Rose jumped when her phone rang just as she was about to set off to the nursery. There was Owen's name on the screen and her heart leapt.
"Director," Rose addressed him when he had said hello.
"I've made my decision," Owen told her.
"I'm just going to the nursery so can we please get this over with or you'll have to call Alec," Rose replied, picking up the car keys.
"Well if you don't want to hear what I have to say?" Owen asked her.
"Yeah, I do but I have to go pick up Maisie, if it's gonna take a while, call Alec."
"Then I'll get to the point. You, Rose Hardy are off the hook, for now."
Rose breathed a sigh of relief. "What do ya mean for now?" she asked as she realised what he'd just said.
"For further investigation on the device and what happened to you. I trust I can count on your cooperation?" Owen continued.
"With what?" Rose asked, unlocking her car door.
"Well not with the device itself, with what happened to you."
"I'll have to talk to Alec," Rose told him, fastening her seatbelt. "I'll get him to call you, I'll be meeting him soon."
"Very well but don't get used to keeping me waiting Rose, I'm not your father."
Rose wanted to say that was for certain and she couldn't get used to the fact this Pete was her real one but ended the call and reversing in the large gravel driveway, set off to the nursery but noticing Mark Latimer's blue van parked across the street and he was sitting in it. She hoped he wouldn't follow her and she'd have to call Alec about it or tell him when she met him, along with what Owen had just told her.
What did he mean by further investigation though? It had better not mean a brain scan or Alec would go crazy. Seeing Mark wasn't actually following her, though she was trained to know when someone was, she arrived at the nursery without incident just in time as the nursery assistant was letting out those who only went in the morning. Rose was regretting Alec insisting Maisie went every morning from next week and wished they'd opted for three full days instead. Maybe there was still time to change?
Alec was clock-watching, counting how many minutes until he met Rose and Maisie for lunch and there were too many. Ellie had smiled to herself as she'd sat back at her desk, she knew the signs he was anxious to leave for his lunch break.
Fifteen minutes to go, his personal mobile rang – seeing it was Owen Harper.
"You have some news?" Alec asked, not even asking anything else.
"Hello to you too, Detective Inspector Hardy. I take it I'm not disturbing you?" Owen asked him.
"Well, what do you have to say?" Alec wanted to know. "If it is anything less than Rose is free from Torchwood, I'm not satisfied."
"She is, well for now. I called her but she was about to pick up your daughter so I figured she would talk to you soon anyway and I hate waiting around," Owen told him
Alec already knew that after he'd met Owen properly for the first time as acting director – pending Pete's retirement.
Owen continued. "On condition it's proved Rose is either pregnant or I get a psychological report the last trip has affected her that it's not safe to let her continue, if she imagined she'd gone nowhere when everyone saw her disappear."
Alec was relieved, well a little. "It is not safe to let her continue and you know it, just let her go, find someone else if you insist on continuing."
"I'm ordering a further enquiry into the cannon, Jake's report was not conclusive so I'm suspending missions until I get some better results. I am interested in hearing more about your theory though. Maybe when you and Rose attend her stepfather's retirement party, you will extend your visit and meet me in my office for a further discussion?"
"Rose has been through enough, what I said was only a suggestion, there are several other possibilities she thought she went nowhere," Alec told him, hoping Owen would go off the idea of what he'd come up with on Rose's return.
"Such as?" Owen asked him.
This was Alec's chance to throw him off the scent.
"Well to start with, she told Jake that she may have somehow been suspended in time," he suggested.
"He's already mentioned that. Go on."
Alec wondered how many more explanations did he want but the more the better – it would keep him too busy to worry about getting Rose back.
"Maybe we should just believe her?" Alec asked, thinking why should he do all Torchwood's work?
"Do you?" Owen asked him, thinking he was going to get nothing else out of the detective.
"Yes, I have to believe that was what it seemed like to her but we all saw her disappear. She may have just been out of sync and she never went anywhere, that would explain things."
"Maybe? I would still like to discuss it with both of you, I'm sure your mother-in-law would look after your daughter for you," Owen told him, Alec detecting a hint of sarcasm.
