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[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

Re: ACTION!!!

[im_with_stupid]

"Oh, well, The Doctor getting irritated at other people flirting's a constant. He only seems ta like it when he does it. He ever yell at you for flirting with himself? Little snot called it true love at last, and my husband just stood there and let him." She eyed the wine feeling both that she's had too much and really wanted more. She frowned at the bottle and settled for another sip of tea and a pretzel.

"I caught the Doctor with a ring once. But it doesn't count. Turns out it was mine. My stupid husband was always afraid if I wore my ring while we were running around I'd lose it, always fretting about how expensive it was. Moron. Course when he fell through a crack in the universe, ring only survived because it was in the Tardis, probably. I didn't understand why the ring made me feel so sad when I found it, like a great big hole had been cut out and I didn't know why or what was missing."

Forget the tea. She poured herself another glass of wine and offered the bottle to Rose wordlessly. Conversations like this needed the distance wine gave, even if it was making her words come out a bit odd and her memory a bit of a jumble. Jumble of memories.... She might be missing some, but other things she usually forgot were in her mind. Or... were they?

"Got a marker?" she asked, looking around the bar, suddenly very still and afraid. Something she should remember but shouldn't. Were they there? Had she seen one and just forgotten? Or was the wine messing with her stomach? She knew she wasn't pregnant again. But she also knew she shouldn't have had so much wine when she'd skipped lunch. And, well, breakfast.

She shook her head, trying to clear it. "What? Oh, I don't mind you knowing where his room is. I'm his mother-in-law, not his wife. And my guess is you're either before or after River's time, or River made her peace with you in her own way. Gods know she's not the jealous type. I mean, I marry one monarch by accident on my anniversary, does my husband ever let me live it down? Nope. But River and the Doctor? She told me once they wound up marrying the same woman at different points. She certainly didn't get that from her dad. But tell you what, if it doesn't bother River," she sipped her wine. "Not going to bother me, just glad he had someone when he needed you." She stopped, considered. "Might feel different when I'm sober though," she warned in fairness.

Oh. Rose thought that was how old he was when she met him. Whoops? 900 when she knew him? Whoooooboy. Okay, she wasn't going to correct that mistake. She hadn't lied. And misleading her had been accidental, so nothing to blame, yeah? And what could would saying that he was 903 at Lake Silencio the second time do but upset the other girl. God. This must be what it's like to be River. No wonder she was always shooting people. amy took another long drink of her wine.

"He won't give up, not so long as he isn't alone. And he won't be. Universe is full of people almost literally dying to run with the Doctor." She remembered the soldier, took another sip. "Forget the almost."

"Yeah, I've died," she said with a shrug, considered how much wine was left in the bottle, and the two of them. And then thought about how bad it would be if she told all of this to the Doctor cause she was too drunk to remember why that was stupid. She'd only ever gotten really drunk two or three times in her life. And last time she was this bad... was when she thought he was dead, well and truly dead. She sighed and called out for a pair of coffees, and then some food after another moment's thought.

"Well, let's see, there was the time Rory shot me dead. Didn't mean to, he was kind of plastic at the time. I mentioned that, yeah? The Nestine or Nequick or whatever. Then there was the time the Doctor accidently abandoned me in a place where plague victims went to live out a life time in the day it took them to die. Horrid place. I mean, probably really lovely if you had the plague and were from that world, but all the handbots - these medical robots - They were sure I needed a shot to cure me of being, well, human. Was there 40 years by the time the Doctor and Rory found me. They used the communications glass that split the times to see back to the past, to when I'd just gotten there. Old me didn't want to save me, said that when she was me, the old me then had refused. But the Doctor says there's this thing, where I always get what I want, yeah? Well, I talked her into helping me, but the deal was that we both come in the Tardis. Rory... could have looked a little less happy about the thought of two of us, honestly. One of the handbots got me, this me, and I passed out. Woke up in the Tardis, all I know is the other me died. Not sure how or why. they wouldn't tell me." she scowled at that. "Oh, not sure if it counts when I drove us off that cliff or we crashed into that negative star. I wonder if Rory counts those as deaths... Not sure, since the Doctor died with us and didn't even try to regenerate. Felt real enough at the time, though. Oh, and the Doctor killed my Ganger. Felt that. I think he tried to be gentle, felt it all the same."

