To Call Our Own (31-36 of 36)

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Chapter Thirty-one:  Anomaly

Jackie had neither been hurt nor angry when they appeared on her back lawn. When the Doctor had popped his head out of the TARDIS to see her standing there on the back lawn, Daisy in her arms and Johnny and Pete next to her, she’d simply looked confused. “What are you doing back so soon?” She asked him. “It’s only been a month since you left.”

“A month?” He frowned. The two Earth’s shouldn’t be that far off from each other. Maybe it was because they had left 2018 and shot for 2009, that they’d ended up back in 2008. Well, that he could figure out later. “It’s been longer for us.”

“How much longer?” she asked as Rose stepped out of the TARDIS. “Nine months?” She laughed looking at the baby in Rose’s arms.

“No,” Rose shook her head. “Six and a half. There were complications, he grew too fast, but he’s fine now. Mum, Dad, Johnny, meet our son Vandarian Tyler. Darian for short.” Jackie quickly handed Daisy to Pete and stepped forward, scooping the little baby out of her daughter’s arms.

“He’s gorgeous,” she breathed. “How old is he?”

“A week.”

“And what were his birth stats?” Pete wanted to know.

“4 kilograms,” Rose said.

“And 60 centimeters long,” added the Doctor proudly.

“What’s that in pounds and inches?” asked Pete in confusion.

The Doctor’s eyes looked up as he quickly converted the measurements. “About 8 pounds, 8 ounces and nearly 24 inches long.”

“A big boy,” said Jackie, her face looking raptly down into Darian’s. The baby blinked up at her and suddenly she gave a little jump, then calmed herself rapidly. “I think, did he just, I don’t know, touch my mind?”

“What happened?” asked Rose.

“I don’t know. Just, something brushing my thoughts and then this strong sense of the word Gran shot through me.”

Rose nodded. “He’s a bit telepathic like his dad.”

“Can I hold him?” asked Pete.

Rose stepped forward and lifted her sister Daisy out of Pete’s arms and then Jackie handed the boy over. Pete took him carefully and then knelt down so Johnny, who had been pulling on his trouser leg, could see Darian, too.

Suddenly Johnny giggled. “He knows me. He’s funny!”

“Ooo,” said Pete as the baby firmly identified him as Gramps, and then little Daisy let out a little cooing laugh of her own.

“Think he’s made the rounds now,” the Doctor said with a grin on his face.

Eventually Darian was handed over to the Doctor and Rose returned Daisy to her mum and the contingent trooped into the house. Rose reached for the phone, dialed Mickey’s number and left a message on his voice mail, before settling in close to the Doctor.

Donna, who had followed them into the house, stepped forward to join them and Jackie gave her a welcoming hug.



Three hours later they all heard the squeal of brakes as a car shot into the driveway and skidded to a stop. The front door slammed open and Mickey Smith tore through the house to the family room. They all looked at him in shock at his unmannerly entrance. “Doctor,” he cried out, “There’s something wrong at Torchwood Tower. The entrance to the Void is open.”

The Doctor stood abruptly. “Rose?” he said.

“I’ll stay here with the baby. Take Donna and go. And be careful.”

He leaned down and kissed her forcefully, dropped a tender kiss on the baby’s head and strode from the room, Mickey and Donna on his heels.

“How bad is it?” the Doctor asked steering Mickey towards the TARDIS.

“Bad,” said Mickey. “It’s like it was when your universe was doing ghost shifts. And something’s there. Something’s trying to push through.”

“That isn’t good. That isn’t good at all.” He slammed into the TARDIS and ran to set the coordinates while Donna shut the doors and locked them. In seconds they were moving.

“Hold on tight. This isn’t going to be a good landing.” That was an understatement. Upon materialization everything went sideways and they found themselves lying against the doors.

“How do we get out, Doctor?” Donna asked.

“Through the airlock,” he said, pointing to what normally would be the floor. He lifted out a chunk of grating and they crawled underneath the console and the Doctor kicked at a trap door. He dropped into it, then helped catch Donna as Mickey lowered her down. Mickey scrambled through last.

“We don’t need to do an actual air cycling or pressure change,” the Doctor said, holding the sonic screwdriver to a control panel. It whirred briefly and then the Doctor lifted a hatch and then crawled through it to another door. Again he pulled the hatch. The base of the police box kicked forward and the three of them crawled out into Torchwood Tower. They turned to look at the TARDIS for a moment. The Police Box lay on its side.

“Where are we, Mickey?” the Doctor asked.

