Video

[bigbadrose]

Hey so, bit of a weird question. Anyone here ever heard of Torchwood, and could maybe point me how to get back to contacting the local branch? That'd be really handy, yeah?

Year and star system coordinates would also be fantastic, but I'm not holdin' my breath waitin'.

[Bites her bottom lip in thought.]

[She doesn't even know which universe this is. Much less how she got here without a dimension cannon or where everyone she was with went. Maybe they're here. But then maybe even saying their name depending on the universe is dangerous. Luckily, she's had 5+ years (give or take for literal dimension rewinds and time in the vortex) of experience in learning how to do codes.]

Here's a fairytale you've probably never heard before.

Once upon a time there was a big bad wolf. She wandered a city of metal filled with metal men. [Too dangerous to even say the world cyberman until she learned more!] She thought she was on a mission to hunt down her lost prince. But she was actually on a mission to find home. Bit like Dorothy from Wizard of Oz if you know it. And one day she met a man who wasn't a prince at all. He was a very brainy professor. There was even another man who started off as a mouse but turned into a lion full of courage, saving worlds he never even knew existed. And a really flirty captain who was probably too pretty for his own good. They weren't off to find a wizard. Just a blue box.

The big bad wolf ran away from home and her pack over and over and over again, but no matter how many times she ran, and how many new friends she made or which universe she fell into, something was always calling her back. 'Pparently you can't escape your family that easily. That or the Big Bad Wolf's mum was seriously terrifying and would fight a werewolf for diamonds and totally win.

Thanks for listening, Ta!

Comments

Voice reply

[im_with_stupid]

[Yeah, Amy was rolling her eyes bored with most of this until.....]

"Blue box?"

Voice reply

[bigbadrose]

Bigger on the inside.

Swap to Video.

[im_with_stupid]

"Okay, so just how many of us are there here? Talking about the Doctor, I presume?" [She swapped to video, and ye[, she's in her room in the Tardis (I presume she's moved in by now, anyway.]

[video]

[hotheadwarmheart]

Well I don't know anything about any Torchwood, though if you need something turned into torch wood, I'm your guy. And I'm not sure what you mean by star system coordinates, but I can tell you what year it is, at least where I'm from.

[He does so, though the date doesn't sound like it has much to do with any version of Earth's calendar.]

Nice story, by the way. And it sounds like one of those stories that has more than a little bit of truth to it.

[video]

[bigbadrose]

Nah, I'd like ta keep the pyro fires on hold for now, please and thanks!

[Given that one of "Earth's" years was 5.5/Apple/26 and another was M25, calendar dating gets a bit weird.]

Where're you from, if ya don't mind my askin'?

And yeah, it's all true! With some liberties and allegories.

audio

[corruptedsave]

That was a dumb story.

[That's the only thing they have to say about that whole... rambling thing.]

audio

[bigbadrose]

Sorry. [SHRUG.] The only way it's less dumb is too long for words.

video;

[big_bad_ending]

Did someone say, "Big bad wolf?"

[And a literal wolf-man is right here on video.]

Re: video;

[bigbadrose]

Hell yeah! [Waves and waggles fingers.] Are you a bacon fan, or -- and don't take this the wrong way, it's been a long day and I still haven't gotten home or stopped long enough to get real sleep -- but you're not a werewolf variant, are ya?

I'm Rose. The baddest of wolves.

[Looks him up and down and BEAMS.] A bit more metaphorically speakin' I suppose.

video;

[ivegotadream]

[That was an unusual story and one she had to ponder over quietly for a moment or two.]

Is there an ending to this story?

video;

[bigbadrose]

Nah.

I always hated endings to stories. Life doesn't really have an ending yanno? Everything just keeps going in a weird nonsensical order. Real endings are just new beginnings.

video;

[truesmiles]

Can't say the word Torchwood is something I have come across before, sadly.

[Fai was currently working behind his counter while he was using his device.]

As for the story. It's an interesting one. Is it perhaps based on true events or do you have such a vast imagination?

video;

[bigbadrose]

That's all right, no one seems to have. It'd be a longshot even at... where I last was. [She couldn't call home it yet. Even now. Home had been the TARDIS for so long, even when she ran away from that universe, the TARDIS being her home was something that kept her going.]

True events, with some liberties taken and allegories all over.

