Fic: Seeing the Light 1/3 (A Rose Gen Ficathon Story)
Story: Seeing the Light
Author:
wendymr
Rated: PG13
Summary: It's all about moving on; maybe she’d have preferred a different ending, but she’s always believed in facing up to challenges and changes rather than trying to live in denial.
Written for the Rose Gen Ficathon for
vegasunicorn25, who wanted:
1) Rose living on her own, but has a good relations with family (inc. Mickey)
2) Set somewhere other than in England.
3) Rose using the psychic paper.
With many thanks to
dark_aegis and
nnwest for BR services.
Chapter 1: First Contact
She pushes the apartment door shut, drops her briefcase and handbag on the hall table and continues into the kitchen. A couple of economical movements and the coffee-maker is on. Then it’s into the spare bedroom and she’s booting up the computer. By the time she’s logging in, the coffee’s made.
Emails from her mum and from Mickey; her mum’s first, because there’s a huge attachment. Photos. New pictures of her little sister, who’s now four. Amazing how much she’s grown in just a couple of months.
Her phone rings. She answers it, tucking the receiver under her ear as she skims through the photos. Carrie takes after her dad, with blue eyes and the dark fuzz she’d had at birth now given way to soft red hair.
“Rose? Oh, you’re there at last! I don’t know, seems like you’re never home these days.” She grins. Her mum really doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of time differences. You’d think it’d be easier now there’s only Earth timezones to deal with, rather than Rose being anywhere in time or space, past, present or future. Her mum still has trouble remembering that Toronto’s five hours behind London.
“Just got in from work, Mum. Lookin’ at your photos now.”
“Oh, right. Anyway, just wanted to tell you. You know Mrs Harding down the road?”
“Yeah.” She listens with half an ear to her mum’s chatter, clicking through the photos as she does so. Her mum never changes. She may be rich beyond her wildest imaginings now, but she’s still the woman who lived in the Powell Estates and did hairdressing for a living, who stopped every other day for a gossip down the market, who loves EastEnders and Coronation Street and a good cup of tea.
And that’s just the way Rose likes it. New universe, new dad, new career, same old Mum. Same old Mum who’s made a huge transition from her old home to this one, leaving behind everyone she knew, all her familiar life and has had to start again in this world that’s the same yet different, having to pretend that she was here all along, that she never lived anywhere else. And she’s done a great job.
Same old Mickey, too, she thinks with a smile as she reads his email.
Hey babe,
Got your email. Sounds like you’re having a good time over there. Don’t get to like it too much, you hear? We all want you back home when your six months is up.
Anyway, the good news is I managed to scrounge a week off next month. So better get that spare room ready and prepare to show us the highlights of the city, all right?
See ya soon,
hugs,
M xx
That’ll be nice. She’s still getting to know the city herself, though, and with her job she’s not had a lot of time for sightseeing, so she’ll have to do some research to find out what tourists like to see. It’ll be a bit of a mission. When she actually finds the time to do it. Course, the hockey season’s just started. Mickey’ll like that.
She’s here, in Toronto, on a six-month secondment. Torchwood is widening its reach, with the co-operation - in fact, pleading - of friendly governments. After the role this universe’s Torchwood played in dealing with the Cybermen, a threat which was worldwide, and the fact that two of the most effective anti-Cybermen fighters now work for Torchwood, negotiations were entered into. Now, more than eight years after the Cybermen first appeared, Torchwood satellites are being opened in the US and Canada.
She volunteered for the overseas placement, part of a task force sent over to help the local employees find their feet and work out how to operate. That’s something she does: applies for as many travel opportunities as she can get, and she’s had several of those over the past few years. She’s still footloose; after all the time she spent travelling with the Doctor, she finds it hard to stay in one place now.
Not that she doesn’t love her family - that’s not it at all. She’ll always come home to them, and always keeps in touch when she’s away - that’s one lesson she’s learned from her TARDIS days. Among other things, if she’d phoned her mum more often they’d have known about the army of ghosts sooner. Maybe been able to stop things before it got to the invasion.
But regrets are futile. Things happened the way they happened, and that’s all there is to it. Yes, maybe she’d have preferred a different ending, but she’s always believed in facing up to challenges and changes rather than trying to live in denial.