“Basement,” he muttered. “Come on, the lifts are this way.”

The three of them jogged through the hallway and to the paneled doors. Mickey swiped a key through a slider and then pushed one of the up buttons. The rapid descent could be heard.

“Emergency feature,” said Mickey at the Doctor’s raised eyebrows. “It sends the lift down at three times the normal speed after disgorging any passengers at the current floor.”

The doors came open and they hurried inside. Mickey selected a button for the right floor and said, “Hang on. It’ll be just as fast going up.”

Donna reached out and grabbed the hand rail. The Doctor balanced fine without it. When the lift doors opened they stepped out onto the floor with the lever room and a sudden shaft of panic shot through the Doctor. He shook it off as they made their way forward. Walking into the lever room made him physically sick to his stomach.

His eyes went to the wall. There was the blank white expanse that had haunted his dreams for three years, if you included the year that never was. Just looking at it made him want to panic. Bile rose in his throat. He shoved the emotions down savagely. He was on Rose’s side of the wall. He’d be fine.

Suddenly the wall shimmered and he could see colors pressing outwards. Neon pink and blue and green colors pushed forward into the room. But whatever force they had, they could not push all the way through. The wall retracted, forcing them backwards.

The Doctor strode forward and felt compelled to raise his hand, to reach out and try to touch the creatures, whatever they were.

“No!” began Mickey, “Don’t touch--.”

Donna was faster. She took him down with a flying tackle.


Chapter Thirty-two:  Time and Space Odditites

“Ow! What’d you do that for?” the Doctor said, but his voice wasn’t quite his normal offended one for that type of situation. He had a touch of the mesmerized about him.

“Oh, for the love of Mike,” Donna scolded, sitting on him until she could be sure his good sense was returning. “There are three things you should know better about by now, Doctor. One, don’t stick your fingers in someone else’s marmalade jar without permission, two, don’t lick the aliens just because they smell good, and three, don’t touch the pretty swirly lights! Did you learn nothing on Blastigula Prime? Or Rigel? Or, I don’t know, Centrificus?!” She was shouting by the time she said the last word.

“I like you,” said Mickey trying to hold back his laughter but failing miserably.

Donna took a brief moment to toss him a grin before putting back on her scolding face. “Honestly, can’t leave you alone for five bloody seconds before you try and do something stupid.”

“That’s the Doctor for you. He always has to pee on the electric fence,” said Mickey.

“I what?” protested the Doctor. “I do not!”

“What’s that about then?” Donna inquired.

“Something my Gran always says. You can tell some people don’t touch that fence, it’s electric and you’ll get shocked and they’ll listen to you. They won’t touch the fence. Other people will have to see someone else get shocked before they’ll believe the fence isn’t safe to touch, but once they do, they’ll leave it alone. The Doctor, on the other hand, well, you can see where I’m going with this, right?” Mickey asked.

“The Doctor has to pee on the fence, getting an extra big shock in return before he learns his lesson.”

“Exactly.”

“That only happened the once,” the Doctor muttered in extreme annoyance. “Well, twice, no, three times. But the third time the fence wasn’t electric; it was powered by a Syorbian resonance expellation debilitator that looked like a tree. And we’d been in that forest for twenty hours. My bladder might be bigger on the inside than the outside but it wasn’t that big and it’s really not fair of you to bring it up to Donna.”

“Still gave you one hell of a shock for not being electric, didn’t it?” Mickey asked. Donna was having a hard time getting her laughter under control.

The Doctor ignored the comment, giving him a black stare. Then he turned it on Donna until she sobered. “You going to let me up?” he asked.

“You going to touch the pretty swirly lights?” she countered.

“No.”

“Or lick them, or eat their marmalade?”

“I highly doubt they have marmalade, Donna, if they’re made out of light,” the Doctor said. When Donna didn’t budge he snapped, “Fine! I won’t lick them or eat their marmalade, either!”

Mickey leaned over and gave Donna a hand up and then the Doctor scrambled to his feet, taking a few steps away from the wall. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

“Jake and Saree are monitoring from over there,” he pointed to a room across the way that was walled off by glass. “I evacuated everyone else off this floor.”

“Who’s this Saree? Can she be trusted?” the Doctor asked.

“I trust her. She’s one of the best Torchwood has to offer. She’s third in command after Pete and then me,” Mickey explained. “She’s smart and clever, can think on her feet, and can out argue an Axcillian.”

“Humph,” said the Doctor. “Sounds like Donna.”

“Oi!” Donna turned and smacked his arm.

