A/N: I really need to start buying shares in the BBC if I ever wish to own even a shred of this.
X. Utopia
Rose hadn't been able bring herself to find members of Sally Sparrow's family. What could she have told them, that their relative had been killed by witches in 1599 and she was really sorry, but it could have been worse, two thirds of the universe could have been destroyed if it weren't for the antiquarian? And it wasn't like telling her relatives that Sally had been a hero could come without an impossible number of questions.
No, only one person who Sally had known would reasonably believe what had happened to her, and it was also a person who wished to sell Rose out to UNIT. She couldn't bring Larry Nightingale the poor girl's corpse. He'd want to take its price out of Rose's hide – doubly so, as clearly, the young man had been taken with the wispy blonde.
Rose had settled for dropping a letter to the young man, explaining to him briefly what had happened and to report Sally as having disappeared. It wasn't like people would still remember her by the time the young woman's grave would be there to be found. The time traveller had brought the body to year five billion, after the sun had expanded, to lay a resting place for Sally on the planetoid Charon. She'd chosen the site because of the reference to the Ferryman of the Dead, which Rose had unwittingly been in Sally's case, and because it was highly doubtful the gravesite would ever be disturbed, with the Sol system having been abandoned and it been set on the road for a quiet extinction, what with the Sun being too small to go supernova. And, Rose had to admit to herself, because she probably wouldn't be alone for very long…
Once she'd laid Sally to rest, Rose returned to her regular time period – more out of convenience than of anything special, and without really any intent to visit anyone on Earth before she resumed her journeys, probably to the Library to try and find more material to learn. It was the first time Rose was bringing the TARDIS for a refill all by herself; not that it was a complicated operation, as it consisted in parking for a few minutes over the rift there and letting the time ship do her thing. Rose spent the time compiling a list of subjects she wanted to learn about next.
She was taken completely by surprise when she felt the old girl panic wildly and launch herself into action without any prompting on Rose's part, and understood a little better the moment she paid attention to her own senses, and was seized by the urgent need to flee as fast as possible and as far away as possible from whatever completely unnatural thing that had somehow latched onto the TARDIS.
The time ship lurched violently and launched herself into time and space, far, far, very far, farther than she had ever gone before, until the old girl shuddered to a halt and Rose took a glimpse at the displays, to find out she had landed in…
"Year one hundred trillion" she breathed.
Not that going that far meant the young woman and her time ship had escaped whatever had prompted their traveling in the first place. Rose could still distinctly feel the completely unnatural presence outside the TARDIS, and try as she might, the young woman just couldn't get the old girl to turn her instruments in the direction of whatever was outside. Which left Rose with exactly one solution to her current situation: go out herself.
There was absolutely nothing in the sky outside the TARDIS nor anything looking alive in the barren wasteland; not that it registered for Rose, who gingerly peeked from behind one of the ship's corners… To let out a cry of despair.
"Jack!"
And Jack Harkness it was, clad in streetwear and a familiar-looking coat, and wearing a ridiculously large backpack. He also looked dead, and Rose fought against her body's instincts to run away from her friend and forced herself to check him for any sign of life.
She found none.
She looked at the empty sky, tearing up. "Oh no, no, no, no. Not Jack. That's not fair. He can't be dead, that's not fair!"
"HURRR!"
Jack's sudden movement took Rose completely by surprise, and before she knew it she'd put three good paces between the two of them.
"WHAT?"
"Rosie!"
Jack leapt up to his feet, but once again, Rose instinctually stepped back from him, and the ex-Time Agent only embraced very thin air, while the young woman stumbled and fell painfully on her backside.
"Ouch – I'm sorry, Jack, could you just, well, not surprise me or something?" The young woman cringed, and went on babbling. "I don't know what happened to you, but you feel – wrong, somehow, and I don't want to run away from you, I'm really glad to see you, I'm so happy you're alive, I thought you were dead, not that-"
"Hold on a sec'" Jack cut her off, grimacing. "In fact, let's just get the Doc', he can probably explain what's happening to you, which I can't, and he's got an explanation to give me too."
Rose looked down at her lap. "He's gone" she said in a small voice. "I've been on my own for nearly three years, now."
"So he's left you behind too" Jack said darkly, at which Rose suddenly looked back up at him.
"NO!" She cringed again. "I'm sorry. No, he didn't leave me behind."
"That makes one of us" Jack groused. He tentatively approached and extended a hand to help Rose back up; the young woman took it gingerly, her grip so tense she almost crushed his fingers as he pulled her up.
"Something's happened to you" Jack stated matter-of-factly, and Rose had a little smile.
"Something's happened to you."
"I've got no idea what" Jack admitted, his expression turning sour. "One moment I'm getting killed by a Dalek in year two hundred one hundred, the next moment I wake up like it had only knocked me out and I take off at a run to try and re-join with the two of you, only it's too late, I arrive just in time to see the TARDIS finish dematerializing."
"Oh God!" Rose stared at Jack. "He left you behind?"
"Yeah, lucky for me I had this old thing with me" Jack continued, pulling a sleeve of his coat to show a device on his wrist looking a bit like an oversized, overly technical watch. "Vortex manipulator" Jack supplied, "from back when I was a Time Agent. Got me out of Satellite Five, only the blasted thing malfunctioned, sent me all the way back to 1869 and shorted out. It's leaking, for lack of a better word."
