The One True Free Life 10/26
Title: The One True Free Life (10/26)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, and everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything
Disclaimer: It would be a very different, and possibly quite upsetting, world if I owned these characters. For the sake of the world's children, I don't.
This chapter is as of yet unbeta'd, so read at your own risk.
Summary: When Rose and Alt!Ten return to Pete's World, after a much longer absence than planned, they find that things have begun to go a bit pear-shaped there. Can Our Heroes save the British Republic while at the same time working out their own Byzantinely complicated personal issues?
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26/ Epilogue | Whole story on Teaspoon
Being meticulously careful to obey all posted speed limits, Rose picked her way up the M25, occasionally getting off of the motorway and on to back roads for a few miles, before getting back on again and proceeding towards the M4 and the yellow glow of the city. It was a risk coming in to London, with all of the cameras, but the only real lead she had was here, as well as the only other person she could both trust and who would not think she had gone utterly mad.
Shoreditch was still going strong around the High Street at 3 AM, for which she was grateful. Less of a chance to be spotted via CCTV in a crowd--if, that is, her enemies were the sort to have access, or hack in to it. She managed to find an alley that provided excellent cover for her motorbike, just two streets away from Jake Simmonds' flat. Fishing through her bag, she came up with a powder blue sun hat, which she pulled low over her eyes before proceeding on to the pavement. She'd have to be sure to not tell the Doctor about this part, for fear of being mocked well in to the next decade.
Approaching the buzzer for Jake's building, she made several fervent wishes in rapid succession; that he be home and not stuck at work, that his flat not be watched or bugged, that he had an extremely dark roast coffee already brewed and waiting.
Jake's sleepy voice crackled through the intercom. "Who is this?"
"Echo Twenty-Nine," whispered Rose, giving her call sign and hoping Jake would recognize that this was not an ordinary social visit. The door buzzed open and she entered cautiously, scanning the corners of the ceiling for any security cameras.
On the first floor, Jake was already standing in the hallway in a pair of baggy pyjama bottoms, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He started to speak, but Rose put a finger to her lips until they were both safely inside his flat and she'd strode around turning off all of the lights and closing the curtains.
"Are you alone?" she hissed, peeking around the curtains out the window.
"What, are you having me on? I don't have enough time for a sex life. What's all this about?"
"Sorry," she sighed. "Sorry to just show up like this. The less I tell you the better, for your safety."
"It's three in the bloody morning!"
Rose finally sat down on his overstuffed sofa. "Last night, round about this time actually, a group of armed men entered our house and took the Doctor."
Jake boggled for a moment. "Like a kidnapping?"
"Like a rendition."
He sank down in to a chair opposite her, looking pale in the ambient light from the street. "I swear, Rose, I didn't tell anyone he was there. I barely even saw anyone for the rest of the day, and I certainly don't understand why it is that you're both back here, in any case."
"It's okay, I know you didn't. The house is bugged. Probably been since Pete got tossed out of Torchwood. The Doctor showing up was apparently just a pleasant surprise too good for somebody to pass up."
"Somebody who? Not Torchwood...do you think? I mean, I could look around--"
"No, Pete seems to think it's not Torchwood, and he would know I suppose. It's someone else."
Jake ran his hands over his close-cropped hair. "Who?"
"Dunno, but does the word Liberty mean anything to you? Any operations codenamed Liberty, call signs, anything at all?"
He shook his head. "I don't recognize it, but that doesn't mean anything. I'm not really so much in the loop these days."
Rose meanwhile shed her jacket and allowed herself to sit back from the edge of the sofa a little. The adrenaline and nerves were about to reach a snapping point if she didn't dial it back a little bit. "And what about the Richmond tube station. Any recent ops there, any sightings, anything at all?"
Jake looked miserable and remained silent for a lot longer than he really needed to in order to answer her question. "I'm sorry, I just don't know. But I could check for you, poke around."
"No," snapped Rose. "No, don't endanger yourself. Whoever these people are, they are serious business. It's enough for me to know there hasn't been anything obvious. I'll take it from here. But if you do hear anything, call my house and ask for me. Pete'll call you back on a secure line, or he should do."
Jake gave a little half-hearted smile. "This is all very Spy Vs. Spy, Tyler. I'm impressed."
"Oh, it's about to get way better." She reached in to her bag and pulled out a box of hair dye. "Can I take a shower? And for the love of God, put some coffee on."
