As I Was Going To St Ives
As their train pulled out of Plymouth Station, the two groups of travelers heaved a silent sigh of relief. The half-hour layover and change of train had been nerve-wracking for the constant presence of roaming soldiers, but they had not been accosted, nor did any of the uniforms seem to have boarded with them.
They'd decided smaller groups would attract less attention, so Pete and his daughter were sitting together near one end of the second-class coach, while Jared, Rose, and Jackie were occupying three of the four facing seats near the other end. All were in disguise except for Jared, so Rose, sitting next to her Mum, had their disk.
"I've been thinking about that collapsing rift," Jackie began. "Does this mean you won't be able to go traveling any more, once we get home?"
Rose shot her an amused glance for the transparency of the question. "No, it just means I wouldn't be able to come back here." Jared leaned forward to catch her sotto voce explanation. "Rifts exist in several worlds, but are pretty much confined to just that single world – stitching far-flung parts of it together and providing a leak to and from the Void between worlds. Where one end of a rift is anchored in nearly the same spot in two different worlds, though, that consilience seems to provide a bridge between them. That's what the cannon uses to both look and jump between. We watched a rift close or move off in another world as we first began exploring; we can't see or jump to that world any more. So when this one closes, it will just close our door here; it won't close it to other worlds, or mean that this whole world is collapsing." She suddenly grinned at Jared. "Why do I have the feeling that you're three steps ahead of me?"
"Just figuring out some whys and hows," he replied absently, shooting her a delayed return grin a moment later. "And admiring how brilliant you are for figuring it all out."
"Well, I may have helped, but I'm not the real genius behind this. Danny and the others are. We've got a good team – I'd put them against Jack's Torchwood any day." Then she turned back to reassure Jackie. "But, Mum... I'm not planning on doing any more jumping anyway. Not for a good long while, at least, and then not without a damn good reason."
Jared caught her eyes again and held them, the soft, tiny smile flashing between them acknowledging that the "damn good reason" she'd gone a-traveling before was both gone, and right here. "Don't worry, Camille," he added his half-joking reassurance – they'd returned to their aliases. "I'll do my best to give her a reason to stay home from now on."
"I'm holding you to that," came "Camille's" firm response.
The hour and a half to St Erth, their second and last layover, was uneventful, the trio passing the time in idle chitchat and watching the scenery. Jared, also keeping an eye on the other pair, was pleased to see them wrapped up in a private conversation with each other the whole way – it looked like father and daughter were managing to reconnect and reconstruct their relationship, although he knew that was a project that would take years of careful work; this was just the beginning. As they pulled out of the last station before St Erth, he saw Pete suddenly pull out his mobile phone and take a call. The Resistance fighter was well-trained; most casual observers wouldn't have seen the careful intake of breath, the suddenly tense muscles that betrayed bad news to Jared. Pete's eyes momentarily laser-locked on his, then, dropping the phone back into his pocket with a deceptively casual air, he turned his companion and made some suggestion. The two of them got up and began a stroll down the length of the car, apparently heading to the dining car. As they got closer, Pete gave his head a tiny jerk toward the door to the connecting compartment. Jared waited a few seconds before suggesting a similar destination to his ladies; as both had seen the other two pass by, they were amenable – and curious.
As soon as the three of them had passed through the door into the semi-enclosed compartment connecting that car with the next, Pete whispered urgently to Jared, "Put your watch on!" Glancing around quickly to verify they were alone, Jared pulled the watch out of his pocket and slipped it on his wrist, feeling the slight tingle as it applied his disguise, and he became a freckle-faced ginger with a long, slender, expressive face. (The change had startled even him, as it was far beyond what his donor had looked like – until he realized that the disguise-creator was working off Donna's DNA, not his Gallifreyan heritage, and that had merely reinforced the donor's ginger.)
"What's going on?" he asked, concerned.
"That call was from home base, as I'm sure you've guessed. They just found out – apparently the bears have come up with a picture of you. They think it was from the Leipzig's security cameras. Lord only knows why it took so long to find it. But apparently we also tripped something somewhere along the line – probably back in Plymouth, between trains. General Schultz himself is flying southwest as we speak, destination: St Ives. He'll get there just before we do. The local troops there for the SeaFest have already been put on alert – with your picture, and Rose's, sent in advance." His daughter's face drained of all color at the name of her former lover.
Jared was thinking fast. "We'll have to get off the train at St Erth, then – " but Pete was already shaking his head.
"I didn't know it when we boarded, but this is an excursion train for the SeaFest. They're going to back it down the tracks to St Ives from St Erth, like they did years ago – everybody else bound for Land's End will have to get off there and wait for the next train. And they'll have the station covered. You won't be able to get out without passing security."
"And since my ID is for my real face, I can't try that. Crap..." He made a rapid decision. "We'll have to split up. Rose, Jackie, you go on with Pete. I'll meet you at the Rift."
"What are you going to do?" Rose asked, worried.
"I'll just have to jump the train between stations."