"I will talk to Rose but if she says no, then you will have to settle for it, I'll not have her being upset any more. You will just have to accept she wants to be let go after what just happened, her father will get her seen by an independent medical expert."
"I have no doubt he will. Well like I said, she's off the hook for now, depending on what my team of experts make of what happened in previous jumps, not just this one."
"What do you hope to gain by that?" Alec asked him, seeing he only had about ten minutes until meeting Rose and Maisie.
"We have to go back and see if there have been any similar occurrences before this one."
"Then it proves the device is not safe. Owen, I will not put my wife at risk to test your damn machine, so get that straight. You want to go into the legal side of it then be my guest, Pete will fight you all the way so let her go, no ifs and no buts."
"We'll see Alec, I'll let you know what we find but until then, do what you must. If that includes getting legal advice or something to prove Rose has been deeply affected by the last occurrence, then go ahead, it will all be taken into account," Owen told him.
"Well in that case, you know Pete will fight you all the way as much as I will and don't think Rose's mother won't get involved either, not where it concerns stopping Rose going ahead and having another baby. We may be closer to that than anyone thinks, we just have to confirm it and if you think I will risk that, you are mistaken."
"I'm well aware of your family plans Alec and no-one is going anywhere until the tests prove something conclusive, Jake's findings proved nothing actually went wrong that the device recorded, there may be other factors involved," Owen admitted.
"Well that is quite clear, something the device did not pick up did happen to her, she may have just been suspended in time and who is to know if she would have ever come back? If you think you can use that to your advantage, you are mistaken, she was gone over four hours, if someone else tries it, it could be four years next time and Rose is not going to stand there and miss four years of her life," Alec warned him.
He knew that Rose had possibly lost three years of her life as it was, he wasn't going to add to that possibility but to him, Rose had been with him every minute of the time she claimed she'd lost. It was looking more and more to him that she was right, the world had changed around her and everyone except her had moved forward.
What worried him now was Owen would take his suggestions to see if Rose's last trip could be recreated but it would end up with someone going missing and it wasn't going to be her.
"I will see you both at Pete's retirement party and if Rose wants to discuss things, you can come and see me. Until the time something is proved, she can get back to normal."
"Owen, Rose will take some getting over what happened, it brought back very bad memories of losing Mickey, she does not need that right now if she is pregnant."
Alec hung up, knowing Owen was deliberately dragging his heels over this. The man just didn't want to admit someone else was right and Torchwood were wrong. Why did Pete have to give the directorship to Owen Harper? He was from medical and in a short time had worked his way up to head of the cannon project because he wanted to study how operatives were coping with the impact of being sent to another world.
Sometimes Alec wondered how Rose had got caught up in it but he supposed before he met her, she wanted to do something other than sit in an office all day and process alien arrivals, not that he'd met any that he knew of but he wished she would tell him the real reason. Maybe it was just to get over the mysterious man who had left her years ago whom she thought he was when they'd met?
He got his jacket and standing behind Ellie announced he was going for lunch.
"Want me to come with you?" Ellie asked him, wishing he wouldn't stand behind her, like he was trying to catch her out.
"No, I'm sure you have other things to do Miller, Rose and I have something to talk about."
"Oh, she heard back then?" Ellie asked him, not wanting to say who from.
"Yes and I just had a call since she was on her way to the nursery," Alec replied.
"So what's the verdict?"
"There is no verdict Miller, just a postponement, Rose will not be too happy but it's marginally better than him saying no, for now."
"Won't her father get her out of it?" Ellie asked him.
"He's doing everything he can before he leaves but he has very little time. I am going to be late."
Rose was waiting across the road, trying to get Maisie to sit still in her stroller as she was wanting to be out.
"No sweetheart, you wait there until daddy comes," Rose told her.
"Where daddy?"
"Yeah, he's late, something must have held him up, it had better not be uncle Owen calling him."
"Where Yake?" Maisie asked her, holding her hands out.
"You like uncle Jake? Shame you never knew uncle Mickey, he would have loved being an uncle. Maisie, daddy's here."
She turned the stroller towards him as she saw him coming down the steps. Maisie started struggling again as Rose unfastened the strap.
