Title: Nothing Quite Like It
Words: 3,185 Words
Rating: T for..I don't know.
Pairing: None!
Notes: You might want to be slightly aware of what the role of each person on an extraction team does? I dunno.
Author's Notes: I apologize. For nothing. Well, I do apologize if it doesn't make much sense. It has been un-beta'd. All mistakes are my own.
My last story of 2012. Wow.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Inception.
Rose Tyler was supposed to be an easy target. Heiress to the popular drink, Vitex (why it was so popular was a mystery itself), all they had to do was extract the company's next big idea from the blonde heiress's peroxide-doused hair. At least, that's what Cassandra O' Brien, head of Vitex's rival company, hired them for. It wasn't going to be difficult; she's a young woman in her early twenties who sits in on her Dad's board meetings and it's not like her mind's going to be protected from extraction.
The look on Donna's face when he walks into their temporary office, though, tells the Doctor otherwise. It's not a look he can deal with so early in the morning and it requires at least three cups of tea, one and half cups of coffee, and a minimum of four banana muffins. So far, he's had two cups of tea, half a cup of coffee and only half of his desired breakfast pastry.
Not nearly enough to prepare him for the three words that Donna drops at their briefing.
"She's with Torchwood."
He chokes on the second half of his first cup of coffee, fumbling for the napkin to wipe at his lips, causing the banana muffin resting on it to topple and roll onto Martha's notepad. Not that their chemist is paying any attention. At Donna's words, the dark skinned young woman's pen dropped the way her jaw did, the writing utensil clattering to the floor unnoticed. Even Jack's affected by the news, letting out a low whistle as he finishes his second glass of alcohol that morning.
"C'mon, Donna!" Jack grins finally, setting his glass on the table. It resounds with a dull 'thunk' as the news continues to sink into the rest of the team. "Rose Tyler, working with Torchwood? Next, you'll be telling me that you believe in aliens." He jokes, trying, and failing utterly to lighten the mood.
But, the surprise is warranted. In their small office space the corkboards and whiteboards and every space that can, has information about their mark and her picture is almost everywhere. She doesn't look Torchwood; too girl next door and too 'vapid spoiled heiress'. Though, to be honest, the Tyler family in general does a good job with avoiding scandals and tabloids.
Donna isn't having any of it. Her eyes narrow at Jack and she puts both hands on her hips, the annoyance radiating off her in clear waves. "Are you trying to say something about my point skills, pretty boy?" She challenges, the look in her eyes making it clear that she has no problem taking this outside and making them down one forger.
Jack quickly realizes his mistake and backtracks. He tries to disarm her with a charming smile, but that only causes her brows to raise and dig him a deeper hole. "No, no! Of course not! Your research skills are indispensible and utterly amazing. I'm just saying…it's a bit of a stretch to believe, you know?" He gestures to the larger picture they have of Rose Tyler, where she's laughing with two female friends and it's obvious they've gone out shopping. "I mean, not exactly Torchwood material, you know?" He shrugs.
"Well, I'm just telling you what I found while digging through her records." Donna defends, but, much to Jack's relief, his accidental slight towards her seems to be forgiven. "I double checked and triple checked and I can't find any indication of it being faked." She relaxes her position, arms crossed over her chest. "Don't know why anyone would want to fake this though."
"Rose Tyler, Torchwood." The Doctor drawls, picking at his muffin. His voice is light and slightly intrigued, but the others have worked with him long enough to hear the absolute business beneath it. "This just got a lot more interesting." He dislodges the banana piece he's been after and pops it into his mouth. "Call River." He tells Donna.
"River? Doc, Are you sure about that?" Jacks asks at the same time that Martha interjects with, "You remember what happened last time with her?"
The Doctor glances up once, and peers over his glasses. The look in his eyes is enough to make the two flinch back. He feels bad immediately, but only for Martha- she's new to this team still, by Donna and Jack's standards, but Jack should know better. He looks at Donna again. "Call River." He repeats and his voice dares anyone to question that decision again.
Torchwood has been around long enough to distinguish itself as a not so secret, but still secret organization that works with governments to bring untouchable criminals to justice. Their methods are questionable, but effective and they deal with no red tape whatsoever. There's no denying that they get the job done, but, when it boils down to it, they're high class assassins. They're a privately funded organization though, and it doesn't take long for the Doctor to realize that Pete Tyler, their mark's father, is the founder of the organization. Which means that their mark is more than the Vitex heiress.
The rational path to take means backing out while they still can and tell Cassandra that they've decided not to do the job. He'd make up some excuse when she asks why (because she will) and then, he wouldn't have to worry about Rose Tyler, heiress to Torchwood, any longer.
But he's never been rational and some part of him likes the challenge of going after someone so high up in Torchwood. Besides, the fact that any was willing to hire them after the Adam debacle is enough to make him see this through.
"Going after Torchwood? Didn't know you'd fallen into suicidal tendencies so soon again." River Song says by way of greeting, the click clack of her heels having long alerted him to her presence. "Hello, sweetie."
