In This Darkness Tumbles Hope: Chapter One

[amberfocus]

               

Summary:  When the Doctor and Rose's six-year-old daughter Cassiopea Tyler disappears from the markets of Danzibar they are frantic to find her, but even Dare's tight telepathic link to his sister may not be enough to track her down.  In desperation they turn to pre-Blitz Time Agent Jack Harkness who is in the midst of planning a mind-boggling takedown of a five planet slavery ring, something that Cassi's kidnappers could very will be involved in.  Next in the Time Eternal series.  Ten/Rose  Link to the Time Eternal/Jack's Path Family Tree:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/81617.html

                                          Chapter One: Lost in the Random Roar

“You let her wander off?” Rose Tyler stared at her husband in disbelief.

The Doctor raked his hands through his hair a bit savagely. He was furious enough with himself and just a little bit afraid that his wife was going to regenerate him any second now. “Well, technically I don’t think she’s the one who wandered off. I did,” he admitted.

“You lost Cassi?” her voice rose and her arms crossed over her chest.

“Well, not really lost, just…misplaced.”

“Misplaced? Misplaced? You lost our daughter!” Rose shouted. “On Danzibar! How could you do that?!”

“I don’t know!” the Doctor roared back. He’d been scared before in his life, but he’d not been as scared as he was right now since Cassi had regenerated as a fetus and they’d not known if she would survive the process. Now anything could have happened to her, a pretty little girl lost and alone on an alien planet where if the wrong person found her they’d never see her again. His hands clenched at his sides.

“I’ve looked and looked and I can’t find her, and Rose, what if--.”

“Don’t,” his wife interrupted. “Don’t you dare even think it!”

Dare looked up from where he was sprawled under the jump seat reading a book and said calmly, “She’s okay. She’s mad at you, Dad, but she’s okay.”

The Doctor sighed in relief. “You’re sure?”

“I can feel her. I can always feel Cassi. You know that,” he said without looking up, his tone just a little too condescending for an almost eight-year old boy to be using with his father, but after all he wasn’t the one who’d lost a family member.

“Vandarian,” Rose said with narrowed eyes, “you’re being disrespectful.”

“Sorry,” he said with a shrug as he met his father’s eyes. He narrowed his own eyes at his mother’s use of his full name. “But you ought to have been more careful. You’re always getting after me for misplacing my things.”

“Cassi isn’t a thing. She’s your sister. And my daughter,” the Doctor said sternly.

“Then you really ought to have kept better track of her. Want me to help you find her?” Dare asked.

“Yes,” said Rose. She glared at the Doctor. “I’ll take him. I think you’ve done enough.”

“No,” the Doctor said. “I don’t want our son out there. I don’t want to be worrying about him, and I need to keep an eye on you, too, Rose. You know how they are about pregnant women on their own here.”

“I’m barely showing and I can take care of myself.”

“No. Dare stays here. I go with you,” he said firmly.

“Cassi’s the one who’s helpless! Not me!”

“Rose, I didn’t mean--.”

“She’s six, Doctor! Six years old! I don’t care how advanced our kids are mentally, she’s still a little girl. And she’s going to be scared and upset and you know how she reacts to stressful situations. Other people aren’t going to understand her if she goes off on them and things start exploding. She could hurt someone or someone could hurt her,” Rose said.

“She’s fine, Mum,” Dare said looking warily back and forth between his parents.

“Right now she’s fine. But she’s alone on a planet known for… Damn it, I knew I shouldn’t have let her go out. You swore she’d be safe with you. I had a feeling in my gut this morning and I--.” Rose broke off what she’d been about to say glancing down at Dare and then back at her husband.

Dare was staring at her in astonishment. His mother never swore in front of him. “Known for what?” Dare asked starting to feel something uneasy rising up in the pit of his stomach. “What’s this planet known for?”

Rose knelt down on the grating and Dare climbed out from under the jump seat. “Sometimes children disappear on this planet and they’re never found,” she said. “Especially little girls.”

“Why little girls?” he asked guilelessly. “What’s so special about them?” His mother shook her head, unwilling to answer. His father wouldn’t meet his eyes. Dare frowned. “If it was so dangerous, then why’d we come here? Why’d you take Cassi out of the TARDIS?”

“I was trying to improve our relationship. Bond with her, make her happy, spend time with her. I don’t know what happened! I swear she was right there and following me and next thing I know I’m haggling with a rather shady Narkon jellyfish with partially effective mesmeric capabilities and when I looked down she was just…gone.”

He sighed. “I wouldn’t have come here at all, but I needed a part for the TARDIS,” his father said glumly. “She blew a turbine in the interstitial capacitor matrix. It was the likeliest planet in the vicinity to find a replacement.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and bit his lip.

“Isn’t there a backup turbine?” Dare asked with a frown as he tried to remember the schematics his father was helping him memorize.

“Yes, but that one’s pretty much being held together with spit, a shoelace, bubblegum, and prayer,” the Doctor said.

“You can’t pray, you don’t believe in gods,” said Dare.

“You don’t have to believe in gods to pray, Dare,” Rose said mildly.

