-1Title:The heir of obligation.
Part 2
Summary:Toshiko Sato is the daughter of the vassal of the mortal enemy of the best friend of Sarah Jane Smith. English translation as follows.
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PART TWO:
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"Correct. Leave."
Rather than reply - again - Jack turned to Tosh. "Why?"
"'Why'?" Tosh repeated, almost laughing at the hilarity of it. "'Why'?"
"Reasonable question."
She nodded. "Because truth is truth, you could say, even to the very end of reckoning." b
"Leave," the Dalek repeated.
"Just one question," Sarah Jane said, taking a single step towards the Dalek.
"Do Not Advance!" turning its little cannon towards her.
"I only have one question."
"Speak."
"If you're really a Dalek -"
"There is no question."
"- then to whom do you have loyalty?"
All was silent, too quiet, for several minutes, before the Dalek said, "Clarify."
"Do you serve the Emperor, the Black Dalek, or maybe someone else. I'd just like to know who ordered my death."
"You will not die."
"We all die."
"Correct."
"So who ordered you to kill me?"
"I will not kill you. I am of Cult of Skaro."
Tosh swallowed, her stomach a heavy pit, and herself feeling a right fool. Right species, right civilization…wrong loyalty! "No," she whispered too quiet for anyone but herself and the Dalek to hear.
"Yes."
"Should this 'cult of Skaro' mean something to me?" Sarah Jane asked.
"The Emperor obeys them," Jack said. "Or at least he did until the Time War."
"So now you're going to dirty your hands with my death?"
"No," it answered, and turned its plunger in the direction of the hand-held water vessels. The plunger pursed itself together, reshaping itself into an open-ended tin can, from which a burst of fire erupted. "Do not interfere." The can collapsed on itself, returning to its plunger shape.
"That's new," Jack said.
"It is not."
Sarah and Tosh nodded.
"Don't mind us," Owen said.
"I think it'd forgotten we were here," Gwen said under her breath.
"Negative," the Dalek said, and thrust its plunger towards the water containers, the arm extending farther and farther, until the plunger gripped one of the containers. Not the one with the hand or the head, but one with a block that looked three-dimensional as long as you didn't try to look right at it.
"Okay," Jack said, "if you're seeing this," referring to the arm, "and not thinking what I'm thinking, I don't know you."
"Okay," Ianto said.
"You didn't need my help at all," Tosh said to the Dalek.
"That is correct," it replied.
"Then why…why did you ask me to do this?" Tosh asked.
"Your loyalty was questioned."
"By who?"
"By I."
"Why?" Have to know.
"You are the production result of the Black Dalek's slave."
"'The inequities of the parents,'" Tosh quoted.
"Yes."
"And her?"
"The inequities of owner."
"Excuse me?" Sarah Jane asked.
"The Doctor will rescue you."
"Don't be too sure."
The iris - in the center of the optical stalk - narrowed. "Explain. Explain."
"I told him to say goodbye. To me," in case the Dalek, super-genius it may be, needed that clarified. "He's gone off."
"You lie!"
"Trust a Dalek to misinterpret the truth," she said with a chuckle.
"Daleks do not misinterpret. Do not. Do not."
"Sounds like he's trying to convince himself," Ianto commented sotto voice. Gwen and Owen nodded.
The iris went back to normal wide field again. "Very well," and retracted the arm, not letting go of the container nor of its contents. Once the arm was back to its traditional length, the arm torus of the Dalek body swiveled, and the arm elongated again, this time lengthening until the vessel was right over the nearest computer (Owen's, as it happens).
"Bloody 'ell," Owen grumbled.
And down went the vessel, crackling the glass just a smidge against the keyboard. Electricity flowed to and from the Dalek and from and to the computer.
"I suppose," Jack said, "this would be a bad time to mention that that wasn't water."
"What is it?"
"Time Tunnel Initiated!" the Dalek intoned.
Nodding, "Time," Jack said.
Sarah Jane recalled something her Doctor had told her: that time-tunneling was very dangerous, particularly in comparison with travel by Tardis. "You had time tunnel technology?"
"A fetal Tardis, actually."
"So that's what it was looking for," Tosh said.
"And found, so it seems," Sarah Jane said.
