Influence

Alpha Rose

After the reception dinner at the Tragenna Castle Hotel, they took the late afternoon train down to Plymouth and checked into a fancy hotel there for their wedding night. They were to board their private zeppelin for their honeymoon tour to and around Ireland the following noon at the Plymouth air field. So naturally, while they were lingering over breakfast in bed, the hotel phone rang.

Rose answered, then put it on speaker a moment later, rolling her eyes at her new husband with a sour look. "Say that again, Danny?"

"I'm sorry, luv. I'm so, so sorry. But you really need to get back here. Right now. Both of you," answered the Torchwood tech apologetically.

"Why?"

Danny hesitated. "I'll show you when you get here. Rose... You know I wouldn't do this to you for nothing, right?"

She sighed and clicked off, slumping back onto the pillows.

"Don't worry," grinned Jared. "We'll still make the flight. No matter how long it takes." Reaching a long arm, he picked the time jumper up off the nightstand and started to buckle it on his wrist. Then he stopped, and tossed it to Rose, instead. "Here. You need the practice."

A short time later (long enough to get dressed), the two humans and their constant canine companion flashed into Beta's version of the hub, hidden under the haunted chapel on the Island in St Ives. "All right, then, what is it?" Rose asked wearily.

"It's happening again. The same pattern as before," Danny told her. Jared, glancing quickly around, saw that only Danny and the other local tech, Chris, were there, as usual – Pete had apparently headed back for London with Jackie and Tony.

"You mean..." Rose said sharply.

Danny nodded. "Every single lifeline is converging, on a single person. And it's being mirrored in all the parallels, too."

Chris, over at the other station, put in, "And the Rift is acting up, too. Spiking like crazy."

"Who?" Rose asked Danny, ignoring Chris for the moment – although somehow, she already knew the answer.

"You. And the other Rose Tylers, too." Danny waved a hand up at the large overhead screens, as he pushed each parallel's display up onto them. Rose and Jared stepped forward, staring wide-eyed at the tell-tale patterns. Just as Danny had said, each world's tangled mass or lifelines were bending, twisting and converging around one single line, each with the same label. Rose Tyler.

"But it can't be," Rose protested. "It's over. We fixed it all!"

"This is current?" Jared checked with Danny, who nodded. He stared back at his new wife. "This is something new, Rose. Something else. And it's about to happen, right now!"

"Whoa!" Chris cried. "My god, look at the Rift! It's spiking off the scale!"

All four turned to stare at the recent addition to the hub, which Jared had been working on since his arrival in Beta: a tall, thick glass tube running from floor to ceiling, closed at both ends, and surrounded by conduits and circuits. He had managed to construct a containment field for the Rift. Normally, a dimly fluctuating silvery glow lit the tunnel, giving it a calming feeling.

Not any more. Suddenly it was wildly sparking, a glowing river of plasma that caught the eye and held it.

Drawn unthinkingly forward, Rose stepped towards the mesmerizing glow, when the time jumper on her wrist abruptly sent a tremendous shock through her skin. Jumping, she started to bring that arm up to check it out, when something else caught her eye: a miniscule beam of light that zapped from the jumper straight into the Rift a heartbeat later.

And before she could take a breath, a brilliant, unearthly white beam of light returned from the opening Rift and hit her face.


Reich Rose

"That's about right," Pete said with a tight, ironic little snort, just shy of a sob. "Ten years." He reached out then and gathered Jackie in his arms, burying his face in her hair. "Oh, Jacks, Jacks..." he whispered.

Rose decided she didn't really want or need to witness this reunion. She leaned over and grabbed one of the dead SS men's arms, jerked him closer to the other, then grabbed one of his as well. Then she punched the coordinates of the nearby wharf into the time jumper – she'd known of old precisely how many steps it took to reach it, her hiding place from her Mum's incessant fussing while Dad was locked up in prison – added six hours to reach it some time well past midnight, and undertook to dump the bodies.

I'm getting good at this, she smirked as she and the two corpses came out of the transport flash within a few feet of the dock's edge. She looked around carefully to make sure the wharf was deserted, but saw not a single soul, not even a stray cat. She took the time to remove the men's outer uniforms, then rolled them both into the drink, wishing she could have weighted them down, but not caring enough to take the time.