~o0o~
"You seem to have metabolised the sedative much faster than expected. We had intended that you remain unconscious throughout the testing. Please understand, I take no pleasure in any of this," the man in the well-tailored suit said.
"Spoken like a true middle man," the Doctor spat through gritted teeth. "Of course you don't--Mr. Carney, is it? You're just following orders and all that."
The pain had subsided enough that the Doctor was again able to feel cold, in only the pyjama bottoms he'd been taken away in, and covered as he was in a clammy film of sweat.
"I do what I do because I believe in our goal. I've got nothing personal against you. Not yet, at any rate."
The Doctor's mind began to snap back in to gear, gathering information, collating, and tabulating. "The least you could do is tell me about a goal so splendid that you're willing to do this to anyone."
Mr. Carney considered him carefully through heavy frog-like eyes. "Perhaps in time. Perhaps not. I'm only here to see what you can tell us."
"I don't know anything!" The Doctor briefly strained at his bonds but found them still quite secure.
"I'd be willing to accept that. It actually means we've been successful beyond our wildest desires, so I'd be quite willing. I would just need some further assurances from you." At this point he held up a blown-up black and white photo, quite clearly taken with a long lens and night-vision technology, grainy and dark around the edges. In it, Rose was either mounting or dismounting a motorbike in a shop parking lot, and in the corner was stamped what the Doctor figured must be the current date. The urge to struggle against the bands that held him passive was nearly impossible to push back down again, but he wanted to appear to remain calm.
"That could be from three years ago for all I know."
Mr Carney smiled warmly, like a teacher praising a star pupil. "Oh, it could. We could have just stuck on the date to fool you and get you to talk. Or," he paused for dramatic effect, "we could have looked at the scientific evidence we've gathered regarding your superior intelligence and rejected out of hand that such a blatant and easily-perpetrated lie would not be considered by you. Whad'ya think?" A tiny bit of his native accent slipped out--a great deal earthier and decidedly more East End than the received pronunciation he'd heretofore used.
"I told you, I don't know anything. I don't know who you are, or where I am, or what you want. And neither does she. We just want to be left alone, have a normal life. Please." Had he ever begged in this way before? Blatantly and selfishly begged to be returned to his own prior state of happiness? It felt comforting to give in to the impulse, and dangerous.
"And you could have it. We all could, as a matter of fact; nice, normal, happy lives. Just a few questions first alright? Do you need anything?"
The Doctor barked out a raw Ha! "I don't even know where to begin on that one."
Mr. Carney shrugged. "Fair point. How about a nice glass of water?" He waved his hand and the dark-haired woman in the white lab coat approached with a paper cup with a straw sticking out of it. The Doctor eyed it warily but finally took a few tentative sips. The water was cold and he could feel it go all the way down his throat, coating his esophagus, and finally coming to rest in his empty stomach, where it churned sickeningly.
"Lovely," said Mr. Carney. "Now, let me again start with what we already know. No use wasting your strength on redundancy." He was handed a clip-board by the dark-haired woman. "Your DNA is almost human, but not quite. A few key differences in the eighteenth and nineteenth chromosomes, on several alleles. Your physiology, however, is completely human, in every area except your brain. I'm not an expert in the field but our neurologists here," he glanced around the room, "assure me that the structure and functioning of your brain are quite unprecedented. Our technicians got quite a shock, I can tell you, when they had to on-the-spot mine the Greek alphabet for more letters in order to classify your brain waves."
"I'm very clever," muttered the Doctor mirthlessly.
"We're counting on that," replied Mr. Carney and he moved closer to the table the Doctor was strapped to, tilting his head to get a good look in to his blood-shot, ancient eyes. "But for now let's start with the easy bits. What is your name, where did you come from, and what species are you?"
The Doctor stared up at him, jaw muscles working, mind racing. How many times had someone asked him these same things, only to be met with complete defiance? It made so much sense on all of those occasions. Don't give in, don't reveal anything, not because the information itself matters, but the principle of being bullied and threatened and the absolute necessity to resist, that is all-important. Vital.
But. But what would these people, these humans on this parallel Earth, what harm could they possibly do just with those four words? And if he told them, there was a chance they would leave Rose alone, even free him to go be with her, get on with their lives, forget this ever happened. Not a certainty, but a chance. And a chance was something. Words, they were nothing, in comparison. A people that never existed, a planet that never spun in orbit around two suns, a name held in contempt. Just words, just syllables. Most of them probably gibberish to these people anyway.
The Doctor turned his head as much as he could towards Mr. Carney, eyes full and wide, took a dry swallow and opened his mouth to speak.
