The Other Organization
The Torchwood Institute. Many think it just a legend, others claim to have known of it's existence all along and others just would have called you crazy for even mentioning that rumour of this mysterious institute. But then came 8th July 2006, and the army of ghosts, the Daleks and the Cybermen. After that day, it was impossible to ignore Torchwood's existence. No, not anymore. Torchwood was there, it was at the centre of the chaos, it was the reason for the chaos. The previous boss of Torchwood, Yvonne Hartman, was amongst those killed that day as well as approximately a hundred or so others. From then on the eighth of July has been dubbed 'Doomsday'. And that was six years ago.
Light shone in through the head office of the London branch of Torchwood. It was finally getting back on it's feet after the events of over a half decade ago, and it shocked the new head that it had taken so long. Once again, the head of Torchwood was a woman, but this one was by no means comparable to Yvonne Hartman, absolutely not. This woman was something totally different. She sat at her desk, her brown hair falling over her shoulders and her brown eyes surveying the paper placed in front of her. She smiled slightly and then stood up and placed the paper in a filing cabinet on the wall. This woman was quite old in comparison to her co-workers. Whereas the average age of people working in Torchwood was about 27 or so, the new boss threw that average right out of balance. She was fifty-eight years old but she was by no means waning, she was just as active and alert as those workers half her age and as far as she was concerned she had gotten this job for a reason and if her age was a problem then she would have been fired or forced into retirement by now. No, she refused to let that happen. There was absolutely no way that Sarah-Jane Smith was on her way out, no sir. She was here to stay.
Sarah-Jane returned to her chair and looked out at the workers in front of her, happily typing away on their desk computers, searching for whatever alien life forms had come to Earth in the past six years. Yet, it was obvious that many weren't working as hard as they could have been, how could they? Today was after all the 8th July 2012, and today was the opening ceremony of the thirtieth Olympiad, held right under Sarah-Jane's nose in London. Sarah-Jane herself had never been much of a sporting fanatic, she left that two her niece and nephew, Lucas and Aurora, although she probably thought that Lucas would turn his back on the sport just as she had done and roll his eyes endlessly at Aurora's over enthusiasm at a bunch of people from over the world running around a track for thirty seconds to wear a lump of metal for a few minutes. Oh, and the obligatory taking of illegal performance enhancing drugs, it was no secret that many of the athletes did so, in fact Sarah-Jane was shocked that the Olympics hadn't been all but shut down because of it, especially after the incident four years previously in Beijing which left fourteen athletes in a coma for three months.
Sarah-Jane got out of her chair again and left her office and looked at the large blank wall that was in front of it, and her many workers on their desks typing away. Sarah-Jane sighed and looked at her watch, it was quarter to five. The opening ceremony was starting in forty-five minutes, she may as well make her staff happy otherwise they may not come back tomorrow. She turned on her heel and faced the six people, four men and two women, and clapped her hands to get their attention.
"Harry, Tom, Adam, Ryan, Dell and Clare. Thank you for all your hard work today, you may go home now, I'm sure you all want to watch the ceremony. I'll see you all tomorrow. On time would be a nice change, Ryan." she said happily smiling and watching the six pick up their things and slowly leave one by one, until only her, Dell and Ryan remained in the room.
"Good night, Miss Smith." Dell said.
"Sarah-Jane, please. And goodnight, Dell. You too, Ryan."
"Bye, Sarah-Jane." Ryan's reply came from underneath his desk as he picked up his various pens and placed them in his pocket before leaving with Dell. Sarah-Jane shook her head, she did wonder about Ryan at times. He never used the company's pens, he always brought his own, it was rather strange. But then again, Ryan was a rather strange person.
And now she was alone in the room, she pulled out a chair from behind Harry's desk and sat on it and looked at the wall. It was no secret what this wall was; this was the breach to another world, a parallel world. One that had been sealed closed by one of the many aliens that Sarah-Jane had actually met herself: the Doctor. Now, there was an enigma if ever one existed. The last of his species, destined to roam the whole of time and space alone as there was no-one else left for him to join, perhaps that was why the Doctor tended to recruit a human, or an alien, as his companion. If there is one thing that the human race can be defined as on a whole it is 'curious'. Show some human the inside of your space ship and offer to take them to the furthest regions of the galaxy, to the end of the world, to the beginning of humanity and you can bet your bottom dollar they'll say yes. Sarah-Jane had done so, a long time ago. It seemed almost a lifetime ago to her, back then when she travelled with the Doctor. Of course she wasn't the only one, she may have thought she was for a while, but she knew that she wasn't, in fact she'd even met on of the Doctor's most recent companions: Rose Tyler. Sarah-Jane and Rose hadn't got on when they first met, Rose seemed to think that Sarah-Jane was intruding and Sarah-Jane thought Rose a bit too inexperienced to handle all the space stuff that living with the Doctor entailed. Of course, both had been wrong about the other and they were soon laughing together about some of the Doctor's quirks, such as stroking the TARDIS, which was his ship. But then Doomsday happened and Sarah-Jane heard of what happened here and the Doctor's involvement. How could he not be involved? He was like a chaos magnet and he was drawn to any signs of trouble. But that wasn't the worse of it. As usual Rose had come too with the Doctor and when the Doctor managed to suck the Daleks and Cybermen back into the void she was lost. Rose Tyler was killed and her body vanished, presumably sucked into the void along with the Daleks and Cybermen. When Sarah-Jane found out, she was stunned into silence, Rose had always seemed so strong and capable and then she had died, because of her affiliation with the Doctor. Was she the first of his companions to die because of him? Sarah-Jane couldn't bear to think about it.
Sarah-Jane looked back at the wall and wondered: what if it would open again. She could go to the parallel universe and see what it was like. She wanted to, her investigative side was yelling at her to do it, yet she knew it was impossible. She looked back at her analogue watch; six o'clock. This was the exact time, six years ago when the void had been closed. She sighed and then turned back to go to her office and go home, she would probably have to watch the ceremony anyway, Aurora would make sure of it. Sarah-Jane reached the door when a loud crack was hard behind her. She spun around, her hair a few seconds behind but then falling neatly on her shoulders again. She looked over to the wall and her mouth dropped open. There was a person standing there, a girl. She was facing the wall, her blonde hair down to the small of her back and she was dressed in black leather trousers and a black leather jacket. The girl turned and faced Sarah-Jane and Sarah-Jane's eyes widened in surprise, she had to be hallucinating.
"Sarah-Jane?" the girl said, confused.
"Rose?"
Sarah-Jane had no idea what to think, how was this possible? Rose Tyler was dead, she died six years ago in this very room, on the very spot she now stood. So many questions were swimming around Sarah-Jane's mind, she had no idea which one to ask, but it didn't matter, without thinking the first one just popped out.
