Note: This story takes place after "Getting Back to Impossible" but before "A Proper Goodbye for the End of Time."
Chapter 1
"Come along, K9!" the Doctor shouted as he grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her into a run. The TARDIS was only a couple blocks away, but the growing angry group of locals behind them was gaining ground as they ran down a pedestrian walkway hemmed in by tall skyscrapers on either side.
"Affirmative, master," the robotic dog answered in his mechanical voice. "Engaging hover mode." The squat metal dog began to levitate and travel faster than he could roll along the pavement.
As the Doctor and Rose neared, the doors to a public holophone booth at the end of the path slid open with a snap of his fingers to reveal the inside of the TARDIS. They ran to the console to prepare the ship to dematerialise, working together in concert like they'd done this many times before, with Rose taking two sections of the hexagonal console and the Doctor and his several hundred years of experience piloting the time ship taking the other four. The outer doors quickly slammed shut the very second K9 cleared, nearly pinching the end of his antenna-like tail. The console room reverberated with the sound of fists pounding against the door for just seconds before they were safely in the Time Vortex.
Rose fell onto the beige padded jumpseat, howling with laughter, as the Doctor leaned against one of the pinkish-gold coral struts with his hands shoved into the pockets of his new grey suit with light blue pinstripes. Rose didn't have the heart to tell him the grey didn't suit him. Even worse, she was fairly certain the TARDIS agreed with her about the colour.
"How was I supposed to know that would happen?" the Doctor protested. Rose only laughed harder at his rare bewildered expression. "It was just a kiss," he complained.
Rose clutched her stomach and tried to take a deep breath without dissolving into giggles. "The all-knowing Time Lord," she gasped. "Parallel universe must be driving you barmy."
"I've been to Pantellion before. They weren't this adamant about personal space," he insisted.
"You mean you didn't notice that not one person we saw got within a few feet of the next? Or the nasty looks we got just holding hands?" By his expression, Rose knew her Doctor, despite his brilliance, had been totally oblivious. "Maybe we should start reading up on places before we visit."
She crossed over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. The Doctor left his hands in his pockets, continuing to pout. Undeterred, she went up on her toes to press her lips to his. It didn't take long for him to return the kiss and work his hands underneath her tan leather jacket, linking his arms around her back. Satisfied, Rose pulled back with a grin that was mirrored on the Doctor's face.
"Well, we won't be visiting there again," he declared. "At least not so long as snogging results in a riot."
"You love it," Rose teased. "Be honest, that's the most fun you've had all week." Rose's mobile started to vibrate, and she reluctantly released the Doctor to pull it from the back pocket of her jeans.
"Tell Jackie we were just 'round for tea," he whinged, making a half-hearted attempt to swipe the mobile from her hands.
"Not mum; it's Torchwood," she replied quickly as she hit the answer button.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Can't be New Year's again already."
"His brilliance left his mobile off again," a sarcastic voice greeted Rose through the phone. She glanced up at the Doctor and could tell he'd heard Jake Simmonds. "Pete's looking for ya."
"Time machine, Jakey boy. Just tell us where and when," he said, leaning towards Rose and her mobile to ensure he was heard.
"No guarantees we'll actually hit either of them," Rose commented, earning her an offended look from the Doctor.
"Oi, I'd like to see you hit the exact spot out of all of space and time, Rose Tyler."
Rose stuck her tongue out him and got the necessary info from Jake before she rang off. "Pete's conference room in Torchwood Tower, fifth of June, 2013. Ten a.m."
"Canary Wharf on a Wednesday?" The Doctor started setting controls as Rose followed him around the console. "I think I'd rather skip to New Year's."
"What's wrong with Wednesday?"
"It's just stuck there in the middle of the week. Nothing interesting happens on Wednesday."
"I thought that's what you said about Sunday."
"Oh, Sunday's still worse. Avoid those as much as possible." The TARDIS jolted on landing, causing Rose to grab onto the Doctor's arm to stay upright. "Here we are. Better stay in the TARDIS, K9. I don't want some overly ambitious researcher trying to disassemble you."
"Affirmative. I will perform a recharge cycle," the robot answered before quietly rolling away down the corridor.
