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a/n.: corrected version

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Chapter one – New old life

She goes to work at 8:00, six times a week. She works straight to noon, then she goes out to eat lunch. Between finishing her remaining paperwork and going home, she chats a bit with her co-workers. After work she goes to have dinner with her family, where her mother interrogates her about her day at work, her new car and about her lack of boyfriend, then said mother starts to talk about the different suitable boys she's met, and who all wants to met her. She goes home after that, watches the telly for a while and then goes to sleep. And the next day the routine starts again.

For anybody that seems like a normal day for a twenty-something, happy-to-be-single woman.

Rose Tyler's day consisted the same things with minor modifications. It was still pretty normal, but we all know that normal is only the matter of perspective. She really believed that being one of the most respected diplomats in the Galaxy, after solving a diplomacy problem between Dallia and the Callixus II- who were fighting for two millenias- between finishing paperwork and the family dinner was normal. Or that her co-workers were all geniuses, rocket-scientists and other experts like that. By her standards she was normal. What other people'd think, that was another question.

Rose Tyler was one of the highest ranking officers – the head of the diplomacy department- in Great-Britains not so top secret faculity, the Torchwood Institute, and she really loved her job. It was exciting and challenging, the pay was very good, and she got to deal with the things she enjoyed the most. Aliens.

You see, the TI was not an organisation like the CIA or the FBI, that dealt with terrorists and other criminals; Torchwood dealt with the aliens. Aliens, who sometimes wanted to invade, enslave or destroy the Earth, but sometimes they only wanted to trade or have a nice holiday here. Anyway, if anything happened, they called Torchwood.

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It was rainy Monday morning, and Rose had nothing important to do, so she engaged herself in playing card games on her computer. She was in the middle of a party of solitaire, when her partner of five years bursted into her office without knocking first, as usual.

„Ever heard of knocking, Sweetheart?" asked Rose for at least the 100th time since the day she first met him.

„Sorry, Love, I was just too eager to inform you about the Sycorax ship, that just entered the solar system," said her partner with mock sincerity. „but if you want, I'll just go out, knock and come in again."

„A Sycorax ship, you say? In that case I forgive you," answered Rose, then grinned to the man, who returned the gesture, before becoming sincere. „You came to fetch me?"

„Yes, the boss sent me,we're meeting the communication officers . We're supposed to go over the welcoming plan the idiots has come up with. They really think they came with peace, and that they don't want to pick a fight with us. I mean, come on, the scans we did showed a lot of weapons on the ship, and I don't think they use them to decorate the place."

„You might be right. I've already met the Sycorax, and they aren't really friendly. Last time I saw them, they wanted to blackmail the Prime Minister to let them enslave the half of the planet, or they kill the 1/3 of the population. They used blood control, so we might want to watch out for that. Anyway, as usual, the Do…, the proplem got solved and everybody went home and lived happily ever after," she said the last part in a rush, because it was still hard for her to talk about a certain two-hearted alien; even after eight years.

„Ah, another mysterious story from the life of Rose Tyler. One day we will sit down, and you will tell me everything about your little encounters, including all the juicy details"

„Yea, right. Now let's go." And with that, she walked out of the room.

On the way to the meeting, she remained silent; she was thinking. The Sycorax brought up her memories about the Doctor, and they were still as painful, as on that beach in Norway.

It was well-known in Torchwood, that on some days Rose was intolerable, she argued with everybody; on other days she started to cry at the sight of alien artifacts. It was unchangeable, so her co-workers's learnt to live with it.

Only very few knew about the real origins of Rose Tyler beside her family. The list of the non-family members consisted only four people. One them was Mickey, the boy she grew up –and for a while were going out- with. He died the previous year in an accident, while saving a girl from getting hit by a car. The second person was Jake, who she hadn't seen since Mickey's accident; the boy was crushed under losing another best friend. The third person was currently walking beside her.

Benjamin Harkness was the son of one Captain Jack Harkness, whose alternate self was one of Rose's best friends in an other life. He was a younger version of Rose's Jack; he literally could talk his way out of every mess. Besides Jack, he reminded her of Adam too. Not the idiotism, but the eagerness to learn. Of course it helped, that he was smarter than an ordinary person. He graduated from college at 21, and after five months, he was working in Torchwood. He was Rose's partner on the field as a doctor – scientist. He learned about the Tyler's secret after an office party, where Rose decided that getting drunk and spilling her secrets to a stranger was a good idea. And it really was. The following day Ben confronted her about the things she said; she denied everything, but he suprised her with another Jack-like characteristic, the ability to make people talk. She ended up telling him everything, even things she didn't share with the others, mostly about the Doctor. After that he become one of her best friends.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts, that she did not notice when they arrived to the conference room, Ben had to elbow her in the side to take notice.

The room had one panorama-window that faced the Thames. On the boring meetings most of the agents were entertaining themselves with counting the ships or the birds in the bay. Rose on the other side has always had her back to the window, she couldn't bear to face the sight. It brought up her painful memories about the War.