She just looked at him, straight-faced. "Don't you mean 'we'?" she asked softly, deliberately echoing his words from before the Leipzig. "I go where you go. Besides," she added, "You need me to guide you to the Monument."
Tears prickling, he simply nodded.
^..^
It was too late to jump then; they were already pulling into St Erth. Pete took Jackie and his Rose forward to another car; anyone in their old car might wonder at the addition to their party. Jared and Rose, meanwhile, crammed into the tiny bathroom in the connecting compartment to wait out the stop. Coming back out as soon as they began moving again, Jared cracked open the outer door; he'd spied the perfect place for their informal disembarkment on the way in. Just a few hundred feet down the track, before the St Ives branch split off to the north, the train ran underneath a pair of bridges holding a large traffic roundabout, just far enough away and around a slight bend, out of sight from the station, but before the train had gotten up much speed.
And they were on the outside of the bend; perfect. He leapt out the door and landed, staggering a bit, then whirled around to catch Rose as she jumped out on his heels, then they dove into the thick underbrush lining the side of the small railroad gorge and let the rest of the train, pushed now by the engine, pass by. As soon as it was beyond the far bend, they crossed the tracks and climbed up in the shadow of the south bridge, and set off down the side of the road.
Away from the tracks, Rose pulled out her mobile and checked it, letting out a smothered whoop as she frantically punched a quick series of numbers. "I've got a signal! Control, are you there? …. Control, can you hear me? …. Control, come in! Damn!" She made herself stop and take a deep breath. "I hope that just means the signal's too faint yet." Holding it out at arm's length, she did a slow seep west to north – and back, zeroing in on the source of the faint signal. "That way."
"How far?"
"Three-four miles, I think. We'll have to do some serious cross-country."
"Lead on, Bad Wolf!"
She tossed him a wide grin and did so, setting a fast pace up the road – not too fast for his long legs, though; and their hands slid into their new entwined clasp as easily and unthinkingly as ever. A few hundred yards brought them to a tiny side lane angling more toward their destination, and they turned off the main road gratefully, beginning the torturous zigzag between the omnipresent hedgerows tangling up the Cornish countryside.
They were partway along a footpath leading up and over an intervening hillside when Jared suddenly stopped dead, shushing Rose before she could say anything and straining his ears, turning his head this way and that. Then he vaulted over the rock wall running beside the path and ran along the tiny deer path leading into the thick brush on the other side, coming to a screeching halt after a couple dozen long strides. Rose barely kept herself from plowing into him from behind, which was a good thing, as it would have sent him right over the edge of a large, deep – very deep – hole; they'd found one of the many abandoned mines dotting the area.
She opened her mouth to ask why they were here, when the answer floated up out of the hole: a pitiful whimpering. Without a word, they both dropped to their hands and knees and leaned cautiously out over the abyss, and spotted a hapless, half-grown black puppy cowering on a narrow ledge about eight feet down. It spied them at the same moment, and raised a hopeful clatter, wriggling so hard that Rose was afraid it would send itself over the edge.
They looked at each other, but there was no question of If, only How. "Stay here," began Jared, but she cut him off.
"No, lower me down. Look, you can pull me back up easily, but I can't do you. Besides, I think it's my turn down the bottomless pit, isn't it?" She grinned at him, and he glanced back down at the puppy.
"Well, he looks a hell of a lot more friendly than the last beast. You can handle him."
Giving both her hands to him, she put her back to the hole and then carefully stepped back and over the edge, feeling for footholds one at a time. A moment later and she was on the ledge next to the puppy. "Come here, wolf cub. Oh, poor thing – Jared, I think it's hurt. He's holding his front paw up funny."
"Here, hand him up." She managed to bend over sideways and pick up the dog by the scruff – that ledge really was narrow; she didn't even want to think about the air below her feet – and held him on up. Jared grabbed him with both hands and put him on the ground beside him, then quickly reached back for Rose – he was trying not to think about it, either.
Coming up was a bit harder than going down – there was a bit of a bulge in the way. Her wrists and elbows were scraping on the rock. She was momentarily stymied – her watch had caught on a sharp, rough edge – when suddenly the catch sprang free, and the watch fell into the depths. She felt the shimmy dance over her skin as her disguise disappeared with it, and they stopped cold, staring horrified into each other's eyes.
"Shit!" she breathed. Then she shook her head, moved her foot up to the next foothold, and he pulled her the rest of the way up, back onto blessedly solid ground. He didn't let go of her hands for a moment, until they both caught their breath.
Rose looked around for their prize. "Where'd you go, cub? Oh, there he is." The puppy had apparently had enough of the hole, and was watching them from a safe distance, several feet away. He wagged his tail and wriggled at their attention, again.
Jared grinned and stood, walking over to the pup to scoop him up and examine him.
"Awwww, now isn't that sweet!" came a sarcastic male voice from the path back to the wall. Rose and Jared both whirled around – and the solid ground rocked under their feet.
Standing at the gap were three uniformed soldiers, pointing their rifles straight at them.