"You're alive?"
"Looks like it." came Rose's London accent in response to the question. Rose pulled a hair band off her wrist and then tied her hair up in a ponytail and looked quickly around the room. She seemed almost uninterested in the fact she was seemingly back from the dead, sort of like she did it on a regular basis. Rose cocked her head sideways and looked again at Sarah-Jane, now with a huge smile on her face. "Why are you here, Sarah-Jane?"
"Why am I here? I work here, why are you here? You're dead!"
"Am I? Wasn't last time I checked."
Sarah-Jane now entered new realms of confusion. Rose wasn't dead, nor had she ever been. So why was she on the list of the dead? Her name was there on the plaque in Trafalgar Square listing all those who had died on Doomsday; Sarah-Jane had seen it many times before, she could almost visualise the plaque itself. A black marble background with gold lettering depicting the names of those who had died that day.
Daniel Trotter
Melissa Twyford
Jacqueline Tyler
Rose Tyler
William Vanders
"How is this possible?" Sarah-Jane asked, her eyes wide in confusion at the possibility of it.
"Well, now that's the million dollar question, that is." Rose replied happily, she seemed to be rather enjoying herself at the moment, taking full advantage of knowing more than Sarah-Jane did. "You may wanna sit down, I'm about to go all Doctor on you."
It wasn't really a request. Rose grabbed Sarah-Jane's shoulders and sat her down in Ryan's chair and grabbed Dell's chair for herself, turning it backwards and sitting backwards on it, leaning on the back and looked at Sarah-Jane. Rose smiled and then brushed a loose strand of blonde hair out of her face and begun.
"Once every year, on the anniversary of the breach's closure the closure becomes weak, don't ask me why, do I look like a portal expert? Anyway using the devices that Jake and Mickey worked on…"
"Mickey? As in Mickey Smith?"
"Yeah, he went to the alternate world before us, to stop the cybermen."
"Alternate world?" Sarah-Jane asked, now totally confused.
"Yeah, it's where I've been. The Doctor put me there to save me."
"So, you're not with him anymore?"
"No. He's gone."
"I'm sorry. I know how that feels."
"Thanks, it's OK. I'm dealing with it, but as I was saying. The devices still worked when the breach was weak so for the past six July eighths I've been jumping from on reality to the next until finally, this year I think I landed where I was meant to. This is the real world, right?"
"Of course."
"Oh, but you would say that, wouldn't you? Oh! I know! No, maybe not. Yes! No. YES!"
"Glad we clarified that." Sarah-Jane commented, mainly to herself rather than to Rose.
"What was the school with the Krillitanes?" Rose suddenly burst out with, trying to catch Sarah-Jane off guard.
"Um…Deffrey Vale, or something. Mr Finch was the headmaster."
"OK, good. This is it."
Sarah-Jane had given up trying to follow this now, but at least Rose seemed to be in the place she was looking for, wherever that was. What did the infamous Rose Tyler; Doctor's Companion want to do at Torchwood? And was she as good as ever now that the Doctor had gone? She had no doubts in Rose's ability but the Doctor was always there to pick up her errors, but seemingly no longer.
"No offence, Rose. But what do you need here?"
"This is Torchwood, no?"
"Yes, how do you know…"
"I work at the alternate version. Assistant Director."
I'm the actual director. Take that, Rose Tyler. Sarah-Jane thought, before shaking it out of her head, she was over any competition she had with Rose, yet she wasn't going to lie that being a level above Rose in Torchwood status made her feel much better about herself.
"And what about you, Sarah? Why are you here in Torchwood?"
"I work here, also. Director". She purposefully put extra emphasis on that final word, as if to make it crystal clear that she was in charge here, not Rose.
"Oh, cool. Well, careful. Remember what happened to the last one. Upgraded to psychotic robot thing and into the void. Bye bye Yvonne Hartman."
Sarah-Jane thought that a rather insensitive way to explain the fate of the previous head of Torchwood, but it was more or less accurate. She had been upgraded by the Cybermen and had been sucked into the void, the void stuff coating the metal made sure of that: Sarah-Jane was determined not to make quite an explosive exit as Ms Hartman had done. She'd rather not be terminated when her employment was. However, Sarah-Jane's thoughts were interrupted by Rose's voice.
"So, you run Torchwood?"
"Don't act so surprised. I did travel in time and space after all."
"As did I. Doesn't sound as impressive to someone else who's done it, does it Sarah?"
"What are you here for, Rose?"
"I think you know."
Sarah-Jane had a perfect idea of what Rose was here for, it had entered her mind as soon as she recognised the twenty-five year old blonde. If Rose had gotten back to her original world and she was in Torchwood there was only one thing that she was chasing.
"The Doctor." Rose finished, looking slightly more sinister than amicable now. "Where is he, Sarah?"
"I don't know." Sarah-Jane replied. Rose didn't look as though she believed her. Sarah-Jane wasn't scared of Rose, nor did Rose look as though she was going to hurt Sarah-Jane in anyway for not being able to tell her.
"Well, we'll just search for him won't we?" Rose said, kicking off from the floor beneath her and sliding over to Dell's desk and clicking on the computer screen. Rose smiled and typed six letters into the computer: D-O-C-T-O-R and hit enter. Ten miles away, in his bedroom Lucas Smith jerked awake in his bed, his eyes wide in fear and panic.
"The Doctor!" he whispered to the empty room.
The question rises as to why Lucas Smith was asleep at six o'clock on the day of the opening of the London Olympics. Well the answer was simple, he was tired. Or rather something inside him told him to sleep, as seemed to happen much more frequently nowadays. But he'd had the most bizarre dream, about some man named the Doctor and a blonde haired girl dressed in leather. Take the Doctor part out and Lucas' sister would have taunting material for years on end, so fortunately he was there and the other thing that worried him was the third person in the room: his Aunt Sarah.
Lucas and his aunt got on relatively well, yet it was more Aurora who was in Sarah's good graces. Lucas was just, in his opinion, there because Aurora was and he had nowhere else to go, not after the deaths of his parents on Doomsday six years ago. Lucas could remember it exactly, where he was and what he was doing when his parents died. Flashbulb memories, that's what his psychology teacher had told him it was. Lucas was ten when it happened, alone in his room, playing solitaire, which was Lucas' favourite pastime, when the window smashed suddenly. Lucas ran for his desk and hid underneath it, the objects in his room being thrown around by the wind. Lucas dare not go to the remains of the window to see what was going on, he was terrified, clinging to the floor beneath the desk. Aurora was out at Aunt Sarah's and Lucas was at home with his parents, or at least he was until they came. Lucas could hear the screams on his mother as she was murdered, his father's strangled cries as he slipped away. Luckily the robots didn't go into Lucas' room or he was certain he wouldn't have made it either. And then nothing, it was like Lucas fell asleep and was woken by the screams of Aurora and Aunt Sarah as they discovered the bodies of Lucas' parents downstairs. The next day Lucas was, along with Aurora, moved out of their house and in with their aunt where they've stayed ever since but Lucas still longed to return to his old house, for some kind of sign as to why he passed out back then, or why his parents were amongst those murdered.
