Torchwood Rose: Cardiff

Director Rose Tyler of Torchwood: Cardiff closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose as she struggled to gain control of the situation that was unraveling over the phone conversation that she was having at her desk. She had dealt with many dangerous and stubborn aliens in her time (most notably the Time Lord with whom she had traveled for several years back in her old universe), but nothing that could prepare her for dealing with her mother's insistence of interfering with her love life – or lack of one… A year ago, she had thought that moving a couple of hours away to Cardiff would take the pressure off of her. However, in reality, it only seemed to make it worse. Now her mother seemed to be afraid of her being alone and unsafe "out there in the middle of nowhere." To be sure, Cardiff wasn't much, but it was certainly not the wasteland that her mother made it out to be. Anyway, this current conversation was following in the same pattern that it always did and, finally, out of desperation, Rose faked having another call and told her mother that she would talk to her later – anything to save her sanity.

It was at times like this that she really missed Donna. Donna had been so good at deflecting Jackie Tyler's attention away from Rose, when she called her at work, and refocusing it on the inconsequential things that made Jackie happy - like talking about celebrity news, office gossip, and any upcoming social events for Vitex. Thinking about Donna made Rose a little sad, and she made a mental note to call her soon. When she had accepted the Directorship at the Cardiff branch of Torchwood, she had asked Donna to transfer with her. However, she and Lee had just gotten engaged at the time, and understandably didn't want to split up, since Lee was determined to stay with his position as assistant director to Mickey in the tech dept back in London. Therefore, Rose had ended up offering the position to Ianto Jones, a quietly efficient man, who was as fantastic at paperwork as he was at field work – not to mention that he made the best tea and coffee! He was also extremely loyal, which was very important to Rose at this period in her life. Unfortunately, he drew the line at dealing with Jackie Tyler. Other than that, though, he was the perfect assistant and a good friend and Rose enjoyed spending time with him. He was also gay, so she didn't have to worry about any romantic entanglements. (Unfortunately, her mother was more than willing to do that for her!)

As overly protective as Jackie was now, though, it was nothing compared to what she would be like if she knew the true story of how and why Rose got the Cardiff Directorship. The truth was that, against Pete's advice, Rose had volunteered for the job that everyone else had been afraid to take. It was all about the location. Cardiff in Pete's World, just like the one in her original universe, sat on a rift where time and space intersected. This rift wasn't as active as the one in her old universe because apparently the Gelth incident had never happened here and, therefore, the rift had never fully opened. Therefore, the Torchwood Institute in this world didn't even know about the existence of this rift at all, until Rose and Mickey briefed Pete about it after her arrival. Pete, recognizing the potential and reliability of their information, wanted to establish a Torchwood facility there immediately. However, the board complained and dickered. Mainly because it was Cardiff, and nobody wanted to go there, and they didn't want to spare anybody important for what could be a wild goose chase. However, they did agree to send a couple of lowly research assistants for a few days to take a few readings and see if anything was happening at all. When those tests proved that there were some sort of energy fluctuations occurring, almost constantly, with occasional flares, it was agreed that a small staff should be instated to keep an eye on the place. They built a small hub and staffed it with three very young, inexperienced, scientists with no real leader among them. They weren't even fully trained as a field team since their main job was monitoring the rift and occasionally providing a home base for the field teams who were nearby and in need of a conference table and a cup of tea. The possible dangers of the rift weren't taken very seriously, by anyone involved. However, the walls there were weakened from time to time due to various temporal and spatial events and when the walls were weak, things could come through. That is apparently what happened on the day that the entire original Cardiff team disappeared. On that particular day, when the rift flare occurred, the first wave of creatures nicknamed the Weevils appeared. As a result, the team was completely overwhelmed and London couldn't send them help soon enough after the alarm was triggered.

After HQ in London received the alarm, they found that they were unable to contact the Cardiff scientific team. Since there were no field teams in the area at the time, Pete requested for his two most experienced field leaders, Rose and Mickey, to take their teams to investigate. Even with immediate mobilization, it still took the teams almost three hours to arrive at the Cardiff hub. However, from the moment they arrived, it was immediately clear both what had happened and that it was way too late to do anything to stop it. Half a dozen Weevils were still roaming around the hub, and the partially eaten remains of their Torchwood colleagues were scattered everywhere. After the Weevils were contained, it was Rose's job to determine if they were a real threat or just a misunderstood and hungry displaced species. However, she soon determined that they were completely animal-like, rather than sentient. They didn't respond to any verbal, telepathic, empathic, or other non-verbal types of communication. She also tried reaching their minds but received only rolling clouds of anger, fear, hunger, and lust in response. These were the usual calling cards of an animalistic mind. Sadly, the Weevils were not sentient enough to be able to assimilate and they were too dangerous to remain in captivity - as shown by their constant attempts to attack Rose while she was trying to communicate with them. Therefore, Rose very reluctantly gave the kill order - and cried while it was being implemented. It was humane death, an injection similar to one a veterinarian might use, but it was still death. Rose had been a soldier for years now, but death never got easier.

