Chapter 9

They sat there like that, on a rock next to a pond near the Tyler mansion, Rose in his arms, for minutes that he wished could stretch to eternity. He was only sorry that the reason that he was holding her like this was because she was crying over his other self, the full Time Lord Doctor in the other universe.

He longed to hold her tightly, to bury his face in her hair, to kiss her as she had kissed him on the beach, but he held himself back. She needed a comforting friend, a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on. So he held her gently, carefully, as if she were a precious work of art, a fragile flower. Which she was. His beautiful, fragile, precious Rose.

But not his, he reminded himself.

Eventually, as she began to pull away from him, he reluctantly released her. She wiped her face with her hands, and he reached into his pocket, pulling out a handkerchief and handing it to her. She took it gratefully.

"Sorry 'bout that," she said, sniffing and wiping her eyes. She didn't look at him. "Really thought I was done with cryin'."

"You don't have to be sorry, Rose," he said quietly. "I know how much he hurt you."

Rose really didn't want to discuss the other Doctor with him. Not only was it obviously still too painful, but it wasn't fair to him. Not after everything he had said to her on the beach.

No, she was not thinking about the beach. Not yet, at any rate.

She turned to look at him and noticed a large, damp spot on his shoulder. Slightly embarrassed, she took the handkerchief and dabbed at it, trying to dry it.

"Sorry 'bout this, too," she said. "I got you all wet."

" 'S okay," he said. He tried to keep his tone light. "I'm fairly waterproof. If the worst thing that happens to me today is that Rose Tyler uses me as a giant hanky, I think I'm doing well."

She laughed a little, but avoided looking at his face, still dabbing at the damp spot on his shoulder. He grabbed her hand, preventing her from continuing. With his other hand he tilted up her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"Rose, I want you to know something," he said softly. "I'm always here for you, whatever you need. Even if it's just a shoulder to cry on. Understand?"

She stared at him, at the handsome features she knew so well that also belonged to someone else. They were so alike. But they were so very different, too. Her Doctor had never been this open with her, had never really shared any of his past with her. And he had always scrupulously avoided any type of emotional scenes, preferring to distract her with a new destination in the TARDIS or a trip to her mother's when things got too intense between them.

And she realized she found this Doctor's openness very appealing.

Not ready to deal with the implications of that, she stood and smiled, stretching out her hand to him.

"Ready to go back?" she asked, and took his hand as he stood.

And on the walk back to the house, the Doctor was struck with the thought that despite their problems, if she was still willing to let him hold her, still willing to hold his hand, perhaps there was hope they could work things out.

When the Doctor and Rose returned to the mansion, Jackie informed them that Pete had been looking for them. They found him in his study.

"Thank goodness you two are back." Pete stood up as they entered the room. "I could really use your help. Doctor, you may remember I told you about one of our scientists going missing? "

"What? Who?" asked Rose, as the Doctor nodded.

"Richard Bradford," Pete answered her, holding up one hand to silence her. He turned back to the Doctor. "He's the head of our alternative energies program. He disappeared from his lab at Torchwood late Wednesday night. Since then, there have been a rash of disappearances all over the area. The most notable is of a young woman who disappeared from an electrical distribution substation on Griffith Street last night under very suspicious circumstances."

"When you say suspicious, what do you mean?" the Doctor asked.

"She disappeared at approximately the same time as a power outage occurred in the facility." Pete said. "There have been more than a half dozen disappearances from the area within the last forty eight hours. Torchwood has been called in to investigate the disappearances, and I'd really like the two of you to investigate the substation. We suspect there's a link between the power outages and the disappearances and I'm concerned someone may have used Bradford's research to build a weapon. Now I know I told you, Doctor, that I'd talk to Rose about you joining Torchwood…"

Rose looked sharply at the Doctor at this.

"But we really could use you right away on this. Would you consider taking the job on a temporary basis?"

The Doctor looked at Pete. Whatever was going on, whatever was causing these disappearances, had Torchwood's Director worried. And Pete Tyler was not the type of person to worry unnecessarily.

"Of course, Pete," he answered. "I'll do whatever I can."

"Terrific!" Pete Tyler looked relieved.

"What was Bradford working on? Weaponry?'' the Doctor asked.

"No, and that's the part of this that doesn't make any sense," Pete answered. "He was working on developing alternate energy sources, green technologies, that sort of thing. His disappearance could be a coincidence…"

"I'm not much of a believer in coincidence," said the Doctor.

"Me neither. At least not where this is concerned," Pete responded. "Now I have some things for you. Rose, I sent you a copy of all the intel we have on Kate Lee, the technician who went missing at the substation, as well as the times and locations of all the power outages in the area correlated to the other disappearances. You should be able to access them through your EPad. And I'll try and pull together everything I can find on Dr. Bradford's research and send that to you as well."

"Okay," Rose nodded.

"And Doctor, this is for you." Pete handed the Doctor a large padded envelope. "Inside you'll find your new ID as well as a bunch of other credentials I had our staff put together. It arrived about an hour ago."

"That was fast." The Doctor was impressed.

"No point in having a night crew if you don't use them. Rose, why don't you and the Doctor look over the information on your EPad and then head over to the substation. I've already told them to expect you both in an hour."

The Doctor scowled at Pete. "You already told them? What if I had said no?"

"Well then I would have sent my employee Rose Tyler over to investigate by herself," said Pete shrewdly. "For some reason I get the impression she'd have had your company either way."

The Doctor sighed heavily as he realized he had been out maneuvered by a master.

Rose giggled.

