Parched [4/9]
AN: Sorry if the characterizations are a bit off this chapter, I haven’t written or watched Fringe in a while, so I’m not quite back in the headspace yet. But I am trying :P Also, let’s see if anyone can figure out which fandom the secret cameo I stuck into this chapter is from. I’ll give you an additional clue: the name you probably know this character by is not their real name :)
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‘I tolerate this century, but I don’t enjoy it.’
DISCLAIMER & OTHER WARNINGS
Peter pulled the car up behind a queue of official FBI vehicles; Astrid’s little sedan felt rather out of place there, but it was the best he could manage on short notice.
‘Not a social butterfly, this Stark fellow,’ Smith remarked from his place in the passenger seat; he looked comically cramped there, even though he had moved the seat back. ‘Otherwise there would be more rubberneckers.’
‘Or we’re just really far away from civilisation,’ Tyler pointed out.
Although they had been keen on coming along once Walter declined to come along, they had both been quiet in the car. Peter got the sense that Smith was a bit claustrophobic, and the girl had been radiating discomfort around Peter since he asked her questions.
Something’s not right about these two, he decided as he got out of the car. And it’s more than the usual CIA weirdness, too.
They all arrived after the forensic cleaners, who had already cordoned off the area from the sparse local traffic. A few neighbours from the surrounding houses were standing in the distance, gossiping with each other. Other than that, Smith’s assessment seemed accurate; the only people interested in the murder were the official ones.
Peter could make out Olivia in the distance, talking to one of the clean-up crew. He hurried over to her so that he could at least give her a heads-up about the slight change in line-up today.
‘… gone over the entire area,’ the man was saying, sounding impatient. It didn’t matter how many times the clean-up crews worked with Fringe, they always got tetchy about being unable to do their jobs without the official go-ahead. ‘All that’s left to be dealt with is the body. We’ve got our people waiting for the word so they can go in.’
‘Soon,’ Olivia promised. ‘We need Dr Bishop to get here so he can perform a quick examination, and…’
She trailed off as she saw Peter, then - judging by the way her lips pursed as her eyes flew past his shoulder - Smith and Tyler.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, abruptly walking away from the cleaner. She strode over to Peter. ‘What are they doing here?’
‘Walter sent them in his place,’ Peter said, and when she opened her mouth to comment on the oddness of that, he held up a hand. ‘Yeah, I know, weird, right? But for some reason he trusts this Smith guy. And honestly, I haven’t seen him this absorbed in something that didn’t involve licking kids’ toys to check for lead content in a while, so…’
And if there’s something really wrong with these two, I’m not leaving them near Walter and Astrid. This job gets them knocked out more often than they should be.
‘But their clearance hasn’t come in yet,’ Olivia said, the statement more of a question.
‘Nope, but I called to check with Broyles, and he okayed it.’
‘And that doesn’t strike you as odd?’
‘Liv, “odd” left the building about four years ago,’ he said, nodding up at the farmhouse where Stark’s desiccated body languished. ‘If you mean does it strike me as out of character for Broyles, yeah, it does. But it’s not something we can really do something about right now, with some nutcase on the loose turning people into extras from Raiders of the Lost Ark.’
She acknowledged that point at least, though her voice was tense when she said, ‘This isn’t a good idea.’
‘I didn’t think so either, at first,’ Peter admitted, ‘but then Walter said something about trying to synthesise some kind of cure to help future victims. Probably won’t be any use as an antidote given how fast this dehydration thing works, but if he can come up with a vaccine for pre-emptive inoculation -’
‘ - we can render it useless.’
‘Exactly. And as we’ve got another crazy science guy on payroll this week, I figured, why not. He seems to know what he’s doing and what Walter’s doing without a translator, and how often does that happen?’
Olivia nodded distractedly, eyes narrowing as she watched the pathologist in question confer with his assistant. ‘And her being here? Teaching opportunity?’
‘That, and she said she’d prefer to see another dehydrated corpse to whatever weirdness was in Walter’s lab.’
‘Can’t say I blame her,’ Olivia agreed, and frowned. ‘Hold on - if she’s his assistant, Walter’s lab should barely phase her. Forensic science isn’t exactly for the squeamish.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s not her field. Apparently she specialises in theoretical physics. She’s working on a thesis about time travel of all things.’