“You don’t?” He looked mildly intrigued at that thought. “Then maybe,” said Dare with a thoughtful look at his father, “we all ought to start praying for Cassi.”

“Or maybe we should stop chatting and go out and find her,” the Doctor said darkly. “Where’s Donna got to?” he asked his wife.

“She went to the food market with Josz. She should be back soon,” Rose informed him. Josz was the future husband of their great granddaughter and served as their children’s nanny and educational advisor.

“Okay. We’ll leave them a note.” He knelt down and looked at his son. “Dare, I want you to stay here. Do not leave the TARDIS under any circumstances.”

“But I want to help find Cassi,” he complained.

“I know you do,” the Doctor said. “But someone needs to be here if she finds her way back to the TARDIS. She’s going to be scared and if she gets here and finds out she’s still alone, she could blow some of the TARDIS circuits out in her fright. Someone needs to be here for her.”

“But Cara Mia--.”

“You know she can't control Cassi.  You are to stay here.  I don’t want to risk losing another child,” his father said. He pulled Dare tightly into his arms. “Please, son, stay here. I need you to be safe. I need you to be here for her if she comes back.”

Reluctantly Dare acquiesced at the too tight hold his father’s hug had on him. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll wait for her. But…I hope you have something in mind to make things up to her when this is all over. It’s going to be a long time before she forgives you for this.”

The Doctor let go of his son and stood up. “It’s going to be a long time before I forgive myself,” he muttered. He looked over at Rose just in time to see her taping a message to the central column.

“Make sure Auntie Donna sees this when she comes back,” Rose said. “Cara Mia?” she called out. The TARDIS chimed and the holographic representation of her avatar appeared in the console room.

“Yes, Rose?”

“Take care of Dare. Don’t let him leave until we get back.”

“Of course.”

Rose turned to Dare. “Okay, you. Up.” Dare scrambled up onto the jumpseat. Rose hugged him tightly to her. Her pregnancy with the twins was not that far advanced yet, but it was enough that bending all the way down to Dare’s four and a half feet of height was awkward on her back. She kissed him on the cheek. “I love you,” she whispered softly so as not to embarrass him in front of his dad. His arms tightened around her.

“Me, too,” he said back. “Please find her,” he said in a louder voice.

“We will,” the Doctor said. “I swear to you, son. We’ll find your sister.”



Cassiopeia Tyler was angry. This in and of itself was not terribly unusual. Cassi was often angry. She didn’t know why, exactly, but she hated it. It wasn’t like she didn’t try to control her temper because she did. But whatever that impulse was in normal people that made them tamp down on their emotions, it seemed to be missing from her.

Her mother Rose said she thought Cassi was missing her impulse control, which wasn’t true. Cassi controlled plenty of her impulses. Certainly more than her daddy the Doctor ever did. Her daddy not controlling his most recent impulse, whatever it had been, probably going off to look at something shiny for the TARDIS, was the reason she was now sitting in the middle of an open square on the edge of a giant fountain with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face looking around desperately for any sign of the man.



Her mother was going to go spare when she realized daddy had lost her. She didn’t imagine Dare would be too thrilled with him either and that was saying something. Her big brother worshipped the ground their father walked on. But more than that, and despite her less than sunny disposition, Dare adored her. He’d been reluctant to be left with Mummy and Auntie Donna and Josz to give the Doctor and Cassi some father/daughter bonding time, afraid something would go wrong.

And he’d been right. As much as Dare adored their daddy even he knew about the Doctor’s limitations when it came to Cassi. The only one who didn’t seem to know it was Daddy himself. He kept trying to fix things. He kept trying to fix her.

Cassi hadn’t wanted any bonding time with her daddy. At least not alone with him. It was okay when Dare was there, too. She was never afraid when Dare was there. But Daddy on his own? He didn’t pay enough attention to the world he walked through for her to feel comfortable enough being out alone with him. And sometimes he got angry with people and it scared her. It was the same darkness she sometimes felt inside when she lost her temper and things started blowing up around her.

Honestly, she was really surprised this had never happened before. Mummy was always teasing him about losing his own head if it weren’t firmly attached, and now he’d gone and lost his own daughter. She’d known it was a bad idea straight from the start and said so, but no one ever listened to her. She was only six years old after all. Daddy had simply told her to stop being difficult in that voice, the one that brooked no further argument, so Cassi had shut her mouth and sulked.

Cassi was quite good at sulking. It had gotten to the point where Mummy would turn to Daddy and say, “She’s acting more and more like the old you every day.” Cassi had no idea what Mummy meant by that. Daddy didn’t sulk. He pouted. She didn’t know why that would change just because he was the old him, whatever that meant. Whenever she asked, her parents just gave her their ‘you’re too young to know’ look, said they’d tell her when she was older, and changed the subject. Even Dare didn’t know. She’d asked, and he’d said when he found out he’d tell her. Dare told her everything. He was good about that.

She and Dare didn’t keep secrets from each other. She wished she had a stronger connection to the rest of her family. Dare could make his thoughts known to both their parents and herself from halfway across a planet, but she was lucky if she could feel the emotions of anyone except Dare when in the same room. It was just one of the many things that meant she was wrong. She sighed and dug her fingernails into her palms as she clenched her fists.