River Song is the best architect in the industry, better than him (a fact he hates to admit and wont' do so readily). She's the only actual convict on the team, but she's on parole (and Donna couldn't find anything that proved otherwise) and despite her strong personality, she's good and she's loyal, even if her flirty nature makes him uncomfortable sometimes.
"Hello River." He greets in return, taking a few more moments to tinker with the toy dog he bought on a whim in the toy shop ("I named him K-9! Clever, aren't I?"). He sets his tools down and looks up to give her a weary smile. "Thanks for agreeing to work this job."
"Well, can't have you getting every stuck in limbo, can we? I've actually grown fond of your team." She returns casually.
The worst part is, she's not joking. They won't be sedated heavily enough to warrant any large dangers of reaching limbo, but the threat is always there, especially when the Doctor's in the dream. Ever since the War, the Doctor's not quite been himself, dream wise. He's been there once, to limbo, a long time ago and with his broken mind, it's a hell of a lot easier to want to return. And his team runs that risk when they dream with him. And because this time, the mark's mind is without a doubt going to be militarized. Which means that he'll be on edge and having more heat on his side will be good.
On low level jobs, he can handle being architect just fin; he can keep the shades from the War at bay. But for something like this, he needs to devote more energy to keeping them away, and having River means having another person to help him keep , and if he's not architect, then his shades, in case they do end up completely materializing and turning on his team, are going to have a hell of a time navigating the mazes. Because River's mazes, besides the Master's, are the only ones he's never been able to crack easily. Eventually, but not easily.
It terrifies him how much his team trust him, despite the danger in him. It scares him even more that he lets them stay.
"Whatcha gonna build for us this time, huh?" He asks her with a childish grin.
River picks up her bag and gives him a smirk as she turns to walk to her table. "Spoilers." She sings.
Donna won't let him steal more of her pad thai while Jack's presenting his findings at the end of their third day (with River on the team). He's saying something about forging one of Tyler's friends: a tie between a Mickey Smith or a Jake Simmonds. The Doctor is vaguely disappointed that he's not forging one of their mark's female friends. Seeing Jack have to act like a girl is always entertaining.
"We might need a different tail on her." Jacks says and that finally reclaims the Doctor's attention.
"Why?" The Doctor asks, lips turned in what everyone recognizes as the "I'm not pouting" pout. He's failed to steal some of Donna's food and has received a sharp stab to his feet with her heels. But he give Jack his attention because Jack's good at what he does. Asking for help raises red flags.
Jack scratches the back of his head and gives the Doctor a smile that's definitely had men and women swooning. It only raises the Doctor's suspicions and he asks why once more. "She's sharp, her and that team of hers." Oh, so that's who the two blokes are; her teammates. Torchwood operates in cells of at least three. "If she spots me any more times, no matter how casual, she'll probably figure it out." He admits.
"Right, fine then." The Doctor agrees. "Get River to do it." He says.
"I'm busy building!" She calls from her station.
"It has to be Donna." Martha says from her spot, satay finished and hand still scribbling notes. She notices the silence and finally looks up, startled by the curious expressions on Jack and the Doctor's face and the almost annoyed one from Donna. "What?"
"Why me?" The redhead clarifies none too gently. When she gestures to herself, her chopsticks go flying and the Doctor has to duck to avoid getting stabbed in the eye, glasses be damned. "Why not River?"
Martha shrugs. "No offense, Doctor, but you can't sit still long enough to pay attention, even if your life depended on it," ("hey!"), "River's our architect and she's gonna need to devote most of her attention to that. I wouldn't know what to look for. It's gotta be you, Donna." She explains, her tone indicating that it's really simple, when they take time to think about it.
"No, it's perfect!" The Doctor suddenly exclaims and yelps when River throws a shoe at him for loudly interrupting her work. He rubs the back of his head, glaring at River before turning ack to Donna. "You've got those sharp eyes that see everything! And I mean everything! Like the time you caught Jack writing those fake love notes, though I still argue that they weren't fake, I mean, really! Or that time you saw River try to 'poison' my beloved bananas, which, I still have not forgiven. That's a cardinal crime right there! Poisoning my food source! What if I-"
"Oi! Shut up!" Donna interrupts, cutting him off with a snap and a point and a look that promises he'll have more to complain about than a shoe hitting his head if he doesn't shut it. But she's smiling, so she's not that annoyed. "I'll do it, spaceman."
"Molto bene!" The Doctor cheers. "Now, who's turn to choose the kick music? Mine? Brilliant!" He gushes. "I know just the song! We should get ice cream to celebrate. And I know the best place to get it; there's this little shop down…" And he's off, and no one is quite up to stopping him.
They're too busy groaning, knowing what song the Doctor has in mind. The Proclaimers will be in their heads for weeks.
"Didn't he choose the music last time?" Jack points out.
"You wanna tell himthat?" Martha scoffs. "Besides, he's getting ice cream. Not gonna argue with that." She grins and their boss's mood is suddenly infectious.