As her mum goes on about who’s now sleeping with who in EastEnders, her gaze falls on the framed photograph on her desk. That’s thanks to her dad, who, a few weeks after what they dubbed Doomsday, remembered the security cameras from his old house, the mansion he owned the first time she was in this universe. He’d put the house up for sale the day after his first wife was Cyberised, so the most recent digital images from the cameras were of that ill-fated birthday party.
He found a few stills for her, and the one on her desk is of her and the Doctor standing in that great hall, him in his dinner-jacket and her in the maid’s outfit, the Doctor laughing at something while she’s looking at him, a faintly indignant expression on her face. It’s a lovely picture of him, the way she likes to remember him.
She touches her index finger to his face. No, she’ll never forget him, or what they were to each other. But life goes on. By now, he’ll be travelling with someone else. And she’s doing what he wanted her to do.
“Anyway,” her mum’s saying, “that nice Glen Cooper from the Cardiff office’s been on the phone looking for you. Says he’d like to see you when you get back.”
Maybe she’ll say yes. He is nice. “Tell him I’ll phone.”
“All right, love. Ooh, your dad wants a word.”
“Okay. Bye, Mum. Love you.”
“Love you too, sweetheart!”
“Hello, love.” Her dad’s voice comes over the line now. “How’s it goin’ over there?”
“Pretty good.” She relaxes into her chair. It’s been almost five years now, and she’s almost forgotten a time when she didn’t have a dad around. There were periods of awkwardness at first, but now Pete’s every bit as much her dad as the man she met, whose hand she held, in her own universe. “Got just about all the procedures set up now and the training’s nearly finished.”
“Yeah? That all?” She can hear the amusement in her dad’s voice. “That’s not what I heard. Heard you got a bit of excitement over there.”
They do, and that’s on her agenda for tonight. Soon as she’s had something to eat and a change of clothes. In fact, soon as it’s dusk, which will be in about an hour.
Strange lights spotted in the sky in the Distillery district. It’s happened every night for almost a week now. At first the police assumed it was kids messing about, or drunks. But they’ve checked it out and can’t find any explanation, yet the lights continue. She’s on a mission to take a look. Just her, for now. If she concludes that there’s anything suspicious, then it’ll be on her say-so that a team is dispatched to investigate. She’s under orders to be discreet for now, though. Torchwood’s barely established here, and they don’t want anyone, even the police, getting wind of it yet.
Not a problem. She’s more than capable of going undercover, and she’s got means available to her that no-one else has. The Doctor’s psychic paper. She retrieved it from that scientist’s body, feeling bad about rummaging through his pockets after the Daleks killed him but not wanting to lose the paper. It was something the Doctor found invaluable, after all. But she never got around to giving it back to him. He won’t mind. He’d probably be pleased to know she’s making good use of it.
She fills her dad in briefly on what’s happening and what her plan is. “Good stuff,” he says. “Just you be careful, mind. You know your mum worries.”
And he worries, too. She’s well aware of that. “I’ll be careful, promise.”
“Love you,” he tells her.
She smiles. “Love you too, Dad.”
***
The shadows are lengthening and streaks of orange spreading across the sky as she leaves her apartment and sets off towards the nearest subway station. South to King, then on foot east and south again towards the lake will take her to the Distillery area.
Once serving exactly the purpose its name suggests, the Distillery has now been redeveloped into upmarket - and overpriced, she thinks - shops, craft workshops and restaurants, with loft apartments above. In the summer, lunchtimes and evenings see a variety of entertainment in the open courtyard. Now, as autumn evenings are setting in and the weather’s cooler, there’s not much going on after around six pm.
Entering through the open gateway, she’s stopped by a Toronto police officer, wanting to know what her business is here. The area’s under guard, of course, because of the strange phenomenon. She gives him her cover story - she owns a dance workshop and is returning to collect some papers she forgot earlier - and shows him ‘proof’ in the form of the psychic paper, identifying her as Maddie Jordan, who does indeed own the dance workshop.
It’s all about the preparation. Something she learned after leaving the Doctor, though she does remember it as a lesson Jack also tried to teach her. He never really got over the fact that the Doctor never seemed to care about blending in.
These days, she goes nowhere without at least a Plan A and a Plan B, and means of concocting a Plan C should she need one. It’s stood her in good stead so far.
