By the time Louve had made it back to the set up of the tri-TARDIS effort, she had already been able to hear the screaming for a while.
"I just don't think the TARDIS would leave her with something if it's that dangerous!" Clara was arguing.
"Oh," The Doctor scoffed, "You know so much about my TARDIS then?"
"I know that ship well enough to know she's smarter and more careful than you or I can imagine!" Clara snapped back. "You can't just keep drugging Louve because you're scared of what she'd do!"
"It's hardly your business, Ms. Oswald, and you'd do well to remember it." He growled.
Louve stood in shock, just listening to their exchange, and before long the others had caught up, but she'd held her arm out, signaling that they should stop and wait. Clara nor the elder Doctor gave any indication that they knew anyone else was within miles of their arguing.
"How is it 'not my business?' You brought her to me. You told me 'Oh, I think you'd be such good friends with my daughter!" Clara snorted, her fists flexing at her sides, a failing effort to ground herself. "I've been by your side through two faces, through bow ties and fezzes, Trenzalore's aftermath, walked you through a regeneration during a free-fall from the time vortex... I was there for you when everything happened with River..." Clara clinched her jaw, "I'm Rosaline's godmother, for crying out loud, but its 'not my business'?"
"There are, as I have continuously tried to remind you, Clara, things you cannot get into your control." The Doctor scoffed at her, his accent thickening the longer they argued. "This." He gestured around them, still ignoring the audience they now had, "Is my family. Mine. Rose was lost and River is dead. I am here. I'm their protector. I have my daughters and my grandchild, Clara, and you are not her mother."
The slap of Clara's hand on his jaw echoed in the metal shell of the warehouse, which was empty save the three time machines in the center of the cavernous room.
"You dare even insinuate that I would try to take that place?" she spat, eyes narrowed. "How dare you? You have the fucking audacity to tell me this isn't my family too? Everything I do for you, every bit of the care and love I put into everything I do for..." Clara's voice broke, but her resolve did not. "I cannot believe you."
"Forgive me, seemed like it when you tried to tell me how to handle my child." He barked back, ignoring the glowing red hand print on his right cheek.
"I'm hardly a child." Louve spoke up, stepping forward a few steps.
The Doctor looked over at her from his standoff with Clara, rage still rolling in his stormy blue eyes.
"You are my child." He scolded. "Until my hearts stop beating, until time itself wears out, you are my child."
Louve cocked her head to one side, scoffed back at him, gave a quick apologetic look to Clara, then picked back up the standoff she'd now stolen and started with her father.
"Clara's right though. You're afraid." She accused.
"Wolvie, darling I really think-"
"Back off, Javic." She barked over her shoulder as Jack tried to step in and defuse the situation. Jack held his hands up in surrender and backed away. She locked eyes with the elder Doctor once again. "You're afraid of what I'll do."
"Louve, I just think that if you're calm, you won't Darling, you mustn't... Overheat. Burn through anything. Just keep a cool head." He tried to explain himself, slowly, gently.
"You're still so afraid of the big... bad... wolf..." She taunted, taking a slow step forward with each word. As she moved, a brilliant golden light began to shine from behind her eyes and tendrils of light swirled at her fingertips. The elder Doctor stood firm, he simply took his sunglasses off of his collar where he'd hung them and slid them on, but Clara hid her eyes from the onslaught of the light.
"I'm not afraid of you." He replied, the firm voice one might expect to hear from a parent talking down a teenager, crossing his arms over his chest. "For you."
"You think I can't handle myself, as I truly am." She sneered. "You, however, think I truly am just a child."
"You really going to tell me you can control this better now than when you found out about your mum?" He demanded, grabbing her hand, watching the power the heart of the TARDIS she'd grown in had granted her. "You nearly burned our home to the ground!"
"I really was a kid then." She growled back. "So excuse me if I found out that my dad, MY DAD, who is supposed to be the greatest hero in existence was going to stand by while I lost a mother. Again." She shook her head, closed her eyes, and the light faded back into her skin until she was her normal self. She snatched the glasses from the Doctor's face and tossed them over her shoulder, Jack catching them as they fell.
"In four years time." He reminded her, not even flinching as she stole his shades.