“Ouch. That was a compliment! So what do we know about these things?” The Doctor took several more steps away from the wall before turning to look at the creatures.

“A whole lot of not much,” Mickey said reluctantly. “Saree can explain it better. Come on.” He led them into the glass-walled room.

“Saree, this is the Doctor and Donna. Doctor, you remember Jake. Jake, Donna, Donna, Jake,” Mickey completed the introductions.

“So what can you tell me about those creatures?” the Doctor asked.

Saree was a stunningly beautiful woman of East Indian descent, her eyes dark, her hair black, her skin a warm brown. Every hair was in place, every item of her clothing impeccably arranged. When she spoke it was in a clipped, high society British accent.

“They’re generating energy,” Saree said. “Enough wattage to run the entire city of London for twelve hours. So far the colors we’ve seen have been pink, green, blue, orange, and purple. All in intense neon hues. In fact there is some speculation that they are life forms made from some of the gaseous elements near neon on the Periodic Table.”

“When they first began to appear,” said Jake, “the wall didn’t yield at all. It was like seeing light trapped under smooth glass. They just swirled around without affecting anything. But three days ago they began to push the wall outwards, as if testing to see if the bubble would burst. So far it hasn’t.”

“But we don’t think that’s a permanent thing,” Saree added. “We think the bubble will burst within another week.”

“Other than that, we know that there was a temporal distortion when they first appeared,” Jake said.

“Temporal distortion?” The Doctor was alarmed.

“Yeah, time got…” Jake trailed off.

“Bendy,” said Mickey. “Really bendy. Like little bits of it would zip on ahead and other bits would drag on far past when it should have. And once or twice I’d blink and everything would be frozen. Then poof, back to normal like nothing had changed.”

“Spacial distortion, too. A real oddity, like something was passing through this universe on the way to another one.”

“You’re speculating, Jake,” Saree said sharply.

Mickey put a hand on Saree’s arm and murmured, “His speculations have a habit of being 90% accurate though.”

“When did this start?” the Doctor asked.

Mickey frowned, trying to remember. “I’m not exactly sure. A week ago maybe?” He turned to Saree in question.

Saree flicked a little desk calendar at him and pointed to the date and time written there in an exacting, neat handwriting. “Seven days ago exactly,” Mickey said. “At precisely 8:15 a.m.”

The Doctor went very cold all of a sudden. He didn’t like the implications of that. He didn’t like them at all. Different universe or the same, that was precisely, to the minute, how long ago it had been since Vandarian Tyler had been born.


Chapter Thirty-three:  Junction

It could be a coincidence. Honestly, it could be. But the Doctor couldn’t quite see how. He was used to seeing all of the different choices, all of the ways that things could play out, but when it came to specifics about his own future, everything was annoyingly vague. This had to be about Dare. It had to be.

He ran his hands through his hair until it stood up wildly on end then shoved his hands in his pockets and paced back and forth in front of The Wall. That’s how he still thought of it after all this time. The Wall, capitalized. He hated The Wall. Nothing good ever came from The Wall.

He stopped, turning to face The Wall and glaring at it. He was vaguely aware of Mickey’s mobile ringing and a murmured conversation that became slightly higher pitched as the other man spoke. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned. Mickey handed him the phone.

“Doctor,” said Mickey. “Pete is on the phone. It's urgent. Something’s happened.”

“Hello?” he said.

"Doctor?"

Panic rose up in the Doctor’s hearts at the heaviness in Pete’s voice. “Is it the baby?” he asked quickly.

“No, Doctor. It’s not the baby. It’s Rose.”

“Rose?” And his voice rose an octave on that word. He turned, abruptly putting his back to the place of his nightmares. He didn’t even want to look at it and say her name at the same time.

“She was sitting on the sofa just chatting with Jackie and her eyes flashed gold and then she keeled over,” Pete told him. “She’s unconscious.”

“Can you get pulses?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Pete. “They’re both strong. And she’s breathing. But she won’t wake up. Should we take her to the hospital?”

“You can’t. They’d find out about her second heart just by the echoing pulse. Not to mention her blood is different now. Did anything odd happen right before? Any strange colored lights?” he asked.

“No, nothing like that. Just her eyes changing color and glowing,” answered Pete. “Jackie’s beside herself. She wants you back here right now.”

“I’m on my way,” said the Doctor. He turned off the phone and handed it back to Mickey. “I’ll be back here as soon as I know how Rose really is, and that she is okay, but she has to come first, Mickey. Sorry.”

