Stolen Stars
Chapter Two
I gave you all
But you rip it from my hands
And you swear it's all gone
And you rip out all I have
Just to say that you've won
(I Gave You All – Mumford & Sons)
0o0o0o0o0o0
"No. NO. BRING IT BACK. YOU CAN'T—YOU BLOODY MACHINE. DAMMIT."
The TARDIS was burning fuel faster than expected. Rose was forced to delete some of the rooms to give more boost to the ship's engines, but out of her hastiness Rose accidentally chose one room too many.
"You've got to have a back-up, T-Too. Please, please for the love of god…"
She dived under the console, pulling and reconnecting wires in a desperate attempt to bring back the lost data. Swearing and kicking at the ship when it proved useless, Rose ran out and down the corridor, hoping beyond hope that there was a mistake, that it was still there. It had to be.
She skid to a stop in front of blank wall.
"No…no, please. Just show me it, please."
With a nasty sense of déjà vu, Rose lifted a fist and pounded the smooth surface, screaming in anger, frustration, and a growing sense of despair.
It felt like losing him all over again.
The archives proved useless. The effort to search for the Doctor's and Rose's bedroom as well as keep them stable in the Vortex was causing the TARDIS to spark and snap. T-Too tried to make up for the mistake by backing up and locking the kids' rooms. Rose simply gritted her teeth against the tears and forced herself to continue steering her ship.
The coordinates were still good, and they were heading for a tiny hunk of rock floating in the tiny bubble universe. In the back of her mind, she wondered idly if it would be rude to punch the face of the person who sent the signal.
With a bone-jarring jolt, Rose was thrown back onto the grating. She stayed there, sprawled out and head throbbing where it connected with metal. Eyes closed, she tried to calm her stormy emotions. No use to cry over spilled milk and all, and she had a distress call to address.
After another moment or two Rose finally pulled herself to standing and headed towards the door, throwing it open with more force than necessary and forgetting the slight necessity to check the atmosphere. Luckily despite the horrific smell of something rotting, the atmosphere and gravity was almost Earth-like. Rose kicked over what looked—strangely enough—like a Sontaran helmet. Sontarans did not exist in Pete's World. Her heart sped up. Did she do it? Did she pass through a rip into her birth universe? She shook her head, clearing it.
"No. Feeder fish, right? Things end up here from all sorts of parallel universes," she said to no one in particular. I can see why the Doctor always had a companion. All that time alone in space…start talking to yourself…
She patted the hidden inside chest pocket of her jacket for her sonic. Living with the Doctor all these years made her pick up a few of his more useful skills, and knowing most of the settings on his sonic screwdriver helped her out of some very sticky situations when she was left on her own to travel. "No signs of life though," Rose muttered, peering at the readings on the sonic. "So where the hell is the signal coming from?"
She switched the sonic to latch onto the signal the TARDIS tracked with a little difficulty. She moved slowly through the rubbish piled into mountains.
Suddenly, her head began to pound. From a distance, she heard the TARDIS's cloister bells ring. She almost sliced her leg open on a protruding piece of scrap starship. She turned the corner of a particularly tall pile of rubbish and came upon what looked like a black hole.
"Christ," she hissed, stumbling sideways. And then another flash, the searing light that swamped her vision and everything else in white noise.
"—held hostage. By the realms, if you can hear me, anyone…Please. They—they are torturing me. Hel—"
Her skin prickled with electricity. The voice. It was familiar, so familiar. A voice that only existed in her dreams and in memories long buried. A voice that she had not heard in over fifty years.
"Loki," she gasped, her eyes flying open in shock as the wasted planet came flooding back to her senses. It was impossible, inconceivable. After all her searching, how was it the one place she could fall through a rip in the universes it would be him to call her there?
