Kidnap.
Susan held Tony Tyler in her arms as Jackie prepared breakfast. Even though the Tylers were rich and could afford the staff, Jackie was too much of a traditionalist to give up one or two of the duties a wife and mother had. The real alternate Jackie Tyler had been a slave driver, but Pete had managed to find a simple cover in saying that Jackie had been traumatised by the Cybermen invasion.
Jackie took the time to watch her son being held by Susan, wondering if it was possible for her to stay since Tony had taken to Susan far more than he had with Rose.
Rose had always been slightly contemptuous of Pete and Jackie suddenly having a son, but Jackie was more than aware of sibling rivalry. But what Rose did with Tony…..
Jackie had raised Rose, taught her responsibility, kindness and generosity but she'd become….inhuman. Just looking between Susan and Rose, she could see that Susan was more human than Rose could ever be. There was something about the Time lady as she called herself, there was a lack of other worldliness in Susan, even though it was there in a touch.
Jackie put Tony's breakfast in front of the boy and Susan took the spoon from her without a word. Jackie watched as Susan carefully fed the boy.
" You're good at that," she commented.
Susan looked up at her. " I know. I've never really had much experience with children but it seems to come naturally."
Jackie watched her as she fed her son. It wasn't long before her curiosity got the better of her.
" What're you gonna do ?"
Susan looked up, " What do you mean ?"
" I mean, now. What're gonna do now you've found the Doctor ?"
Susan sighed. " I'm not sure," she confessed. " I can't go back to Gallifrey since its just a pile of rocks and dust. The version of my grandfather here has a limited lifespan, which he's spending cleaning up the mess your daughter made. No offence," she added looking at Jackie. The human woman shook her head in the gesture of it wasn't a big deal.
" I'm tempted, really tempted, to stay here. Maybe even take him around this universe. My grandfather, the real Doctor, left home because of the desire to explore the cosmos in the first place. This one…you didn't see him in Torchwood Jackie, he looked tired, bogged down by the amount of work he needed to do."
Susan looked down at Tony as she kept on talking, " I've encountered Torchwood before and I didn't like it one little bit. One version I came across let an alien race arrive and almost destroy the human race."
Oh my god !" Jackie clapped a hand to her mouth, " What happened ?"
Susan grinned, " I blew up their starship, exposed Torchwood and the rest is history."
Jackie looked at Susan curiously, " Susan, I've always wanted to know, why does the Doctor travel the way he does ? I mean, I get the whole last of his kind business, but seriously he strikes me as someone who's been doing it for a long time."
" He has. My people have a tradition, at the age of 8, Gallifreyan children are taken for initiation into the Time lord academy. We stand on a platform before the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality into which you can see the whole of the Time vortex." Susan leaned back in her chair.
" The idea is simple, the child looks into the vortex, gazing into the symbol of Time lord supremacy. You stand there, staring at the raw power of time. Children, " for the first time during the conversation Susan looked unsettled.
" Gazing at the raw power of time is part of the ceremony, it tells the adults whether or not you are worthy of the title of Time lord. Some would be inspired, some would run away and others….others would simply go mad."
Jackie looked at her with interest, Jackie's knowledge of time lord lore was incredibly slight and the Doctor and John weren't exactly co-operative in telling them about the Time lords.
" What about you ?"
Susan smiled.
Later during the day Susan and Jackie were outside Tony's school waiting for him to come out. As the kids came outside to their parents, the two women waited for Tony.
But he didn't come.
Jackie was almost in hysterics and Susan had to ask a teacher.
" Excuse me ? Hi, I'm a friend of Jackie Tyler, we're here to pick up Tony Tyler, but we can't seem to find him. Do you know where he is ?"
The young woman looked hassled but clear minded, " Oh, his sister Rose picked him up."
" What ? We specifically told you she wasn't to come within 3 inches of him !" Both women looked as Jackie stalked over to them, her face red with anger and fear.
" She said…." The unfortunate woman protested.
" We said to you that Rose is mentally unstable. She hit Tony a while back. Why did you let her take him ?"
The atmosphere at Tyler manor was tense. Pete had hit the roof when he'd heard about the school's stupidity not to mention the fact that the private investigators he'd hired had underestimated Rose and her psychosis.
Now, the police were around asking incredibly stupid questions.
Susan and John huddled close together, of all the people in the manor they were more than aware of the rationale behind Rose kidnapping Tony.
" She wants me to take her back, there's no other answer." Susan whispered in case someone overheard and the police misinterpreted their conversation.
John had worked that out already, his granddaughter was the only person in the universe they were currently in that had a method of travel back to their primary reality.
" Yeah, but when is she gonna make it clear ? Its been 4 hours since Tony was kidnapped, then again melodrama was always Rose's forte. She'll probably tell us what she wants later on this evening."
He was right.
When the phone rang it made everyone spring up and the DCI in charge yanked it up and listened to the other end.
He listened for a minute before he turned to Susan.
" She wants you." He sounded puzzled but Susan wasn't interested in finding out why, all that mattered to her at the moment was Tony.
She took the phone and spoke into it.
" Hello ?"
" Susan, yes. Good, then you can take me back to my Doctor."
