Rose followed Mickey and the Torchwood official, holding John as he began to get tired. Jenny followed a few steps behind, her eyes wide with child-like wonder. She smiled to every nurse she passed, cordial to anyone. Rose was pleased that Jenny was not adverse to talking about anything with her, and that she trusted her. She could tell that this female Time Lord was about as lost in this world as Rose was. At least Rose was finally finding a place here.
John laid his head on her shoulder, his eyes closed in a peaceful slumber, his breath coming out evenly through his parted lips. She smiled, placing a hand on the back of his messy brown hair. Against her chest she could feel his two heartbeats thumping in a steady rhythm. When John was born, he was instantly taken to the Infant Intensive Care Unit when it was discovered that he had two hearts. Rose had panicked, worried that as soon as they got one drop of his blood that the doctors would want to cart him off to some cold laboratory for intensive alien experiments. Other than that "disorder" there was nothing wrong with John; he was a perfectly healthy newborn. Through many monetary manipulations and persuasions by Pete Tyler, and the instruction of a Doctor Mitchell Hart that Pete had known since primary school, John was removed from the hospital without any further intrusion or research. It was labeled on his chart that he suffered from a "non-harmful mutation of the heart." No questions were asked, everyone was kept silent—and for that Rose was thankful.
Rose frowned when her memories faded back to when she had first arrived to this parallel universe. That was when her sickness had started, the stomach illness that turned out to be a pregnancy. She had found out she was with child right when the dreams started, the ones where she could hear the Doctor's voice insistently calling her name in a soft voice. As soon as they started she followed the voice, determined to get to him and to speak with him, hoping and praying that perhaps he had found away to the place he had labeled "Pete's World." When she got to Bad Wolf Bay and discovered that it was only a transmission—an image of the Doctor as he said his final farewell. She had almost told him, but could not bear to break him any further. Through the amount of time she had gotten to know the Doctor, she knew when he was trying to hide that he was upset from her. He was horrible at it, and she knew that he was straining to keep from breaking down the moment she saw his projected image. She covered up her misstep by clumsily saying her mother was three months gone, not her. She was amazed that he did not see through her white lie.
And now here was John, the son of a Time Lord, two, almost three years of age. He was active and happy, but he seemed almost mellow sometimes—too mellow for a toddler. He thought things through, always processing in his mind everything that came to him. The look he got in his brown eyes when he was trying to fix one of those complicated toddler problems, like fixing a tower so it would not lean or pop the wheel back on a toy car reminded Rose of the Doctor. He always wore that same expression when fixing the TARDIS or trying to solve a universe-threatening situation.
Mr Caan's voice interrupted her thoughts. "If we could just step into your office Miss Tyler." He gestured in the open doorway.
Rose looked at Mickey, slightly confused at why she was being escorted into her own office. He shrugged and stepped in. Rose and Jenny followed. Mr. Caan stepped in behind them, shutting the door. Rose sat behind her desk, putting down John. He immediately ran to Jenny, who had sat in another chair. She laughed and picked him up, setting him on her lap. Rose noticed that John had immediately attached to Jenny for some reason. You know why she told herself their both Time Lords. She turned to Caan, whom to her mild surprise had locked the door.
"What is it that you need from us, Caan?" she asked in her official office voice, knowing that most people told her what she needed to know when she acted like she was in control of the situation.
"Just some information, that's it," he replied in his oddly monotone voice, smiling and leaning against the wall. "Now, who all is in your family?"
Rose stared at him quizzically. "I don't know what your mean. Well, I live with my mother, father, and my son."
Caan turned his head and looked at John, who was now staring directly back at Caan, his eyes oddly intense. Caan drew in a breath.
"Who is his father?" he asked automatically in a more commanding voice.
"Look, I don't know why your asking all these personal—"
"Just answer the question!" By now he was glaring at the boy, fists clenched at his side. Alarmed, Rose had risen from her seat and took John in her arms, shifting him so that he was no longer facing Caan.
"You need to leave now," Mickey stated, stepping in front of both Rose and Jenny.
Caan smirked. "Oh, I think that I'm the one in control right now." He jerked his head toward the window by the door. Rose looked out and saw three identically dressed men standing there, hand guns at their sides as they flanked the door. She stared, a cold fear gripping at her chest. Who were these people? She had never seen anyone at Torchwood that remotely resembled them; and due to her high position she had met just about everyone employed at the company, which was a lot of people.
"Who are you?" she breathed.
"Oh," he said smiling, "I think you know very well who I am."
He reached in his pocket and took out Rose's cell phone.
"You stole that from me!" she exclaimed, coming forward to take it. He jerked it away, putting up a finger and shaking it like an adult scolding a child.