"The Doctor said you were helping restore the Earth" Rose said, turning her eyes away in discomfort.
Jack snorted. "You could say that. Anyway, I'm not the only one who had something happen to them. What's up with the eyes?"
Rose cringed again. "Is 'Bad Wolf' an acceptable answer?"
Jack scowled. "That name again. Is it still following you?"
Rose couldn't help a little smirk. "Follows me everywhere I go."
"Great."
"It's me" Rose said, and Jack stared at her. "Bad Wolf is me. As it turns out, the Doctor did try to leave me behind on Satellite Five – sent me back to my own time and tried to lock down the TARDIS. Only I refused to just let him die, so I did something incredibly stupid. I looked into the Heart of the TARDIS."
Jack gave her an appalled look. "Are you insane? You saw what that thing did to that Slitheen Margaret!"
"Well, I didn't have too many options" Rose said ruefully. "It worked, too, just didn't know exactly what it would entail at the time."
"What happened to you?"
Rose looked sideways. "Can you save that question for later? I'd like to look around before we get any nasty surprises."
"Good idea" Jack said with a nod. "That thing over there looks like a big hive, for starters, and there's no telling if it's empty from such a distance."
"Looks empty-ish" Rose replied. "No disturbances or trails, and going by the heterogeneity of the openings between ground-accessible and not this isn't a city for flight-able inhabitants. Doubt there's more than a small number of inhabitants in there, if any."
"There's tracks below" Jack noted. "City might be abandoned, the planet isn't. Maybe it's just gone too cold for whichever species lived in that city."
"We've got an atmospheric shell, at least" Rose commented, taking out her sonic screwdriver, which earned her a surprised glance.
"You've got one of these, now?"
"Gift from the TARDIS" Rose explained. "Comes in really handy, but some of the functions… Well, let's just say the Doctor must have been really bored." She forced herself to look at Jack again. "Talking about things to know before all goes South, what happened earlier… You weren't really dead, were you?"
"Oh, I was" Jack replied, grimacing. "Don't ask me how that works, it just does. One moment I'm as dead as they come, whether I got shot, stabbed, impaled, you name it, and the next minute I'm good as new. Think that's got anything to do with why you're having to force yourself to even look at me right now?"
"It might" Rose replied, focusing again on her sonic. "Atmosphere's thinner than I'd like, but as long as we don't overdo it we won't drop from oxygen deprivation." She pocketed the sonic – and did a double-take. "Of course, she said I'd know when I'd be in the presence of one!"
"Who said what?" Jack asked, nonplussed.
"Oh, I've got to introduce you to her" Rose said enthusiastically, forgetting her discomfort for an instant. "There's this woman, well a female alien, really, her name's Missy; she's brilliant, and even a little crazier than the Doctor. Oh, and there's River Song, too, if we ever stumble on her, you're going to get along with her famously" Rose added, grinning.
"Okay, that's the who" Jack said, a little lost. "What's the what?"
"You're a fixed point" Rose said matter-of-factly.
"Fixed what?"
"A fixed point, a fact of the Universe no force in all of time and space can alter. That's why you can't die; you'd no longer be a fact."
"Wonderful" Jack said glumly. "Might come in handy in a minute, too."
"What?"
"Look over there" Jack said, gesturing (Rose winced) to show something far to their right, on the lower level. "That look like a manhunt to you?"
"It doesn't just look" Rose said tensely. And then she took off, running in the direction of the man pursued below them.
Jack shook his head and grinned. "That hasn't changed."
He ran after Rose, and overtook the young woman just in time to grab hold of the fleeing man. "It's okay, I've got you!" Jack said as reassuringly as he could, but the man only tried to shake himself free.
"We've got to run! They're coming!"
Jack pushed the man towards Rose and drew a gun, which he pointed towards the pack of tattooed humanoid savages who were fast-approaching and yelling.
"Don't shoot them, Jack!" Rose shouted at him, and the Time Agent hesitated, pointed his weapon up and fired a warning shot; the mob stopped dead in their tracks.
"That's not going to stop them forever, Rosie."
"I know that" Rose replied tartly, and she looked at the fugitive. "Apart from hungry, what are they?"
"No time!" the man replied, terrified. "There's more of them, we've got to keep going!"
"I've got my ship nearby, they won't be able to reach us there" Rose said kindly – and then she scowled as she spotted another pack of tribesmen up the cliff they'd just come from. "Or not; you've got some place to hide nearby?"
"We're close to the silo!" the man replied. "If we get to the silo, we're safe!"
"Silo it is" Rose said. "Lead the way."
"Since when are you wearing the pants in our relationship, Rosie?" Jack called out at her.
"You've got a better option?" she called back.
"I have several other options, but they leave us quite dead" Jack fired back.
"Then run!"
They ran, the mobs of tribesmen running and howling after them like so many feral hounds. They didn't have to go far; within minutes, the trio found themselves arriving at a fenced compound where they were halted by guardsmen.
"It's the Futurekind, open the gates!" the fugitive shouted.
"Show me your teeth!" the guards shouted back, and the man thrust his face on the fence. "Show me your teeth! Show me your teeth!" the guards shouted again at Rose and Jack.
"Jack, show them your teeth!" Rose echoed, and she complied, using her fingers to pull her lips back and show as much of her teeth as she could. Jack must have done something similar, for the next thing Rose knew a fenced door opened just long enough to pull the trio inside – just in time, too, the gate hadn't clamped shut for ten seconds that the feral tribe crashed into it, held back by the solid metal links.
