Disclaimer: Doctor Who is owned by a large corporation. I am one ordinary teenage girl. Draw your own conclusions.
"Dadtor! Dadtor! Dadtor!" The cries echo through the small cottage.
Rose is stumbling across the room before she even awakes. She sits on his bed and gathers him into her arms, faintly crooning a lullaby remembered from the memories she tries not to examine.
"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…"
It's when she hears what he's sobbing that she freezes.
"Matthew?"
"I won't break, I won't! It hurts, help me."
"Matthew?"
She lifts his face to hers. It isn't her son in those eyes.
"Matthew!"
His eyes clear and fill with fear.
She rocks him for the rest of the night as he sobs uncontrollably.
xxx
"What can you remember?"
"Not much, it's, it's almost like I was…possessed."
Rose recalls Cassandra's possession of her body. Standing aside, a spectator.
"Was it one of those dreams?"
"No…no, but it was the same person."
"How do you know?"
"I don't know how. They just, sort of, feel the same. Sorry, that makes no sense. But they were hurt, desperate. They wanted…Sorry."
"Matthew? Matthew, how do they want?"
He wordlessly shakes his head.
"Matthew, there is something that gets inside your head. What does it want?"
He closes his eyes, concentrating. The word is there, floating just beyond the dividing line between him and something else.
"Dadtor. It wants him. The man in brown. The most important person in the whole universe." He follows the thought further. "He didn't like that. But she spent a week calling him Thay-" He mentally reels back as something hit him.
Rose's fingers are gripping him painfully tight. "Thay-"
"She hit me! She pushed me away."
Rose doesn't even seem to register the shift to a feminine entity. "Thay-"
"Rose! Rose!" Lydia bursts through the door.
"You look like you just ran clear across town."
"I…" Lydia gasps for breath, "I did."
"What's so earth-shatteringly wonderful slash terrible that you've run all the way here?"
"Don't you mean Mayblossom-shatteringly wonderful slash terrible?"
Rose rolls her eyes. "Who named this place?"
"I don't know. One of the original revolutionaries. The rest of us got given a choice: evacuate or be isolated."
"So what's so Mayblossom-shatteringly wonderful slash terrible?"
"I know!" She waves a sheaf of papers in the air. Rose remembers the past six months. Lydia has been barely sleeping, intent on discovering her someone.
"You know?"
"I know! I found out!"
"No, no, you weren't supposed to do that."
"Why did you challenge me then? You know I'm always determined to win."
"I don't know! A chemical imbalance caused by collapsing?"
Lydia raises an eyebrow. "Or perhaps it was a seemingly impossible task set to occupy my time and stop me asking? Because there are people who would be very interested in Matthew?"
Rose nods silently.
"Matthew. Listen, Rose. Matthew. He's a child. I know him for who he is, I'm not going to use him for what he is. I'm not going to use the knowledge of what you are, what you've done, what he is or who your someone is. And I won't let anyone else."
She runs from the cottage and Rose and Matthew follow.
Rose watches open-mouthed as Lydia carefully and thoroughly destroys all her research.
xxx
Her arm's close to being yanked out of its socket, but that doesn't mean she's actually going to stand up. Apart from the physical pain, it's quite satisfying to have to be dragged down the corridor. She's not going to make it easy for them. They tried to pick her up but she was too heavy. That might have had something to do with the bricks hidden under her top. In fact, moving her is doing her a favour. Room with bricks plus room with window equals escape. That's the best sum, but she quite likes brick plus Nivas leader equals Nivas leader with a large headache.
The door approaching looks ominous. She's learned to be wary of thick metal doors. Even if it's covered in rust.
He would throw her in if he could. He has to be content with dragging her in and stalking out.
"Aren't you staying? Have you given up?" He snarls and slams the door shut, not missing the pointed looks of his subordinates or the quiet "True love, eh?"
The room is just as old as the door. Cracked flaky bricks which crumble as the vibrations shake the walls.
"Set up a resonation pattern, loosen the bars," Romana smiles.
xxx
That took less time than she thought it might. She doesn't know how much time has passed since she left the Doctor but she's sure he's worried by now. Her hands are sore from slamming them against the door to create vibrations and raw from crumbling the bricks away. She picks up a brick from where she had placed them and uses it to knock the bars away, before smashing the window. There are voices and running footsteps outside the door. She scrambles through the window, kicking the box away from under her. She doesn't even notice as the glass slices at her arms and legs. She falls awkwardly to the pavement, twisting her ankle and sets off in a stumbling run.
Time Lady. Time Lady. Come back.
Rented a tent. Rented a tent. Rented a tent. Concentrate on the gibberish.
Time Lady, come.
Shan't! Won't! You can't control me, you don't know my name. Rented a tent, rented a tent, rented a tent.
Gradually the voice in her head dies away. They only have a limited range. But it leaves pain behind. A lot of pain. So much pain, she can barely see past the purple spots in front of her eyes. She has no idea where she's going; the one thought clinging stubbornly on is to get away.
She knows she's going to collapse, she can tell by the malignant blackness eating at the edges of her vision. She has to reach safety before then.
xxx
Susan Ridley empties her watering can onto the parched, cracked earth. It is instantly absorbed, leaving the soil looking no different to before. She sighs. This heatwave is playing havoc with her garden. She tenderly lifts a drooping rose bloom. It flops back over as she removes the support of her hand.
She turns back to the house, intending to refill the watering can but only takes five steps before something makes her turn round. She's not sure what, but that is driven from her mind as she sees the heap on the pavement.
"Oh good Lord." She's wrenching the gate open and crouching beside the girl in a second. There's a pulse. A strange, erratic pulse but it's there.
