The Scenic Route: Chapter Two
Title: The Scenic Route
Rating: R
Features: Rose Tyler, Malcom Reynolds, Inara Serra, Kaylee Fry, Simon Tam, River Tam, Jayne Cobb, Wash, Zoe
Pairings: Established in canon for Firefly and my 'All Roads Lead Home' universe for Doctor Who
A/N: Nothing you recognize belongs to me. This is a prequel to 'The Long and Winding Road' and as such is set in my 'All Roads Lead Home' universe. Enjoy!
WARNING: If you’ve read ‘The Long and Winding Road’ (and if you haven’t go do so) than you know that my take on Rose Tyler includes a period of torture/experimentation spanning roughly a year and followed by several decades of hiding. This story deals with torture and its effects, including PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). There may be graphic descriptions in flashbacks and dream sequences. I will tag each chapter appropriately, but I wanted to give you all a head’s up first.
Chapter One
Kaylee closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The marketplace was bustling around her. A spice merchant's stall was just ahead and the rich aroma of cinnamon and cloves filled the air. Unlike most of the Rim planets Serenity tended to visit, Persephone was cool. Kaylee didn't object. She spent most of her time on Serenity in the engine room. It was her favorite place to be-but it was hot. The wind danced across her skin and brought with it the less-pleasant aroma of the livestock stalls and Kaylee's nose wrinkled as she opened her eyes. Best not be forgetting the reason she was planetside. It was her turn to stay with the ship, but Mal had overruled the usual order and made Simon stay so that she could follow Rose.
Mal didn't trust their latest passenger and Kaylee couldn't understand why. Sure, she was quiet, but she was real nice. Sad, sort of, when she thought no one was looking, and she got on with River. That was an accomplishment. Kaylee squeeled at Simon's sister well enough, but sometimes River gave her the creeps. She squeeled at River better after the girl outsmarted Jubal Early, but still-there were moments when it wasn't a girl staring out through River's eyes, it was something else. Something cold and empty and terrifying. Something that could kill without a second thought, with as much ease as it breathed.
Okay, so maybe Kaylee could see why Rose's friendship with River was worrisome, but did she really need someone watching her? She hadn't done anything suspicious-just wandered through the marketplace. Kaylee had coin in her pocket and it was making her fingers itch. She hadn't had strawberries since that ball with Inara and there was a stall just a few back piled high with 'em.
An arm wrapped around her waist roughly and the cold, sharp edge of a knife pressed into her neck. She froze.
"That's it, little rabbit," a voice grated in her ear. "Not a sound, or I'll slit your pretty little throat."
Rose looked at the Dimension Cannon on her wrist for the hundredth time and sighed. Nothing. Not a whisper of a Time Agent. There were some odd traces, might have been the TARDIS, but she couldn't tell without a fully functional Cannon. Persephone was more advanced than the other planets she'd checked, but apparently it wasn't enough. Time Agents squeeled at flash, Jack had said. They like beautiful people and interesting places (and apparently almost everyone qualified as 'beautiful' in the 51st century). No matter. She had plenty of coin. She could travel for at least a year before she was in danger of needing to stop-and it was good to be moving. She couldn't stand being still.
Rose glanced back over her shoulder at Kaylee. The girl had been following her ever since Serenity touched down. It was Mal, it had to be. The Captain was just a bit suspicious. He had good instincts. She was dangerous, after all, but not to them. Not unless they harmed her first. She frowned. Kaylee was gone. She'd been just there, by that stall with the spices-that stall that was just in front of an alley. Cold climbed up her spine and settled in her stomach. Kaylee was sweet and knowledgeable as hell about engines, but she wasn't a fighter.
How long had it been since she'd last seen the other girl? A few seconds? Long enough, she knew, for it to be a body she found in the alley. Rose pushed through the crowd of people. They swarmed around her, impeding her path, pushing her back. She wanted to scream, but she knew that wouldn't get her anywhere. Kaylee could be dying, and she didn't deserve that. Very few people actually deserved death and Rose was almost certain that no one on Serenity qualified.