"What's wrong?" Rose asked before anybody could stop her. "Why were you chasing this man?"
She was rewarded with horrible grins from mouths full of pointed and jagged teeth. "Humans" one of them said hoarsely. "Humani. Make feast!"
"Of course it would have been too much to ask for one quiet trip before returning to the running" Rose groused, panting.
"Wasn't the running half the fun?" Jack teased, trying to give Rose a one-armed hug, only for the young woman to nearly crash into one of the Futurekind's teeth trying to avoid him – one of the guards barely managed to catch her and hold her back.
"Hey!" Then Rose blushed crimson when she realized what had happened. "Sorry."
"Bad breakup is no reason to get yourself infected" the guard lectured, and Rose scowled at him.
"I didn't do that on purpose."
"Come back, pink girl" one of the Futurekind taunted, licking its teeth. "Kind hungry."
"Go to your room!" Rose shouted back at him, and Jack barked a laugh.
"You're not hoping that will work this time, are you?"
"Too much purple in the leather" Rose replied offhandedly. And then she grinned. "Oh, right, you wouldn't know, he's not wearing the leather jacket anymore!"
"Finally wore it out?"
Rose laughed. "I'll explain to you when we're not being pressed for time. Or being watched by hominivores" she added with a pointed look at the Futurekind.
"Kind watch you" one of the feral humanoids replied darkly, before motioning for the tribe to take off.
"Come on, let's get you inside" one of the guards said gruffly, but before he could lead them away the fugitive took hold of his sleeve. "My name is Padra Fet Shafe Cane" he said with stars in his eyes. "Can you take me to Utopia?"
The guard smiled back. "Oh, yes. We can!" The man turned to Rose. "And I suppose you'll want to be kept apart from your ex?"
"He's not my ex" Rose said with a small smile, "no need to put him behind bars. I'm Rose Tyler, and this is Captain Jack Harkness."
"Hello" the Captain said, pouring on the charm, and Rose laughed. "Yeah, some things really don't change."
"Right, huh…" The guard tried to find some composure again. "I don't suppose either of you is an engineer or a scientist? We could do with one."
"Not really" Rose replied, "but I've got some experience in both fields, and Captain Harkness is far from a bad mechanic." Jack was going to comment, but Rose stopped him with a negative headshake (and a wince).
Jack sighed. "That's going to take some getting used to."
"I have the sonic, I wear the pants" Rose teased.
"Never let the kids grow up" Jack grumbled, and the young woman raised her eyebrows at him. The ex-Time Agent shook his head. "Story for another time."
"Yeah, questions later" Rose replied. "Let's see if we can make ourselves useful."
"This way" the guard said, and he led them towards a cavern complex dominated by a silo. As they followed, Rose absently tried to tug at her sense of the TARDIS' presence. She let out a sigh, which Jack noticed.
"Something wrong?"
"Just having trouble calling the old girl" Rose replied distractedly. It felt to her like it had in 1969 all over again, if she intensified her pull the slightest bit the TARDIS fought back that much harder to stay where she was. There were no Weeping Angels messing with the time ship here, however, at least as far as Rose knew. No, here were just humans. Plain old humans, living at the end of the universe.
"Stinks a bit, doesn't it?" Jack noted, and then, at someone they were walking past and who had taken offense: "Not you."
"It's funny how that smell has stuck around" Rose noted. "There's no one left from the original strain after year five billion or so, and the last human had so little attachment to what we'd used to be that she got herself reduced to flapping skin and a psychic brain in a jar."
"A what?"
Rose laughed. "I'm not kidding you! She wouldn't have smelled like these people do, but that's because she couldn't perspire, she had to constantly be moisturized by lackeys, they followed her around with their sprays."
"You'll have to tell me sometime. There's something we should be doing first", and Jack reached for the guard.
"What is it?"
"Got a question for you" Jack said. "My friend here arrived with her spaceship – doesn't look much, blue box with the word 'Police' on it, but it's a damn good ship, and we'll need it back."
"Once we've taken you to Professor Yana I'll be headed back out for a last water collection" the guard replied. "I'll tell the others, we'll see what we can do." Then, hesitantly. "That ship of yours" he said, looking at Rose.
"Yes?"
"Could it take people to Utopia?"
Rose smiled. "If I have coordinates, there's no reason why not."
The guard smiled widely. "Just ask Professor Yana. We'll get your ship." The man led on, and Jack spoke up from behind the young woman.
"It's really like the old times, isn't it? Minus Mister Big Ears."
"It's really not" Rose replied, her voice heavy. Jack didn't insist, and didn't speak again until after the pair had been given temporary ID badges by a man named Attilo who then led the pair to the silo proper, and asked them to wait in front of a closed door.
Jack and Rose exchanged a look, then grins, then the young woman whipped out her sonic screwdriver and activated it next to the door – to no avail.
"Half deadlocked" Rose said. "Someone messed up a bit with it; should be able to force it open anyway, but hacking through would be faster."
"I've got it" Jack said, charming smile still on from saying 'hello' to someone they'd just passed.
"You really never stop" Rose said with a tongue-touched grin, leaning against the door to stay out of Jack's way as he worked the code pad. "I'm beginning to understand why it could irk the Doc-TOR!"
