On the Other Side - Chapter Six - This Is Home
You know, I haven't posted any of this fic since 25th March - I offically blame RTD for springing Series Four on me, as I lose all ability to write. However, this chapter did end up on Teaspoon, but for some reason never ended up on my Journal!! Strange, huh? Was, of course, beta'd by lostwolfchats, bloody ages ago.
Previous parts here:- I:Mysterious Patient - II:Diamonds and Inscriptions - III:Fighting Chance - IV:Come With Me - V:Not Taking No For An Answer
They gazed up at the sky, watching the twinkling of silver stars when the squeal of tires jerked both Jack and Rose back to reality. Both their heads spun around to see Torchwood’s black SUV roll around the corner before coming to a screeching halt. Rose took a step back, putting Jack between herself and his team.
‘Jack?’ Gwen Copper’s Welsh tones echoed over the empty expanse of the Blaidd Drwg compound. The small woman jogged towards the American. ‘Jack, what happened? Martha said you had gone back for some girl.’ Then she saw Rose stood just behind Jack in his shadow. ‘Who’s this?’
Jack turned to look at Rose, who was dusting off her clothes. ‘Her name’s Rose Tyler,’ said Jack, looking back at Gwen. ‘I knew her a few years back,’ he continued as he started walking towards the SUV, Rose on his heels. There was a sound from over ahead.
He came to an abrupt halt and Rose walked right into him and nearly fell onto the pavement. Above them, something similar to a shooting star soared across the sky in a blaze of silver and bright white. It arced gracefully as it started to head towards the Earth. Rose’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened before looking at Jack, who was looking at it with a puzzled expression. ‘Just my luck,’ muttered Rose, running a hand though her blonde locks.
‘Welcome home, Rosie,’ said Jack, his dark eyes serious as there was a loud explosion as the ‘star’ crashed. ‘Gwen, can we find out where it’s fallen?’
The brunette nodded her head, and turned away from them. ‘Tosh,’ she said, looking out in the direction of the impact zone, ‘we’ve just had a crash landing, any idea where it came down?’ It was followed by silence for a minute before Gwen spun around. ‘Some farmland out past Splott,’ said Gwen. ‘Tosh is sending Ianto the directions now.’ She nodded over to the SUV where Ianto had now picked up a device similar to a Sat Nav system.
‘Right, I want Martha, Owen and Tosh to join us there,’ said Jack, pointing at Gwen as he issued his instructions. ‘Come on Rose,’ he then said, beckoning the young blonde in the direction of the SUV. As they reached the car, Rose slipped in the back with Gwen. ‘Ianto, how long do you think it will take for us to get there?’
Ianto slipped the car into first gear and released the hand break. ‘The route is pretty clear - should take about twenty minutes.’
The TARDIS shuddered and rolled unexpectedly, throwing the two occupants across the room. Donna Noble hit the padded rail with a resounding crunch while the Doctor was hurled into the central console. He groaned in agony as he pushed himself away from it. ‘What was that?’ he asked the room at large, and was just about to launch in a tirade of abuse when he heard Donna’s groan of pain from the other side of the room.
The Doctor glanced around the central column as the feisty red head pulled herself up from the floor. Donna brushed herself down and then ran a hand gingerly over her ribs, checking for damage. She winched slightly, before eyeing the Doctor with annoyance. ‘Couldn’t have warned me we were gonna have a crash landing,’ muttered Donna, a slightly mutinous tone to her voice.
‘I didn’t plan this,’ replied the Doctor, looking away from Donna and heading to the scanner, ‘we were floating in the Vortex,’ he continued, tapping at the console as the scanner flashed though some information. ‘We had no destination set, the TARDIS has done this herself,’ he told Donna.
Donna sighed deeply after ascertaining that she hadn’t done herself any long term damage. ‘So where are we?’ she asked, looking around for a coat. Now they were here, there would be no way that the Doctor wouldn’t take the opportunity to have a peek outside.
‘Cardiff,’ he told her, glancing up from the scanner and down again.
