Chapter 1: The Passage of Time

"Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there's time, the Bastard Time."
-John Steinbeck

April 24th, 2008

(8 months after Bad Wolf Bay)

Rose Tyler shifted in her seat, restless and a bit bored.

The inside of the helicopter was painted an ugly mix of gray and green. Despite the four other people sitting nearby, it was mostly quiet. Each seemed wrapped up in their thoughts or was otherwise occupied. They were silent, but no one had been very talkative for a while now. While the silence was a companionable one, it made the inside of the Chinook feel bigger then it was. She'd worked with Torchwood Recon team 12, and teams like them, in the past.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a change in the rotors' pitch, and a moment later she felt the helicopter beginning to descend. Rose glanced up, reflexively. Then relaxed, chiding herself for the moment of fear and trying to ignore the way her skin crawled. Unless she was mistaken about the time, they were approaching the end of their journey.

Seated across from Rose, a dark haired woman looked up from double-checking her gear. She leaned forward and asked, "So, do the higher-ups have any clue what we're getting into that they just didn't feel like sharing, or are we flying blind?"

"Some, yeah." Out of habit, Rose gave a quick glance at what Ashley was holding, but it didn't seem to be particularly important. Ashley was the leader of this particular team. Fortunate for Rose, she didn't have a problem listening to her suggestions. Both now and on the occasions when she'd temporarily been attached to the team in the past. Like Rose and the other people on the team, Ashley was wearing a gray and green Torchwood field uniform.

"It's not from Earth, we know that much. I sent m'self down to see if I couldn't identify it." Which was the truth, basically. It had been her decision to join the team and come down here, despite having to argue with her superiors to let her do this. If Alexandra Shepard hadn't thrown her 'two cents in', they might not have agreed to it. Besides it helped keep the part of her that was missing, an empty ache, quiet.

It wasn't as if there was much chance anything would try to hurt her anyway, Rose thought a bit sulkily. Apparently being 'Specialist Rose Tyler of Torchwood Recovery and Research' meant she was only to be used for emergencies. She hated that. Wasn't her experience reason enough for her to be here, to be useful?

Rose shook herself and got to her feet as they landed with a thump. Through the tiny windows, Rose could see what looked like a handful of small shipping containers in a forest clearing. She recalled that the briefing had said that this was the drop off point for supplies. It was one of the only places flat enough for helicopters to land that wasn't covered in trees.

"I've got the new girl looking into local legends; possible there's a connection like there is now and then." Ashley grinned at Rose, packing her equipment back up. "One of these days we'll have to make the Yanks shut down that show on their History Channel or they'll finally find aliens who really did meddle in human history."

Rose snorted. "Hope they don't," she said, beginning to help Ashley with her work. "What else would we laugh at on our days off?"

"Reality television? Oh, wait, no, that would give us nightmares." Ashley shifted to the side a bit so Rose could help more easily. Meanwhile, the door at the helicopter's rear swung open. A gust of surprisingly warm and muggy air swept inside as the rest of Recon Team 12 filed out.

"Well, that's us ready to go then." Ashley said, zipping her bag back up. Rose slipped her own bag over her shoulder.

"Where's the new girl?" Rose asked as she followed her outside, the rotor still spinning overhead forcing her to talk in a near shout. The ground squished wetly under her feet and the damp aroma of the forest filled the air.

"Emily, you mean? Over there with Micah, she's got a crush on him. Won't do her any good, he's all head-over-heels for Ravenwood. You know her, right? The American liaison?"

"Vaguely." Rose squinted against the ray of sunlight that was getting in her eyes, absently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Emily had one arm half-folded over her chest and she was alternating between staring fiercely at the landscape and—well—staring fiercely at the landscape. "Poor girl," Rose mumbled. "That going to mess anything up around here?"

"Hopefully not. 'Course, with those two she might get invited to a three-way, who the hell knows?" Ashley laughed. "Not like I can talk, my half-brother's not even Torchwood and he's got that sort of thing going on."