She laughed. "Oh god, he did that to Brian. Told him to watch the cubes, then we wound up dealing with Unit, and things were a mess, and finally the Doctor decided he couldn't handle sitting in our lounge one more moment. Quick trip to restore sanity, he said." she thanked the person who brought their coffees and sipped hers. "Ugh, going to have to get a job at this rate, we stay much longer." she shook her head. "Anyway, Doctor said that he had to pop off for a brief jaunt, and we followed him into the Tardis," as you do "and there was Brian. The Doctor asked him what he was doing, and Brian said that the Doctor had asked him to watch the cubes. Doctor pointed out, or...maybe it was Rory? Maybe it was me? Can't remember. Anyway, one of us pointed out it was four days. Brian hadn't even noticed. We made him stay with us after that, so we could keep an eye on him, you know. And he spent every day watching those cubes. I think if Rory and I hadn't taken him food and tea he'd never remember to eat. Need to talk to the Doctor about being a bit more careful what he says to Brian in the future."

Re: ACTION!!!

[bigbadrose]

"Uuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmm........" Rose laughed at the idea of the Doctor telling her off for flirting with... anyone. "Nooooo," slow and drawn out and more giggles. "If anything..." He spoiled her rotton and she loved it. "I mean I don't know you could do what he calls flirting back, but probably?" She scrunched her face up. "I don't really know how to explain it. But..." she's never doubted he loves her. Just that he couldn't say it. And literally couldn't, twice now in an absolutely last chance situation before parallel universes divided them forever. "I mean, no matter how much he can blend in, which isn't well, mind, he's still pretty alien, yeah?" She shook her head. "More like push'n'pull, yeah? He'd do thinks like bring my ex on board, but say he missed when it was just the two of us, him and me the way it should be." She shrugged. "Complicated."

Rose took the wine bottle and dug into her jeans pockets for a felt tip pen. "Best I got," she offered quietly. Just don't ask why she has it. Mostly for grafitti-ing "Bad Wolf" places.

She didn't pour herself anymore though, nor Amy who seemed at least as fuzzy as her too. Good drinking partner, but probably not enough like Jack to remind her to be in her own proper bed at a proper hour. Or at least... the Jack version of those both.

"I dunno, the Doctor and I never really..." she gestured feebly and sighed. "That's how the Metac-Crisis got me to stay. In my -- Pete's Universe, with my Mum. The worst day of my life, even worse than all the times watching him die because I knew what to do then, was when he actually said goodbye. He nevar says goodbyes. Hates them and endings maybe as much as I do." She held her fingers apart slightly and sipped the whiskey swirling it in her mouth before the burn was too much and she swallowed. "Almost. Probably less for him." She nodded. She really hated them more than him, she was sure. Because he was older and had to deal with them more often, and for Rose it was so larger than life in the moment, and she couldn't see into the distant future, everything was just right then and there. "I told him I loved him on that beach, even though he was just a hologram and told me I couldn't see him again without destroying two universes."

Ugh.

Ugh.

She finished off the third whiskey sour and completely cut herself off, napkin over the glass, and then just upending it, just in case.

"He started to--" She shook her head. "But he ran out of time. On the beach again, when they wanted me to stay, Meta-Crisis said the words, and the Doctor ran away." She shrugged and rubbed between her eyes.

As for millions of people dying to run with the Doctor... Rose just shook her head. "He only takes the best. And I don't know about yours but he doesn't sound that much more social than the ones I met. He wouldn't deal with most people if someone didn't drag him out there. Just hide away grumpy in his box for a couple hundred years tinkerin'. Pete, my sorta-Dad, is like that too. But my Mum's a real force of will. You'd either hit it off smashingly or tear each other apart. I think I'd wanna be there for that one too." But... "But thanks. Yeah. You're right. No sense in doubtin' him until he does something' stupid and then just deal with it when it happens right?" After all, before seeing him drown and the rest, Rose would never have expected that.

