Chapter Two
Peter Alan Tyler did not look happy. He watched Rose and the Doctor with more than a hint of disapproval as they strode into his office. They were holding hands, of course. Trying to get the two of them apart for any length of time was almost impossible, and when they were in the same room they were always touching. It wasn't fawning or excessive displays of public affection; instead it seemed to be a kind of magnetism that drew them together unconsciously and inevitably. Rose giggled. He was unfamiliar with the sound. In the six years—six, not the three that she told Jackie and the rest of the world—he had seen her smile on a handful of occasions and laugh less. She seemed happy, now that her Doctor was with them. The circumstances of his arrival were problematic and very confusing, but nothing about that man was ever simple or easy. Even after Lumic, when he had first met his parallel daughter and the alien she traveled with, he hadn't believed what Mickey told him. Traveling in time and space, entire galaxies as of yet undiscovered by humans. He began to believe when Rose arrived, when the Doctor sent her away and she refused to remain. Drawing her out of her shell had been difficult, but she spoke to him about the Doctor far more than to Jackie. He could empathize with her. Although he and his original wife hadn't been happy at the end, he had loved her. Getting over her loss was torturous. Finding a different version of her was something he had never hoped to dream about, and this Jackie was different. She was a fighter. She didn't care about appearances or manipulations. She loved her daughter, she missed her husband. And he could give her the life that the other him could only have dreamt of. Second chances of that magnitude were few and far between, if they ever came at all.
His expression softened as his thoughts turned to his wife and Tony. He thought of Rose as his daughter, but she had been in her original universe growing up. His son was something else. His whole family, he realized, was a miracle. He could feel Rose, the Doctor, and Toshiko looking at him and he schooled his expression into one of wary acceptance.
"You're sure, then," he asked them. "There's nothing I can say to make you reconsider?"
Rose made a face. "I've been in far more dangerous places than this," she pointed out.
He sighed. "I know, but try telling your mother that."
"I'll leave that to you. She won't listen to me."
The Doctor held up his hands. "Not me, Pete. I'm not looking for another slap."
Toshiko held out two devices that looked like flip-phones. "These will track the energy signatures, and these," she handed Rose a barrette with a flower on the end, and the Doctor a tie clip, "will pick up life signs, video, and audio. Wear them as much as you can. We'll be monitoring from here." She smiled shyly at the two of them. "Good luck."
Rose gave her a quick hug. "Thanks Tosh. We'll be back in a jiffy!" Rose hugged Pete and the Doctor shook hands with Pete and Toshiko before they headed out to the waiting car.
The car wasn't a limousine, but it was distinctly on the posh side, the Doctor decided as they rode to the spa. "What's it called again?" he asked Rose, who was staring out the window.
"What? Oh." Her eyes flickered down to the flyer on her lap. "Serenity."
He frowned and squeezed her hand. It lay loosely on his, their fingers threaded together. "What's wrong?"
She smiled and shook her head slightly. "S nothing. Just thinking."
"You shouldn't do that," he replied seriously.
"Oh really?" She smiled again, a real smile this time.
"Yes," he said as he leaned closer. "It stops all sorts of interesting things from happening."
Her eyes moved from his to his lips and back again. "Is that why you babble so much?"
"Oi!" he responded with indignation. "I do not babble. I'm a wellspring of knowledge, me. There's a difference."
"Mmm," she replied, and kissed him. As methods of getting him to shut up went, it was extremely effective, and rather enjoyable.
The Doctor ran a hand through is hair, trying to matt the unruly strands into a semblance of order. He was moderately successful. Next to him, Rose checked her own hair and makeup.
"Look at what you did," he accused.
She raised an eyebrow. "You weren't complaining earlier."
He grinned. "Of course not! I didn't have enough time. No respiratory bypass." He made a face. "It's hard enough kissing and breathing, now you want to add talking to the mix?"
She giggled, and then her eyes widened as she caught site of their destination through the car window. The driver paused at the gate and spoke into the security speaker. The gates opened. Serenity was a huge stone house, probably originally a manor house for some wealthy Lord. It sat atop a hill and was surrounded by gardens. The driveway leading up to the building wound up the hill, giving clients a view of the grounds. They were well-kept and tidy, not quiet formal, but clearly designed and maintained with care. The building itself had three wings and with another fence as one side formed a box surrounding a cobblestone courtyard. White and pink roses threaded through the fence and scaled one of the corresponding wings.
This was why he traveled with them—people, that is. She was different: all grown-up and a little world-weary but he could still see a bit of who she used to be—Rose Tyler who grew up on the Powell Estate peeking out from behind Rose Tyler the temporal and galactic traveler and Commander Tyler of the Torchwood Institute. It was beautiful and amazing and fantastic to see the world reflected through her eyes.
The building wasn't terribly impressive, not to him anyway. He'd seen dozens like it, maybe hundreds, and that was on Earth alone. He said as much when they reached their room—suite, he amended.