(Chapter 11)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, and everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything
Disclaimer: It would be a very different, and possibly quite upsetting, world if I owned these characters. For the sake of the world's children, I don't.
This chapter is as of yet unbeta'd, so read at your own risk.
Summary: When Rose and Alt!Ten return to Pete's World, after a much longer absence than planned, they find that things have begun to go a bit pear-shaped there. Can Our Heroes save the British Republic while at the same time working out their own Byzantinely complicated personal issues?
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26/ Epilogue | Whole story on Teaspoon
Being meticulously careful to obey all posted speed limits, Rose picked her way up the M25, occasionally getting off of the motorway and on to back roads for a few miles, before getting back on again and proceeding towards the M4 and the yellow glow of the city. It was a risk coming in to London, with all of the cameras, but the only real lead she had was here, as well as the only other person she could both trust and who would not think she had gone utterly mad.
Shoreditch was still going strong around the High Street at 3 AM, for which she was grateful. Less of a chance to be spotted via CCTV in a crowd--if, that is, her enemies were the sort to have access, or hack in to it. She managed to find an alley that provided excellent cover for her motorbike, just two streets away from Jake Simmonds' flat. Fishing through her bag, she came up with a powder blue sun hat, which she pulled low over her eyes before proceeding on to the pavement. She'd have to be sure to not tell the Doctor about this part, for fear of being mocked well in to the next decade.
Approaching the buzzer for Jake's building, she made several fervent wishes in rapid succession; that he be home and not stuck at work, that his flat not be watched or bugged, that he had an extremely dark roast coffee already brewed and waiting.
Jake's sleepy voice crackled through the intercom. "Who is this?"
"Echo Twenty-Nine," whispered Rose, giving her call sign and hoping Jake would recognize that this was not an ordinary social visit. The door buzzed open and she entered cautiously, scanning the corners of the ceiling for any security cameras.
On the first floor, Jake was already standing in the hallway in a pair of baggy pyjama bottoms, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He started to speak, but Rose put a finger to her lips until they were both safely inside his flat and she'd strode around turning off all of the lights and closing the curtains.
"Are you alone?" she hissed, peeking around the curtains out the window.
"What, are you having me on? I don't have enough time for a sex life. What's all this about?"
"Sorry," she sighed. "Sorry to just show up like this. The less I tell you the better, for your safety."
"It's three in the bloody morning!"
Rose finally sat down on his overstuffed sofa. "Last night, round about this time actually, a group of armed men entered our house and took the Doctor."
Jake boggled for a moment. "Like a kidnapping?"
"Like a rendition."
He sank down in to a chair opposite her, looking pale in the ambient light from the street. "I swear, Rose, I didn't tell anyone he was there. I barely even saw anyone for the rest of the day, and I certainly don't understand why it is that you're both back here, in any case."
"It's okay, I know you didn't. The house is bugged. Probably been since Pete got tossed out of Torchwood. The Doctor showing up was apparently just a pleasant surprise too good for somebody to pass up."
"Somebody who? Not Torchwood...do you think? I mean, I could look around--"
"No, Pete seems to think it's not Torchwood, and he would know I suppose. It's someone else."
Jake ran his hands over his close-cropped hair. "Who?"
"Dunno, but does the word Liberty mean anything to you? Any operations codenamed Liberty, call signs, anything at all?"
He shook his head. "I don't recognize it, but that doesn't mean anything. I'm not really so much in the loop these days."
Rose meanwhile shed her jacket and allowed herself to sit back from the edge of the sofa a little. The adrenaline and nerves were about to reach a snapping point if she didn't dial it back a little bit. "And what about the Richmond tube station. Any recent ops there, any sightings, anything at all?"
Jake looked miserable and remained silent for a lot longer than he really needed to in order to answer her question. "I'm sorry, I just don't know. But I could check for you, poke around."
"No," snapped Rose. "No, don't endanger yourself. Whoever these people are, they are serious business. It's enough for me to know there hasn't been anything obvious. I'll take it from here. But if you do hear anything, call my house and ask for me. Pete'll call you back on a secure line, or he should do."
Jake gave a little half-hearted smile. "This is all very Spy Vs. Spy, Tyler. I'm impressed."
"Oh, it's about to get way better." She reached in to her bag and pulled out a box of hair dye. "Can I take a shower? And for the love of God, put some coffee on."
~o0o~
"You seem to have metabolised the sedative much faster than expected. We had intended that you remain unconscious throughout the testing. Please understand, I take no pleasure in any of this," the man in the well-tailored suit said.
