Rose – Vairë – frowned as she studied her surroundings. 21st century London wasn’t exactly where she wanted to be right now. Or ever. Still, she supposed, it had been nearly five years for her since she’d last been back to Earth. After dropping Donna off, Vairë had decided to travel on her own for a while. She’d toppled empires, restored kingdoms, freed slaves, and put order in anarchy. So many lives she had saved…and so many, many lives she had been forced to take. She shivered at that. Vairë had never considered herself much of a warrior but she did seem to have a knack for it. She wondered, idly, if her knowledge of military tactics came from her own human imagination or from her lessons in the library of the TARDIS.
She leaned against the blue wooden doors and stared out of the alleyway. She’d tried several times to go to old France to retrieve the Doctor. Every single time, the TARDIS put her off somewhere else. Vairë had a feeling that even if she was on the verge of forgiving the Time Lord, the ship still harbored her own resentment. And, of course, neither of them was exactly eager to have Reinette on board. Eventually, she knew, she’d need to have a long chat with her sister. Get the air cleared. The Doctor didn’t need to be stuck in France forever. Also, she longed to have someone else on board. She and Maggie got along well but she missed human – or human-ish – company. She wanted someone to travel with her. Not to hold her hand or to be amazed at her feats the way the Doctor seemed to need with his companions. She wanted a flesh-and-blood female friend. Someone she could confide in. Someone she could giggle with. Someone who she could have a slumber party with. Even if she was pushing thirty (chronologically, at least. Physically and biologically, she still appeared to be in her early twenties. She had no idea what it meant and longed for someone who could explain it to her. Her sister was notoriously silent on the subject), she wanted a friend other than Maggie. Her sister seemed to understand that and wasn’t against Vairë bringing someone else on board. Just…she’d never quite found someone who would be suited to the kind of life she lived. Maybe she should look Donna Noble up. The woman hadn’t done too badly against the Racnoss. She’d even called Rose back from the edge, snapping her back to reality and keeping her from letting herself be crushed and drowned under the weight of the Thames that Christmas.
Vairë glanced around. Something about the nearby hospital caught her gaze. She couldn’t remember when she’d developed an extra sense but she knew that something was off about the hospital. Pulling her trench coat more tightly around her, she sent a mental farewell-wish-me-luck to her sister and headed off to investigate. Maybe while she was there, she could find a doctor – a proper medical doctor – who she could trust to run some tests to see why she wasn’t aging normally.
~*~*~*~
“We’re on the moon,” Vairë thought to herself. She fingered her earring, feeling her sister’s presence in her mind. It calmed her a good bit. If worse came to it, Vairë could get her sister to come up to the moon and she could rescue all of the people trapped in the hospital before they died of carbon dioxide poisoning. Whoever had transported the entire hospital to the moon had surrounded it in a force field that kept the oxygen in. But, without the ventilation that Earth’s atmosphere provided, there was nowhere for the CO2 to escape to. The humans in the hospital would suffocate if they weren’t returned to their proper environment.
Martha Jones, the doctor who had examined Vairë when she was faking signs of illness, grinned. “We’re on the moon,” Martha whispered, staring out over the lunar landscape in awe. Only Americans had ever been here before. And now, the entire Royal Hope hospital was on the moon. On the moon!
Vairë nodded and grinned. Her tongue did not dart between her teeth, though. That was a Rose Tyler smile. And Rose Tyler had died at Canary Wharf. “We’re on the moon,” she agreed with Martha. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
“I’ll say!” Martha laughed. “But what are those?” she asked, pointing to the space ships in the distance. Vairë shuddered. She recognized them from her studies.
“Judoon,” she muttered. “They’re the enforcement arm of the Shadow Proclamation.”
“The what?”
“The Shadow Proclamation,” Vairë repeated. “They’re like police. Outer space police. Oh, that’s why we’re on the moon. They don’t have jurisdiction over Earth and the moon is neutral territory. Not that humans see it that way.”
“But what would police want with a hospital?”
Vairë thought this over for a long moment. “There must be a hostile alien here. Something that has the Judoon looking for it. But what?” she wondered to herself. “Martha,” she whispered to the black-skinned woman standing next to her on the balcony, “have there been any strange patients recently?”
“No,” Martha whispered, still in awe that she was looking out over the lunar landscape. The Earth was rising in the distance. “It looks so small,” she squeaked. “So…insignificant.”