She scooped up the uniforms and turned around, intending to stuff them into a nearby dumpster, and froze. She hadn't been alone after all.

Perched in the open top of that dumpster was a young boy, staring at her through the gloom, his mouth agape. Steeling herself, she walked towards him, calling for him to stop when he jerked as if to run.

"Come down here, lad. I'm no threat to you."

His eyes were showing the whites, but he did as ordered, dropping lightly as a cat onto the pavement and walking warily into the streetlight, stopping well out of her reach. And it was her turn to gape.

His eyes, now that she could see them, were a brilliant sea green.

She glanced quickly down at his hand. Sure enough, there was the edge of a large birthmark showing.

Rose gave him a quick once-over. He looked to be about ten – definitely pre-adolescent, at any rate, and scrawny as a street rat.

The silence was drawing out too long. "What were you doing there?" she asked him.

"Looking for food, ma'am," he replied, a hair short of insolent.

"Been sleeping rough long?" He shrugged.

The solution to several interlocking puzzles suddenly burst into her mind, and she smiled. "Look," she told him earnestly. "Despite what it looks like, I'm not with the SS. I'm with the Resistance."

His young, unschooled face showed his skepticism. "Would an SS member be disposing of SS bodies?" she asked him, shaking out one of the uniform jackets to show him the insignia.

A little less sure now, he peered up at her again, still not speaking. He'd learned the value of silence, at least.

"You know," she mused, "the Resistance could use a likely, resourceful lad like you. Here's what I want you to do. Go to this address tomorrow morning," and she gave him the place she had learned later was her Dad's group's alternate meeting place, "and give them the password Bad Wolf."

"The fairy tale?" he broke in, derisive.

"Yup. The fairy tale." Her secret mirth had nothing to do with the Resistance. "Can you think of a more innocent phrase to sneak past the Nazis?" He shrugged, still unwilling to give her anything. "Give them that password, and then tell them this message. Listen, now, this is very important. Tell them that Red Wolf and Chickadee have been captured. Chickadee has been taken to an army barracks for the usual treatment, location unknown. Red Wolf has been taken to the county jail at Stanford, where he'll be held for several days. Can you remember all that?"

To her complete lack of surprise, he repeated the message word for word, and she nodded.

"Don't give them any description of me; they won't know who I am. I'm in a different cell," she explained, and apparently the very intelligent boy knew what that meant. "Just give them this name: Gemini. They won't know it yet, but they will."

"Gemini," he repeated. The effect of the detailed messages had convinced the boy of her veracity, and he was beginning to get into the spirit of things.

"Good," she grinned to herself, having just set up her own Resistance Informant credentials and laid the groundwork for her Dad's rescue by the Resistance, and the coming rumor of her Mum's death. "Off you go, then."

He stared straight at her a moment longer, seeming to see right through to her soul, then the young Paul Corvantes of Reich World turned without a word and slipped silently into the shadows, and was gone.

Rose watched him go, then raised the time jumper again, added ten minutes to source of the last jump, and flashed back to the flat.

^..^

Apparently ten minutes had been long enough for Pete to give his wife the gist of what had happened. Jackie turned to Rose as she reappeared, gave her a searching look, and then silently held out her arms to her wayward daughter.

Rose fell into them, clutching her in desperation, suddenly sobbing her heart out. "I'm sorry, Mum. I'm so, so sorry," she said, brokenly, over and over.

Jackie held her tightly, rocking back and forth, tears pouring anew over her own cheeks, while Pete put his arms around both his women and held them close.

Finally, Rose's sobs began to ease. She pulled back slightly, but Jackie leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I forgive you, darling," she said simply. That threatened to start the tears again, but Rose held them back with fisted knuckles pressed hard against her mouth, like she'd done as a child.

Then Jackie added, the exasperated Mum note in her voice matching the stern look on her face, "I told you that Stones was bad news!"

That broke them all up, relieved laughter swallowing up the shed tears before they drowned in them.

