December, 1892.
London, England.
Snow fell on London.
But where was it falling from? The skies had remained clear from day to night, and yet snow still fell.
An eerie chill hung in the air. As came naturally to Londoners, no one batted an eye. No normal person anyway.
Torchwood, on the other hand, noticed. There was a split team effort to get to the bottom of the situation. A few of the team was using what available rudimentary tech there was to track down the source. Jack was amongst them. The rest of the team was tasked with walking the streets.
Rose strolled around the city. Partly, she was investigating, looking for any sign of odd behaviors from anyone she passed. It was a pointless task that would gain them nothing in information. She didn't appreciate being given the job, but it allowed her to indulge herself in a bit of a break. Because the part of her that was not investigating was reminiscing on things that had yet to happen.
She had always loved Christmastime in London. Perhaps that is why she found herself particularly nostalgic for what the city would become. Each street she walked, she could envision exactly what it would look like. When she passed where Henrik's would one day stand – and fall – she found herself smiling silly, remembering a daft grin and a simple command that changed her life.
Knowing the future and living its past – it was a burden in some respects and a pleasure in others. She was watching her childhood home being created, wanting to change so much and yet nothing at all.
It was going on a year since Bertie called them home. He managed to keep them there despite the wishes of his mother. And their wishes if they were honest.
As much as being in this country increased their chances of going home, they were uneasy staying in one place for too long, particularly amongst Torchwood's home offices.
Her thoughts slipped away as a dull heat settled on her sternum. She looked down at her chest, confused. It had been a long time since she'd been anywhere near that happy.
As she stepped past a wide alley, the heat dulled. She stopped. Someone grumbled as they spun around here to which she mumbled an apology.
She stepped backwards. One step, then another. The heat flared again.
The alley was empty, save refuse and crates. Taking a wide look around her, no one was paying her any mind. With a small amount of trepidation, she decided to enter the passageway.
The end of the alley gave her the options of turning left or right into a backstreet. In both directions, there was only the backs to homes and businesses.
Rose side stepped to the left. No change. She side stepped twice to the right. Colder.
With that decided, she turned and headed down the left alley, the flare growing all the warmer. She walked hesitantly, her heart beating hard against her ribcage.
A blue glow just visible over stacks of crates tripped her. Catching herself narrowly, Rose froze in place.
It couldn't be.
With legs like lead, she pulled herself the rest of the way forward, eyes glued to the glowing light.
After all these years, she had fantasized the many ways this moment would come. In her worst moments - her late wide-eyed nights, her dehydrated stays in hiding, her run-ins with poison - she had hallucinated this very thing.
Transfixed, Rose stumbled forward, her trembling hand stretched towards the wood. When her fingers made contact, she could have fainted. It was real. She was real.
She couldn't breathe. Anything she'd ever imagined couldn't match how she felt in reality. Her lungs didn't work.
Her other hand came to lay on the wood as well. A warm flush spread through her body. She could breathe again.
Rose rested her forehead on the doors, her eyes falling to a close as she forgot the cold weather and the damp of her shoes. All of it fell away, leaving her alone with her long-lost home, the TARDIS.
"Hello, old girl," she whispered, a soft puff of air escaping her lips, "I've missed you so much."
The rise and fall of blue heat in her mind said, I missed you, too.
Was this it? Was she finally home?
"You led me here," she murmured. A hum confirmed her words.
The key!
She tried, and failed, to pull her necklace up from the top of her collar. Frantically, she pulled at the buttons of her coat and pulled her scarf from her neck. When she pulled it free, it was surrounded by the puffs of her heaving breaths.
They key glowed with an ancient energy. The TARDIS had led her here; it was time to finally go home!
"Oh no, you don't," came a hissed voice behind her. She flinched. "It is much too soon for you."
Rose gasped and went to spin to face her predator when something heavy smacked her. The last thing she felt was her head smacking the TARDIS doors.
Her skull was split in half. That was the only explanation. How else could her head hurt like this?
Rose wished she had died. There would be no pain upon her waking if she had. Instead, she was brought to awareness by the chasm that ached all the way down to her shoulders.
She didn't dare open her eyes. She could feel the light from a nearby window on her face and knew she would cry if that light hit her eyes. Opening her mouth ever so slightly, she tasted the air. Level. She took a deep breath through her noise. Citrusy and herbal. Not a prison cell then.
Letting her mind roam down her body, she ignored the aches in her back and hips. She was on a sofa. Not a prison cell. Not a traditional one anyway.
