Chapter Thirty-Three
After Rose had returned the Doctor's sonic screwdriver to him, she, Toshiko and Owen left the infirmary, and the Doctor and Ianto looked at the door of the makeshift cell that held Lisa Hallett. They exchanged glances.
"Well, we might as well get to it, then," the Doctor said. He unlocked the door with his sonic, and Ianto slipped inside. After a moment he stuck his head out again and motioned for the Doctor to join him.
Lisa Hallett's prison cell had been built by partitioning off a portion of the Infirmary ward. Since she was as much a medical patient as a prisoner, her room contained not only a narrow bed against one wall, but a small table and two chairs near the other end of the room. The bathroom that had serviced the Infirmary had been incorporated into her cell as well, now acting as an en suite for her. In fact, if it weren't for the fine, unbreakable mesh that covered the window, preventing her escape, the room could have been mistaken as a patient's room in a private hospital.
The Doctor took all of this in as he entered, as well as the colorful duvet and throw pillows on the bed and the matted, but not framed, prints on the walls. Martha's touches, he assumed, probably with the idea that cheerful surroundings would help her patient improve. Or perhaps just because Martha was thoughtful and kindhearted, even to someone who had endangered the planet with her actions.
Lisa was standing by the window, dressed in a short sleeved top and elastic waist trousers, trainers with Velcro fasteners on her feet. No belts, no shoe strings. Nothing she could use to harm herself and nothing in the room, save the pillows possibly, that she could use to harm anyone else.
"Lisa, this is the man I told you about," Ianto said by way of introduction.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor." He crossed the room, hand outstretched, and she cautiously shook it.
"Hello," she said. To the Doctor, she looked like a completely different person than she had only weeks before, her face open and curious rather than the cold, calculating expression she had worn then.
"Lisa, do you remember me?" he asked.
She furrowed her brow and looked at him intently. "No. Have we met?"
"Yes, we did. Not very long ago, in fact," he told her.
She continued to stare at him for a moment longer and then slowly shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't remember."
"That's all right," he said gently. "Do you know what happened to you?"
"No." Her voice held more than a hint of frustration. "No one will tell me anything. Not how I lost my memory, and not why I'm locked up." This last part was directed at Ianto, who looked at her impassively.
"Lisa, what's the last thing you remember?" the Doctor asked.
"I'm not sure," she replied. "It's all a bit of a jumble. Maybe Christmas at Ianto's sister's house. She had just had a baby. I don't think there's anything after that."
"That was five and a half years ago," Ianto confirmed.
The Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, and her eyes widened in apprehension.
"What is that?" she asked nervously.
"A piece of medical equipment," he answered. And it was. It just wasn't all it was. "I just want to scan you to see what we're dealing with here." After scanning her and analyzing the readings, he glanced over at Ianto. "It was definitely Ret-Con."
"Someone did this to me?" Lisa was horrified.
"Yes," Ianto said. "And we think it was someone from the GBF."
She shook her head. "That's… not possible," she protested. "They are good people. They are just working for the good of the planet. And they are my friends. They couldn't have done this."
"But they did, Lisa," the Doctor told her. "You told me that while you were working in the archives, you found a piece of an alien communication device that had a bit of energy in it. That bit of energy was actually a life form."
"It possessed you," Ianto interjected, downplaying Lisa's own role in the events.
"While you were… possessed…" the Doctor said, using Ianto's simplification of her telepathic joining, "you stole weapons from Torchwood, kidnapped Rose Tyler, and you, along with some others, built a beacon so you could bring more of the aliens here and take over the planet. When you were caught, whomever was involved with you here at Torchwood gave you a heavy dose of Ret-Con, more than enough to wipe your memories. Maybe even enough to kill you. Then they dumped you over by the London Eye."
She sank down on the bed, shaking her head. "No, no, I don't believe it."
"Lisa, it's true," Ianto said as he sat down next to her. He took her hand. "You know me. You know I've never lied to you."
She nodded absently as she tried to take it all in. "I know you haven't, Yan," she said. "It just all seems so… incredible." After a few moments of silence, she looked at her former fiancé. "So you're hoping that if I get my memory back, I can tell you who I was working with, right?"
"Pretty much," he said.
She looked up at the Doctor. "Ianto told me that you could help me."
"Actually, I'm not certain I can." He pulled up a chair next to the bed and sat down on it, facing her. "I can try to restore the pathways that will connect your lost memories to your conscious mind, but I don't know if it'll work."
She nodded. "I want to do whatever it takes."
"It would mean entering your mind telepathically," he warned. "And it might be unpleasant. If you remember everything you've done, everything you've had happen to you, good and bad, you could find it overwhelming. It will be as if all of it has happened to you at one time." He paused as he allowed the implications of that to sink in. He knew that in her missing years she had experienced a broken engagement and the deaths of family and friends. And those were only the things he knew about. "Do you still want me to try?"
"Yes," she said without hesitation. "I've given it a lot of thought, and I want to remember."
"Lisa, I need to make sure you understand exactly what you are agreeing to," the Doctor said. "I won't do this unless I'm sure you understand."