After quickly changing into work clothes and retrieving her EPad from her room, Rose and the Doctor climbed into her tiny car and headed to the electrical substation. The Doctor had the envelope Pete gave him in his lap. As Rose drove, he held Rose's tablet computer in one hand while he accessed the Torchwood files with the other. She asked him if he needed her password to log on, and he shot her a very familiar look, one that always made her feel like she had dribbled on herself.

Being Sunday, the traffic was much lighter than it had been the previous day, but it still took some time to get to Griffith Street. As they drove, the Doctor quickly scanned the files, unconsciously pulling on the collar of his t-shirt. As soon as he realized he was doing it, he forced himself to stop. Pete's London really was bloody hot. Or maybe it was just him, he thought in frustration. No one else seemed bothered by the heat, and he seemed to feel hot all the time.

He returned to the files, reading the most pertinent parts aloud to Rose as she drove. After they both felt they were as well briefed as they could be, the Doctor opened Pete's envelope. In it he found a passport, a birth certificate, and a wallet containing a variety of IDs in his new name, all emblazoned with his picture. He wondered how Pete had managed that since he certainly hadn't posed for an ID photo. As he looked through the wallet, he also saw one listing him as a Torchwood employee. He raised one eyebrow at that. Obviously Pete Tyler had assumed he'd accept the job. Then his eyes widened as he realized the wallet also contained a credit card and several thousand pounds in cash. At the bottom of the envelope were a glasses case and an ID on a cord similar to the one he had seen Pete wear the previous night. After a brief glance at everything, he shoved it all in various pockets.

"Doctor?" Rose said to him as he finished putting everything away. "What did my dad mean when he said he was going to talk to me about you joining Torchwood? Why would he talk to me?"

When she didn't get an immediate response, she glanced over at him. He evidently found the London streets fascinating because he wouldn't turn and look at her. He was also pulling on his ear. So whatever the reason was, she guessed he didn't want to admit it.

Honestly, with all his tics and mannerisms, there ought to be a code book.

Finally he said, a bit grudgingly, "Well, I asked him to."

"Why on earth would you do that?"

"Well, you know me and you know this world's Torchwood," he replied. "You better than anyone would know if my working there would be a good fit."

"You could have asked me that yourself. What's the real reason?"

He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. "Rose, I know that this situation has been forced on you. I didn't want to put you in a position of having to spend more time with me if you didn't want to, and if you didn't want to, I didn't want you to have to tell me to my face." And if you didn't, I'd rather hear it from Pete than you, he thought.

"Oh, don't be thick," she laughed as she turned onto the motorway. He turned to her in surprise. "Why wouldn't I want to spend time with you? You and I are friends. The other Doctor and I were always friends, and so are we."

Although he was hurt as always by Rose's subtle implication that he wasn't the Doctor, they really, really needed to discuss that, that was more than outweighed by the fact that she referred to him as a friend. Friends with Rose Tyler. He could live with that. It wasn't as if he had ever truly expected more. Wanted, yes. Hoped for, oh yes. Expected? No.

"Rose," he said, "you do know that I am the..."

"But as far as the other bit," she interrupted him, as if she hadn't heard him. "I dunno. You, working for Torchwood? I mean, they'd be lucky to have you. There isn't anyone better in this universe for dealing with aliens."

"I am brilliant, aren't I?" he said cheekily.

She ignored this and continued her own train of thought. "But what would you actually do there? It's not as if there is a full scale alien invasion on this Earth every day. You could clear up our years of backlog of identifying alien artifacts, but that would probably only take you a week, if that. And I really don't see you cooperating on reverse engineering alien tech once it is identified. You wouldn't really need to, anyway, would you? You'd already know how it works. And I really don't see you being happy chasing weevils in Cardiff." Weevils were a dangerous, roughly humanoid, alien species that had somehow managed to be transported through the rift and were living, among other places, in the sewers in Cardiff. One of the duties of the Cardiff branch of Torchwood was to round them up when they started causing trouble for the human inhabitants.

"Well, I don't really need to get a job…" he began to say.

"Oh yes you do," she disagreed. "Not only do you need money, which you've probably forgotten, but you definitely need something to do. I wouldn't want to inflict a bored Doctor on this or any other world."

He snorted at that image. It would scare even him. Luckily, or intentionally, his other self had provided for that. "Believe me, I have plenty to do. That piece of TARDIS coral won't just grow by itself. Well, it will, but it wouldn't do us any good. On its own it could take thousands of years, depending on the temperature, humidity level, composition of the atmosphere and growing matrix, gravity and rotation of the planet involved, and that's just for starters. And if we want this piece to grow faster…"

"Donna said you could increase the speed." She took the exit to Griffith Street.

"Yes I can. Maybe. If she's right about shatterfrying the plasma shell. But if I'm going to do this I'm going to have to synthesize the chemicals to provide the optimum growing matrix, as well as build the some of the equipment involved. They certainly aren't available on a 21st century Earth in either universe. Plus I'll need to find a location for it to grow that provides the optimal energy requirements. And is big enough for a growing TARDIS. And that's assuming our little piece of coral can actually make the transition to the energies of this Universe. That's not necessarily a sure thing."

"Our?" Rose asked, turning into the car park. She found a spot to park near the entrance to the building.

"What?" the Doctor asked her, puzzled by the question.

After she parked she turned to face him. "You said our. Our piece of coral."

"Of course." At the look of surprise on her face he smiled. "Of course it is ours. The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS. As it should be. I wouldn't want it without you."

Rose wondered if she should feel guilty at how absurdly pleased his response made her feel.