Chapter One: Of the Vortex Born
Jul. 10th, 2008 03:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocus
Summary: A slightly different reunion fic. Forty-nine year old single mother Rose Tyler is working for U.N.I.T. and living on the moon in the alternate universe with her three children when a U.F.O. crash lands there. A very familiar U.F.O. This is a post-Doomsday Rose/Ten reunion, mostly written pre-season four which I basically will continue to ignore for the sake of this fic, 'kay? Thanks. Action/Adventure, Romance, Ten/Rose.
Chapter One: A Brand New Me
The death shriek of Rose Tyler ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe. The shedding of her blood fractured reality. And on the far side of the Void something ancient and dark, something that held no mercy, something cold and unyielding, waited for her very soul. So it was probably just as well that she regenerated. She’d gotten rather fond of her soul. She wasn’t quite sure about the new body though. Then again, her curves were just a bit curvier, so she’d traded up there.
She glanced at her reflection in the shining wall plate of the space station, really looking this time. She still mostly looked like herself. Same eyes, face a little narrower, smile a little less wide. The biggest change being black hair that had gotten longer and now fell to her waist in loose curls. Well, that and she no longer looked forty-nine, but thankfully she didn’t look nineteen, either. That had been a primary fear. Not that she’d known whether or not she could regenerate but she’d thought it rather likely since the time she’d discovered a second heart beating in her chest and the ability to compute calculus in her head.
Thirty seemed about right. It was old enough for U.N.I.T to still take her seriously, but young enough that she probably wouldn’t be called ma’am anymore. She was just a little bit taller, no more than two inches at the outside, and she was happy to note that the last five pounds of her leftover pregnancy weight had finally disappeared. About bloody time, too, considering Jamie was fourteen now, although she wasn’t quite willing to recommend regeneration as a weight loss method.
She felt an odd itching between her shoulder blades and shrugged her shoulders to try to get at it, before she realized it was simply Bad Wolf wanting out of her cage, getting ready to do the job ahead. She wondered where Landon was, how he’d come out of this, if he was even still alive. And if he had died, was it permanent? Or could he possibly have the ability to regenerate, too?
Well, she didn’t really have time to dwell on that. Landon was self-sufficient and could look out for himself without dear old Mum coming to the rescue. She could feel the shards of reality beginning to settle and knew she had to work fast to pull them back into a coherent whole. Really, she was getting rather tired of being the one who wove time and space back together every time it threatened to break.
Okay, maybe that was an overstatement. She’d only had to do it three times in the past thirty years, but every single time she’d called on the power of the Time Vortex she’d ended up pregnant. And not the fun way. Neither was the pregnancy or the birth.
And after the first time she’d been very careful to be nowhere near either a hospital or any branch of Torchwood. Because all of her children were born with two hearts and extremely advanced minds and their blood was not quite the right color to be human. And it had taken her eight days to get her baby back.
Torchwood considered her public enemy number one because of the way she’d done it. Apparently they didn’t appreciate their headquarters being blown to kingdom come. Even if she had allowed them to evacuate the building first. It was the primary reason she’d transferred to the moon when U.N.I.T. put a base in the first colony.
She felt the power surge through her and she focused it tightly, sending it out to repair the tiny little cracks that had been caused by what should have been the total fission of her powers if she’d actually died, but had been only temporary as the power was drawn back into her body at regeneration. It took mere minutes to repair the damage. She was getting stronger.
Rose frowned. Every time she did this it was just that little bit easier to access, just that little bit easier to repair. As she finished she realized she was hovering up near the ceiling and her body was crackling with gold electricity. She dropped down and landed lightly on her feet.
“Mum!” Rose sighed in relief and ran out of the room towards the voice. Down the corridor she went and then there he was and she was being enveloped in the arms of her eldest son. She pulled back and ruffled his brown hair, looking back at her own familiar eyes echoed in her son’s face.
“You’re alive!” they said in unison and then laughed. Rose’s hearts twitched for just a moment at the sound of her son’s laughter. He reminded her so much of…well, best not to think about that at the moment. Or ever, really.