She looked at him evenly, and when she spoke, the cold, bitter edge to her voice reminded him of the Lisa he had first met. "You are going to try to telepathically restore my memories, and in exchange I'm going to tell you who the bastard was who double-crossed me and tried to kill me."
The Doctor blinked.
"Yes. Right," he said. "That about covers it. Well, okay then. Let's get started, shall we?"
Ianto got up and stood leaning against the door while the Doctor took his position on the bed.
"Lisa," the Doctor said quietly. "I want you to close your eyes and try to relax. Imagine you're in a long hallway, and there are doors on either side. Now some of those doors are locked, and what we're going to do is try to unlock them. If there's anything behind any of the doors you don't want me to see, just shut the door and we'll move on." While he was speaking, he closed his eyes and gently placed his fingertips on her temples.
~oOo~
At the door to Pete Tyler's office, Rose was inputting the code to unlock the door.
"Hopefully they haven't changed the code yet," she said under her breath.
"And if they have?" Owen asked.
"If it doesn't work, we can always go back and get the Doctor's sonic," she told him. There was a quiet click, and the door swung open. She turned and grinned at the others before entering.
The outer office was small, only really large enough for a desk and a filing cabinet that were used by the Director's assistant. On the other side of the room was another door that led to Pete's private office.
"Tosh," Rose said, "I'll get you onto Dad's computer using my codes. They should give you access to almost everything in Torchwood's computer banks. If they haven't wiped them yet, it'll be safer to do it that way than to have you try and hack your way in. Then while you're doing that, I'll search the office." She turned to work on the door leading to the inner office.
"While you two are doing that, what am I supposed to do?" Owen asked.
"Sit around and look pretty, like every good assistant is supposed to do," Toshiko said sarcastically.
"Owen, you can start on the files in here," Rose said as she sat down at the desk. "I doubt Keeling will have had time to move much in here, but we're still gonna have to check everything. I'll start with Todd's stuff and when I'm done with that, I'll join you."
She turned on the computer and quickly typed in her password. The screen flooded with information.
"Good," she said. "We're in."
~oOo~
As he and the guard left Jake Simmond's cell, an unconscious Jake spread out on his bunk, his mobile started ringing. He gestured to the guard to continue without him.
"Yes?" he answered.
The voice on the other end of the phone sounded very young to his ears. "Sir, the director told me to inform you if there were any problems tonight. The Secretary of Defense is here with her assistant investigating Torchwood's integration into UNIT, and we've been having rampant power outages and problems with the CCTV. Not only that, someone just entered the director's office using Director Tyler's personal ID code. Do you want us to check it out?"
His mind raced. The staffing problems could have led to the electrical problems, and an investigation by the Department of Defense was to be expected, but the probability of an investigation, electrical problems, short staff and a break-in happening all at the same time were so low as to be almost impossible. But other than the guard he had just sent back to the archives, he didn't know whom within the security staff he could trust.
He walked quickly down the hall and peeked in a small glass window. Pete Tyler was still in his cell, stretched out on his bunk.
"No," he said. "Stay where you are. I think I know who it is, and I'll handle it personally."
~oOo~
After Toshiko traded places with her in front of Pete's computer, Rose left to work in the outer office and Owen began to go through the filing cabinets.
"What I want to know is why I had to be your assistant. Nobody would believe that you're my superior."
She didn't bother to look up from the computer. "I'm your superior in every way," she said dryly. "Besides, why shouldn't people believe you'd be below me?"
Owen jerked his head around to look at her. She was staring intently into the monitor in front of her while her fingers flew across the keyboard. Had she missed the obvious double entendre?
No, she couldn't have.
He smirked.
"You should be so lucky to be above me."
Toshiko snorted. "I'd say you'd be the lucky one."
His eyebrows shot up almost to his hairline. "Oh, really?" he asked with interest. "That good, eh?"
She turned and looked over her glasses at him. "Oh, you have no idea," she said in a low voice before turning back to the computer.
"Shut it, you two," Rose called from the other room. "Owen, you are distracting Tosh."
"Oh, he's incapable of distracting me," Toshiko answered. "He could be dancing the Macarena on the desk only wearing feathers and fluorescent orange paint and he wouldn't distract… Oh, Rose!"
Rose rushed into the room. "What is it?"
"I think…" Hunched over, Toshiko typed rapidly and stared intently into the computer. Then she sat back in her chair. "Yes! I found them!"
"Who? Dad and Martha?"
Toshiko nodded. "Pete and Martha and all the rest."
"Where are they?" Owen asked.
"Here."
"Here?" Rose asked.
Toshiko nodded again. "Here. Downstairs. In the Dungeon!"
Rose ran her fingers through her hair and started laughing. "Fantastic! Now we're getting somewhere!" She pulled her mobile out of her pocket, started to type and then stopped. "No," she muttered. She began again, staring at her phone. "The Doctor's probably still busy with Lisa. I've got to text Ianto. Tosh, you and Owen get down there. I need you to take the psychic paper and convince them to release Dad." She paused to read a reply and then began typing again. "I'm going to have Ianto meet you there just in case. After I finish up here, I'll go get the Doctor and we'll figure where to meet up."