He turned to give the wide expanse behind him one last cursory glance, when reality thinned and the first swirly light squeezed through, looking for all the world like the oily substance in a lava lamp. It was the green one. It hung in the air for a moment before flipping over and hitting the wall where it had come through, no longer light but semi-solid. It expanded to completely cover the hole it had made. It stayed like that for 30 seconds before releasing the wall and floating in the air again. The hole was no longer there and the other swirly lights had receded then vanished.

It hung in front of the Doctor, rotating and humming. “Target acquired,” said the thing before him in a deep, curiously musical, masculine voice. On the other side of The Wall it had been easy to mistake it for light because of its brilliant neon green, but on this side of the gap it was more of a garish blob. Like that goopy stuff you threw against windows or mirrors that would very slowly slide its way down, entertaining cats, young children and 900 year old Time Lords in equal measures. The only problem was this thing wasn’t amusing at all.

The Doctor backed away from it as it began to rotate, its body looking like an infinity symbol as it did so. It emitted a soft whirring sound and began to vibrate. Moments later it expanded into a deep green cylinder two and a half meters tall. Then the cylinder fell. Starting near the top, the shape of a humanoid began to appear.

It took only sixty seconds for it to fully form. The blobby stuff began to fade and be sucked back into itself, transparency becoming solid. Eventually what was left was a somewhat green-tinged young man, including green eyes, green skin, and green hair, who appeared to be about twenty until you looked into his eyes. They were ancient and yet somehow young for its species. Whatever its species was.

“Doctor Tyler?” the creature asked.

“Yes?”

“I have been searching for you.”

“Guess you found me. Why’s that then?” He scratched the back of his head and tried to sound nonchalant but failed miserably.

“I’m here for the baby,” he said.

“You’re not getting anywhere near my son! If you do anything to hurt him--!”

The green man laughed at him. “You misunderstand me. Kaylee sent me. I’m your new nanny. Here’s my CV if you want to look at it, but she said you’d already approved in the future.” He tossed a holocube at the Doctor. “My names Josz.”

The Doctor caught the holocube, glancing dumbfoundedly between it and the man in front of him. “You came through the Void?”

“I came from the Void,” the man corrected him.

“But nothing can survive in the Void,” protested the Doctor.

“That’s not exactly true, you know. There are the Reapers and then there are my kind,” Josz announced. “We are their opposite.”

“What’s the opposite of Reapers?” the Doctor asked.

“Are you angels, then?” Donna asked.

“No,” laughed Josz. “No more than the Reapers are demons. No, my people are the Sowers. We sow realities with the seeds of possibility. The Reapers clean up what goes wrong when someone perverts a sowing.”

“Then why come here? Why take a job taking care of an infant? Don’t you have more important things to do?” demanded Mickey.

“Then care for the first child of time since destruction of the Time Lords was nearly total? The impossibility of Vandarian Tyler alone, that he can even exist, is a precarious sowing at best. But it was one sown by the greatest of the Sowers; it is a necessity to all realities that this line continues.”

“Why you? Why did Kaylee choose you?” the Doctor asked.

“Because she knew I’d do everything I could to protect your children and grandchildren. She knew I wouldn’t let any harm come to them.”

“That’s easy enough for you to say, but why would you?” Donna asked.

“Oh,” said Josz. “I forgot that part. You know for a Time Lord and people that have travelled in time, you and your companions are awfully linear sometimes. I will be/am/was Kaylee’s bond mate and the father of her children. Protecting your line protects mine.”

The Doctor nodded as his eyes glazed over for a moment, reviewing the time lines, searching in them to see if what this man said was the truth. What he found reassured him. But still, this was for Vandarian… “May I?”

He raised his hands to the Sower’s temples. He waited for the man to nod before making contact. What he found there nearly overwhelmed him as he read the ancient thoughts of an ancient race and this creature’s place amongst them. But Josz seemed to be telling the truth and that is what he had needed to know.

His contact broke quite suddenly and he realized the man had grabbed his wrists and pulled them away from his head. “Too much contact with my mind can cause chaos in yours,” he said. “You know so much of what happens inside space/time but are only meant to know so little of what happens outside of it.”

The Doctor shook his head, trying to clear what was indeed the start of chaos in his thoughts. He pushed out thoughts that didn’t need to be clouding his mind at the moment and glanced up at the Sower.

“Now,” he added. “We need to go take care of your wife.”

“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” the Doctor asked, a catch in his voice.

“I do,” Josz said, his voice soft. “She did some sowing of her own not too long ago. It was…considerably impressive for an amateur. But she didn’t do everything as perfectly as she should have. She left a link between her mind and that of another’s. The link has been back traced and activated. There have been some…repercussions.”