Rose shrugged. She slapped the side of the door next to the cockpit. "Pilot, you're clear."

"Roger that." The helicopter's blades sped up and it was in the air within moments. As soon as it was far enough away that the wind caused by the blades had died down, Emily approached them. "All I could find about local legends involved wolves," she said.

"Wolves? Are we being serious now? There are no wolves around here." Ashley stated in disbelief.

"Well," Emily said, her eyes nervously darting between the two. "Um...no."

Rose frowned a little and asked, "Have there ever been?"

She watched Ashley pull up something on her phone. "Doesn't appear that there were. What the hell?"

At that moment a red Jeep with a flatbed trailer hooked to the back had rounded a nearby hill. It sped down the dirt road toward the team, wheels splashing through the puddles.

Rose tensed, stepping in front of the other two, squinting to see who was inside the car. "One of yours?" she asked, with mock casualness.

"No, I haven't a clue who that is. Looks like a uni student?"

Rose clenched her jaw as the Jeep slammed around the last turn, skidding to a halt just inches from one of the trailers. The moment it looked safe enough to do so, she hurried forward. She was fully prepared to either tell off the newcomer for reckless driving or help them if they turned out to be injured. Ashley followed more calmly.

The young man who stepped out of the Jeep when they approached was short and sandy-haired. He didn't appear to be hurt, and in fact smiled politely at them.

"Hi, name's Jacob. The prof sent me to take you guys to the main camp."

"Hello, Jacob," Rose said. Her tone grew disapproving as she added, "Any reason you were driving like that?"

Jacob looked a bit taken aback. After a moment he said, "No real reason. It's nothing I haven't done before. I've driven out here dozens of times."

Rose raised an eyebrow, but didn't push the subject. "Don't do it again, yeah? Thought you were being attacked or something."

"It's all right, Jacob, we were all eager puppies once, but let's not break traffic laws, hmm?" Ashley quipped, and then called for the rest of her team to come over and join them.

Jacob seemed a bit embarrassed by that. "Uh, yeah, of course."

Rose shook her head, and after placing her bag on the flatbed with the others, climbed into the back of the jeep with the rest of the team.

The trip to the archaeologist's camp lasted for a long, uncomfortable hour. What Rose thought of as unusually warm weather only added to it. The muddy road was irregular, not helped by the fact that their route took them around or over quite a few hills. The growing darkness only slowed them further. Jacob likewise remained silent. Rose wasn't sure if the cause came from a need to concentrate on driving or if he was still smarting from her earlier comment.

It was only when they reached a collection of trailers that Jacob finally spoke up, giving them directions to where they'd be staying. As the team members got out of the car and collected their bags, he asked, "By the way, which one of you is in charge?"

"I am," Rose responded, deciding to keep things simple. Best to not muddy the chain of command too much. In any case, while she and Ashley were technically of equal rank, she had the command here.

"Oh," Jacob said, suddenly looking embarrassed again. Probably from the realization that he'd gotten a bit of a lecture from the 'boss' of the team. "Just thought I'd suggest that you might want to speak with Professor Hagopian when you get the chance. She's the one running things."

"Sure. Any idea where she might be?" Rose thought better of pointing out that she did know who the professor was. There wasn't any sense in making Jacob feel worse by humiliating him further. It would be a good idea to speak with the person in change soon anyway.

"Probably in her trailer. It's towards the back of the camp. You can't miss it. It's the light blue one."

She thanked him and he walked off towards one of the trailers. By now she'd noticed that a few people were glancing over her and Ashley's team while they went about their business. Some seemed curious. Others were glaring or otherwise looked unhappy.

Rose raised an eyebrow at one of the people glaring, but didn't comment. Torchwood wasn't exactly the most popular establishment in the world. Most agents had a habit of barging in, not telling a word of what was going on, stealing half their stuff and then leaving without even an apology. She went about her job differently, but she would have liked doing it a lot more if there weren't animosity at every assignment.

