I LIKE IMPOSSIBLE
Chapter 7: The Stuff of Legends
Jack had heard a lot of tales in his days: folk tales, ghost tales, tall tales, fairy tales: but the one that Mickey Smith weaved for him as they pushed his ship into an inch of her capabilities on a rescue mission that spanned galaxies was unlike anything that he had ever heard before. And, as he listened, the snare that Rose Tyler's smile had set weeks before began to close even more tightly around the hardened con man's heart…
Once upon a time, in a universe far, far away, there was a girl named Rose Tyler. Her parents lived on one of London's council estates, both doing a little of this and a little of that, trying to scrimp and save and build a life. The girl's father died before she could walk, butexcepting that, her childhood was normal. She made friends, started school, and lived an ordinary, run-of-the-mill life. Still, she was vibrant and lively and beautiful, and, in spite of the estate walls that crowded her and tried to block the view, she had dreams that were bigger than the sky.
One day, she met a boy who told her lies, and she believed them. She left school and her mom and her friends all because she believed in this boy and because she'd always dared to dream of bigger things. The liar broke her heart, as liars are prone to do, and she crashed back hard onto the ground of her world leaving dreams of the sky behind her
She moved back home with her mum, took a job in a shop and started dating an average bloke. And that could well have been the end of her average, ordinary story: work and beans-on-toast and watching the telly. But then, she met the Doctor, an alien of mythic proportions who travelled about the universe in a crazy blue box. He scooped the girl out of ordinary and gave her all of time and space.
She travelled with him in his magic box for two years across the universe and back again. And graduallythis girl who was born to love fell again—fell for the Doctor and for the kind of life he led, a life in which a person stood her ground and fought for right regardless of the consequences. Together, the Doctor and Rose encouraged the good, thwarted the bad, and saved the day time and time and time againIt truly was a fairy tale, a fantastic life
But then came Torchwood and the war, and Rose lost her Doctor. She crashed hard to the ground again, but this time to the ground of a new reality, the ground of a different universe. And although she was battered and bruised from the fall this time she didn't forfeit her dreams of the sky. Now that she'd tasted the Doctor's way of living, she swore that she'd be faithful to it. She'd flourish on the ground upon which she stood and continue to be extraordinary
"Which is why," Mickey concluded. "Rose has been working at Torchwood for the past five years, working out treaties and the like. She's trying to protect earth the best way that she knows." He paused, "That's also why she came looking for you. She and the Doctor travelled with a Jack Harkness in the other universe. A conman who became a hero… She thinks that you have that potential, too." He paused and studied the man's tightly masked face. "I hope she's right. For all of our sakes."
When Rose Tyler had told Jack Harkness that she'd met him in a parallel universe, he wanted to believe that she was either completely crazy or that she was trying to play him somehow. But the way that she had looked at him, had seemed to see through him and into him, had stuck with him like a virus. And so he'd done the research which had been pretty conclusive. Until five years ago, Rose Tyler hadn't existed. And, here were Mickey Smith and Jake Simmonds, two men that he'd read about in his fifty-first century schoolbooks, telling him that she had fallen through a gap in space and time… The story really was too fantastic to believe, but he was starting to buy it anyway. And that scared him, maybe more than anything else had ever scared him.
So, Jack did what he always did when he felt uncomfortable; he deflected. He changed the subject to redirect the conversation onto more comfortable ground. "So, you and she were together?" He raised an eyebrow suggestively.
"We dated for a while, yeah." Mickey replied coldly, not liking the Captain's leer.
"Lucky you," Jack expressed almost wistfully, but he was intentionally trying to bait the boy. "I only met her the once, but she made quite an impression. Great eyes and that mouth—I'll tell you I've had dreams about that mouth… But, then she dumped you for this Doctor guy without even blinking, right? That must've stung."