When she rounded the corner into the shadows of the alley a few seconds later Rose almost wanted to laugh. There were two thugs; one held Kaylee still with a knife against her throat while the other went through her jacket. Kaylee's eyes were wide and she was breathing fast, but she was alive. Rose could work with alive. She didn't relish the thought of returning to Serenity and explaining to Mal how he'd gotten his engineer killed by having her follow Rose.
She kicked a pebble deliberately. It ricocheted off one of the metal bins that littered the alleyway and the thugs jerked around.
"Rose!" Kaylee choked out, and the boy holding her pressed the knife more tightly against her neck. He was going to cut the skin, Rose noted. A sort of calm settled over her but she did her best to appear small, vulnerable, frightened. Scum like them, they wouldn't dare pick on someone their own size, someone they knew might fight back.
Chopin's Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48, No. 1 was playing in her head. Rose knew it was Chopin because Maria always listened to Chopin during surgery-even when that surgery was cutting into someone who used to be a friend. There was blood on the white walls, so much blood. They squeeled at the paralytic-she didn't thrash when they cut into her, but remained fully conscious so they could determine her pain threshold. She could feel blackness at the edge of her mind and she hoped it would wash over her-anything, anything at all to make the pain stop.
Her hands curled into fists as a thin trickle of blood wound down Kaylee's neck. The thugs leered at her, and the second gestured with his gun. "Hands up!" he ordered. "Looks like we just got lucky, Sam."
"Who is the Doctor?" the voice demanded. Her lip throbbed and bled-she could taste iron in her mouth and two of her teeth were loose. "How did you jump across universes?" She'd explained everything all ready-how she'd come to this universe, why she'd come to this universe, and most importantly why she couldn't go back, but the questions kept coming. "What are you?" She spat at her captor's feet. The blow, when it came, took the breath from her lungs. She was pretty sure she had at least one cracked rib. Tears dripped down her cheeks. She swore she wouldn't let them see-but she couldn't help it. Her body was a cage of pain and death was her only freedom.
His hands were rough and dirty and the sight of them on the arm of her jacket made Rose's lips curl into a sneer. She was relaxed, almost limp as he pawed through her pockets. The important things-her dimension canon, her gun, were useless to him and his ilk. His hands lingered over her breasts and she stiffened.
'My name is Rose Tyler.' She wrote it over and over again-on the walls, on the floor, on her skin. She scratched it into the concrete with a rusty nail she found in the corner of the cell. She repeated it like a mantra in her head and out loud. They could take everything from her-her job, her home, her family, even her life-but they couldn't take her name. Not while she remembered it.
He whistled when he pulled out her purse. It was heavy with coin-a benefit of being used to living with practically nothing. She didn't need much in the way of possessions; her lifestyle was transitory. The only thing that mattered was getting back to the Doctor, and if she happened to stop some scumbags on the way, well, that was a bonus. She had no house or family to sink money into. He held the bag up like a prize and she saw the other thug-Sam-loosen his grip on Kaylee.
She vowed in the darkness of her cell that she would escape and when she did no one would hurt her like that, not ever. She would not do what her so-called friends had; she would not stand idly by and let people hurt those around her because questioning them would threaten her lifestyle. When the time came she would act.
Chopin was playing in her head.
Rose moved. She'd scoffed at the way movies portrayed violence-slow motion and incongruent music-but the description was strangely appropriate. Her senses were heightened, her mind raced, her blood thundered, and the noise of the street was drowned out by classical piano tinkling through her skull. The thug in front of her had a knife through his belt. She drew it, spun, and threw it in one swift motion. Sam yelped as it sunk into his shoulder and the knife fell away from Kaylee's neck. Rose elbowed the thug, who was now behind her, in the ribs as he fumbled for his gun. Of course he didn't expect her to fight back; they never did. He doubled over as she spun back to face him and kneed him in the groin. His gun, finally out of the holster, fell to the ground. Rose picked it up. The cracking sound the butt made as it connected with his skull was particularly satisfying.