Finally Pete said, "We'd better get out of here before their buddies come looking."

Rose nodded agreement.

"Wait!" Jackie cried. "I'm not leaving without our pictures!" She scrambled for the nightstand, pulling out a thick photograph album and returning to the other two with it cradled in her arms. Then she gave Pete a sharp look. "Unless you already have it?"

"No," he grinned mistily. "It was missing when I came back to look for it. Now I know why."

They shared a look of such love that it brought prickling tears again to Rose's eyes. "OK," she said to cover it. "Grab my arm and hold on tight."

Both her parents reached for her arm, and Pete wrapped his other arm around his wife and snugged her tightly up against his side, the Never Letting Go Again look on his face obvious.

Rose let her supernova smile loose. "Ready?" she asked.

"Ready!' came the twin replies.

The American Rose called up and locked in the coordinates for their house in Virginia, the night she and Pete had left it on their greatest mission, and took her reunited family home.


Tudor Rose

Five months of their agreed trial six had passed. Hannah figured out early on the best way to fill in the now-existing gaps of John's excellent education – excellent for the sixteenth century, that is – had been to get him his own laptop, teach him how to use it, and then enroll him in an informal online GED prep course. He took to it gleefully, his lively intelligence both absorbing the knowledge contained in the various subjects and quickly going far afield on the internet, searching out supplemental information whenever and wherever his fancy took him. His online education was augmented every weekend with trips to museums, libraries, and concerts of all types. (He'd discovered a surprising affinity for jazz, although classic rock and current pop were OK, too – once he got used to the sheer volume level.)

Came the Friday she returned from work to find him in his usual location at the kitchen table, but leaning back in his chair, gazing thoughtfully out the window. She smooched him hello, then settled into the chair opposite, noticing as she did a map displayed on his laptop. "Have you decided on the weekend's adventure?" she asked with a wide grin.

"Mm-hmm. We're going to need to borrow your friend's car again."

"Why? Where are we going?"

He studied her for a moment, seriously. "Mauvais Loup."

She was startled. "I thought it was in ruins." That discovery had been the result of one of their first joint internet explorations, after which his desire to see what had become of his old estate had evaporated.

John nodded, then abruptly changed the subject, leaning forward to take her hand in his. "Hannah," he began earnestly, "I'm well aware that you've been supporting both of us financially. I haven't been doing my part, and it isn't fair to you. Though at this point there doesn't seem to be much I could do – other than wait tables," he added with a grimace. They'd both agreed that this wasn't a good career choice for him. "But I've come up with an idea, that will change that situation, and let me contribute in some way." He nodded towards his laptop. "I've been searching everywhere, all over the internet, for the past few days. And as far as I can determine, nobody has ever found... " A sly grin slowly crossed his face as he paused, drawing it out. "... my uncle's treasure."

Hannah gaped and spluttered. "Treasure? You mean... treasure treasure? Like gold?"

He nodded again. "Gold, silver... and even more importantly – and what I've been mostly searching for, and why I'm certain it's never been found – a particular cache of documents from the Wars of the Roses, before I was born. They could be worth a fortune to historical societies or a university, just by themselves."

"But could we claim it, legally?"

"Mauvais Loup is now on public land. I looked that up, too. Treasure found on public land is – ah – 'finders keepers'." His voice made amused air quotes around the modern phrase.

"But the place is in ruins!"

Ever the dramatic, he again drew it out just long enough, as he tapped a button on the laptop to change the window, then turned it towards her. "But the chapel isn't." The photograph now splashed across the screen showed that the tiny stone church where they'd buried the baby, ancient now and covered in moss and vines, still stood. John waited till her wide eyes came back to his. "It's buried under the floor, behind the altar."

^..^

Early next morning, she borrowed the car and they loaded it up with a picnic, then stopped at a home store for a pick and a shovel. The drive out to the old estate, while infinitely shorter than by horse-drawn carriage, and passing by jarringly modern sights, was still full of memory for both of them.

John grinned when he caught sight of the time jumper on her wrist. "Why are you bringing that?" It was the first time she'd taken it out of the dresser since their return.

