Chapter 7
Rose walked forward, being pulled along by Vatra's iron grasp on her arm. She hated to be pulled away from her Doctor, but she really had no choice- Vatra had whispered a threat into Rose's ear and Rose had quickly obeyed her, despite the growingly dangerous situation she was in. They continued down the hall and turned into a large white room with a table in the middle. There was some equipment around the room against the walls, but none of it plugged up to anything.
Rose took a shaky step forward and Vatra pushed her in further. Vatra guided the now trembling Rose to the table in the middle and sat her down. No straps were put on her, which allowed Rose to relax slightly. That meant they weren't going to torture her or anything… yet. Vatra sat down in a chair across from Rose and stared at her for a moment.
'I see that man in the bow tie cares a lot about you, hmm? I don't need much from you, I just want you to tell me one thing. Where in the universe did you four get your hands on a TARDIS? There's no way you found one on Earth- Earth has nothing near that sort of technology, nor would simple Earthlings be able to understand the darn thing if they found on in the first place. They're a lot of trouble for me, you know.' Rose stayed silent though the woman's gaze unnerved her. 'They're the single thing that can breach the security of my facility. And I've worked a long time perfecting this security system; I don't want plain old Earthlings walking in on it.' She looked at Rose with penetrating eyes, feeling in her gut that these four weren't simple Earthlings. She was Vatra after all; she needed to know the entire story and more- much more.
With no reply from the blonde, she sighed. 'I don't want to do this, but I can always just search your mind for it.' She got up and paced slowly towards a machine lined up on the wall. It looked much like the domes hairdressers would put over someone's head, but inside was filled with lights that reminded Rose vaguely of the old sonic screwdriver, the silver and blue one.
Rose glanced around at the other machines and found herself grateful that Vatra was walking to the least menacing of them all. She silently slid off the table as Vatra's back was turned and reached for the floor, having spotted a paper clip. Though nothing of great concern was happening to her at the moment, Rose thought to pick up the paper clip just in case she needed it. They could be used for many things, after all. She slipped the cool piece of metal in her back pocket and sat herself back down on top of the tablet again just as Vatra grabbed the rolling tray the machine was on and pulled it over.
Vatra smiled at Rose while she powered up the machine. 'This will be painless, as long as you relax. Please don't make any trouble, I'd like to avoid calling in the guards.' Vatra tried to comfort Rose as a doctor may comfort a patient before giving an injection. She positioned the machine behind Rose and began lowering the domed headpiece. Rose began to shudder, scared of the information Vatra could pull from her mind.
Things ran through her head, each word tensing her muscles more and telling her to run. Time-Lord, Immortal, TARDIS, time travel. The memories of all the things, good and bad, she had seen of her doctor floated through her mind and she knew she couldn't let Vatra get to her memories, at least not without a fight.
While Vatra was unsuspecting and fiddling with things on the control unit of the machine, Rose leaped off of the table and ran for the door. Vatra simply glanced up at her, and then went back to adjusting the dials. Rose yanked the door open, only to find that two large guards had been waiting outside, guarding the door for instances such as this. The larger of the two picked up Rose in his arms and restrained her kicking and flailing as he walked her back into the room. He set her down softly on the table and held down Rose's flailing limbs while his colleague pulled some Velcro strips from a drawer and placed them around her wrists and ankles, connecting her securely to the table.
She twisted, trying to reach her head out of the range of the machine, but to no avail. The guards placed themselves this time within the door and watched as Vatra hit a small blue button on the unit. The machine began to make noises all too familiar to Rose. She twisted to view the dome and the blue lights flashed, scanning first Rose's physical form, preparing to scan her mind. She couldn't see the results Vatra was getting, but she knew they weren't showing up as normal human.
Rose sat there pushing against her restraints, trying to avoid thinking about all Vatra could find within her mind. Through the whirring of the machine, she could hear Vatra gasping as the results began to show on the screen. Rose could hear murmurs of 'I can't believe it!' from Vatra and she stopped pulling on the restrains, knowing that Vatra had found exactly what Rose wanted to hide about herself from this monster. The machine whirred for minutes before Rose could feel the power of the sonic-like devices pushing their way into her mind. She couldn't hinder them; she could only feel as they crept into her unconscious thoughts and memories.
Through this unusual sense of probing, Rose was unable to judge the length of time she had been in here, focusing instead on trying to locate the things the probes were discovering. Every time she heard a gasp or 'wow' or 'oh my god' from Vatra, she shuddered. With every comment, the fear that Vatra was going to keep her here grew and grew until she had all but given in to the idea that she was never going to leave this facility of Vatra's will.