“Can it be fixed? Can she be fixed?” the Doctor’s voice was anxious.

“We must go now,” was the only answer he received.


Chapter Thirty-four:  Convergence

Rose Tyler was out of her mind. Something had yanked her consciousness out of her body and pulled her mind down a glistening golden thread. She recognized it clearly as one she’d seen before. It belonged to a version of herself that she thought had been locked away forever in a different universe.

Rose didn’t like where she’d landed. It was so alien to her, a mind that was her own and yet so different. The furthest away from what she herself actually was. She watched the other mind as it swelled with power she had tapped from Rose.

It wasn’t comfortable and she wasn’t sure that she could have stopped it if she’d chosen to. That she could have prevented what her alternate self was doing. But she didn’t try because she felt that it was a thing worth doing, unbraiding the genetic structure of a Dalek and reverting him to his original Kaled form. Saving a life that one version of her had promised to help.

When it was over she watched the girl collapse and then her mind entered the same room that Rose hovered in. The girl was under the impression that Rose was the Bad Wolf but has that notion dismissed out of hand. Rose showed her Rose Plus. Showed her everything that was done. Showed her how her life was saved. Showed how her original Doctor’s was not.

The other Rose was angry. “That wasn’t your choice!” she insisted.

“It is always my choice,” Rose Plus informed her. The girl has questions, so many questions and Rose Plus realized that what she did before did not replace the girl’s memories completely. She refused healing, refused to be left with only one set of memories. Rose Plus thought madness lay in that direction but the girl wais stubborn, so much like herself only a few years ago.

The girl wanted to know about the Doctor she is with. Rose Plus gave in and told her of the Doctor she had been left with, the one that killed his TARDIS and burnt up a universe trying to get back to his own Rose. The one that went insane before he was healed.

The girl reeled, but slowly pulled herself together. She wanted to know about Rose Plus, what happened and so Rose gave her other self a glimpse of her own life, her own Doctor, her reunion after separation, the marriage, the bonding and the birth of Vandarian. The link between them is abruptly severed, the other girl throwing Rose out of her mind.



Rose awakened with a gasp to find the Doctor kneeling in front of the sofa she was lying on. “Are you all right?” he asked gently, his hand clasping hers, the other on her forehead. Rose shuddered and he gathered her into his arms. She shook her head no. Tears fell down her face and she let out a little sob.

She couldn’t answer his questions, couldn’t find a way to do it, so she raised his hands to her temples instead. “Look,” she said.

The Doctor allowed himself to be pulled into her mind. Almost as quickly he is out of it again. “Rose,” he said. “Stop fighting me. I can’t help you if you fight me.” Rose took a deep breath and nodded, her shoulders visibly relaxing. This time she let him stay there, felt his soothing presence as he wandered. Slowly he locked one door with a padlock, then took wooden slats and nailed them over the entrance.

Rose felt herself calming down as he lathed her mind with his love. Then the Doctor pulled away from her and she fell back into reality. “She can’t get in again without knocking first. You’ll be okay,” he told her.

Rose sat up, her shakiness dying away as she absorbed the soothing balm the Doctor had left in her mind. “Thank you,” she said. “I feel a little better now.”

He lifted Rose into his arms and carried her out of the house, despite Jackie’s protests, and into the TARDIS. “Jackie, I just need to put her under the scanner. I want to make sure the assault was only mental and it didn’t do any damage to her brain.”

Jackie had followed him, Vandarian in her arms, Pete trailing her with Daisy and Johnny. “Who’s that?” Jackie said suspiciously as the green-tinged Josz came into the room.

“Don’t mind him,” said the Doctor. “He’s a friend.”

“He’s green,” said Jackie.

“And the winner in the stating the obvious contest is…” He laid Rose down on the examining table and started the scanner over her head.

“She will be fine,” Josz said in his deep melodic voice, his fingers going out to hover a few inches above her face.

“Who are you?” Rose wanted to know. The stranger did not invoke fear in her but she still didn’t know him or understand why he was in the TARDIS.

“I’m Kaylee’s husband,” he said going with the simplest answer. “Will be or was.”

“Who’s Kaylee?” demanded Jackie.

The green man turned to look at her. “Your great, great granddaughter.”

“Time travel gives me a headache,” Jackie muttered. “And I’m going to have green descendants.” Pete didn’t say anything but he did crack a smile at Jackie’s comment.

The scanner beeped and the Doctor read the readout. “Josz is right. You’re fine Rose.”