After careful planning, they're finally here. It's some rich person get-together. A charity, and of course, Rose Tyler is in attendance. Jack's going to seduce their mark, he's got the best shot, after all. All charm and wiles and grace. Besides, after looking through what Donna had dug up of the mark's romantic history, it's clear she's into pretty boys and, while the Doctor argued that he was a pretty boy (it hadn't helped his image as much as he'd though), Jack was still their best shot. River and Donna are upstairs preparing the room and the PASIV. Normally, it'd be Martha up there, but River needs to go over some last minute architectural aspects with Donna. So Martha is posing with the Doctor as guests to keep an eye on Jack, should he need help.
They're in the hotel bar, in a corner where they can keep an eye on their forger and their mark, when Jack and Rose arrive. It's clear that the forger is turning up the charm and that their mark is responding in kind. She's prettier in person than in her pictures, the Doctor notes absentmindedly. Soft hair done in a simple and elegant bun that frame her delicate face and make it more obvious when her honey gold eyes light up in laughter; now that he knows she's Torchwood, the toned body she has, hidden beneath a red dress, is clearly from missions.
He realizes he's been staring (the way she smiles, with her tongue poking out between her teeth is very distracting), when Martha calls him out on it, a teasing grin on her face. She's definitely going to tell the others that he's been ogling their mark, something that hasn't happened since…well, for a long time.
The Doctor coughs in embarrassment and launches into a story about his tux, nicknamed the Tux of Doom by Jack. He keeps an eye on Jack and Rose from the corner of his eyes. A quarter of the way though the story, Martha interrupts him.
"You can stop fretting." She says, twirling the straw in her drink, keeping her face down as she chances a quick look at him,
"What? Oh, no! I trust Jack. He'll be able to get our mark where we need her." He assures. There's been some close calls, yeah, but that's not entirely Jack's fault.
"I don't mean about that." Martha tells him, something like hesitation in her voice.
She's talking about their last job, and the whole, "never working with Adam Mitchell again" result. Mitchell will actually be lucky if anybody in the dreamshare industry looks at him even once. Word of what he'd done spread through the industry like wildfire.
"Oh." The Doctor deflates.
"Doctor. None of us blame you." His chemist assures gently, already seeing him beginning to close himself off to this conversation. But she promised the others she would try and damn it, Martha Jones does not give up easily.
"I almost got you all killed." He hisses and the flash of regret is almost enough to cause Martha to stop, but she's getting him to talk about it and that might never happen again.
"Actually." she corrects, "that was all Adam's fault."
"I hired him!" The Doctor protests. "I wanted to give him a chance and he almost got all of you killed." He reiterates.
It's just like him to try and shoulder the blame for something not even close to his fault. The Van Statten Job isn't one she'd like to relieve, but she's not going to say it's the Doctor's fault. It was a simple extraction on Henry Van Statten; the supplier to his rare goods and his other dubious connections. The Doctor had asked a new architect, Adam Mitchell for this round and he'd shown so much potential. And then, he'd sold them out to Van Statten. The rest of the team was hunted down; Martha and Donna had been forced to check into a hospital, which had forced the Doctor to play his hand. River and Jack took care of the ones sent to take their team down. The Doctor had dealt with Van Statten himself.
"Doctor, were you the one to tell Adam to sell us out?" He shakes his head. "Then this isn't your fault. You didn't make his choice for him. Besides, it all worked out in the end." A deeper part of Martha says that maybe this was a bad idea to bring up so close to a job, but River was the one who put her up to this.
"Make him deal with it now. He'll be that much more focused on the job. I know, it's odd, but it's the Doctor."
He's shaking, silently and as quick as he was to be riled up, he lets his shoulder sag and when he looks up, Martha is taken aback by the sheer amount of self-loathing he has in those brown eyes. "Why didn't any of you walk away?" The Doctor asks.
Martha doesn't flinch under his tone, one that matches those eyes. "Walk away? Back to what? Our lives before you? No, thank you." She scoffs and places her hands on top of his. "We wouldn't walk away from you. You're the Doctor." She says as if that explains it, and it really does. "You healed us all in some way. We're in a better place in our lives because of you." She glances over to the door, where Jack is leading Rose out. When she turns back to the Doctor, there's a smile on her face. "The least we could do is try to heal you too."
The elevator ride to their room is silent, but less tense than either of them expected.
The Doctor looks at the people hooked up to the PASIV as Martha double checks all their tubes, the dosages and the time. Maybe he has helped them, but only because it felt natural. And because he was selfish. He saw the potential in them, should they have joined the dreamshare business. And he wanted the best and only the best.
So he offered them what he could: all of time and space and creation at their fingertips, if only they worked for him for a while. Yeah, he manipulated them (if he was being honest), but he did get attached to them and he wanted them to stay, despite how he could taint them with his brokenness and the sins from the War.
"Ready?" Martha asks, glancing around.
Rose is between Jack and Donna, the Doctor's against the foot of the bed and River's beside him. "Ready." The others chorus.
He can feel them look at him.
His companions.
He grins at the word and a nods to Martha, falling into a familiar unconsciousness as he yells an adrenaline fueled, "Allons-y!"
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