Inside the Distillery, she walks quickly along the cobbled pathway, heading for the courtyard area. It’s above there, from what she’s been told, that the lights have been seen.
The area’s deserted, from what she can tell. It’s dark now, so anyone not wanting to be seen would find it pretty easy to hide. But she’s good at being inconspicuous. She’s dressed in black, her still-blonde hair tied in a knot and hidden behind the baseball cap she donned as soon as she was out of sight of the police officer. Her shoes are rubber-soled trainers. And she’s stayed in the shadows as she reached the courtyard.
Nothing’s visible. No lights, no sign of life. But she knows better than to assume that means nothing’s going to happen.
She waits. Ten minutes. Twenty. Half an hour. An hour. She’s got used to the hanging around; it’s all part of this job, waiting for things to happen and sometimes spending night after night watching and waiting while nothing at all happens.
And then, suddenly, she sees it. Lights, flashing red and blue and white and gold, in the sky directly above her. Not like fireworks. Not like lasers or anything reflecting from the ground. They’re actually coming from up there, in the sky. There’s something up there.
Now, that’s something none of her sources have mentioned. Though maybe they didn’t know. Maybe no-one’s realised it so far, though that would be odd. It’s not that difficult to tell.
So, something’s in the sky creating this effect. A plane? A hot-air balloon? Some other type of aircraft? A zeppelin?
Or a spaceship? Something alien?
Unlike others, she won’t dismiss that.
It’s funny; even though this universe has had Cybermen, most people still seem very resistant to the idea that there’s life on other planets and that aliens might want to invade the Earth. Though that’s probably because these Cybermen, unlike those the Doctor’d met previously, were made - constructed by the crazed John Lumic. Cybermen are aliens, but somehow the technology to make them - alien technology, the Doctor confirmed - was appropriated by Lumic and used on Earth.
She crouches down, retrieving a couple of items from her pockets. In seconds, she’s constructed the hand-held scanner that she’s never without whenever she’s out in the field. While it has nothing like the kind of capabilities Jack’s wrist computer had, or the sort of thing the Doctor might have put together, it’s still fairly functional.
Now, it’s telling her that there’s something up there, all right. But it refuses to identify whatever ‘something’ is. That does tell her a few things, though. Whatever it is, it’s not a plane or a helicopter or anything everyday like that. The scanner would recognise it otherwise.
What is odd, she thinks now as she carries on scanning the source of the lights, is that no-one seems to have detected the presence of something in the sky. They’re not far from two airports here. Air traffic control should have spotted something. There’s also communication masts for a variety of purposes. Why haven’t they complained about something interfering with their signals?
She’s still scanning, trying to get at least some kind of reading that she can use, when abruptly an arm locks around her neck from behind, almost cutting off her air supply, and she’s dragged backwards, deeper into the shadows.
***
Amazing how much simpler this is now she’s had proper self-defence and unarmed combat training.
She drops the scanner and twists about in her attacker’s grasp, making it harder for him to maintain a proper grip. She kicks back with her heel, stamping on his instep - oh, if she were only wearing spiky heels - winding her foot around his ankle, trying to destabilise him, make him lose his footing. One hand thrusts back behind her head, trying to find his nose with the heel of her palm. And her nails dig into the arm pressing tightly against her throat.
He’s - she knows it’s a man from his build, strength and general muscle structure - expert in unarmed combat, however. Every move she tries he’s equal to. He sidesteps her attempts to make him lose his balance. He pries her nails out of his arm with ease. He dodges every attempt to hit his face.
He’s good at this. But so is she. And he’s not quite managing to cut off her air supply completely. She can hold out for a while longer, and she’s betting that her stamina is equal to his. She’s very, very fit these days.
She twists again, pushing back at him in the same motion, trying to knock him off balance. He resists. She’s desperately trying to get enough purchase to use some of the combat moves she’s learned, but he’s too clever for that. He won’t give her enough freedom of movement. He’s still pulling her backwards, stopping her from using her legs to kick out at him.
But he’s given her an opening. He’s twisting, taking her with him, and for a split second his torso is unguarded. She lashes back with her elbow, intending to catch him in the solar plexus, and then as he reacts to that she’ll spin and get him in the groin with her knee.
He’s too quick for her. The blow never lands. The arm’s removed from her throat.
And, instead, now she has a knife pressed to her throat.
