, she corrected herself, since before then, since she came back for him, since they left Jack on accident, since she was the Bad Wolf. She wondered if he felt it to, if he could feel the thick golden remnants of the Time Vortex in her, the tiny sparks of power and light that danced in her veins and sent electric shocks of awareness through her when she stopped fighting so hard against the feelings.
The Doctor paused, his brows creeping upwards ever so slightly. He could see something shift in Rose, something ineffable moving through her. It was as if Jack and Bara fell away for just a moment, disappeared from his awareness long enough for him to see, truly see, Rose, then it was over. Reality snapped back into place and he was The Doctor again. The Universe spun around them, planets caroming through space and time and dimensions shifting in a dance older than time itself, and he felt it all again. “The Rani won’t leave us in here for long. She knows better than that; she won’t leave us enough time to plot and plan. When she opens this door, once she gets the coordinates set, we need to move.” He stood again, motioning for Jack and Bara and Rose to do the same. “Bara, you are her pet here. You were selected for your position on your home world, correct?”
“I suppose,” he replied in a neutral tone, not meeting the Doctor’s eyes directly, staring at some point past the Time Lord. “I am here on a fool’s errand it seems.”
“Right, your role here is going to be most important then.” The Doctor beamed at him and patted his arm in a masculine gesture of inclusion. “Claim Jack as your property. Demand to be released to your dome on Venus.”
Jack straightened, his brows furrowing in immediate annoyance. “Hey! The property begs to differ!”
“Jack, think about this. You’ll be planetside. You can start liberating the enslaved immediately while we deal with the Rani up here.” He smiled tightly, hoping.
Rose was too busy looking around the small space to listen closely to the Doctor, but she heard what he was saying, some part of her brain putting it away to analyze in a few moments. _Surely she’s listening to us… If she’s as devious as the Doctor says she is, she won’t leave us alone in here to our own devices… _ She turned to say as much to the Doctor and found him pinning her with a hard stare. The words died in her throat as he nodded slowly, drawing her into the gesture. She nodded in return and swallowed hard again. “Right,” she said in a broken sigh. He knew, she thought, her glow dying rapidly. This was the fool’s errand, she thought. He was putting them all in danger.