"Only one way to find out," she whispered. The answer lay beyond that portal. At second glance, it did not seem to be collapsing the planet around her. She lifted the sonic, and blinked at the reading. Dark matter, and lots of it. Contained by a yet undiscovered science, it looked like. It was nothing the Doctor ever explained to her, and the only thing she was sure of was that the signal was coming through it. Rose looked at her feet and spotted a broken rag doll. She shrugged to herself, picked it up, and tossed it through the gaping abyss. With a pop and a spark, the doll disappeared.
"Okay. Yeah. Gettin' into the TARDIS for this one."
She ran, the exhilaration starting to set in as her heartbeat pulsed in her ears.
He's alive. He's alive.
Oh she prayed to whatever God that looked over gods that he was alive.
0o0o0o0o0o0
It was a simple escape plan, really. Dark matter bridges fade slowly, send a psychic distress call through the gap, make the rescuers his hostages…the rest was a matter of technicalities.
Well, granted, it was his backup plan.
There were a number of psychically-inclined species in the universe, and only a small number of them had the technology to maneuver through dark matter bridges. Loki could not place the entirety of his escape on the slim possibility that such beings would (or could) even try to enter Asgard undetected.
Unfortunately he did not have the luxury of communicating by more powerful means, so he looped the message through the bridge and continued to search of other ways to escape.
This particular day was one of the least productive ones. The Other's poison had woken Loki with the usual nightmares, leaving him drenched in sweat and weak with terror in his bed. He spent a better half of the morning just trying to bring himself to sit upright. He did not have the strength to even shoot a snide comment to his jailer when his food was sent down to him.
Loki winced as he drank the lukewarm water. The cut on the inside of his cheek sparked with pain. He had to think of a better way to smother his screams. It was embarrassing, but he did not want to bite his own tongue off in the process.
Usually by this time of day his head was clear enough to attempt the task of reconstructing his memories. He would sit on the cold stone, in the small patch of sunlight allowed by the sliver of a window. But the instant he closed his eyes he saw her die again.
There was no knowing how time worked on the other side of the universe, but what he did know was that he was cursed to watch Rose Tyler live out her life. He would dream of her sometimes, the old bond igniting after a while and he would watch as she lived and grew older with her Doctor. He saw her play with and teach her children, and then her grandchildren. He saw her face wrinkle and her limbs stiffen. He saw her grief when her father, her mother, and then her Doctor pass away, leaving her alone to travel the many realms in her universe. He saw her final days, unable to move from her bed. He saw her breath stutter and her eyes roll back as the stroke took its toll. And then he saw no more.
Loki was angry the first time he saw her die. He nearly escaped from the sheer fury that bolstered his magic as he attacked the cage that kept him from freedom (from her). He almost welcomed the beatings he received as punishment, as it distracted him from the hollow ache in his chest.
It was not fair, he railed. Why did she get the life she always wanted? Why did he have to be punished with watching her life play out and end? What cruel Fate hated him so that they would torture him with a woman that had so briefly made him happy?
But time passed, and the visions continued to haunt him. They were eventually nothing more than another fleeting pang of loss among so many others. Now they were just annoying hindrances to his attempts of bleeding out the poison in his mind.
Accepting the fact that he was simply not up to the task of diving into the chaos of his own memories just yet, Loki stood and paced the small room. He let his hands brush against the permanent runes that prevented him from using all but the more useless magic he had at his disposal.
A knock came at his door. Loki froze. Guards did not knock. He slowly made his way over and pressed an ear to the metal. The knock came again, three light taps. He jerked back, and then mimicked the person on the other side.
"Who's in there?" a female voice whispered from the other side of the door.
"I might ask you the same," Loki whispered back. "You are not a guard."
"I'm here to rescue you. I got your distress call," she said. "I came as quickly as I could."
"Really?" Loki's brow shot up in surprise.
"Stand back, I'm gonna get you out of here," the stranger. Loki wanted to laugh. Finally, after all this time, his worst and most unlikely plan was the one to play out. All he needed to do now was take her to whatever she used to get into Asgard, disable her, and he would be free.
With a click and a flash, something dismantled the power of the runes and the lock at the same time. The door swung open.