The last syllable had been yelped: the door had given way and opened on a pit, and Rose had nearly fallen before being caught by Jack. For the briefest of instants she tried to struggle, then she noticed her situation and blushed again.
"Sorry" she mumbled. "I really hate that, you know, being so spooked off by you, but I can't help it."
"Yeah, I've noticed" Jack said drily as he steadied Rose. "You said it had to do with Bad Wolf?"
"It does" Rose said grimly. And then her face brightened. "Will you look at that? Almost like a rocket from the Apollo missions" she said, taking in the sight of the vessel in front of them. "Except, you know, a lot bigger than those of the Apollo missions to the Moon."
"You've been there?" Jack asked, and Rose shook her head before she retreated.
"Been on the Moon, but inside a hospital. Only watched the moon landing live on the telly. I think I'll be going after we're done here."
"You don't mind if I come with?" Jack asked.
"After we get the old girl used to traveling with you, she reacts even worse to your presence than I do."
"That doesn't have to do with Bad Wolf" Jack observed closing the door and turning around to find himself face to face with a jittery Rose.
"It does, actually" the young woman said. "The TARDIS has a much better time sense than I do, but it's the same principle, and I think not entirely dissimilar biology."
"You're kidding me" Jack said drily.
"Wish I did" Rose returned. "Remember the golden glow from the Heart? That's caused by what is called Huon particles. They're time-sensitive and very dangerous, normally fatal when bound into organic lifeforms, but somehow, when I took in the Time Vortex in my head, I must have altered my biology somewhat so I could use some of the TARDIS' Huon energy to survive the Time Vortex long enough to do… whatever I did, aside from kill half a million Daleks and their Emperor."
"So you've had a time sense ever since" Jack deduced, and Rose gave a jittery shake of her head, then groaned.
"This is so stupid – not you" she hastily clarified, "just not being able to function normally around you. And I didn't develop that sense until more than a year later, after I'd lost the Doctor at Canary Wharf."
"You were there" Jack said grimly.
"I was" Rose confirmed, and she went on bitterly. "Torchwood messed everything up. In fact they kept messing up after that. What was left of them was taken over by another alien species, the Racnoss – well, the last of them, at any rate – and covered for a project that nearly got the Earth eaten, and I mean that literally."
"The Christmas Star" Jack mused. "You were involved in that?"
"The Empress of the Racnoss involved me. She needed Huon energy to wake up her children, but couldn't replicate real Huon particles without using a human body's biochemistry to activate them. The Racnoss used a woman, Donna Noble – she's brilliant, you've got to meet with her, Jack – and activated particles inside her."
"Did she end up with a time sense too?" Jack asked.
"No, she's perfectly human, and adorable if you get past her temper. Anyway, the Empress of the Racnoss noticed I had some more of those particles dormant inside me, except they weren't just foreign bodies, they are integrated with my biology and altered it. So instead of absorbing all the energy she'd created inside Donna, all of it and her own were attracted to me and activated the modifications I'd done to myself, including the time sense, and that's how I ended up capable of sensing that you're a fixed point, among other things."
"Among other things?"
"I don't age, I think a bit more clearly than before, I have better reflexes, sharper senses, and I have a connection with the TARDIS. That's about the extent of it. Still human, just with a few special abilities" Rose smiled ruefully.
"Sounds almost like a Time Lady" Jack teased, and Rose groaned.
"Don't start, I've heard enough of that when Martha was around."
"Martha?" Jack grinned. "That's a number of fine ladies you've mentioned from your travels. Think I have a chance with some of them?"
Rose groaned again. "You're a menace, Jack."
"That joke would have sounded a lot better if you'd done it in French."
"Arg!"
"By the way, did you notice how hot it is in there?" Jack commented. "That thing on the other side of the wall is boiling."
"All I can tell you is it's probably not rocket science" Rose quipped, then she quirked her eyebrows. "French?"
"Don't ask."
Jack was spared any further inquiries by the arrival of an old man, his crown of hair turned white, who looked uncannily like-
"Cadfael?" Rose said before she could help herself.
"Who?" the man asked.
"Sorry" Rose said sheepishly, "you just look a lot like a man I know if he were a few years older."
"I see, I see" the man said, tapping his fingers a bit impatiently on his leg. "So you're the visitors they told me could try and help here?"
"Captain Jack Harkness" Jack said, moving forward and turning on the old charm, "and the charming grousing person here is Rose Tyler, Time Lady."
"Not a Time Lady" the old man mumbled, and Rose giggled.
"See? Told you." She turned her attention to the old man. "And you must be Professor Yana – Attilo told us about you."
"I am" the man said a bit absently. "So you're Rose Tyler. Good. Good, good, good, good, good, good, good, good."
"That's good, apparently" Rose told Jack in a stage whisper, but the old man didn't pay attention and proceeded to literally dragging the young woman down to the lower levels, Jack laughing as he followed and "saying hello" to a number of people they passed by.
The trio made it to the foot of the rocket and the adjunct laboratory. There they met with a charming blue alien humanoid with insectoid features.
"Chan, welcome, tho" the blue alien said, but before Rose could reply the professor had dragged her further to some of his equipment.
"Now this is the gravitissimal accelerator" the old man said manically, "it's past its best but it works. And over here", and he pulled Rose again, "is the footprint impellor system. Now do you know anything about endtime gravity?" Not that he waited for an answer, he forged on. "We can't get it to harmonise."