"Time Tunnel Active," the Dalek said. "Moving!"
"I don't feel anything," Gwen said.
"Wait til we park," Sarah Jane suggested.
"Park?" Jack asked. "You parked?"
"Did you crash?"
"Downhill," Tosh said, "both ways."
"Arrive!" it interrupted them, as the facility felt like it shifted only sideways - and yet felt like it only dropped down a foot. Nobody who was an alien, frequent temporal traveler, genetically altered in utero, or already dead, fell down. In other words, only the Smut Patrol (their unofficial name -- Owen, Gwen, and Ianto) collapsed.
Although the pterodactyl crawled out of its cave, wobbled about on its hind legs, and dropped to the main floor, snoring the snore of chainsaws.
"So hard to find good pets these days," Jack said.
Focusing its vision on Sarah Jane, the Dalek asked her, "Is this true? The Doctor has abandoned you?"
"Not 'abandoned.' Just left. Said goodbye."
"Serve me."
"If he says 'service me,'" Owen quipped, "I'm gonna barf."
"Serve the Daleks."
Eyes narrow, "No," Sarah Jane said.
"Leave this facility," sending an instruction to the cogwheel to roll to the side once more, dry midlands air blowing inside.
"Where are we? What planet?"
"Location is unchanged," the Dalek said. "Arrival two hundred and sixty-five million years before departure. You Will Leave."
"And if I don't?"
"You are Torchwood. They are Torchwood."
"Me for them, is that is now? Is that your equation, now that you can't get to the Doctor through me?"
"Incorrect. Torchwood will die -- individually," saying that word like Daleks always said 'exterminate,' "until you obey."
"Then shoot me first," Tosh said.
The plunger separated from the arm, with the plunger staying where it was, controlled by remote; the arm formed a new plunger, which was brought back and swiveled around to face Tosh. It touched her face, and pulled away as though it had been corrupted.
"That's new," Jack said.
"What?" Tosh asked.
"You," the Dalek said. "You are Mother Of Daleks."
"Shit," Owen said. "Tosh?"
"You are unauthorized," it said to Tosh.
"Then you'll probably want to be quick about it," Tosh said, holding her chin up. As Methos said, 'cut clean.' Lookit, I'm reduced to quoting Canadien tv shows. A sigh. Well, better than the alternative, I suppose.
"You are unauthorized."
"Feedback loop?" Ianto asked, whose knowledge of intelligent machines - Torchwood's mainframe excepted - began and ended with Cyberwomen.
"Possible," Sarah Jane said. "But I doubt it. For one thing, it wouldn't be any better."
"You will wait," the Dalek said to Tosh, "for authorization to deliver."
"Does this mean no sudden delivery in the dead of night?" Tosh asked.
"Maybe you'll get lucky, Tosh, and not have morning sickness," Owen suggested thoughtfully.
Tosh gave him a Look.
"You will deliver the Daleks," it said, "at the time selected by the Daleks. Leave here."
"What, now?"
"Now." Its optics swiveling between Tosh and Sarah Jane, "Both of you."
"Shoot me," Tosh said.
"Leave now." Swiveling towards Jack and the others, "Leave now or they will be exterminated."
"Isn't that par for the course?"
Nodding, "Absolutely," Sarah Jane said. "Isn't extermination what you're bred for?"
"I am Dalek Cult of Skaro Dalek. I think."
"You think therefore you are?" Owen asked, "Or you think you're a Dalek?"
"Nice costume," Jack complimented it.
It turned its optic stalk towards Jack. "You are not a valid target."
"First time anyone's told me that."
"Why's that?" Owen asked.
"He is dead," it replied while firing at Owen.
"NO!" Tosh screamed.
The optical stalk spun around towards Tosh, the weapon now aimed at Ianto. "Leave. Or." When a Dalek said 'or,' it was an option, not a sentence fragment like humans thought of it as.
Closing her eyes and dropping her head so her chin rested on her chest, "Fine," Tosh said. "Okay." You win. "Just…just let me say goodbye to them, and I'll go."
In response, the Dalek went back to watching Sarah Jane.