Mummy and Daddy didn’t know she knew about that, that she was wrong. But she’d heard them talking about it when she was supposed to be sleeping. She slept far more than Dare did even though Dr. Visily said she had more Gallifreyan DNA in her hybrid than her brother had. It worried Daddy a lot because he thought she should sleep less than Dare did. So when she’d had a particularly restless night full of very strange and barely remembered but frightening dreams, she’d padded to the console room in search of Mummy who had not been in her bed sleeping.

And she’d heard them arguing about it even though they insisted when they used those tones that they were only discussing important things. When she and Dare discussed important things in that particular manner they were told off for fighting. And sometimes grounded. She snorted. Her parents could be so obvious and so obscure all at the same time. She repeated the word obscure again in her mind. She liked that word. It had been on her learning list when she was three and she’d enjoyed saying it ever since.

She pulled her attention back to her previous ponderings. Something had happened to her before she was born. Neither one of her parents came right out and said what, but from the tone of which they spoke of it she knew it had to be something very serious. Serious enough that she wasn’t quite right. She wondered why they couldn’t just tell her, why they thought she was too little to get it. It wasn’t like she was stupid. Daddy said her IQ was higher than Dare’s and she was faster at computing TARDIS equations in her head than even the Doctor was and had been since she was four.

“Why did he lose me?” she whispered to herself, biting her lip and then chewing on the edge of her thumb. She didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. She’d just been standing there looking at the pretty scarves while Daddy had gone through some of the bits and bobs of metal. Daddy had given her a half quorzat and three millnos and told her she could bargain for one of the scarves if she’d wanted to. She’d done so, bringing the merchant’s price down to 2 millnos and the half quorzat and gotten her to throw in a matching pair of socks.

Cassi had turned to her father to share her triumph but he’d been nowhere to be seen. She’d looked carefully down the row of stalls in both directions then waited at the stand for several minutes before starting to panic. One thing her mother had taught her was that if she was going to lose control of her emotions, she needed to get to an open place where she wouldn’t do as much damage if her outburst manifested itself. She had little to no control over such things, but if there weren’t breakable things about her when it happened, she couldn’t actually break anything.

They’d passed a fountain on their way into the marketplace so Cassi had run for it. She’d made it there before full-fledged panic had kicked in and the only result of her manifesting emotion was that the fountain had shot several feet higher into the air than it was supposed to and sprayed a lot of people in the square with water.

It had caused quite a stir and she half expected her father to come running at the commotion. He liked commotion. She paused as that word rolled over her tongue. It was another of her favorite words even if she didn’t like causing one or being stuck in one. Cassi had been pretty sure Daddy would be able to find her once he remembered she was supposed to be with him so she’d sat there waiting for him to show up. She was starting to get scared now. It had been too long.

Trying to calm herself down she unwrapped the pretty scarf she’d bought and tied it around her head. It helped to keep the wind out of her hair and her hair out of her face. She slipped on the socks as well and replaced her sandals. The air was starting to cool and Mummy always said keeping your head and feet warm was half the battle. Cassi wasn’t able to regulate her internal body temperature like Daddy and Dare. She was more like Mummy in that regard. She desperately missed Mummy.

A brilliant flash of ginger hair caught her attention and her heart leapt. Auntie Donna must have realized she was missing and come looking for her! Of course she would. Donna was just that good. With a huge feeling of relief she jumped to her feet and dashed off after the brilliant patch of red hair in the dark sea of alien heads. “Donna!” Cassi called. “Donna, wait for me!” She ran as quickly as her little legs could carry her after the hastily moving figure. The woman seemed just out of hearing distance, remaining on the edge of her vision. She dodged and darted through the crowd until finally she managed to catch up to the woman.

Her hand slipped into Donna’s in relief and the person turned to look at her in surprise. Cassi froze. It wasn’t Auntie Donna. The woman wasn’t even human. Cassi yanked her hand away. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Thought you were my auntie.”

The alien woman smiled kindly down on the young girl, her yellow eyes warm. “Are you lost, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Yes,” Cassi said. “My daddy wandered off and forgot about me.”

She smiled with good humor. “Are you sure it wasn’t the other way around?”

“Yes,” Cassi insisted. “You don’t know my daddy. He forgets things.”

“Even you?” she said gently.

“Yes,” said the little girl bitterly.

“Ah,” said the woman her face looking troubled. “Well, that’s not right, is it? Let’s just see what we can do about that. My name’s Ginli. What’s yours?”

“Cassi.”

“Well, hello, Cassi. It’s good to meet you. Why don’t you come with me and we’ll get you where you belong?” Ginli held her hand out to the little girl. Cassi was unsure. She’d been taught to never go off with strangers. At her reluctance Ginli waved her hand lightly across the top of Cassi’s head and wiggled her fingers again. With a beaming smile and an inordinate amount of peace washing over her, Cassi took her hand and the two of them walked away together.

Ch. 2:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/198415.html