~oOo~
"Okay, a little further down the hall," the Doctor said.
He and Lisa were still sitting on the bed, eyes closed, the Doctor's fingertips on her temple.
Ianto looked up from his phone to watch them for a second. Rose had said the Doctor would be able to hear anything he said without breaking their telepathic connection, but he still didn't want to interrupt them.
"Doctor," he said softly. "I have to meet Tosh and Owen. Rose is going to meet you here when she's done in Pete's office."
The Doctor nodded. As he continued to speak softly to Lisa, rebuilding the connections in her mind and coaxing her memories to the surface one by one, he heard Ianto quietly let himself out of the room.
~oOo~
Ianto slipped his perception filter around his neck and headed towards the dedicated lift that led to the Dungeon. His path took him past Director Tyler's office. Toshiko and Owen had just left the office and were walking down the hall ahead of him. He quietly snuck up behind Owen and tapped him on the shoulder.
Owen jumped, and Ianto snickered.
"Shit, Ianto," he hissed, swatting at empty air. "Knock it off."
"Grow up, both of you," Toshiko snapped. "We've got to keep a low profile."
They walked down the corridors, using the psychic paper to get through the security locks, and made it to the lift without seeing anyone.
"I spent a lot of time here last time I was in London, and I've never seen this place so empty," Ianto whispered to them.
"Not completely empty," Toshiko said. "Someone's coming up in the lift."
She and Owen glanced at each other nervously as a man exited the lift. He quickly made his way down the hall while they got in.
Ianto stared after him before he followed them in. "I know him," he said to them as the doors closed. "He shouldn't be here." He pulled out his mobile and frowned when he looked at the screen. "I was going to text Rose, but I don't have any signal."
"It's the metal walls of the lift," Toshiko told him. "You'll have signal again once we're in the Dungeon."
~oOo~
Five minutes after Ianto had left, Lisa still had large gaps in her memories, gaps that the Doctor realized he would never be able to repair no matter how much time he spent with her. But he was certain that the progress they had made would allow many of her other memories to return naturally in their own time.
As they approached her more recent memories, he spotted something she hadn't noticed. It was just on the edge of the portion lost due to the drugging she had received. Through her eyes he could see her studying his medical records from Cardiff and instantly realizing he was part-alien.
He took a deep breath. What he was about to do went completely against his sense of morality, but he knew it was necessary. If she ever remembered what he was, it would put them all, all the Tylers as well as him, in danger. With a feather-light mental touch, he gently smudged all of her knowledge of him from the time she had met him that first night in the Torchwood storage bay to the dark part permanently damaged by Ret-Con, only allowing her to remember meeting him today.
"Now we need to focus on your most recent memories," he said aloud. "Try to remember who was helping you here at Torchwood."
She shook her head. "I can't," she told him, and he could feel the anxiety well up inside of her.
"Try to relax," he urged. "Take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Don't strain for the names of the people, just allow their faces to come to the surface."
She obeyed, inhaling deeply and forcing herself to relax. Faces appeared at random, many of whom he knew, some he did not: Sean Callahan, her assistant; Richard Bradford, her partner at the lab; Harrison Keeling, whom they already knew about; a young man wearing a security uniform from Torchwood he didn't recognize; a young woman with long brown hair. And then the last face… Almost as if she had burned him, he jerked his fingertips away from her temples and jumped away from her.
Lisa's eyes flew open. "What is it?" she asked. "Do you know who did this to me?"
"Yes," he said.
~oOo~
As Rose continued to search her step-father's office, she heard the doorknob of the door to the hall slowly turn. She almost called out to Toshiko, to ask if everything had gone alright, and then stopped herself. It was far too soon for them to be back.
And none of them–not Tosh, or Owen, or Ianto, and especially not the Doctor–would be sneaking into the office that way.
The door to the inner office was half-shut. Good and bad, she thought. Bad because she couldn't see who was out there, but good because whoever it was couldn't see her and that bought her some time. She quickly pulled on her perception filter and glanced at the ceiling. It was too late to turn off the lights, but not too late, she decided, to turn off the computer. She pressed the off switch, just as the door to the inner office swung open.
"I know you're in here," Frank Collins said. "I don't know where, but I know you're here."
Rose felt her mobile begin to vibrate in her pocket. Her heart pounded, and she quickly reached to turn it off. Thankfully he didn't seem to have heard the tiny noise it had made.
"I can't see you," he continued, "but I can sense you. I can feel your apprehension. But where are you?" He closed his eyes. "You can't hide from me, you know. You think you can, but you can't."
Rose backed up as quietly as she could, only stopping when she felt the wall behind her, and tried not to breathe.
Eyes still closed, he turned slowly in a circle. And stopped when he was facing her. He took a tentative step forward.
He slowly opened his eyes. And stared right at her.
"Hello, Rose," he said. "Very nice to see you again."