Apparently being the operating word. If Smith leaves her alone long enough, I can probably find out for sure, but until then…
‘Time travel,’ Olivia repeated, frowning. ‘Like what the Observer did -?’
‘Hello,’ Smith interrupted brightly, insinuating himself into both Olivia and Peter’s personal space with a wide grin. ‘Sorry to break up the blogging, but we’ve got a body to look at, yeah? Let’s get to it so these fine folk can get back to their jobs - it’s up that way, right?’
He didn’t wait for confirmation, already starting off toward the house, but Olivia reached out and grabbed hold of his arm.
‘Hold on - before you go anywhere, let’s get something straight,’ she ordered, forcibly turning him around and making him face her.
For a second, Peter wished she hadn’t done that.
Something flashed across Smith’s face- it made Peter’s heart stutter and gave him the sudden impulse to step in front of his girlfriend and unborn child. The impulse disappeared as quickly as Smith’s expression, but there was a slight hitch in Olivia’s voice that suggest she had seen it too.
Still, to her credit, she kept talking.
‘You may be CIA liaison or consultant or whatever your documents say, but you still don’t have clearance. Which means you don’t get to come and go here as you please -’
‘I understand your distrust, Agent Dunham,’ Smith interrupted. ‘And your bluntness. Even appreciated it, so I’ll be blunt in return - I’ve got no interest in taking over your case or infringing on your jurisdiction. I want to stop whoever’s doing this - and as I’m rather clever, I’d think you’d want to take advantage of an extra bit of help. Also, I hope that by proving myself to you here, you might open up to me about something else of interest.’
Ah, there’s the catch, Peter thought, eyes narrowing. ‘And that would be?’
‘Information on the watcher.’
‘The what?’
‘The man from the restaurant.’
‘The Observer?’ Peter spoke up, with a frown.
‘Is that what you call him? Never mind - I don’t care what his name is. I want to find out why he’s here. And why he keeps showing up to your crime scenes in particular. Oh, and why you haven’t done anything about it.’
Peter raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to ask something, but met Olivia’s tight-lipped expression and stopped himself. She made an incremental shake of her head.
Smith apparently had the clearance to know about Fringe, but didn’t seem to have heard of the Pattern before. Something wasn’t right here, but if they confronted him about it…
He suppressed a shudder at the dark look that had been in his eyes. There was something dangerous about this Smith person, something that made Peter think bringing up suspicions wouldn’t end well for anyone. He had seen soldiers that got that glint in their eyes, sometimes, and it usually meant that they were hanging on by a very thin thread.
‘I’ll consider it,’ Olivia said after a moment.
Smith was grinning again. ‘Fantastic! That’s all I can ask, isn’t it? Well, come on, let’s go!’
He motioned for Rose, who had been listening to the entire exchange with a quiet nervousness, to follow him, and the two of them set off into the house.
‘You changed your mind awfully fast,’ Peter pointed out, watching her suspiciously. ‘A second ago you can’t trust him because of his clearance, but now suddenly you’re going to tell him all about the Observers?’
‘Just some of the stuff we know. To keep him busy,’ Olivia assured him. ‘There’s something not right with him. Her too, but he’s just… it’s just a hunch I’ve got, okay?’
Probably the same hunch I’ve got, but this isn’t the place to talk about it, Peter thought. Out loud, he acknowledged, ‘If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s trusting your hunches. So, are we going to follow this hunch back inside?’
‘You go on ahead. Keep an eye on those two. I’ll be in once the body’s cleared out.’
Doubt turned to concern, and for a moment he ignored their surroundings and let their personal life take centre stage. ‘You okay?’
As expected, Olivia shook him off, but not with the same defensiveness as usual. ‘I’m fine. It’s the smell.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure. Go.’
‘I’ll tell Smith to make it snappy then,’ he told her. ‘Sooner we figure this whole thing out, sooner we clock out. And then I owe you some Italian.’
‘And I owe you a conversation,’ Olivia replied genuinely.
Something invisible lifted itself from Peter’s shoulders. They were still on the same page.
He managed a weak smile. ‘I’ll hold you to it.’
·Φ·
Olivia waited until Peter disappeared into the house and then took out her phone to call the Bureau again. She wanted an update on Smith and Tyler’s status, and if not that, at least some more background information.
