"Where there's smoke, there's fire."

Chapter 1: Lighting the Fire

They say a man who's never known strength or power appreciates it all the more in the end, and no one knew the saying to be true like Rose Tyler did. Once, she'd been a common shop girl living in London (a London similar to the one she lived in now, and yet so different). And now-

"Good morning, Agent Tyler. You requested the case file on the Dalek Empire?"

-now Rose Tyler was a top ranked field agent working for a secret government agency dubbed "Torchwood". Oh, how the tables had turned. Although the agent was not infallible (far from it, in fact- just ask anyone about the disastrous incident with the aliens from Galaxy K-6), she was widely recognized as the most experienced and the go-to agent for all the newbies. No one was more stunned by her new respect and authority than Rose Tyler herself.

"Yeah, that would be me," Rose smiled, accepting the file. "Thanks, Brooke."

"No problem, Miss Tyler," the secretary replied, somewhat uncomfortably. A new employee who had yet to lose her formal training and manners, Rose was determined to befriend the young lady and make her come out of her shell. So far, she'd had little luck.

"Ah! Miss Tyler!"

"Sir?" Rose asked, turning to face the newcomer walking quickly down the hallway towards her. A short, stalky man with a bald head and thick, busy eyebrows, it almost looked as if all the hair on his head had migrated down to the space above his eyes.

"Any luck on Artifact 0936?"

"Artifact 0936…" Rose echoed, trying not to look flustered in front of her supervisor. (So maybe the blonde had never quite gotten the hang of the numbering system at Torchwood. Mr. Samuels didn't need to know that.)

Pulling down her shirt sleeve slightly, Rose squinted at the messy pen writing on her wrist- her personal cheat sheet.

0933- Spacecraft from Mars

0934- Scrolls from Galaxy J-12

0935- Slitheen Skin sampling

0936- Responsive Letter Receiver

0937- Rover from Barcelona

Right. So Artifact 0936 was the letter- of course.

"Very little, sir," Rose answered, relieved she'd had the foresight to copy down her assignments.

"Very little, or none at all?"

"Very little," Rose repeated firmly. "I can show you my notes, if you want. Sir." That was yet another thing Rose sometimes struggled with- addressing authority properly. That had never been a strength of hers, to the exasperation of both her parents. If her father hadn't been so- well, wealthy- she was sure she'd have been fired for insubornation her first week at the agency. As it was, she'd since earned her weight in gold at Torchwood... mostly.

Mr. Samuels inclined his head slightly in agreement, and Rose turned on her heels, walking quickly down one of the many hallways to her office. She hoped her boss wouldn't notice the way her sneakers made a dull thud on the shiny wooden floors that contrasted sharply with the click-click of other woman's high heels, or the way her hair was in a messy ponytail and not a tight bun.

At the end of the hallway, a dark wood door held a plaque that read "Agent Rose Tyler" on it. She'd left the lights on- again- and an elongated triangle extending across the floor from the base of the door gave her away. Behind her, Mr. Samuels gave a disapproving grunt, but he didn't say anything.

"Right this way, sir," Rose said, opening her door all the way and ushering her boss inside. She had two chairs seated across her desk for visitors, but to Rose's relief he didn't sit down. He must've not been planning to stay very long.

Walking around to the other side of her desk, Rose dropped the Dalek file on top of all the other messily stacked vanilla folders. Sitting down, she opened one of the drawers in her desk and started rummaging around for Artifact 0936.

"The Dalek Empire, Miss Tyler? Again?"

Sparing a glance at her bald boss, Rose saw he'd picked up the file and was looking at it with a bored, removed sort of distaste.

"I know you think studying them is a waste of time, Mr. Samuels," the agent said tightly, returning to her search. She was tired of this worn and pointless conversation- they'd had it far too many times before, in the Tyler woman's opinion. "But where I come from, they caused a lot of trouble. Trust me when I saw they're worth keeping an eye out for." Almost as an afterthought, she added, "Sir."

"Yes, I know. The destructive Daleks," Mr. Samuels sighed, tossing the file back on the agent's desk. "Seems strange we have yet to see hind or tail of them, yes, Miss Tyler?"