“The Earth is not insignificant,” Vairë whispered. “It is the birthplace of the human race. And the human race is…”
“Is what?” Martha asked.
“Fantastic,” Vairë replied with a grin. “But what does the Shadow Proclamation want? Normally they’d never bother with a Level Five Planet like the Earth.”
“Level Five?”
“Yeah. Not yet truly space-faring,” Vairë replied absently. “Level Five planets are heavily protected. The Shadow Proclamation doesn’t want to see them corrupted or conquered. They’re dedicated to seeing all forms of sentient life evolving and growing in turn.”
“Shadow Proclamation?”
“Yep,” Vairë said, popping the “p” the way the Doctor had. Her heart lurched and ached for him. “Anyway, this is a bit extreme, even for them. The Judoon are kind of thick. Word of what we did to the Sycorax must have gotten to them, though. Otherwise, they’d be much stealthier. Right, so, Martha Jones was it?” Vairë asked, sticking out her hand for Martha to shake. The doctor nodded as she shook the blonde’s hand. “Vairë Carter. Let’s go see if we can find this alien before the Judoon scare the living daylights out of the entire hospital, shall we?”
~*~*~*~
It was the corpse that told the story, Vairë thought to herself as she tried to find the plasmavore. The Judoon were busy making their own methodical way through the hospital, scanning and cataloguing everyone they crossed. However, if the plasmavore had just fed, it would come up human on the scans. At least she had a good idea of who to be on the lookout for, thanks to Martha Jones. The woman was quick and clever. Vairë found herself trusting Martha far more than she had anyone since…
Since losing her family to the other universe at Canary Wharf. She sighed and shook her head. Eventually, she’d be able to think of that day without pain lancing through her. And eventually, she’d be able to think of the Doctor…
No, she never would be able to think of him without hearing those words in her mind. Those words that only Pete’s faith in her had interrupted. In the past five years, Vairë’d had many struggles with depression. Several times, she’d just asked her sister to float in the Vortex and then hadn’t even bothered to get off her pallet in the library for weeks. Other times, she’d just laid on the jump seat, the words echoing and crashing through her mind while she laid listless, slow tears trickling down to splash on the metal grating. And her sister was being very stubborn about going back to get him. That made Vairë wonder even more. Maybe even Maggie, the TARDIS, didn’t think she was good enough…
“Stop this,” she growled to herself. “You’ll do no one any good if you get yourself in a funk. Hold it together. You can go to pieces later. Or, hell, maybe Dr. Jones will give you a script for an anti-depressant. Or you could just nick some from the pharmacy. Not like the locks there will stand up to the sonic.”
Steeling herself to action, Vairë began scanning through the patients herself. She could skip the floors the Judoon had already done. If they followed standard protocols – and being thick, they would – there would be guards left at every stairwell and lift. If any unmarked humans tried to get down to the previously scanned floors, they’d be caught. So Vairë just needed to stay ahead of the patrols, find the plasmavore, and stop it before it killed again.
Martha was trotting up the hallway, looking for Vairë. It was an unusual name. Sounded vaguely Norwegian but the woman spoke with a Londoner’s accent. And she looked a little familiar. Martha felt like she’d seen this woman before. Looking at Vairë for some reasons brought up memories of her cousin Adie who had died during the Battle of Canary Wharf a few months back. Martha shook her head to clear it. Vairë was definitely odd. The doctor wondered if the woman was even human from the way she spoke of aliens and outer space police as if they were normal, everyday things to her. “I think I know who it is,” Martha said when she caught up to Vairë.
“Hm?” the blonde said, glancing around absently.
“I think I know who the killer is. I think it is Florence Finnegan. She was in the bed next to you.”
“Oh, her,” Vairë nodded. “Could be. Keep an eye out for her.” The hairs on the back of Vairë’s neck were standing on end, though, as they drew close to the imaging labs. Up here were all kinds of x-ray and nuclear machines. Vairë might be able to cobble together a more accurate scanner than the device the Judoon were using and trace the plasmavore down. Especially now that she had someone who had a pretty good idea what the alien’s body looked like? “Good thinking on that, Martha. You’re pretty brilliant.”
“Thanks,” Martha said, blushing slightly. “Are you human? Or an alien?”
“Human. 100% human. Born and raised right here on planet Earth.”
“Really? Then are you like, from the future or something?”
“Nope. Born in 1987.”
“Then how do you know all this stuff about aliens?”