The similarity between this awakening and the one so many years ago in New York hit her right in the split in her head. It forced her eyes clenched ever tighter.
She commanded herself not to think of it. Instead, she thought of escape plans. She still had her weapons under skirts; she could feel them against her legs. If she moved quickly, she could grab one of her knives and stab her assailant. Once free, she could make her way back to the TARDIS and -
Her body froze. The TARDIS.
The TARDIS was here. And that meant the Doctor was as well.
It was time to go home. At long last, she could go home again. No more running errands for the royal family, no more manipulating Torchwood, no more daily drudge of the same shit. A life of running and adventure and love. As soon she got herself off this sofa and out of this home.
She could do this. Like ripping off a band aid, they'd say one day.
A door yawned open. Fuck.
She forced her body to relax and her breath to even as she counted two pairs of footsteps entering the room.
The footsteps were similar. Light, avoiding any creaks; though if that were instinctual or by design, she couldn't tell.
"The good Inspector cannot meet my eye any longer. He appears to be properly scandalized," came a smoky voice.
The answering voice was unexpectedly young. Almost childlike in its cloying nature as it said, "I imagine he shall come to terms with it eventually. Arthur certainly did."
They shared a chuckle. They were facing her on the sofa, she observed, watching her. What were they waiting for? Were they going to wake her? Move her? Attack?
"How much longer do you think she will continue to sleep?" asked the younger voice.
The huskier of the two laughed, "Or pretend to, you mean?"
The game was up. Rose tensed, cursing herself.
The first good look at her captors was through squinted eyes. The shorter of the two was a dark-haired human woman with a beauty mark above her lip. The taller was…green?
Rose blinked a few times. As her eyesight cleared, she could see that the taller person was most definitely green. She had high ridges on her head and scaled skin, but eyes like that of a human. No species came to mind.
Her prison cell was, in fact, a drawing room. An ornate drawing room with large mirrors, decorous candelabra, large leafy plants, and Doric columns flanking the doors up to the high ceiling. Pretty, and a bit chaotic. In other circumstances, she would say she liked it.
"Your charade is good. If I were human, it would have fooled me," said the taller woman. "Your heartrate is high, and you are perspiring."
Rose resisted the urge to sniff herself.
"The critique is appreciated," she grumbled. She rolled herself up, cracking her joints and rotating her neck as she went.
"I am Madame Vastra, and this is Jenny Flint," she introduced, gesturing lightly to herself and her companion.
"Ma'am," said Jenny politely.
Rose craned her neck back to look up at them. Wryly, she replied, "Unless you're in the business of attacking just anyone, I imagine you know who I am."
The identical smiles of mystery that bloomed on their faces might have been cute in different circumstances. A couple, perhaps.
"If you wouldn't mind, Dame, let us convene in the greenhouse. The climate is far mare suited to my kind there."
Who was she to deny her that? Rose stood on trembling legs to follow them from the room. They both walked in front of her, which she found suspicious.
The house was beautiful. It had the old charm that Rose could appreciate but the decoration styles that clashed were simply gorgeous. It showed of people with unique ideals and experiences; not the kind that would kidnap her to torture her. Of course, she could be wrong about that.
The greenhouse was as she expected. Spacious, humid, filled with plant life, and far too bright. What she would give for a pair of sunglasses.
Vastra sat in a large rattan chair set opposite its twin. A small table set off to the side was set up with tea.
Jenny did not join them, but she also did not leave either. She busied herself with tending to plants around the room. A ruse, most likely. Rose had done similar things with Jack before; become a background fixture, study the opponent in ways the other would not be able to.
Slowly, Rose took the seat opposite her captor, arranging her skirts to sit nicely. Admittedly, the sun felt nice on her face, even as it hurt her eyes. Birds chirped above them, rustling the leaves as they fluttered about. There was the chirping of bugs and the sound of running water. An oasis.
Despite her curiosity, Rose refused to ask any details about this Madam Vastra. The first move should not be hers.
As she poured the tea, Vastra gave her that information anyway. She said, "I am a Silurian. According to my people's histories, we were Earth's first sentient species."
"Thank you NatGeo," she grimaced at the woman's quizzical look. "My apologies. I'm having a hard time focusing."
If Vastra felt in the slightest bit remorseful, she didn't show it. Instead she said, "You have done worse to me."
"Good, I have something to look forward to," she snarked. "Am I to be your prisoner here?"
There was a sigh and a smile. Familiarity.