Video

[koishi_komeiji]

Where there was a story one could usually find a certain little youkai...

"No! I haven't heard that fairytale before!" Well that was an explosion of green and smiles onto Rose's phone. "It seems a little lackluster though. There's no moral or tension or resolution or even a caution. You should work a little more on your delivery."

She got closer to the phone. Her eyes were actually glowing of their own accord. Certainly not human this one. "I'm Koishi Komeiji, Miss. It's very nice to meet you!"

Re: Video

[bigbadrose]

Rose beams at the the small... what she assumes is an alien child, but all the same, Rose loves people of any and all species, and she waggles her fingers in greeting.

"Nice to meet you too, Miss Koishi Koemiji! I'm the big bad wolf, but you can call me Rose. There's no moral to the story, because it's just whatever you make of it. And no resolutions, because I hate endings."

Which, was probably why she'd wound up here when she did. An ending. To her life with the alien Doctor. She wondered if she regretted it, or was just angry and bitter with him. Either way; it was unresolved, as Rose preferred such things to be. Life shouldn't have endings. Not really, anyway. Not in her book, anyway. Just continuous adventures from one to the next.

[Video]

[k2so]

[Why, hello Rose, have a metal man. At least he's not yelling 'Exterminate' at her.]

Can't say I've ever heard about them before. What do they do?

That's a very unusual fairytale. But if you are a werewolf, I'll let you know you aren't the only one here.

[Video]

[bigbadrose]

[Nor "delete." Which is very much appreciated. Besides, Rose has met robots before.]

No, not a werewolf, me. [Giggles.] Are there really some here? [Startled.] I hope I didn't offend 'em.

[She chews her bottom lip in thought.] Torchwood is a... classified organization that works with werewolves and the Bad Wolf, and [Winces.] I was 'oping if they were here I could get in contact with... my contacts. [Helpless shrug!] Sorry, that's about all I can divulge. Even to my best friends, and they all work in it. [Well, the Doctor doesn't, but since he gave the director, and ultimate boss orders, it counted close enough.]

[Video]

[magigirlricefan]

[nooo! That cant be all of the story!!!]

Did they find the blue box?! Was the pretty man a prince? Does the lion rescue the wolf and the professor?!?

[Video]

[bigbadrose]

[Whoa! Really into the story!]

No, the wolf accidentally fell in love with a clone of the professor who saved everyone even the lion, and he was the real prince, that the Wolf didn't even intend to go looking for.

But the box can never be found permanently. It always moves and shifts and changes as the heart's desires do.

And the wolf's mum tried to drag her back to the pack before she could stay on the box. The prince promised to make the wolf a new one, but it wouldn't have the lion and captain or professor just him and her, and the scary Mum and wolf's pack around.

The wolf hasn't decided if she wants that or not yet.

Video

[clevermind]

That's an interesting story. It actually reminds me of someone I know.

[She's thinking about the Doctor of course and his blue box.]

Video

[bigbadrose]

Yeah? Not Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz?

[Video]

[borntolove]

[Ten feels both his hearts beat rapidly in excitement and smiles widely. Where is she? He wants to run to her. She is after fall of Torchwood; he didn't think he'd see her ever again. Universes she fell into? Rose - are you punching holes through space and time trying to find him?

He's just going to stand and grin widely with both his eyes and mouth]

Rose Tyler.

[An undertone of 'you're a sight for sore eyes']

[Video]

[bigbadrose]

[Smiles and waggles her fingers at him.] Heard you've been a bit mopey here, Doctor.

You're worrying your friends.

[im_with_stupid]

"He thinks bowties, fezzes, and stetsons are cool. He thinks that needing to have jobs is confusing and makes no sense. Yeah, very much alien. Unity broke into my house, identified him right off by his clothes. Oh you should see how he dresses., Clearly alien, right off. And most of the complicated he saves for River, I think. He and Rory may have their issues, but the Doctor doesn't really say about wishing Rory wasn't around, even though sometimes I don't wonder if he thinks it. But I think he's afraid I'd snog him again if it was just him and me. That or he thinks Rory would kill him if we left him behind."

