Chapter 7
The American authorities were happy to get their hands on Van Statten for something, anything. But it was finally determined that Dr. Shaw's status as a British citizen put her in international hands, and she was turned over to UNIT, who were holding her temporarily at makeshift headquarters commandeered from a hotel near the Tylers' in Salt Lake City.
Where she would go next was not yet decided, and the day before Rose was to fly home, the order came from Torchwood: "Go interrogate her. Find out whatever you can about her accomplice."
The British contingent of UNIT might have balked at letting Torchwood encroach on their territory, but Captain Harris welcomed Rose, cheerfully heedless of any rivalry and happy to see that Romana and Ace had come along. "Even though you're leaving us," he emphasized to Romana. To Rose and Ace he explained, "I understand you two going home, England's where you're from, but Romana's not from England, anymore than she's from the U.S., so why not stay with us?"
"It is awful of me, I know, after all you've done. But as none of this world is home to me, I can only choose to go with what is marginally familiar. And past experience has had me knowing the English better than any other humans, I'm afraid. But if you ever need my help, please don't hesitate to contact me."
"All right, all right," the captain said amiably. "And I looked into that matter you asked me about, and yes, UNIT is willing to employ an assistant for you, and the name you put forward was enthusiastically accepted." He beamed significantly at Ace, who then noticed Romana looking at her too.
"Me?"
"I took the liberty," Romana said. "You are out of work, thanks to me, and I would be grateful for the help. Do you accept?"
"I don't know why you think I'm qualified …"
Captain Harris said, "Seems to me you proved yourself last weekend."
"Absolutely," Romana said. "And while I do not wish you to think I view you as a mere copy of the Dorothy McShane I once knew; I know you are your own person -- but I did know her, and what I knew of her tells me that you are capable of things you can't imagine. You need only be given the chance."
Only one hesitation, directed at Captain Harris with narrowed eyes: "Do I have to join the army?"
He laughed. "Only if you want to."
She grinned. "I don't, no offense. Don't think I'd be suited, especially not after playing pretend soldier under Van Statten. All right then, I accept."
"Er, another thing," Ace said as they walked along. "My motorbike is stuck in Gold Hill, parked out back of a bar called the Blue Moon Cantina. Can UNIT get that for me?"
"Don't see why not," said Captain Harris, who was leading the three women to the room where UNIT was holding Elizabeth Shaw.
Ace took it a step further. "And get it to England for me? Since I'm relocating for the job and all?"
"Well… That's not going to be up to me to authorize. I'll put in a word for you, though."
As they continued along, he updated them on Kevin's status. UNIT had put him up in this hotel, to keep him near for questioning -- "Not as a suspect!" the captain said they had to keep reassuring them. As soon as UNIT was satisfied, he fled to Minneapolis.
"Without saying good-bye!" Rose said, taking the tiniest bit of offense. She could see Ace looked similarly affronted; Romana was evidently indifferent. He had helped in her rescue, of course, but it was true that he had long collaborated in her imprisonment. If she bore Kevin no ill will, it was understandable if she had no fondness for him either.
As for more culpable parties, they had arrived at Dr. Shaw's room.
"How's the prisoner, corporal?" Captain Harris asked the young man stationed outside the door, an incongruous uniformed figure in the sedate quiet of the hotel corridor.
"No trouble, sir." But his brow fleetingly furrowed.
"What is it?"
"Nothing, sir. It's just … I'm just not used to holding old ladies prisoner. Can't help but feel kind of bad."
The guard's eyes followed as Rose, Ace and Captain Harris all looked to Romana, who smiled pleasantly and said, "Yes, I can imagine that must be difficult for her."
As Captain Harris unlocked the door to the cell, the corporal said apologetically, "I'm sure whatever she did, she deserves to be here, sir."
"That she does," the captain replied.
Dr. Shaw, sitting back on the bed, looked up from a newspaper as Rose entered first. The room was small and stripped of amenities like a television or phone. Yet for all the corporal's qualms, Rose couldn't help but feel Dr. Shaw was unfairly comfortable, considering what she had put Romana through.
As Romana stepped in, a shadow of recoil crossed Dr. Shaw's face -- whether it was a flush of loathing for an alien and a stab of guilt at the sight of her victim, Rose could not tell.
Dr. Shaw's manner was as calm as ever, though. "Captain Harris said you were coming, Miss Tyler, though I was not expecting an entourage."
"We're here to talk to you about your accomplice."
"As I informed the captain, I am not telling you anything."
"You're protecting him?"
"It simply seems in my best interest to hold on to whatever advantage I have. I want to be extradited back to my own country and engage the services of a solicitor before I share any information."
Ace said with disgust, "It's not out of loyalty to your partner, then. You just want to strike a deal."
"If it comes to that, yes. It may not, and then I can remain loyal, as you say."
Captain Harris snorted. "Liz thinks that she may not be charged at all, because no humans were hurt. Well, don't worry, we'll find something to pin on you."
They heard the door open; the corporal poked his head in. "Captain, can you come out here for a sec? It's Sergeant Lutz. She says it's urgent."
"Okay." Captain Harris nodded to the three women. "Excuse me. Call us back in if you need anything."
Dr. Shaw watched him go with curiosity. As the door closed, Romana spoke for the first time, musing, "What I find curious is that you and your accomplice were able to do what you did at all. There are races in the galaxy that could have detected the energy of a regenerating Time Lord and preyed on it. But humans? Humans of this age? I wouldn't think you capable of it."
"You underestimate us."
