Hi all this is rather an epic, but it wrote itself in bits and not all in order. But here it is anyway.
Its a Doctor Who / Torchwood crossover with one character from '10th Kingdom' thrown in for good measure but if you haven't seen that it won't change anything.
This was written pre-season 2 of Torchwood so I'm ignoring whats happened in that really. And its pre-Donna for Doctor who.
Spoilers - everything in season 3 Doctor Who.
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Standing In The Way Of Control
Chapter 1:
Mulder and Scully enter their office and flop into two large black leather chairs. She throws a fat manila file of paper work onto the centre of her desk, sighs and kicks off her shoes. She pulls her feet up onto the chair and sighs again. She isn't a sceptic, far from it; she has seen things most people in this building only hypothesise about. That is why she and her partner have managed to become the organisations top agents in such a short time. That in itself has caused enough resentment to last them both a lifetime. Maybe several. Maybe a few regenerations too but that hurts too much to consider. She looks over at the man who is leaning back in his chair with his eyes shut.
"Wake up."
He cracks open one eye and smiles broadly at her. "Slave driver."
She sighs again. "I heard three people humming the X-Files theme tune as we walked past today."
'Mulder' opens the other eye and laughs. "They're just jealous because we're so damn good babes." He gestures round the office. "Mulder and Scully got the basement. And this," his arm sweeps across the panoramic view of London offered by their corner office in one of the higher levels of Canary Wharf, "is definitely not the basement!"
"I just wish they'd stop calling me Scully. I believe in this stuff!" She raises a hand to stop him before he retorts. "I know you like the whole Fox Mulder thing, it gives you the mystique you so crave."
Mickey Smith just grins at her as she continues.
"But that isn't what we're about. We don't go round chasing invisible zoo animals or psycho stretching murderers or crop circles or little green men…"
"That's exactly what we do Rose," he retorts good-naturedly having had this same conversation three times already this week. "How 'bout I take you for a pint after work eh?"
"There a match on?" she enquires innocently.
"No," he comes back with grinning. "Look lets just finish this weevil file and get out of here."
"Yeah," she nods reaching for the file.
In that second she feels swoopingly sick, looks over at Mickey who seems to be sliding away from her outstretched hand, and in that instant there is nothing but white.
The Doctor picks a piece of orange tentacle out of his hair and flicks it onto the middle of Jack's desk. Jack eyes it distastefully and looks back up at the man who is perched on the edge of his desk.
"Anyway as I was saying, Tosh detected a signal. Its big Doctor. Very big."
"So which of your oh-so-good-looking team is Tosh?" The Doctor asks looking out of the doorway at the four people who are all eavesdropping but trying desperately hard not to look like they are, all wondering who this strange man is.
Jack smiles. "Tosh would be the one at the laptop rocking the sexy secretary look." He sees Tosh's mouth twitch as she holds back a smile.
"Right," the Doctor says nodding and looking back at Jack. "So I'll bet you've called a certain Miss Jones since you suddenly have that mobile number."
Jack nods. "She's on the train. Arrives in precisely thirty seven minutes."
The Doctor just shakes his head and glances out of the door again. He catches Owen's eye who looks away just as quickly. "Big signal?" he prompts Jack.
"Yeah. Ianto has matched it up to something SETI picked up in the nineties. Torchwood documents make reference to something called the 'Highway.' Ring any bells?"
"No." The Doctor is busy pulling another chunk of tentacle that has suckered itself to the sleeve of his coat. He peels it off with a Velcro-like sound and drops it wetly beside the previous one.
Jack wrinkles his nose. "Where have you been?"
The Doctor looks at him and deadpans, "Sea World."
Rose opens her eyes. Having been on the receiving end of a Transmat beam more than once, she knows exactly what they feel like. She pushes herself up from the hard floor on which she is laying.
"Mickey?" she says urgently.
He groans from somewhere beside her. "Goddamnit, Rose what the hell was that?"
"Transmat." She gets to her bare feet quickly and studies the room in which they are situated. It looks to all intents and purposes like a cell. Smallish, maybe seven paces square, she calculates quickly. There is a door set into one wall. Definitely not of human construction.
"Transwhat?"
"Transmat beam. Transporter beam. Haven't come across one since the Game Station. Interesting." She is running her hand up the wall and examining it intently but he hears the tiniest catch in her voice.
"So where are we?" he asks, still staring at her in confusion.
"No idea," she says wiping her hand on her trousers. The wall is dark and feels slightly greasy. It looks like some sort of stone.
They both turn as they hear a scraping of the door.
Martha Jones stands up on the swaying train and manhandles her suitcase off the luggage rack towards the door. The train pulls up at Cardiff station and she dutifully presses the little flashing button and hauls the suitcase down the platform. She hadn't known what on earth to pack. Jack had been rather vague in his description of what was going on. The fact that he had asked for the Doctor's phone number screamed 'big'. Martha passes through the ticket barrier and walks outside, dragging the wheeled suitcase behind her.