An arm wrapped around her neck. "Gorram whore," a voice-Sam's-growled in her ear. "Gonna slit your throat for that."
His mistake was trying to use his injured arm. Rose brought her hand up and back, slamming it into the wet, sticky evidence of her good aim. He roared and his grip around her weakened enough so she could slip away. She didn't waste her time with words. Sam charged at her and she danced aside. He charged again and she slipped past the knife and grabbed his injured arm. He grunted and she allowed a smirk to slip across her lips, but then white-hot pain lanced through her side. Rose clamped one hand down. It came up red. She twisted and pulled and Sam ended up on the ground. One of his knives skittered away and Kaylee picked it up. Rose knelt on his injured arm, making sure her knee ended up on his wounded shoulder, and pulled the knife from his grip. She held it to his throat.
"Now," she said quietly. "You and your friend are going to leave us alone. You're going to go back to whatever scumhole you crawled out of and you're going to stay there. Understand?" Sam nodded, his eyes wide. "Good," Rose told him. Then she stood and slid his knife into her belt. "Coming Kaylee?"
Simon Tam was not happy. He'd been stuck watching the ship the last three times they'd been planetside, usually at Mal's insistence. Part of him suggested that the Captain finally trusted him, and that he should be proud that he was more than just a troublesome passenger now, but a larger part of him pointed out that Mal only had him stay behind because if he was on Serenity it was likely that River was too, especially if Kaylee was otherwise occupied (which she was, shadowing Rose and Simon wasn't even going to think about that). So he was left alone, except for River, who had vanished somewhere in the bowels of the ship.
He pulled out the book he'd been reading when Serenity was in port. At this rate he'd have it finished within the month. Simon couldn't say that he minded the quiet. After Jubal, he'd take any break they could get. Mal and Jayne and Zoe, even Kaylee, they squeeled at adventure. He preferred when things went smoothly, which was rare on this ship.
And since it was quiet, and he had time to appreciate it, something had to go wrong. It began when River materialized next to his elbow.
"They're coming," she informed him and he almost dropped his book.
"River!" Simon exclaimed. "Don't do that!"
She frowned at him. "Do what?"
He shook his head. "Never mind. Who's coming?"
River's eyes went distant, and for a moment she was looking through him, not at him. "Kaylee and the wolf. Bring your doctor stuff, you're going to need it."
Simon felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over him. "Is Kaylee hurt?" he asked urgently.
River shook her head. "Not bad, just a little cut. The wolf will need you, though. There are monsters in her head and they won't stop screaming."
Rose was vaguely annoyed. The two shānyáng tā mā de jìnǚ āng zāng de érzi(1) had cut through her jacket. She loved that jacket. It was TARDIS blue, for one, and it was the last thing that Tony had ever given her. Don't think about Tony don't think about him oh god blood, his blood on her hands. She was aware, on the edges of her consciousness, that Kaylee was looking at her like she had grown a second head. She was used to that sort of stare-wonder wrapped in a healthy dose of fear. Pity. She'd hoped that she could be friends with the cheerful mechanic. Rose was sadly lacking in friends. When she traveled with the Doctor there'd been no shortage of people (aliens or otherwise) she connected with, but now that she was back in her original universe she was more alone than ever. Ironic, that.
Rose was also aware that she was rambling in her mind, possibly going into shock. She had just been cut, after all, and though it didn't feel especially deep it was quite long and bleeding something fierce. Her shirt was beyond help but she might yet salvage the jacket. She kept one arm clamped against her side as she and Kaylee made their way back to Serenity.
She kept seeing Tony's face. Every time she looked at her hands (blood blood blood) she kept seeing him fall. She did this. She killed her brother. She held him when he was a baby, rocked him to sleep and watched him grow up. She drove him to school and came to show-and-tell and career day. She lent him keys to her car so he could impress girls and supported him (against her mum) when he wanted to apply to work at Torchwood. She was there when he graduated from university and when he got married she was the best (wo)man. They were closer than almost anyone-and she killed him. It was her fault, all her fault, and she kept seeing him fall, kept seeing him die, kept seeing the blood on her hands.
