Disclaimer: see previous chapter.

28: Family Values

"Lucy Cole?" asked Harold in disbelief.

"Lucy Saxon," their father corrected grimly. His face closed off, as it always did when he thought of that year that never was. There were some things he would never let Donna see.

He did allow her one image, though.

Lucy Saxon's calm, uncaring face.

As she shot her husband in cold blood.

What would she do to Freya?

"Lucy Cole." Rose's voice was firm, determined. "She's not Lucy Saxon, she's different. She must be, because this is a different world. She doesn't work in publishing, the Master doesn't exist - and we don't know how much those things have changed her. That means we can't rely on your impressions of her parallel self. Any one of them could be wrong, and we wouldn't know it. Look at Donna and Diana: they're completely different."

"Right then," agreed John. "Lucy Cole." He glanced over at Rose. "Do we want backup?"

"No," said Rose decisively. "We can do it alone."

Donna nodded grimly. This has nothing to do with Torchwood - not any more. Lucy Cole took Freya. Out of all the children in the world, she picked Freya.

And that makes it personal.

The car shot down the road. No one had said anything, but somehow they all knew where they were going.

Cardiff. It had to be. If Lucy Cole was doing something to the Rift, that was where she would be.

And she would have Freya with her.

Beside her, Harold was wondering why Lucy Cole had taken Freya in the first place. Donna didn't care about that. Lucy Cole was completely human, and when they found her Donna could read her mind and discover the truth. Until then, it didn't matter.

But she needed something else to focus on, to distract her until they got there. She sat in the car, breathing deeply and calmly, and tried to avoid looking at Freya's empty seat. And she watched the shifting flow of her brother's surface thoughts.

Why Freya? Harold wondered. What does Freya have that we don't?

I mean, I love my little sister more than anything else in the world, but - she's normal. Why her? Why her and not Donna? I could understand Donna being kidnapped - I mean, look at the Anax thing. But Freya?

Maybe it's a trap.

Freya can't protect herself. She's more or less helpless. And we love her - and we panic when we find her missing. Is this a trap to get hold of the rest of us?

If so, we're playing right into Cole's hands - but Dad will have a plan. He always does.

And how did Cole get to Freya?

Ok, so Melissa knew about us going to Wales (I knew there was a reason I don't like Melissa), but not where, or why. If she's influencing the Rift, she might have guessed, especially since Melissa never stops babbling about Mum and Torchwood. But a campsite, in the Brecon Beacons, where there might not even be any Rift activity? How did she find us?

And how did she get Freya?

She folded her pyjamas, for God's sake! No one was rushing her! She wasn't even trying to run away from something!

So what does that mean? She just got up, got dressed and wandered out of the campsite, without any reason for it, and then suddenly Lucy Cole found her on her own?

That is way too much of a coincidence.

Or was it Fate?

What Gwen said…

You have such powers!

But you'll need them.

How dangerous was Lucy? What did she want? Why the Rift - and how was she controlling it?

Beware of your friends…

Melissa. It was obvious now, after the fact. But beforehand, they would never have guessed it. Not even she knew what she was doing.

even of your family.

The changeling child…

And Freya had apparently left the tent of her own free will…

No!

Donna reached over and put her hand on her brother's arm.

"It's alright, Harry," she said softly. "It's not Freya. Remember? It can't be Freya. She's our sister."

Harold nodded shakily. Donna read fear in his eyes - fear that Freya might be hurt; fear that Freya might have betrayed them. There was a third fear too, one which she couldn't make out. Harold was hiding it even from himself.

But she couldn't decipher it, and to try she would have had to look fully into his mind. And she couldn't do that - not to her brother.

This is what makes us family, she reflected. We love each other, and trust each other, and we could never, ever hurt each other.

And that is why it can't possibly be Freya who's doing this.


It felt as if she was being torn apart from the inside out.

She doubled over, gasping with the pain. She could have got used to almost anything else, over time. But not this. It seemed to get worse each time she felt it.

Dimly, through the haze of pain, she heard a voice. A worried voice. Why should anyone worry about her?

"Are you alright?" it asked desperately. "What's happening? Are you hurt?"

And then, something else, something so surprising that for one moment she forgot the pain in her confusion.

The voice asked, "What's that noise?"

But there was no noise, except the wounded-animal shrieks that she suspected came from her own mouth, and the voice surely knew that she was making those.

The pain cleared.

Lucy moved, sitting up, stretching muscles that had cramped in response to the pain she had felt. Freya Smith was standing next to her, hands clamped over her ears. When she met Lucy's eyes, she uncovered them cautiously, ready to block them again if necessary.

"You heard it?" she asked, and the word heard meant something different in her voice. It meant experiencing another concept, one that was completely alien to the human mind, one that was translated differently to each person. For Lucy, it was pain, and always had been. For Freya, it seemed to be sound.

That was…interesting.

Freya nodded in response to her question. She seemed to have grasped that unspoken alternative meaning too. Yes, thought Lucy. I was right. The daughter I never had…

"It has to happen," she said, referring still to the experience of a few moments ago. "You understand that, don't you?"

"For the future," the girl agreed. "Temporal continuity."

Lucy was impressed by that phrase. She didn't ask where Freya had heard it. She herself had never been quite sure where her knowledge came from.

Instead, she met Freya's eyes, and the understanding passed between them.

The Rift had just spread a little further. And this time, not only Lucy but Freya too had sensed it happen. It had widened Lucy's gift of Sight still further. This time, she had seen herself, ruling over all times at once, maintaining the timelines, keeping everything in its place.

And she had seen her daughter by her side, through all of Time.

"It's the Rift that grants the Sight," said Freya - not as a question, but as a statement.

And then she said, "I Saw my mother die."

Lucy put her arms around her, for she had shared that vision too. There had been a lot of blood, she remembered. "It's alright," she said softly, to her daughter. "I'll be your mother now."

"You'll be my family?"

And strange, sweet Freya Smith looked up at Lucy with absolute trust in her eyes and said: "There's something you should know about me, then."

She paused, snuggling into Lucy's embrace.

"I could never, ever hurt my family."