Unfortunately, it seemed their clearance check was still pending - tied up in the inevitable game of telephone up the chain of command through both agencies.
She didn’t have the time, or the patience to wait for the red tape to clear. And she didn’t need Broyles on her back as well for not playing nice with the CIA liaisons.
It was possible that something on Rose Tyler and John Smith might have been overlooked on her end. A downside to working in an internal agency like the Bureau was that every so often, foreign affairs got immediately shrugged off as a CIA purview and ignored.
And she didn’t trust the CIA to be completely straight with them on the matter.
There’s bound to be something of public record on Smith, she decided, based on her impressions of the man. And I’ve got a feeling I won’t find it stateside.
Smith might sound like he hailed from New York, but the way he phrased things sometimes suggested he had lived abroad for a while. Probably in London if he was dragging that young girl with him.
That was another thing that bothered her. The obvious age difference was the first noticeable thing, but their respective personalities and demeanours didn’t jibe with the story they’d given.
From her short impression of the girl, Olivia judged her to have been raised in a working class environment. She wore second hand clothing, so she obviously didn’t come from money. If she was at Cambridge, it was on scholarship and not out of her own pocket. She had a set to her jaw and a gleam in her eyes that suggested a fighter which Olivia took to mean the girl might have had a rough upbringing. Probably made worse by her intellect; smart kids didn’t have it easy in an inner-city situation.
As for the man…
She didn’t even know where to begin on him. Smith was a walking contradiction, and the only two facts she was certain of was that he had been a soldier at some point and that he was dangerous.
To whom, she couldn’t be certain, but she needed to make sure he would not be a danger to her people. And possibly the girl, but that was an afterthought.
Olivia’s first instinct was to check missing person reports to ensure that Smith hadn’t abducted the girl. She had seen abusive relationships before and had dealt with abduction cases that resulted in Stockholm Syndrome.
This isn’t anything like that, she suspected.
The way these two looked at each other did not resemble the way working partners or even lovers looked at each other. Olivia loved Peter with her whole heart and she would rip apart universes to keep him safe - had all but done it.
But she didn’t look at him like he was the answer to everything, the way Rose Tyler looked at Dr Smith.
And Peter didn’t return that look with the same fervour the way Smith did to Rose.
Olivia scrolled through her contacts, and after finding the one she needed, hit the call button. It was early enough here that she would probably catch the intended recipient at work.
If not, Lisa’s phone was practically grafted to her hand anyhow.
After five rings, the phone picked up.
A woman with a bored voice drawled, ‘If you are one of the privileged few that has this number, you know that I prefer to text. This better be important.’
Olivia chuckled. ‘It’s great to talk to you too, Lisa.’
‘Olivia,’ the voice changed subtly; less bored, more surprised and a bit annoyed.
‘Not tired of running the British government yet?’ Olivia teased.
She could practically hear the other woman rolling her eyes.
‘Honestly, Olivia, I occupy a minor position here,’ Lisa protested. ‘Nothing so over-glamourized as your agency, I assure you. More often than not I simply have to keep my employer’s family’s name out of the papers lest they do something incredibly idiotic and bring down the monarchy.’
‘I think that’s the longest sentence I’ve ever gotten out of you,’ Olivia said. ‘I take it the monarchy’s often in danger of collapsing then?’
‘Indeed,’ Lisa sniffed. ‘Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?’
Straight to the point then. Always liked that about her, Olivia thought.
Olivia had met Lisa McAllister, a former Second Lieutenant with the Royal Marines, back when she had still been part of the US Marine Corps. Their paths crossed for the first time at the RIMPAC exercise in 2004, and they’d struck a friendship that endured through frequent email correspondence.
Lisa now occupied a paper-pushing position that afforded her certain connections to the British government that she wasn’t permitted to reveal to Olivia. Olivia guessed it was either MOD or MI6.
A month ago, Lisa had contacted her looking for information on a former FBI operative and current CIA asset named Neilson regarding something to do with counter-terrorism measures. Olivia had had to bend a few rules to get the information, but Lisa had promised she would owe her a favour.
Olivia intended to collect on it now. ‘You’re on a secure line?’
‘What kind of simpleton do you take me for?’
‘The kind that’s not. Listen, I’m calling in my favour.’
