Rose had found a laptop in the media room, and quickly figured out how to use the internet on it, hoping she could find a way to get a message to her family. But Jack was right, she couldn't find a thing from her time, other than history and news reports that stopped with that day's date. She'd tried pulling up her email account, the instant messaging program she used for non-business purposes, the backdoor site for the Torchwood system, and even meBook (this universe's version of Facebook) but none of them generated any results. She glanced at the clock and noticed it was getting close to the time she was supposed to meet Clara, and decided to try again later. There had to be a way, and she was determined to find one.
She changed into gym clothes and headed out to meet Clara. Clara was a pretty good instructor, beginning with easy settings and exercises until she realized Rose was in very good shape and turned it up several notches to make it worth their time. Afterward, they sat and stretched together and chatted.
"Thanks for coming, Rose. I appreciate it. It's better with two, you know?"
Rose grinned at the phrase, "Yeah, I do. Jack said you do some other classes, too? I'd be interested in those as well, when are they?"
"Oh, you can pull them up on the schedule, didn't he show you?" Rose shook her head. "Daft man, he hardly remembers to show you where the loo is, first time. I think he likes getting messages asking for help. Makes him feel useful. Anyway, on your door panel, there's an icon that looks like a clock. That'll pull up the schedule of group activities anyone has posted for the day, or week. You can RSVP and everything, right there. There's not a ton of things to do, but there's some. Anyway, it's better than sitting around all day, right?" she concluded, giving Rose a warm smile.
"Yeah. That's true."
"So what are you doing for the rest of the night?"
"Dunno. Hadn't thought on it."
"Well, Jack and I will be in the media room watching movies if you want to join us."
"I think I'll pass, let you two lovebirds have your privacy." she smiled.
"Oh, all right then. I'll see you tomorrow though, right?"
"Absolutely."
"Good. Well, until then!" she popped up with ease and headed out the door.
Rose had gotten up to finish her stretches, reaching down towards her toes, when she got the feeling she was being observed again. "Oi! This isn't a free show. Come in and talk to me, or stop looking at my bum and find something else to do!" she called out, towards the window-mirror.
She heard the intercom crackle, then an obviously distorted voice came across it. "Wasn't looking at your bum. I'm not a pervert. But your shoe's untied. Nighty-night."
She jerked up, then ran towards the window. "Wait! Come back!" she banged on the glass. But the intercom had gone quiet and she knew she was alone again. She sighed. "Great, I get my chance to talk to the wizard an' I blow it on cheap jokes. Nice job, Rose." She looked down and saw that her shoes really were untied. She rolled her eyes and stooped to tie them. Then resignedly went to the door that would lead her back to her room.
The next morning, Rose got up with purpose. Knowing she had plans, plans that could help her get answers or at least a proper conversation with the man in charge had allowed her to fall asleep easier. She got dressed quickly, taking a bit more care choosing an outfit than she had the day before. She wanted to make a good impression of trying to fit in, and dressing and acting sociable were a good start.
She found Clara at the stove again, looking more put together than she had the day before. She had full makeup, her hair was up in a high ponytail, and she was tapping impatiently on the counter waiting for the kettle.
"Morning." Rose greeted her. "Blimey, my thighs hurt today! Been too long since I've ridden."
"Okay, first, that was way too much information. Second, who the hell are you?" Clara responded, looking her up and down. "Mind you, you're gorgeous. I take it back, you tell me more about your thighs, whoever you are." she purred, leaning back against the counter.
Rose backed off, looking every bit as confused as she felt. "What do you mean, 'whoever I am?' Clara, it's me. We met yesterday?"
The other woman rolled her eyes. "Well of course you did. You had to go and meet Clara first. Just my luck. Well, I'm not Clara. I'm Oswin."
"What, are you sisters? 'Cause you look just like her, it's uncanny."
Oswin stepped away, eyeing her like she was incredibly dim. "No, we're not sisters. Blimey, didn't she tell you anything? No, bet she told you to wait and see, am I right? No, don't tell me, I'll look." She closed her eyes in concentration. "Oh, that's bloody great. I don't have time for this, she always does this! You say hi to Jack for me and tell him I said he can explain this time, and that I've got plans for later, after your lunch. You can always join us, of course." she reached out and drew her hand down Rose's arm as she passed. "If you get bored." she finished, with a wink as she got to the door.
"This place is a mad house." Rose muttered, retreating to the door to go back and get breakfast in her room.