There were one-man desks in the room in four rows, three in each one. They arrived early, so they could take the seats that were the furthest from the Director's, the last tables. Yvonne Hartmann was as bad as she was in Rose's universe, most of the workers hated her and disagreed with her methods.

When the door opened, they both looked up to see the newcomers. There were three scientists, a five senior officers and a woman, who usually worked with Rose and Ben, and were also the fourth member of the aforementioned quartett. Violet Black was tall and blonde with strange violet eyes she was named after. She was a geneticist, and enjoyed if nobody understood what she was talking about. She was proud of her job, but hated her boss with passion. She met Rose at the university they both attended; Rose learned psychology (while working at the Institute), Violet biology. After being friends for three years, Rose decided to tell her her secret, right before getting her to work for Torchwood.

After Violet took seat beside them –Ben glared away anybody else who tried to sit there-, Yvonne Hartmann herself came to the room followed by advisors, who immediately started to pass out files about the alien ship. After everybody read over the pages, the Director spoke up.

„As you were informed, today morning an unidentified ship entered our Solar System. We have not encountered this race before, but from the knowledge we got from our allies, it seems that they're the sycorax. The Ptelonians gave us information about them, and they said that we should avoid them, they have enslaved other planets. Well, the others did not have our defences. Here is the plan: we try to reach them and get them to co-operate. If they don't, we will force them to share their technology. All the details we know about them are in the folders. Any questions?"

„I've got one," said Ben, „how do we know, that we have better weapons than them? That plan of yours is built on the possibility, that our bombs are stronger, and that they are really the Sycorax. If they aren't, we will have a ship full of angry aliens, who won't hesitate to occupy the planet or to blow it into tiny little pieces. Maybe it would be better, if we waited for them to make the first move; or at least give us time to figure out what is on that ship.?"

„Dr. Harkness, I can assure you, that Torchwood has an arsenal of the galaxy's most lethal weapons, so if we need to fight, we will be able to win," answered Hartman smugly. „As of letting them make the first step, we have to intimidate them, to get them to co-operate. And no, we will not let them get away with all the technology we could use. Any other comments?"

„Yes. You didn't answer the second question. Are we even sure, that they're the Sycorax? As you said, we have never met them," asked Rose. She was sure, that something was wrong with the ship. As she's already known how it's supposed to look like, so she could tell, that the Sycorax ships wasn't made from that material; these ones were too easily picked up by the satellites.

„Yes. What else could they be?" the director was getting annoyed with those three. Harkness was always arguing with her and made snide comments about her plans; Tyler was a know-it-all, and Black, well she was backing them up. But she couldn't fire them, all of them were too valueable with their knowledge.

„Maybe they're trying to get us to underestimate them. They could just want to make us believe, that they're a race we can fight, while they're much more advanced," supported Violet the idea, but Hartmann ignored her, as always.

„We will contact them in three hours, everybody be ready. Now you're dismissed," said the director and left the room.

From the meeting Rose didn't go back to her office to prepare, if they were the sycorax, she knew what to do. Instead she planned to have lunch with Jackie and her little sister, Lily, in the nearby cafeteria. She was afraid of the subjects (boyfriend, dangerous job ..) her Mum might have wanted to talk about, so she dragged Violet and Ben with her.

On the way to the meeting place they talked about the case. She felt she had to share her concerns with them, them being the only ones she could talk about her experiences.

„Look Ben, I'm sure that Violet is right. In my universe the ships were not noticed until they were really close. They wanted to suprise us and pressure the goverments into the deal. They were the ones to make the connection. They were-i don't know- more professionals," argued Rose „these guys are practically broadcasting that they are coming. I think too, that they want us to believe, that we are the stronger ones."

„Hello! You're in a parallell world. Didn't it occure you, that maybe they're not the Sycorax you've met?" argued back Ben; but he just played the devil's advocate. He enjoyed baiting Rose.

„ No, 'cause almost everything is the same here. the only differences beside Pete and myself were some changes in some people's character, but never a whole race, and I'm here for eight years. Anyways what was the last time I was really-really wrong?"

„There was this time with Jack…."

„I'm never going to live that down, right?"

„No. You tried to befriend my homicidal father and his goons, believing, that he is like the Jack you knew. In your world he might have been a simple ex-Time Agent turned a conman, turned a hero; here he stayed an agent, who was constantly meddling with time, who kidnapped you to get information about Torchwood and what not. He and his men are wanted in 23 solar systems. Do you want me to continue?"

„You shouldn't. We are in the middle of the square. I bet the boss would love, that one of her top agent is in fact not from this planet," said Violet, ignoring Ben's 'try two' comment. „Anyways Jackie is here." And with that, she linked arms with both of them and began to drag them in the direction of the tables.

As they made their way over, suddenly white lights engulfed them, and in the next minute in the place where tables were before, now stood dozens of unrecognizable aliens with weapon-looking objects in their hands; all of them pointed at two suprised agents.

„I so hate Mondays," groaned one of them, before one of the aliens pulled the trigger on the weapon, and everything went black.