‘Cardiff?’ repeated Donna, looking far from impressed. ‘You said you could give me all of Time and Space, and you bring me to Cardiff?’
The Doctor looked up. ‘Ah, I didn’t bring us to Cardiff; the TARDIS did of her own accord.’ He moved over to get his coat. ‘Anyway, think about it this way, at least you didn’t have to pay for the train fare. Cost a bomb from London.’
Donna looked at him, her expression was unimpressed. ‘So you are telling me that a machine brought us to Cardiff of its own accord?’
‘The TARDIS isn’t just a machine,’ he replied indignantly, ‘it’s a living machine.’
‘Right,’ muttered Donna, stepping out into the night. It was surprisingly warm, given that the sky was crystal clear. ‘Not much going on,’ she observed as the Doctor locked the door to the TARDIS.
The Doctor looked up and down the street as well. ‘Never let Cardiff fool you, Donna,’ he advised her. ‘It’s got a Rift though Time and Space, so anything could be happening.’
Donna raised an eyebrow as the Doctor stepped out into the street and headed down the road. ‘Your spider sense tingling?’ she called after him as she headed after him.
Rose tested the ground that led into the crater. The loose soil slid under her shoes and she tumbled towards the fallen craft with a small yelp. ‘Jack,’ she called back, having righted her footing, ‘chuck me a torch.’
A second later, a small torch arced though the air towards her. She caught it expertly in her hands and started to examine the craft, the torchlight running over it. As Rose moved around to the other side, Gwen’s hushed tones reached Rose’s ears. ‘Who is she?’ said Gwen. ‘Martha said she was an old friend of yours.’
‘Rose made me the man I am today,’ he commented softly.
Rose frowned on the other side of the ship, but her puzzled frown turned to a troubled one as the torchlight moved over some symbols on the side. Rose focused on them and at the same time, her hand slid into her pocket. The device she had been looking at in the parallel universe, only two hours ago, was flashing manically; the symbols on the device matching those on the ship. ‘Jack,’ Rose yelled, just as the seal opened, the hiss of decompression felt horribly loud in her ears and stale air blew though her hair, making Rose cough.
‘Rose,’ yelled Jack, running around the ship to where the blonde had been working, ‘Rose, get away from there,’ he skidded to a halt just above Rose and held out his hand to her. She glanced up to him, and took it, allowing Jack to pull her away just as the ship opened and a huge amount of white gas split into the air. ‘Gwen, Ianto, cover your mouths,’ yelled Jack before he pulled the lapel of his coat over his mouth and nose.
The Doctor looked up instinctively, just in time to see a great tower of what appeared to be white smoke rise into the atmosphere and disperse into the sky. ‘Bingo,’ he muttered, before turning around and grinning at Donna.
‘But we’re at least two miles away,’ pointed out Donna, but the nonetheless, she still took her hands out of her pockets, getting ready to follow the Doctor.
‘Aw, it’s not that far, nothing compared to trekking over ice planets,’ replied the Doctor, ‘and anyway, don’t like the look of that smoke, could be something dangerous.’
Donna laughed as his voice dropped slightly and sounded slightly spooky. ‘But,’ said Donna, ‘didn’t you say there was a Torchwood here?’
The Doctor cocked his head. ‘Yep,’ he said, with a flash of a grin, ‘but I can’t go letting Jack have all the fun, and as we’re here, it won’t do any harm to have a look around.’
He waggled his eyebrows mischievously, and Donna knew she had no chance, instead she found herself mirroring his smile as they set off at a quick paced walk.
‘Jack! Rose!’ Martha’s voice called out, followed by the sound of rushed footsteps. ‘Are you okay? What happened?’
Rose disentangled herself from Jack and looked up. She held up the device that had caused the ship to open. ‘Doesn’t protect you when travelling though the Void,’ said Rose, looking down at her attire and deciding it was best she give up instead of attempt to groom herself again, ‘it does, however, open alien crafts and expel goodness know what into the air.’
Martha frowned as she helped Rose to her feet. ‘So we’ve got to track the gas down,’ said Martha, looking from the Torchwood team, then to Rose and Jack.