‘This must be serious then,’ Lisa said. Though her tone remained utterly unperturbed, Olivia could hear the rustle of clothing, like she was moving forward in her chair or sitting up straight. ‘I’ll do what I can, provided it’s within reason.’
‘I need everything you have on a Dr John Smith and Rose Tyler,’ Olivia said. ‘I’m more interested in Smith, honestly, but Tyler’s the one who’s actually from your side of the ocean. I can give you approximate ages and descriptions, and the details they’ve deigned to give us, but…’
Lisa snorted. ‘Are you serious? John Smith is only the most common name in the United Kingdom.’
‘Pretty common over here, too, but this guy is the most uncommon person I’ve ever met,’ Olivia allowed. ‘I just need to know if he spent any time over there. And if Rose Tyler is really a student at Cambridge.’
There was a pause on the other side of the phone, and Olivia imagined her friend frowning thoughtfully.
‘I’ll see what I can find,’ she finally promised. ‘It will likely be at least a few hours, but I will make a phone call or two. Be advised, though, this goes beyond the favour I owe you. So the next time I’m in town, you’re paying for the drinks.’
‘Now that’s just not fair - I’ve seen you drink,’ Olivia protested.
They exchange a few more quick pleasantries, and then she hung up.
Turning round, she saw the covered body being carried out the front door. Smith was apparently done with his examination.
Time to check up on the case, she decided grimly and headed back into the farmhouse.
She wasn’t sure which one she meant.
·Φ·
Feeling out of place, Rose looked around the dim office. She frowned at reams of paper on the desk with complicated equations and almost indecipherable notes on them. Even if any of that would help solve this mystery, she’d never be able to recognise it.
I’m useless here, Rose thought angrily. And however ignorant the Doctor might be, Peter Bishop had definitely picked up on it.
They were talking with one another now, snatches of their conversation floating over to her every time Bishop shot her a calculating glance.
She busied herself with at least looking like she was investigating the place, half paying attention to the other conversation.
‘… possibly transferable?’
‘No, not a virus… bacteria… and non-airborne variety at that…’
Rose began examining the various paperweights and other curios on the desk, glancing briefly at the few photographs on the desk. They were mostly work related from what she could see. People in white lab coats, one with the dead man alone outside a rustic looking log cab, and one with a young man outside an industrial looking building.
Boyfriend, she’d wager, if the possessive way the young man held on to Dr Stark’s wrist said anything.
‘… once it’s disseminated through the system and absorbs all the moisture it can find, it dies.’
‘Because there’s no more moisture, right?’
‘Right. It’s a bit alien, actually.’
Ex-boyfriend, maybe, Rose thought, because from what she’d seen of the house on their way up, the entire place felt like only one person lived here. One dish and set of cutlery in the sink, one mug drying on the rack… the place looked nothing like her mum’s flat had always looked. Poor man must have been all alone when he died.
Her heart pained a little at that, considering her memories of how the diners at the restaurant had died.
He must have been terrified.
‘… theoretically, should be possible by contemporary scientific means, but I would’ve expected it in a virus form. The fact that we only found the presence of bacteria though…’
Her stomach rebelled at the memory of how the doomed restaurant patrons had looked, their faces twisted in desperation and fear.
She mentally clamped down on that. It wouldn’t do to dwell on things she couldn’t change, and so she forced herself back to the present.
‘… likely poisoned, as with the people in the restaurant,’ the Doctor was saying, gesturing to the cognac glass. ‘A small sample of those dehydrating bacteria in his nightcap, and he wouldn’t even have noticed. For all of ten seconds.’
‘But why?’ Bishop wanted to know. ‘The diners, I can understand, there was possible motive. But killing a guy in his home with bacteria?’
‘Whoever did it was looking for something,’ Agent Dunham announced as she entered the room, wrinkling her nose a bit at the lingering odour.
‘How d’you figure that?’ Bishop asked.
‘Whoever murdered Stark could have spiked his drink and disappeared if it was just a personal vendetta. Or if they were trying to shut him up about something,’ she explained. ‘But the FBI on the scene said Stark died about six hours ago.’
‘Six and a half,’ the Doctor corrected. ‘Judging by the smell, at least.’
‘All right, six and a half,’ Dunham acknowledged. ‘But the boot print and tyre tracks we found outside the house are only about three hours old.’