"Hey princess, where are you going eh?" Alec asked her as he held his arms out to pick her up. "Hello love, sorry I got held up," he apologised to Rose, kissing her cheek then kissing Maisie's, making her laugh and wipe it. "Go back to your mum while I get lunch."
As they waited for their orders, Alec told her about the call from Owen.
"Well I'd have talked to him myself if he'd not left it so late. I had a call from dad, I'll tell ya later. So what did Owen say then?"
"That you are free for now but I doubt it will stop him trying to get you to volunteer," Alec told her.
"Well he's out of luck, that's it now, how can I risk it again Alec?"
"You can't love, it's done with. We have plans to make now. Did you get that testing kit?"
"Yeah, we'll get Maisie to bed tonight and see what it says. I feel okay though."
"You do?" he smiled as their food arrived. "Rose, you were six weeks when you found out last time."
"I was? I suppose I was making allowances?"
"You could say that, you kept insisting we'd not tried for long enough once we got together properly," Alec grinned.
"I expect you complained about that?" Rose smiled.
"You could also say that love. I tried to steer Owen from my suggestion though."
"Did it work?" Rose asked as she tried to feed Maisie, who wanted Alec to do it. "She's a real daddy's little girl," Rose observed.
"I can't imagine why love," Alec smiled. "Your mother said you were the same, now I know why she fusses so much after her granddaughter. If you are pregnant, she will want you to have another girl."
"Well she might be in for a wait, we could be wrong. It's too soon for me Alec."
"I know love, I know you wanted some time to adjust to this but take the test first eh? No point in worrying about it just yet."
"Yeah, I know but what if I am? I'm not ready Alec."
"You have my undivided attention love, I can go on reduced hours or we get Maisie in nursery full time, that will help. I will be there evenings and weekends, what do you have to worry about eh?"
"Something's bothering me, if I am," Rose admitted.
"We should talk about it at home love. So princess," he turned to Maisie. "How was nursery today?"
"You'd get a shock if she answered you," Rose smiled. "By the way, I saw Mark Latimer's van when I was setting off for nursery, he was parked opposite."
"You should have called me love," Alec told her.
"He was just sitting there, he was gone when I got back."
"Well you call me the next time he's there or anywhere else you go, with or without Maisie but what's brought it all on again?"
"No point in asking me," Rose grinned as Alec tried to fasten Maisie in her stroller, the toddler not obliging. "We'll walk, she can hold onto it. Why was Mark hanging around?"
"If I knew where he was staying, I would ask him that. Did you say you were meeting Beth later?" Alec asked.
"Yeah, on the beach for a picnic, I should go get ready for it. Come and join us after work, if you want?"
"I will leave you to it love," he smiled, kissing her cheek. "Bye princess, be good for your mum."
Back in London, Pete was making some decisions. After his call to Rose and talking to Jake, he called Owen after lunch.
"So, you want a meeting?" Owen asked him when Pete said he wasn't happy with things when Owen had told him about Rose. "It'll not change my mind about a further enquiry."
"Do I have to take it to the board? You know as well as I do, the project needs abandoning now, this is the second time something has gone wrong."
"What happened to Mickey was a tragedy, you can hardly blame it on the device Pete," Owen told him.
"If that thing carried two at a time, Mickey would have got away," Pete reminded him. "He'd still be here and Rose wouldn't be so upset about it all over again, if they'd both activated their devices at the same time but they couldn't and he knew it, he chose to save her and her unborn child."
"Pete, it's done, no-one can bring him back, as much as we want to, that's why we changed how we brought an agent back," Owen told him. "Do you really think I'm that heartless? What just happened with Rose was not about her not being able to get back, if she claims she went nowhere. Alec came up with yet another theory, why did you never recruit him?"
Pete detected a hint of sarcasm in the new director's voice. "You know why Owen, he's a detective, it's what he does best. Why, what did he say?"
"Has Rose not told you?" Owen asked him.
"No, maybe because he'd not said anything to Rose. So, what was it?"
"That Rose was somehow suspended and everything went on around her or something like that," Owen replied.
