No one could say Rose Tyler was not resilient.
It had only been two weeks since she'd been ripped away from her whole world. Two weeks since Torchwood, the Daleks and Cybermen, the void being closed and her sealed on the wrong side.
Sure, she'd spent the first day or so shut down. It had been well into the night before her mum had convinced her to leave the wall. Another day after that before she'd been persuaded to leave her new room in the mansion.
But then she did get up. She showered, she went with Pete to Torchwood, and she set into her new field agent job. She poked into R&D more often than she should. She plastered on a smile, answered all sorts of questions concerning where the new heir to the Tyler fortune had come from, going to galas and meeting people and playing the part.
None of that mattered. It was all just filling the times in between, making the people in her life stop worrying. Rose wasn't mentally present for any of it.
Her brain was back, focusing on everything she had ever learned from the Doctor.
He had said she could never see him again, that it was impossible.
But actions speak louder than words, and with everything she'd seen and done with the Doctor, she knew there was no such thing as impossible.
R&D had a few projects that held some promise. They were a long ways away from being anything she could use, but if she took the night classes and studied particle physics and theoretical spacio-temporal physics and a whole lot of other classes that ended in physics, she might be able to nudge it in the right direction. At least Torchwood was paying for her studies.
They only worked her half to death in the mean time.
Her time with the Doctor made her the field agent of dreams and once the heads of Torchwood had discovered that, they'd made her the head of the team sent out on the highest number of missions.
The running was good to keep the chips and coffee from affecting her. The chips and coffee were good for the endless hours she always worked. And the endless hours were good for staving off the time she otherwise spent alone, curled into a ball with the TARDIS key clutched to her chest as she sobbed into her pillow.
But that didn't mean she enjoyed being interrupted from those few hours of sleep she managed to steal.
The shrill ring of her phone split the air and the wonderfully numb dreamless sleep she'd been enjoying. She groaned, rolling over and reaching blindly for the device.
"Yeah?"
"Agent Tyler, we have detected an anomaly. Your team is being dispatched to 1002 Hamons."
She was awake immediately, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and reaching for her jeans. "Got it," she said as she memorized the address, then snapped her phone closed.
Snagging her scarf as she headed out the door, she wrapped it around herself and shoved her hands deep in her pockets. It was a cold night at three in the morning, but aliens rarely seemed to care about the temperature. In fact, with Christmas fast approaching, she wasn't surprised; it's like the holiday season drew them in.
The address she'd been given was a nondescript townhouse that looked like all the others on Hamons Street. She took a quick glance around before letting herself through the gate, up the stares, and into the door. She'd learned a long time ago that waiting for her team outside only drew attention. Besides, that Owen lad had been rather helpful in teaching her to pick locks.
The door was barely shut behind her when the floorboards in the next room creaked. Every muscle was tensed, every sense on end as she took a slow step towards the doorway. The wood paneled room held nothing but an empty table. A window on the far end of the room was open, sheer curtains fluttering lightly in the breeze. She moved to the window, craning her head to see if someone had jumped from the height.
"Little Rosey Tyler, still missing her Doctor?"
She spun, hand on the gun beneath her jacket. He looked human enough, but Slitheen in Downing Street had taught her not to trust what she saw. She tightened her grip on the gun.
"That won't do you much good," the man grinned at her. He picked up a bottle of whiskey that hand't been there a moment before, pouring himself a glass.
"Who are you?" she asked despite all her training telling her to get to a more secure location. "What are you?"
A darker smile spread over his face. "I'm your fairy godmother, and I'm here to make all your dreams come true."