He dragged Rose past Jack and the blue alien again, dropped a "stop it, Jack" in passing ("Are you sure you aren't a Time Lady?" Jack had shot back). More explanations, until finally Rose managed to break the flow with an "and all this feeds into the rocket?"
"Yeah, except without a stable footprint, you see, we're unable to achieve escape velocity" the professor replied grimly, taking out an old-fashioned silver watch out of his pocket and playing with it. The small timepiece felt oddly familiar to Rose, and there was a little something about it making her curious to open it.
"…think, Miss Tyler? Any ideas?"
"Can I have a look at that watch?"
"You're not really interested in our problems, are you?" the man said grumpily.
"I am" Rose shot back, "it's just that right now, I'm a bit distracted because that thing looks a bit familiar, and this is nearly one hundred trillion years further than I've ever gone, and if I can take a peek at your watch, that curiosity will be satisfied enough that I can actually focus on your problem."
"I'm distracted by the damn drums in my head, but that doesn't stop me, does it?" the professor grumbled, but he did hold out the watch for Rose to examine.
The young woman was baffled. "The engravings on the top, they're Gallifreyan! And not just that, it feels like it has a mind of its own… Did you meet a Time Lord?"
"I doubt it, I had that watch on me when I was found lying on the coast of the Silver Devastation when I was a little kid" the old man groused, pocketing the object. "So. Five impact patterns to harmonise then unify. Ideas?"
Rose exchanged a look with Jack, who returned a "not my field, time girl" which made the young woman groan.
"On second thought, never let me introduce you to Donna."
"If I call you 'beautiful', the Doctor's going to cross back from his parallel universe just to tell me to stay away" Jack replied with a grin.
"Would almost be worth it" Rose said tartly, and she returned her attention to the increasingly irate professor. "I need my ship. I doubt I could resolve your issue directly, this doesn't seem like they're impossibly advanced concepts compared with those involved in transmaterialisation across half a universe but it's just not something I've studied as extensively as you have, so I think our best bet is bypassing the need and using the TARDIS to launch you in the right direction."
"You have a time ship of your own" the old man said flatly, then he shook his head. "That was stupid of me. I meant, you have a space ship of your own."
Rose grinned at him. "Both, actually, and one better – Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."
"Chan, then you could take us to Utopia, tho" the blue alien interjected enthusiastically, at which Rose cringed.
"The relative dimensions bit is the reason I'm not offering to take you all directly to this Utopia, at least not all at once" she said apologetically. "Not that I couldn't fly her there, at least after a few adjustments to a little navigational issue she's having right now, but she's so huge I'm not sure a number of you wouldn't get lost in some place I haven't explored yet – and let's not get started about where we'd lose all the stuff that mammoth of a rocket you've got must contain."
The blue girl gaped at Rose. "Chan, you haven't visited your whole ship, tho?"
"Time and relative dimensions in space, does exactly as it says on the box." Rose smiled mischievously. "Well, technically it says 'Police Public Call Box' on the box, but let's not permit that kind of detail to get in the way."
"You're making me look sane in comparison" the professor grumbled, "and God knows a lot of people here think differently."
"Probably because you think differently" Rose said offhandedly, and the blue alien giggled, earning herself a protesting "Hey, I meant that in a good-way!" from the blonde woman.
At which Jack barked a laugh. "You've become even worse of a babbler than the Doc'!"
"Special transitive property of the TARDIS, the one at the helm of the ship inherits the gob."
"Chan, your friend is crazy, tho" the blue alien half-giggled, and Rose walked over to her, holding out a hand and-
"Ehhh!"
-bumping into Jack's backpack, falling over. A clasp gave, and a secure, transparent cylinder partially slid out, containing-
"A human hand" the professor said, unfazed, while the blue woman next to him looked in fright.
"Time Lord hand, not that it's done me any good" Jack supplied. Rose rolled to the side, looked at the container and then stared upward at her friend.
"Is that the hand he lost against the Sycorax the night he regenerated?"
"Think so" Jack said. "Not the kind of thing he'd have wanted left behind, plus I needed a Doctor detector."
"Is that how you spotted the old girl in Cardiff?" Rose asked.
"No, had a camera monitoring the rift and happened to be looking at it when the TARDIS showed up on the screen."
"So, luck?"
Jack grinned. "Basically."
"Lucky me" Rose replied with an answering grin of her own, and she got back up and finished making her way to the blue alien girl, holding out her hand. "So, before we were rudely interrupted by someone else's hand: Rose Tyler, how do you do?"
"Chan, my name's Chantho, tho" the blue alien replied, taking and shaking Rose's hand gingerly. "Are you and your friend Time Lords?"
"Not me, blue, hundred percent healthy male human" Jack said with a beaming smile, which then turned mischievous. "My friend's fifty percent human, fifty percent Time Lady, one hundred percent hot."
"If I didn't know better I'd think you were suggesting a threesome" Rose said tartly.
"I am offering a threesome" Jack replied, launching Chantho into a fit of embarrassed giggling, and the professor into renewed grumbling.
"Is there any chance in the next century either of you is going to give me a hand?"
"Got a handy spare Time Lord hand, if you want" Jack quipped, and Rose hastily stepped between the two.
"We need the TARDIS. Once she's here, we'll check whether she can handle the harmonization you talked about."
"You talk like that ship of yours is alive" the professor grumbled.