The first thing Rose noticed, when she could tear her eyes away from the lines of red that were drying on her fingers, was noise. Someone was talking to her. For a moment she couldn't place the voice, but then it came to her. Simon Tam. Serenity. Persephone. And the memory of the knife against Kaylee's throat was enough to rip her from the loop of horror that was playing in her mind. Chopin and blood. Knives and pain Red on white walls. She looked up. Simon was standing in front of her, his hands on the arm that was pressed tight against her side.
"I need to see the wound, Rose," he said gently. He was speaking slowly, calmly, like he was trying not to startle a wild animal. "I need to remove your jacket."
Of course he did, she knew that. Silently she shrugged out of the jacket, wincing as a pain shot through her side. Her hands moved to the buttons on her shirt. Simon's cheeks were pink, she noted as she stripped the bloody mess off and laid it on the exam table by her jacket. It was sweet of him to be embarrassed, but she wasn't. Her body was just that-a body. More people than she could count had seen her naked, what was one more?
His eyes widened and his hand moved to her stomach, almost involuntarily. The scars. Her body was covered with them but they were most concentrated on her torso. She could remember the feel of every cut, every slice, and every experimental procedure designed to discover her secret to supposedly eternal life. She closed her eyes against the rush of images but she couldn't block them out-they were, after all, in her own head.
Malcolm Reynolds was many things: a veteran, smuggler, a thief, a captain, and occasionally a murderer if he needed to be (if someone threatened his ship, or his crew, or his own life). He was also (occasionally) a liar, a hardass, and very rarely-a hero. At the moment he was disquieted. He'd never been a fan of taking passengers; they were noisy and nosy and often not worth the trouble they brought. Simon and River Tam were a prime example of why he'd sworn off carrying passengers, as they were all three.
They were also family. They'd saved Mal's life several times and the lives of other crew members. He still didn't exactly like the young doctor-man was too pretty, in his eyes, and interested in little Kaylee. Not that Kaylee wasn't a grown woman who could look after herself when it came to men-folk-but Mal looked on her with a mix of paternal and fraternal concern. She was like his little sister, and he'd be damned if he let some slick city boy break her heart.
But back to the topic that was troubling him before the always convenient distraction of Simon Tam surfaced-Rose Tyler, but more specifically, her friendship with Serenity's least stable passenger-River Tam. The girl wasn't all there, that was for sure. The few times they'd been forced to carry passengers before (out of sheer desperation for their coin) she'd remained hidden, content to watch. In fact, she had barely noticed the new people. She noticed Rose. After Mal came down the first morning to find River sitting contentedly next to the young woman he had seldom seen her anywhere else. Where Rose was, River was. When he asked her why, the strange girl replied that Rose was 'quiet,' whatever that meant. Quiet, Mal thought, was obviously relative. She wasn't loud by any stretch of the imagination, but she was pleasant and seemed especially close to Kaylee.
Mal really wasn't surprised. Serenity's mechanic was bright and bubbly and could charm a stone, if her effect on Simon Tam was any indication. He could use that charm right about now. Sure, Rose Tyler could be everything she said she was-but they'd all ready had one bounty-hunter on Serenity. Jubal Early was the first to find River, but he wouldn't be the last, not if the Alliance continued to offer a reward for River's capture. He'd been fooled once before by a pretty face and a sad story, and despite what Inara might say, Malcolm Reynolds tried not to make the same mistake twice.
He got the call when he and Zoe were on their way to a tavern. Zoe wasn't fond of them, but Mal squeeled at to blow off a little steam after a job well done. This one had been smooth, almost too smooth for his liking. A job wasn't done until something went wrong, Ma Reynolds used to say, and in his experience she was right more often than not. He was almost expecting the comms to ring, and when it did he wasn't surprised to find Kaylee on the other line.