She shrugged, touching it briefly like a talisman before returning her hand to the steering wheel. "Just in case we need to go searching back in history for the treasure," she replied. Truthfully, she'd put it on purely on a wild impulse, because it simply felt right.

He watched her profile for a moment, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth, and she wondered if he somehow sniffed the truth. But then he just shook his head, and returned to watching the countryside flow by.

The overgrown, tumbled ruins of the house were tucked into a large public "wilderness area", encompassing all of the old estate and more, hundreds of acres of wild green nature outside the city, crisscrossed by horse and hiking trails. The tiny car park nearest the ruins was empty, and no one was in sight. Hannah and John stood for a time silently gazing at the scattered, low piles of brick and stone, all that remained of their stately former home, then turned wordlessly towards the woods.

Those woods had overgrown the margin long ago; the chapel was now deep inside the gloom. A faint footpath led past the old oaks and elms, circled the chapel, and then meandered through the scattered remaining gravestones before wandering off to meet the main hiking trail.

John dropped the tools softly on the ground near the door and turned aside, heading unerringly to the spot etched deeply into both their hearts. The wording on the tiny stone had long been eroded away, but they knew its shape. He stared down at it for a long, long moment of stillness. Then, without looking up at her beside him, he asked, his voice low and hesitant. "Hannah… Tell me the truth. Which baby is buried here?"

Her breath caught. That had been the one part of her story that she'd never been able to confess to him, stopping at the now-known virtues of her breast milk, instead. When she was finally able to speak, her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

"Catherine's."

He nodded, as if he'd expected it after all.

"I didn't... I didn't plan it, John. God knows, I never wanted that to happen. And I certainly didn't cause it to happen. He – the Prince – just... died, without any warning at all, lying beside me on the bed after I'd nursed him, just minutes before they left for London. I was feeding little Johnny. I just... switched their clothes. I wasn't even thinking. I just did it automatically." The words which, once started, had tumbled out over themselves came to an abrupt halt, and she bit her lip, waiting for his judgment.

Which was a long time coming. John lifted his head, studying the sunbeams slanting down through the green. "Well," he finally said, his voice straining faintly to be matter-of-fact, the essence of letting things go, "he wasn't really mine, anyway – not by blood. He was Henry's. And he sat on the throne, didn't he?"

"Yes." Hannah was still whispering, not trusting her voice. "Henry the Ninth." She'd checked on the internet their second day back, while John was sleeping, staring with a wistful, tearful smile at the familiar brown eyes – her eyes – smiling at the viewer from the official portrait of that next king.

"Do you think Henry knew?" he wondered. "Or Catherine?"

She took a deep breath, staring out over the grave, back into memory, at the scene etched there of the two monarchs sitting on their makeshift thrones at their joint "trial", Henry's hand clutching his wife's arm tightly, preventing her from saying a word. "Yes. I think they both knew."

"So that's what it was all about, after all? The baby?"

Hannah thought a moment, then shrugged. "I think it was about getting rid of two people who had become... inconvenient." Her voice trailed off into silence again. Beside her, John slowly nodded agreement, then himself took a deep, deep, cleansing breath, again letting the past go.

But that past was five hundred years ago, and they were both here and now, with each other. Hannah bit her lip, then bit the bullet. "John?" she quavered. Her voice stopped abruptly, then she made herself go on, asking the most important question of her life. "Can you forgive me?"

He turned at last to stare at her, his expression at first unreadable. Then, finally, a smiling wonder spread across his handsome face. "Forgive you? Madame..." Grinning widely, he threw his arms out to the side, encompassing all. "I'm here, alive, and free – thanks to you – and with an incredible, fantastic, shining future... with the woman I love." His shook his head, his expression unutterably kind and joyful. "There's nothing to forgive."

Her heart singing, she turned and went into his arms, and they folded around her, and at last she knew peace.

^..^

Finally, they turned back towards the old chapel and scooped up the tools. The wooden door had long ago rotted away; they gingerly stepped across the threshold into the mossy shadows and made their way up towards the altar.

"I wonder if the ghosts are still here?" Hannah said suddenly, stopping in the middle of the floor, as his old tales of hauntings flooded back into memory.

