Her name was really what did it for most people. When you met the daughter of the head of Torchwood, that was enough to make you wary. Add on top of that the uncanny knack for piecing together alien technology and the secretive smile she always wore when she finally had, and you at least were well aware of the fact that she was… different. But when you heard her name… that was what really pushed everyone over the edge, and she ended up with a wider berth and more freedom within the company than even her father.
Pete Tyler was strange to no one. The whole world knew about his health drinks, and if you worked at Torchwood, you knew that the health drinks were really just a cover for him while he worked away at protecting the earth. It was an old story, one that didn't even really interest the new recruits. He was the head of the company, and that was that.
He had garnered some interest when he'd brought his long-lost daughter to work one day. Rose was at least 20, looked like her mum, and talked about aliens more matter-of-factly than anyone they'd ever seen. Including the aliens. She'd spotted the Slitheens from a mile away, named a planet that had a name far too long for anyone to remember… while everyone else was scrambling for their AK-47s, she'd calmly filled a water pistol with vinegar and had at it. But just as suddenly as she'd shown up, she had disappeared a few years later. Pete had appeared haggard and over-stressed for a couple of weeks after that, but when asked where Rose had gone, he'd just smiled ruefully and said she'd simply gone away.
But the mystery that was Rose Tyler was eventually buried for the most part, and people forgot to wonder about her odd disappearance. Whatever oddities lay in Rose, after all, were magnified in her sister.
The youngest Tyler was born nearly a year after the rift between universes was closed, and had never had any illusions about her life. Her dad protected the world from aliens. Her mum was from another universe and, given twenty years, still couldn't remember the name of Raxacoricofallapatorious. Her sister, Rose, had a different dad who was the same person, and was in love with an alien who she would never see again. Her 'uncle' Mickey was a brilliant idiot. What was most important about her life, however, was what she was raised to be.
She became resourceful like her dad, always making connections and drawing conclusions from unlikely places. Torchwood was never what you might call 'child friendly,' and especially in the case of such a precocious little girl, the department heads were particularly wary. She proved more than a little curious, constantly winding up with some mystery alien illness, or else transported halfway across the country because she'd touched something in the warehouse. It was for this reason that she had a tracking chip imbedded in her left arm, carried a cell phone on her at all times from the age of four, and was widely considered lucky to be alive.
She was prized nonetheless, because you couldn't help but instinctively understand her importance in the grand scheme of things. Her natural acceptance of alien life wasn't surprising, especially after meeting Rose, who had had her under her wing since before she could walk. Her mechanical and technological know-how came from being around Mickey Smith for so much of the time since she'd been born. She was the opposite of passive, and that, she got from her mother.
She was also spastically inattentive, and no one had any idea where that came from. Her brain simply seemed to run ahead of her at times, so that she would have twenty new projects running at the same time, and be bouncing from one to the next with energy that seemed humanly impossible. Then again, she was prone to falling asleep in the most unlikely of places and in the most unlikely of times, so that the myth of her boundless energy was soon put to rest.
Beyond what the people at Torchwood saw, she knew there was much more to her life. She had been raised by everyone around her to be the best, but to her, what was much more important was how her sister had directed this future.
Rose had been in love with a man called the Doctor, who was both a genius and a lunatic. By all appearances, she knew she would never see him again, but this had not stopped her from using him as a backdrop for her sister's upbringing. In the five short years that the girls had with each other, Rose had impressed upon the younger girl the Doctor's method of acting and reacting. She had regaled her sister with stories of the time that she had spent with him, and in the end, had influenced the little girl so much that she grew up knowing exactly what her mission in life was. Even after Rose had disappeared, she went on following in that direction, essentially working hard at making sure that, if the Doctor ever did happen to crop up again, she would be someone that he would like.
Years later, when she found herself under the stares of three rather alarmed people, she reflected gratefully on all aspects of her childhood, from Rose raising her for the Doctor, to Jackie insisting that she attend normal grammar and secondary schools so that Torchwood would not be the only source of her social upbringing.
"Of all the…" one of those alarmed people sputtered, waving a hand at her as if she were supposed to continue the sentence, and then whipping it around to jab a finger at the redheaded woman who'd shouted at her just before. "You! You and her, and…." He went on waving his arms around, mouth working wordlessly at some times, spouting angry half-sentences at others.
She laughed good-naturedly, the quick brush-down of her jumper the only sign of timidity. Sticking out her hand and grinning with glittering eyes up into that unfamiliar chocolate gaze, she introduced herself enthusiastically.
"I'm Tardis," the brown eyes narrowed in the slightest, "Tardis Tyler." And then they widened.
It was always the name that got people.