"Yes, sir," Rose retorted tightly. She wouldn't risk her job by arguing with her employer. No matter how much of an irritating a-

"Agent Tyler, are you completely incapable of locating the Artifact?" Her boss prompted in his best 'I'm so not impressed' voice. Opting not to retort verbally, the blonde settled for grabbing the letter and pulling it out smugly.

Artifact 0936 was surprisingly ordinary looking for all the fuss it had kicked up. In appearance, it was nothing more than a blank piece of thick, creamy-colored paper, like the stationary used for fancy letters. It was hard to tell how old it was, or what planet it might have come from, because the paper stubbornly refused to collect dirt, dust, any sort of ink residue, or show any age at all.

That wasn't what had earned the parchment's fame, though. No, the Artifact's true mystery lay in how responsive it was. Write on the paper, and the ink would puddle together and reform into new words. Best as they could figure, it was like IM-ing, or texting. Someone, somewhere, was somehow responding. The real question was who.

It was a question Rose had been assigned to answer.

"Very well, Miss Tyler. What've you learned?" Mr. Samuels prompted, still not sitting down.

Rose swallowed thickly. Many of her "results" were less than honest; the trick would be seeming like she'd done a lot of work without telling him what she'd actually discovered.

"Well, sir, these are my notes-" she broke off to hand him a paper she'd filled up with a mix of half-truths and lies- "I'm thinkin' male, fairly caught up ta our own time period, possibly-"

"Agent Tyler," the short man cut in, banishing the paper like a weapon. "This says 'undetermined' next to Identity. Do you mean to tell me you still don't know?"

"Yes. Sir." The agent was lying through her teeth, and for a moment her boss's eyes narrowed beneath his bushy brows, and Rose was sure she'd been caught. Then the moment passed, and Mr. Samuels handed her back the notes with dissatisfaction.

"I expected more of you, Miss Tyler," He ground out. "You have two more weeks; if you still can't tell me this man's identity by the end of that time, I'm transferring Artifact 0936 to another agent. Is that understood?"

"Yes," Rose all but growled, furious. "Sir."

"Good," the man said with a self-satisfied nod, before turning on his heels and walking out of the room. Just before the door could close behind him, he stuck his head back in the room. "And Miss Tyler? Those sneakers are not protocol uniform for the office. I expect uniform attire tomorrow." Then the door clicked shut and he was gone.

It made Rose all the more pleased in an angry kind of way that she'd lied to him. She didn't need two weeks; the man's Identity was crystal clear. Ever since she'd written him, asking him for an alias, she'd known who he was. How many people would have responded with John Smith? After that, all the pieces just came together- he was single, travelled a lot, talked like he was from the twentieth or twenty-first century, and had met all sort of aliens. He'd been separated from a dear friend and couldn't get back to her- a story that was oh-so-similar to a certain Rose Tyler's.

As of last night, Rose had known she was talking to her Doctor. And she was fairly certain he knew who he was talking to, also. After she'd asked for his alias, he'd asked for hers. She'd responded with Bad Wolf, and hadn't heard from him since. His silence didn't bother her- the paper only worked if both writers were at their papers at the same time, so it was entirely possible he'd gotten distracted by some life-threatening development, knowing the life he led.

Hello? She wrote now, hoping the paper would respond. No luck- the Doctor wasn't at his paper. When he got back, he'd see the message, like a voice mail on a cell phone. Sighing, Rose let the paper fall on top on her messy desk, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes wearily. It had been a long day. Below her desk, she kicked off her sneakers and wiggled her toes gratefully- no point keeping her shoes on, everyone else would be going home soon anyway. She would be staying late to catch up on paperwork. Again.

With her eyes still closed, Rose heard the wooden floor creak outside her door.

Oh no, Rose groaned mentally. It had to be Mr. Samuels, coming back to lecture her on some minor, insignificant detail she'd messed up on. ("Miss Tyler, you didn't put the date on this report!" or maybe, "Agent Tyler, you misspelled Slitheen again!")

"Come on in, Mr. Samuels," the agent called, opening her eyes grudgingly. Outside, the creaks stopped abruptly, and Rose could imagine the fat little man stopping short in surprise. What was he tryin' to do? Sneak up on me an' catch me in the act of being shoeless?