“I…had a friend…who showed me things about the universe out there,” Vairë said, her voice catching. “He got caught up in other things, though, and I wound up getting adopted by another alien – she’s my sister now. She’s taught me a lot. We travel together, her and I. Seen all kinds of things.”
“That sounds amazing!”
“It is,” Vairë grinned. “You know, once this is all over and the hospital is back, you could come with me, if you wanted.”
“I’d hate to impose on you and your sister. What if she doesn’t like me?”
“Oh, she’ll like you,” Vairë laughed. “And we could use a third party. Gets kind of lonely, just the pair of us. What do you say?”
“Well, I do have to come back here and finish my studies,” Martha hemmed, uncertain.“And there’s my brother Leo’s birthday next week.”
“I can have you back by tomorrow morning – relatively speaking, of course. For you, it could be years but for everyone else, just a few hours. And I do promise that it would only be a few hours for them. I’m not going to do like my friend did and mistake twelve months for twelve hours. My mum was worried sick. She slapped him!”
“Your mum doesn’t care that you travel with an alien?”
“Oh, she hated him at first but then he changed a bit and she could tolerate him better. But, he’s gone now. Had better things to do than hang around with me. So, join me? At least one trip. You’ll be amazed at what all is out there!”
“I’d love to,” Martha laughed. “How old are you?”
“How old do I look?”
“Early twenties.”
“That works for me.”
“No, seriously though. How old are you?”
“Thirty.”
“No way. If you were born in 1987 and it’s 2007, you can only be twenty at the oldest.”
“Unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless I’ve spent a lot of time not living at any point between 1987 and 2007. Say, oh, about ten years. I’m thirty.”
“You don’t look it. Did you find a fountain of youth or something?”
“Nah. I don’t know why I’ve stopped aging properly. Maybe you could help me figure it out? Just no dissections, okay?”
“Like I’m going to dissect someone who’s offering to show me the universe!”
“Oooh, good point! Yeah, so no dissecting the designated driver!”
Martha threw her head back and laughed. She liked this woman. They were kindred spirits. She just hoped that Vairë’s sister would like her. Otherwise, things could get hairy very quickly.
~*~*~*~
Vairë studied Florence Finnegan. The seemingly-elderly human woman was standing in the middle of the MRI room. Vairë had defeated one of her slabs – leather-bound creatures who were stronger than they looked judging by the bruises on her ribs – but the plasmavore was staring at her. A bendy red-striped straw was in one of her hands. A few minutes and two floors earlier, one of the Judoon had gotten his hands on Vairë. According to their scans, she wasn’t human.
“Non-human,” they’d said coldly, grasping her shoulders and preparing to haul her off for crimes she hadn’t committed.
“But I am!” she shouted. “I was born on Earth! My mum and dad were human! How can you say that I’m not human?!”
They’d done a deeper scan with the same results. Vairë wasn’t part of the human race. Her race was officially “unknown.” That terrified her. What had she become? How had this happened? Was she some kind of monster, now? What would the Doctor think if she ever got back to him? What would he do when he found out that she wasn’t human? Would he kill her? Dissect her? Imprison her? Vairë’s heart pounded in her chest. Not human. What the hell was she? Who the hell was she?
Right now, she was the only thing standing between the plasmavore and the rest of the hospital. She didn’t resist at all when the woman grabbed her and stabbed her in the neck with that straw. She didn’t resist as she felt her blood being drawn out of her neck and into the plasmavore. If she died, then so be it. At least the thick-headed Judoon would find this criminal and send her to justice. Vairë would be proud to be a part of that. Dimly, she heard her sister protesting. Her sister pleaded with her not to die. Not to leave her alone. She felt a twinge of regret that Maggie would be left alone. But then, maybe if Vairë were dead, Maggie would return to the Doctor and bring him out of France. Even if he brought Reinette with him. At least the ship and her fickle pilot would be reunited. Something good could come of this.
Vairë shivered. She felt so dizzy. Her eyes fell shut and she floated. Her mind wandered back to the first time she’d wanted to kiss the Doctor. It had been just after leaving Adam at his home after he’d tried to send information back to the 21st century to make himself filthy rich. Rose, as she’d been known back then, had felt guilty. After all, it was her that convinced the Doctor to take him along. It was her that had given Adam the credit chip. It was her fault that the entire stupid incident had happened. But the Doctor had never spoken a word of blame. Instead, that night, when she’d been so guilt-stricken that she’d found sleep impossible and had been wandering the halls of the TARDIS, wondering if she herself was about to be dropped off home, the Doctor had appeared out of nowhere. He’d put an arm around her waist and guided her back to her own room. He’d tucked her into her bed and then squatted next to her, telling her stories until she’d fallen asleep. Her last waking thought had been that she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and press her lips against hers.