Finally, after some considerable length of time, the machine finally stopped whirring and Vatra simply stared at Rose in bewilderment. Then a look of anger grew on her face. 'How are you lying to me through the mind-probe? The time-lords are all dead, and they have been for a long time!' She looked at Rose's face, now lack of fight, and knew that the machine was not lying. The man was in fact a time-lord, and she was in fact immortal, as far as she knew.
'You're… you… but you're human!' She cried. Her faced changed as she remembered glimpses of other memories that had been picked up by the probe. Her face softened. 'You've had a challenging time though, but with a man you love.' Vatra then smiled deviously. 'I'll never have a chance like this again! To study a time-lord and his companions… You're the perfect example of the positive effects of time-travel! With you, I can convince the board to finally give me the funding to design a new TARDIS.' She unstrapped Rose and the blonde stood up shakily from weak muscles after being tensed for so long under the machine.
Vatra gave Rose an awkward side-hug, smiling at her fantasies of creating her very own time-traveling spaceship. She motioned at the guards and Rose finally seemed to snap back to attention. 'Boys, why don't you bring her to Josh's old room?' Vatra sauntered out of the room with a smile plastered on her face.
The guards grabbed Rose's arms loosely and this touch brought the fight back into her. With Vatra gone for the moment, maybe she had a chance of at least making it back to her Doctor. The guards dragged her out of the room and she let out a scream, as if the sheer noise would cause the guards to release their grasp. She flailed and struggled, hoping to yank herself free of the two men.
Sadly, her entire struggle was to no avail. The guards continued dragging her down the hall, in the opposite direction of her Doctor in his cell with the companions. They threw her into a room down the hall and locked the door behind her.
'Let me out!' She yelled into the door as she pounded her weak fists against the strong door. The guards didn't respond, to no surprise to Rose. She leaned against the door pitifully before turning around to explore her new living space. There was a simple bed with red and blue bedding set and a lamp to match on the basic side table. On the left was a dresser with a single picture frame on it. Curiously, Rose approached the dresser. She dug through the clothes in the drawers, finding two pairs of worn jeans, a rarely worn pair of khakis, a green polo shirt, two graphic T's, a torn blue zip-up hoodie, several pairs of white socks stained with dirt, and some boxers. The picture in the frame proved her theory that this room once belonged to a teenage boy. He was in the photo, smiling brightly and sitting on a picnic blanket next to Vatra, but something about the face seemed familiar to her. 'Her son?' Rose whispered to herself questioningly. She stared at the familiar face and wandered to the bed where she sat down, deep in thought.
A red backpack in the corner caught her eye, and she dug through it, hoping to find something that could help her escape. Sadly, the bag was empty and served no purpose for her at the moment. Instead, she returned her focus to the boy in the picture. She definitely knew this boy, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
She set down the photo on the bed and collapsed with a sigh. 'Oh, Rose, what has the Doctor gotten you into this time?' She muttered to herself.
A scratching to her right woke Rose up. In the dark of the room, she couldn't identify the form that was most definitely outside the window. She leaned over to the wall and clicked on the lamp, flooding the room with light. Outside of the small window, Rose recognized her familiar dog, Sam.
Sam's eyes gleamed at her and stirred up a recent memory in her mind. 'Those eyes…' Rose whispered as she couldn't help but think of the photo sitting on the foot of the bed. She snatched up the photo while the dog whimpered and she got a good look at the boy, Josh's eyes. She flashed her gaze back to Sam and the connection hit her.
Sam has struck her as quite human before and now she understood why. Sam was Josh, stuck within the dog's body. How he got there, Rose had not a clue, but she knew for certain that it was in fact Josh. The Dog, Josh Rose reminded herself, held a paper in his mouth, anxiously trying to get inside. Rose pushed the window, opening it as much as she could. The small opening was nowhere near big enough for the canine, but that's not what Josh wanted. He slipped the paper down into her room and ran away.
Rose picked up the damp, crinkled paper and looked at the uneven, hasty scrawl.
Rose,
In case you haven't figured it out, Vatra is my mother. Yes, I'm the wolf. I don't have much time, but I'll explain it as much as I can. Mom was trying to create herself a TARDIS, and I was watching with her. The machine malfunctioned, sending me crashing into Earth as a wolf. Or a dog, I'm really not sure. Anyways, I get a few minutes as a human in this full moon here, but I'll be changing back soon. I'll try and get you out, can you pack me some clothes?
Josh, or as you named me, Sam.
P.S. You need to know something about Mom…
The letter dissolved into a scribble of illegible gibberish and Rose assumed Josh must have unfortunately changed back into the dog.
'Oh Josh, I promise, I'll get you human again,' Rose promised herself as she turned off the light and waited for something to happen.