“Did it work?” she asked.
“Yeah, it worked,” Landon said. “We got here just in time. A few minutes later and the entire station would have blown and the fragments would have taken out both of the moon based colonies.”
“Good,” said Rose, “because when the primary engine blew I was caught in the back blast.”
He looked at her, eyeing her critically. “You regenerated, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah. What gave it away?” He reached forward and flipped a lock of her newly black hair in front of her eyes and she laughed. “And the adrenalin’s starting to wear off and I’ve put Bad Wolf back in her cage, so I imagine I’m going to lose the use of my legs right…about…now.”
Landon’s arm shot out and he caught his mother before she could fall, swinging her up in his arms. One of the benefits of having a strapping twenty-six year old son was the ease with which he could tote her around in an emergency.
Landon carried her through the airlock and waited through its cycle before entering the moon shuttle. He deposited his mother in one of the pilot chairs and she reached down and to the side to pull out a thermos of tea. It was cold now but she drank it anyway. “That’s a bit better,” she said feeling her brain starting to settle. But then a creeping enervation consumed her. She needed sleep. Desperately.
“You together enough to pilot this thing or should I take over?” Landon asked.
“You better do it,” said Rose, closing her eyes. “Can’t keep my eyes open.”
“Well, keep ‘em open long enough to put on your safety harness,” he told her. With a grumble his mother complied, then sank back into the seat. Before he’d even disconnected the shuttle from the airlock Rose was sound asleep.
One moment the Doctor had been flying the TARDIS through the Time Vortex and the next his ship and everything in it blinked. For one terrifying second they were nowhere and everywhere. The next, his ship was wrenched out of the Vortex and spiraling in a desperate plunge towards the surface of a dusty little moon.
Frantically he tried to manipulate the controls but he could not pull out of the fall and the lack of gravity wasn’t making anything easy. He managed to hook a foot around the jump seat and as he hung there he read and reread the display on the monitor. His eyes widened in disbelief as he realized he was about to crash into the moon. But not just any moon. It was the moon of Earth. And not just any Earth, either. Down below him was Pete’s world and somewhere on it, was Rose.
Of course, as is often the case, he was completely wrong. Rose wasn’t anywhere near planet Earth. She was closer. A lot closer. In point of fact, she was coming in for a landing at Moon Colony One after a very long shuttle flight down from the space station. It had taken several hours, nearly a day and a night and she had slept the entire time. When she woke she felt well and realized the worst of it was over.
As the gravity field of the landing strip locked onto the shuttle, weight returned to her body. Landon brought the shuttle neatly in to the landing bay and as soon as they were cleared they scrambled out of it. They were met by Rose’s twenty-year-old daughter Mairi, a petite brunette with steely blue eyes, who’d been waiting for them.
“What happened to you?” she asked her mother, her eyes moving between her and Landon and back to her. Rose felt her gentle mind-touch as her daughter confirmed her identity.
“Regenerated,” Rose said shortly.
“So you can, then,” Mairi said.
“Apparently. Let the clean up crew know it’s safe to reinhabit the station.”
“Okay. You look pretty, Mum,” she said. Then she shook her head. “A U.F.O. just crashed on the moon an hour ago,” Mairi continued handing her mother a file reader. “U.N.I.T. flagged it as For Your Eyes Only.”
“How’s Jamie?” she said asking after her fourteen-year-old daughter.
“She’s fine. She’s in school. Oh, and John’s grandson asked her to prom and she really wants to go,” Mairi said off-handedly.
“Jason?” Rose asked her eyes going wide in consternation.
“No. Believe it or not, Evan,” reported Mairi.
“Oh. That’s all right then,” exhaled Rose. “So what’s the scuttlebutt round the colony?” Rose asked, thumbing open the file and watching as the report began scrolling down the screen.
“About the prom?”
“No, the space ship,” Rose said. “Focus, Mairi.”