John chuckled, halting beside her. "According to the internet, they're still seen occasionally. Maybe they've been guarding the treasure for us." His voice turned mock-solemn, and he intoned towards the altar where the phantoms had always been reportedly sighted, "I am John Wolfram, the last Viscount Pendleton, known to you of old, and I have come to retrieve my rightful property. Will you let us pass, o Spirits of the Chapel Green?"

They listened hard, their hearts pounding, but no reply was heard – unless the wind in the trees outside was the answer. Glancing at each other at the same moment, they burst into slightly hysterical giggles at their foolish whimsey, then proceeded around the ancient carved stone altar.

John handed her the pick, and bent with the shovel to scrape away the inches of dirt and moss that had accumulated on the floor, searching for the edges of the stone he knew wasn't mortared in place. The treasure, he'd told her, was in a wooden box in the hole beneath it.

Suddenly Hannah jumped. "Ouch!" The time jumper had sent a piercing electric shock through her skin! She flipped up the leather cover and peered at it. It seemed to have turned on of its own accord, a dim light skittering across the display. The tiny screen was clouded over as if fogged. She used her forefinger to try to wipe it off – jumping a little as another tiny electric shock sparked between device and finger, like static electricity.

And then, without warning, a brilliant, unearthly white light hit her face.


Captain Jack

Jack was relaxing back at "his" hub, a small, self-satisfied smile tickling the corners of his mouth as he watched Joel putter around. Corvantes' techie had enthusiastically agreed to help him scatter the goons, then they dismantled the dimension cannon (saving several small, key components) and dumped the rest on a distant garbage planet, far into the future, just as Jack had promised Jared.

Joel's jaw had dropped when he saw the infant stage of the cannon back in Jack's own time period, about an hour after he and Jared had first flashed forward to rescue Rose. "We've got a LOT of work to do!" he groaned, then looked hesitantly at his host. "I mean, if you want me to help..."

"Why else did I bring you back with me?" Jack leered. "OK, I mean, why else?" he'd amended when Joel blushed. This is going to be fun. He brushed aside the flickering memory of Ianto, crisply suited as always, attending the coffee urn still gathering dust in the corner, and vowed never to ask Joel to make any coffee, before he flicked that thought away as well.

"Toss me that last jumper," he told his new friend, and grabbed it out of the air. They'd discovered the mysterious box of time jumpers held one unused extra, for reasons unknown. Jack sat back in the office chair he'd dragged down weeks ago to the lower level near the rift, and began comparing the leftover jumper to the one he'd worn for centuries. Something about these new models had caught Jared's eye way back at the start of their little adventure, although the Time Lord hadn't been able to identify exactly what, and Jack was determined to figure out the mystery himself. After all, wasn't he the time jumper expert of the group?

Just as he was smirking over that thought, the odd jumper stabbed his fingers with a painful jolt of electricity. As he looked even closer at it, it tingled again – and then a brilliant, unearthly white light from nowhere hit his face, there in the bowels of his lair.


Celtic Rose

Rhosyn took the young Paul under her own wing immediately, tentatively reaching out to him with words of welcome and reassurance. He skittered for a bit, unsure of her, then latched on with all the raw need of the frightened, lonely orphan he was. She worried sometimes that she'd taken on more than she could handle, but she'd had a glimpse (though not well understood due to the language difficulties) of how he might turn out without guidance.

It quickly became apparent that she was wrestling for his very soul with the worst of the street. Even egalitarian, sensible Britain wasn't immune to street gangs and organized crime, and the one operating in his neighborhood was tugging hard on him to join. In turn, she urged him to stay in school, helped him with his homework, and encouraged him to spend all his spare time at the dojo, even giving him odd jobs (sweeping, running errands) to keep him occupied when he wasn't practicing, as well as giving him a bit of pocket money – a pittance compared to the riches touted in the crime trade, to be sure, but at least it was something. It worked for almost three years, and then, when he slipped hard into the grip of gangly, hormone-ridden adolescence, he started coming around less and less, making excuses for his increasingly frequent absences.