Lucas sat on his bed and looked over to his large clock. It was half past ten now, four and a half hours after his dream about the Doctor and the girl. He was still no closer to figuring out who the girl was or indeed who this doctor character was. His ears picked up as he heard the front door close downstairs. He knew who it was; it was his Aunt Sarah. Aurora had already gone out with her boyfriend, Daniel, so it could only really be her, there was no chance it was Aurora already. Lucas shuffled his pack of cards and pushed the thought of the Doctor to the back of his mind, placed the cards in their box and slid them into his pocket and left his room, going down to meet his Aunt.
Sarah-Jane had no idea what she was thinking, agreeing to let Rose stay with her whilst they waited for the Doctor. Sarah had waited thirty years for the Doctor before they coincidentally crossed paths again, only to once again part ways. Sarah had little faith that typing the Doctor's name into the Torchwood database would make him come zooming back to Earth in his blue box. Anyway, she had to focus on telling Lucas and Aurora about Rose staying, especially telling Aurora that she had the choice of sharing with Rose or sleeping on the sofa until Rose 'found what she's looking for'. That was the excuse that Sarah had been able to come up with, how lame.
"Make yourself at home." Sarah said, guiding Rose past the threshold. The blonde smiled and removed her shoes and sat down on the sofa and let her hair out of the ponytail, shaking her head to make the hair fall casually down her shoulders again. Sarah rolled her eyes slightly at Rose, it was good thing that Lucas wasn't down here yet, his tongue would be lolling out of his mouth by that point, not that she viewed Lucas as shallow, it was just the normal teenage boy thing to do. Sarah heard footsteps from above her and soon enough her sixteen year old nephew came down the stairs and joined her and Rose in the lounge. Rose stood up, ready to be introduced to the boy.
"Ah, Lucas there you are. Come here." she said, beckoning him towards her and making the same gesture towards Rose. Rose stood up and walked over to Sarah and faced Lucas. A look of an admixture of fear and surprise appeared on Lucas' face as he lay eyes on Rose Tyler.
"This is Rose Tyler. Rose, this is my nephew Lucas."
Lucas remained silent, staring at Rose in disbelief at what he was seeing. Sarah raised an eyebrow in confusion and then looked at Lucas. She was a journalist, she could read people's expressions. Behind the confusion, surprise and terror on her young nephew's face there was one thing that Sarah never expected to see there; recognition. Had Rose and Lucas met before? How was that possible?
"Lucas? Are you going to say anything to our guest."
"Yeah, sorry. I had a dream about you."
Rose stared wide-eyed at the teenage boy. He had had a dream about her? She wasn't sure how to react to that; worried or pleased, but then it occurred to her, if he had seen her in a dream she couldn't have been alone and that automatically made Lucas Smith a thousand times more interesting to her.
"Um…thanks. I think."
"Who's the Doctor?" Lucas burst out, taking Rose and Sarah aback. Although Rose had been expecting the D-word to make an appearance she hadn't expected it to be so early in the conversation, but then again she'd seen the year five billion and been to alien planets and jumped through parallel universes, she knew better than to let anything surprise her anymore.
"You know about the Doctor?" Sarah asked, looking at her nephew with new eyes. Rose noticed it but refrained from commenting, she didn't want to infringe on any kind of family tension, she had a five year old brother back in her world and she'd rather Sarah or Lucas not witness her yelling at him so stood back.
"I know that he's dangerous."
"What exactly was your dream?" Rose asked. Lucas looked at her with a expression that said 'trust me, you don't want to know.' He sighed and then walked past the two women and sat down on the sofa and removed his pack of cards and began to idly shuffle them. Rose looked at him with a mix of confusion and concern at what he was doing, how many sixteen year olds carried playing cards with them and could shuffle without even thinking about it?
"I hope you're ready for this."
"Lucas, just tell us." Sarah said, sitting down in an armchair opposite Lucas. Rose walked over and perched herself on the armchair and stared at the teenager, it was time to find out exactly how much this boy knew and what relevance it was to helping her find the Doctor.
"I was standing at Torchwood, in your office…" he began, but his voice was drowned out by a large rumbling sound outside. Lucas soon stopped talking and Rose exhaled, irritated: she needed to find out what Lucas knew. The rumbling got louder and Sarah jumped to her feet, her face strewn with terror.
"We have to go, now. Where's Aurora." Sarah yelled at the other two.
"She's with Daniel." Lucas yelled back. Rose was confused, what the hell was happening? She soon get part of her answer as the window smashed and three smoke bombs crashed onto the floor, filling the room with a dense smoke in a matter of seconds. Sarah clung to Lucas and Rose felt her wrist being pulled towards the patio doors and her body being pushed out into the garden. A few seconds later Lucas exited from the smoke and was swiftly followed by Sarah, who was sporting a cut above her left eye. Lucas seemed unhurt. Rose stepped backwards onto the green lawn and pointed at the room, her mouth open.
"What the hell is that?"
"Aunt Sarah! I told you! I told you they'd find us!" Lucas yelled at his aunt, who seemed too shaken to argue back. She rifled threw her pockets and pulled out two small blue balls and threw one at each of Lucas and Rose. Rose caught hers and Lucas fumbled his, but soon regained his grasp on it, both looked at Sarah, worried.
"Go, I'll be fine. Don't believe what you hear about me, I'll be OK. Now." she yelled at them, taking a small pen like device out of her other pocket at pointing it at Rose and Lucas. "Torchwood." she said, pressing a small button upon it. Rose felt as if she was being pulled by a rope that was tied tightly around her waist as she, and Lucas, vanished from the garden.
Sarah sighed as she saw the last of Lucas and Rose vanish from the garden. She felt slightly better, at least Lucas was with someone else who had dealt with aliens rather than someone who would be of absolutely no help to him. Lucas was special, Sarah had always known it. She ran back into the smoke and was greeted by the sound of a gunshot, a sharp pain in her side and then blackness as she fell to the floor of her lounge. Her body was picked up by a tall man in camouflage and the sound of tyres screeching away echoed throughout the street.