A few hours later, Rose headed out to meet Jack in one of the outdoor rooms. He had told her he would bring lunch, so she didn't bother bringing anything else. She'd spent the rest of the morning on the computer again, trying to find some way to contact her family. But once again, it had proved fruitless. She arrived at the outdoor room to find Jack spread out on a blanket, picnic lunch spread around, sitting at the top of a hill that overlooked what she believed to be a fake vista, but could well be real and explorable. She'd have to investigate that later. For now, she approached Jack, ready for the conversation they needed to have.
"So, did you go to tea this morning?" he asked innocently.
"Yeah, and what was that about?"
"Well, who was it?"
"She called herself Oswin, what's that about? She looked like she could have been Clara's twin! Only she swanned off and said you get to explain it."
"Funny, I would have figured she'd have at least hit on you first." he said with a grin. Rose's cheeks reddened and he laughed. "Oh, I was right then."
"Still not answering my question." she muttered, looking down at the flowers.
He sighed, then turned over onto his side to face her. "Clara is a very unusual case. In fact, completely unique as far as we know. She was dating a Time Agent who got into some trouble on a trip they were on. Someone had infiltrated his time stream and gone back throughout his history, undoing all of the things he had done in his career. Damaging the time lines and threatening the lives of everyone he'd ever helped, or even met. Clara thought it would be a bright idea to go in after them and undo it all. Only it almost cost her her life. She was split into dozens of pieces, scattered throughout his timeline, to fix all the damage caused. It created several alternate versions of her, throughout time and space. It nearly ripped her apart before we got there. The Time Agent was a coward, and ultimately a double-crosser, who got away with committing treason against the agency. That's how I knew him, he and I had trained together and been partnered up for a few years before I left. He was part of the reason I had to leave. He'd set me up to take the fall for him. They had indisputable proof it was me, not him, that had committed treason and there was a bounty on my head so big it'd make your dad blush. Anyway, we were tracking him down and came in just as he was trying to sneak away and leave Clara to die."
"Oh my god!" she gasped, "How did you manage to save her?"
"Well, once her other selves had done what they needed to do, my boss was able to gather them all back into her body. But it couldn't completely undo the damage. There are a few of them in there, but only three who ever seem to make an appearance. Clara, the original Clara, is the one who comes out the most. Then there's Oswin, who's from a future that no longer exists, and the other Clara. But they call her Vicky, since she's from the Victorian era, and two Claras would make it even more confusing, don't you think?"
"Wow, that's…that's a lot to take in. She seems to be okay with it, though. I don't know how I'd manage if I had to share my head with two other people. I couldn't even manage one before I thought I was gonna die."
Jack looked askance at her, before continuing. "Well, it's not like they're all in there at once. Well, I suppose they are, in a sense. But it's a different one each day. Every time she wakes up, to be precise. Though sometimes it's pretty standard. Like Thursdays, Thursdays are always Clara. And they don't seem to be fighting to occupy space in there. It's strictly one at a time, but they do have a shared memory pool that they can each access if they need to. I mean, ultimately it's not as bad as it could be. But leaving her on Earth, in your time, can you imagine? They'd lock her up, and in a decidedly less posh establishment than this one. They wouldn't know what to do with her. And her Time Agent boyfriend ran away when we got there, didn't want to face me. He'd thought I was dead, and probably would have killed Clara if we'd left her behind. So, she came with us."
"Well, original Clara seems to have a sunny disposition on the matter. I can't even imagine what I'd do."
"I can, because you're in the same position, really. We all are. You just have to make the best of what you've got."
"Wait, so you're telling me you're dating her, and she's got these three personalities, how does that work, then? Do you have to leg it out of the bedroom before she gets up? In case it's one of the other ones?"
He laughed. "No, not at all. Well, sometimes. Oswin's not exactly a morning person. But no, I love them all. All three of them. Separately and the same."
This time Rose was the one to laugh, and couldn't stop.
"Something funny about that? I'm trying not to get offended here."
"No, no. It's not that. It's just…well, we were gonna do this anyway so I might as well. The Jack I knew, yeah? He was always talking about how he'd had these threesomes, and foursomes, or whatever. And I always wondered who he'd end up with, yeah? How he could ever be happy with one person, or if he ever could, you know? And here you are, with the perfect solution! Oh, it's not funny, I shouldn't laugh…" she said through giggles, trying to catch her breath.
To her surprise, he was laughing as well. "Yeah, it is a bit like dating three different people. And you're right, it was a very happy solution for us all." he said, grinning. "So tell me more about your version of me. Were you two together? You seem to know me pretty well…and, you know, Oswin's always looking for a third." he added with a wink.