She took the pen and stared at it for a long moment, trying to remember why she wanted it. Something important? Something so important. Then she uncapped it, and her eyes widened. With it open, she looked around slowly, then down at her arm. She let out a huge breath of relief. "They might not be in this world yet, or at all, but maybe we should all carry a marker. Used to. Stopped. Not sure why we stopped, we've gone back in time to before then, I think. Didn't we? And what of they were on other worlds. But we stopped. Why did we stop?"

She frowned, disturbed, and staring at her arm still, she said to Rose. "If you ever, EVER see me with tally marks on my arm, you need to call my attention to it at once. Well, arm, face, neck.... I won't have remembered drawing them. There is an entire race. Erases themselves out of memory. Hard... Hard to remember them even now. Marks on the arms. There and not there. We should kill them all on sight, all a bit of a jumble." She closed the marker, then handed it to Rose again. "I'll get myself one. If you see anything, and feel like you'd just seen it before but somehow forgot and remember again only when looking at the creature, mark your arm. And if you ever notice a mark on your arm and don't remember how you got it, call me. Immediately. Or find me."

"Well, maybe he learned a lot from you, then. But about endings, hard for me to say. I know he gets so upset when one of us dies, and he can get angry. Not often, but sometimes he can get so very very angry. Scares me a bit, when he gets that angry, because I know he'll regret it later, and I'd do anything to spare him that kind of pain. Anything." Someone was thinking about Mercy just then.

"But I do think he's more open now than he was then, from what you say. So betting he regrets a lot about how things went, or maybe things you said to him percolated over time. He's a bit slow sometimes, to catch onto things, but he gets there eventually. He just tends to be late. Sometimes, too late."

"Only the best? Why thank you, miss Rose. I'll take that as quite the compliment. Wonder what that says about your ex, though." She grinned. "And yeah, we'll always take care of him. All of us. Even if we have to team up and work together to do it. Took three of us to wrangle the Doctor, four if you count Brian. But we'd die for him, if that was all that would keep him alive. And knowing that forces him to keep himself safe. For our sake, if not his own."

"Hey, if you're promising cakes, I'm not saying no. Not sure why you think you owe me one, but won't turn it down."

"The cubes? Well, after nearly a year of doing absolutely nothing, one of the ones in my room started doing something, I reached out to touch it, and it stabbed me. Flash of pain then I'm waking up in a pod here with a necklace, money and a new phone." She held out her hand to show rose the pinpricks on her palm.

"Between? I bounce from job to job. Usually every time I find one I like, the Doctor shows up and I lose the job running off after him. Or he doesn't and I quit, cause I'm so sure he's about to. Or.." She might not have admitted this to Rose, had she been sober, "sometimes I quit because I like the job too much, you know? And if I like it too much, I might be willing to leave the next time the Doctor comes. And he's better than a million jobs. Rory's a nurse. River's an archeologist."

She snapped her fingers. "Yeah, Nestene. That was it. They took memories that I didn't even have any more of Rory and made him a Roman. River says she dated a plastic man once, said the swappable heads kept him interesting, but only one face I really wanted to see, so it was fine. But I figured they had to have had a grudge against him. All things considered. An entire army of plastic Romans marching on the Doctor, except Rory Williams, fighting hard to hold onto the human. For me."

There wasn't ever anything Rory wouldn't do for her, she knew that. Nothing he couldn't do, laws of physics or reality didn't matter. He was Rory, she was Amy.

"Cybermen, you mean?" Maybe you shouldn't have let her get drunk, Rose. Besides, if you said Daleks and Tardis, how dangerous could that one be? "Metal heads looking for organic body bits? Keep on living after they've been ripped to pieces and the organics died? NAsty bit of work those. Just as happy to never see one again, really. Almost rather a Dalek." She grinned,"Ever see a Dalek in an apron, serving tea?" she asked with an impish grin.

"Is that why he was so freaked out when I told him I was pregnant?" She asked, laughing behind the back of her hand. Okay, that was amusing.

"Well, if you don't fit there, and you and the sort of Doctor are going to have a Tardis soon... travel. Get away, yeah? Run and just keep running. Make a place for yourself where you want it. Have adventures. You and I both know now what life with the Doctor is like. There isn't much space for wondering if you fit or not. Go out there, see the differences between your universe now and the one you've seen before. All those lives the Doctor's touched, in a universe that only just recently got him? Has to be loads that is different. And besides... there are cracks. My past. Maybe your future. Something blew up the Tardis. All fixed now, but something blew up the Tardis and ripped cracks into the universe. All sorts of things slipped through. Maybe you can too. Took us years to close them all, and reset them. Time enough for a visit at least. It's my past, so I won't remember any of this, but I'm sure you can figure out enough ways to make me figure out that you're a friend." Oh. Okay. Fastest she'd ever made a friend as an adult. Maybe it was the wine. But she had a feeling it was the Doctor. The connection of him was a bond firmer than glue, she supposed. Certainly did wonders for her family.