"Mr. Samuels, I know you're out there. Come one in, sir," she tried again, when no one entered her office. She watched as the door handle slowly turned, and it was then that the agent realized something wasn't quite right. Mr. Samuels never entered a room slowly- he always barged in like he owned the place. Reaching under her desk, Rose pulled out her pistol, keeping it hidden behind her desk just in case it really was her annoying boss.

The door opened suddenly, pushed in by a limp form that promptly collapsed to the floor. Jumping up, Rose pushed her chair out of the way and ran around her desk, gun raised and ready. What she saw on the floor made her blood run cold.

It was a man, his body paper white and his blue lips open in a silent scream. His eyes were wide and glassy, staring at nothing- Mr. Samuels, dead. Rose peeled her eyes from the horrible corpse and looked down the hallway- or, she tried to. The passage was dark, even though Rose could've sworn the lights had been on only moments before. Out in the hallway, the floor creaked again as Mr. Samuel's killer moved steadily toward her, the darkness hiding him from view. Trying to school her terror, Rose aimed her gun down the dark hall, her hand steady even as fear pounded inside her like the waves on an ocean shore.

"Show yourself," she ordered, her voice as steady as her hands, betraying nothing of the rolling emotions inside.

Something moved in the corner of her eye, and she saw the Doctor had written back.

We need to talk.

"Little busy right now, Doctor," Rose mumbled through her teeth. In the dark hallway, the thing paused, almost as if it had heard her. Then it rushed toward her office, faster, as if excited. Rose panicked and fired blindly into the darkness; nothing happened. Then she saw it.

It was a man, but his skin was white with purple veins bulging under his skin like a spider's web. His eyes were completely black, like the eyes of an animal, and his mouth was a thin, bloodless line the opened to reveal sharp, shark-like teeth. Where fingers should have been, long claws extended from his white palms. His chest was bare, and long crisscrossing scars stared openly at the terrified agent.

"Who are you?" Rose demanded, still pointing the gun at the creature.

"My name is Mortici." The figure's mouth never moved, but his hissing voice echoed around Rose's office as clear as day. Then his thin, bloodless mouth curved upward in an eerie smile. "I've searched long and far for you, Bad Wolf. Thank you for making my search so easy."

"My name is Rose Tyler, not Bad Wolf," Rose lied, struggling now to hid her terror. "Listen, Mortici, I don't want to fight you. Do you need help? If you're relocating to a new planet, I know h-"

She trailed off as Mortici broke into a uncontrolled, barking laugh that reminded Rose of a rabid animal.

"They were right about you," the figure hissed, his dark eyes narrowing in a sudden mood shift. "The Valiant Child, isn't that right? Naïve even in the face of your capture. Such plans I have for you- such plans."

"Capture? You can try," Rose snarled, firing her gun. She didn't know how he knew about her Valiant Child title, but she had a sinking suspicion she knew how he found out she was the Bad Wolf. He was right; she might as well have told him. She'd written it on that stupid letter- that was all he'd needed. How he'd seen her, it didn't matter. He was here now.

The bullet zipped through the air, dead on target, but Mortici simply slunk around it with a superhuman speed and grace. He was like a shadow, sliding toward her quickly, claws flashing, with deadly precision. Backing up quickly, something hard rammed into the back of the agent's legs. Her desk. Cursing under her breath, Rose fired again, adrenaline made her mind go blank. Once again, the bullet was dodged.

Behind her, something crinkled.

The paper. No… maybe?

Before her, Mortici slunk closer still, his feet making a soft scratching sound on the wooden floor. In desperation, Rose fired again- nothing. She was out of bullets. In a last ditch attempt, Rose hurtled the weapon at him and spun around, grabbing the paper and pen.

HELP ATTACK MOR-

That was all she got out before a cold clawed hand closed in around her neck and her world went dark.

A/N: Okay, this is quite a bit darker than what I usually write, but I don't think it needs an "M" rating… right? Is "T" strong enough? This isn't any scarier than, like, the Silence or anything, so I don't think it's too out there. I don't think it'll get any darker than this, but if it does the rating will go up. I don't think that'll be necessary, but you never know.

Anywho, here's Chapter 1 :) Review, tell me what you think, please! Love ya'll- until next time!

-Qwerty