Rose. Her voice sounded like she was panting. Why ?
Susan's sneer could be heard even over the phone, " Why should I do that ?"
Playing for time was what Time ladies and Lords did best, besides Susan was more than aware of the cards Rose had but she needed to keep the mad bitch talking long enough for the police to track her down.
" Because if you don't, I'll kill the brat."
As if to emphasise that fact Susan heard a boy cry out and Rose's muffled voice saying something like " shut your fucking mouth."
" You would kill your own brother ?"
Susan hated stating the obvious but she needed to keep Rose talking, she knew that the bitch would kill Tony if she didn't get what she wanted.
" Of course I would ! The little bastard means nothing to me, hell, he isn't my real brother."
Susan prayed that Pete had retcon ready for the police hearing this but decided to make Rose sound like even more of a psychopath than they knew.
" You are related to Pete Tyler by blood, his DNA is inside you, yes ?"
" Yes." The voice on the other end spoke.
Smiling that the fool had fallen into her trap, Susan made her voice even more puzzled. " Then how can he not be your brother ?"
The scream on the other end was punctuated by the cries of a child on the other end and Susan had to bite her tongue to hold back her rage.
" What do you want Rose ? Just make your terms and get on with it." Susan had had enough of the playing around.
" I want the Doctor, not that freak. You're gonna take me back to him."
" You want me to take you back, after what you've done ?" Susan asked.
She couldn't believe that Rose would be so thoughtless. Travel from one reality to another wasn't as straightforward as Rose seemed to think, besides she wasn't sure if she wanted to leave just yet.
Besides, her TARDIS was still recalibrating itself from the last jump.
Deciding to ask more questions in the vain hope Rose would see sense, Susan kept up her argument.
" I'm not sure where he is."
" You can find him can't you ?"
" I'm not sure where he is," Susan repeated.
Rose got tired of the argument and shut off the line.
Susan clenched the phone tightly in her fist. Turning angrily to the policemen, " Tell me you got a line on where she is."
The policemen shaking their heads made her even angrier. It was fortunate none of the policemen had listened in on their true conversations since Susan played a trick with her sonic screwdriver.
Susan threw the phone across the room.
" What did she want ?" The DCI asked.
" Me and John have a…relative. He's a traveller who Rose travelled with. " Susan explained, glancing at John to take over and prayed he had enough sense not to mention aliens and time machines.
" He's my twin brother, anyway Rose became deluded and felt that my brother loved her when in fact he doesn't and he left her here to stop her."
The DCI understood the majority of what he was being told but he didn't understand the reasoning. This was becoming a very weird case for him.
" Stop her from doing what ?"
John took a deep slow breath and prayed they didn't waste anymore time, " Rose was self centred and destructive, my brother had to get her out of prison on more than one occasion and she got herself in plenty of dangerous situations."
The DCI understood and was satisfied.
" She'll probably call again and I must insist that no one makes any calls."
John and the Tylers found Susan in her room.
" I'm sorry." She apologised.
Jackie sat on the bed and looked at the young woman. " What did Rose really say, we listened to the message over our headphones and there was something not right with the line."
Susan held out her hand and Jackie recognised the sonic screwdriver. " I had no alternative. I gave it to John to use to stop the policemen from overhearing the majority of the call but enough for them to get a jist on the basics."
" As to what Rose wants, well its obvious, she wants to get back to our reality and she wants me to take her."
John interjected, " Is your TARDIS ready ?"
" I don't know," at the Tyler's confused looks Susan explained. " Travel through time is very power costly. Imagine travelling through other realities. My TARDIS could probably travel in time here, in this reality but it'll take time for her to gather enough energy for the next jump."
" How long ?" Pete wanted to clarify.
Susan closed her eyes, " 34 years."
" Can't you, I dunno, travel forwards in time or something ?" Jackie sounded desperate and Susan couldn't blame the poor woman.
" It doesn't work like that. No, it will have to wait."
John was busy concentrating. " Susan, you said your TARDIS could travel in this reality already ?"
Susan saw immediately where her grandfather's double was going with this, " Use my TARDIS to find Tony and lead the police to where he is ?"
Jackie and Pete felt this was a good idea. " Why not ? It should work. You do have a time machine."
" But I can't prevent Rose from kidnapping Tony," Susan reminded them. " Its already happened, even in alternate timelines I cannot and will not change fixed events in personal timelines."
Susan stood up and walked over to the window and glanced out over the grounds. " I do have a plan. Jackie, can you go to Tony's room and find something that has a sample of his DNA, a comb or something he's dribbled on or something."
John felt he knew where she was going with this. " You're going to use the TARDIS DNA trace and find Tony and Rose ?"
" yes, it shouldn't take me too long. The only problem is what I do on the other end. One choice is I tell the police anonymously where Rose is, or I can tell you and you tell the cops. Or, I could kidnap Tony and bring him safely back whilst I deal with Rose."
" What do you mean, deal with Rose ?" although she hated what Rose had become, Jackie didn't want her hurt.
Susan sighed, she'd been very tempted to throw the madwoman out of her TARDIS, straight into the gravity well of a black hole or a supernova.
Now…
" I'm open to suggestions…."
A/N What do you think ?