A loud cracking sound resonated around the now named 'Breach Room', where Sarah and Rose had met no more than five hours ago. As soon as this sound vanished two people now stood in the middle of the room; Lucas and Rose. Lucas was feeling angrier than he had ever done in his entire life. He looked at the blue teleportation sphere in his hand and yelled as he threw it into a wall, shattering it to pieces.
"Why'd she do that! Tell me why!"
Lucas wasn't yelling at Rose, or at Sarah wherever she was. It was a cry to himself. He wanted to know why Sarah had chosen to save him and Rose instead of herself. That fact coupled with the dream Lucas had had about Rose made Lucas feel very wary of Miss Tyler. Rose herself was standing a few feet away from Lucas, and placed her blue sphere neatly on the table. Lucas was still looking outraged and betrayed. How could she have done that to him? To him? Lucas began angrily pacing the room, looking nowhere but the floor in front of him, and certainly not a Rose. As far as he was concerned, it if wasn't for her he wouldn't even be here. He hated it at Torchwood Tower, he always had done.
"Lucas, she'll be..." Rose began
"SHUT UP!" Lucas snapped back at her, not caring about manners anymore. He couldn't care less about Rose Tyler anymore, she was extremely unimportant to him at this precise moment. "I'm going back home!" Lucas yelled, making his way to the door.
"Stop!" Rose yelled after him. Lucas breathed out loudly and turned on his heel and looked at her with a look of total disdain, his brown hair covering his eyebrows giving him an almost evil look.
"What?"
"You can't leave, Lucas."
"Watch me."
"Stop!"
Lucas was getting annoyed by all of this. He just wanted to go and check Sarah was all right and maybe get Rose to leave him alone and stop treating him like a child, he was not a child anymore; even though almost everyone seemed to think so. Lucas turned on his heel and strode towards the door again and Rose said one more thing to him.
"Lucas! Stay, please. Do you really think that Sarah would have risked her life to bring us here together if it was so that I could watch you die? Is it? But if you want to go and get yourself shot, I can jump back to my world and none of this will ever be remembered, but hey: your choice."
Lucas stopped. He hated to admit it, but Rose was right, Sarah must have had a good reason for getting him and Rose to Torchwood without her and it wasn't so that those people could shoot him. He slowly turned around again and faced Rose and nodded, albeit very slightly. He trudged slowly over to the chair behind the nearest desk, his head hung and flopped into the chair and leant forward on the desk.
"Right. Lucas, tell me everything you know." Rose said, sitting down on the opposite side of the desk to the teenage boy. Lucas raised his head and looked at her in agreement, there was no backing out this time.
"OK."
There were many secrets surrounding the mysterious Torchwood, but the best hidden one so far had been that of Pleiades. Pleiades was even more secret than Torchwood was, not even many members of the latter organization knowing of Pleiades' existence. The objective of Pleiades was to better everything that Torchwood did whilst keeping it's eye on every and all aliens that came to Earth, that included the elusive Doctor. Torchwood had it's field agents and likewise so did Pleiades, except these agents were much more elite: faster, smarter and in many ways better at almost everything they tried. Torchwood would send it's agents to the south of London for training, Pleiades would send it's trainee agents to the Sahara or the Amazon, both if they were particularly unlucky.
The sun was beginning to set in the west and a tall man with jet black hair and piercing deep navy blue eyes was sat on the branch of a tall oak tree surveying the park in front of him. The whole world was sitting at home, watching the opening of the Olympics, but not this man, he had more important things to think about that some stupid competition that only happened every four years.
So crap that's the most frequent they can pawn it off on the world's audience.
This man was not one to be messed with, that much was obvious just by his appearance another was that he was an agent of the Pleiades Organization, and if you knew what that meant then you too would be terrified of him. You'd keep a wide birth from Jex. Jex was, of course, not this agent's real name but rather a code name he had fashioned for himself to keep his profile low and to use as an alias, should a need arise. Jex's real name was Jonah Exmoor and it was from the repeated need to write or say J. Exmoor that Jex was derived.
Jex looked at his watch and sighed, it was coming up on eight o'clock. The ceremony was nearly over and people would soon be coming back out again, for him the night was only just beginning but his surveillance was about to draw to a close. He sighed and jumped from the tree, falling at least fifteen feet and landing silently on the grass in front of him. He looked around to see if anyone had seen him and straightened up and looked around again. Silence, just the way he liked it. The peace and quiet was shattered by the electronic beeping of Jex's pager. He pulled it swiftly from his pocket and looked at it and smiled at the message upon it. He'd been waiting for this mission for months now and knew that it was coming his way, regrettably however, it was to be a solo mission, he was to bring his partner with him. Jex wasn't too pleased about that, he didn't have any doubt about his partner, she certainly was capable of doing the job (as Jex had found out once himself, first hand) it was just that Jex thought that he had earned the right to handle this mission by himself, he didn't need to be watched by some woman. Nevertheless he pulled out his mobile pressed one button then the call one and held it to his ear. The drone of the ringing tone was heard twice before the phone clicked, the person at the other end accepting the call.
"Rocket. Huntington Avenue, as soon as. Bring your equipment, it's the mission we've both been waiting for. I'll meet you there."
Without waiting for a response from Rocket he shut his phone, disconnecting the call. He smiled again to himself and threw his large coat over his shoulders and slipped his arms through the sleeves. A wry smile spread across his face as he made his way towards his target, pulling a large suitcase behind him holding all his usual equipment: guns, bullets, smoke canisters. Indeed when one worked for Pleiades one was by definition officially badass.
Rose sat at Ryan's desk listening intently to everything that Lucas was saying to her. He found the whole idea of what Lucas had seen rather unnerving, had he foreseen something? Was the Doctor on his way? Rose pushed that out of her mind as wishful thinking, she may have seen aliens and ghosts and things but a teenage boy who could see the future in his dreams? Even to her it seemed unlikely.
"You think I'm crazy. You're not the first." Lucas said, shocking Rose for a second. Was he telepathic as well? She didn't think him crazy per se, just not completely sane either. She shook her head quickly.
"Not at all. But, Lucas, you need to be able to trust me."
"Why?"
Now that was the question that she'd hoped to avoid. In all honesty, there wasn't really a reason for Lucas to trust her or tell her anything about what he'd seen and what he knew of the Doctor. What he told her he'd seen was totally plausible and likely, except it hadn't happened yet, at least not to Rose's knowledge and that unsettled her and elated her at the same time. She was ecstatic about the fact that her and the Doctor were to meet again and that Sarah was apparently alive still, but what worried her was that Lucas himself was not present at this scene. She'd asked Lucas at least three times if he was there and he said that in his dream he was standing as a spectator, not as himself, he was just a disembodied viewpoint that no-one could see but Lucas Smith was definitely not in the room during his dream. Where was he? Was he back at his house or worse was he missing or dead, even? Rose couldn't bear to think about it and she swore to herself to protect Lucas, she felt like she had to she couldn't let him die.