‘Won’t be able to Martha,’ said Jack, brushing some dirt off his coat, ‘not until it gets assimilated with a host.’
‘Which could take how long?’ asked Owen Harper.
‘Minutes, hours, days,’ started Jack.
Rose looked over at him as he spoke. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘we get the picture and not only that,’ she continued looking down at the device in her hands, it now appeared to be dead, ‘if it’s taking a human host, well, that leaves everyone in Cardiff available for the picking.’
Jack cast Rose a startled look, surprised at her deduction, but it only served as a reminder that an hour ago, she had been heading up the parallel equivalent of Torchwood Three, but also, he saw the Doctor’s influence on her shine though and he smiled at the second thought.
However, Martha was looking at Rose. ‘Have you seen anything like this before?’
Rose raised an eyebrow and looked at the ship. ‘No,’ she said, looking back up at Martha, ‘like I said to you back there, we have no idea what this thing is or how it would work.’
‘But,’ said Martha, pointing at the object, ‘it starting working when the gap in the Void starting expanding, so maybe, it was communicating with this ship and then, when you came across with Jack it followed the signal.’
‘Well, I can see that,’ said Rose, hands resting on her hips. ‘But we need to try and identify the species before we do anything else.’
‘Agreed,’ said Jack, taking the device out of Rose’s hand and looking at it. ‘Tosh, we need as much information as you can retrieve about this device, in the mean time, we need to identify where this thing might hit first.’
‘And how do we do that?’ asked Gwen, looking around at the extended team.
Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s a Thursday night in Cardiff, how many places can one gaseous alien go?’
The area was cordoned off, bright blue police tape was strung across the road and ahead of them was a small team of people working in the playing field. ‘Bit unusual,’ commented Donna, looking around the otherwise deserted area, ‘where are all the police?’
‘Maybe,’ replied the Doctor, as he reached into his suit jacket pocket and lifted up the tape, ‘this isn’t an official police cordon.’
Donna looked at him in surprise before following him under the tape and towards the small group of people. ‘Torchwood?’ asked Donna quietly, walking along side the Doctor.
He nodded silently as they drew closer to the team, his physic paper ready to declare him some high official from UNIT if need be. They walked quite slowly towards the group of just three people.
‘So, what do you make of Jack’s latest acquisition?’ came a voice deep Welsh accent.
‘Probably off limits,’ replied a woman, a quiet London voice that barely broke over the silence of the night. ‘Either way, Martha doesn’t seem too happy to have her around.’
A third voice laughed. ‘Both of them old friends with an extensive knowledge of aliens - I’ll bet he’s shacked up with both of them at some point.’ Then he fell silent. ‘Do you hear that?’
The Doctor saw the three people look up towards them, and one of the people stepped away from the scene towards them. ‘I’m sorry, this is a crime scene, you’ll have to step back,’ said the man, Ianto Jones, his welsh tones tinted with mild authority.
‘Aw, yes, well,’ said the Doctor, flashing his ID, ‘John Smith, Scientific Advisor for UNIT.’
‘Martha call you do down did she?’ asked the man. ‘Well, we’ve go the situation in hand.’
‘Always knew it was a mistake letting UNIT stick there noses in,’ the London accented man. ‘Look, Mr Smith, we’ve got everything under control.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you have,’ commented the Doctor, walking straight passed Ianto, making a beeline for the fallen craft. ‘But a second opinion can’t go amiss.’ He pulled out his sonic screwdriver as he walked, turned to Donna. ‘Wait here a second,’ he muttered before sliding down to the ship. The Doctor ran his sonic screwdriver over the seal.
‘Don’t do that,’ exclaimed the woman, Tosh, ‘what if there is more of that gas?’
The Doctor seemed to consider Tosh’s words for a moment. ‘Very good point,’ he said, switching off the screwdriver and climbing back out. ‘Well, seems you were right, everything under control,’ he declared, grabbing Donna by the crook of her arm, his face darkening as he turned away from the Torchwood agents.
‘Doctor,’ whispered Donna, pulling her arm from his grip and grabbing his hand, ‘what is it.’