***
tbc
x-posted to
available_very
Author:
wendymr
Rated: PG13
Summary: It's all about moving on; maybe she’d have preferred a different ending, but she’s always believed in facing up to challenges and changes rather than trying to live in denial.
Written for the Rose Gen Ficathon for
vegasunicorn25, who wanted:
1) Rose living on her own, but has a good relations with family (inc. Mickey)
2) Set somewhere other than in England.
3) Rose using the psychic paper.
With many thanks to
dark_aegis and
nnwest for BR services.
Chapter 1: First Contact
She pushes the apartment door shut, drops her briefcase and handbag on the hall table and continues into the kitchen. A couple of economical movements and the coffee-maker is on. Then it’s into the spare bedroom and she’s booting up the computer. By the time she’s logging in, the coffee’s made.
Emails from her mum and from Mickey; her mum’s first, because there’s a huge attachment. Photos. New pictures of her little sister, who’s now four. Amazing how much she’s grown in just a couple of months.
Her phone rings. She answers it, tucking the receiver under her ear as she skims through the photos. Carrie takes after her dad, with blue eyes and the dark fuzz she’d had at birth now given way to soft red hair.
“Rose? Oh, you’re there at last! I don’t know, seems like you’re never home these days.” She grins. Her mum really doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of time differences. You’d think it’d be easier now there’s only Earth timezones to deal with, rather than Rose being anywhere in time or space, past, present or future. Her mum still has trouble remembering that Toronto’s five hours behind London.
“Just got in from work, Mum. Lookin’ at your photos now.”
“Oh, right. Anyway, just wanted to tell you. You know Mrs Harding down the road?”
“Yeah.” She listens with half an ear to her mum’s chatter, clicking through the photos as she does so. Her mum never changes. She may be rich beyond her wildest imaginings now, but she’s still the woman who lived in the Powell Estates and did hairdressing for a living, who stopped every other day for a gossip down the market, who loves EastEnders and Coronation Street and a good cup of tea.
And that’s just the way Rose likes it. New universe, new dad, new career, same old Mum. Same old Mum who’s made a huge transition from her old home to this one, leaving behind everyone she knew, all her familiar life and has had to start again in this world that’s the same yet different, having to pretend that she was here all along, that she never lived anywhere else. And she’s done a great job.
Same old Mickey, too, she thinks with a smile as she reads his email.
Hey babe,
Got your email. Sounds like you’re having a good time over there. Don’t get to like it too much, you hear? We all want you back home when your six months is up.
Anyway, the good news is I managed to scrounge a week off next month. So better get that spare room ready and prepare to show us the highlights of the city, all right?
See ya soon,
hugs,
M xx
That’ll be nice. She’s still getting to know the city herself, though, and with her job she’s not had a lot of time for sightseeing, so she’ll have to do some research to find out what tourists like to see. It’ll be a bit of a mission. When she actually finds the time to do it. Course, the hockey season’s just started. Mickey’ll like that.
She’s here, in Toronto, on a six-month secondment. Torchwood is widening its reach, with the co-operation - in fact, pleading - of friendly governments. After the role this universe’s Torchwood played in dealing with the Cybermen, a threat which was worldwide, and the fact that two of the most effective anti-Cybermen fighters now work for Torchwood, negotiations were entered into. Now, more than eight years after the Cybermen first appeared, Torchwood satellites are being opened in the US and Canada.
She volunteered for the overseas placement, part of a task force sent over to help the local employees find their feet and work out how to operate. That’s something she does: applies for as many travel opportunities as she can get, and she’s had several of those over the past few years. She’s still footloose; after all the time she spent travelling with the Doctor, she finds it hard to stay in one place now.
Not that she doesn’t love her family - that’s not it at all. She’ll always come home to them, and always keeps in touch when she’s away - that’s one lesson she’s learned from her TARDIS days. Among other things, if she’d phoned her mum more often they’d have known about the army of ghosts sooner. Maybe been able to stop things before it got to the invasion.
But regrets are futile. Things happened the way they happened, and that’s all there is to it. Yes, maybe she’d have preferred a different ending, but she’s always believed in facing up to challenges and changes rather than trying to live in denial.