"Any idea of what sort of time this all happened, the dream I mean?"
"It seemed like night, you're thinking it's tonight." Lucas replied. It wasn't a question.
"Exactly, but what is calling the Doctor here?"
"I dunno, maybe he's already here, it's getting dark."
"I dunno, Lucas. If he was already here, why's he hiding, that's not the Doctor's style."
"I'll look in here!" came the sound of a woman from behind at least two doors. Rose jumped to her feet and stood in front of Lucas, in a protective stance. They couldn't teleport out, Sarah had the control and Rose was still feeling queasy from the last trip Sarah had sent her on. A door crashed open in the distance, the woman was getting closer to them. Rose slipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out a knife and held it in front of her, brandishing it as a weapon.
"What are you doing?" Lucas asked, eying the weapon suspiciously. Rose ignored his question, now was not the time for things like that. The footsteps grew louder and the door in front of them was pushed open and a tall woman stood in the doorway. Rose yelled and threw the knife at her. The woman screamed and ducked to the floor, the knife flying over her head.
"Why'd you do that!" Lucas yelled, pushing Rose away from him.
"It was a last resort."
"Last resorts are the ideas that people wanna try out but don't have a reason to." Lucas retorted, leaving Rose dumbfounded by his sudden display of psychology or philosophy, she wasn't sure which. Lucas darted out from behind Rose and ran over to the woman helping her up. Rose sneered and sidled over to them, looking greatly unimpressed with the woman. She was tall and had dark hair, skin and eyes. She was dressed in a pink T-Shirt and blue jeans and she was looking rather scared by Lucas and Rose.
"Who are you?" Lucas asked. The woman remained silent, looking at Lucas and then at Rose and then at Lucas again. She let out a whimpering sigh and Rose rolled her eyes.
"He asked you a question."
"I'm someone who nearly got impaled by La Femme Nikita here."
"Please, just tell us your name." Lucas asked her.
Silence. Rose was getting annoyed at this woman. If she didn't start helping then Rose's knife would be flying at her again. "Listen, random woman. Tell us who you are or next time I won't miss."
"Rose!" Lucas yelled, chastising her. Was she getting told off by a boy nine years her junior? "Can you just tell us?" he asked the woman. She nodded, obviously less intimidated by Lucas than she was Rose.
"My name's Martha. Martha Jones."
"I'm Lucas Smith, and that's Rose Tyler. Her bark's worse than her bite."
Rose scowled.
Jex was not pleased at the current situation. Not only had two of the three people inside the house that he and Rocket had been instructed to take out had escaped but the third who had stayed behind hadn't died after he'd shot her. That was greatly irritating the Pleiades agent, when he shot you; you died, that was how these things worked yet Sarah Jane Smith remained alive in the back of his truck. He sighed and strode back into the garden of the London house, where his partner was standing in he middle of the lawn, looking ahead of her. She had long red hair that was tied up in an intricate French plait and she, like Jex was dressed in the black outfit with seven small stars on the back of the left shoulder that all members of Pleiades had. She sensed Jex approach and turned around to face him. Jex wasn't shocked by her display of almost superhuman alertness, he was all too used to it.
"What have you found out, Rocket?" Jex asked as he reached her. She didn't answer verbally, all she did was shrug in response. Jex rolled his eyes irritably at her response, he was hoping for a more loquacious response from the red head. Rocket however did seem to have other ideas. Jex stood beside Rocket and looked at what she was looking it, there was nothing there although she had seemed transfixed a few seconds previously, what had she been staring it? Was it relevant to the disappearance of the other two?
"What are you staring at?"
"Don't you sense it?" she responded, almost instantly. No, but then again I'm not a freak.
"Sense what?"
"Jonah, you are so stupid sometimes." Rocket replied with a smile. Jex clenched his fists, so that he didn't use it to break Rocket's jaw for just saying that, he'd get her back later. He turned and stood in front of her and stared into her deep emerald eyes.
"So, Melissa, what do you sense?"
"Teleportation sphere."
"Teleportation spheres? Is that possible, Hunter said that was impossible."
"Hunter's seventeen years old, maybe you should listen to his mother not him, because last time I checked Hunter wasn't our boss, he was just some spoilt brat raised by the greatest leader that Pleiades has ever had."
"Leaders." Jex corrected. Pleiades, unlike that pathetic rookie group Torchwood, had seven leaders, not one. A group of seven sisters to keep up the origin of the name. Of course one of the seven was the most prevalent and this woman was Hunter's mother. Jex hadn't met a single one of the seven sisters yet, but often met with Hunter, he was the closest Jex got to the leaders which Rocket often taunted, she had met the leader herself.
"Yes, well whatever. At least I've met them. We'll take the old girl to HQ, then we will head to Torchwood Tower, that's where the other two went."
"How do you know that?"
"You really are stupid, aren't you Jonah? That woman is Sarah Jane Smith, she's the head of Torchwood!"
Everything suddenly fell into place in Jex's mind, like a jigsaw puzzle just magnetically solving itself. Jex and Rocket had been assigned to take out the leader of the opposing organization and anyone affiliated with her so that Pleiades could well and truly take control over alien activity and Torchwood would be crushed into the dust. Jex sighed and reluctantly agreed to do what Rocket suggested they do, she wasn't his boss but at least she had an idea and that was definitely a start.
"Let's go then."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lucas couldn't believe what he'd just seen Rose Tyler do. She'd just hurled a knife at someone who had just walked into the room, regardless of who she was and the fact that she was unarmed and posed absolutely no threat whatsoever. Be that as it may, Lucas was still rather impressed with Rose, she didn't take any prisoners, not anymore; she was different to how she had acted in his dream, in his dream she had been rather docile, just standing on the sidelines whilst the illustrious Doctor and his Aunt Sarah did the majority of the work, how it ended Lucas had no idea, he'd woken up seconds before the two people that they'd been fighting shot at the captured Doctor, Sarah and Rose. Lucas assumed that they'd escaped, he knew his aunt well enough to know that she wouldn't just sit there and allow herself and two others to get shot, no matter how big the guns pointed in her face were. Lucas knelt beside Martha and shot a glare at Rose, he didn't want to be angry at his only potential ally but she had had no right to do that to Martha, no matter how dangerous the situation had been. He watched as Rose placed her hands on her hips and walked over into Sarah's office and sat down in the large leather chair. Lucas didn't follow her, he wasn't looking for an argument right now, it wasn't going to help the situation any. Lucas sighed and turned to Martha who had finally calmed herself down.