“Oh, that. They’ve brought it into dome Kappa. No one’s been able to get in. It seems impervious. Not very big though, so we’re thinking maybe the aliens are really small, like mice or something. The mass readings were bizarre considering the ship is maybe four feet wide and eight feet tall. It’s rectangular and has a flashing blue light on top. Oh, and it appears to be made out of wood and painted blue.”
Rose stopped dead in her tracks. “Mairi, does it say Police Public Call Box on it?” Rose asked urgently.
“I don’t know. Why?” she asked her mother.
Rose was silent as she thumbed frantically through the file. And there it was. A tiny photograph embedded in the text. The file reader tumbled from her fingers and Mairi was only just in time to catch it before it hit the floor. “It’s him. He’s found me,” she whispered. “He’s finally found me.”
“Who has?” Landon asked.
“Your father.”
Thirty seemed about right. It was old enough for U.N.I.T to still take her seriously, but young enough that she probably wouldn’t be called ma’am anymore. She was just a little bit taller, no more than two inches at the outside, and she was happy to note that the last five pounds of her leftover pregnancy weight had finally disappeared. About bloody time, too, considering Jamie was fourteen now, although she wasn’t quite willing to recommend regeneration as a weight loss method.
She felt an odd itching between her shoulder blades and shrugged her shoulders to try to get at it, before she realized it was simply Bad Wolf wanting out of her cage, getting ready to do the job ahead. She wondered where Landon was, how he’d come out of this, if he was even still alive. And if he had died, was it permanent? Or could he possibly have the ability to regenerate, too?
Well, she didn’t really have time to dwell on that. Landon was self-sufficient and could look out for himself without dear old Mum coming to the rescue. She could feel the shards of reality beginning to settle and knew she had to work fast to pull them back into a coherent whole. Really, she was getting rather tired of being the one who wove time and space back together every time it threatened to break.
Okay, maybe that was an overstatement. She’d only had to do it three times in the past thirty years, but every single time she’d called on the power of the Time Vortex she’d ended up pregnant. And not the fun way. Neither was the pregnancy or the birth.
And after the first time she’d been very careful to be nowhere near either a hospital or any branch of Torchwood. Because all of her children were born with two hearts and extremely advanced minds and their blood was not quite the right color to be human. And it had taken her eight days to get her baby back.
Torchwood considered her public enemy number one because of the way she’d done it. Apparently they didn’t appreciate their headquarters being blown to kingdom come. Even if she had allowed them to evacuate the building first. It was the primary reason she’d transferred to the moon when U.N.I.T. put a base in the first colony.
She felt the power surge through her and she focused it tightly, sending it out to repair the tiny little cracks that had been caused by what should have been the total fission of her powers if she’d actually died, but had been only temporary as the power was drawn back into her body at regeneration. It took mere minutes to repair the damage. She was getting stronger.
Rose frowned. Every time she did this it was just that little bit easier to access, just that little bit easier to repair. As she finished she realized she was hovering up near the ceiling and her body was crackling with gold electricity. She dropped down and landed lightly on her feet.
“Mum!” Rose sighed in relief and ran out of the room towards the voice. Down the corridor she went and then there he was and she was being enveloped in the arms of her eldest son. She pulled back and ruffled his brown hair, looking back at her own familiar eyes echoed in her son’s face.
“You’re alive!” they said in unison and then laughed. Rose’s hearts twitched for just a moment at the sound of her son’s laughter. He reminded her so much of…well, best not to think about that at the moment. Or ever, really.
“Did it work?” she asked.
“Yeah, it worked,” Landon said. “We got here just in time. A few minutes later and the entire station would have blown and the fragments would have taken out both of the moon based colonies.”
“Good,” said Rose, “because when the primary engine blew I was caught in the back blast.”
He looked at her, eyeing her critically. “You regenerated, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah. What gave it away?” He reached forward and flipped a lock of her newly black hair in front of her eyes and she laughed. “And the adrenalin’s starting to wear off and I’ve put Bad Wolf back in her cage, so I imagine I’m going to lose the use of my legs right…about…now.”