“I don’t feel fine. I feel like I’ve had all the energy sucked out of me,” she complained.

“You did. That’s part of why I’m here now,” Josz said. “To prevent anything like this from happening if the other Rose tries to break through and use those powers again.”

“Why does it seem like this entire conversation is going completely over my head?” Jackie wanted to know.

The Doctor opened his mouth to tell her because it was, but he wasn’t fast enough. “Because you only know half of what is going on,” said Josz. He reached out and touched Jackie’s shoulder and she lost her tension, relaxing as her guard went down. “Your daughter is going to be fine, but she will need time to rest her mind and recover from what happened. That’s why I’m here.”

“And just what can you do?” Jackie said aggressively, her guard going right back up the minute he was no longer touching her arm.

“I can protect.” And a thin layer of green plasma exuded from him and rapidly turned into light. It shot over to Rose and enveloped her, turning her green for a few seconds before it disappeared, absorbed into her skin. He did the same thing with a second shaft, layering it over Vandarian and watching as it disappeared into his skin.

“They are safe now from mental assault and minor harm,” he said simply.

“And major harm?” demanded Jackie.

“I can protect the baby from that as well.”

“What about Rose?”

“If she’s close enough. Do not worry so much, Jackie Tyler. The future is in good hands.”



“So you hired a nanny without asking me?” Rose said later that evening when everyone else had gone to bed.

“I didn’t hire him. Kaylee sent him.” He fumbled in his pocket for the holocube and walked over to the holoreader, popping it into place. An image projected in the air above them.

“Hey, family mine. I’m sending you Josz to look after Dare. He knows what he’s doing. You can trust him.” The pretty blue-eyed red head told them. “He’s got great references.” Kaylee’s image stepped away and they suddenly saw themselves waving at the camera. They looked a bit older than they were at the moment but not by much.

“It’s okay,” said the image of Rose. “We checked all his references. You can trust him. He’ll keep Dare safe with his life.”

“Don’t worry so much, sweetheart,” the image of the Doctor assured her. “We need him right then. Trust.” Then Kaylee was back in the shot again and blowing kisses and waving. As the girl faded away, the CV came up with an impressive list of jobs worked and references.

“All right,” said Rose. “Guess I can’t really argue with that. Guess we have ourselves a nanny.”


Chapter Thirty-five:  Wrong

Rose woke suddenly from a dead sleep. There was a strange and insidious feeling creeping through her mind. Her stomach turned over nervously and she swallowed convulsively. She was going to be ill. She flung herself out of bed and ran to the loo, barely making it to the toilet bowl before her stomach emptied itself of its contents.

Bile was followed by dry heaves and sweat broke out on her forehead. When it finally stopped she rested there a moment and then tried to stand. Overwhelming lethargy forced her to the floor. A wave of pain racked her stomach and she found herself curling into a ball, her head pressing against the cool tiles of the floor.

She tried to draw her mind up coherently but it wouldn’t function properly. She searched for the silver link in her mind that was her husband, sought to send a call for help. She couldn’t find it. She sought frantically for it, opening door after door in her mind, panic rising up like an oncoming wave.

She tried to remember if he’d been in the bed with her when she’d woken, but her only memory was of running. She turned next to the copper link that connected her to baby Dare but it, too was missing from her mind. Pain clawed at her stomach and then a vicious intrusion tore at her thoughts.

She recognized it as a mental assault, the kind Josz had assured her she was now protected from. She sought and found the green ball of light that hovered in the midst of her mind, invisible until she looked for it. It advanced on her, its menace clear where before it had been hidden.

Its tendrils unwound slowly and slipped through cracks, laying emotions bare and raw as it swept unhindered through her mind. It came to the door that the Doctor had nailed shut and in its arrogance it began pulling the slats away. Rose tried to concentrate, tried to prevent it reaching that golden power that, she knew without knowing how she knew, it wanted.

The door was ripped from its hinges and the golden power shot out, trying to force back the invading green force that wanted to consume her. Rose felt herself drawing on the link more and more, sending out tendrils of her own, finding minds of her own, incredibly similar yet different, but still hers. She called on them to channel all of their strength, all of their power, to let her borrow it.

One by one they let their guards down, adding their strength to hers, letting her be the apex of the powerful focus. With all the strength of every reality she existed in behind her, she turned back to the green light. It still tore her mind to shreds.


It was Dare’s desperate crying that alerted the Doctor. He was alarmed for he should have felt the baby reach for him long before his cries had risen to this violent wail. He reached for the baby’s mind only to find a black wall between them. He sought Rose’s golden link next and again was met with nothing but a blank wall.

