The Forgotten

Chapter 1

They were doing it again.

Osgood didn't even need to look up from her work to know there were watching her. It had become something akin to a sixth sense now, the ability to feel the weight of her minders gaze on her back. For the umpteenth time Osgood had to stifle the impulse to turn around and stare back, her temper was certainly more volatile since her jaunt with The Mistress. Or perhaps it was that after dying and being resurrected and then almost dying again Osgood was no longer quite so concerned with the social niceties that once made her hold her tongue.

She was also less concerned with what other people thought about her.

Once the fact that people talked about her behind her back, that not everyone was convinced she was really back to normal and seem to be waiting for her to turn on them; well it would had bothered her. Not everyone was so two faced of course, Kate openly supported her, but Osgood couldn't help but notice how she increasingly found herself assigned to working in the labs where her work could be checked and poured over.

On the surface Osgood was being asked to train the new recruits but Osgood had been in UNIT too long; she knew what new recruits acted like. She remembers being one all big eyes and boundless enthusiasm so anxious to make an impression and prove herself. One of her assigned recruits fits that profile all nervous and anxious to prove, the other, the other acts the part but there is just something else in his eyes that tells Osgood she is still under surveillance.

Today was worse than usual. Perhaps it was that she had poured over these samples fifty times already? Perhaps it was because her request to organise a fieldtrip to examine the actual meteor crash site had been turned down again and for even more pathetic reasons than the last time. It was bad enough being suspected but when it started to impact on her ability to even do her job....

There were just too many glances in her direction, glances that Osgood pretends not to notice, but she has enough field experience to notice the sudden upswing in tension around her.

Counting under her breath, Osgood exhaled as just as she reaches 100 for a moment thinking paranoia was making her jumpy but then there it was... the sound of heavy tread boots on linoleum. They paused outside her lab for a moment before resuming and Osgood restarted her mental countdown. Yet outwardly she continued to stare down her microscope as if this scrap of tech could hold her interest for this long. She had had it catalogued in the first five minutes but it was better her minders thought she was staring at something than simply staring off into space.

When had she started to think of UNIT as us and them, and when had Osgood no longer considered herself part of them?

No she knew when. Osgood could actually pinpoint it to five minutes after she returned to active duty after the life changing experience of traveling through time and space with The Mistress.

"Knock knock."

Her mental counting was interrupted by the arrival of her boss, and Osgood watched out of her peripheral vision as Kate tensed when she made eye contact with one of Osgood's trainees. That was good as verbal confirmation and Osgood couldn't help the way her heart sank in disappointment; even Kate didn't really trust her. Kate's smile was too forced, and she leant against Osgood's lab table in what seemed like an effort to appear relaxed. So whatever is wrong it has too be big to have the UNIT's chief scientist so rattled.

"How's it going?"

"Slow." Osgood answered simply, raising her gaze and removing her glasses to rub her nose. "There is only so much we can do with these samples."

Kate at least had enough decency to be a little abashed tucking the ends of her blonde bob behind her ears. "Actually that was what I was coming to talk to you about. A new meteor has come down in the Sahara desert and it's giving off some of the same strange energy readings, it doesn't appear to be dangerous. I know it's not exactly the most challenging fieldtrip but it would be good for your trainees to get some real world experience and I know you have been itching to get out of the lab and back into the field...."

For a moment Osgood held her gaze, she could feel the spike of resentment itching under her skin like something was crawling under there just waiting to burst out. Instead she forced on a smile, fumbling with her glasses. "Sounds good, although next time could we get a field trip to the Bahamas?"

"I'll see what we can do." Kate smiled glancing back over her shoulder at the door where an armed soldier was waiting, her smile freezing slightly. "Your transport is booked, you'll be leaving in the hour so we've got a car waiting to take you home to pack."

A field trip, a car and an armed escort...

So whatever was going down at UNT was big and they wanted Osgood out of the way, so either they thought she would be at risk or that her being here would place UNIT at risk?

It stuck in her gut at being treated like an outsider but Osgood wouldn't turn down the chance to get out of here, to get out from under such direct supervision for a few days, even to go look at boring glowing rocks.

---/---

The desert was cold but the lack of artificial light meant the stars had never looked brighter...well on earth that is and Osgood supposed that was some sort of compensation. Osgood has never been much of a fan of camping, never much of an outdoor girl, but she does love the stars. Looking up she can understand why primitive man would gaze up and assume that the stars were the gods looking back down keeping watch over them.

Tugging on her thick parka against the desert chill Osgood did one final check on the surveillance equipment; there was no change in the readings from earlier in the day. Radiation levels are the same, there were no readable signals being broadcast and Osgood was still no nearing to discerning what on earth was making it glow like that. It was pretty if you liked green, like having a lump of rock that displayed the aurora borealis.

They could cut it up and sell it off as novelty paperweights she supposed, help to get the funding for that new wing of labs that Kate kept trying to secure the money for.

Glancing at her watch Osgood was actually relieved that she was due to be relieved soon, to be able to withdraw to her own tent and shut the rest of the world out for eight hours, or at least until the sun rose and the damn thing became so unbearably hot that she came crawling out in search of some respite.