‘That ship,’ he said, ducking under the cordon, tugging Donna with him, ‘it belongs to a race that was banished to the Void two hundred years ago.’
Previous parts here:- I:Mysterious Patient - II:Diamonds and Inscriptions - III:Fighting Chance - IV:Come With Me - V:Not Taking No For An Answer
They gazed up at the sky, watching the twinkling of silver stars when the squeal of tires jerked both Jack and Rose back to reality. Both their heads spun around to see Torchwood’s black SUV roll around the corner before coming to a screeching halt. Rose took a step back, putting Jack between herself and his team.
‘Jack?’ Gwen Copper’s Welsh tones echoed over the empty expanse of the Blaidd Drwg compound. The small woman jogged towards the American. ‘Jack, what happened? Martha said you had gone back for some girl.’ Then she saw Rose stood just behind Jack in his shadow. ‘Who’s this?’
Jack turned to look at Rose, who was dusting off her clothes. ‘Her name’s Rose Tyler,’ said Jack, looking back at Gwen. ‘I knew her a few years back,’ he continued as he started walking towards the SUV, Rose on his heels. There was a sound from over ahead.
He came to an abrupt halt and Rose walked right into him and nearly fell onto the pavement. Above them, something similar to a shooting star soared across the sky in a blaze of silver and bright white. It arced gracefully as it started to head towards the Earth. Rose’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened before looking at Jack, who was looking at it with a puzzled expression. ‘Just my luck,’ muttered Rose, running a hand though her blonde locks.
‘Welcome home, Rosie,’ said Jack, his dark eyes serious as there was a loud explosion as the ‘star’ crashed. ‘Gwen, can we find out where it’s fallen?’
The brunette nodded her head, and turned away from them. ‘Tosh,’ she said, looking out in the direction of the impact zone, ‘we’ve just had a crash landing, any idea where it came down?’ It was followed by silence for a minute before Gwen spun around. ‘Some farmland out past Splott,’ said Gwen. ‘Tosh is sending Ianto the directions now.’ She nodded over to the SUV where Ianto had now picked up a device similar to a Sat Nav system.
‘Right, I want Martha, Owen and Tosh to join us there,’ said Jack, pointing at Gwen as he issued his instructions. ‘Come on Rose,’ he then said, beckoning the young blonde in the direction of the SUV. As they reached the car, Rose slipped in the back with Gwen. ‘Ianto, how long do you think it will take for us to get there?’
Ianto slipped the car into first gear and released the hand break. ‘The route is pretty clear - should take about twenty minutes.’
The TARDIS shuddered and rolled unexpectedly, throwing the two occupants across the room. Donna Noble hit the padded rail with a resounding crunch while the Doctor was hurled into the central console. He groaned in agony as he pushed himself away from it. ‘What was that?’ he asked the room at large, and was just about to launch in a tirade of abuse when he heard Donna’s groan of pain from the other side of the room.
The Doctor glanced around the central column as the feisty red head pulled herself up from the floor. Donna brushed herself down and then ran a hand gingerly over her ribs, checking for damage. She winched slightly, before eyeing the Doctor with annoyance. ‘Couldn’t have warned me we were gonna have a crash landing,’ muttered Donna, a slightly mutinous tone to her voice.
‘I didn’t plan this,’ replied the Doctor, looking away from Donna and heading to the scanner, ‘we were floating in the Vortex,’ he continued, tapping at the console as the scanner flashed though some information. ‘We had no destination set, the TARDIS has done this herself,’ he told Donna.
Donna sighed deeply after ascertaining that she hadn’t done herself any long term damage. ‘So where are we?’ she asked, looking around for a coat. Now they were here, there would be no way that the Doctor wouldn’t take the opportunity to have a peek outside.
‘Cardiff,’ he told her, glancing up from the scanner and down again.
‘Cardiff?’ repeated Donna, looking far from impressed. ‘You said you could give me all of Time and Space, and you bring me to Cardiff?’