He ran down the corridor to their bedroom, reaching for the baby and bringing him into his chest. His eyes focused on the bed, but Rose wasn’t there. He hurried to the bathroom, his eyes widening as he took in the prone form of his wife on the floor.

Covering the baby’s ears with his hand and chest he bellowed, “Donna!” It felt like a lifetime but it was only seconds before Donna had appeared in the bathroom doorway. He handed Dare to her, then swooped down and picked up Rose, carrying her to the bed.

“What’s happened?” Donna asked, worry in her voice.

“I don’t know.” As he turned her, her head lolled to one side and he could see the thin stream of blood at the corner of her left eye. Gently he lifted the eyelid, dropping it in panic as he saw that the entire sclera was red. Not even a hint of white could be seen. He lifted the other eyelid and was confronted with yet another red sclera. Every blood vessel in her eyes must have burst. Her pupils were dilated and one was completely non-responsive.

He put his hands to her temples and reeled at the agony he found in her mind. He pushed his way in, heedless of his rough entry, and found the battered, beaten mind of his wife barely recognizable. What could have done this? She was supposed to be protected from mental assault. Josz had said--.

His mind put two and two together as he realized what a fool he’d been, blindly accepting the evidence of a holocube without thinking to check on any of it. The man’s story had been so credible. But the residue of the creature’s violent presence in his wife’s mind told him it had all been a carefully constructed lie. But for what purpose?

The sound of a TARDIS materializing in his bedroom brought his attention away from his wife’s condition momentarily. The chameleon circuit made it resemble a tall wardrobe and the door pushed open. Kaylee emerged from it, her hand pulling someone along behind her. The man looked just like Josz only his skin was a pale blue.

“Granddad!” Kaylee cried out to her great grandfather.

“I fear we are too late,” said the man at her side. He dropped her hand and strode quickly towards the bed.

“Stay back,” hissed the Doctor. “You did this to her.”

“Not me,” insisted the man. “One of my kind, but not me.”

“It’s true, Granddad,” Kaylee insisted. “He was an imposter. The real Josz would never harm Rose.”

“Then what did?” the Doctor demanded to know.

“My brother Jasz,” said Josz, hanging his head. “He thought he had found a better way to renew our species in one go. He did not have the patience to wait for time to run its course. By assaulting Rose he has located every universe where she exists.”

“And what’ll he do with that knowledge?” the Doctor asked, his voice deadly and sharp.

“He’ll try to impregnate as many of them as he can.”

“Won’t work,” the Doctor said. “None of the other Rose’s have compatibility with alien species. This universe is the only one that has changed in.”

“You’re wrong,” said the real Josz. “All he has to do is sow a few seeds wherever he wants and those realities will be altered just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And there is nothing anyone can do.”

“Nothing?”

“Unless the Reapers arrive to clean up the mess, there is nothing.”

The Doctor looked horrified. “What about Rose?” he asked.

“Can I touch her?” Josz asked permission from the Doctor.

“Kaylee, is it safe?”

“It’s safe, Granddad.”

Slowly the blue being eased itself onto the bed next to Rose and placed his hands over her head. His face went blank.



Rose was in agony, her head throbbing and pounding in the all encompassing darkness. She had been blind, deaf and dumb for the past eternity, so when she saw the faint blue glow on the edge of her awareness she at first thought it was her imagination. But as the light loomed larger she accepted its reality.

There was a comforting, soothing aspect to the light and she did nothing when it encompassed her. Slowly, carefully it washed over her, reaching through doors and windows and cracks and trying to repair the damage that had been done by an undisciplined mind running roughshod over Rose’s. Tenderly it tended to the worst of the damage before finally withdrawing.

“I’ll need to reverse what my brother did to Dare, too,” he said reaching for the baby. Donna took a couple of steps back before the Doctor nodded to her to cooperate. The baby’s mind took far less time to undo the damage in.

When the Doctor sought Rose’s link again, it was there, though faint and erratic. She groaned and he carefully pulled out again. He waited for her to open her eyes and look at him. She didn’t. As he looked at her unresponsive body he couldn’t help but fear the worst.


Chapter Thirty-six:  The Mind's A Tricky Thing

Rose struggled with awareness. She knew things had been left undone. Someone, comforting, blue, peaceful had been in her mind. He’d fixed her and her alone. She knew somewhere out there her sister-selves were still at risk through the violation she had suffered. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to help them and trusted that they would all be strong enough to help themselves.