‘So why’d the murderer stick around for three extra hours,’ Bishop realised.
‘To take his time looking through the house… but also taking care to make like he hadn’t been here,’ the Doctor added, looking around the study with renewed interest. ‘Yet nothing seems to be out of place, and your people likely didn’t find any fingerprints.’
‘Whoever he is, he’s smart,’ Rose remarked, earning an inscrutable stare from Agent Dunham.
She was watching Rose like she was fighting the urge to turn her away from her crime scene. Rose abruptly wondered if she was compromising the investigation just by breathing in the same room.
She turned away, brain working furiously to come up with something she could do to make it appear like she knew what she was doing. All she had to do was keep the intense FBI Agent’s attention off of her and -
Wait. What was that?
She blinked and once more turned to face the wall that had caught her attention. She frowned, not seeing anything.
Must have been a trick of the light, she decided and turned away - only for whatever it was to catch the periphery of her vision again.
Once more she focused on the spot on the wall, slowly moving her head from side to side, trying to see without looking. ‘Doctor…?’
The conversation trailed off, and he looked up. ‘What is it?’
‘I think there’s something…’ she trailed off meaningfully, not knowing if he wanted her to say out loud what she thought she might have found. When she met his expectant gaze, she realised he fully intended her to finish the sentence, and so she went one, ‘I think there’s a perception filter on the wall.’
‘A what-filter?’ Bishop asked.
When the Doctor didn’t jump in to explain, she realised he would let her do this as well.
Part of her worried he was setting her up to muck up their cover, making her explain things she didn’t understand. Another part suspected he was trying to ensure neither of their new associates questioned her presence there.
‘It’s a kind of technology that can, er, direct attention away from itself,’ Rose explained, remembering the Doctor’s explanation. ‘You look at it, but you don’t actually see it.’
Agent Dunham narrowed her eyes. ‘How?’
‘Well, it’s sort of like a dull gloss, innit?’ Rose replied. ‘Blurs the information being sent to your eyes, kind of like an optical illusion. Only… it’s actually more telepathic. Gets in your head, tells you there’s nothing.’
‘Then how’d you know it was there?’
‘I just… you’ve got to try to see it from the corner of your eye. You don’t stare directly at it, but as long as you know what you’re looking for you can see,’ she explained.
‘And you’ve worked with these perception filters a lot, then?’ Agent Dunham demanded, in that suspicious voice Rose recognised from television.
The forthright and stubborn police officer suspected her story.
‘A few times,’ the Doctor interjected, and came over to stand with Rose, making a show of searching for the spot on the wall with her. ‘This is a pretty crude model, though, considering you lot don’t incorporate psychic interfaces yet. More optical illusion than telepathic this time, I’d wager, wouldn’t you Rose?’ He reached down and surreptitiously slipped the sonic from his sleeve into hers. He whispered, ‘Setting’s keyed in, just aim.’
‘Er, yeah,’ Rose agreed without really knowing what she was agreeing to. ‘This one’s a prototype?’
‘Oh, no doubt.’
‘Can you turn it off?’ Bishop asked.
‘Rose’s field, not mine,’ the Doctor said cheerfully, and she shot him a brief glare, before pasting a cheery smile on her face and beaming at their associates.
‘Gimme a mo’,’ she agreed, and went to stand in front of the wall to make it look like she was examining some kind of invisible computer system. She strained her wrist a bit to grab hold of the sonic without showing it to them and aimed it at the blurry patch of wall.
There was a whirring noise, and then the wall wasn’t just a bare patch of space, but showed off a large safe. Beside it, Rose noticed a keypad she supposed required some sort of code.
‘So he had something to hide,’ Bishop stated. ‘Anyone got a safecracker on speed-dial? I’m a bit rusty…’
‘Hang on a tick,’ the Doctor said, and opened up the compartment beneath the pad. Several wires were sticking out, and faster than Rose’s eyes registered, the Doctor’s fingers were tangling among them, pulling apart and reconnecting.
With a groan, and the safe door sprung open.
‘That more jiggery-pokery?’ she teased.
‘Nope, that was definite hullabaloo,’ he replied, returning the grin.
‘You’re pretty versatile for a forensic pathologist,’ Bishop remarked suspiciously.