"Feeling better?" Lucas asked her. She nodded slightly, not looking at him, her eyes staying fixed on the floor. Lucas had many questions for Martha Jones and now she'd finally remembered how to talk without panicking he could ask them. "How did you get here, Martha?"
She looked up at him, obviously reluctant to answer the question. Lucas had a pretty good idea of how she'd got in though, she wasn't in his dream but he was almost certain that she was affiliated with the only person in the dream that wasn't yet encountered by Lucas. "Did the Doctor let you in?"
Whatever Martha had been expecting, it sure as hell wasn't that. She stared at him with wide eyes and Lucas took that as absolute confirmation.
"How did you..."
"It doesn't matter, is he here?"
Martha nodded. The glass door from behind them shattered as it was forcefully thrust open and a wild eyed Rose strode over to them. She stood over Lucas and Martha and spoke one word to them.
"Where?"
She didn't' have to wait around for an answer, the door that Martha had come through opened again and a man dressed in a brown tweed suit and white trainers stood there, holding Rose's thrown knife in his hand.
"Martha, I've said before, don't walk..." he began, before registering the three people in the room. He looked at Martha and Lucas and then saw Rose. He dropped the knife in shock.
"Oh.." he began
"My.." Lucas continued, equally as stunned as the man.
"God!" Rose finished staring at the man. Lucas stood up and looked at the man. He looked at the men and instantly knew his name. The Doctor was in the building.
Lucas' head was now staring to really hurt him. He'd had a dream about two total stranger, both of whom were now in the room with him as well as some random woman who Rose had tried to impale. He was totally disillusioned at what was going on, yet he knew that if the Doctor was here it was not a good omen.
Lucas slowly stood up and stared at the man before him, who was looking solely at Rose, as if Lucas and Martha weren't even in the room. It seemed that Lucas and Martha could start river dancing or singing Grease duets and the Doctor and Rose wouldn't even bat an eyelid. Lucas cleared his throat loudly and Rose snapped back into reality and looked over at him. About time.
"What are you doing here, Doctor?"
"How do you know my name."
"He dreamt it." Rose explained, as Lucas opened his mouth to answer the question himself. He folded his arms tightly and screwed up his face, like a toddler who had just been told off for doing something they should have done.
"You dreamt about me?" the Doctor said, sounding a mixture of worried and pleased.
"Don't get big headed, you weren't that interesting." Lucas said, rolling his eyes. He was beginning to tire of all this chaos, he hadn't asked for any of it, nor did he want to be part of it. He just wanted to find Sarah and Aurora and perhaps play a game of patience. "Enough of this crap. I'm getting the hell out of here."
And there was no way of stopping him. He pushed past the Doctor, hitting his arm with his shoulder and forcefully pushed the door open, and stormed out of it as it slammed shut behind him. He didn't know his way around Torchwood Tower very well, but he had a brief idea how to get home and no-one, not even the infamous Doctor was going to stop him. Lucas kicked open a door and walked past a niche in the wall, without even looking at it and stormed down the nearby staircase. Behind him a pair of emerald green eyes opened in the niche and Rocket stepped out, smiling and followed Lucas down the stairs, her hands firmly on her revolver.
He was getting restless. Hunter Pritchard sat in a large drawing room, his feet up on the large pine desk in front of him, his body slouched low in the large leather chair, his eyes half open. He just wanted Jex to get back to him on how the mission had gone. How hard was it to kill a few people? He would have done it himself, if he didn't have so much to lose. If his mother found out what he was up to, she'd have him hanging my his tongue over some cobras for three days. And if Jex even spoke to Rocket about him then Hunter would have to dispatch Jex and Rocket himself, no matter the personal ramifications of doing so. It had been so long since Hunter had killed someone, a whole three weeks. And he was only seventeen.
Hunter Pritchard was born on a dark December night to Clara and Tyler Pritchard, the head of the Pleiades and a ruthless assassin. There was no way that this boy was going to be anywhere near to partially normal. Hunter made his first acquaintance with death at the age of three. It was at this age that he witnessed the murder of his uncle at the hands of the Torchwood Estate. Hunter recalled the memory well. It was shortly after his third birthday and he had hidden in a closet whilst playing a game of hide and seek with his cousins Alec and Jay. His uncle, Darren, entered the room, unaware of Hunter's presence in the room and sat down on the bed and began crying into his hands. Hunter was concerned, even at the age of three, Hunter had never seen Darren cry, nor did he even consider him capable of such an act. Hunter slid down to the floor of the closet and opened the door a crack so that his view of Darren was better.
What's the matter, Uncle Darren?
His answer came sooner that he'd anticipated. Two burly men and one thin woman walked into the room and pulled Darren to his feet. Hunter didn't need to be told that these three people were not there for high tea with his uncle.
"Get up, you pathetic ingrate!" yelled one of the men at Darren. Darren didn't get up but was soon pulled to his feet by the other man who snarled as he did it. Clearly the second man wasn't clever and was just the brawn of the operation; it seemed that the woman was in charge of this operation. She pulled her long ash blonde hair out of a bun and it cascaded about her shoulders and she looked at Darren with a smile.
"You've been causing us problems, Mr. Addison." she said. Darren was the husband of Clara's twin sister, Tara, hence why his surname was different to Hunter's.
"And you have threatened my family, you bitch." he spat back at the woman. She scowled and hit him hard around the face with the back of her hand. The two men only smiled and watched as the woman hit him.
"Hold your tongue, Darren. Unless you want it posted to your beloved sons."
"Leave them out of this!"
"I didn't ask your permission." she retorted, walking over to the first man. She whispered something to him and he nodded and pulled a revolver out of his bag and handed it to her. She smiled and the pointed the gun at Darren's chest.
"You've been causing us problems, Mr. Addison." she repeated before shooting three bullets into Darren's chest. Hunter wanted to scream, he had to physically place his hands over his mouth to prevent any sound from escaping it. He sat on the floor of the closet in silence, his eyes fixed on Darren's body for what seemed like hours until the killers left. Hunter slowly slid out of the closet and ran downstairs and clung to his father for the rest of the evening, not telling a could about what he'd seen. He was desperate for revenge. Luckily, the three people were easily identifiable due to their uniforms. At age six, Hunter got his revenge. He followed the woman to her workplace and pretended to be a homeless orphan and luckily she offered to give him some food and he was guided inside the small Colchester office of Torchwood. Inside his pocket was an explosive device he'd stolen from his father's office when Hunter was there a few days previously. Hunter was now showing signs of wisdom and planning way beyond his years and as soon as he was inside he placed the device underneath the table and then ran out, after confirming that the woman and two other men were inside the building. As Hunter reached the street a large explosion erupted behind him. The office was instantly destroyed and anyone inside it was automatically killed. Hunter threw himself to the ground and after a few seconds picked himself up and walked back to his playgroup, not too far away from the building.