She knew though that one would not. The girl she had strove so hard to protect, the one coupled with the Doctor she had tried so hard to heal, would not have the strength to stand against that type of violation. Her peace was too fragile; her will not yet grown to full-strength.

Rose worried for this self. Though battered and bruised and torn she sought for that golden link, the one that would take her back. She knew the girl had shut it down as best she could. But that girl didn’t have Rose’s experience or Rose’s strength. Rose could reconnect to her, refire the linkage and send her help.

So she did. She found the thin layer of gold and followed it along to a mind that became more familiar every time she touched it. She wove reinforcements around the girl, offered support and strength, felt it draining from her own resources and into the other self. When she was sure she had given her enough, she shut down the link, retraced her steps and very slowly returned.

She was almost there. She could just see the silver of the Doctor, the copper of Vandarian, right on the edge. She reached for it, the love and support of her beautiful family. The family she had dreamed of when she’d been separated from the Doctor. And now we’ll never be separated again, she thought, Life is beautiful and we have a little family to call our own. Life had given her back everything it had once taken away. It was perfect. She was so happy as she felt their familiar warmth cocoon her. She knew with a certainty that dominated everything else in her mind that she was going to be okay. As something backfired in her brain her last thought was that she had forgotten how full of irony the universe could be.




The Doctor frowned as he looked down at his unconscious wife. He had felt her presence grow gradually stronger and she had given signs of waking but each time she stirred and he leaned forward expectantly, she didn’t wake.

The baby grew restless and hungry and the Doctor held him in position against Rose so he could nurse. Even that didn’t wake his wife. When the baby was finally sated and had fallen asleep again, the Doctor shifted him carefully to one arm and reached out and took his wife’s hand in his free one. He stroked his fingers across her palm, willing her to wake up.

Eventually he felt the need to work off his nervous energy and rose, Dare against one shoulder and began to pace the room. He was close to having a mental melt down. It had really all been just too much. His wife had been in so much danger in the last seven months, put through more than some people had to cope with in their lifetimes. She was a trooper, but sooner or later her resilience might start to give.

He didn’t know what he’d do if anything ever happened to her. He’d lost her once and it had nearly killed him. Having her back had been the most amazing gift. To see that gift hanging on the edge, the very possibility of it being snatched away, was more than he could bear.

If he lost her…he hated to think that, but if he did, he’d have Dare. He’d have a reason to go on, but all of his dreams of raising this child with his beloved wife would vanish in a puff of smoke. Why, just this once couldn’t he have the happily ever after? Why did the universe think that Rose was it’s galactic punching bag? Dare needed a mother, and what about Cassi? What would happen to Cassi if Rose didn’t pull through this?

His eyes closed, knowing that if Cassi was never conceived, there would be no Andromeda, no Kaylee and then…wait, there’d be a paradox, because if Kaylee hadn’t brought the Sowers into their lives by marrying one Rose wouldn’t have been assaulted.

His mind raced frantically. Paradoxes like that could be engineered. It took a lot of doing, but it could be done by someone dimensionally transcendental or someone with a TARDIS. The Master had done it. It wasn’t impossible. His mind raced with suspicions that he tried to discard one by one.

He didn’t know if the Master was truly dead. Yes, he’d burned the body himself but the Master had been executed on Skaro once upon a time, his remains filling a small box, and yet he’d managed to hold onto his essence and escape and parasitically attack someone. It wasn’t impossible. But why would he? It would be far more likely that the Master take Rose to breed his own children, and the Doctor’s loose fist clenched at the very thought, than it would be for him to psychically assault her.

It could be a plot by all of the Sowers, including the one married to his granddaughter, to revive their numbers. Beings that could live in the Void and could alter time and space in ways different than his own, could be capable of anything.

For all he knew it could be Torchwood or Mickey Smith or Pete and Jackie’s stupid little dog. He was getting ridiculous but this wasn’t easy to figure out. She’d seemed fine, like she was reviving and then suddenly she stopped. Why? Why his Rose? Why Dare’s mother? Why?

There was a small noise from behind him and he whirled around to look at the figure on the couch. Finally her eyes opened and he smiled at her in intense relief. “Hello,” he said, his broad grin stretching across his face.

“Hello?” she whispered in question, confusion on her features. She turned to look around her, taking in the room and seeming to find a subtle reassurance as she recognized the TARDIS walls. She looked back at him, wariness and fright in her expression and pulled her hand away.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Who are you?” 


A/N:  The next story in the series, called You Reap What You Sow, picks up immediately from this point.