The third time Rose Tyler's life changed forever was disguised as an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. Torchwood had been so busy lately that she hadn't seen the inside of her flat for days. Constantly being called in to investigate something, she had found it was easier to sleep in one of the on-call rooms they had on site than to keep hauling herself in during the middle of the night when a new disturbance was detected.
She had been in this universe for two years, and had adjusted pretty well. After Pete's original wife had died, he found he couldn't stand to lead the same life he'd been living. He had moved himself and Jackie into a much more modest home, and left his days of society parties behind him to prepare for the birth of their son. Once Rose and Jackie had been established as part of his life, he was able to send Rose to events in his place. Rose hadn't been too keen on this at first, but it quickly became useful as a cover for Torchwood employees to meet with informants or solicit investors. But between Torchwood assignments and attending events for her family, she felt like she was leading a double life, and it was starting to take a toll on her.
Mickey and Pete had decided she needed some time off when she accidentally punched an intern who had come to wake her up from the on-call room. She was sent home for the rest of the week. It took her some time to gather all of her things and switch out assignments on her desk, but Rose was finally home, trading in danger for a day of laundry and lounging on the sofa, in a state of perpetual napping. So, naturally, she was fast asleep when two intruders appeared in her flat. One of them quickly dropped a stasis pod next to her, which activated from a wrist control and wrapped around her wrist, locking her in, while they looked around.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" the younger man asked. "Looks a bit posh."
"Looks can be deceiving. Whatever the power source we're looking for is, it's coming from this flat. Come on, let's have a look around. Then we can look into sleeping beauty there." He pulled out a sonic device and began to take readings from around the flat. The younger man did the same with his wrist device. They circled the flat and found themselves back in the den, closing in on Rose. "Well, looks like she's what we're looking for after all. Get a look at the readings, void energy and something else. A bit like the vortex, but it's like nothing I've ever seen."
"So she's our target, then? Standard protocol one or two?"
"Two for now, until we know what we're dealing with. Get her back to the ship, I'll finish looking around here. See if there's anything else we need to look at and do the basic pack and load out when you get back." finished the older man, looking around at Rose's meagerly decorated flat. "Don't think it'll take too long, by the looks of it."
"Sounds good. Come on, princess." he muttered, leaning down to put one arm under Rose's legs and the other under her shoulder, lifting her up off the couch and over one shoulder. "Back in a few." he said, before pushing a button on his wrist device and teleporting them out of the flat.
The other man picked up an envelope from the large stack of mail sitting on the table in front of the sofa. "Ahh, Rose Tyler, then. Right, time to find out who you are."
Rose awoke hours later, feeling like she'd slept for several days. She was so groggy, she didn't immediately notice she wasn't in her home. The lights of the room she was in were dimmed so low she could barely see her arms in front of her face. She assumed it was much later in the evening and reached for the lamp that should have been on her bedside table. It wasn't there and that was when she froze, then switched into agent mode and sat up quickly, trying to adjust her eyes. As she swung her legs over the side of the bed and onto the floor, the lights went up and she could see a plain looking bedroom, with just the bed she was sitting in and one of the walls which consisted only of what seemed to be a mirror. Rose figured it was more likely a one way glass, and that she was being observed. She looked down to make sure she was covered and saw she was still in her shorts and camisole from earlier. A quick glance around the room showed her there was nothing else, nothing she could use as a weapon if need be. She approached the mirror cautiously. There was a door at the end of the wall, where the mirror ended.
"Hello? Is someone there? If it's money you're after, you took the wrong person. My dad won't give you any. We worked that out ages ago when that little girl got kidnapped, yeah? No use negotiating with kidnappers who are just going to come back a week later and do it again. So, you're gonna have to kill me, or let me go."
"What makes you think we're after money?" she heard a familiar voice ask. It was coming from a speaker over the door, which she assumed was part of an intercom system.
She chose not to say anything about the voice. Since she was in an alternate universe to the original owner of that voice, she doubted it would do her any good. "Well, my dad is the owner of Vitex Industries, so it seems the most likely reason, yeah?"
"What makes you think we kidnapped you?"
"Well, I was asleep in my flat, now I'm in a room with a one-way glass and an American talking to me over an intercom. Seems the most likely thing – unless I'm under some kinda quarantine."
"Maybe you are. Stand back by the bed, do not approach the door. I'm coming in and if you attack me, we're going to have a problem. And you do not want me to tell my boss that you're a problem. Right now I'm your best bet at getting out of this room."
"Yeah, all right then." she said, backing up to the wall on the other side of the room, putting her hands up for good measure. The door opened and when she saw him, she couldn't help the gasp of "Jack!" that escaped her, before she covered her mouth.
"How do you know me?" he asked, feigning a casual demeanor, but with narrowed eyes.
"I…I don't. Not really."
"Right. Well, you're lying. But that's not why I'm here, and we'll come back to that later. So, stop me when I get something wrong. Your name is Rose Tyler, supposed daughter of Peter and Jacqueline Tyler, but according to our sources you didn't exist until two years ago, nor did the woman claiming to be Jacqueline Tyler, who perished in the Cybus Industries attack three years ago. So, how does a dead woman come back to life and create a twenty-one year old daughter out of the blue? And don't give me the adoption lie your family gave the press, because I know that's not true."