"She is. And even if we can't get this to work, we'll find another way of taking your people and their supplies away from the end of the universe – that's why this ship of yours is so big, isn't it? To take everything you may need to terraform and settle another world."
The professor visibly deflated. "It's those people's hope. We don't actually know if there will be something waiting at the end of the journey, and I never could have gotten the ship to work on my own." He sighed. "That title of mine is an affectation, really; it's been long since nobody is left that can make such complex science function, let alone explain it. Only survivors are left."
"But you're still doing everything you can to give these people hope" Rose replied with a fond smile, "and people can't live without hope. Don't demean your work – not when you've already given them so much and taken them so far."
"On a road that might lead them nowhere" the old man said dejectedly.
"You never know. Where is this Utopia you're sending them to?"
"Oh, it's far beyond the Condensate Wilderness, out towards the Wildlands and the Dark Matter reefs, calling us in" the professor explained. "It sends a call, over and over again. Come to Utopia. Originating from that point."
"And what d'you think's out there?" Rose prompted.
"We can't know" the old man replied. "A colony, a city, some sort of haven? The Science Foundation created the Utopia Project thousands of years ago to preserve mankind, to find a way of surviving beyond the collapse of reality itself. Now perhaps they found it. Perhaps not. But it's worth a look, don't you think?" he concluded with a faint smile, and Rose responded in kind, before turning to Jack and Chantho.
"See? A bringer of hope."
"Chan, I know, tho" the blue alien replied. "Chan, that's why I've stayed with him all these years, tho."
Jack didn't share their enthusiasm. "Except that rocket's not going to fly, is it? This footprint mechanism thing, it's not working."
"You've heard your friend" the professor said gruffly. "We'll find a way."
"A way that involves a working boost reversal circuit" Jack replied, coming to stop in front of some cables and their attachments. "Nice rig you've got here, by the way, prof'. What's that you used as a binder?" He sniffed at one of the cables. "Gluten?"
"Don't tell me he Mac Gyvered that entire system" Rose said with disbelief, and Jack grinned at her.
"Oh yes. Almost brilliant, except for the reverse boost circuit needing, well, reverse-feeding."
"Of course it does!" the professor said, slamming his palm on his forehead. Then he deflated. "Oh, but that's pointless. I haven't got the materials to establish a reverse-feeding link from the neutralino mapping."
"That would be because of the gluten" Jack said, and the professor grunted.
"I don't have anything that could have the exact reverse electrodynamic properties."
"You don't, but I have a sonic screwdriver and a rather good set of instructions" Rose said, taking a cable off Jack's hands.
"Hey!"
"Shush, Jack." Rose frowned with concentration, fiddling with the sonic, then she pointed it at the cable and activated it for a few seconds, running all over the length before she tugged at it energetically. She was rewarded by a sudden power surge, and the activation of several systems.
"See? Nothing works like teamwork" Rose said, grinning, and her expression was mirrored on all three other faces.
"Chan, they will fly, tho!"
"Oh yes, Chantho, they will!"
The loading of the rocket was really more of a migration. Most of the supplies were already inside; but the people weren't, and moving them was a time-consuming process. Rose's request – or Jack's request – wasn't forgotten in the midst of the transhumance, and the TARDIS was brought to the professor's laboratory. The time ship clearly fascinated old Professor Yana.
"How far can you travel with this beautiful thing?" he asked as the TARDIS was being put down.
"Well, anywhere in time and space, really" Rose replied. "The only things she doesn't do well are paradoxes and parallel universes. From what I gather, those possibilities were lost with the Time Lords."
"Both would be fascinating concepts" the professor mused. "You're not going to Utopia either, are you?"
"Either?" Rose quirked her eyebrows. "You're not leaving this place?"
"Someone has to stay behind and activate the mechanism" the professor said ruefully, then he sighed heavily. "It's just as well. The drums have tired me. It's time I went to sleep."
"That's the second time you've mentioned the drums" Rose observed.
"Oh yes, sound inside my head" the old man replied with a small smile. "Heard them all my life. Every waking hour. Still, no rest for the wicked."
"I couldn't ever imagine you as a wicked man" Rose said with a fond smile. "Not someone who worked so hard to save all these people."
"Professor!" Attilo's voice called from a monitor. "Systems are down! Professor, are you getting me?"
The professor walked over to his monitors. "I'm here! We're ready! Now, all you need to do is connect the couplings, then we can launch!" Then he slammed a hand on his controls. "God sake! This equipment, needs rebooting all the time."
Whirring signalled Rose's appearance with her sonic screwdriver at the professor's side. It soon also heralded the return of Attilo's face on the monitor.
"Are you still there?" the man asked.
"Ah, present and correct" the professor replied. "Send your man inside. We'll keep the levels down from here."
"Levels of what?" Rose asked.
"Stet radiation, room underneath the rocket's flooded with it" the professor supplied, and Attilo reported again.
"He's in."
"Yes, yes, good luck to him. Captain!" the old man shouted out for Jack, "can you keep an eye on the levels and keep them below red?"
"Yes, sir" Jack replied with enthusiasm. An alarm sounded.
"Zero point two" the professor said. "Keep it level."
"Yes, sir."
But Jack's dials refused to stay put no matter his efforts, which wasn't surprising considering-
"Chan, we're losing power, tho!"
"Radiation's rising, we've lost control!" Jack shouted.
"The chamber's going to flood!" the professor said, panic mounting.