Tosh walked across Torchwood to where everyone had now gathered. 'I'm sorry," knowing that that wasn't enough, but not knowing what else to say. She crouched down alongside Owen's body as it grew colder, and rested one hand on his chest. "I'm sorry," and felt a slight itch along the heel of that hand. (a subcutaneous itch, mind you)
Owen gasped for breath. "Tosh?" hoping that this wasn't going to be a replay of the Glove Incident with Suzie.
"Dalek biotechnology," the Dalek said, not turning anything towards them. "Memetic programming reworking behavior of genetic sequences. You are Torchwood. You serve the Daleks."
Tosh closed her eyes.
"We serve…the Queen," Owen said, and Tosh smiled that, even now, even in his curent state, he was still good ol' Owen.
"Your founder accepted what few orders we gave her. We instructed her to create Torchwood. Her reasoning and motivations beyond us are irrelevant." Now swinging the stalk to look at Tosh. "You have acted. Leave." Looking again at Sarah Jane, "Leave," it said to her as well.
Tosh stood up, "Bye," she said to Owen, and said it again as she passed Ianto.
Impulsively, Ianto grabbed her by her upper arms, pulled her to him, and planted a firm kiss on her lips. Then he let go; and Tosh blinked, surprised, as she headed for the cogwheel door.
"Later, Tosh," Owen said as she stepped over the lip of the doorway, planting a foot in the caked pan of an empty grassless veldt. Baked mud underfoot, Toshiko stepped fully out of the facility, Sarah Jane following.
"You know you haven't heard the last from us," Sarah Jane said, deliberately chosing 'from' rather than 'of.'
"Time will tell," the Dalek said.
"Now that's scary," Sarah Jane said to Tosh.
"What's that?" Tosh asked.
"It tried making a joke."
"Daleks do not try," it corrected her, and commanded the cogwheel to roll closed once Sarah Jane was fully outside. "Time Tunnel Initiated. Time Tunnel Active.
"Moving."
"Where to now?" Jack asked.
"Returning."
"Returning to something we know, or something you know?" Ianto asked, hoping they didn't land in the middle of the Battle of Canary Bay.
"Arrived," and soon thereafter, "Activated spacial folding," and it vanished from Torchwood 3.
And so did the fetus of a Tardis.
"This could be a problem."
"Only a small one," Gwen said, checking her computer. "We're one second after we left. We're home again."
"We were home with Tosh," Owen said, and Ianto nodded.
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PERMIAN ERA:
"This could take a while," Tosh said. "They want both of us alive…so they're not going to just forget us."
A nod. "Let's just hope they don't go extinct before they tell anyone we're back here," Sarah Jane said.
"Oh yes." Just then, "Hello," as a Tardis appeared a dozen meters away.
"Like we said," Tosh said, "they'll be back for me. Whether it's the Daleks or somebody else, I'll get picked up." Eventually.
"You're sure?" Sarah Jane asked. "I'm sure we could -"
"Its not a good idea to argue with your doctor," a feeble attempt at a joke. "But thank you for the offer. I appreciate it.
"Now go, before I change my mind."
Sarah Jane nodded, reading from the tone that Tosh wasn't about to change her mind. "I'll be seeing you, then."
"I look forwards to it."
Sarah Jane strode up to the Tardis door, looked back, and entered the Tardis.
"She'll be fine," said the lone person in the Tardis with her. "She gets picked up tomorrow. Not sure what time goes back, but a day out here shouldn't be too awful bad." There was something about the Doctor that she recognized him whenever she saw him -- she'd had the hunch back when first meeting the last regeneration at the school, but had played along -- and that something told her that this was him.
The scarf was back, and the shoes hadn't changed from the regeneration she'd met at the school, but the rest of him was a different man. Hardly surprising, I suppose. Walking up to him, she found herself engulfed in a bear hug.
"I missed you," the Doctor told her, a faint Manx accent to his voice this time. "This me's willing to try domestic, so long as its with you."
Sarah Jane tried to think of something to say…but after a minute of thought, all she could think of was, "You've got stubble," Sarah Jane said, her cheek against his.
"Well now, couldn't let the Master be the only Time Lord with a decent goatee, now could I? Just wouldn't be cricket."
"No indeed," she agreed, kissing him.
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The End
Author's Note: remember that the Daleks have indeed been in Victorian England. (at least once during the era of the Second Doctor)