A short chapter compared to the others but it didn't feel right to have this one with other scenes.
Chapter 4
As it turned out, the late Barlow had quite a few useful possessions, all of which Alex procured from the deceased man's body before burying him in a shallow but reverential grave. Among his possessions were a blanket, a fur coat (the source of which Alex wasn't certain), a large knife (the same Barlow had threatened Rose's life with), and a couple of sharp sticks which the Doctor supposed were some kind of eating utensils. The half-Gallifreyan chose not to remove the man's clothing as they wouldn't have been useful to either him or Rose and the act seemed too disrespectful.
That evening Alex and Rose walked far enough to feel as if they were clear of the area Nuru and his band claimed for themselves. The person who had been following them had apparently lost interest after the event with the marauders and stopped following them, much to their relief. It still bothered both of them that they had been followed in the first place.
They finally found a clean water source: a river which seemed to flow from the direction of the high mountains. After Alex made sure that the water was clean by smelling and tasting it – and with Rose's "Bad Wolf" senses assuring them Alex was right - they took the opportunity to wash up. They even decided to rinse their clothes, even though it meant that they'd be wearing wet attire through the night. It wasn't ideal and their clothes still needed to be washed properly but at least they both felt a little cleaner for their endeavors.
As they warmed themselves beside a fire the Doctor had made, Rose pulled out what little food they'd been allowed to keep. As she did so, she glanced over at Alex, who had pulled out his sonic and was using it to remove the back of his phone. "What are you doing?" she questioned with a frown.
"Isn't it obvious?" he replied gently. He extended his hand towards her. "Give me your phone."
She obeyed slowly, watching him with concern. "I thought you wanted to reserve the sonic's power in case we need it."
"You deserve a last… You deserve a chance to talk to Jackie and Pete and Tony. They should know where we are and that it'll be a long time before we'll be home again." Sniffing gently, he again focused on his work while Rose waited, any appetite she might have had diminished by his words.
Thirty minutes passed before he gestured her to come closer. The blonde woman looked at his work, seeing that he'd somehow scavenged enough copper from his own phone to connect the sonic screwdriver to her phone.
"There's enough power for five minutes – ten minutes at most," he told her. "It's fragile so putting it up to your ear isn't viable; you'll have to put it on speaker. If you want to talk to your Mum on your own, I can step away."
She shook her head slightly. "No. You're family too." She gave him a sad smile before looking on the contraption he'd created. Finding Jackie's number, she auto-dialed it before putting it on speaker. Together, they waited, hoping the matriarch answered.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
When a whole month had passed and there was still no word or sign of the Doctor and Rose, most of Torchwood had wondered if they would ever be found and some even believed that they were dead. The Tylers, however, never gave up hope that they would be found. Every day since Alex and Rose had disappeared, Jackie had put two candles in the window in the hopes that somehow they would find their way home. Pete never questioned her on her reasons, knowing that it was her way of coping with the situation. He himself had his own way of coping as he continually went over every piece of evidence collected to try to find out what exactly had happened on that pier. He wasn't alone in his search, however. Jake Simmonds also refused to believe that his best friends were dead and it appeared that the evidence was proving them correct at last.
Analysis of the scorch mark finally came up with a possible reason for its existence. One of the Torchwood physicists postulated that the burn could have been caused by some sort of high powered teleportation device and that the DNA left behind was just a side effect of the intensity of the energy used during teleportation. While it couldn't be proven with the limited technology Earth had, it was a theory that only reinforced hope in those who still believed the duo was alive.
Proof came thirty-seven days after their disappearance. Pete was in his home office and Jackie had been prepping Tony to take him to the park when her cell phone rang. Sighing with a bit of frustration – Tony was being particularly uncooperative this morning – she pressed the talk button and put the phone to her ear without looking at the caller ID. "Hello?"
"Mum?"
Hearing her daughter's voice nearly caused Jackie to drop the phone. "Oh my god! Rose, is that you?" Turning her head, she shouted towards the office. "Pete, it's Rose! It's Rose!" Seeing her husband rush out of the room in response, she quickly put the phone on speaker. "Sweetheart, where are you? What happened? Is Alex with you?"
"Rose!" Tony exclaimed, no longer annoyed with having to put on a coat. He bounced up and down, wanting to talk to his big sister.
"I'm right here, Jackie," the Doctor replied gently.
"Where are you two? Are you okay?" Turning to her son, she gently admonished, "Go play with your toys. I'll let you talk to her in a little bit." The boy sulked slightly at her words but nonetheless obeyed.
"We're fine, Mum… sort of," Rose answered.
"What do you mean 'sort of'?" Pete questioned.
"Hi, Dad," came the obviously pleased response.
"Hello, love. What happened to you two? You've been missing for over five weeks now. As you can imagine, we're more than a little concerned."
"Five weeks?!" Alex exclaimed in surprise. "Can't be! Unless I didn't configure the universal roaming on the phone…which is possible, actually, considering I had to MacGyver it with the sonic to get enough power just to make this call."
"What's a MacGyver?" Pete questioned with a frown.
