Sweet as Sugar

Sweet as Sugar Chapter Forty One

Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *glomp *style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Jstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Readers/Reviewers: Thank you SO much for your
feedback and support! It’s much appreciated! 
J

            Rose was
not sure if the metallic, mechanical hum was coming from inside her head or the
Loom.  She did not tremble as she feared
she might.  She had experienced death,
experienced loss… both had ripped her soul in two, left her flayed bare for
carrion birds in the shape of people to pick over, to nudge and make raw.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  This, she decided, could be no worse.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  The Rani had released her from the painful
grip that had been Rose’s anchor to reality and now the human girl’s mind
floated, her heart not hammering as she thought it ought to but pounding
steadily, slowly.  She wanted to go home,
start over.  She wanted to curl up in her
little nook in the TARDIS and draw the cinnamon-and-honey scented coverlet over
her face and just breathe him in and out, letting him surround her in the only way
he would allow.  Instead, she
straightened her spine, tossing her long hair back out of her eyes and she
faced Ace, standing across from her, across the Loom.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “So how did you get to be so high and mighty?
Did you turn Judas on him, then?  Sell
him out for your own personal safety?”

            Ace did not
respond immediately, seemingly transfixed on the Loom for a long moment.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Finally, her eyes flickered to meet Rose’s
steady, hard gaze.  “I had no
choice.  This is my life now…”

            Rose
noticed the slight, almost nonexistent, shift in Ace’s gaze to find the Rani,
but it had been so minimal that she wondered, for a moment, if she had imagined
it.  Everything she knew about Ace class=GramE>came tumbling to the fore of her thoughts.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Most of it she had gleaned from reading the class=SpellE>TARDIS’s logs, kept by so many different hands over the
years.  Some of it had come from Jack,
and she never asked him how he had found out about the Doctor’s previous
companions.  She almost did not want to
know.  Sometimes, in her worst moments,
she wished he had never known any of them, but she knew that would mean he
would not be the Doctor she knew and loved. 
He would be like The Master, probably, she thought, watching the slight
shift in Ace’s expression from stoic blandness to stoic edged with the
slightest tinge of panic.  “You always
have a choice,” Rose murmured.  “It’s
just a matter of having the stones to make it.” 
She addressed the Rani then, not looking away from Ace.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “Do it. 
If you’re going to do it… just get it over with.”

            The Rani
smiled faintly, not missing a moment of the interplay between the two human
women.  “As you wish, Rose Tyler…”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  She swiftly took up Rose’s arm, long and cool
fingers gripping warm and fine boned wrist painfully.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “You are mother to a race now, replenishing
our clans…”  Rose trembled then, and the
Rani smiled.  “You are really too
dramatic, aren’t you?  What do you think
we’re going to do? Mash you into paste and smear you all over the Loom?style='mso-spacerun:yes'>   Tear you into ribbons and make a throw of
you?”  She caught the flash of Rose’s
jewel toned glare and laughed.  “Do get
over yourself. You’re no one’s martyr.” 
With a speed that would have surprised Rose had she been watching, the
Rani brought up her free hand and swept it down, puncturing the skin of Rose’s
forearm with a silvery needle.

            “OW!”

            “That is
all we needed,” she smiled, though not kindly, as she dropped Rose’s arm.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “An entire universe in one
drop of blood.”  She held up the
needle and, for the first time, Rose saw what she had done.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  A tiny ampule, less
than a dram in side, perched delicately between the Rani’s
fingers, the silver needle like a bee’s stinger, catching the light and glimmering
like a miniscule star.  A few drops of class=GramE>her own blood filled the small ampule,
black in the light of the chamber.  “Your
entire genetic code is repeated over and over in this droplet,” she crooned as
if talking to a child.  class=GramE>“The future of Gallifrey.”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  She flashed another smile at Rose and the
nodded to Ace.  “Ready the Loom for the
inclusion.”

            “Yes, ma’am…”

            Rose
pressed her fingers absentmindedly to the spot the Rani had pricked.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “That was it? 
You let me fear for my life for a drop of blood?style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Why was the Doctor so panicked if that’s all
it was?”

            “Ah, you
see, I rather lied to you… and he knew it.” 
She handed the ampule to Ace and nodded,
giving the go ahead for the procedure.  “You
are not fully human, are you Rose?  Bad
Wolf… we’ve seen it even from here. You’re legend, you know.”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  She reached out and touched Rose’s face,
feeling the slight chill of her skin and frowning. “Don’t panic on me now,
girl.”

            “I’ll stop
panicking if you tell me what the Hell is going on!”

            “We can’t
let you leave just yet… humans, we understand. 
We study them… your dear Doctor is even part human, you know.” She class=SpellE>tsk’d sadly.  “We
think that is why he’s been such a troublemaker over the centuries.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  No, Rose Tyler of Earth, you are an
interesting little puzzle.”  She slid her
fingers into Rose’s hair and tilted the young woman’s head back.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “I’d love to take you apart and find what
makes you tick.”