Knots In Time

Chapter Two: The Importance of Pockets

Blinking, Rose suddenly found herself standing in a small, empty room in her wedding dress. Her head felt as though someone unkind had taken a hammer to it recently. What the hell had happened?

It figured that she couldn't manage to walk down the aisle without something inexplicable happening to throw a spanner in the works. Fortunately, after years of travel with the Doctor and working for Torchwood, this sort of thing didn't exactly surprise her anymore. Time to assess the situation and get out of here. She had other plans today.

She looked around her. The room was maybe just long enough to lie down in and had smooth, white walls that glowed softly. Listening, she could hear the distant hum of engines. A space station or ship then. She couldn't see anything like a door though, just a green panel on the wall in front of her.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

She stepped forward to get a better look at the panel. When she touched it, the panel glowed brightly and foreign symbols started scrolling before her eyes. One or two seemed familiar but without the TARDIS' translation circuits in her head anymore, she couldn't read them. Frowning, she glanced around again, this time spotting a black oval on the ceiling that could be a viewing port. Was she being watched? It would make sense. She directed her next comments upwards.

"I know you must be able to hear me. What do you want? Why have you brought me here?"

Silence. Fine. They wanted to play it that way? Rose dug through her skirt until she found the hidden pocket she'd had sewn into the dress. Her mother had protested, telling her it was her wedding gown, why would she want to risk spoiling the lines of the skirt with pockets? What could she possibly need to be carrying anyway? Rose was glad she'd insisted. Grinning, she pulled out the two items she never left home without: her Torchwood communicator and the sonic screwdriver the Doctor had made for her as a surprise when he recreated his own.

Turning on the communicator, she wasn't exactly surprised to find it was out of range of the Torchwood network. Brilliant. She keyed in the code for the 'Agent in Distress' locator beacon and was rewarded for her efforts by the lights in the room flashing green and a mechanical voice announcing what could only be some sort of warning or displeasure at her actions.

"Didn't like that, did you?" She grinned up at the ceiling, tongue between her teeth. "Just wait for my next trick."

Pocketing the communicator, Rose dialed up setting 380 on the sonic and started scanning the walls of her prison. She got in here somehow, there must be a way out. Aha! There was a mechanism located underneath the wall opposite the panel; the whole thing must shift to open. Thank goodness, she had been a bit worried that she'd have to figure out how to hotwire a transmat system.

The mechanical warning voice kept blaring, seeming to shift between languages, perhaps in an effort to find one she understood. Whoever had taken her, they obviously hadn't done their homework. She adjusted the settings on her sonic and aimed it at the wall mechanism. She heard a 'thunk' and the wall slid down into the floor with a satisfying sound.

"Ha! Well, it's been fun, but I've got to run." She announced cheerily and dashed out before her captors could trigger an override and shut her in again.

She found herself in a narrow corridor lined with what appeared to be several other chambers like the one she'd just left, the outlines of the doors just barely visible. Definitely some sort of prison or brig then. Green lights flashed from the walls. Her exit had not exactly gone unnoticed.

The disembodied voice addressed her in the corridor as well. It switched languages again and this time she understood most of it; the mechanical accent was terrible, but she was pretty sure it was speaking a version of Galactic Universal.

"Prisoner will return to containment unit. Prisoner will cease escape activity."

"Prisoner will do no such thing!" She shouted up at it as she made for the end of the corridor.

The sonic made quick work of another door and opened to reveal another corridor. This one was larger and curved away mostly perpendicular to the one she'd exited. It also featured a rather excellent view; windows ran the length of it as far as she could see. The ship was in orbit around a planet she didn't recognize; clouds swirling over unfamiliar green continents and a crescent shaped ocean.

She didn't have time to marvel at the scene though, it wouldn't be long before her captors came running. She had to find somewhere safe to hide, figure out where she was and find a way to get a message back to the Doctor. He must be worried sick. Oh. The Doctor! They hadn't taken him too, had they? No. His communicator signal would've registered on her own if he'd been in range when she'd checked it.

That reminded her though, she should probably shut off the distress signal if she intended to hide. It wouldn't do her much good if her captors used it to track her down. With a grimace, she switched it to passive mode. It would buzz if another Torchwood signal pinged it, looking for her.

Now, which way? Shrugging internally, Rose headed left. And nearly stumbled into a dozen well-armed aliens as she rounded the bend. She heard a shout of surprise from behind her as she fled in the opposite direction as quickly as her dress-encumbered legs would carry her.

