Rose and the doctor met each other again,
We know how things turned out in the parallel world,
Rose and the doctor are back together…
So all we need now is some action.
Not much of that just yet, but it will build up in the following chapters.
"Okay, so repeat this to me." Rose said while scribbling a few words on a piece of paper against Mickey who was driving the car. "We need to files that are loaded on your G-files. They will contain everything that has happened the past month. Like changes in temperature, computers that started to act weird… You just save them on a diskette and you take them with you." Rose wrote a few more things down and turned around to face the doctor.
"What was it that you saw, exactly? That made you investigate this stuff."
"Well it was more or less accidentally, I was sitting in the Tardis going through some stuff when I saw a huge increase of void-stuff at that spot. So I called Martha and Donna in and we went there."
Rose looked back forward and started to think again.
"But that means that somebody else is trying to get into this world as well. Why exactly on that spot?"
"I don't know, maybe the walls were thinner on that place."
Mickey frowned. "Well than it's obviously someone who doesn't know a lot about it because otherwise he would've gone for that beach in Norway wouldn't he?"
"Not necessarily." The doctor said, he leaned backwards again and smiled.
"When the void closed you can compare it to this paste that slowly covers a glass convex. That place in Norway was the last place that didn't have that paste but that doesn't mean that it is the place with the least paste on it."
Martha looked up. "But who would want to do that? I mean by what you've been telling it seems extremely difficult. Who would go through this kind of trouble?"
"You'd be surprised. The Daleks and the Cybermen were only a small example. When the void was still open there were lots of races who tried to go to other worlds in order to test new technology. If it went wrong than at least their world wasn't damaged. Others would go through it to find more resources. Start new colonies without having to worry that they would be prosecuted for not following the shadow proclamation. Slaves were a good reason as well in the past. They would kidnap living beings from one world and take them to the other. Imagine having to try and find them back than."
"So lots of reasons than." Donna concluded the doctor's speech before it would go on for an eternity.
"Yeah, that's the main idea."
At that moment Mickey drove up at the Torchwood base and Rose took her jacket.
"Show-time!" She said smiling.
"Aren't people going to think it's weird that you come to work first day of your vacation?"
"Not at all," Mickey said while shaking his head. "Rose here puts the 'W' in workaholic. Last year she was late at her mother's Christmas dinner because she had lost track of time at her work here."
Rose stuck out her tongue and got out of the car.
"Is your cell phone on?" The doctor asked her before she closed the door. Rose nodded and walked towards the door, opened it and got inside.
"Rose Tyler! You have vacation!"
She turned around and smiled. "Yeah I know Alice. Just need to pick up some files. That's all."
She tried to continue her walk but Alice grabbed her arm. "You need to learn how to relax you know that. Go out, find yourself a guy. Talking about that, there's an interesting rumour going around here."
Rose pulled her hair behind her ear and looked up at Alice.
"Really? What would that one be?"
"You know that picture of you and that man on your desk? Some of the guards say that that same man was here last night. With two women."
"Yeah, he's just an old friend who had been travelling for a while. He's back in the country and he stopped by to say hi."
"With two women by his side?"
"They were euhm… his sisters. He had been travelling with his sisters."
"One of them was black according to Richard."
"Ow she's euhm… adopted. Long story."
Rose cursed herself for forgetting the fact that Alice worked here today, she was sure she would be stuck to her for an eternity because she wouldn't rest until she got the whole story or at least a version of it to gossip about.
"Look there's no big deal about it. I've known him for a very long time and he just came here to surprise me. Really no big drama involved or juicy gossip or dark secrets. He's waiting for me right now and I promised him that it wouldn't take long so…"
Alice couldn't hide the disappointment for such a simple story. There just had to be something about that Rose Tyler. Two months ago she suddenly recognized an apparently worthless piece of tool as a music instrument you could play on with your fingers. Nobody learned something like that in training and unless she actually knew aliens which was impossible because every citizen of planet earth was getting checked she wouldn't have known that kind of information.
Rose kept walking through the hallway and entered her office closing the door behind her. She immediately took the piece of paper out of her pocket and looked for the files. After a while she managed to find them and saved all of them, taking some files so Alice wouldn't get suspicious and left her office again.
Suddenly she stumbled upon two men in the hallway, she had never seen their faces and as head of this department she was bound to know them.
The two men walked into another office and Rose slowly followed them, listening to their conversation at the door.
"I still don't think this is such a good idea." One of the men spoke.
"That girl that's in charge here, is out isn't she?" The other one spoke, he had a deep voice that made Rose shiver.
"Yeah, she's having two weeks of vacation but Rose Tyler wouldn't be Rose Tyler if she would show up during her vacation to work a bit more."
"Look all I need is the red file. Do you have it?"
"It's in room 32. We can get it later. What are you doing?"
Rose heard a strange noise coming out of the room and looked inside. She was too shocked to move at first but finally she grabbed out her cell phone and took a picture of the creature that was eating the man.
As soon as she did that she ran towards room 32. She knew that it wasn't the safest option and that the creature would probably go to this place next but she had to find out what was inside of it. It had probably everything to do with the hole in the void.
The red file was lying on the desk and Rose took it, looking inside of it. It was filled with calculations and some text in a language she couldn't speak. After two years of not travelling with the doctor the effect the Tardis had on her, had worn of.
She took the file and ran towards the closest copy machine. "Come on, come on!"
Her heart was running extra laps in her chest as she tried to watch the copy machine and to keep her guard up for the creature.
Finally she had made all the copies and ran back towards the office but just as she was about to go to the door she saw the same man that had turned into the creature walk into the hallway, towards the room.
She duck behind the desk and held her breath trying not to move so she wouldn't betray herself.
The man entered the office and looked around when suddenly his eye fell on the red file. He walked slowly towards it and for as long as Rose cared it could've been an eternity.
Finally he took it and placed it behind his jacket.
A smell that reminded Rose of rotten fish spread across the room and she knew she was about to throw up if he didn't leave immediately.
He stood there for another minute, looking around for God knew what before he left again.
Rose was sure that when he did so she could hear the sound of feet stepping in water.
She sat behind the desk for a couple of minutes making sure the coast was clear. Finally she got up and ran outside the room, through the hallway for as fast as she could.
When she passed Alice she tried to keep up a regular, relaxed I-did-not-just-see-a-man-get-eaten-by-fish-man-mood and smiled at her as she past her. Alice looked up strangely and Rose realised too late that she never smiled at Alice. She hated her.
Once she was out of the building she ran towards the car and got in. "What has taken you so long? And what's that smell?"
"Just drive! I'll explain on the way!"
Mickey took of and Rose started to explain what she had seen and heard and handed the doctor the files she had found plus her cell phone with the picture she had taken.
"Well that pretty much solves the case for us doesn't? I don't even think we're going to need those files Rose had to search for on her computer. Did he touch you?"
"No, he didn't even know I was there."
The doctor passed the cell phone on to Donna and Martha and than back to Rose who showed the picture to Mickey.
"You're looking at a member of the Shivereen-clan. Probably one of this world because in the other world his species is completely instinct. They live on Weblatorius, a planet existing for 95 out of water and these calculations are in order to open the void and the writing are instructions to test one of their biological weapons on the other world. Guess I was right than."
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