Rose laughed. "No, well I mean we traveled together, but we were just friends. Didn't get to know him for too long, he died a few months after we met. But he was a lot like you. He was a Time Agent too, and something happened to him, probably something like what happened to you, only he had two years of his memories wiped and became a conman. A really bad conman, honestly. Don't go into that line of work, you'd be rubbish at it." she paused, grinning fondly. "Anyway, I used to travel with this bloke called…well, it doesn't really matter what he was called. But we picked Jack up in World War II, which I guess never happened here. But he tried to pull me on top of an invisible space ship tethered to Big Ben, if you can believe it!"
Jack laughed, "Yeah, that sounds like me."
"Anyway, he died, trying to buy us time to save the world, again. I kept traveling with our friend, but I always missed him. He was a good friend. And I suppose, when you're not busy being mysterious and rude, you remind me a lot of him."
"Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?"
"Good thing, I think. I always wished we'd gotten more time together. And you're not the same person, but you're so easy to talk to. So you're all right." she teased, with a grin.
"I'll take it! Cheers!" he called, raising his glass of juice to tap against hers. "So this friend of yours, was he a Time Agent too?"
"Something like that."
"Well that's a vague 'no' if I ever heard one. Who was he? Maybe there's one of him roaming around this universe too."
She smiled sadly. "Nah. He said it was impossible. Though sometimes I wondered if he really knew what that word meant, since it turned out to be wrong every time he used it."
"Were you and he…?"
"No. Not really. Not from lack of wanting. He just…I don't know if he did that sort of thing, you know? He was alien. But we loved each other, yeah."
"How long's it been?"
"Oh, about two years. Which was something I wanted to talk to you about. You claim that I was the one causing those attacks, but those only just started up about eight months ago. How come, if I'm so dangerous, it took them so long to show up? I mean, I'd been there for over a year by then and nothing out of the ordinary happened."
"Well, it depends. Some of them were far away, took some time for your energy levels to register for them. And took some time for them to travel. And while it does attract them, I wouldn't exactly call it an urgent mission for any of them. Mostly curiosity. And curiosity with ill-intent. If any of them had caught you, you'd be a lot worse off than you are here. You were lucky that you'd been able to subvert them for so long, but I think even that was part of it. The more you'd sent off, or killed, the more interest it piqued. Might as well have put up a big neon sign to the universe."
She sighed, "Look, I really don't want to be annoying about this, but I want to see those results. You can understand, right? If it were you, you'd want to know for sure."
He contemplated her for a moment before responding. "I know. And like I said, it's not my place to show them to you. I've passed along your request, and he says he'll visit you when you stop accuse him of being a pervert."
"What!? That's out of line, he IS acting like a pervert and…you're completely having me on, aren't you?" she said, noticing his muffled laughter.
"Just a bit. He told me you'd called him a creeper and I couldn't resist. No, but really, he said he'll come see you soon. And that's honestly the best I can do."
"Yeah, all right then. Well, I'm not feeling up to much more today. I kind of want to just be alone and have a good sulk. I'll see you later, Jack. And thanks. Sorry I'm being so hard on you, it's not really your fault and I know that. I just…it's hard."
"I know. You go on, I'll take care of all this." he said, reaching to gather up the remains of their lunch.
"Thanks. I'll see ya." She rose to leave, feeling a bit worse for wear after their conversation. Back in her suite, she'd started to work on the computer again but gave it up and decided to just watch the news again to see what was going on back home, but quickly fell asleep instead. A knock on her door woke her up a short while later. She sat up, adjusting her clothes and hair, and ran towards the door, hoping it would finally be the illusive man in charge. She was disappointed to find Jack and Oswin on the other side. "Hi you two. I'm not really feeling up to company right now."
"Shut it and budge up. I'm coming in. Jack was just my way over here." said Oswin, pushing past him and carrying a cloth grocery bag. "You can go now, ta." she called over her shoulder to Jack, who gave a quick salute and shut the door. "Jack says you're in a mood. And we've all been there. So I brought liquor. We're drinking." she said, pulling out several bottles and placing them on the dining table. "Well, don't just stand there, go get us some glasses and ice."
Rose rolled her eyes and turned to go get the requested items from the kitchen area. To her surprise, the door to the dumbwaiter was open and held a tray with glasses, an ice bucket with tongs, and different bottles of juice. She found herself silently thanking the ship, as she used to do back on the Tardis, then paused. This was yet another piece falling into place in a puzzle that she didn't like. She'd have to talk to Oswin about it later.