"Narfong reblit! Sirf t'show!" Rose assumed this roughly translated to 'get her' but couldn't be sure.

She was fairly certain they were a species she'd never encountered before. She tended to remember things like eight foot purple amphibians carrying guns. What could they possibly want with her that they kidnapped her from her wedding? Usually she and the Doctor had to do something before they annoyed the natives enough to end up running for their lives. She wasn't that jeopardy friendly.

Spotting another door, Rose decided to chance it and sonicked it open, darting inside just before her pursuers came into view again. She scrambled the locking mechanism, hoping to buy herself a little more time. There had better be another way out of this room.

Panting to catch her breath, she looked around. It was filled with large rounded cubes, probably storage pods. Her eyes caught another, larger wall panel across the room. Maybe she could access the computer system from it.

The Doctor always made it look so easy. Hacking an alien ship's computer was a hell of a lot harder when you couldn't understand anything written on the screen. She tapped at random symbols in frustration until she found something that resembled a map diagram. It would appear she was on a ship shaped somewhat like a wagon wheel with spokes connecting concentric rings. If she assumed the room highlighted in green was her current location, she had no idea where to go next.

Sighing, she snapped a photo of the map with her communicator's camera. Just in case. Time to try a different approach. She'd just have to ask someone. Very domestic, the Doctor would approve.

Hiding her sonic and communicator in her dress, Rose stepped out into the corridor again and walked casually in search of her pursuers, heart pounding in her chest. Act like you're not afraid, and maybe they'll believe it, she tells herself. Finally spotting them up ahead, she stopped and called to get their attention.

"Oi! You lot, I'm over here!"

Shiny purple heads turned in unison, the aliens gaping at her brazen reappearance. They trained their weapons at her and approached cautiously, wary that her sudden confidence meant she was playing some sort of trick. Rose held up her hands, showing them that she isn't carrying anything.

"Narfong reb'tish. Narfong krasow?" One of them addresses her, he, or she? is wearing a slightly different uniform than the others, probably the leader.

Rose shakes her head. "I can't understand you. Can you speak English? Universal?" She tries, hoping her accent is intelligible, it'd been a while since she'd had to use it.

The leader blinks in what Rose hopes is recognition and replies in somewhat halting Universal, "we can speak Universal if you require. Have you suffered damage to your cognition organ since we last met? You did not experience difficulty communicating then, Bad Wolf."

Rose's eyes widen at this revelation. How did it know her? "You're wrong. We've never met."

At this, the aliens behind the leader seem startled and start chattering to each other in their native language until their leader silences them with a look. It turned back to stare at Rose again.

"Do not speak untruths. We have searched many years to find you, Wolf. You have taken something of ours. You will return it or we will destroy your mate."

At the mention of the Doctor, Rose's eyes darken dangerously. "What have you done with him?"

"Nothing yet. Your mate remains back on that primitive planet you call home. That can easily change though." The alien leader's tone, difficult to be sure of given the language and species differences, nonetheless seemed threatening.

Rose took a breath; she had no idea what it was she had supposedly taken but at least the Doctor wasn't being held captive. "I don't know what you're talking about. I can't give you what I don't have. I am not the person you are looking for."

The alien leader stepped forward and was about to speak again when they were interrupted by the arrival of another creature, this one wearing a similar uniform to the soldiers, but carrying only a small electronic device. It held a hushed conversation with the leader that involved a lot of gesturing in Rose's direction. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

The leader finally dismissed the messenger and turned back to face Rose. "There has been an error. You are not the Bad Wolf we require. You will be transported and released. We will meet again, Wolf."

With a wave of its hand, the alien leader turned and walked away with most of the soldiers. Three of them remained and stepped forward, grabbing the utterly baffled Rose and dragging her with them.

"What? I don't understand. Transported where? Take me back to Earth!" Frantic, Rose struggled against her escorts.

They were too strong though and eventually she gave up her thrashing about to conserve her energy and pay attention to where they were taking her. She was shoved roughly into a narrow chamber about the size of one of the shower stalls in the Torchwood gym. One of the guards said something that sounded suspiciously like the Universal word for 'luck' and touched the green panel next to the chamber. Before Rose could protest, she felt the charge building in the air around her and in the next moment was standing not, as she'd hoped, back at her wedding, but at the edge of a dense alien forest, light years from home.