"There was this planet I went to with Donna, called Midnight," he remarked after the footman set their bags in the bedroom and left with a tip. "Whole planet made of diamond, and she wanted to stay at the hotel. Needed time to relax, she said." He rolled his eyes to cover the flash of guilt. It was sudden and sharp and he should have expected it.
Rose was busy studying their rooms. They were on the second floor, from the looks of the hallways and the brief map enclosed in the brochure most of the guests were housed in the top two floors with the first reserved for treatments and restaurants. The bedroom was much larger than their room at Pete and Jackie's. A four-poster bed sat solidly in the middle of the wall opposite a pair of French doors that appeared to open onto a balcony. The dark wood of the bedframe stood out against the pale gray of the walls and the gauzy white curtains that hung from the posts. Water trickled down one plastic-covered wall and spilled into a pool that stretched almost from wall-to-wall across the room. The sitting room was smaller, and still in the theme of gray and blue and white: gray walls and blue accents and white couches and a dark wood table. They had their own bathroom, which was nice, but he expected no less from a place that gave its guests their own pool.
He pulled his mind away from cataloging its surroundings and realized that Rose was no longer in the room. The French doors, he realized, did in fact open onto a balcony. It was stone, the same stone as the building, and Rose stood looking out over the grounds underneath a canopy of the flowers that shared her name. They climbed up a trellis and formed a leafy ceiling.
"It's beautiful," she said as he stepped out onto the balcony and closed the glass door.
"Middling," he replied. "Bet you've been to loads of places like this since you got here."
She shook her head. "Never time." She paused. "Never wanted to," she continued, her voice softer.
"Too busy saving the world?" He kept his tone light even as his eyes searched her, noting the hit of tension in her shoulders, in the way she kept herself from leaning against the stone wall.
"Yeah." Too busy trying to get back. She didn't say it, but she didn't need to.
"Well then!" He grabbed her hand and she looked at him over her shoulder. "We'd best enjoy the time we have."
"I thought we were here on business," she pointed out, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips.
"And a very good friend told me on several occasions that mixing business with pleasure is not only advisable, but mandatory." There were other things that Jack said, but this was the right one. He knew when she grinned at him, when her shoulders relaxed and she looked like she could breathe again.
They decided to forgo the restaurant below and ordered room service. Tomorrow they would scour the place, discreetly, of course, under the guise of guests. Tonight was theirs. The Doctor searched their rooms with the device Tosh gave them while Rose finished eating. It was some sort of pasta dish. The name was Italian, according to the Doctor, who apparently had mastered a great many languages without the help of the TARDIS. She had no such luck, but she had six years to get used to not understanding people.
Whatever the pasta dish was called, she decided, it was delicious. She watched him as he returned. "Any luck?"
He shook his head. "I'm getting background signatures, but nothing strong enough to indicate that the energy source is on this floor."
"If they're using it as a treatment it would be on the first floor," she pointed out.
He sprawled on the floor next to her. "No way around it, then." He made a face.
She giggled. "What, afraid of losing your man card?"
He looked confused. "What's a man card?"
"It's—" she began, and then stopped. "It's hard to explain. I guess it means you're afraid of blokes seeing you at a spa."
He snorted. "I am not."
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah," she said and it was clear she didn't believe him at all.
"Where are you off to?" he asked as she threw out the takeaway container and moved to their bags.
"Fancy a swim?"
As tempting as testing out the pool with Rose was, he decided against it. Swimming meant swimsuits meant very little clothing at all, and he wasn't sure if the strength of his reaction to her came from the human parts of his new body or if it had been there all along. He wasn't sure if he was quite ready for the next step, and he knew that she wasn't. Physical intimacy before being intimate with each other was unwise, but he wanted it. He'd been holding back for years, what was another few months? It was torture, that's what. But he'd endured worse and he wasn't about to ruin his chance with her for the sake of a shag.
She was beautiful, but he'd known that for a long time, ever since Cardiff in 1869. Still, the sight of her in a bikini did things to him that almost frightened him in their intensity. So much of him was wrapped up in this girl. He stood by the edge of the pool and watched as she sat down on the rim and slid herself into the water. She moved with a grace with which he was becoming familiar, a grace she hadn't quite possessed before. She hummed with pleasure and he crouched by the water. She was swimming on her back; her hair spread out behind her like a wave of gold. Her face relaxed into a smile and he found himself mirroring her expression. She opened her eyes as if she could feel his gaze on her and cocked her head to the side. He waved for her to continue. She moved over to the edge, no longer on her back, reached up to cradle his face in her wet hands, and kissed him. Then she grabbed his suit jacket lapels and pulled.
The water was warm and the chlorine burned his nose and his throat and his suit was sodden and restricting and they were a jumble of flailing limbs churning the water. He broke the surface with a gasp. She was already out of his reach, skirting the opposite edge of the pool. He blinked, clearing the chemical-laden water from his eyes.
"You. Cheeky. Monkey." He sputtered.
She grinned. "Whatcha gonna do about it?" The challenge was explicit. He took it.