The Doctor looked up. ‘Ah, I didn’t bring us to Cardiff; the TARDIS did of her own accord.’ He moved over to get his coat. ‘Anyway, think about it this way, at least you didn’t have to pay for the train fare. Cost a bomb from London.’
Donna looked at him, her expression was unimpressed. ‘So you are telling me that a machine brought us to Cardiff of its own accord?’
‘The TARDIS isn’t just a machine,’ he replied indignantly, ‘it’s a living machine.’
‘Right,’ muttered Donna, stepping out into the night. It was surprisingly warm, given that the sky was crystal clear. ‘Not much going on,’ she observed as the Doctor locked the door to the TARDIS.
The Doctor looked up and down the street as well. ‘Never let Cardiff fool you, Donna,’ he advised her. ‘It’s got a Rift though Time and Space, so anything could be happening.’
Donna raised an eyebrow as the Doctor stepped out into the street and headed down the road. ‘Your spider sense tingling?’ she called after him as she headed after him.
Rose tested the ground that led into the crater. The loose soil slid under her shoes and she tumbled towards the fallen craft with a small yelp. ‘Jack,’ she called back, having righted her footing, ‘chuck me a torch.’
A second later, a small torch arced though the air towards her. She caught it expertly in her hands and started to examine the craft, the torchlight running over it. As Rose moved around to the other side, Gwen’s hushed tones reached Rose’s ears. ‘Who is she?’ said Gwen. ‘Martha said she was an old friend of yours.’
‘Rose made me the man I am today,’ he commented softly.
Rose frowned on the other side of the ship, but her puzzled frown turned to a troubled one as the torchlight moved over some symbols on the side. Rose focused on them and at the same time, her hand slid into her pocket. The device she had been looking at in the parallel universe, only two hours ago, was flashing manically; the symbols on the device matching those on the ship. ‘Jack,’ Rose yelled, just as the seal opened, the hiss of decompression felt horribly loud in her ears and stale air blew though her hair, making Rose cough.
‘Rose,’ yelled Jack, running around the ship to where the blonde had been working, ‘Rose, get away from there,’ he skidded to a halt just above Rose and held out his hand to her. She glanced up to him, and took it, allowing Jack to pull her away just as the ship opened and a huge amount of white gas split into the air. ‘Gwen, Ianto, cover your mouths,’ yelled Jack before he pulled the lapel of his coat over his mouth and nose.
The Doctor looked up instinctively, just in time to see a great tower of what appeared to be white smoke rise into the atmosphere and disperse into the sky. ‘Bingo,’ he muttered, before turning around and grinning at Donna.
‘But we’re at least two miles away,’ pointed out Donna, but the nonetheless, she still took her hands out of her pockets, getting ready to follow the Doctor.
‘Aw, it’s not that far, nothing compared to trekking over ice planets,’ replied the Doctor, ‘and anyway, don’t like the look of that smoke, could be something dangerous.’
Donna laughed as his voice dropped slightly and sounded slightly spooky. ‘But,’ said Donna, ‘didn’t you say there was a Torchwood here?’
The Doctor cocked his head. ‘Yep,’ he said, with a flash of a grin, ‘but I can’t go letting Jack have all the fun, and as we’re here, it won’t do any harm to have a look around.’
He waggled his eyebrows mischievously, and Donna knew she had no chance, instead she found herself mirroring his smile as they set off at a quick paced walk.
‘Jack! Rose!’ Martha’s voice called out, followed by the sound of rushed footsteps. ‘Are you okay? What happened?’
Rose disentangled herself from Jack and looked up. She held up the device that had caused the ship to open. ‘Doesn’t protect you when travelling though the Void,’ said Rose, looking down at her attire and deciding it was best she give up instead of attempt to groom herself again, ‘it does, however, open alien crafts and expel goodness know what into the air.’
Martha frowned as she helped Rose to her feet. ‘So we’ve got to track the gas down,’ said Martha, looking from the Torchwood team, then to Rose and Jack.
‘Won’t be able to Martha,’ said Jack, brushing some dirt off his coat, ‘not until it gets assimilated with a host.’
‘Which could take how long?’ asked Owen Harper.