The sight of two men in long coats leaning against a shiny black SUV, chatting to each other, greets her. She grins. It couldn't be a better sight.
"Hey!" Jack cries happily. He bounds over to her, excitable puppy style, and gives her a hug. "Good to see you."
"You too Jack," she says smiling and giving him a kiss on the cheek. Then she looks over at the Doctor. "Hello Doctor," she says evenly remembering the last time she saw him. How she walked out of his life.
He pouts. "Don't be like that." Then grins and envelops her in a huge hug. "How are you?"
"Good. Passed my exams. Among other things."
"A proper doctor at last!" he smiles at her and holding her at arm's length he studies her. "Jack hasn't been getting you in trouble has he?"
"Me?" Jack protests hotly.
"No he hasn't." She swings her suitcase towards the two men. "Someone going to get this?"
The Doctor sidesteps this by opening the SUV door for her. Jack grumbles and hauls the case into the vehicle. "What on earth did you pack in here?"
"You didn't tell me where I was going!" she shoots back and climbs into the jeep. "So what's going on?" she asks as soon as they are on their way.
"No idea," the Doctor says happily over his shoulder at her. "Something big. Something alien. And oh so possibly dangerous."
She sighs lightly. "The usual then?"
"We what?" Rose screeches at the slightly insectoid alien who has politely led them from their cell and even now stands with one set of claw-like 'hands' pressed lightly together. He is tall, maybe six feet, and has greyish leathery skin, four arms and two legs. Its eyes are black and set wide on the pointed skull.
"You will…entertain…our guests." He says in his own rasping tongue, which translates itself in Rose's mind automatically. Some things did not leave when the Doctor did. Rose translates for Mickey as they go along.
"Why us?" Mickey asks suspiciously, peering back between the curtains into the main chamber of the ship at various scantily clad aliens and some humans who are dancing or serving a similarly varied assortment of 'guests'.
"You have been noticed."
"What?" Mickey frowns.
"We take the brightest and best on the planets we pass on the Highway." The alien gives a grotesque approximation of a smile. "The mighty have the furthest to fall is that right?"
Rose stares at him in horror. "I won't do it."
"But you will. If you do this you will be treated like a queen. If not then we will make you."
At that moment an alien walks from the main chamber past them. The insectoid grabs her skinny blue arm roughly in his claw like hand and whirls her round so her back faces them. Through her skimpy costume Rose and Mickey can see long scars down her back. Rose feels a shudder go through her. She looks into Mickey's eyes and sees her own thoughts reflected back at her. They are on their own.
"Ah ha!" Gwen cries out suddenly, shocking them all from their three a.m. stupor of staring at books and computer screens. Owen sits bolt upright and pretends he hasn't been asleep.
"What?" Jack asks quickly, setting down the leather-bound tome he has been staring at cross-eyed for the last half hour.
"The 'Highway'. Well a vague reference anyway. Its rather old." She runs a finger down the page and reads. "They came offering unearthly pleasures, speaking of the Highway. And behold such desires that man has never seen. Creatures such as these I have ne'er seen and ne'er wish to again. They took some and those poor wretches were ne'er seen again on this Earth. I wish I had ne'er taken pleasure in the delights offered by the Sophixzee." She struggles to pronounce the last word.
Jack looks to the Doctor whose face has gone hard. His eyes are like flints.
"Do you know them?" he presses. "Who are they?"
"Slavers," the Doctor grinds the word out thickly. "They take people. They arrive and offer some the chance…well the vastly expensive chance, to 'sample' the delights of a hundred cultures, races, peoples. They like to steal the brightest, the strongest, the ones who have done most with their lives, because they get a perverse kick out of subjecting them to what they do." He looks like he might be sick.
"Slavers?" Tosh looks upset.
Owen is frowning deeply and Ianto is looking to Jack.
"They disappear. Crop up through space and time. Randomly. They must use this 'Highway' to travel but I have no idea what that is."
Martha lays a hand on his arm. "So they're here. Surely that's a space ship the size of London if they take hundreds of people?"
"It should be…" there is a frown line between his eyebrows, and she can practically see the cogs turning in his brain. He starts pacing. "Jack when did you pick up the signal?"
"Three days ago. The rift sensors detected it."
The Doctor continues to pace while everyone else watches him. "There should be a huge space ship right overhead…but there's not…and rift sensors…Hmmm." He suddenly stops, clicks his fingers sharply and looks straight at Jack. "I know what the Highway is."