She blinked, then she grinned. "Alright, I got the answer. What you can say to me to make me and Rory know to welcome you and your Doctor in even if we don't see the Tardis, and what to tell Pete or your mum if they show up here." She took the pen and wrote a word on a napkin. 'Petrichor.' "My universe, one of my jobs was as a model, Petrichor was my biggest client for a while. And I only went to work for them because of the Tardis. Horrid name for perfume, really, but modeling for them was a message I sent to the Doctor, hoping he'd see it and know it was time to come back to us. But anyone you want to impress comes here, tell then you got a job working as a personal assistant to supermodel Amy Pond." She winced. "Course, the Doctor thinks my last name is Williams," she said with a wink. "Anyway, anyone who isn't the Doctor, you can go ahead and tell them you've been working for me till you find something here you like better. I'll back you on the lie."

[bigbadrose]

"Having to have jobs is confusing and makess no sense!" Rose insisted. And sipped her tea. "My Dad. Pete, StepDad, kinda. It's like... a mess because if you gave us a paternity test I'd be his, but I grew up in another universe where he died." Yeah. "He just invents stuff and then does what needs doin'. Makes way more sense," Rose insisted stubbornly and nommed on a chip. "They wanted me to sell Vitex, that's like this bubbly pop drink stuff he makes money for the inventions and Torchwood from. And I was just like... no way. Only real job I was willin' to do was workin' in Torchwood on somethin' real. Tinkerin' and testin' his stuff and alien interviews and not..." She made a face. "Wearing a tiara and tryin' ta be a pop star... Ugh." She was forever grateful that both her parents backed away from the suggestion and stood by it. She'd have probably run away again if they hadn't.

Well...

She ran away anyway...

but it was different.

Rose snorted quietly and closed her eyes. "I asked him to bring along Micks' my boyfriend, then ex, and he always said no. I got him to bring along this bloke named Adam because I was stupid and daft, and he reminded me of a young doctor, said he wanted to see the stars, so I thought we could yanno, show 'im the stars. Dumb mistake." Eyeroll. "The Doctor was right, he spent too long with his douchebag boss, thinkin' it was better to catalog alien stuff and make a profit of it, no real love of adventure." She chewed her bottom lip. "He said... he only brings the best. That's why he had me." She looked away distantly. "I asked him to bring Jack, Sarah Jane, one of his old... assistants I think she called it? And by then I was so done with Micks, and the next thing I know Micks wanted to come. And then he was gonna go back to get Madamae Pompadour, but something happened, either she changed her mind or couldn't or died...." Rose sighed quietly and rubbed between her eyes.

"Then after I fell into Pete's world, there was Martha, she's brilliant she is, and Donna, who... I just love Donna. She deserves only the best and all the happiness and then some, yeah?" She rubbed the back of her neck. "Thing is, it's like he said. He only brings along the best. So if he didn't think Rory was worth it, he wouldn't. Not even with the house or baby or..."

Rose twirled a straw in her tea. "See here's the thing, right? Even though it took me a long time to figure out... the people who came before weren't as close to him either. He didn't keep in touch, he never went back to see 'em again. He dropped off this metal dog, and I mean, yeah he loves that dog," Rose rolled her eyes. "K-9. Very disco. He left 'im with Sarah Jane. But he never said a word to her. Just let her think he died in the Time War." Rose winced quietly, "He ever mention... that?"

"Gotcha. Sketch marks are bad," Rose shrugged, but made note of it all the same. If she'd met them... she didn't remember it, but apparently that was how they worked.