"We can jump start the override" Jack said, grasping cables from underneath his console, and the professor cried out in warning.
"Don't! It's going to flare!"
But he went unheeded; Jack brought the cables together and electrocuted himself.
"Jack!" Rose left the professor's side and ran to him.
"Chan, don't touch the cables, tho!"
"Oh, and the poor man in there is dead too" the professor said, sounding utterly defeated and collapsing on a seat.
Meanwhile Rose had nearly reached Jack and forced herself to reach for him. "Oh, you and I are going to have a talk" Rose groused, bringing the body away from the cables.
"He's dead, young woman" the professor pointed out, "just as dead as that poor man in the chamber below. It's over; we've failed."
"We're not giving up now" Rose replied through gritted teeth.
"What else are we supposed to do?" the old man said desperately. "Nobody can reach the couplings without dying, the chamber's flooded with radiation! And without the couplings, the engines will never start! It was all for nothing!"
"Then if I give Jack that lecture I'm going to sound like the biggest of hypocrites" Rose groused, stepping away from him.
"Chan, but your friend just died, tho!" the blue alien said, horrified.
"Oh, he sure did" Rose said matter-of-factly. "The thing is, he doesn't do staying dead."
"HURRR!"
Rose turned to an utterly bewildered professor. "So, about that room nobody can enter without dying?"
Rose and Jack ran down towards the chamber, passing by Attilo in the control room.
"What are you doing?" the man called out at them.
"Just get in your ship!" Jack shot back. "You'll fly, I promise!"
"A man with a heart of gold" Rose commented, out of breath, and then she gaped as they stopped in front of the door to the chamber. "Seriously, you're taking your clothes off?"
"We don't know that stet radiation affects clothes" Jack returned, to which Rose had nothing to answer but a groan.
"You really are shameless."
"And you love me for it, Time girl."
"You're stopping at your undergarments."
"Because if I take them off, Doc's going to kill me when he gets back." Jack entered the room, and Rose closed the door behind him. There still was a communication system open between the outside and inside, and Jack took advantage of it. "So, got to pop the question."
"We aren't getting married, Jack" Rose said tartly, and the man laughed.
"Know better than to offer. You know, the Doctor didn't really mind all that much when I went after anybody but you, oh boy, did he mind. 'Hands off the blonde' was what he said, very early."
"He'd promised my mum he'd protect me" Rose said wistfully. "Kept his word to the last, until he really couldn't."
"What's it like?"
"What is like what?"
"Living the life of the Doctor?"
"Terrifying" Rose admitted. "Most of the travels aren't all that bad, but every so often I'll land in some situation I can't handle and people get killed. Guards in Egypt. Martha's sister, and all those people at Lazarus' reception. Sally Sparrow."
"People died when we were with the Doctor too" Jack noted as he continued his work on the couplings. "Even he couldn't save everyone."
"I'm really not on his level" Rose said dejectedly. "Not even on mine, apparently. I told you I met this woman, Professor River Song. Another time traveller – a Time Lady, perhaps, but I never got to find out."
"Cute?"
Rose let out a small laugh. "She'd probably be your type. Anyway, apparently, she knew me from at some point in my future, and according to her I become a lot more skilled at handling complex scientific problems than I am now. Oh, and the best part: the Doctor returns, too."
"Good, because I need to give him a good kick in the ass" Jack said, and Rose laughed.
"Wait in line, he's not getting away with leaving you behind and lying to me about it."
"Don't do it, Rosie" Jack said quietly.
"Why?" Rose asked.
"Because what he needs from you is your hand to hold."
Rose blushed, then looked at her feet. "I really miss him."
"Well, you're going to have to do some investigating about him if you're going to meet again before it's too late for him" Jack said. "I've learned he got killed while he was exiled from his planet and forced to stay on Earth in the late sixties, and UNIT think you're the one who's done it later in your timeline."
"Exiled from his planet?" Rose said, shocked. "But he can't have been exiled!"
"Why not?" Jack stepped out of the room, and back into his pants.
"The Doctor can't have been exiled from Gallifrey by the Time Lords because there are no Time Lords left" Rose explained. "They all died in the Time War. He was the last of them."
"Then we've got something impossible happening" Jack said darkly, and he stepped in front of Rose. "Look, I know for a fact the Doctor dies in exile from his home world; it's all in the UNIT records, and those aren't lying. If you tell me you're absolutely certain there were no Time Lords left when we travelled with him, it can mean two things: first, he was lying and everything's alright, or second, we've got a paradox of colossal proportions on our hands poised to collapse the entire universe and we've got to do something about it real fast. Either way, we've got to check as soon as we can."
"And manage without meeting with ourselves in the sixties, just to keep things simple" Rose said grimly.
"That, too" Jack confirmed. "Come on, we're done here!"
They ran with renewed urgency, almost deafened by the engines of the rocket roaring to life as it took off. This time, Rose and Jack ran not because the departure of the last humans to Utopia was at stake, but because the end of the universe might come much earlier if the Doctor had told the truth about the Time War, and Rose knew he had not lied. The Daleks had confirmed to her that it was all true, which only left the paradox, but there was no time now to fill Jack in on that. The pair needed to get to the TARDIS really quickly, which would have been a lot easier if the door to Professor Yana's laboratory had not been slammed shut right in front of their faces.
"Professor, let us in!" Rose shouted out, but to no avail.
"Rosie, we've got a problem" Jack said.