"80s show from the old universe," Rose explained. "The main character's really good with rigging things up."
Pete shook his head slightly at Alex's unique vocabulary. "How long have you been gone from your point of view?"
"A week. Nine days tops," the Doctor answered. "To answer your question about what happened, we were pulled off of Earth by a time scoop. It put us on another planet in a different time period. At least I think it's a different time period. Can't really be sure at the moment."
"What planet?" Jackie asked, clearly upset by the news.
Alex hesitated, taking a deep breath before answering. "Gallifrey."
"Your home planet? But I thought it was destroyed. Oh, but you can find a TARDIS! You'll be home soon!"
"Mum, it's not that easy," Rose interrupted her before she could get carried away in her excitement. "It's not the same Gallifrey as in the other universe."
"Well, it is but it isn't," Alex corrected.
"What do you mean?" Pete questioned.
"We haven't run across any Time Lords yet but, based on what I do know of both universes, I've concluded that the Time Lords are the Powerful Ones that Aderyn was afraid of and therefore hold a vast and dangerous empire. We're in an area on Gallifrey known as the Death Zone, which is basically a continent dedicated to forcing people from other worlds to fight for their own survival for the sole purpose of entertaining the Time Lords. It's reality television on a colossal scale. The Time Lords in the other universe abandoned it ages ago but here it's still fully active. We have to find our own food, water, and shelter while avoiding hostiles who are also searching for food, water and shelter. And the Time Lords make it interesting by making all of the necessities difficult to find and in limited supply."
"Can you get back to Earth?" Pete asked somberly.
"I think so but it will take time."
"How much time?" Jackie queried with growing concern.
"If we're lucky, a few weeks. Maybe months. But I think it's more likely that it'll be longer. I'm sorry." He was speaking not only to the Tylers on Earth but also the Tyler standing right beside him who was clearly disquieted by his words.
There was a long pause as all four pondered on his words. Jackie was already failing to hold back her own tears, though she held her verbal reaction back for her daughter's sake. On the other side of the conversation, the reminder of just how long it could be before she sees home – if ever – brought tears to Rose's eyes.
"We're running out of power," Alex interrupted the silence gently. "We have maybe a minute left. We need to say goodbye now."
"Mum, bring Tony back," Rose requested, tears in her voice. "I want to talk to him."
Jackie obeyed the request and called her youngest child back from playing with his toys. She then gave him the phone and reminded him that Rose and Alex was on the other end.
"Rose! Doctor!" the boy exclaimed.
"Master Tony Tyler!" Alex replied with a smile.
"Hi, Tony," Rose responded with equal pleasure. "Have you been good?"
"Uh-huh. I started going to school and we play in a big playground with swings and ladders and color pictures and write words. I tried to write Raxicocoflapatorus but it's too long to put on the paper and the teacher says it isn't a real word but I told her I learned it from the Doctor who knows lots of big words she doesn't know. When are you coming home? I miss you!"
"It's going to be a while, sweetie," the blonde answered, her voice shaking slightly.
"But we'll try our best to come home as soon as possible," the Doctor added quickly. "I promise. Until then, you have to make me a promise to be good and study hard. And don't argue with your teacher. She can't help it if she's never heard of Raxacoricofallapatorius."
Tony sighed slightly at the admonishment. "Okay."
"We have to go now, Tony," Alex continued gently. "Give the phone back to your mum."
"I love you, Tony," Rose stated emphatically. "We both do."
"I love you too. Bye," Tony replied before surrendering the phone to his mother, plainly not understanding the implications of the conversation.
"Rose, are you still there?" Jackie questioned, a hint of frantic in her voice.
"Yeah, still here," the daughter replied, her emotions now reflecting strongly in her voice.
The matriarch sniffed back her tears, knowing that this could be the last time she ever spoke with her eldest child. "You take care of yourself, sweetheart. Both you and the Doctor. And you come back home, all right?"
"I will," she replied, barely able to get the words out due to her own crying. "I promise. I love you, Mum and Dad."
"We love you, too," Pete answered, his wife unable to speak further as she buried her face into his shoulder. "Doctor, take care of her." He paused, waiting for a response. "Alex?" he pressed when he didn't get a reply.
Jackie's mobile chimed to indicate that the call had been disconnected.
Putting the phone down on a table by the door, Peter wrapped his arms around Jackie and finally allowed himself to silently cry as the latter wept openly for her missing child and her dear friend.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Back on Gallifrey, Alex dropped the now powerless communications device and held Rose tightly as she sobbed, not saying a word as he provided comfort – and received comfort in return by the action. The two stayed as they were as the suns set and night fell on the land, turning the sky dark orange.
Finally, when Rose had cried all she could and Alex himself was emotionally drained, the two parted slowly and looked into each other's eyes.
"We better set camp," Alex said quietly, unsure what else to say under the circumstances and needing the silence to be broken.
Rose nodded slowly in agreement.
The Doctor wiped the last of the tears from Rose's cheeks. "We will get home," he told her with conviction.
"Damn right, we will." She gave him a sad smile before moving off to collect firewood.