Her trainee, John Winters finally came to relieve her and perhaps it was because she was tired both figuratively and literally but Osgood didn't even attempt to mask her true expression. She passed over her status report, with a hard look.

"Best not to get too close Winters, we still haven't ascertained if it is dangerous to humans yet but you seem to be an old pro at observation." Osgood quipped watching as Winter's lip curled into a humourless smile.

"Yeah that seems to be the drill." Winters added sarcastically.

Frustrated Osgood marched back her tent, zipping it up behind herself with a little more force than was necessary. Flinging down her parka and unlacing her boots she began to shimmy out of her jeans...

"Hmm need a hand with that pet?"

Yelping and practically jumping out of her skin Osgood tripped over her own shoes and landed in an inelegant pile of limbs and clothing.

"Dr Osgood are you alright in there?" An insistent voice asked from outside and Osgood felt her heart jump into her throat.

"F...Fine..." Osgood stammered. "I just thought I saw a...a scorpion but it was just a sock casting a bad shadow..."

It was a pathetic excuse, and Osgood could feel her cheeks turn a flaming red but she was not sure whether that was because her explanation was so very pathetic or because a certain time lady was stretched out provocatively on her inflatable mattress?

"Alright Dr Osgood if you are sure, Good night."

"Good Night." Osgood called out trying to keep her voice light and free from the very real tension that was gripping her whole body.

Waiting until the guard had moved on Osgood finally uncurled from the floor, hand reaching out and hesitantly her finger poked Missy in her stomach. "You're real...you're really here."

"Of course I am Skip." Missy cooed patting the space beside her as she sat up and Osgood willing sank down onto it, her eyes studying what she could of Missy's face in the dim light.

Pouting smugly Missy reaching out and straightened Skip's crooked glasses. "Oh skip did you miss Mummy?"

"Don't say that it...That is really too disturbing."

"Why has my bad little Skip being having all sorts of naughty thoughts again?"

"No!" Osgood's protest was too shrill and too sudden to be believable and yet for some reason Missy simply settled for a knowing smile.

"Missy why are you here...how did you even find me?" Osgood asked.

They seemed safer, easier questions than the ones she really wanted to ask, like why did you do it? Why did you hurt me and leave me for The Doctor to find? Even if she asked them it was unlikely Missy would deign to answer her, the Time Lady danced to her own tune not those of apes.

"Oh Skip I can always find you." Missy replied lightly, her fingertips reaching out and in what would be a tender gesture from anyone else, brushed a lock of hair back from Osgood's face tucking it safely behind her ear.

Osgood would have sworn Missy could feel the way her pulse suddenly thundered under her touch before she ruined the moment as sharp fingernails dug into the soft little divot behind her ear. "Just there, a sub dermal implant sends out a very specific tracking signal. Oh it only works in a radius of about ten kilometres. Just a little safety precaution if you ever went wandering off in the Tardis or on a planet and I needed to be able to find you...Of course it also houses a tiny little nuclear bolt just in case I ever needed to use you as a walking bomb..."

Smacking Missy's hand away Osgood could only lean back in horror. "You put a nuclear bolt inside my head?! So what one day you could just blow me up on a whim?"

"Only a wee one." Missy huffed as if genuinely offended. "It's perfectly safe and sealed, and it's not like you'd even feel anything pet."

"You are...You are..." Osgood could only splutter her hand groping for her jacket and her inhaler.

"Oh dear we're still as defective as ever I see." Missy tutted shaking her head disapprovingly.

"So says the lunatic." Osgood wheezed in between inhalations.

"Now now Skip there is no need to call people names." Missy huffed, her pout downturned as if genuinely hurt. "And after I came all this way to see you."

"Why are you here Missy?" Osgood questioned, surprised when Missy actually avoided her gaze.

"What can't a girl just drop in any more for a chat and maybe a little fun?" She asked waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"You could have done that any time in the last few months." Osgood replied softly twisting her hands in her lap. "But you didn't did you, so why now?"

Missy bit her lip ice blue eyes boring into Osgood's own and for a moment Osgood actually thought she could see some measure of conflict in them as if Missy was genuinely unsure just how to reply. Perhaps this time she had to be the brave one.

"I wanted you to you know. My door would have been open. I still want to be your friend Missy." Osgood offered watching as the worry in Missy's gaze seemed to ease and something new entered her eyes, something Osgood couldn't recall seeing on the time lady before...uncertainty... 

"Well then friend." Missy replied her tongue stretching the word friend as if trying it out for the first time and not finding it quite as distasteful as she expected, something akin to trying Brussel sprouts cooked with bacon and butter for the first time after years of being force fed them boiled to a green mush.

"I'm...I'm..."

"Yes?" Osgood prompted leaning forward her heart beating hard in her chest as Missy crooked her finger, beckoning the scientist closer so that her next words ghosted across the human's skin bringing out a smattering of goosebumps.

"I'm afraid this might be a little disconcerting." And with that she slapped something around Osgood's wrist and the world around them was ripped away.

---/---