In the meantime, she found that Oswin was a rather aggressively friendly person, who genuinely seemed to care that Rose was having difficulty adjusting. After a few drinks, Rose admitted to her that she'd been trying to find a way to contact her family through the internet system.
"Wasting your time, you are. I'm dead clever with computers and even I couldn't get through. Mind you, even if I could I don't really have anyone to contact. But it was more of a point of contention for me. I've hacked some of the best computer systems in my time, but I couldn't get through on this system. For my time period or for Clara's, which I suppose is yours, too."
Rose groaned, and moved to refill her drink. She hesitated, wanting to broach the topic she was most curious about but unsure if it was a good idea. "So…you told me yesterday, well, I guess Clara told me, that you'd met Jack's boss twice, and that he looked different the second time. Did he say anything about that?"
"No. I just assumed that it wasn't really him, or that he was disguising himself. I've gathered he has a bit of an issue with privacy, since he doesn't seem to talk to anyone except Jack."
"Yeah, that makes sense. He talked to me for a bit yesterday, but disguised his voice. Did you ever ask Jack about it? Seems a bit odd."
"Yeah, I mentioned it to him, but he said he wasn't at liberty to talk about it. Anyway, I'm thinking he just doesn't know and is compensating." she giggled into her drink. "I think it drives him mad, being the go-between, when he really doesn't know much more than we do. Or at least that's what it seems like. Maybe he's just pretending not to know. Either way, doesn't really matter. Can't change any of it, so what's the point grumping about it?"
"Yeah, but what if we could, though? I mean, what if we didn't have to live like this? Seems like there's got to be some other solution, aside from taking us all prisoner. I mean, rescue's one thing, but none of us got a say in it, did we? And we're locked up like prisoners, but we didn't do anything wrong. There's got to be a better way." Rose mused, almost forgetting she was talking to Oswin.
"Oh no, I've seen that look before. You're thinking of doing something stupid, like trying to escape. Look, I know we just met but I like you, so let me give you some advice. Don't. That way lies madness. I've seen others, people who couldn't take it living here, try to get out, or do something stupid to try to force themselves to be kicked out, and it doesn't end well."
"Why? What happened?" Rose asked, sitting back down on the other side of the sofa.
"Never heard from again. They could be confined to their suites, lost all privileges. They could be somewhere else on the ship, there were rumors of a solitary confinement type area. Or they could have been taken back to that other prison, or killed, or….anything really. No one knows."
"But that's just it! No one knows. They could have found the bloke in charge and reasoned with him to find a way to help them go home. You don't know."
"I do know, though. Don't you think if there were a way to fix us, or somewhere for us to go, we'd be there? I don't know about you, but if I was some powerful alien with an amazing ship like this, I wouldn't want to keep rounding up the misfits of the galaxy and taking care of them. Not if there were another way."
"What makes you think he's alien?" Rose asked, again hesitant to approach the topic.
"I dunno, just the vibe I get. I've been to the future, and we don't have this technology. I don't know if we ever get it, but Jack doesn't seem to think so and he's seen more of it than I have. Look, do yourself a favor and let it go. Just try to find a way to be happy here. Anything else is just asking for trouble."
"I can't though! It's all bloody intimidation, and scare tactics, and other similes…blimey, I'm pissed. Anyway, the point is, no one knows anything for sure because they keep us in the dark. And it's not fair! I didn't do anything and I'm being punished anyway. And I'll never get to see my family again. And what's worse is that they believed that note Jack left, believe I'd just run off back to the other universe without saying goodbye. Didn't even bother to look into it, see if I'd been taken against my will."
"You don't know that." Oswin said kindly. "You saw the news report, yeah, but that doesn't mean they just gave up on you. There's a lot they wouldn't tell the media, right?"
"Oh, trust me. They believed it. Think I up and left them to go back to the Doctor. They clearly had contingencies in place for it, the idiots." she mumbled, missing the sound of the door opening behind her. She did hear Oswin's gasp and looked up. "What?"
From behind her, a voice spoke. "Rose Tyler, I think it's time you and I had a chat. Oswin, you should probably get back. I think you two have had quite enough to drink."
Oswin scurried over to pack up her things, but Rose had frozen in place. She knew that voice, of course she did. But it was a voice she never thought she'd hear again. She braced herself and turned to look at him. And she was greeted by the doppelganger of her first Doctor, black jeans, maroon jumper, and leather jacket, just the same. She looked into the familiar blue eyes, then felt the sofa rising up to greet her as she passed out.