"Why do you want to know so bad that you've kidnapped me over it? Who do you work for?" she responded.
"Now, now. That's not why we're here, remember? I ask the questions, you give me answers and I decide if you get out of here or not."
"Yeah, well, it's top secret information and I need to know who you work for in order to know if I can trust you."
"I'd say you don't really have a choice in that. If you want, I can leave you here for a day or so, who knows really, I lose track of time so easily. Could be another week before I come back. Or I could decide you're not worth the trouble and leave you here. And trust me, that's not something you want. Your choice, though. My boss won't care. He doesn't trouble himself with the little things like this. And if it helps any, take a look out the door on the other side of the bed." he finished, clicking a button on his wrist device, opening a door Rose hadn't known was there.
She climbed over the bed, trying to keep an eye on not-Jack as she went. There were bars on the door, just outside of where the panel slid in place. She peered out on what looked like a prison yard, only it was full of a mix of aliens and humans, or humanoids. And there didn't seem to be anyone monitoring them. There were doors like Rose's all around a large courtyard. Some seemed to have creatures cowering inside small rooms just like hers, others leaned against open doors watching the action on the courtyard. Dozens of the creatures that were not in the rooms were gathered in a large circle on the courtyard, and in the middle Rose could hear the obvious sounds of fighting. Around this, also watching, were lone or small groups of aliens who were peering at the others, apparently sizing them up. Rose saw one of the winged aliens swoop in and grab a small humanoid creature and fly out of the courtyard and into one of the rooms. Rose could hear the screams of the small creature that had been stolen cut abruptly, and tried not to think about what had befallen him.
She turned away. "What is that?"
"That's what you'd be looking at every day until I come back. If I come back. If I decide you need to be detained as a prisoner, that's where you'll get to spend your time. Not a very nice place, is it? Especially for an heiress. They'd kill you and mount your head just for something pretty to look at. And that's if you're lucky. So, feel like talking now?"
She sighed. She'd been in worse situations with the Doctor, and with her Jack, but she'd had the two of them as back up. She didn't like the idea of having to kill a bunch of aliens just to survive. If she told him what he wanted to know, he'd let her out and she could get a look at where she was being kept and try to find a way to escape and shut it down. "Yeah, all right. Just shut the door." she said, feigning fear over the scene in the courtyard. Maybe he'd go easy on her if he thought she was weak, just a helpless and scared heiress.
"Coming right up." he said, clicking the button to close the door again.
"Right, well, this is going to sound crazy, but judging by the other people…and aliens, you're holding here, it may not. So, basically, Mum and I are from another universe. You're right that Jackie Tyler from this universe died when the Cybermen first attacked. I was here, saw it happen. We were here accidentally, our ship crashed through the divide between the universes. But we were able to get away, get back to our own universe. But then the Cybermen started getting back through the void, and when we were trying to send them back to the void, something happened, an accident, and I ended up here permanently. Mum and my friend Mickey, well you'd probably know him as Rickey, they came with me. And that's about it."
"I gathered most of that on my own, actually. What I want to know is why you have something akin to vortex energy, time energy, but unlike anything we've got here, running through you in such high quantities. We already sensed the void energy from your mother and Rickey Smith. Believe it or not, you're not the first person to get sucked over across universes, but normally we're not dealing with this kind of power source. Rickey had traces, but nowhere near as bad as you. Wanna explain that?"
"Oh, is that it? Okay, yeah, my friend's ship I talked about, it traveled in time as well as space. " Rose said, feeling relieved.
"Your friend was a Time Agent, then? Or something similar?" He asked, frowning.
"Something like that, yeah. So that's it, really. Curiosity quelled?"
"You're not here because I'm curious, you're here because you're dangerous. I'm just trying to figure out how dangerous before we move on."
"Dangerous? But I haven't done anything!"
"Yeah, tell that to all the aliens you've killed at Torchwood." he said, smirking at her guilty look at being caught out. "Yeah, we know all about that, but that's not why you're dangerous. We're kind of on the same side here, believe it or not. Which is why I'm surprised no one from Torchwood put the pieces together about what's been causing all of the attacks you've been getting lately. We just happened to be in your neck of the woods on a small errand, thankfully, because we were able to spot that there was a problem and figure out what's been attracting every scavenger species within a ten galaxy radius to come and attack London, and it led us straight to you. Now, I've ascertained that you're not a threat to us, so if you'll submit to a medical exam we can get you out of here."
"Yeah, all right then." she said quickly, ready to get out and get a good look at the rest of the facility.
"Great, just lay down and I'll put you back in stasis and we'll wake you up after we're done."
"What? Are you mad? I'm not letting you put me under and do God knows what to me!"
"All right then, I'll just leave you here. The doors open at sun-up, and close whenever we remember to close them at night. Have fun!" he said, almost cheerfully, before turning back towards the main entrance.
"Ugh, fine. Put me under, but I want answers when I wake up. If I'm not a threat, and I'm not a prisoner, I deserve to know what I'm doing here."
"Who said you're not still a prisoner?" Jack asked, with a grin, just as he enacted the stasis and she lost consciousness again, dropping onto the bed.