"Like I hadn't noticed!"
"We've got another problem. Listen!"
Listen Rose did, and the hunting cries that resounded in the distance were frighteningly familiar.
"Let's get the door" she said in a shaking voice, "same principle as the one above us."
"That's going to be cutting it a little fine."
"More reason to get to work now- AH!"
Rose nearly bolted, surprised at the same time by Jack closing in and the sound of a weapon being shot on the other side of the door.
"Focus, Rosie, focus!"
"I'm trying!" the young woman replied through gritted teeth, returning her attention to the locking mechanism, which quickly responded with a satisfying click and the opening of the door.
"Get in!" Jack shouted. "I'll shut it again."
"Professor, wait!"
Rose had got inside just in time to see the old man shut the door of the TARDIS on himself (and the Doctor's hand in a jar). She ran straight to the ship, barely registering the corpse of Chantho on the floor, and rammed her key into the TARDIS lock – to no avail, the lock didn't work.
"Old girl, let me in!" Rose cried out, to no avail. "Professor, open!"
"Killed by an insect!" the old man's voice grated from inside. "A girl. How inappropriate."
"Rose, we've got problems!" Jack called from behind the young woman, struggling to shut the door on Futurekind.
Meanwhile, inside, the professor was talking on. "You didn't know, you freakish simpleton, did you? The watch was a Chameleon Arch! And now, the Master is reborn!"
An explosion of golden light flashed from inside the TARDIS, one very familiar to Rose.
"The professor is a Time Lord" she breathed out.
"Nice to know!" Jack called from the entrance. "We've got other problems!"
The golden light faded, and a woman's voice spoke from inside the TARDIS, one which chilled Rose to the bone.
"Now, where were we – oh! New voice. Woman's voice. Horribly fitted clothes, I really need to do something about the wardrobe, and same about the name, maybe, the Master really doesn't sound quite correct."
"Missy, please!" Rose pleaded. "You know me – you're my friend in the future – please, let us inside!"
"Missy, I like the sound of that. Hah! And me, friends with a mongrel like you?" Missy barked. "That would be a new one! Except… Ohhh, naughty girl, you have no idea what you've just done, have you?"
"What did I do?" Rose cried out.
"Why, listening in on you gave me all I needed to know about my own plans! Haha! Now all I have to do is actually think them up! Ohhh, this is priceless!"
"Missy, I beg you!"
"Save your breath!"
Familiar whirring started, and the TARDIS began to dematerialize.
"End of the universe!" Missy shouted in lieu of farewells. "Have fun! See you later! Woooooo!"
The TARDIS disappeared, and a thud echoed from the entrance, from which Rose sensed Jack approaching.
"Door's only going to hold so long" Jack said grimly, "we've got to find a way out of here – your eyes are glowing!"
"I'm trying to call the old girl back, but it's like since 1599! She's rejecting my call!"
"And all we've got to get out of here is a broken vortex manipulator" Jack grumbled.
"Then we're stuck here!"
Rose looked around frantically, trying to spot anything of use in the laboratory. She froze when her eyes caught letters traced in blood on the floor by the dead Chantho.
"Bad Wolf" she whispered.
"Following you all the way to the end of the universe" Jack growled, and Rose whirled back to face him (and winced.)
"But that's it! That vortex manipulator, it has to be able to find the Time Vortex!" she said enthusiastically.
"Except it's broken and can't hold it" Jack countered, only to see Rose make a grab for his wrist and reveal the device.
"Doesn't matter" Rose said in rapid-fire syllables. "All that does is, I can look into the Vortex from it, search for the old girl, get us on Missy's trail ASAP."
"In a minute you're going to try and explain to me that you are really part TARDIS" Jack grumbled.
"You said the problem with your manipulator is it can't hold the Time Vortex" Rose replied. "I can hold the Time Vortex."
"Nobody can do that" Jack protested, "they'd burn from the inside within seconds!"
"I've done it twice" Rose countered. "That's what I did the first time I looked into the Heart of the TARDIS, and since then, I've done it again and lived. I can do this, Jack" she said, smiling, her golden eyes gleaming faintly. "I can get us out of here."
Jack swallowed. "You could still die. You'd be trying to guide us through the Time Vortex without the protection of a capsule, and with every single one of your instincts telling you to run the hell away from me."
"You're not staying behind" Rose growled, seeing what her friend was getting at. "I'm not leaving you behind."
Jack shook his head. "You're worth dying for, not me. I can't die. I will live forever."
"If I leave you behind, you'll be getting killed forever" Rose countered. "Now let me see that vortex manipulator, and when I give you the word, punch it. With any luck, we'll arrive in a place where we can find a couple of working models of these toys."
It was the roughest time travel Rose ever undertook, including the one she'd been forced into by a Weeping Angel. It was also the second one which left her unconscious before she arrived…
A/N: Seriously, Missy was never going to be one of the good guys.
Bad Wolf Jen, thanks as always for taking the time to review. Original stories wouldn't have fit with the actual Master arc, but they will return with the "next season" – right off the start, as a matter of fact, as we'll be paying a visit to Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton.
Everyone else, this "season" is about to come to a close, with only another story left after this one. If you think it has been worth the read and good enough that others should maybe give it a try, please consider leaving a review. More than a handful of people leaving comments is a very good sign when you've stumbled on a story longer than a hundred thousand words, and this one has now passed that mark.