‘What, you don’t have hobbies?’ the Doctor retorted, as Agent Dunham strode forward and opened the safe door wider.
·ΘΣ·
The perception filter itself had been a rather crude example of the technology, and only just within the margins of what the Doctor would consider anachronistic. Humans had been working on such things since before the Industrial Revolution, a time when scientific discovery was lauded and imagination stretched beyond capability.
That being said, this perception filter was still beyond what should exist in this time period.
As Agent Dunham busied herself with the contents of the safe - what looked like a bunch of files and folders - the Doctor examined the safe itself. Whoever handled its design was likely aware of the perception filter, possibly the same one who had created it.
There was nothing on the safe, but upon further examination of the keypad, he saw a small logo.
Massive Dynamic.
He made a mental note to investigate the place because their technology was obviously being helped along by someone or something.
Maybe even by the “Observer” that the Fringe Division didn’t feel like telling him about.
‘These are research findings,’ Dunham said, and her expression darkened as she flipped through them. ‘All of this refers back to one person - Dr Simone Parker.’ She turned to the Doctor. ‘Have you ever heard of her?’
‘Nope,’ he answered, while Rose shook her head.
‘Actually… hold on, I think I’ve heard that one,’ Bishop said, screwing up his face in an effort to recall. ‘It might be from the background checks I ran back at the lab.’ He pulled out his cellphone. ‘I’ll give Astrid a call, see if she can’t find anything for us.’
‘I’ll check in with the Bureau, see if she’s in the system,’ Dunham said, and then turned to the Doctor. ‘Is there any point in asking you to check with your people, or is that going to be classified too?’
‘You’re a bit rude, aren’t you?’ the Doctor replied easily. As the woman bristled, he snorted and shook his head. ‘We’ll call in. We have to anyhow, let our agency know about our findings. If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be in the other room.’
And before Dunham offered any protest, he shuffled Rose away from the office and toward the rather Spartan bedroom of the late Dr Stark.
‘Cor, she’s hard work,’ Rose remarked quietly once the Doctor was sure they were out of earshot. ‘Is it me, or does she not like us?’
‘It’s not that - the two of them don’t believe we are who we say we are,’ the Doctor replied, falling back into his natural way of speaking. ‘Don’t worry, though, we’ll be out of their hair before they have a chance to look into us.’
‘Yeah, well, not if you keep calling attention to me like I’m some sort of genius! I can’t read your mind, you know! Half the time I’ve been guessing what it is you wanted me to tell them,’ Rose grumbled, stuffing her hands into her pockets.
A pained expression passed over her face and was quickly buried between forced neutrality.
‘You doin’ all right?’ he asked, wincing at how awkward it sounded even to his ears.
Rose’s eyes widened and she suddenly wouldn’t meet his eyes; she looked a little flushed. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You sure?’
‘It’s not important - d’you think this Observer bloke is the one responsible for the bacteria? I mean, you said it was alien before, so…’
The Doctor frowned at the attempted subject change. ‘No. For whatever reason, these Fringe people seem to think he’s not a suspect. And just because someone travels in time doesn’t mean they’re alien. Lots of people from your own world’ve travelled in time, long before it even became a thing. Rose, something’s…’
‘Yeah?’
‘You just seem a bit… off. Today,’ he cleared his throat. ‘Quieter than usual.’
Alarm flashed across her face, and she quickly looked away.
‘Now’s not really a good time.’
‘Right. Okay,’ he tried not to feel hurt by that. Since they’d met, it seemed like there was no such thing as not a good time. He might start a conversation about the practical applications of toothpaste at two in the morning (according to her calculations, anyhow) and she always listened.
‘No, Doctor, I don’t mean -’
‘S’alright. We’ve got more important things to deal with. Though, whatever you’re hiding must be important, cos you’re mind’s not on task. I’d rather not explain to your mum if something happens to you if you’re not paying attention.’
Rassilon, had he really played the mother card? How bleeding domestic was he getting?
As flushed as she had been, suddenly she was pale and shaking her head. ‘No - it’s - I don’t want -’
Her uncharacteristic stuttering made him raise an eyebrow. His fingers twitched for the sonic she still had in a sudden bid to scan her and see what was wrong.