"Well, this is going to be fun," Ashley said with a sigh. Like Rose, she was otherwise ignoring the glaring; Micah did too, while Daniel glared back and Emily looked nervous.

"Isn't it always?" Rose asked, with a wry grin for her comrades. Dwelling on the discomfort was only going to make it worse; and, after all, there was something interesting around here, or Torchwood wouldn't have come.

"I think I went to uni with a couple of this lot," Ashley commented, gravel crunching underfoot as they walked. Passing by a group of people talking among themselves, she idly asked them "What is with the wolf thing?"

"Lady, that one's anybody's guess." replied one of them, a dark haired man wearing a red shirt.

"Feel free to make up your own theories," commented the only woman in the group. "Trust me," she added, pushing her brown bangs out of her eyes, "we've heard them all."

Another man, this one with messy blond hair, snorted. "What was the one Jenny came up with again? Time rifts?"

This got a grin from the last guy, teeth flashing white against his dark skin. "Yeah, that was it. Mind you, I think she was drunk at the time..."

The woman rolled her eyes. "Probably. Although it would make a good idea for a television program."

Ashley shook her head. "No, I mean the general obsession with wolves around here, seeing as they're not native creatures..."

The blond and the guy in the red shirt left before she'd finished the question, responding to a call from someone a few trailers away. The other two paused to introduce themselves as Tony and Andrea. Ashley and Rose offered their names in turn, but it was obvious that Ashley was still waiting on her answer.

"Sorry, we're still working on that," Tony said. "Seems to have been sort of a mixed history, really. Some of the artifacts shows reverence for wolves and some a terror of them. Not that the two things can't go together, but it's still odd."

Andrea, looking a bit annoyed that Tony had got there first, added, "It doesn't help that most of the discoveries took place ages ago. They were still working out how to date things back then and on top of that kept terrible records."

Rose bit the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. Temporal rifts seemed like a decent enough theory, but... She shook herself mentally; the Bad Wolf had been a message, and now it was over. Wasn't it?

Andrea was still talking, so Rose made herself listen. "I've gotta say, 'obsession' is the right word. Only place I've seen that sort of thing was at a furry convention."

"Furry? Sounds like a rug," Tony said. "Seeing as it's you, and you know about some pretty weird shit, do I want to know?"

"You really, really don't," Andrea said, and Rose decided that she didn't either. She also didn't want to hear more of the banter, mildly amusing though it was. They had business to take care of right now.

"Regardless, we can discuss that later, yeah?" She scratched her nose. "What about the artifacts? Why not look at them again, do new research?"

"A lot of the historical context comes from where they were found. The soil depth and so on. Which weren't noted or are so vague they amount to 'I found it over thataway.' "

"Okay then. What other cultures were they in contact with? Could they have run into someone who did have something to do with wolves?" Rose bit back on her irritation.

"Besides the Picts and the handful of Britons and Celts who made their way here from England and Ireland?" Tony asked. "I think the Romans were here - Drea?"

Andrea shrugged. "There was an outpost somewhere in this region. Really, you're better off asking the Professor for details; she's worked here on and off for years. No one knows it better."

With that, Rose thanked them for the information and the team continued towards their lodgings. As they left the interns behind, Rose turned the information over in her mind. Try as she might to remember, she didn't think the Romans had made it this far into Scotland in her universe. It seemed to her that whenever she started to feel at home, another difference would come along, reminding her that this wasn't home. That she didn't belong here.

It didn't help that everything about this earth felt …off in a way that she couldn't quite put her finger on. She'd mention it to Mickey and her mum but neither one of them said that they'd felt or noticed anything. But the nagging feeling had persisted. So Rose was fairly sure that it wasn't a result of her over-active imagination, like her nightmares were.