"Violence. He doesn't like... wanting to kill. He's very protective, but," Rose held up her fingers, "Fine..." she tried to not cry, and just swallowed the lump in her throat, refusing out of sheer stubbornnes again. "Edge." Another gulp. "That's... that's why he was so... cruel to his own self! Because he got rid of the daleks. He said they were too dangerous to leave, especially on the edge of the universe where they might by able to take over time an'..." She drank her tea and shook her head. "I don' get it. I don' understand. How he can be so cold to -- no wait, yeah, of course I do. No one hates themselves as much as the Doctor. He always said that was what made the daleks even more dangerous too. When they learned to hate themselves like people." She shuddered, folded her arms and rested them around her head.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe. "He said I made him better. That I should do that for MetaCrisis too. But I didn't do anything. I was just there. Which is what he meant too. But now I'm not so I guess I'm failin' him already, yeah?"

She was too tired and bitter to care much.

"Micks isn't so bad. Micks is great. Micks just actually does want that white picket fence kind'a life." Rose wrinkled her nose. "I can' stand it. Even as a teen, s'why I ran off lookin' for adventure anyway. I wanted to a rocker groupee. Or a dancer. Just anythin' other than stuck where I was doin' the usual work, beans on toast, an' home thing, yeah?" She shuddered again and laughed. "This one time, we wound up on the Weakest Link, in like the year... 200,000 somethin'. And they had a robot for Anne. Called the Anne-droid. Get it?" A giggle snort. "And even that far in the future pretty much everyone called my travelin' bein' a homeless bum. Not like I care. I loved it. Really did. In Pete's Universe... I grew up on Estates with Mum. Single Mum because Dad died, Estates kid with me and Mickey. But in Pete's Universe he was really rich and it was heiress and whatever... and I think I nevar wanted to run away harder," she admitted with a soft growl.

Liking work more than the Doctor.

Another anathema to Rose. But she sort of understood what Amy meant. "You should get a job you can do when you're with 'im then. I dunno if one like that exists. I only got into Torchwood because... it was like I was seein' myself disconnected from my body thing. I could see how miserable and pathetic and not me it was. Just tryin' to get through until he could find me. So I started workin' on findin' my own way, defendin' the Earth myself, and doin' all the things I'd have done if he was just stranded there, yeah? But it was stuff to help me in travelin' too. Because otherwise I'd go mad. Never once did I think I wouldn't be back out there again. I don't think I could have done any of it otherwise."

Rose actually choked on her tea about the dalek in an apron serving tea. "What?" she shook her head and rubbed her face. "That's... no??? How?"

As for Amy being pregnant, Rose shrugged. "Maybe. Dunno. Once I could'a told you exactly what he was thinkin' and not sayin' from his face alone. Now... it feels like it's so far away." She laughed, but she felt like sobbing. "Even when I was dealin' with his deaths, it didn't feel so distant..." she shook her head, just wondering it at all. It wasn't bad though. It was good. She didn't need to worry about her Doctor as much as she though. He'd be all right.

"Oh, I'm gonna. Feel kinda bad for Meta-Crisis though. In his proper universe, the Doctor thinks he knows the whole of history perfectly and what's right or wrong in it and tries to get it right, but in Pete's Universe? I don't think much is the same. Music, pop culture, that's all different, and the tie Doctor loves to make references. Lion King, Ghostbusters, Hobbit -- no wait, that was me. Whatever. You know I don't even know if Pete's Universe has Harry Potter? Travesty that."

She shook her head. "Timelords only live in one universe. The Doctors'. And the last act of the Time War before destroyin' em, was sealing all of the parallel universes away, walled off permanently." Rose winced. "I kind of... Fused my soul with the TARDIS one time, so....." tea sip. "I was able to leave clues in the teeniest tiniest cracks even he and the TARDIS couldn't find. Did stuff not even TimeLords could do if they were still around. But since he's the last, he really can't break through."

"Yeah. If you and Rory are there, I'll definitely find ya again. It'll be fun!" Rose sipped her tea and frowned. "But it won't be you." She looked off distantly.

The offer... broke her heart. But Rose smiled all the same. "Thank you." Her eyes shone. What could she say? She didn't have it in her to explain it couldn't happen. That the only way back was to destroy things she promised to protect. That it really was forever. That Amy wouldn't remember this place....

And Rose was all too used to that. Donna didn't remember her either. Maybe her face. HOPEFULLY Bad Wolf.

And that was just how it went. She'd re-befriended Jack and his Torchwood team a dozen times. Sarah Jane. Harriet Jones.

But Rose was a ghost. Traveling unseen in the crack of very reality.