Sweet as Sugar

Sweet as Sugar Chapter 30

Disclaimers Apply

A/N Thanks for sticking with this thus far! Foxfeather is Uberbeta, hee hee…


Rose licked her dry lips and took a deep breath. The Doctor strode purposefully ahead of her, humming a cheerful tune under his breath, occasionally breaking into a full-throated chorus in a language she did not understand and that the TARDIS would not or could not translate for her. “Doctor,” she tried hesitantly, not quite willing to interrupt his apparent good mood. The corridor was not quite as narrow as the previous three but it was still poorly lit to her eyes. She felt trapped, like a rat in a maze, and said as much. Finally, the Doctor slowed his pace and turned to face her, walking backwards. His lips were faintly red and still kiss-swollen but Rose could not see that from her place several feet away.

“Oh, Rose, if you were a rat in a maze this would be far easier to deal with. Nibble through the walls and get the cheese! As it is…” he paused, smiling wide as she stopped just within arm’s reach of him, “you’re human. In the outer walls of the Tomb of Rassilon…” his smile slipped a fraction at these last words but he did not let old tremors of fear and anger override his increasingly good mood. “The Rani is brilliant—and you know that’s no faint praise coming from me,” he added with a wink. “She’s brilliant but she’s very hidebound when it comes to our old homeworld… she’s not changed a thing!” He took Rose’s hand and squeezed tightly, his smile growing in force until it bordered on manic. “Every young Time Lord knows their way in and out of these halls—where do you think we’d nip out to indulge in our bad habits?”

Rose snickered at his waggling brows. “I can’t picture you slipping out to have a smoke,” she laughed, letting him tug her down the hall. “Or sip out of your best mate’s flask…”

“Rose Tyler,” he chided, “your mother would be shocked! Shocked, I tell you!” He glanced over his shoulder at her as they turned a corner and threw her a wink. “My youthful vices were much simpler… sneaking out to read the occasional forbidden text, for example.” He paused, having reached a t-junction. “Let me see…”

“Doctor…” Rose tilted her head to one side, her attention captured by the faintest of noises. “Doctor, are you sure that The Rani is gone?” The scratching came again, like someone trying to push a stone across a stone floor. “Can’t you hear that?” She shook her hand free of his when it was clear that he was not going to move with her, letting his grip drop away as she padded softly towards the source of the sound. “It sounds like it’s on the other side of this wall!” she breathed, pressing her ear against the unexpectedly warm stone. “Doctor! It sounds like someone scratching in code! It’s… it’s almost a pattern!” She paused as he moved closer, his warmth reaching out to encompass her, his breath soft on the back of her neck where it stirred the fine hairs, sending a frisson of sensation down her spine, straight to her pelvis. Clearing her throat, she said as steadily as she could manage “What’s on the other side of this wall?”

“Another bend in the corridor. The entire place is laid out in a complicated symbol...” he trailed off, old pangs of honor silencing him. He could not discuss Rassilon with her. She was not ready for the sordid history of the Time Lords, of Gallifrey… Not yet. Even Ace had had a difficult time with it and she had become one of them, had left him and joined them. A swift fire of sorrow swept through him, his logical mind refusing to let him hope—after all, it whispered, just because the Rani was around did not mean anyone else had survived—and the rest of him wanting to hurry, run like a child at Easter, trying to find all of the eggs.

Rose frowned, feeling rather than see his sudden shift in demeanor. “Then what?” she murmured, her voice barely a whisper. The scratching had stopped but she knew it would start again in a moment, the series of long skritches followed by an almost frantic set of srambles against the stone.

“Then another turn and ostensibly, the exit.” He forced a smile as she craned her neck to look up at him. “Come on, then. No rest for the wicked. We’ll find the mad scratcher around the next bend!” He gathered her much smaller hand up in his but did not offer a reassuring squeeze this time. He could feel the energy thrumming in her, that smidge of the TARDIS still in her veins, far more than a human, by any rights, should carry, seeking out the familiar, reaching for the essence of itself and pulling her along with it. They were one now, his Rose and his TARDIS, forever entwined until the end of all things. Shaking his sudden morbidity off, he led Rose in silence around the next bend, the scratching growing all the louder as they pressed onward. Her hand did not shake in his but he felt the tension seep through her, her entire being on alert. The section of the corridor was quite short, comparatively speaking, and soon they were at another bend in the path. The scratching sounded as if it were in the same hall as they were, surrounding them and making Rose hiss, her free hand flying up to cover one of her ears.

“WHAT IS IT?” she shouted above the noise. “Doctor!”

“Resonance!” he called back, frowning. “The corridor is making the sound seem louder than it actually is!” He closed his eyes and tilted his head this way and that, looking for all the world like a curious animal on the trail of an annoyance. Gently, he tugged Rose closer, his eyes opening as he realized the source of the news. “Rose, remember what I said to you when we first met?”

“You asked me my name!”

“And after that?”

“You told me to run.” Her eyes flew wide and she caught the Doctor’s narrowed gaze. “Doctor?”

“Run for your life.”