Chapter 4

Reports

"Rose, are you angry with me?" the Doctor asked as he sat in the extra chair in her office while she wrote up her report. "You haven't said a word to me since we left Bristol."

Rose didn't respond. She kept typing.

"You know, it'd help if you told me why you're cross. I'm not psychic."

She shot a glare at him. "I asked you five times who River Song was, and you never answered me!"

"Is that what this is about? Oh, Rose..." He sighed. "I told you, she's not important."

"Then why can't you just tell me?"

"You want to know who she is?"

"Yes!"

He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the desk. "We met in the library, and she knew me. Well, she knew him. I was a hand in a jar, then, so it wasn't me, but it feels like it was, because I have all his memories, and—"

"I get it! Get to the point."

"Okay, sorry! They met in the library, and she knew him, but he'd never met her before."

"So she's a time traveller?"

"Yes. But she's more than just a time traveller. She knew his name."

Rose froze. "How? How could she know his name?"

The Doctor took a deep breath, like he was about to dive off a cliff. "There's only one reason anyone would know his name. My name. Our name. Only one way he or I could tell it to someone."

"And that would be?"

"A wedding. A true, traditional, Time Lord hand-fasting."

"River Song is his wife?"

"Yeah." He nodded.

"But you're not him."

"No. I'm not him."

Rose let out a breath she'd been holding for a while. "And what about you?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Nobody in this universe knows my name. I'm dead in the other universe, strictly speaking."

"D'you have to follow the same rule?"

"Yes. It's still the name of the last of the Time Lords, and the walls of this universe aren't very good at keeping things in the Void out."

Rose nodded.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I didn't know how you'd react."

She rubbed her temples. "It's hard to wrap my head around this whole thing. Sometimes I just want to pretend it never happened, forget it all and start over."

"That's not true," he said, taking her hand. "You'd have to forget all the things you saw: New Earth, the Sycorax, that planet around the black hole—"

"Stop. Just..." Rose took a deep breath and let it out. "What are we going to do?"

"We?"

"I'm not thick, Doctor, and I'm not going to pretend I could spend the rest of my life with anyone else. But I'm not... I'm not ready for..."

He squeezed her hand and let go. "How about we just start by finishing this case?"

"Right." Rose turned back to the computer. "What did you say the writing said?"

"'Beware the twenty-fifth.'"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"No idea."

Rose shook her head and typed it onto her report. After a few minutes of near silence, the door to Rose's office burst open.

"Rose!" Ivan Daniels, one of the controllers from the Tower, looked like he'd run a record mile. His face was flushed and his shirt wasn't doing well at hiding the sweat.

"Ivan? Is something wrong?"

He spoke rapidly, trying to get the words out between breaths. "I just came from across town. There's a company day care that's got twenty-four kids gone missing in the last month."

"Why didn't anyone report anything?"

"That's just it... nobody remembers the children. Not their parents, not the day care workers, nobody." He leaned against the door frame. "The tipper wouldn't give his name, either. Just said he'd gone in for a business meeting there, saw someone bring her three kids in, and then when he was leaving, she left too, only one kid didn't come along. When he asked about it, she told him he must have miscounted, because she only ever had two kids."

"Is there a pattern?" the Doctor asked.

"Well, all of them have at least one sibling, and none of the twenty-four are related. The selections seem to be random otherwise." He shook his head. "Thing is, nobody knows where they've gone."

"Or where they've been taken," Rose added, standing up and strapping on her stunner. "Come on, Doctor. We've got a job to do." She stopped briefly at the door. "Ivan, get me as much information on those kids and that building as you can. Medical records, floor plans, anything."

"You can't go now!" Ivan called after them. "They're not closed for two hours yet, and the building won't be empty for three at least."

"We're Torchwood!" the Doctor protested.

Rose shook her head. "No, Ivan's right. We're Torchwood, and a lot of companies aren't very fond of Torchwood agents showing up during the day. It'd set their people off, and then nobody'd show up for work. It's happened before. We'll have to wait."

"Rubbish! Haven't you got a change of clothes?"

"Always have."

"Then we'll go as civilians."