Before lifting her teacup, she answered lightly, "If that is the way you prefer to do this, then certainly. However, you are more reasonable than that. A fight between us will only waste our time when we could simply discuss this as civilized people."
Rose sipped from her own tea, relaxing physically as her mind raced.
"Alright then. You know the Doctor?"
"Yes. And you."
She kept it succinct, "Why?"
"Why did I stop you from entering the TARDIS? Simple, really. You can't."
Rose chuckled angrily, "Yet I was about to."
"It seems I arrived just in time," Vastra exclaimed, almost in celebration. At her scowl, she restrained herself. "There are things that must happen in a certain order. You know this. You cannot skip ahead to the end. You are on a set path, as you have been for a long time now."
Rose laughed harshly, "Sod the bloody rules for once!"
Vastra sighed. "You're hard work young."
This was giving her a headache. Rose pinched the bridge of her nose. She took a few deep breaths trying to organize her thoughts. Time can only be messed with so much.
"Are you saying I do find him again?" the desperate question clawed out of her mouth as an accusation.
"Of course, idiot girl," she snapped. "You're near bloody immortal and that man couldn't avoid this planet if he tried. Of course, you find him!"
That was too much information. She stuck to her guns and ignored the rest. "Then why can't I go to him now? If this him already knows I'm coming, he can take me to the version of him I need to find."
"Because you can't."
"Says who?"
"Says the highest authority on the matter."
She scoffed. "He can shove his -"
"I do not speak of the Doctor," said Vastra, her voice cutting across Rose. As she fell silent, a small tight smile graced the other woman's face. "The order came from you."
That – that was…oh.
The pain from the wound in her head had faded and a new pain blossomed at her temples.
"Oh, of all the ridiculous things -" she groaned, pressing her fingertips into the sides of her head.
Vastra laughed. "I quite agree. Then again, 'ridiculous' is a word most apt for you and that man."
"How long?"
They knew exactly what she wanted to know. How long before she could go home at last?
"Is that an answer you truly wish to hear?" ventured Jenny cautiously. She ventured back to stand near the chairs, dropping any pretense of not paying them any mind.
"Ah. You don't know," realized Rose calmly. She won't tell them that so clearly it was not answer that would make her happy. "A while off then."
Vastra tilted her head, "You do not seem surprised."
"The TARDIS led me there. She wanted me to meet you," she replied, burying her disappointment deep within her mind.
"She has been there for a number of weeks. How is it that two highly experienced warriors such as yourself and Captain Harkness failed to notice?"
The honest, uncomfortable truth was Rose had long stopped looking down every alley, in every small room, over her shoulder. It was no life to live, being so constantly let down by the absence of what she sought.
"I…I get a small sense, every now and then, that the TARDIS is here, on Earth," she confessed slowly. Her eyes drifted close as she thought back on all the times she knew, without a doubt, that the TARDIS had come to her planet. Sometimes it would come to her in the night, when she was fighting, when she was asea.
Her eyes snapped open again, "But the sense is so faint with no information; I have long stopped paying it any mind. We didn't notice because we weren't looking."
"And now?" asked Jenny, sitting nimbly on the edge of the arm to Vastra's chair.
"Today confirms what I was already beginning to understand. When the time comes, I will know."
There was an air of approval from the women sitting opposite her. Whatever they heard in that was something they liked.
They fell into an easy, contemplative silence. Her thoughts turned to burying the feelings of desperation and longing and soothing the ones of hurt. This was no one's fault. The universe was simply cruel, even to those who safeguard it.
If she left soon enough, she might be able to see the TARDIS one last time before continuing her Earth-bound journey. Risky, perhaps, but worth it.
Her gaze drifted out beyond the glass panes. The sun was catching on the condensation, throwing rays in a disarray into the space.
Why come to the greenhouse? The rest of the home appeared to be kept as humid as possible. Surely Vastra was comfortable anywhere in her home. She was being tested. But for what?
As she started to zone out to think, her eyes focused beyond the panes of the windows and it hit her.
"It was snowing before," she remarked.
Vastra hummed. "And now, it is not."
Rose looked to her, finding a vague smile and a guarded gaze. Something happened while she was in this room. Something important. Should she ask what?
Suddenly, the key against her chest cooled. Her hand flew to her chest, grasping at the cold metal as she launched to her feet.
She looked to Vastra, wildly.
"I'm sorry," she said with the slightest bit of sympathy in her voice.
It was hard to breathe once more. The TARDIS was gone.