"Oh. Right." She laughed humorlessly, "I forgot. Your version I just 'took off' when my TARDIS was mature. I forgot. I was too drugged to correct you."
"Louve, I swear..." He started to argue.
"Nope. I'm not having this conversation with you again." She held a hand up. "I understand fixed points. I know you "tried" " she said, giving air quotations as she mocked him. "Blah... Blah... Blah..." She mimicked with a mimed puppet motion with her hand. "But as I said, Clara is right. I needed that first shot, I needed help to get through that panic attack, yes. But to keep low dosing me- I deserve better. I've saved whole planets- I've done everything you ask of me, everything I was raised to do, and damn it, I do it really brilliantly."
"I never said you didn't. I am just trying to take care of you." Her father growled back, teeth gritted.
"Doesn't matter. Shite's out my system now." She turned again, "Jack, my I use your phone, please, love?"
She kept angry eye contact with her father the entire time she dialed the phone, not even needed to look at the screen. Neither of them blinked or dared to let themself relax, unwilling to yield.
"Hello?" Louve finally said as someone answered the phone. "Yes, this is Dr. Louve Tyler for Dr. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. Yes, that's me. Yes, I'll hold."
It was barely three minutes until Louve had Kate Stewart on the phone. Upon getting Kate on the phone, she'd stepped outside so that no one else could hear their conversation. They'd spoken quickly, and hearing what she needed to, she thanked the UNIT head officer and hung up the phone. She then returned, not even giving a second glance to anyone else, she came over and pulled Jack in, whispering something in his ear. He nodded, disappearing into the younger Doctor's TARDIS and reappearing with his old leather bag.
Louve took the time he was gone to retrieve her own cellphone, which she handed to Clara.
"In the unlikely event Jenny calls back." She explained, putting the phone in her friend's hands. Clara looked confused but nodded and put the phone in her pocket.
Jack was strapping a device onto his wrist when Louve walked over to the younger Doctor and held up a key. The Doctor furrowed his brow but took the key, and turned it over in his hand.
"This is your TARDIS key." He said.
"I need it to be in safe hands while I'm not with it." She said. "I trust you, but I uh-"
"Mad at your me." The other Doctor finished, nodding toward his future self. "What do you think you're doing?"
Louve walked over just as Jack finished fiddling with the technology he'd strapped onto his forearm. He held the opposite arm out, and Louve tucked under it, Jack pulling her as close as he could.
"Using my resources." She replied shortly.
"Ladies, good luck with those two" Jack winked in Rose's direction, "Doctors, We'll see you boys in hell." Jack gave a salute, held the device back over to Louve, she pressed something and the two of them phased out of their sight.
"Someone please tell me what the hell just happened?" Rose demanded, the shock of everything wearing off.
"Vortex manipulator." Her Doctor explained. "I assume he stole it when he left the Time Agency. She's spoken with UNIT, I assume she has an idea that's better, in her opinion, than this?" He nodded toward the tri-TARDIS configuration.
"That or-" The elder Doctor paused as muffled music began to play, 'I was just an only child of the universe, and then I found you' sang out. "What the hell is that?"
Clara dug into the pocket of her skirt and took Louve's phone out, the sound of her Fall Out Boy ringtone growing louder. She looked at the screen and saw the selfie of Jenny and Louve together, along with the 'Test Tube Sis' contact name that appeared at the top of the screen. She turned it to the Doctor, who snatched it from her hand.
"Jenny?!" He started, looking relieved to finally hear from his other daughter, he started to ask her if she was okay, but stopped speaking immediately upon hearing whoever was on the other end of the phone. The color faded from his face, and he suddenly looked as if he might be sick. "What do you want?" He ask in a low growl.
'You have something in the pocket of your coat that will answer why the scanners aren't giving you the results you want' the female with a Scottish accent so thick it rivaled his own, completely ignoring his question.
The Doctor shrugged a shoulder up, using his cheek and shoulder to hold the phone to his ear as he patted down both his hoodie and suit jacket.
"What the hell are you talking about?" He growled, only finding his screwdriver in his pockets.
'Try the leather one, love.' The voice purred into his ear.