She, however, finally seemed to decide that this waffling about wasn’t doing either of them good. She exhaled quickly and squared her shoulders in resignation, like she expected a verbal castigation of some sort.
‘My period is late,’ she told him neutrally. ‘Almost five days now. That… that doesn’t happen. I’m always regular, but suddenly now…’
She trailed off, shrugging and looking at him like she hoped he would infer what she was telling him without her having to continue.
The Doctor blinked, for a moment puzzled by her obvious discomfort, before he remembered that in this era many humans still reacted to their own reproductive practices with embarrassment. He wasn’t sure whether Rose’s discomfiture stemmed from the allusion to her menses - even in this century, the female menstrual cycle was considered something shameful - or possible pregnancy. That brought him up short with his own sense of panic, because if she was, it meant an end to their travels before they had really begun.
He inhaled deeply, ignoring the smell of scented soap and body lotion that mingled with Rose’s own unique scent. He focussed past the soupy odour of salt and plasma that every human gave off, his nose seeking out any sign of heightened progesterone in her system.
Nothing.
Still, best to be sure.
He wordlessly gestured for the sonic which she returned to him, and performed a quick scan before she could ask what he was doing.
Everything read normal, no additional hormones to account for. The delay in her cycle was likely due to her body acclimating to artron radiation. It sometimes happened that way with human females.
‘You’re not,’ he told her simply.
‘I’m not…?’
‘Pregnant,’ he told her.
‘Oh.’ She looked temporarily stunned. Then she made a face. ‘Wait, how can you tell? And if I’m not, why am I late?’
Right, this was going about as well as he had expected. He made a mental note to never try to start a personal conversation. Ever. Again.
Either he could ignore the entire situation, shrug it off the way he always had done… or he could try to address it as maturely as possible. Steel himself for a frank conversation which Rose had obviously just done with him.
It was only fair, he decided. He’d prodded until she told him, volunteered that rather personal bit of information, the least he could do was offer the same curtesy.
‘Oh, that?’ he said lightly. ‘There’s nothing for you to worry about there. Just a side effect of TARDIS. It sometimes messes with the biochemistry of lower species when they first start travelling in her. Your cycle with regulate itself once it gets used to the background radiation.’
‘Radiation?” Rose squeaked, although the sound turned to a hiss as she glanced around lest Dunham and Bishop were nearby. ‘What radiation? Why didn’t you tell me about this?!’
‘More important things to worry about lately, don’t you think?’
‘Like the fact I’m being radiated?!’
‘Irradiated,’ he corrected. ‘And only by the good kind of radiation. Actually, it makes you healthier than you were when -’
‘Why can’t you be arsed enough to tell me when weird things happen?’ Rose hissed, clearly not wanting to listen to his explanation.
‘Oi! I tell you all the time when weird things are happening. First time we met, I told you weird things were happening!’
‘That’s not what I mean, and you know it! I mean for… ships that get into my head and change my body without even asking my permission! You just… you expect me to handle everything and go with it!’
‘Because you’re so bloody good at it, what else am I supposed to do?’ he shot back. ‘You handle alien invasions and a bigger-on-the-inside time ship all the time! It stands to reason you should be able to handle minor details like translation circuits and delayed biological reactions without goin’ to pieces!’
‘God, you’re so alien!’
‘Yes, I am! Good! I’d thought you’d forgotten!’
‘Those things aren’t minor to me, Doctor - which you’d understand if you knew anything about feelings!’
Anger and hurt flared up within him, and he opened his mouth to retort with a blistering comeback, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.
Bishop let himself in.
‘Your side got anything?’ he asked, eyes darting between Rose’s flushed and still angry face, and the Doctor’s clenched jaw. If he sensed anything was amiss, he at least had the decency not to say anything.
‘Nothing that we are at liberty to discuss,’ the Doctor answered tightly, once more adopting his false American accent.
‘Big surprise,’ Bishop snorted. ‘Well… it won’t be said we didn’t play nice with you guys on this one. Liv - I mean, Agent Dunham, might have a lead on Dr Parker.’
‘Guess we should go find out what it is,’ Rose said with false brightness and practically stalked out of the room.
The Doctor watched her go with a scowl. ‘Do you ever have one of those conversations where nothing you say is the right answer?’
‘Buddy, welcome to my life,’ Bishop snorted.
·ΘΣ·
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