"What are you two doing?" Stephen asked as Rose was sat down with Connor.
"I am trying to teach Connor how to talk to people." She explained.
"Women." Connor corrected.
"Women." Rose smiled and turned back to Connor, "Now, a girl in a bar, tell me I look nice."
"You look nice." He put it simply.
"Okay, one, don't just say what I tell you to say-"
"But I thought that's what this was?"
"It is, but make it more personal."
"I personally feel you look nice."
"Connor! Be specific, tell me what is nice, don't just say 'oh you look nice'."
"Right, specific," he began and Rose nodded, "Well, you've got lovely legs, and fantastic-"
"Woah! Stop there! You don't want to look like a pervert."
"I wasn't looking like a pervert."
"Yes you were, now, what about small talk? Flirty, but not cheesy."
"Right, flirty, I can do flirty," he whispered to himself and Stephen simply watched the two of them in amusement, "Um, who do you think would win in a fight between Wolverine and Spider-man?"
"Connor, that's, that's not flirty."
"Yes it is."
"It really isn't, it geek talk, nerd talk, comic book talk, girls don't like geeky talk, they don't do comic books."
"Didn't you date Mickey?" Stephen pointed out.
"He's not a geek."
"He's a computer geek."
"Different type of geek, anyway, no comic books." She said to Connor,
"That's entry level comic book, Rose. It's light, it's fun."
"Its' really not fun Connor, trust me, now, compromise with women, learn what they like, don't talk about yourself too much, find out what they like, talk to them."
"And pretend I'm interested. Until they want to snog me?" he asked and Rose simply rolled her eyes. "No, I get it. But Rose, you know, to be honest, I think I can talk to women. I talk to you, don't I?"
"Yeah, and?"
"Well, see, I can talk to women."
"Yes, but one, we live together, and two we work together, and three we're mates."
"You can fancy somebody who's a pal, can't you?" he asked, but before Rose could answer, or Stephen for that matter, Rose's phone began to ring.
"Mickey," she said as she answered the phone, "The zoo? Why does that matter? Alright, alright! I'll be there." She sighed as she hung up, "Gotta go." She smiled and noticed she was leaving these two alone, and smiled at the thought, "Have fun!"
"Where you going?"
"Zoo, missing lion or something like that, anyway, bye!"
X
"so one of the lions has just gone?" Rose clarified as she and Mickey walked in to the lion cage as Torchwood investigated.
"Yep."
"But how can a lion just disappear?"
"don't know," Mickey shrugged and noticed something on the floor, blood. "something's wounded though."
"Fascinating." Rose muttered as she sighed, she didn't see why they were here."Mickey, seriously, why the hell are we here?"
"Why? Not scary enough for ya now?"
"You know what I mean; it's a missing lion, why should we care?"
"Don't know, but I'm gonna get this blood checked over at the lab."
"You do that."
X
"Why don't you just tell me what you want?" Stephen sighed as he and Helen shared a beer at the University.
"A meeting. With Nick and Lester. Tomorrow morning at 11. Here. No armed thugs, no ambushes. They'll want to hear what I've got to say."
"They don't trust you."
"I don't trust them, either. But this is serious. Three people have disappeared in the last 48 hours. I know what happened to them."
"Creature. What kind?"
"It's good to see you again, Stephen." She smiled, ignoring his question, "You know, you were always one of my better students. Not the very brightest maybe, but always full of idealism and integrity." She smiled again and put her backpack on and kissed Stephen.
"I miss that."
"Thank you. I'm touched." He smiled sarcastically.
"How's the blonde by the way? Rose wasn't it?"
"Yeah, she's good."
"She'll never know you as well as I do."
X
"Have you noticed people acting weird this morning?" Rose asked curiously as she and Mickey stood there in the home office.
"You mean Stephen?"
"Just people."
"Yeah, I guess he was acting a bit strange, why?"
"I reckon something weird is going on."
"do you now?"
"Yep." She nodded.
"Oh!" Mickey yelped as he remembered something, "Forget to tell ya. The blood analysis came back from the lab. Most of it was from a lion, but some of it was from a bat."
"A bat?"
"Yeah."
"Bat blood?"
"Yeah, but the thing is, it wasn't a normal bat."
"A normal bat?"
"Well, the people at the lab said they'd never seen anything like it before, and you've seen some of the things they've faced."
"So, what does that mean? Some kind of weird bat creature?"
"Maybe."
"Anyway, ring me if you find anything out." She smiled as she went to leave.
"Why? Where you going?"
"Back to the zoo," she explained, "the zoo boss person went missing yesterday, no-one's seen him since, just went missing, plus three people have gone missing within 48 hours, so I'm gonna go check it out, might be something going on."
"Oh right, see ya later then."
"See ya later."
X
"You have a serious creature incursion. A highly evolved ambush predator. Intelligent, adaptable and ruthless." Helen explained to everyone as they met up.
"If there was a creature on the loose, we'd know about it." Claudia interrupted.
"At least 3 people have disappeared in the last few days. Killed. The creature has a lair somewhere nearby. It's taken them for food. It nearly got me, too."
"What is it?"
"It has no name. It doesn't come from any era. At least, not one that can be identified yet."
"I don't understand."
"Yes you do, Nick. You knew it had to happen one day. You've known it ever since you first stepped into the past."
"The future? Are you saying we're being attacked by a creature from the future?"
"I've seen a lot of amazing creatures, but nothing like this one. It has human levels of intelligence, and an almost supernatural ability to stalk it's prey. It could be right here now watching us and we'd never know. I discovered it in the Permian, just after a kill. It was feeding and its defences were down."
"What does it look like?" Nick asked, trying to get as many details from her as he possibly could right now, for all he knew, this would be the only time she would help.
"Like a great ape, but bigger, faster. And a lot more agile. It's not like any creature from the Permian, or any other prehistoric era. The only possible explanation is that it strayed through a future anomaly into the Permian era, and then on into ours."
"How did it get here?"
"I have no idea. It was only when I got back I found out it was on the loose. Obviously my first thought was to do as much as I could to help."
"How public spirited of you." Lester muttered, "Where can we contact you?"
"At my house. Of course." She smiled, looking over at Nick.
X
"What, and that's all she said?" Connor asked as he and Stephen filtered through things in Cutters office, well, Stephen did, Connor simply sat on the chair, swirling around on it as he asked Stephen questions.
"Yup. That's it."
"What, nothing else? No details at all?"
"No, why?"
"Just, Mickey was saying earlier about finding bat blood down at the zoo."
"So?"
"Well, I looked at it, and this bat blood had really, really screwed up DNA. I mean, you know, it's probably nothing, but one of the lions went missing yesterday, and now the boss has gone missing."
"Well, where's Rose now?"
"She went back to the zoo."
"Right. Meet me at the zoo, with as much back up as possible."
"Aren't you gonna wait for them?"
"Um, let me think about that, wait for back-up, Rose gets killed and eaten by monster or go now and warn, hmm, second one I think." He yelled and quickly grabbed his jacket and left.
"Gee, talk about paranoid."
A/N: one more chapter left! Let me know what you think! Sorry for the lack of twist yet, maybe twist was the wrong word haha 3 AND changed the mistakes, sorry for them. x
Amy xx