When Tyler found out Hunter's involvement he was overjoyed. His son had chosen to follow the same profession as he had done, although Hunter's first kill had been when he was six and that worried Tyler. Had he spawned some sort of psychotic murdering child? Out of fear Tyler kept a close eye on Hunter for the next eight years, until Hunter was fourteen and Tyler was killed on assignment, ordered to kill the new boss of Torchwood, Sarah-Jane Smith. He was found by Torchwood officials and executed by a firing squad. Hunter had leant a long time ago that Pleiades and Torchwood existed outside the laws of England, they did what they wanted. If you were a threat, you were eliminated and if you were on the death list you were already dead. Sarah-Jane had been lucky that day and Hunter was still determined that she'd get what was coming to her. She was the head of the institute that had killed his uncle and father and was the main competition of the organization that his mother was head of. In short, Hunter Pritchard detested Sarah-Jane Smith, anyone affiliated to her and in particular the Torchwood Institute.
Hunter sat up in his chair and stared at his mobile phone, willing it to ring with news of Sarah's demise at the hands of Jex, just as he had ordered. What good was being the son of the leader of Pleiades if he wasn't going to manipulate impressionable underlings? Rocket was out of his league, she was way too important and smart to be played by a seventeen year old, even this seventeen-year-old, whereas Jex had as much intelligence as a dead goldfish. He picked up his phone and dialed Jex's number and placed the phone onto speakerphone mode and waited for Jex to pick up. After three rings it connected and Jex's low drawl entered Hunter's ears.
"Jex"
"Oh, you're alive? Good. It's Hunter here."
"Oh, hello there, sir. What can I do you for?"
Hunter rolled his eyes, he wasn't Jex's boss, as much as Jex, and Hunter, may like to think he was. Hunter knew he was more than capable of heading his own division, yet his mother refused to allow him to have any part of Pleiades. That hard worked well, hadn't it?
"How did the mission go?"
"Not as well as planned. The target was not alone."
"I am aware. I told you that myself. Her nephew and niece would likely have been present. Did I not make it explicitly clear that they were just collateral damage and unimportant? I trust they were taken care of as well."
"Not exactly, sir, no. We lost them."
"WHAT!" Hunter bellowed at the phone on the desk. A whimper from Jex was heard on the other end and Hunter let out a deep sigh of annoyance. How could Jex be that stupid? There were teenagers for God's sake!
"How did they evade your excellent skills." he said, quite obviously sarcastically.
"Well, I don't know, sir. And thank you, sir."
"Any ideas?"
"Rocket thinks that it could be a teleportation sphere."
"I already told you, that was impossible, you idiot. Now, what of Sarah Jane. Tell me she's dead."
There was a moment of silence on Jex's end before the sound of him breathing heavily was heard followed by his quivering voice.
"She's dead, sir."
"Excellent, no finish the job. The other two will have fled to Torchwood, go there now."
"Of course, sir. I'm just outside it, Rocket's gone in ahead."
That's because Rocket's got a brain Hunter thought as he heard Jex's reply. He sighed and replied to Jex. "Then follow her in. I'll call back later and they better be dead or me and you will be having serious problems, do you understand me?"
"Perfectly. Goodbye, sir."
Hunter hung up without bidding Jex good luck or saying goodbye, he was dead already. If Torchwood didn't kill him that Hunter would. Why? Because Sarah-Jane Smith was definitely not dead. Had she been then Jex would have said so immediately as Hunter asked, and not have to psych himself up to lie to him. Jex knew the ramifications and his fear was understandable. The idiot will pay for his deception.
Hunter flung his legs onto the floor and stood up, pulling a gun out of a nearby drawer and inspecting the knife he kept in his jeans pocket before striding out of the drawing room, en route to Torchwood Tower.
Jex sat in the driver's seat of his four by four, a phone clenched tight in his hands as he looked up at the building that many knew as Canary Wharf. He had business in there tonight, he was to do what Hunter had instructed him to do; eliminate the two who were at the house and then Sarah-Jane. Granted, Sarah-Jane should be dead already, yet she remained alive in the boot of this very car. Jex pushed that thought to the back of his mind and placing two guns into his coat pocket, stepped out of his car onto the pavement beside the large building and slowly walked in.
The eleventh chime of Big Ben was barely audible for Jex, he was unconcerned with the time, all he cared about was earning himself back into Hunter's good graces, he'd caused enough trouble by being incapable of killing Miss Smith. He proceeded to the lift and pressed the button for the top level and the door slid closed and he ascended. Jex wondered what had become of Rocket, she would probably be in the building already, in the Breach Room, surrounded by the bodies of those who had escaped. Jex smiled at the image, it was rather amusing. The lift jittered along slowly as it made it's way up the numerous stairs towards the top floor of the Torchwood Tower.
Think of how Mr. Pritchard will reward me for killing them.
That thought was what was keeping Jex focused. Hunter had the connections to get Jex promoted in the Pleiades, and overtake Rocket in the sister's favours. He'd figured out a while ago that Hunter was indeed his way in to the movers and the shakers, and he'd do anything that Hunter instructed. The only thing that Jex hadn't factored into his equation was that Hunter was miles smarter than Jex was, Hunter had killed three people with explosive before he hit puberty. Jex was 26 when he first used a bomb; Hunter was six. That showed the mental differences between the two. The lift slowly pulled to a halt and opened into the Breach Room. Jex pulled out his guns and ran into the room and was presented with three people, two girls and a man. Jex was confused, there weren't meant to be this many people here. He pointed his left hand gun at the man and the right hand gun at the blonde in leather. Two shots were fired, Rose and Martha screamed and the Doctor yelled out the name of his companion whereas Jex yelled out in panic. All four crashed to the floor and remained there unmoving. Two seconds later a loud crack was heard and in a flash of white light a teenage boy with brown hair appeared in the room and looked at the four bodies around him and laughed to himself. It was exactly what he had planned.
"Oh, Jonah. You're so reliably thick." he said, pulling a knife out of his jeans pocket. The boy laughed again and threw the knife like a dart. The blade slid into Jex's head as if his skull wasn't even there. Jex was killed in an instant. The boy smiled to himself but his amusement at eliminating Jex was short-lived as a girl's scream punctured the silence. Martha was now sitting up, screaming at Jex's corpse and pointing frantically at the boy.