As her mum goes on about who’s now sleeping with who in EastEnders, her gaze falls on the framed photograph on her desk. That’s thanks to her dad, who, a few weeks after what they dubbed Doomsday, remembered the security cameras from his old house, the mansion he owned the first time she was in this universe. He’d put the house up for sale the day after his first wife was Cyberised, so the most recent digital images from the cameras were of that ill-fated birthday party.
He found a few stills for her, and the one on her desk is of her and the Doctor standing in that great hall, him in his dinner-jacket and her in the maid’s outfit, the Doctor laughing at something while she’s looking at him, a faintly indignant expression on her face. It’s a lovely picture of him, the way she likes to remember him.
She touches her index finger to his face. No, she’ll never forget him, or what they were to each other. But life goes on. By now, he’ll be travelling with someone else. And she’s doing what he wanted her to do.
“Anyway,” her mum’s saying, “that nice Glen Cooper from the Cardiff office’s been on the phone looking for you. Says he’d like to see you when you get back.”
Maybe she’ll say yes. He is nice. “Tell him I’ll phone.”
“All right, love. Ooh, your dad wants a word.”
“Okay. Bye, Mum. Love you.”
“Love you too, sweetheart!”
“Hello, love.” Her dad’s voice comes over the line now. “How’s it goin’ over there?”
“Pretty good.” She relaxes into her chair. It’s been almost five years now, and she’s almost forgotten a time when she didn’t have a dad around. There were periods of awkwardness at first, but now Pete’s every bit as much her dad as the man she met, whose hand she held, in her own universe. “Got just about all the procedures set up now and the training’s nearly finished.”
“Yeah? That all?” She can hear the amusement in her dad’s voice. “That’s not what I heard. Heard you got a bit of excitement over there.”
They do, and that’s on her agenda for tonight. Soon as she’s had something to eat and a change of clothes. In fact, soon as it’s dusk, which will be in about an hour.
Strange lights spotted in the sky in the Distillery district. It’s happened every night for almost a week now. At first the police assumed it was kids messing about, or drunks. But they’ve checked it out and can’t find any explanation, yet the lights continue. She’s on a mission to take a look. Just her, for now. If she concludes that there’s anything suspicious, then it’ll be on her say-so that a team is dispatched to investigate. She’s under orders to be discreet for now, though. Torchwood’s barely established here, and they don’t want anyone, even the police, getting wind of it yet.
Not a problem. She’s more than capable of going undercover, and she’s got means available to her that no-one else has. The Doctor’s psychic paper. She retrieved it from that scientist’s body, feeling bad about rummaging through his pockets after the Daleks killed him but not wanting to lose the paper. It was something the Doctor found invaluable, after all. But she never got around to giving it back to him. He won’t mind. He’d probably be pleased to know she’s making good use of it.
She fills her dad in briefly on what’s happening and what her plan is. “Good stuff,” he says. “Just you be careful, mind. You know your mum worries.”
And he worries, too. She’s well aware of that. “I’ll be careful, promise.”
“Love you,” he tells her.
She smiles. “Love you too, Dad.”
***
The shadows are lengthening and streaks of orange spreading across the sky as she leaves her apartment and sets off towards the nearest subway station. South to King, then on foot east and south again towards the lake will take her to the Distillery area.
Once serving exactly the purpose its name suggests, the Distillery has now been redeveloped into upmarket - and overpriced, she thinks - shops, craft workshops and restaurants, with loft apartments above. In the summer, lunchtimes and evenings see a variety of entertainment in the open courtyard. Now, as autumn evenings are setting in and the weather’s cooler, there’s not much going on after around six pm.
Entering through the open gateway, she’s stopped by a Toronto police officer, wanting to know what her business is here. The area’s under guard, of course, because of the strange phenomenon. She gives him her cover story - she owns a dance workshop and is returning to collect some papers she forgot earlier - and shows him ‘proof’ in the form of the psychic paper, identifying her as Maddie Jordan, who does indeed own the dance workshop.
It’s all about the preparation. Something she learned after leaving the Doctor, though she does remember it as a lesson Jack also tried to teach her. He never really got over the fact that the Doctor never seemed to care about blending in.
These days, she goes nowhere without at least a Plan A and a Plan B, and means of concocting a Plan C should she need one. It’s stood her in good stead so far.
Inside the Distillery, she walks quickly along the cobbled pathway, heading for the courtyard area. It’s above there, from what she’s been told, that the lights have been seen.