As for the deaths... Rose's eyebrows just arched. Weird. So weird. She shuddered slightly. "Still think I owe you cake for all that," she giggled finally. "We had the glass walls refracting time too once. But it was all focused on Madame du Pompadour. No idea why." She chewed her bottom lip. "That was another who died he couldn't bring with him, like Jabe." More headshakes. Sad things. All of them.

At the story of Brian, Rose fell apart into giggles. "Poor man," she murmured quietly. "He must have incredible focus. What happened with the cubes?"

Sipping her own tea, Rose held up a finger, "I wanna Torchwood some more... I was gonna... at least I was trying to decide on that in the hour since I got left in the wrong universe," a quiet snort. "But seems like theres a lot of nonhumans and amalguous -- amalga-- Amala???" Rose whined and rubbed her eyes. "Lots of tech from total culture clashes. Worse'n Krillitanes. I gotta remember to ask the Doctor about that!" She grabbed back the felt pen, and wrote 'Krillitanes' on the top of her hand, and then after a small hesitation doodled 'Bad Wolf' in there as well. For good measure. "What'd you do between travelin' with the Doctor? Anything? I mean. When I was with him I didn't. But I had just as many years in between when I was searchin' for him so yeah." She snorted quietly.

"Nestene Consciousness, yeah? Living plastic? That's how he and I met. He blew up the store I was working at, and was gonna die when the Nestene Conscious captured him and the TARDIS so I had to rescue him. Fair turnabout really. I didn't actually... I said no the first time he asked me to go along. I was still seein' Micks at the time, and Micks has been kidnapped by the Nestene Consciousness to use him for puppetry and so he was really freaked out, yeah? But he came back a second time and just.... I could see how lonely he was, and all my life all I ever wanted was adventure and runnin'." She laughed and shook her head. "I ran away from home once before, yeah? When I was sixteen, missed my A-levels to join a deadbeat rocker I thought would make it big in the grunge scene." A quiet snort and an eyeroll before she put her fingers over her lips.

"Shhhhhh. That's secret in Pete's Universe. Pete's like this multi-million-billionaire, invents all kind of stuff, Vitex marketer, think like Steve Jobs in the Doctor's Universe, yeah? But with soda pop gatorade-powerade to fund it. S'why he took over Torchwood. My alternate universe Mum, they never had kids in that one, but the Jackie there got turned into a--" she falters slightly, scrunching her face up to analyze the danger and rummages through her pocket for anti-scanner-bug. She doesn't know if it'll work here, but it makes her feel better. "Cyber-person." Because most people keyword searching weren't clever enough to account for similar variations. "Micks hijacked the emotional override codes, but we couldn't save her." She chewed her bottom lip. "And then that incident with the daleks in the sky that you shouldn't have missed, my Mum ran into that Peter Tyler and barely a few months in the world," Rose snapped her fingers, "She up and gets pregnant with the baby brother I always wanted." A small snort. "You'd have liked it. I messed with the Doctor's head for a little bit, let him think I was the pregnant one." She rolled her eyes.

"I don't much fit in there though," she chewed her bottom lip in thought. Finally confessing the biggest part weighing on her personally. "I'm really really really happy for 'em. All of 'em. But 'm still mad at my Mum too. She went world travelin' with Mickey's help even though Pete and the Doctor forbade all o' us." She knuckled her eyebrows. "But since I'm the one who broke the rule first, even to save the universes, I'm the one gettin' punished for it. I'm supposed to be some big heiress there, and well... Look at me!" Rose laughed and shook her head. "I mean luckily, I could keep my history mostly the same, they just had to pretend to find me, that I was takin' care of my Mum between the Cyber-attack incident and then. But I basically had to get written into their lives. TW has the access at least to make up all the right paperwork, but it wasn't even like Mickey. At least he had a real life there. Family, and his counterpart's friends."

Rose shook her head and burrowed it into her folded arms on the table. "The only thing I ever was good at was that job. And I basically created it for myself." She chewed her bottom lip more, but refusing to feel sorry for herself, "Still wanna make Pete proud if he shows up like Rory and River. I don't want him askin' what I've been doin' myself here or thinkin' I could'a done better if I was so boy-crazy or whatever." Huff.

Re: ACTION!!!

[im_with_stupid]

(OOC: Accidently started a new sub thread here.
Not sure how I did that. Want to just continue there?)