"Oops." said the boy, pulling the knife out of Jex's head and looking at Martha who had gotten to her feet. "You gotta die now." he finished throwing the knife in Martha's direction. She screamed again and sped out of the door that Lucas had used just moments before, the boy hot on her tail. He smiled. Hunter was going hunting.
Lucas wanted nothing to do with anything that Rose wanted to say to him, he was furious at her and at Aunt Sarah. What was she playing at sending him here? Maybe she'd rather him get killed than have to deal with him all the time. Yeah, right. She'd have killed Aurora long along if that were the case. He angrily pushed a door open and strode threw it, now entering a large empty room with a large wall length window on one side, looking out over London, the Thames snaking along the industrial areas like a snake slithering along the savannah. Lucas sighed. He didn't know what he was caught up in or why and he had no idea how to get out of it, but he assumed that Rose or at least this "Doctor" would be able to help, even though at the moment neither had done anything to remotely help Lucas yet so why should he trust them?
"I'm gonna get myself killed if I stay here."
"That can be arranged."
Lucas spun around and saw a woman, no older than Rose was, standing before him in almost identical attire to what Miss Tyler was wearing upstairs. This woman was taller, slimmer and had much more of a threatening air about her. She smiled at Lucas and flicked a few errant strands of deep red from her shoulder to behind it so she could see her prey much better.
"Who are you?" Lucas demanded, backing towards the large window, wary of who this woman was.
"That is not relevant, Lucas Smith."
"How do you know-"
"You name? Your aunt causes my bosses problems. I've very aware who you are."
"You're one of them aren't you! Pleiades!"
"Intelligent as well. Too bad it'll be wasted."
"On you, keep dreaming."
Rocket didn't seem bothered by Lucas' sarcastic retorts or his false over confidence. She was neither interested in him nor prepared to listen to him for much longer. Lara had given her direct instructions to takes out all of Sarah Jane Smith's affiliates which included her family and one of those stood before her in front of a window, how fortunate. She could shoot him and if the bullet didn't kill him the fall would. Excellent. She pulled out a gun and Lucas' eyes widened. he seemed scared, just the way she liked them. She placed her finger on the trigger. The sound echoed through the halls of Torchwood Tower.
Rose slowly floated back into consciousness and looked around. Martha and Lucas were gone, and the man who's attacked them was now dead, stabbed in the head and splayed out in front of Rose. She slowly stood up, checking herself for any injury and then walked over to the Doctor and kicked him three times hard.
"Wake up!"
She was past being nice to the Doctor now. Any hope that she had that he'd tried to find her, or felt for her like she did for him were dashed when Jex had attacked. She was shot at and the Doctor called out to Martha not to her. To Little Miss New Companion, Miss Look-at-me. And look where she was now. She bailed, left the Doctor alone, maybe he'd finally know how it felt. She looked back over to the Doctor who was now slowly getting up, rubbing his side to ease the pain caused by Rose's kick.
"What was that for?"
"You wanted to stay down there?"
He stood up and walked over to Rose, looking annoyed. Rose simply ignored his progression towards her, as if it was unworthy of her attention. She sat on Ryan's desk and swung her legs and checked her nails.
"Where is she?"
"Who?"
"Martha."
"Martha. Doesn't ring a bell. Oh, wasn't she that girl on Woman Wept?"
"Rose." he said, trying to get her to be serious.
"Yes?"
"Have you hur--"
"Of course not. I can be jealous at times, but I don't kill people."
"I never…"
"Yes you did. Never mind. I'm sure Margaret's fine."
"Martha."
"That's what I said, Marley."
She jumped off her desk and turned to face the Doctor. She now had a fire in her eyes that she hadn't felt for a long time, not since the Doctor had left her the first time on that parallel world. She knew he couldn't get to her, but that didn't stop the pain she felt: the abandonment.
"Did you try to find me?" she blurted out. She hadn't meant to say it, guess it was just one of those Freudian slips or whatever they were called. The Doctor looked caught off guard, as if he didn't have an answer to the question that had just been asked. He looked at the floor and then looked back at Rose, his eyes just as filled with latent fire as hers were.
"You know I couldn't have gotten to…"
"Does that mean you didn't?" Rose interjected.
"It would have been…"
"A waste of time? A futile cause? Not worthy of your effort?"
"No. I just knew that I couldn't ever see you again and that is why I traveled far away from Earth for a good few months until I could face going back. I haven't even been back to London yet, in anytime as it reminds me too much of you. Is that what you want to hear Rose? Is it?"
"You could have come!"
"I couldn't"
"You could have at least tried."
"Why, Rose? So I could be let down? Let myself get excited about some non-existent chance to cross over to your world? I couldn't Rose! So I did what I had to and kept traveling."
"And picked by Marigold."
"Martha." the Doctor corrected again.
"Whatever. But now you're here and so am I what's going to happen? Gonna jump back in the TARDIS with Martha and zoom off at full pelt and leave me high and dry again?"
"Again? You would rather have been sucked into the void than be with your family?"
"I would rather have been sucked into the void than lose you! There you go, there's your beloved answer. You were the whole point of my life and then it was just over and what happens after? Nothing, Doctor! Nothing. I've waited six years for you, jumping from one reality to the next on every July 8th in the hopes of finding you and now I have I wish you'd just go again."
Rose ran past the Doctor burying her head in her hands, tears streaming fast down her face, dropping occasionally onto the polished floor of the Breach Room. She hurried away from the Doctor, all she wanted to do was distance herself from what she had just said and to whom she'd said it. She ran down the corridors, pulling off her jacket and throwing it down the stairs, so that she was now wearing a red T-Shirt and she backed into a room and crashed into a large piece of wood. She spun round and came face to face with a large blue box, one she hadn't seen in six years: the TARDIS.
Rose panicked and slowly walked backwards out of the room, she couldn't go in there even though she still had her key for it, it was in her pocket when she was teleported to the parallel world and has kept it on her person at all times, just in case. She slowly walked down the stairs, unknowingly following Lucas' trail from the Breach Room. She wondered where Martha was, or where Lucas was and who had killed Jex and what the Doctor was going to do now she'd yelled at him. Then she suddenly saw a brush of red hair. Someone, presumably a woman, was wondering the corridors. Rose silently followed the red haired woman and was quick to notice the gun in her holster. Whoever she was, she was not to be antagonized. She reached the door that the woman had just gone through and heard her speak.
"That's not relevant, Lucas Smith"
Rose gasped. Lucas was in there and he was in trouble if this woman was around. Lucas yelled something at the woman, sounded like some Greek word or something and then the woman replied and the sound of a gun cocking was heard. It was then Rose chose to act and pushed the door open, the sound of the doors crashing open echoed round the halls.
"Lucas!"