"Loki, oh my god it's really you. I didn't want to believe it. C'mon, are you hurt? We need to make it back to the TARDIS before someone finds us" the unfamiliar blond woman fumbled as she tucked some sort of device into her blue leather—
"Who are you?" Loki snapped, taking an instinctive step back . The woman froze, her eyes widening as she registered the fear in his eyes. Her expression softened.
"I know, it's weird. But, it's me," she placed a hand over her chest. "Rose."
"Forgive me," Loki muttered, his mind spinning. "What did you just say?"
"Don't you remember me? Rose Tyler? Guns n' Roses?"
Before he could really think about what he was doing, Loki rushed at the woman. He grabbed her by the collar of her jacket and shoved her up against the wall.
"You lie," he snarled. "Who are you?"
"Loki, please," the stranger pulled at his hands in panic. "Let me go, I can explain."
"Did the Other send you?" he spat, his knuckles white and his teeth bared. "Are you here to kill me?"
"N-no, what are you—"
The door flew open again, this time a number of guards flooded into the cell.
"Back away from her, Loki," one of them barked.
"Who are you?" Loki howled at the blonde.
"I'm Rose," she insisted as she struggled against his grip, only stoking his fury all the more. Vaguely he registered large hands yanking him away from her. He fought back, ignoring the blows that came to subdue him.
"ROSE TYLER IS DEAD," he screamed, twisting against the arms that held him back from tearing her throat out.
0o0o0o0o0o0
"Get her out of here," the head jailer ordered. Rose was suddenly being dragged out the door and away from a feral, bloodied, and violent Loki, who looked like he very much wanted to kill her. She was too shocked to protest.
"How did you get in here? Who are you?" one of the guards finally asked her when they stopped at the end of the stone corridor. Loki's muffled shouts ended abruptly. Rose didn't want to think about what they did to silence him.
"Why do you have Loki locked up?" Rose demanded, ignoring his questions. "What is he being held for?"
"What isn't he being held for?" one of the men muttered. Another, one with a scar slashed across his cheek, shot him a look before turning back to Rose.
"He is a traitor to the throne of Asgard."
"Asgard? I am in Asgard?"
"How is it that an unaccompanied woman managed to break into the most impenetrable in Asgard?"
Rose pursed her lips. She hoped the shimmer on the TARDIS would continue to last. She had a feeling she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
"I wish to speak with the king," she stated, her eyes flinty. The guard with the scar let out a mocking laugh.
"Is that so? Well, wench, I think there are better ways to get you to talk."
"What is going on in here?" a deep voice echoed down the hall. Rose turned and spotted a huge blonde man striding towards them.
"Your Highness—"
"I was told Loki tried to escape again. Where is he?"
"He is contained for now," the other guard told him. He then gestured to Rose. "We heard shouting from his cell, and found this woman inside with him."
The hulking man studied her.
"You are Midgardian," he observed.
"Rose Tyler, defender of Earth, at your service," she quipped. "And you are?"
"Thor Odinson," he replied after a moment of consideration. He looked vaguely amused at her title. "Crown prince of Asgard. How did you get into Asgard, and what were you doing in Loki's cell?" Rose considered him, the brother of Loki. He seemed sincere in contrast to his menacing bulk. She did not like, however, the fact that he was obviously aware of his brother's incarceration.
"I will answer your questions, but I wish to speak to your king first," Rose told him.
"That depends. Do you know Loki?"
"Yes. Well. I knew him many years ago," she said, her brow furrowed. "I can explain everything, but I want to know why a prince of Asgard is being tortured like a common criminal."
"Your Majesty," the scarred guard interjected. "I do not think it wise to allow this stranger into the presence of the All-Father."
"I think this Lady Tyler needs to speak with him," Thor decided. "Not just anyone could enter that cell undetected, let alone a Midgardian. My father will be curious as to how she managed it."
Thor held out his arm, indicating that he wished Rose to follow him. Rose looked over her shoulder at the metal door that held a man she had not seen for decades, and who seemed unwilling to believe that she had come back.