"Dear…"
She stirs and moans. "Doctor…"
"Yes, dear. Don't worry, I'll get a doctor. Can you be moved?"
"My head…"
"Have you broken anything?"
"I won't be broken. I won't…"
The poor child seems delirious. The heat won't be doing her any good. She gingerly lifts her in her arms.
"Jack?"
"Ssh, child. Let's get you all fixed up then we can find your family."
"I hate the med-bay. I see more of that than any other room in the Tardis."
A coherent sentence. It would be encouraging if she wasn't talking nonsense. In the Tar-is? Tar is what?
Susan carries her in and, discovering she is apparently incapable of sitting up, lays her across the kitchen table.
"I'll just clean all your cuts up, then we can get you some clean clothes." The oversized t-shirt and shorts are dirty, torn and bloodstained. Catherine's clothes should fit.
She expects some reaction from the girl when she begins to swab her cuts with TCP. Her grandchildren always make such a fuss. But then her grandchildren only ever have grazed knees. These cuts are numerous and deep. Susan gasps as a shard of glass glints in one of the cuts.
"Good grief. What happened to you, child?" She smoothes the messy brown hair back. The girl seems to have fallen unconscious. She carefully tweezers the glass shard out and checks the other cuts. They seem to be free from glass and she cleans them carefully before applying plasters. She would ask what fun design she wants, but it doesn't seem to matter under the circumstances. She uses nearly the whole box anyway. In the end, there are almost more colourful plasters than skin.
"My head…"
"You're awake. That's good. Stay awake, keep talking. What's your name?"
"No…won't tell."
Susan frowns.
"Can you tell me how to find your family? Do you have a family?"
"Don't you dare…"
"It's alright, you're safe. I won't hurt you." She places a hand on the girl's arm. Slowly the girl brings her hand up to Susan's. It seems to reassure her.
"Do you have a headache?"
The reply is faint; she has to lean in to catch it. "It hurts…"
"Don't worry, I'll get you something for that." She finds the Calpo and pours out a spoonful.
"Here." She doesn't respond. Susan shakes her shoulder gently. She stirs.
"Come on, take this. It'll help." She supports her head as the girl obediently swallows.
"I'll go and get you some clean clothes now."
She stops in the doorway and looks back before leaving the room.
xxx
The Doctor and Jack stand in the road, watching the ambulance speed away. Jack looks at his wrist device.
"Romana, or at least her key, is in there."
"I guessed that, Jack!"
Susan overhears the last part as she turns to go inside. She needs to look up the bus route. She would have gone in the ambulance, but the paramedics discouraged it and asked her to come later.
"Excuse me."
The Doctor and Jack turn simultaneously.
"I heard you call him Jack. Are you…are you her family?"
"What happened to Romana?"
"I'm sorry…I'm so sorry…"
Jack hadn't known anyone could go that pale. Absolutely paper-white, huge intense dark eyes dominating his suddenly drawn face.
"I didn't know…it's my fault…I, I found her on the pavement. She seemed delirious…"
"What did she say?"
"I…she…"
"What did she say?" Merciless, relentless, emotionless.
"She said…she said she wouldn't be broken. She asked for a doctor. And she said…" She squeezed her eyes shut, to aid in remembrance and to stop the prickling tears. "She said 'I hate the med-bay. I see more of that than any other room in the Tar-is.'" She opened her eyes again and looked at the two men. "Does that make any sense to either of you?"
"She's as jeopardy-friendly as her mother," he whispers hoarsely.
"She had a very strange pulse…"
Jack interrupts, speaking for the first time. "How strange?" Normal strange or bad strange?
"It… it went, sort of, beat beat pause."
Normal strange. "What happened?" Keep talking, stop thinking.
"I took her indoors and cleaned her cuts. She…she had gashes all over her arms and legs. There was a shard of glass in one. She kept saying her…her head hurt. I…"
The Doctor makes a harsh guttural sound. There's such a strange tone to it; almost like a scream, a rasp and a crack together. His knees buckle and he would probably collapse if Jack wasn't holding him up.
"I can't reach her…she hurts…my head…"
"That's what she said," she whispers.
"Mental attack," Jack whispers to himself.
"What?" Had she heard what she thinks she did?
"What happened next?"
Susan continues hesitantly. There is something very strange about these two men. But then the girl- Romana, he said- was strange. It was a strange name.
"I gave her Calpo. I think she must have had an allergic reaction." The words are fast, tumbling out of her mouth as she admits her guilt. "Because when I came back with clean clothes, she was unconscious again and I couldn't wake her and she was very pale and her pulse was very slow and…"
"What was it?" the Doctor asks flatly. A dual heartbeat is faster than a single heartbeat. For a human to find a dual heartbeat very slow, it has to be dangerously slow. Or no longer a dual heartbeat.
"It sounded better, it was less erratic, but it was only about thirty beats a minute."
Thirty. Less erratic. Jack tries to ignore the sudden nausea.
"Which hospital?"
"St Johns."
"Thank you…"
"Susan. Susan Ridley."
"Thank you Susan." He takes her hand awkwardly, somehow her fingers end up splayed across his wrist. His eyes don't leave her face. She's about to wonder why when she feels the pulse under her fingers. The same strange, inhuman rhythm.
"Good name Susan. I knew a Susan," he says quietly.
She can only stare at him.
"Goodbye, Susan Ridley. Don't answer the door tonight. Trust me."
Before she can ask what he means, he's dropped her hand and the two have run off.
A few minutes later, she hears the noise of unearthly mechanics.
A/N: Yes, this is quite a short chapter. But I wanted to get an update up before I go on holiday tomorrow. There will be no updates for at least two weeks as the chance of internet access is none to none. There isn't even any signal for my mobile…