Landon’s arm shot out and he caught his mother before she could fall, swinging her up in his arms. One of the benefits of having a strapping twenty-six year old son was the ease with which he could tote her around in an emergency.
Landon carried her through the airlock and waited through its cycle before entering the moon shuttle. He deposited his mother in one of the pilot chairs and she reached down and to the side to pull out a thermos of tea. It was cold now but she drank it anyway. “That’s a bit better,” she said feeling her brain starting to settle. But then a creeping enervation consumed her. She needed sleep. Desperately.
“You together enough to pilot this thing or should I take over?” Landon asked.
“You better do it,” said Rose, closing her eyes. “Can’t keep my eyes open.”
“Well, keep ‘em open long enough to put on your safety harness,” he told her. With a grumble his mother complied, then sank back into the seat. Before he’d even disconnected the shuttle from the airlock Rose was sound asleep.
One moment the Doctor had been flying the TARDIS through the Time Vortex and the next his ship and everything in it blinked. For one terrifying second they were nowhere and everywhere. The next, his ship was wrenched out of the Vortex and spiraling in a desperate plunge towards the surface of a dusty little moon.
Frantically he tried to manipulate the controls but he could not pull out of the fall and the lack of gravity wasn’t making anything easy. He managed to hook a foot around the jump seat and as he hung there he read and reread the display on the monitor. His eyes widened in disbelief as he realized he was about to crash into the moon. But not just any moon. It was the moon of Earth. And not just any Earth, either. Down below him was Pete’s world and somewhere on it, was Rose.
Of course, as is often the case, he was completely wrong. Rose wasn’t anywhere near planet Earth. She was closer. A lot closer. In point of fact, she was coming in for a landing at Moon Colony One after a very long shuttle flight down from the space station. It had taken several hours, nearly a day and a night and she had slept the entire time. When she woke she felt well and realized the worst of it was over.
As the gravity field of the landing strip locked onto the shuttle, weight returned to her body. Landon brought the shuttle neatly in to the landing bay and as soon as they were cleared they scrambled out of it. They were met by Rose’s twenty-year-old daughter Mairi, a petite brunette with steely blue eyes, who’d been waiting for them.
“What happened to you?” she asked her mother, her eyes moving between her and Landon and back to her. Rose felt her gentle mind-touch as her daughter confirmed her identity.
“Regenerated,” Rose said shortly.
“So you can, then,” Mairi said.
“Apparently. Let the clean up crew know it’s safe to reinhabit the station.”
“Okay. You look pretty, Mum,” she said. Then she shook her head. “A U.F.O. just crashed on the moon an hour ago,” Mairi continued handing her mother a file reader. “U.N.I.T. flagged it as For Your Eyes Only.”
“How’s Jamie?” she said asking after her fourteen-year-old daughter.
“She’s fine. She’s in school. Oh, and John’s grandson asked her to prom and she really wants to go,” Mairi said off-handedly.
“Jason?” Rose asked her eyes going wide in consternation.
“No. Believe it or not, Evan,” reported Mairi.
“Oh. That’s all right then,” exhaled Rose. “So what’s the scuttlebutt round the colony?” Rose asked, thumbing open the file and watching as the report began scrolling down the screen.
“About the prom?”
“No, the space ship,” Rose said. “Focus, Mairi.”
“Oh, that. They’ve brought it into dome Kappa. No one’s been able to get in. It seems impervious. Not very big though, so we’re thinking maybe the aliens are really small, like mice or something. The mass readings were bizarre considering the ship is maybe four feet wide and eight feet tall. It’s rectangular and has a flashing blue light on top. Oh, and it appears to be made out of wood and painted blue.”
Rose stopped dead in her tracks. “Mairi, does it say Police Public Call Box on it?” Rose asked urgently.
“I don’t know. Why?” she asked her mother.
Rose was silent as she thumbed frantically through the file. And there it was. A tiny photograph embedded in the text. The file reader tumbled from her fingers and Mairi was only just in time to catch it before it hit the floor. “It’s him. He’s found me,” she whispered. “He’s finally found me.”
“Who has?” Landon asked.
“Your father.”
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