The area’s deserted, from what she can tell. It’s dark now, so anyone not wanting to be seen would find it pretty easy to hide. But she’s good at being inconspicuous. She’s dressed in black, her still-blonde hair tied in a knot and hidden behind the baseball cap she donned as soon as she was out of sight of the police officer. Her shoes are rubber-soled trainers. And she’s stayed in the shadows as she reached the courtyard.
Nothing’s visible. No lights, no sign of life. But she knows better than to assume that means nothing’s going to happen.
She waits. Ten minutes. Twenty. Half an hour. An hour. She’s got used to the hanging around; it’s all part of this job, waiting for things to happen and sometimes spending night after night watching and waiting while nothing at all happens.
And then, suddenly, she sees it. Lights, flashing red and blue and white and gold, in the sky directly above her. Not like fireworks. Not like lasers or anything reflecting from the ground. They’re actually coming from up there, in the sky. There’s something up there.
Now, that’s something none of her sources have mentioned. Though maybe they didn’t know. Maybe no-one’s realised it so far, though that would be odd. It’s not that difficult to tell.
So, something’s in the sky creating this effect. A plane? A hot-air balloon? Some other type of aircraft? A zeppelin?
Or a spaceship? Something alien?
Unlike others, she won’t dismiss that.
It’s funny; even though this universe has had Cybermen, most people still seem very resistant to the idea that there’s life on other planets and that aliens might want to invade the Earth. Though that’s probably because these Cybermen, unlike those the Doctor’d met previously, were made - constructed by the crazed John Lumic. Cybermen are aliens, but somehow the technology to make them - alien technology, the Doctor confirmed - was appropriated by Lumic and used on Earth.
She crouches down, retrieving a couple of items from her pockets. In seconds, she’s constructed the hand-held scanner that she’s never without whenever she’s out in the field. While it has nothing like the kind of capabilities Jack’s wrist computer had, or the sort of thing the Doctor might have put together, it’s still fairly functional.
Now, it’s telling her that there’s something up there, all right. But it refuses to identify whatever ‘something’ is. That does tell her a few things, though. Whatever it is, it’s not a plane or a helicopter or anything everyday like that. The scanner would recognise it otherwise.
What is odd, she thinks now as she carries on scanning the source of the lights, is that no-one seems to have detected the presence of something in the sky. They’re not far from two airports here. Air traffic control should have spotted something. There’s also communication masts for a variety of purposes. Why haven’t they complained about something interfering with their signals?
She’s still scanning, trying to get at least some kind of reading that she can use, when abruptly an arm locks around her neck from behind, almost cutting off her air supply, and she’s dragged backwards, deeper into the shadows.
***
Amazing how much simpler this is now she’s had proper self-defence and unarmed combat training.
She drops the scanner and twists about in her attacker’s grasp, making it harder for him to maintain a proper grip. She kicks back with her heel, stamping on his instep - oh, if she were only wearing spiky heels - winding her foot around his ankle, trying to destabilise him, make him lose his footing. One hand thrusts back behind her head, trying to find his nose with the heel of her palm. And her nails dig into the arm pressing tightly against her throat.
He’s - she knows it’s a man from his build, strength and general muscle structure - expert in unarmed combat, however. Every move she tries he’s equal to. He sidesteps her attempts to make him lose his balance. He pries her nails out of his arm with ease. He dodges every attempt to hit his face.
He’s good at this. But so is she. And he’s not quite managing to cut off her air supply completely. She can hold out for a while longer, and she’s betting that her stamina is equal to his. She’s very, very fit these days.
She twists again, pushing back at him in the same motion, trying to knock him off balance. He resists. She’s desperately trying to get enough purchase to use some of the combat moves she’s learned, but he’s too clever for that. He won’t give her enough freedom of movement. He’s still pulling her backwards, stopping her from using her legs to kick out at him.
But he’s given her an opening. He’s twisting, taking her with him, and for a split second his torso is unguarded. She lashes back with her elbow, intending to catch him in the solar plexus, and then as he reacts to that she’ll spin and get him in the groin with her knee.
He’s too quick for her. The blow never lands. The arm’s removed from her throat.
And, instead, now she has a knife pressed to her throat.
***
tbc
x-posted to
available_very