"He's such a good dog." Rose grabbed the Doctor's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze before they walked down the ramp to the doors. She'd had four additional years to disassociate this Torchwood from the one responsible for unleashing Cybermen and Daleks on Earth. The director of this Torchwood being her father (more or less) certainly helped as well, but the Doctor still tended to be wary.
Rose pulled the TARDIS door open to reveal the large conference room that adjoined Pete's office. The Thames was visible from the floor to ceiling windows, and a sleek zeppelin floated in the distance between scattered clouds. A long oval wooden table surrounded by identical modern black chairs filled the room. Pete Tyler, in his customary dark suit, sat at the head of the table with Jake Simmonds to his left. Rose walked around the table to hug both Pete and Jake in turn.
"Don't think I'll ever get used to you appearing out of a cabinet like that," Jake said.
Rose looked back to see that the TARDIS had once again turned into a stainless steel filing cabinet. "She seems partial to that one."
"The TARDIS spent over a decade as a filing cabinet in Torchwood Three," the Doctor explained. "I expect it's comfortable. Only Rose seems to be able to coax her into being a police box."
"Drives him mad, too," she commented in a conspiratorial whisper as she took a seat next to her father. "So is this the meeting?"
Pete Tyler cleared his throat slightly. "The meeting ended at half eleven, but Jake and I will get you caught up."
Rose quickly glanced at the clock on the wall to see that it was nearly two in the afternoon. At least they'd gotten the date and location correct. She grabbed the Doctor's hand to still him as she noticed him twisting back and forth in the ergonomic office chair. She got the impression he was feeling a little sheepish for getting the time wrong. The inkling didn't come from anything he was doing but rather a faint sense of emotion she received when she touched his hand.
Maybe she needed to stop teasing him about his bad driving. He'd told her before that his connection to timelines wasn't as strong here, though he wasn't sure whether it was a result of living in a parallel universe or being part human.
"This was found early this morning near a barge on the south end of Blackwall Basin." Jake tapped the screen of his tablet and an image was projected on the white wall of the conference room. Next to a rusty old barge moored at the edge of the oval basin was an indistinct black crescent shape. With another tap, the viewing angle changed to show the black shape was a ship that resembled a sharp-edged boomerang. It was maybe a quarter of the size of the barge, and the dark hull was marred.
"That's practically next door," Rose commented. "Did it crash?"
"We don't think so," Pete said. "A recovery team is already on site, and they report the ship is relatively undamaged. We can't seem to contact anyone inside, so we're airlifting the entire thing to Torchwood Tower."
Rose could feel the Doctor's tension just from holding his hand. It didn't seem to escape Pete's notice, either. "You look like you don't approve, Doctor."
"You don't know what it is, and yet your first instinct is to move it closer to hundreds of people," the Doctor said coldly.
Pete Tyler bristled. "I assure you, we thoroughly investigated before deciding to transport it here."
"Do you know what it is?" Rose asked before the men on either side of her got into a row.
The Doctor shook his head. "There are a number of species with similar ships, plus just about anyone could have purchased or even stolen a ship. You're sure it was empty?"
"As far as we can tell, yes. We're not as primitive as you seem to think, Doctor." Pete's phone buzzed, and he picked it up to read the screen. "The ship has arrived. Shall we take a look?"
Pete and Jake led the way from the conference room to the lifts. When they reached the top floor, Rose figured out where they were going, and her steps faltered. The Doctor, holding her hand as usual, couldn't help but notice and looked at her with concern. She didn't think he yet realised they were heading for a room neither of them had set foot in in nearly five years. It was the one part of Torchwood Tower Rose had always managed to avoid until now.
The lever room had been repurposed as a lab for any and all things that had to be airlifted to Torchwood Tower, and part of the tower roof had be retrofitted to slide open. The two large levers on either side of the room had been removed, but the enormous white wall that Rose had pounded her fists against as she had desperately screamed to go back to her original universe was still there, now partly obscured by computers and metal shelving. That white wall featured prominently in her nightmares for years.