After this disaster, when energy scans proved that a rift flare had corresponded to the Weevil attack, she knew that Torchwood: Cardiff would have to be rebuilt and that they would need to step up their operations. In addition, she was currently sitting on some heavy duty personal secrets of her own that she had not shared with anyone and wasn't sure how to deal with yet. Therefore, she thought that it might be best to get out of the London spotlight for a while. She formulized a plan that would help deal with both situations. She put together a plan to rebuild the Cardiff hub with better security, protection, and rift monitoring equipment. She suggested that a permanent and fully field-trained team, with at least five people, be stationed there with representatives from Inter-Species Relations, Medical, Tech, R&D, and Public Liaison - along with a Director with extensive qualifications. She then offered herself to be that Director. Pete could see the validity of her plan, and knew that the rift would have to be monitored by a competent crew. However, at first, he refused to allow her to have any part in it because he knew just how dangerous it could be. He reluctantly agreed that her Torchwood qualifications, foreknowledge, previous experience, and personal contacts throughout the human and alien worlds made her the perfect candidate for the position. However, he still refused on a personal basis and would not change his mind no matter how many arguments she constructed, evidence she presented, or references she provided. Finally, she broke down, and behind closed doors, after making him swear not to tell anyone else, yet, including Jackie – she told him about her recently discovered secret that would change everything. He listened carefully to her story, reacted in fear and amazement, demanded that he be allowed to research the issue further, and declared his complete love and support for her. Then he finally agreed to push her name through for the Directorship as a short term solution, knowing that soon they would have to put a much longer term plan in place.

Meanwhile, Rose set about choosing her Cardiff team. It was a complicated process and she had to choose very carefully. It was very important to her, now more than ever, to have people that she could trust completely – both personally and professionally. Plus, she had to oversee the renovation and expansion of the Cardiff hub, keep an eye on the teams that were temporarily monitoring the rift, and tie up the loose ends of her life in London – all while trying to avoid her mother as much as possible.

Sooner than she thought possible, she had escaped both London and Jackie Tyler. While she marveled at the spacious new hub that had been built right under the public's eye without anyone ever noticing, she also moved into her small flat located directly inside the hub itself, settled her new team into temporary quarters, explored all of the nooks and crannies of the new place, and tested all of the systems and equipment. Finally, she declared the new Torchwood: Cardiff branch open for business!

Life at the Cardiff hub was certainly never dull! For example, on her first full day as Director, she paid a courtesy call to the Mayor to make sure that she was, in fact, human and not Blon the Slitheen (or this universe's equivalent). Fortunately, Margaret Blaine turned out to be reassuringly human, without a flatulence problem or zipper in her forehead. To achieve this last discovery, however, a slight modification was required of her Lord Mayor's memory. Fortunately, all she remembered later of her tea meeting with Rose Tyler was that there was a clumsy incident with a full teacup and a headache had resulted from it.

Rose and her team also realized that the rift was more active than they had previously thought - with some sort of energy flares occurring almost every day. Most of these seemed to be harmless. However, sometimes those flares were accompanied by strange phenomena (like unusual weather) and/or things (animate or not) that had been relocated from their time or place and thrown into the middle of Cardiff. Small energy spikes usually produced small items - like random snapshots of other times or places. So far the team had retrieved everything from ancient clothing and weaponry to obviously futuristic and/or alien technology after the small spikes were recorded. Medium rift energy spikes produced the Weevils (no other creatures seemed to make it out of the rift alive – there had been several corpses, though. (Some were humanoid, but others were completely unrecognizable!) Large energy spikes obviously produced large items.