"Spoken like a true middle man," the Doctor spat through gritted teeth. "Of course you don't--Mr. Carney, is it? You're just following orders and all that."
The pain had subsided enough that the Doctor was again able to feel cold, in only the pyjama bottoms he'd been taken away in, and covered as he was in a clammy film of sweat.
"I do what I do because I believe in our goal. I've got nothing personal against you. Not yet, at any rate."
The Doctor's mind began to snap back in to gear, gathering information, collating, and tabulating. "The least you could do is tell me about a goal so splendid that you're willing to do this to anyone."
Mr. Carney considered him carefully through heavy frog-like eyes. "Perhaps in time. Perhaps not. I'm only here to see what you can tell us."
"I don't know anything!" The Doctor briefly strained at his bonds but found them still quite secure.
"I'd be willing to accept that. It actually means we've been successful beyond our wildest desires, so I'd be quite willing. I would just need some further assurances from you." At this point he held up a blown-up black and white photo, quite clearly taken with a long lens and night-vision technology, grainy and dark around the edges. In it, Rose was either mounting or dismounting a motorbike in a shop parking lot, and in the corner was stamped what the Doctor figured must be the current date. The urge to struggle against the bands that held him passive was nearly impossible to push back down again, but he wanted to appear to remain calm.
"That could be from three years ago for all I know."
Mr Carney smiled warmly, like a teacher praising a star pupil. "Oh, it could. We could have just stuck on the date to fool you and get you to talk. Or," he paused for dramatic effect, "we could have looked at the scientific evidence we've gathered regarding your superior intelligence and rejected out of hand that such a blatant and easily-perpetrated lie would not be considered by you. Whad'ya think?" A tiny bit of his native accent slipped out--a great deal earthier and decidedly more East End than the received pronunciation he'd heretofore used.
"I told you, I don't know anything. I don't know who you are, or where I am, or what you want. And neither does she. We just want to be left alone, have a normal life. Please." Had he ever begged in this way before? Blatantly and selfishly begged to be returned to his own prior state of happiness? It felt comforting to give in to the impulse, and dangerous.
"And you could have it. We all could, as a matter of fact; nice, normal, happy lives. Just a few questions first alright? Do you need anything?"
The Doctor barked out a raw Ha! "I don't even know where to begin on that one."
Mr. Carney shrugged. "Fair point. How about a nice glass of water?" He waved his hand and the dark-haired woman in the white lab coat approached with a paper cup with a straw sticking out of it. The Doctor eyed it warily but finally took a few tentative sips. The water was cold and he could feel it go all the way down his throat, coating his esophagus, and finally coming to rest in his empty stomach, where it churned sickeningly.
"Lovely," said Mr. Carney. "Now, let me again start with what we already know. No use wasting your strength on redundancy." He was handed a clip-board by the dark-haired woman. "Your DNA is almost human, but not quite. A few key differences in the eighteenth and nineteenth chromosomes, on several alleles. Your physiology, however, is completely human, in every area except your brain. I'm not an expert in the field but our neurologists here," he glanced around the room, "assure me that the structure and functioning of your brain are quite unprecedented. Our technicians got quite a shock, I can tell you, when they had to on-the-spot mine the Greek alphabet for more letters in order to classify your brain waves."
"I'm very clever," muttered the Doctor mirthlessly.
"We're counting on that," replied Mr. Carney and he moved closer to the table the Doctor was strapped to, tilting his head to get a good look in to his blood-shot, ancient eyes. "But for now let's start with the easy bits. What is your name, where did you come from, and what species are you?"
The Doctor stared up at him, jaw muscles working, mind racing. How many times had someone asked him these same things, only to be met with complete defiance? It made so much sense on all of those occasions. Don't give in, don't reveal anything, not because the information itself matters, but the principle of being bullied and threatened and the absolute necessity to resist, that is all-important. Vital.
But. But what would these people, these humans on this parallel Earth, what harm could they possibly do just with those four words? And if he told them, there was a chance they would leave Rose alone, even free him to go be with her, get on with their lives, forget this ever happened. Not a certainty, but a chance. And a chance was something. Words, they were nothing, in comparison. A people that never existed, a planet that never spun in orbit around two suns, a name held in contempt. Just words, just syllables. Most of them probably gibberish to these people anyway.
The Doctor turned his head as much as he could towards Mr. Carney, eyes full and wide, took a dry swallow and opened his mouth to speak.
(Chapter 11)