‘Minutes, hours, days,’ started Jack.
Rose looked over at him as he spoke. ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘we get the picture and not only that,’ she continued looking down at the device in her hands, it now appeared to be dead, ‘if it’s taking a human host, well, that leaves everyone in Cardiff available for the picking.’
Jack cast Rose a startled look, surprised at her deduction, but it only served as a reminder that an hour ago, she had been heading up the parallel equivalent of Torchwood Three, but also, he saw the Doctor’s influence on her shine though and he smiled at the second thought.
However, Martha was looking at Rose. ‘Have you seen anything like this before?’
Rose raised an eyebrow and looked at the ship. ‘No,’ she said, looking back up at Martha, ‘like I said to you back there, we have no idea what this thing is or how it would work.’
‘But,’ said Martha, pointing at the object, ‘it starting working when the gap in the Void starting expanding, so maybe, it was communicating with this ship and then, when you came across with Jack it followed the signal.’
‘Well, I can see that,’ said Rose, hands resting on her hips. ‘But we need to try and identify the species before we do anything else.’
‘Agreed,’ said Jack, taking the device out of Rose’s hand and looking at it. ‘Tosh, we need as much information as you can retrieve about this device, in the mean time, we need to identify where this thing might hit first.’
‘And how do we do that?’ asked Gwen, looking around at the extended team.
Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s a Thursday night in Cardiff, how many places can one gaseous alien go?’
The area was cordoned off, bright blue police tape was strung across the road and ahead of them was a small team of people working in the playing field. ‘Bit unusual,’ commented Donna, looking around the otherwise deserted area, ‘where are all the police?’
‘Maybe,’ replied the Doctor, as he reached into his suit jacket pocket and lifted up the tape, ‘this isn’t an official police cordon.’
Donna looked at him in surprise before following him under the tape and towards the small group of people. ‘Torchwood?’ asked Donna quietly, walking along side the Doctor.
He nodded silently as they drew closer to the team, his physic paper ready to declare him some high official from UNIT if need be. They walked quite slowly towards the group of just three people.
‘So, what do you make of Jack’s latest acquisition?’ came a voice deep Welsh accent.
‘Probably off limits,’ replied a woman, a quiet London voice that barely broke over the silence of the night. ‘Either way, Martha doesn’t seem too happy to have her around.’
A third voice laughed. ‘Both of them old friends with an extensive knowledge of aliens - I’ll bet he’s shacked up with both of them at some point.’ Then he fell silent. ‘Do you hear that?’
The Doctor saw the three people look up towards them, and one of the people stepped away from the scene towards them. ‘I’m sorry, this is a crime scene, you’ll have to step back,’ said the man, Ianto Jones, his welsh tones tinted with mild authority.
‘Aw, yes, well,’ said the Doctor, flashing his ID, ‘John Smith, Scientific Advisor for UNIT.’
‘Martha call you do down did she?’ asked the man. ‘Well, we’ve go the situation in hand.’
‘Always knew it was a mistake letting UNIT stick there noses in,’ the London accented man. ‘Look, Mr Smith, we’ve got everything under control.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you have,’ commented the Doctor, walking straight passed Ianto, making a beeline for the fallen craft. ‘But a second opinion can’t go amiss.’ He pulled out his sonic screwdriver as he walked, turned to Donna. ‘Wait here a second,’ he muttered before sliding down to the ship. The Doctor ran his sonic screwdriver over the seal.
‘Don’t do that,’ exclaimed the woman, Tosh, ‘what if there is more of that gas?’
The Doctor seemed to consider Tosh’s words for a moment. ‘Very good point,’ he said, switching off the screwdriver and climbing back out. ‘Well, seems you were right, everything under control,’ he declared, grabbing Donna by the crook of her arm, his face darkening as he turned away from the Torchwood agents.
‘Doctor,’ whispered Donna, pulling her arm from his grip and grabbing his hand, ‘what is it.’
‘That ship,’ he said, ducking under the cordon, tugging Donna with him, ‘it belongs to a race that was banished to the Void two hundred years ago.’