"Uh uh," he said, opening it. "Everything will be made clear soon." He activated the voicemail option.
"You have one new voice message," chimed the computer voice, "New message:"
A voice that Rose thought she would never hear again came to her ears, panicked and hurried, like it was normally. ""Rose, I know you aren't going to believe me, but it's, me the Doctor. I'm in Cardiff, Pete's World. I don't know how I got here, sorta like last time really. I'm sorry about everything…I—the—Donna….I don't know just pick up your ph—"
It was cut off by sounds of a scuffle. Rose by now had stumbled back to the chair, hanging on limply to John. He squirmed out of her hold as she collapse back, her breath now coming in short gasps.
"You—you're lying. That is a cruel joke."
He smirked. "What would I have to gain from it? I'm following orders. Extermination orders that are soon to be complete."
The word extermination made something click in Rose's mind. She paled, looking up in realization.
"Caan…Dalek Caan!" she exclaimed. Mickey looked at her quizzically. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be in the Void."
"As are you," he replied, coming forward slowly. "But yet here I am, perfecting evolution. Perfecting humans and Daleks alike. I have studied homo sapien habits, learning the imperfect tongue you speak. I am within this organic shell, no longer within that metal one. I feel warmth, and I feel life! Life that the Daleks will perfect. We will be perfect and rule this universe as one!"
Rose grinned. "You're forgetting one thing. The Doctor. If that message is real, then he is here. And he is going to find you; I don't think you'll be the one doing the exterminating."
"We no longer fear him. The Daleks no longer have to fear the Oncoming Storm because we found Him."
"Him?" asked Mickey, "Who is Him? The Doctor?"
Dalek Caan shook his head. "No. We revere Him, honor Him. Some call him the Emperor."
Rose laughed again. "You're forgetting one thing. Remember at the Torchwood back in your universe when I said that I absorbed the Vortex? I thought I told you I killed the Emperor."
Again, Caan shook his head. "No no no. Not that false Emperor. He took over when he thought that the true one was gone."
"Who?" prodded Rose.
"My creator. Davros."
Rose thought back to when she had first seen the Daleks back on that laboratory. The Doctor spoke of the Dalek's creator, made him out to be a madman only out to seek death and destruction by creating these monsters whose only thoughts were to kill. She thought that he was gone, that the Doctor had defeated him. But by the look of utter devotion that was in Dalek Caan's eyes as he mentioned Davros was too real to mistake for a lie.
"He'll stop you," she told him, walking determinedly to him to stop right in front of the now fully human-Dalek, her face inches from his own. "I know he will, I have faith."
He made a grimaced expression. "It is very poorly placed." He backed and unlocked the door. Five bodies shoved through the doorway, two of them normal looking, the other three scarred, tentacles surrounding their faces and a single eye in the middle of their foreheads.
Dalek Caan gestured to the five subordinates around him. "Two of these wear the same bio-shell that I do, the other are Daleks in their now true form. Pure and clean, ready for extermination."
Three of the five stormed past Rose. To her horror, they snatched up John. He began to cry, reaching out for Rose as they walked past her.
"Mama!" he screamed. Rose leaped forward, grabbing at their arms and hands, trying to wrench John out of their grasp. He continued to scream and reach for her as she struggled, unnatural adrenaline coursing through her veins; the adrenaline of a mother who knows her child's life is on the line. Two of the human-Daleks held her arms, pulling her back from the one who held on to John as he walked out of her room.
"No!" she screamed, tears running down her face. They released her as the Dalek carrying John disappeared. She sagged against the wall, sobs wracking her body. Mickey ran forward, gathering her in his arms and hugging her tightly to his body, trying to comfort her but knowing that it would do no good. Caan busied himself with his personal sonic screwdriver around the windows, then moved to the door. After all of his lackeys left he shut the door behind him, locking it with the sonic probe.
They were trapped. Jenny meanwhile had moved to the desk, her expression unreadable. She picked up one of the pictures, her knuckles white as her hand gripped it tightly. It was one of Rose on the Doctor on New Earth, both standing in front of the river that flowed into New New York. She walked over to Rose and Mickey, the former of whose sobs had quieted into sniffles.
"How do you know this man?" asked Jenny slowly, pointing at the Doctor.
"Do you know him?" asked Mickey. "That's why we came to your room in the first place this morning, to ask if you knew him."
She gave a wane smile. "Yes, of course I know him. He's my father."
Thank you for the lovely reviews, they are what keeps me going and writing. I'm going to have to find a beta reader soon, haha. The next chapter should be up soon, and I hope that this plot isn't going too out of control, I don't want things to unfold too much before I want them to. Constructive criticism is welcomed, though don't be too severe ( Anyway, I hope this chapter lived up to expectations, another will follow soon, don't worry.