At some point during her mute introspection, the Doctor must have also recognised where they were. His hand on hers tightened until the grip was almost painful. She leaned closer to him in response and felt sorrow and regret sweep through her. She was fairly certain those emotions were the Doctor's, not her own. Looking up at him, she saw the Doctor's face was a cold mask that didn't betray his actual feelings, and it was an expression Rose didn't often see with the part-human Doctor, who tended to be more open and less adept at hiding his emotions than his Time Lord counterpart. It was among the few traits he'd inherited from Donna, along with occasional bouts of insecurity that the Time Lord Doctor had never shown.
"Rose?" Pete Tyler asked, noticing his daughter and the Doctor stood motionless at the entrance to the room. It suddenly occurred to him that he'd never seen Rose in this room or on the top floor of the tower at all since the day he'd rescued her from the Void. "Oh God, I'm sorry Rose. I didn't think–"
"It's fine," she said brusquely, taking a deep breath and pulling her shoulders back. "We have a job to do." She finally forced her attention to the hulking dark grey ship taking up about half the room. It only showed how badly the memories of this room shook her that she hadn't paid the ship any mind until now.
Rose pulled her hand away from the Doctor's, both to survey the ship and to distance herself from the Doctor's emotions that had been trickling through their telepathic link more often of late. She strode around the point of the crescent shaped ship to observe it from what appeared to be the front. Jake, Pete, and the Doctor followed, the Doctor pulling his sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket to scan the ship.
Darkened windows lined the inner curve of the crescent and the blunted points contained exterior airlock doors. Satisfied with his external scans, the Doctor approached one of the airlock doors and changed the sonic screwdriver's setting to open the door. Rose moved to follow him when Jake put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. With a hard look, she shrugged him off and kept walking. She grabbed a torch from one of the lab benches and stepped into the darkened airlock. Even with the torch and light coming through the open door, the empty airlock was eerie. She stepped through the interior door to the hallway of the ship and scanned the corridor in both directions for the Doctor.
"Doctor?" Her voice echoed through the empty ship. Suddenly bright lights came on overhead and Rose could see the interior walls were the same dark grey metal as the ship's exterior. She chose to go left towards the front of the ship but nearly jumped out of her skin when the Doctor's head appeared around the corner. The heavy torch fell to the metal grating of the floor with a clang.
"Only me." The Doctor swept up the fallen torch and handed it back to Rose. "No sign of life on board, except for us, of course."
"Then how did this ship end up in Canary Wharf?"
The Doctor shook his head. "I don't know. Damage to the outer hull's just regular wear and tear for this type of ship. As much as it pains me to admit, I agree with Torchwood–it didn't crash."
"Abandoned, then?"
"Possibly, but why?" He began pacing the narrow width of the hallway as he thought. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the ship. No reason for them not to come back. But if that's the case, why leave the ship on Torchwood's doorstep?"
"You never seemed too concerned with the TARDIS. Parked it right next to the estate."
He stopped his pacing to address Rose. "Well, a blue police box doesn't gain the same sort of attention as an obvious spaceship."
"Obvious," Rose echoed as a thought occurred to her. "You don't think it's a decoy. Like with the Slitheen?"
"Subtle for a decoy, however… Blimey, why didn't I think of that? Rose Tyler, you are brilliant as always." He spun her around in a brief but enthusiastic embrace and led her quickly back out of the ship. "Jake," he called as he jumped through the exterior airlock door. "You lot monitor everything, so where did this ship come from?"
"I don't know. It just appeared, sort of how the TARDIS does." Jake brought up the CCTV footage on his tablet and turned the screen towards the Doctor. The image of boats and barges moored in Blackwall Basin was almost completely static until the dark crescent-shaped spaceship shimmered into existence.
The Doctor frowned at the video. "That's not possible, at least not under its own power, which means something brought this ship here."
"Can the TARDIS track where it came from, like you did with the Slitheen's ship?" Rose asked.
He shook his head. "No, we didn't arrive until after this ship appeared."
"But you have a time machine," Jake said, sounding perplexed. "Can't you just go back and wait for it?"
Rose jumped in before the Doctor could answer. "That would mean crossing our own timelines. Can't do it. Well, we shouldn't do it."
The Doctor grinned proudly and pulled Rose closer to him with an arm around her waist. "Exactly. Don't want to risk tearing a hole in the universe, even if it is only the size of Belgium."