"Turn out your coat pockets." The Doctor called over to his younger self, who began to empty his coat pockets onto one of the tables they'd set up computer pieces onto without argument or question. The elder Doctor watched, waiting for something to catch his eye. "There!" He said, pointing as the younger laid something down in the pile. He picked up a small golden band from the rest of his pocket clutter and turned it in the light. "Bio-Damper."
'I'm just as tech and TARDIS savvy as you lot, you remember...' The woman teased again.
"Missy, why are you doing this?" The Doctor demanded into the phone. "I've given you beyond every opportunity to do good, be good... You took a baby from her family... Why?" He pleaded now, his voice getting more desperate as he spoke to her about his missing grandchild.
'All this time saying, all this with you saying 'we don't have to be alone anymore' to me over and over, but you're the one out here repopulating the universe with these little half-lings. Some better made than others, I will tell you that. This oldest one, she's faulty. And a clone, at that. Shame, but leave it to you to muck up a clone...' she tsked and clicked her tongue, 'Really was a waste of effort to get her.'
"Tell me what it is you want me to do, and I'll do it. Just..." He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, "Missy, please. Please don't hurt them."
'If the clone behaves, she can live... This little one, however. I'd never touch a curl on her head, oh, she's just too much. Loves her new Auntie Missy, it was just too easy to get her to open up to me when she found out I know her beloved 'Papa', you see. However, Doctor, business about this little doll is between me and her mummy and daddy. It's why I called them and not you. It isn't as if your TARDIS number has ever changed...' Missy spoke as if she were bored with the whole ordeal. 'However, I suspect the little Wolf is getting UNIT involved at this point, isn't she? Why would she not? They do so love her there, after all. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how well she and her little boy toy follows my trail of gumdrops through the forest. Tata Doctor!' and the line went dead with a soft *click*.
"Fucking-" The Doctor cursed, making a move as if to slam the phone into the concrete beneath his feet, but he seemed to remember at the last second the phone belonged to Louve and he simply sat it down next to the pile of things he'd had his younger self take from his pockets.
"Koschei. Yeah. Got it. So, not as dead as previously hoped, I see." The younger Doctor finished, arms crossed over his chest. He started at his future with cutting, cold blue eyes.
"I'm sorry- How did Missy even know he was here, then?" Clara ask, stepping forward, nodding toward the other Doctor.
"Because she stole Rosaline from a crowd, and she'd have looked for my TARDIS before doing so to avoid me, and having done so, would've found the younger one." He explained.
"How does this not just give you such a migraine?" Rose sighed, rubbing her temple.
"Built for it." Her Doctor replied, kissing the spot she'd just been rubbing on her head. "So what does Koschei want with Louve, then?"
"Whatever it is, it's not her specifically. She took Jenny first. She's planning something- I just, I'm not sure what." He sighed.
"So what do we do, then?" Rose demanded. "Wait until she's taken Louve, too?"
"Whatever she does- Jack will know well enough to come back here and tell us, or at least send a message back, even if Wolvie won't." The Elder Doctor sighed. He held the Bio-Damper up into the light. "In the meantime, I think we could try putting a exclusion matrix in for the bio-damper technology that might stop the effect from keeping her hid from the TARDIS." He tossed the ring back to his younger self, who looked at it, then to the computer they'd built between their ships.
"You know, that might just work?"
Jack had trouble keeping up with Louve and Kate as they spoke back and forth, moving quickly through the labyrinth of white halls in the UNIT scientific wing; He couldn't help but keep a watch over his shoulder, a habit from when he'd been there prior and had more than a few warrants for his arrest, (some of which he was afraid might still be in effect, but it seemed that for the moment, due to his daughter's kidnapping, all was temporarily forgiven).
Louve had ask her to pull some strings with the American Securities Offices, and the CIA had been willing to allow them access to traffic and street cameras, given the nature of who Rosaline was and the deep well of dept they owed not only the Doctor, but also Louve, for services to both countries and the planet as a whole.
A team had already been put on watching the hours of video from the night of the musical they'd attended, any camera within ten city blocks being reviewed. By the time Kate had made it to where the team was reviewing the footage with Rosaline's parents, one of the agents had found exactly what they were looking for.