One morning, after the monitors showed that one of the large spikes had happened during the night, Rose was surprised to find a small ship plopped right in front of the hub. Rose thought that it looked very similar to Jack's old Chula warship, and immediately became concerned about things like rogue nanogenes. She didn't want a repeat of what happened in the Blitz back in her old universe. Therefore, after sealing it off from the rest of the hub, she and her tech guy, Ian, carefully searched it themselves. It turned out to be completely empty. However, London was still excited, and immediately wanted it shipped back there for examination. Since Mickey was the head of the technology department, he came to pick it up in person and they had a pleasant time – just like in the old days. By this time, Rose had been in Cardiff for several years, and had really missed her old friends back home. Rose admired his pictures of a pregnant and glowing Martha holding a toddler that looked just like his dad, and tried not to notice that he kept looking at her oddly, as he had the past few times that she had been in London for business meetings. However, that evening they had tea in her flat after the rest of the crew had left. (The hub was mainly automated at night.) It was then that he finally broke down and asked the question that she had been dreading for years. He asked her to tell him why she didn't seem to be aging.

She sighed and suggested that they have something a little stronger than tea. She grabbed a wine bottle and some glasses and while he poured, she pulled herself together, and started to explain. She started all the way back to the day in the old universe when he and her mum had helped her to open up the TARDIS. She told him all about Bad Wolf, seeing and controlling all of time, unmaking the Daleks, and accidently forcing her first Doctor to regenerate to save her. The power had been too much for him to survive and yet she had, but not without a cost. Having the time vortex running through her body had changed her cellular structure causing her cells to basically regenerate themselves whenever they were damaged...and apparently aging was considered to be damage. She had discovered it about five years ago, right before the Cardiff disaster. She had been injured out in the field. It had been a deep cut from a piece of explosion shrapnel. However, the wound had closed up – right in front of her eyes! After that she studied herself carefully in the mirror and realized some odd things about herself - mainly that she looked exactly the same as she did after Canary Wharf – other than the hair. That was a bit odd, too, because she had allowed her hair color to grow out into a dark blonde. However, it was still much lighter than she thought it would be. She also realized that she didn't get sick anymore and recovered almost instantaneously from little accidents, such as common bumps and scrapes. She didn't know what to do with this information at first, however. She had been too scared to bring it up to anyone at Torchwood, but she knew that she needed conclusive evidence. Therefore, she kept putting it off until the day she was shot with an energy weapon in the field. The bolt went right through her shoulder, leaving a big bloody hole that hurt like hell! That injury should have incapacitated her, but despite the pain, she was able to get right back up and continue fighting. By the time the rogue aliens had been neutralized, the wound had closed, and even the scar tissue was healing! She knew then that she needed answers immediately! Therefore, she slipped a blood sample from herself into a batch of alien blood samples that the medical team was using for a comparison study. The team was a bit concerned that the label had accidently come off of the one sample shown to be carrying rejuvenation cells and, therefore, they didn't know what species that it had come from. All they knew that it was probably from a humanoid species whose blood shared a lot of the same markers with humans, plus those that allowed for damage control and longevity.

Rose explained all of this to Mickey, who sat stunned and amazed at her revelations. He then reassured her that he would keep her secret and that she could always trust him and Martha. He asked if her parents knew and nodded understandingly when she said that it was the only reason that Pete let her come to Cardiff, so that she could get out of the public eye in London, but that her mother still didn't know. He asked what her future plans were and she told him about the long term plan that she and Pete had devised. She would stay at Cardiff for no more than five more years. Any longer than that and her secret would be way too obvious. Then they would fake her death and send her off-planet. Hopefully, that would give her enough time to figure out where she wanted to go and find the means to get there. It was a crazy plan, but she hoped to use her extensive alien network to help her make the arrangements. The plan seemed much more feasible that way. She did not really want to leave, but she was afraid that if she stayed on Earth, she would just end up putting her friends and family in danger – especially if she was ever seen as a weapon or a threat by the government, the military, or maybe even eventually by Torchwood itself. Mickey didn't know what to tell her. He just held her while she finally let her emotions out and cried. It was the first time that she had done so. He inwardly cursed the Doctor for dumping this on her and then leaving her here – even though he knew deep down inside that it really wasn't his fault. However, he thought that now would be a really good time for the Doctor to make a miracle happen and find his way back to this universe. She would never admit it, but Rose needed him now more than ever. Barring that particular miracle, however, Mickey knew that he would do everything that he could to help out Rose. After all, she was his oldest friend in this universe!