The pool was small and he was an excellent swimmer. He caught her, cornered her against the edge. Her expression shifted. Her smile deepened, her eyes closed. He threaded his wet hands through her wet hair and kissed her for all he was worth. His suit jacket was gone, thrown up on the cool ceramic tiles surrounding the pool. His shirt was damp and uncomfortable and his pants were probably ruined but he didn't care. Clothes were replaceable, this moment was not. Her arms were around his neck, clinging for dear life. The warm water held them. He could taste the chlorine on her lips and he could feel her heartbeat and this is what his people sacrificed.
They were fools. The thought was sharp and sudden and familiar. It had come to him many times before and after…well. They stripped away emotions and kept themselves separate, so afraid of contamination. If they could see him now they'd exile him for sure, if they didn't determine him to be an abomination and destroy him themselves. He didn't care. Knowledge without compassion was not wisdom. Justice without mercy was oppression. A life without love was not living. There was darkness in humanity, he knew. He had seen it thousands of times, maybe millions, but there was so much more light.
She pulled away first. Her eyes flickered from his own to his lips and back and she took a deep breath as she continued to hold him, but more loosely than before. "Tell me about Martha," she said suddenly.
He blinked. "What?"
"Tell me about Martha," she repeated.
He was still confused. "What do you want to know?"
She considered, her eyes fixed on the glass doors and the balcony beyond. "How did you meet?"
"At a hospital." She looked at him. "It was transplanted on the moon," he clarified.
They were silent for a while, his words and her thoughts hung between them. He reached a hand behind his head and scratched his ear. "I don't really know what you're looking for," he said finally. "I don't usually talk about my companions."
"She knew who I was," Rose pointed out quickly. "You talked about me."
"You're different," he replied.
"But not different enough to matter," she snapped back.
"Rose," he started, but she cut him off.
"I can't do this, Doctor. I can't go back to not asking." She pulled away from him, seeming to fall into herself. "On the beach—you said those words. And you can't go back from that. We can't go back. And I don't want to."
"You haven't been exactly forthcoming yourself," he pointed out, his irritation getting the better of him. Arguing about his companions was not how he envisioned spending their time together. She bit her lip and refused to look at him. "Six years, Rose. You've been gone for six years and I don't know anything about what happened during that time because you won't tell me. Any time I get close to asking you change the subject or you close off."
"It's not important. Forget I said anything." She moved to leave the pool but he reached out a hand and touched her shoulder.
The world was smoke and a noise like thunder but not. Screams and gasps and gurgled last breaths hung all around him and he was her and she had something cool and metallic and heavy in her hand. She raised her arm, one hand around the gun's handle and one finger on the trigger and her other arm bracing. She aimed at the boy in front of her—sixteen or seventeen he/she guessed and the world slowed as she pulled the trigger.
The weight of the weapon was comforting and familiar and it was warm now, warm from body heat. It dug into his/her back when he/she replaced it in the rigged holster but he/she let it. It reminded him/her he/she was alive, that this was real. It felt real but he/she couldn't be sure because real life felt like a dream. Blood flecked his/her clothing and his/her face and he/she could feel it dripping—arterial spray. Warm like his/her gun from the heat of a body, a body that was no longer a person.
The door swung both ways.
She was smart and brave and a little slow on the uptake but he/she could deal with that. They were coming and he/she needed time and warm lips met warm lips and tongue met tongue and she wasn't half bad at kissing.
"I love him to bits," Martha said and he knew it was Martha even though he/she wasn't him/herself and he/she'd tell the girl he/she didn't remember but it was a lie, a pretty little lie to make Martha forget and keep her away.
Rose gasped and the Doctor paled and they looked at each other.
"I'm sorry," he said finally.
"You were in my head." Her voice was quiet but with an edge of anger. "You were in my head and you didn't even ask."
"I didn't try to do that!" he protested. "And you were in my head!"
She glared at him, properly angry now. "And I saw you kiss her," she snapped back.
"That wasn't a kiss." He was angry as well. "That was a genetic transfer to save the lives of thousands of people!"
"So why'd you enjoy it so much?" She sounded like her mother when she was angry.
"Why'd you shoot that kid?" Bitterness colored his voice far more than he wanted.
She looked like he had just punched her in the stomach. She struggled to keep her breathing steady. He thought for a moment that she was going to slap him. "Not everyone can be you, Doctor." When she spoke her voice was calm and controlled and very quiet. "Not everyone can save the world with a screwdriver. Some of us have to make do with what we have available. I can count on two hands the number of times I have fired that gun at a person in the last six years. I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to kill someone and have fingers to spare." She stood close to him now, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Did you see how I was sick afterwards? Did you see the nightmares I have? I remember every single time, Doctor. Every. Single. Time."
They were silent.
"I'm going to sleep," she said finally.
He nodded and watched her climb out of the pool. She did not look back. He stood in the water. His shirt was soaked and his pants were uncomfortable, but the sensation was far away. He thought about joining her, about showering and drying off and apologizing, but he decided against it. The image of the gun, of the blood and the boy lying at her feet refused to leave his head. He climbed out of the pool and went to the sitting room. The couch would be uncomfortable, but he'd had worse.