Rosaline had been knocked from Louve's grip first, and someone took her hand's place before Clara was shoved from the other, confusing the young child, thinking her mother had taken her hand again.
The man who'd grabbed Rosaline's hand was not someone either Jack nor Louve recognized right away, nor did Kate have any ID on the individual yet she could offer. Louve simply walked up to the large screen they'd projected their findings onto and ask for control of the computer. A uniformed agent placed a tablet in Louve's hand, and she zoomed in on the 'man' who was holding her daughter. She pushed play and let the footage roll by at half speed while zoomed in.
"Jack do you see...?" She started to ask.
"That's an android." He concluded. "A very, very realistically human looking android."
"How can you tell?" Kate ask, her brow furrowed with worry for the couple and their child.
"The eyes." Jack pointed, "You can see the lenses where the iris should be. When the thing stoops to pick her up, watch..." He gestured as Louve backed up the video then let it slowly play out, "There. It focuses and has a lens flair."
"Kate... Can you try and see if there were any hits on that facial structure anywhere else since Lanie was taken?" Louve ask, her eyes fixed on the screen, biting her thumb nail.
"Right, of course." She nodded. "You heard her, facial recognition, every known database, hits spanning from June 2012 to now." She called to the room full of people on computers, who all immediately burst into a flurry of clattering work.
"You know, it would be easier if we knew of a list of possible enemies, or someone who might have a grudge who also have ties to Earth..." Kate said, looking from Jack to Louve then back. The two exchanged a glance before answering.
"A list of people who don't would be shorter." Jack sighed. "I have people I owe money, or contraband, or-"
"You slept with and didn't call..." Louve mumbled. Jack's eyes fell to the floor. "You know me, you know my father, you, better than anyone can understand being the daughter of a man like the Doctor, like the Brigadier..."
"I do." She nodded. "I've been fortunate that no one has yet tried to harm my sons to get to me. But I understand the life. Whatever UNIT can do to help, whatever it is within our power to do or ask for other in regard to Earthly assistance on, it's yours." She promised.
"Er-" A young voice from the rows of computers below them called out, catching their attention. "Ma'am?"
"Cadet?" She called, "If you've found something, full screen."
Without another word, the agent put an image of the same- or an identical- android holding a sign on a street corner, like you might see someone panhandling for money, except the sign featured not English- but circular Gallifreyan. The android was making eye contact with a red-light camera, as if it knew its photo was being taken. Kate looked at Louve, who had taken Jack's cellphone and snapped a picture of the image.
"What does that say?" Jack ask, fear building in his gut for his little girl the more they found out.
"Its a set of coordinates." She replied, "With a star date." She swallowed thickly and looked over at Jack, her eyes brimming over with tears.
"What else?" He pressed, seeing the distress on her face.
"It says 'Mummy and Daddy only- Will trade pup for pup...' so-" She took a shuttered breath, wrapped her arms around herself and thought about River.
River had given every bit of herself to those she loved over the years. She'd sacrificed and sacrificed and kept a brave face- and she'd taught her daughter the same.
"We go get her, Jack you have to promise me-"
"I'm not going to leave without you both-" He tried to interrupt.
"Promise me," She continued, barely touching her fingertips to his lips to silence him, "Promise me you'll take care of her. That you'll let her see dad and teach her about who she is." She pleaded.
Jack glanced around the room, praying someone, mostly Kate, might have anything helpful to say, but it seemed the agents were all looking away at what was clearly a personal moment. He looked back to her, shook his head and a single tear escaped down his face.
"I'm not going to leave you there. I won't do it." He shook his head.
Louve stepped forward, taking his face in her shaking hands.
"You will do whatever Missy wants if it keeps Rosaline safe. That's what you'll do." She commanded.
"Wolvie- I can't-" His voice failed him. "I just, I haven't fixed anything, we were supposed t-"
"Shh." She gave him a broken, watery smile. "Promise me. Promise me that if that's the only way, if it how it has to be, you'll do it."
He lunged forward and pulled her to him, kissing her hard. She didn't resist, and they both ignored the weight of the eyes in the room on them.
"I promise." He murmured against her lips.
"Thank you." She breathed. "Come on- let's get my TARDIS and go. They don't need it to search anymore."
Thanks for reading!