For her part, Rose felt much better after her visit with Mickey. It felt good to come clean, and it was excellent practice for when she would have to tell Jackie. It was also nice that Mickey validated her long term plan as a good one and promised to keep an eye out for possible "rides out of town" so to speak. She was glad when Mickey decided to spend the night, (after clearing it with Martha – who trusted both of them completely) instead of heading immediately back to London. They sat in her lounge, drinking wine, and discussing which planets might be good for her "retirement" and which one of their alien friends would be most happy to give her a lift there – they were even able to share a few laughs about it - until Mickey fell asleep on her couch and started drooling a bit. Rose took a picture of him with her phone, and sent it to Martha, who thankfully thought that it was hilarious. In the morning, she and her crew helped him to load the ship onto the flatbed truck that he had brought, set it up with perception filters so that it wouldn't be noticed, and had a celebratory brunch in a nearby café before he left. Then they all immediately returned to the business of defending the Earth – while she was still a citizen of it.

It was about a year later, that Rose got her first sign that things were not going to go according to her plan – and it started with the Weevils. Throughout the years, they had continued to have a problem with them. Unlike the first wave, however, they did not seem to come in packs anymore, but would slide into the world one at a time in correlation with medium sized energy spikes. This made them even harder to detect, however, and sometimes innocent victims were killed before the Weevils could be located and dispatched. Unfortunately, Weevil hunting soon became a regular part of the routine at the hub. Once a medium size spike showed up on the monitors, a team of two or three would go and check the usual hot spots – hoping to catch the Weevil before the Weevil could catch a local. On this particular day, it was Rose's and the medical officer, Harry's, turn to go. They decided to check down in the sewers first because that's where the Weevils usually headed after leaving the immediate rift area. Rose and Harry sloshed through the disgusting sludge at the bottom of the sewer tunnels, cursed under their breath, and wished to be back in the hub doing anything but this. There was never a happy ending to a Weevil hunt, but some of them were worse than others. This was one of those times. The two of them were almost caught unawares by the Weevil that rushed out of the darkness at them, but Rose turned and saw it at the last minute. It knocked Harry down and was going for his throat when Rose pulled out her weapon, quickly flicked it from "stun" to "kill," and took down the animal that was trying to kill her friend. She quickly checked over Harry and he seemed fine except for some deep scratches that were bleeding freely. Not wanting to attract the dangerous sewer rats, they decided to head back to the hub so that they could get cleaned up and dress Harry's wounds. Pulling up the sewer schematics that were downloaded on her phone, she could see that the closest exit was just a couple of turns away – in the opposite direction from which they came. They also had to carry the Weevil's carcass so that it wouldn't be found accidently by some unfortunate maintenance worker later on. Rose insisted on carrying it first, as long as she could, since Harry was injured. She hefted it up into a fireman's carry and followed Harry to the exit.

After only about 5 minutes and two turns, however, she stopped suddenly, in shock at what she saw on the wall. She just couldn't believe it! After all of this time, in a sewer a universe away from where it started, appearing in large bright neon letters on the wall, were the words that she thought that she would never see again – BAD WOLF! These were the words that she had once scattered across time and space (and apparently universes) to send herself back to her Doctor, to save both him and the Earth! She wondered if the message was the same, now. Did it mean that she was going to see her Doctor again - after all of this time? Or was this about her...and her secret? What did she have to do? How would she know? She asked Harry to hold the Weevil for a moment so that she could take a picture of the saying on the wall. He didn't understand and thought that it was just a random piece of graffiti. She knew better, though, and wanted to study it further. However, she also knew that they had to leave this place as soon as possible, and that she shouldn't come back down to the sewer to do it. She snapped a couple of photos, slipped the phone back into her pocket, picked the Weevil back up, and carried it out of the tunnel and back to the hub for proper disposal. She then turned Harry over to Sarah, who often served as his medical assistant when necessary. All the while, she kept thinking about that mysterious message on the wall, showing up again ten years after she had landed in this universe, and just wondered if it was meant to be a harbinger of hope… or doom.

Rose and her crew were hosting a party in the hub about two months later for some guests from London (including Pete and Jackie). They were celebrating the official fifth anniversary of the NEW Torchwood: Cardiff. The festivities, however, were interrupted when Pete received a very important message from the astrophysics department in London. Their highly sensitive equipment, engineered from alien sources, indicated repeatedly after many trials, that the stars were going out…

Rose suddenly knew that the Bad Wolf message was referring to this situation. Somebody was going to have to save the Earth again. If the stars continued to go out, the Earth would die. It was going to be up to her to stop that from happening! She could only wonder if the Doctor would have anything to do with it – or not. It was probably going to be interesting either way…and she could not wait! Rose Tyler – Defender of the Earth was going to live up to her name.

******To be continued in my Saving the Multiverse series