"Mal," the girl said, and she sounded distressed. "You gotta come back. It's Rose."
Of course it was. He knew passengers were trouble. If that yuán àihào de nǚhái(2) brought trouble down on them he'd dump her in the nearest gutter and high-tail it. "What's she done, little Kaylee?"
"Nothin' Mal!" Kaylee's response was surprisingly vehement. "But she's hurt."
He frowned. "How's that any concern of mine?"
Kaylee sighed. "She saved my life, Cap'n, an' Simon said I should call."
Zoe was watching him, one eyebrow cocked in question. Mal groaned. "Be back in a few, an' you tell that doctor it better be worth it!"
"Back to the ship, sir?" Zoe asked.
"Back to the ship," he agreed grudgingly. Could this fen chou(3) day get any better?
Mal should have learned long ago not to ask that question even in the silence of his own mind, but he was stubborn so he did it anyway. He and Zoe arrived to a tearful Kaylee and a quiet ship.
"What's going on?" Mal asked as he strode into the cargo hold. Kaylee was perched on one of the boxes, waiting.
"It was my fault," she explained as they walked toward the surgery. "I closed my eyes for a second and then there were these men, and they had knives." She swallowed and stroked the small bandage on her neck absently. Mal could see an ugly purple bruise forming-in the shape of a hand-and rage bubbled up within him.
"Where are they?" he demanded. No one hurt a member of his crew and got away with it.
Kaylee shook her head. "Rose took care of them. She followed me into the alley-fought them off." Kaylee worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "You should've seen her, Cap'n. She fought like a wild thing."
Simon was washing his hands in the sink when they reached the surgery. Rose was perched on the examining bed with a thick white bandage wrapped around her waist. Mal averted his eyes but she seemed not to notice their presence. Instead she was focused on her jacket, which had a large rip in the right side.
"Good, you're back," Simon noted as he dried his hands. "Can I talk to you outside, Mal?"
Mal frowned as he moved just outside the surgery door. "This better be worth it, Doc."
Simon's face was set as he glanced back at his patient. "Did you notice the scars, Captain?"
Mal cocked his head to the side. "Of course I did, boy. What of it?" He noticed, all right. He'd never seen Rose in less than a long-sleeved shirt, despite the heat of the world they'd picked her up on, so after a brief moment of shock and slight embarrassment he noticed the thin lines that wound around her body and the blocky number that sat just above her elbow.
"I've seen scarring like that before," Simon went on.
"Have you now?" Mal crossed his arms. He didn't like where this was headed.
"Yes." Simon's voice was harder than usual. It lost a bit of its cultured Core accent and slipped into something sharper. "On cadavers. The major scar patterns are consistent with autopsy procedures, and some of the secondary patterns match examples of torture I read about in medical school."
"So someone cut her up." Zoe's voice was flat and angry. She didn't trust Rose either, Mal could tell, but that didn't mean she wished the girl harm. He certainly didn't. He'd been tortured and his hands curled into fists as he remembered what Niska had done, both to him and to Wash.
"Do you think she's like River?" Mal cut straight to the point.
Simon shrugged. "She seems more-balanced-than River. Whoever did this, though…"
"They're gone." Mal almost jumped as River materialized at Simon's elbow. The good doctor did jump. Zoe just regarded River with her usual stare. "They only see the girl," River continued, her eyes on Rose. "They took away her claws and thought she wouldn't fight." She made a sound of disgust deep in her throat. "Stupid. Wolves are never helpless, and when you put them in a corner they have that much left to lose." She flinched then, and covered her hands with her ears and whimpered.
"River?" Simon knelt in front of her. "River, what's wrong?"
"She's screaming!" River yelled. "Can't you hear, can none of you hear her? She's screaming and she won't stop!"
1 Filthy sons of a goat-fucking whore
2 Ape loving girl
3 Manure stinking