Vairë felt her sister’s presence calling her back. Slowly, her heart started to beat again. The Judoon were swooping down on Florence Finnegan, the plasmavore. With Vairë’s blood in her body, they saw her for what she was – not human. Now, Vairë just needed to fix whatever the plasmavore had done to the MRI so that the entire hospital wouldn’t blow up on Luna, 238,900 miles from the Earth.
~*~*~*~
“Radiation poisoning,” one of the other doctors said as they studied Vairë’s chart. “On top of being nearly bled to death. How the hell she survived both is a miracle.”
“No such thing as miracles,” another doctor muttered. “How is she responding to the O Neg? We couldn’t get a type on her.”
“Well enough, I suppose. She’s not rejecting it. Her response to the treatment for the poisoning is also encouraging. I never thought I’d live to see someone survive that high a dosage! She took nearly 800 rads in a very short time. We should get some tissue and blood samples from her. If she’s this resistant to that high a dose and we could determine why, we might be able to make the specter of nuclear war a non-issue.”
Martha shuddered. She’d heard the Judoon declare that Vairë wasn’t human. She’d heard the woman swear that she was. Martha had been a medical student long enough to tell if someone was outright lying to her – drug seekers did it all the time – and she could swear that Vairë was honest. The woman really did think she was human, even if objective tests could prove she wasn’t. Even if it was impossible for a human to survive such a high dose of radiation with little more than second degree burns and a slight bleaching of her hair. And here Martha’s superiors were talking about Vairë as if she were some specimen to be studied instead of a patient to be treated! It made the medical student wonder just how seriously real doctors took the Hippocratic Oath. When they mentioned contacting some agency named Torchwood, Martha knew she had to get Vairë out of the hospital. The suspicion that she’d need to stage a jail-break was why Martha Jones, medical student, was currently hiding out in the closet in Vairë’s room. She just needed to wait for the doctors to leave and then check to see when the next shift change was. Vairë had been sedated – the woman had a set of lungs on her and could swear with the best of them – so Martha would have to be quick about getting her into a wheelchair and getting her out of the hospital. She checked her watch again and stifled an irritated growl. The shift change would be in five minutes and the two doctors were still standing there talking about Vairë as if she were some kind of science experiment.
“Hm,” one of them said, reaching down and pulling a pager out of his pocket. “I’ve got to run. They need a consult down in Urgent Care.”
“I should head out, too. My wife is cooking tonight which means I need to get the take-out before the shops close,” the other doctor said with a laugh. The two men left and Martha waited. Five minutes later, she was out of the closet and carefully unplugging Vairë from the various monitors and machines she was hooked up to.
“Look at you,” Vairë said weakly as Martha pulled the IV out of her arm. “Martha Jones. My savior.”
“I’ve got to get you out of here before they send you off for dissection or something. I’m surprised you’re awake. They’ve been sedating you pretty heavily.”
“I know. I feel like I just went out on a three-day bender with Jack Harkness,” Vairë slurred. “He’s dead now. Daleks. I think. Could do with a proper bender though. D’you like hypervodka?”
Martha shook her head and helped Vairë out of the bed. The woman could walk but she had a definite list in her steps. She kept muttering about someone tilting the floor on her and how that wasn’t fair. Luckily, there was an abandoned wheelchair near the nurses’ station. Martha got Vairë into it and then headed for the service elevator or the “corpse lift” as it was called since it was primarily used to take the deceased to the morgue in the sub-basement. By the time she’d wheeled the woman into the parking garage, Vairë had started to sober up a bit. “I can hide you out at my place,” Martha offered.
“Nah. My ship’s not far from here. We’ll go there. I parked just in the alleyway across the street from the main entrance.”
“Your ship?”
“Yeah. My ship. Well, she’s not mine in the strictest sense of the word. I’m kind of…traveling with her until we both get over being pissed with her proper pilot. Granted, I’ve been wanting to go get him for a bit now but she’s still holding a grudge.”
“Christ, what did they give you? I should have gotten your charts.”
“It sounds crazy but I’m not. I swear. Come on. Let’s go,” Vairë laughed, standing up from the wheelchair on unsteady legs and making her way to her ship with Martha Jones, medical student extraordinaire, in her wake.