A dark look filled Mickey's face, and Jake sensing trouble grabbed his arm. "Come on, mate, calm down. Remember what Rose always says about the designated driver. Besides," Jake added, turning his intense eyes upon Jack though he continued to address his friend, and Jack thought that he could read a glimmer of pity in them. "He's just trying to goad you. 'Cause, you see, he's beginning to believe you, and well he should because the story's true. But if he does believe you, then he's gotta believe that Rose might be right. He might have to be more than what meets the eye, and that scares 'im to death. So he's taking the coward's way and putting you on the defensive. I'd try not to mind it much."
Jack could only be amazed at Jake's perceptive assessment. He gave the younger man a slight nod of respect and then gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders, as though he neither agreed not disagreed with the appraisal and didn't think it was much worth discussing.
Mickey's anger seemed to deflate as he too processed Jake's words. "'S okay," he mumbled. "Rose and I were together, yeah. I was the ordinary bloke who she settled on after Jimmy Stones broke her. I've known her for her whole life, and I've loved her for all of it. I always will. But, she made her choice a long time ago, and it wasn't me. It's been eight years since I travelled with Rose and the Doctor, eight years and more than nine if you count from the time I first met him. I felt bad about it, yeah, but it was a long time ago. Still, she's my oldest mate, and I love her. I want her to be safe and happy, or at least as happy as she can be without the Doctor. 'S why I'm here. That's why I need your help to get her back safe and sound. "
Mickey continued, his tone becoming less confessional and more confrontational. "You can sit there and try to look smug, but you may as well try to understand this, cause you asked who Rose Tyler is." Then, he smirked and looked directly past Jack's mask, "Rose Tyler is a woman worth fighting and dying for, the more you know her the more you'll think so. And you, Captain Jack Harkness, you're not as remote as you'd like to think you are. And you'd better watch out, mate. Coo, you're in over your head already, and you don't even know it… It's easy to fall for her, but its no easy thing to love Rose Tyler."
-DOCTORRWHO-
Rose examined her surroundings carefully. Several Cologians armed with blasters had escorted her to a small suite, locking her inside. They said that they'd be arriving at their destination in about two hours, and directed her to use the time to eat and clean herself up. Indignant though she was at her captivity, Rose determined that the best thing to do under the circumstances was to utilize the time she'd been allotted to as much advantage as possible.
Her clothes, the clothes that she'd been wearing when she'd been abducted from the Torchwood parking lot, were laundered and laying across a slab that was clearly meant to resemble a bed. The clothes were neither practical nor comfortable: pink camisole, tan suit skirt and jacket, sheer pantyhose, and heels of all things (low heels: more like pumps actually, but still not really efficient when running for your life). But, Rose considered fairly, she'd been negotiating a treaty on the day that they'd taken her, not doing fieldwork, and that was sort of the dress protocol that Torchwood had in place for those sorts of things. Her handbag, which would have been incredibly helpful given her captive status and all of the wonderfully useful items that she carried inside it just in case, was noticeably absent. Shame!
In addition to the bed-slab thing, there was a small table with a meal on it; at least she assumed that the bottle of grayish liquid was supposed to be a meal. Ah, the joy of pureed proteins! But, if they'd wanted her out of it, they'd have kept her sedated, so Rose did the only thing she could under the circumstances. She wrinkled her nose and drank up. After all, if she was going to find a way out of this, she'd need as much strength as possible, and it wasn't all that bad actually. It sort of tasted like cabbage… sort of.
The second room was a bathroom with some sort of shower set-up. There was a plastic mirror on one wall that Rose initially thought might be a two-way; yeah, as if she was going to give her captors a show! But a little investigating revealed that it was thin and could be peeled back from the wall's surface like a sticker. Relieved, Rose inspected the small kit of shower and beauty supplies that had been left in the bathroom for her use, a comfort which Rose would have found rather odd had she not already surmised that this sort of thing, kidnapping and ransoming off intergalactic diplomats, was not the Cologians' standard MO.
Their government must really be desperate for funds, she considered broodingly, but that really wasn't her concern at the moment. At the moment, she had to find a way to get out of this mess, and a huge grin crossed her face when she discovered that there were a couple of things in the kit that might help her do just that.
TO BE CONTINUED…