Jake frowned at the Doctor and looked to Rose questioningly. She stared back for a moment before she realised the source of Jake's confusion. "There's no Belgium on this Earth," she whispered. "It's part of the Netherlands."
The Doctor's eyebrow rose. "Is that why the waffles seem odd here?"
"Doctor Smith," Pete Tyler interrupted loudly. The Doctor paused for a moment before acknowledging him, still not completely used to his human identity. "Is there anything else you can tell us about this ship?"
"Oh, loads," the Doctor replied airily. "Probably. I need to bring in my consultant first." He started fiddling with his sonic screwdriver, not even looking at Pete.
"Consultant? Doctor, I'm afraid I can't authorise–"
Rose laid a hand on her father's arm. "Don't worry, you won't even have to pay him."
The doors to the lever room opened as something glided into the lab. A number of the Torchwood scientists gasped as the silver boxy robot floated past them.
"Is that a robot dog?" Jake asked no one in particular.
"May I present K9, a fine example of fifty-first century robotics," the Doctor said with pride. K9 was, after all, partly his own handiwork.
"Right, the tin dog," Jake said to Rose. "Mickey told me about him. But how'd he get here?"
K9 landed gently on the floor of the lever room, and the blinking colourful buttons on his back were now visible. "Greetings," he said in a mechanical tone. "I am K9 Mark V."
"He's not the same one," Rose replied. "This one is new and improved and native to this universe. The Doctor built him for me." She gave the man in question a loving smile which was immediately returned. Jake might have gagged at their obvious affection if he didn't consider Rose such a good friend or if he hadn't personally witnessed her four-year effort to find a way back to the Doctor. After all that, he figured they deserved to be as disgustingly sweet as they liked.
Pete looked sceptical. "And how is...K9 going to assist?"
"One," the Doctor held up a finger, "he can access the ship's computer to find out where it came from and what happened to the crew. A bit like those black boxes you lot put on aeroplanes. B, no wait, two." He glanced at his hand, thought for a moment, and held up a second finger. "Yes, two, he can perform environmental analysis on the ship's interior. I may be brilliant, but there are times–not often, mind you–that a big brain and a sonic screwdriver aren't enough."
Rose tried desperately to suppress a lopsided smile. She'd never in her life met anyone with a gob like his. "I've got to go dig my desk out from underneath all the paperwork. Let me know when you two are done here." She pressed a kiss to his cheek and headed for the lift, not half-relieved to be out of the lever room and away from that oppressive white wall, even if a small part of her worried about leaving the Doctor behind in that room.
She wasn't really exaggerating about the paperwork covering the desk in her small office. Her time spent at Torchwood had become sporadic over the last several months, especially in contrast to the previous four years, when she had practically lived here or at Torchwood Three in Cardiff. Maybe she ought to talk to her father about becoming a consultant like the Doctor.
Rose dropped into her chair and took a small handful of items off the top of the neat stack on the corner of her desk. For a company with so much technology, there was a surprising amount of actual paper. The first few items were reports that required her review and signature. Rose felt a twinge of guilt when she noticed the third item was already dated more than a month ago. It had been awhile since she'd been in the office.
The next item in the pile was a page of newsprint with one torn edge. Rose wondered how that had ended up on her desk until she recognised her own face in the black and white photo in the first column. She couldn't place when the photo had been taken, but she apparently hadn't seen the camera, either, as she was obviously too engrossed in the Doctor, who was standing next to her in the photo.
Vitex Heiress spotted with new mystery man, the caption read.
Rose sighed and set the page aside. At least the tabloid hadn't figured out the Doctor's identity. He'd been reluctant to make any public appearances, and Rose was just as happy to skip the society events her mum tried to talk her into. She'd take traveling with the Doctor over making polite small talk with Vitex board members any day.
For four years, Rose's life had been so dull (to the tabloids, at least) that the paparazzi had largely given up on her. A lack of scandals or even boyfriends meant she wasn't worth their time. But as her public appearances dwindled since the Doctor's arrival in this world, any sighting of the Vitex Heiress was apparently newsworthy again.
Rose sighed and folded up the news clipping. She'd do better to finish up her paperwork and follow it with a bit of shopping. The TARDIS, despite how much she could do on her own, apparently drew the line at replenishing the groceries, and Rose was out of milk.