She knew she had to do something. Against all her better judgment, she finally decided to tell him everything, the whole story of her adventure in the past, to try to show him that there was a better way to live, that even a nobody shop girl – and even an orphan from the street – can make a difference, can even change the world. So one evening, when again he didn't come to the dojo, she pulled the time jumper back out of its shoe box in her closet, put it on and covered it with the sleeve of her hoodie, and went out looking for him.

Two hours passed as she wandered the streets with no sign of the teen. She stopped to sit and think for a bit in the quiet, tree-lined courtyard at the library – closed for the day hours ago, and eerie this late at night with ghostly stirrings and rustlings from the bits of garden in the big planters all around. On impulse, she flipped up the jumper and turned it on, looking at the readings for the current time and location, and carefully storing the latter (she had spent some time carefully fiddling with it during the years since, and learned how to do at least that much). Somehow she thought she might need a quiet, secure bolt hole.

Back on her feet, she hit the streets again, circling around in a wide arc back to the gang's known hideout, an abandoned building behind the sprawling high school. It had been empty when she checked earlier, but now the noise level from inside told her it at least some members had arrived. Taking a gulp of air and trying to calm her nerves, she stepped inside –

– and found herself in deep trouble.

She'd blundered into a gang initiation – and the initiate was Paul. He was standing in the middle of a circle of thugs, a pistol held in one shaking hand, pointed at the floor, while before him, on his knees, was a bound and gagged prisoner – a street bum, from the look of him. The bum was utterly terrified, his enormous eyes staring mesmerized at the pistol as if it were a cobra about to strike. Rhosyn took it in at a glance, even as the gang turned as one to stare malevolently at her; she'd interrupted a ritual execution.

"Paul!" she cried, though her voice came out in a strangled whisper. "Don't do this!" Shoving all thoughts of her own safety aside, she managed to make her feet move, and pushed through the circle to stand between him and his proposed victim.

Paul's eyes were glowing, vivid green against his pale face. She wasn't sure if he was terrified or exhilarated, nor if he knew himself.

"This isn't the way, Paul," she whispered, shaking. SHE was certainly terrified. "You don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do," he replied, and a small part of her seized on the slight quiver in his voice in relief – he wasn't completely out of reach yet. "I have to do this," he went on, a bit stronger, as if convincing himself. "There's no other way."

"Of course there's another way! Haven't I been showing you that?" The other gang members were getting restless, unwilling to let this interruption continue much longer. Their growls and shouts were getting steadily louder and more aggressive.

Paul's eyes flickered, and a tiny sob escaped his mouth, his mask beginning to slip so that she saw the fear getting stronger. She held out a trembling hand. "Give me the gun, Paul. Please. Give me the gun."

Before he could blink, they ran out of time. "Enough of this!" the gang leader, a hulking young man barely into adulthood, snarled in fury. He stalked forward and grabbed the gun out of Paul's hand, then pointed it directly between Rhosyn's eyes. "You interrupted our business, bitch. This time you'll pay the price."

"No!" Astounded, her heart thumping wildly, Rhosyn realized the word had come from Paul. The boy swiveled around to face the leader, his eyes fierce and narrow. "Let her go."

This rebellion from what he'd thought was his latest recruit only served to infuriate the leader further. He swung the pistol over from Rhosyn's forehead to Paul's. "So much for your test, punk. You lose."

His thumb swung up to cock the pistol, but Rhosyn was moving, too. Faster than she'd ever moved in her life, she grabbed Paul's hand in hers – the one wearing the time jumper – simultaneously flipping the jumper open with her other hand, and stabbing Recall and Execute at lightning speed.

The pistol roared as the two of them flashed out, the bullet slamming through empty air where Paul's head had been a millisecond earlier. They stumbled together out of the transport flash and into the library courtyard, lit now by an enormous, brilliant full moon.

"Holy SHIT!" Paul screamed hoarsely, his adolescent voice cracking uncontrollably. His legs collapsed, and he sat, hard, on the edge of a planter, ripping his numbed hand from hers. His eyes swung around the courtyard frantically, as if expecting it to disappear, or the gang to burst out of the bushes at any second, before finally fastened on Rhosyn, utterly bewildered, and still terrified. "What the HELL just happened?"