Rose has a metal tray of drinks on one hand and there are shackles on her wrists and her ankles. Enough to stop her running. She is wearing black and pink lingerie, which consists of a corset type arrangement and a short skirt if it can possibly be called that, complete with stockings and high-heeled black patent leather shoes. It reminds her of burlesque dancers. These aliens have done their research. She feels exposed with all these alien eyes on her. She knows Mickey's eyes are tracking her from the cage on the far side of the room. She can understand all of the disgusting perverse comments the patrons make about her – they think she doesn't understand and lets them think it – and it makes her want to vomit. Rose offers the drinks to the assortment of aliens at the table, pretends they aren't leering at her cleavage and turns away. Two days she's been here and she hates it. Serving drinks on her shift, and sleeping in a barred cell with her hand in Mickey's through the bars when she isn't.
At least they're not making her dance…or worse…not yet anyway. They want her broken, so she won't fight when they have her.
She feels the tears continue to prickle the back of her eyelids hotly. That was why Mickey was in the cage, he'd fought back the moment they touched her. That is why he is sitting naked, in a hunched up ball, trying to cover his modesty from the poking 'hands' and leering eyes, with a black eye and whipped back, and watching her every move.
She wants her mother. She wants to cry in her arms and have a cup of tea and be told its all okay. She wants to curl up in front of a movie with Mickey where the ending is always happy. But it isn't. Rose Tyler is a slave, and she knows what is coming round the corner. She sees it in their eyes. It isn't the first time most of these patrons have been here. They smell fresh meat when they look at her, and they all want to be the first to try it. They want to take her to the back rooms she prays she will never see. She wonders if she is already broken. Like the other slaves – male and female and non-specified – who have empty eyes. The ones who succumbed quickest, service the most patrons are rewarded by suites of rooms, beautiful clothes, jewellery, they aren't beaten. Rose wonders if submitting would be easier. Safer. Her body would not be a mess of well-hidden bruises. The slavers know where to hit so it does not show through her costume. But Rose Tyler has had too many brilliant stubborn people in her life to let her just give in. She is Jackie Tyler's daughter if nothing else.
"What?" Jack stares at the Doctor as though he is mad. "You can't be suggesting what I think you're suggesting."
The Doctor lifts his head from his hands and stares back at his friend across the desk. "I don't think we have a choice."
Jack has sent the others home, to snatch a few hours sleep. Martha is asleep downstairs in Jack's cubbyhole. Although he knows Ianto will be here at seven a.m. sharp like every day. So he and the Doctor are the only ones left sitting in the light of a single lamp and thrashing out the Doctor's plan.
"But you said it would cause universes to implode. You told her that!"
The Doctor bites the inside of his cheek and his eyes look haunted. "I know what I told her Jack. That hasn't changed. But if I'm right, and the 'Highway' is the Void, then they could get to her universe. And I swear to Gallifrey I won't let that happen."
Jack reaches a hand across his desk and gives the Time Lord's wrist a squeeze. "I know."
Their eyes meet before the Doctor looks away. "Plus I won't have slavers making holes in my universe." He smiles suddenly, disarmingly, at Jack. "And if you can open the rift without sucking the whole world in then I'm fairly sure I can manage a quick little trip."
"You mean we," Jack corrects, "you're not going in there alone." He stands and works an audible crick out of his neck. "Pretty boy like you must be high up their list."
He grins back at Jack. "Just so long as I'm higher on that list than you."
Rose drops the metal tray with a clatter and smiles serenely at the insect-like guards that come running. She glances down at the man who moments earlier had made a particularly disgusting comment about her. She holds her hands out in surrender and thinks happily to herself that he will think twice about saying those words again. Hitting him with that tray was particularly satisfying. She lets the two insectoid aliens grab hold of her arms and haul her bodily from the hall. Rose knows that Mickey is staring at her wishing she hadn't done that.
Rose lets the fight go out of her only when she is thrown back into her cell. She reaches for the suit jacket she was wearing the day they brought her here and pulls it slowly around her bruised body. She rests her chin on her knees and feels one solitary tear slide its way down her nose. A shadow suddenly falls across her. Rose looks up at the woman standing the other side of the bars. She looks human but Rose senses she isn't. Then she blinks and Rose sees the silver flash of her eyes that tells her she is definitely not human. Rose looks a little closer and realises that what she thought was hair was really dark brown feathers.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Honey. Mickey was right about you."
"Mickey?" Rose leans forward in surprise. "What did he…?"
Honey smiles, her teeth very white against her dark skin in the gloom of the cell. "That was a very stupid thing you did," she says still smiling.
"Yeah well," Rose says shrugging.
Honey smiles. "There is a group of us. Mickey included. We refuse to be slaves for the rest of our lives. The Highway stretches for all of time. All of space. Everyone is at risk Rose and we refuse to let them do that. We want revolution. We want freedom."
Rose lets the slow smile spread over her face. "Then I'm in."
She crouches down and holds out a hand to Rose through the bars. "Rose Tyler, you're my kind of stupid."