Pete soon caught on that Alec would keep coming out with theories for as long as it took to confuse Owen and get him to shut down the project for good.
"That could have happened, it would seem to Rose like she went nowhere. Now you should see why it needs closing," Pete told him.
"Oh, I don't know, who says if he's right this time or the other explanation? I'm ordering a complete breakdown of past missions and I suggested a meeting to him, when they next come up to London. Seems he's not so keen on that though, he probably thinks I'm going to order Rose to recreate what happened to her," Owen replied.
"Are you?" Pete asked.
"I'm keeping the options open but think about it Pete, if Rose can recreate it, we can have someone do the same, keep them for a certain length of time. What does that suggest to you?"
Pete knew where this was going and he liked it even less than how Owen would use the other theory Alec had and send an invasion force to the world they thought Rose had gone to. Now, the new director was talking about time travel, in not so many words and in Owen Harper's hands, it would be disastrous.
"I think the board needs to know about the possibility, I'm calling a meeting and I'm accepting a place," Pete replied.
"Your wife won't be pleased," Owen laughed.
"That's the least of my worries. What worries me is who you're thinking of getting to try either of Alec's theories, I take it you have Jake in mind?" Pete asked him, knowing full well who Owen had in mind for the job.
"He's our most senior agent and head of security, amongst other things, he's qualified. Think about it Pete, we make portable versions and agents would be able to report back what was going to happen, then we can prevent whatever is about to go wrong."
"You're getting way ahead of yourself Owen," Pete reminded him. "We don't even know if that's what happened to Rose yet."
He was going to say that even if it was viable, it could be taken advantage of. He called Jake to his office after he put the phone down.
"Owen's getting dangerous Jake, how can I leave now?" Pete asked him.
"Is there nothing you can do?" Jake asked him, helping himself to coffee.
"Not without angering my wife," Pete half smiled. "Seriously, I wish I'd never agreed to let him take over."
"How did ya know what he'd turn out like?" Jake asked.
"I should have seen it coming, he started taking the project too seriously," Pete replied.
"It was his job Pete, even I never suspected. Maybe Alec saw it though? So, what's the verdict?"
"She's off the hook for now Jake but I'm even more worried for her now and for you."
"How'd ya mean?" Jake wanted to know.
"Alec came up with something else and I'm beginning to wonder whose side he's actually on. I know he's trying to protect Rose and their daughter but honestly, he's just making things even worse. Jake, Owen is torn between what he said about Rose going to a place where time ran faster and now, where she actually stayed where she was and time carried on around her."
"So, what's bad about that?" Jake asked. "If she went nowhere, Owen will see it's a complete waste of time doin' anything about it – won't he?"
"You've not heard what Owen makes of it," Pete sighed.
"Well are ya gonna tell me then?" Jake wanted to know.
"I don't think you want to know for two reasons Jake. One is he wants you to head up what he has planned."
"Tell me something new," Jake grinned. "What's the really bad news? He wants Rose to go with me?"
"No, not yet, I tried to play the 'she's not fit to go anywhere' card. Jake, Owen now thinks that with Rose going nowhere and everything carried on around her, that Torchwood can develop portable devices so they emerge after a certain length of time."
"So, what does he hope to gain by that?" Jake asked curiously.
"You don't get it Jake. What he's proposing sounds like an agent emerges say after a few hours but what then? A few days, a few years? He wants them to come back and report what they saw, what was happening."
"What?" Jake asked. "Is he completely crazy? So what if they come back and report to him, about the future?" Then it hit him. "No, tell me he's not thinking of interfering with future events?"
"You tell me Jake but that's what it sounds like to me. He even said if they report back, Torchwood could intervene, stop anything bad happen but I think it's much deeper than that."
"He's talking time travel Pete, in not so many terms. An agent reports back on a future development, say in a few years time, he authorises them to go back and steal it, it gets developed years ahead, something we're not meant to have yet."
"Not only that Jake, he doesn't have to go to another world to invade it, if that's what he intended doing with Alec's first theory. He gets everything he wants from this world."
"Yeah, then when he gets even more power hungry Pete, he does it to other worlds, not just ours and the one we thought Rose went to. When is he gonna stop?"