"Or you underestimate him. You are so concerned about defending humanity against the alien horde. This man -- or whatever he is -- could be extremely dangerous, a menace to this planet all on his own. And you were naive enough to let him use you." With a sudden, winning smile that put Rose powerfully in mind of the Doctor, Romana added, "I could be mistaken, of course. Though very often, I'm not."
Captain Harris opened the door and held it open. "Sorry, I'm going to have to interrupt this. I need to talk to all three of you."
Dr. Shaw settled back on her bed with her newspaper. "We can continue this interview later, I suppose."
Rose was reluctant to leave, but the captain's face was serious, and she could only trust that the matter was important. She followed Ace, who had moved to leave immediately. Romana gave a last appraisal of her former captor and walked away as well.
Captain Harris started marching them down the hall, without another word to the corporal on guard, barely pausing to introduce another uniformed stranger as Sergeant Alison Lutz.
"What's this all about?" Romana asked.
He held up a small disk and waved it. "This. Lutz says it has a video file of ... Tell them what you told me, Sergeant."
"I've been acting as liaison with the federal marshal who took over in Utah. They've been working over Van Statten's base, but had only two guards on that secondary station. There wasn't much there -- so they thought. Then sometime last night, it was broken into -- or out of. Turns out there was a hidden room underneath, through a well-camouflaged trapdoor. The feds never knew it was there until this morning, when guards came to relieve the ones there. They found one man dead, one unconscious, and that trapdoor opened and the room below cleared out. Whatever was important there, it's gone now."
They had reached Captain Harris's office, and he set to cueing up the video to play.
Sergeant Lutz explained, "The intruder disabled the cameras, but not before we got a clear view of his face."
Rose said, "And you want me to see if he's the man from the ballroom?"
"That's right," the captain said. "Of course, if Ace or Romana can tell us anything too ... Are you ready?"
The image snapped to life on Captain Harris's computer screen, and Lutz hung back while the other four gathered round to watch.
At first they saw only an empty room, silent and dark, with outlines of dead machinery in the shadows. Then a male figure entered, unhurried, closing the door behind him.
"The guards were outside," Sergeant Lutz said. "Dead or unconscious by now."
Rose peered at the screen. "It could be him ... I can't see his face too well."
"You'll get a better view."
The man surveyed the room, spied the camera, and walked directly to it. Rose shivered: It felt as though he were looking directly into her eyes, again with the slight, mocking smile she remembered from the ballroom, remembered in his voice.
"It's him. The man from the --"
But Rose's words died, replaced by a horrid thudding in her chest as she watched him raise a hand ... and the screen went black.
"And that's all there is. Don't know how he did that," Lutz was saying. She sounded very far away. "As he was no longer concerned with keeping that room hidden, I don't think he's coming back."
"And he didn't leave anything of value," Captain Harris noted.
He may have said more, but Rose had stopped listening, staring at the blank screen, its last image imprinted on her mind: the stranger handily killing the camera, with the simple whirr of a sonic screwdriver.
It couldn't be ... She could not finish the thought, to add even the pronoun: him. Instead, she reassured herself: He's another Time Lord. Yet another surviving Time Lord.
"Rose?" It was Ace. Turning to her, that Rose could do, but she avoided looking at Romana. Ace nodded toward Captain Harris.
"Do you want to go back to Shaw's room, get back to questioning her?" he asked, in a tone that suggested he was repeating himself.
"No, I ... Sorry, I'm not feeling too well. Do you mind if I just sit … ?"
"No problem -- take my office." He indicated a sofa. "Lutz and I need to go talk and then I have to go get yelled at by my superior for this damn business at the base. Doesn't matter that it's the feds' fault."
Once he and Sergeant Lutz left, Rose finally dared to meet Romana's eyes. Her expression was impassive, but Ace recognized something was wrong.
"What didn't I see in that video that you two did?"
"It's another Time Lord, right?" Rose asked -- begged -- Romana. "You all had sonic screwdrivers, yeah?"
"No. Just the Doctor. And then me, but I took the idea from him."
"From the Doctor," Ace clarified.
The vise around Rose's heart tightened at her words. Romana's silence was an agony as she moved over to the computer and restarted the video.
"Please," Rose said, "do you know who that is? Tell me who it is!"
Still Romana seemed lost in a reverie, her head tilted, studying the man.
"You two," Ace said, "you can't believe it's him, but it is, isn't it? And you know it!"
"No!" Rose said. "I don't know it, because it makes no sense. None of this makes sense, because the things that man has done -- he imprisoned Romana, he killed that guard. The Doctor would never, never … It's not him."
"It is."
Ace's skepticism might have faltered in the face of Rose's conviction, but those two words from Romana cut them both short.
Her impassivity was giving way to grim hurt and betrayal. "I know who this man is, though I never met him. The official story was that he died. Evidently not. I'm sorry, Rose, but it is, in essence, the Doctor. I doubt he'll answer to that, however. As I understand it, he called himself the Valeyard."
-End of Part 1-
Author's Note:
And there we have it – Mystery Man revealed, but how will they deal with him? With that cliffhanger, I have to admit that the break before Part 2 starts may take longer than usual (and I know I'm slow enough with the updates already). A couple of writing projects for work, alas, have to take precedence, what with them giving me a paycheck and all! But if you've read this far, I do hope you'll come back when I update; the story will not be abandoned, I promise.
In the meantime, any feedback is greatly appreciated, especially if you have any questions or points of confusion, so that I can make sure I cover everything that needs to be resolved in Part 2.
Finally, another huge thanks to Belphoebe, my Brit-picking beta reader!