She wanted to go sit beside him, but her legs, as rubbery as his must have been, wouldn't move just then. "It's OK, Paul, it's OK. I transported us out of there, with this."

She moved to hold up her arm with the jumper on it to show him, but all of a sudden she got a tremendous shock from the device, lancing through her wrist and forearm. "Ouch!" Flipping open the lid, she peered closely at the dim light skittering across the display, not at all what it usually showed, pre- or post-jump. The tiny screen was clouded over as if fogged. She used her forefinger to try to wipe it off – jumping a little as another tiny electric shock sparked between device and finger, like static electricity.

And then, without warning, a brilliant, unearthly white light hit her face.


Reich Rose

Rose waved a cheerful goodbye to her Mum and Dad, and punched Activate on the time jumper on her wrist. The past year had been magical, absolutely fantastic. Oh, there were bumps, times when they rubbed each other the wrong way – but immediately, the ever-present memory of what they'd each suffered came crashing through and instantly wiped away any irritation. For the first time since Pete had initially gone to prison, way back when Rose was just eleven years old, they really, truly felt like a complete, whole, loving, respectful family.

They had decided to keep the time jumper a secret from the American CIA, not wanting to lose it – or risk the chance of their timeline getting mucked up again. Once Rose had thoroughly explained the entire story to her parents, they'd all agreed not to go that route. Rose and/or Pete did, however, very occasionally use it to sneak back into England, to meet with the Resistance to coordinate some action or another, always keeping the jumper's existence an absolute secret. (Jackie, glad to be rescued, had resigned completely from any active role in the ongoing cold war, and was now enjoying the quiet, uneventful life of an American housewife.)

Word had reached Pete from his old cell, now led by the capable Charlie, that it appeared from the instruments left behind by Rose's twin, Ulva (Alpha Rose), that the rift underneath the Knolls Monument in St Ives was opening up again. He'd conferred with his own daughter, and they'd decided that she would flash over there and investigate it. They had good, undetectable, secure satellite phones now, and she'd call him if there was any action, or any chance of meeting Alpha Rose or another parallel traveler.

She came out of the flash in an upper-level bedroom of the safe house in St Ives, crept downstairs to find the place empty, and sat back to wait cautiously. A few minutes later, Charlie let himself in, along with three others in his group. She greeted the ones she knew, then turned to the last one; a young man.

With sea-green eyes.

"I don't know if you remember me," Paul began, and she interrupted.

"Of course I do. I see you found your way," she grinned at him, and he grinned back. The combined wattage of their two smiles could have lit the entire block. Whoa! thought Rose. Oh, boy.

Charlie started talking, then, about the readings they were getting from the Rift, and she tore her eyes away from Paul and responded. There was still a curfew on, so they needed to get out to investigate it and then back inside the safe house before dark. "Let's go, then!" Rose zipped up her light jacket and led the way outside.

Although there was a curfew, there was always a curfew, and nothing had occurred to make the Nazis suspicious, so only a bare handful soldiers were idly patrolling the streets. Rose and the men made like tourists, "wandering" over to the Monument, then – taking a quick look around to make sure they were unobserved – slipping down the overgrown path to the crypt in the back of the hill. They found the entrance and slipped inside, lighting the handful of candles they had brought to see with.

"Now, show me the equipment," Rose began, when suddenly she jumped as an electric shock pierced her wrist from the jumper. Just as the others had, she opened it up and tried to wipe the "fog" off the screen, getting another jolt.

And the same brilliant, unearthly white light hit her face.


Byzantine Rose

By the time the inevitable Orthodox service at the Gate of Our Lady was over, tears were streaming unchecked down Rose's face, but she was able to pass them off as the same tears of joy and thanksgiving many other tourists were bearing, rather than the painfully suppressed laughter they actually were. She staggered back to the bus with the others, and, pleading a sudden headache, sat out the next two stops while another teacher took "her" kids in tow. They continued to trade the favor back and forth all week, whenever one or the other needed a short break.

At long last, on their final full day, they were taken to the magnificent Hagia Sophia cathedral, centerpiece of the holy city and undisputed highlight of any tour. After they filed respectfully past the glass-encased (and VERY heavily guarded) Sword of Justice, Rose traded a glance with her co-conspirator, received a wave of acknowledgment, and slipped away from the group to explore on her own. She wanted to find her glass portrait. The sacred, fragile stained glass window had been carefully removed from harm at some point in the intervening centuries, and was now stowed away in the holy of holies, a secret chapel hidden away in the recesses of the cathedral and also containing the tomb of "her" emperor, Constantine XI, guarded (it was said) by his ghost, along with those of several saints.

Rose slipped through the shadowy back halls, somehow avoiding both guards and priests, until at last she discovered the little chapel. She stood on the intricately-woven Eastern carpet for several long minutes, awash in cascading memories, her eyes soaking in the still-vivid hues of the glass, lit from behind by dozens of candles that cast a magical air over every detail as well as an intricate mosaic of color on the emperor's white marble tomb below.

Sometimes she couldn't believe she'd actually done it. She'd gone through long periods, weeks and months, when it never even crossed her mind, then, suddenly, something would remind her and she'd be giddy with the triumph and accomplishment. And wracked by increasing doubt. All the certainties she'd grown up with, unwavering faith in the Most Holy Orthodox Church, was slowly draining away, and she didn't know what to do with the increasingly bitter dregs.

There were no answers here, only colored glass. Beautiful, but cold and silent.

Sighing, she turned away to find her group again. And stopped, frozen.

Behind her, in the doorway, the Holy Father, Prelate of Constantinople and the leader of the Orthodox Church, stood gaping at the vision before him of the Angel of Heaven made flesh. He fell to his knees and raised his hands to her, weeping. "Blessed Holy Saint Rose, is there danger once more? Have you come to guard your city again?" he began in Greek.

"Oh, no. Not again! Please, Father, I'm not..." Rose spluttered to a halt. No. I am so NOT going through this again! Suddenly inspiration struck. She could wipe away all the myth in one fell swoop!

She raised her arm and pulled her long sleeve back, about to show the time jumper to the Prelate, when suddenly she jumped. "Ouch!" The jumper had sent a piercing electric shock through her skin! She flipped up the leather cover and peered at it. It seemed to have turned on of its own accord, a dim light skittering across the display. The tiny screen was clouded over as if fogged. She used her forefinger to try to wipe it off – jumping a little as another tiny electric shock sparked between device and finger, like static electricity.

And then, without warning, a brilliant, unearthly white light hit her face.


Swedish Rose

So now they had to decide again: which century did they want to live in? It was Paul who tipped the scales. "Mummy? I want to become a doctor – a children's doctor, so I can cure kids like Elsa, too." And after all, they were set for life with the lottery money – even more so than back at the Swedish estate. Thorsten, nostalgic for his home, nevertheless agreed that they were all much better off here and now. Besides, now freed from the worry for his daughter, he was having much too much fun exploring this brave new world.

So Rose took the time jumper down to the basement, where the ghosts had always been said to be strongest – though they'd never seen any (though perhaps too preoccupied to notice) – to carefully put it away in a secure, fireproof strongbox in the corner. As she crossed the floor with it in her hands, though, without warning, she received a sharp electric shock from the jumper. "Ouch!" She jumped and exclaimed.

Holding the jumper up, she flipped open the lid, peering at it. It seemed to have turned on of its own accord, a dim light skittering across the display. The tiny screen was clouded over as if fogged. She used her forefinger to try to wipe it off – jumping a little as another tiny electric shock sparked between device and finger, like static electricity.

And then, without warning, a brilliant, unearthly white light hit her face.


And so, in seven parallel worlds, six women with identical DNA, and one man who had been fundamentally changed by the original and so bore her imprint, approached their respective opening to the single complex rift through time and space and the void between the worlds, while holding a mysterious time jumper in their hands. They each felt the warning sparks as the jumper's deeply-hidden purpose awoke and identified its holder, then it sent its long-awaited signal back through the rift to its waiting creator.

And the gates of hell creaked open...