I wrote this in a hurry while I was meant to be doing college work, so I apologize for the rubbish quality.
Doctor Who (c) BBC.

Chapter 13:

Jackie Tyler carried the tray, laden with cups of tea and biscuits, into the front room. Her husband, as well as Mickey and Sarah Jane, were sitting forward on the sofas, enthralled in the TV. Mickey had a Playstation controller in his hands, and was frantically punching buttons. But what they were doing had nothing to do with entertainment.

"We're inside the building," he announced suddenly as Jackie went to put the tray on the table, nudging Pete's laptop and a muddle of wires and circuit boards out of the way. Sarah slapped Mickey on the back, but Pete didn't speak, his lips pressed so tightly together they had almost disappeared. His eyes were fixed intently on the screen, and he didn't notice as Jackie settled on the seat beside him.

"Jack's asleep," she said brightly. "Should be out for hours, what with all the excitement." She was just trying to make conversation, but everyone waved at her to be quiet.

"Well, how are we doing?" she asked, sipping her own mug of tea. Nobody else had taken one. She tried to take in what was being shown on the screen. It looked like a worm's eye view of the Torchwood building, and the camera was tracking quickly across floors and round corners, as if mickey was controlling a tiny remote controlled car. Which was exactly what he was doing. When Pete had asked him to remotely-control the camera set-up so they could work their way through the building, he had had a better idea, and dropped his latest invention out of his pocket and into the shadows at the first opportunity he got. It was a tiny remote controlled car with an even smaller camera mounted on the roof, and was barely visible so long as he kept tight to the walls. It was this that he was deftly flitting round the corridors.

"OK then wonder-boy, how far to go?" Sarah asked. She tried to sound light to keep everyone's spirits up, but all four of them could feel what was at stake. This was their only chance to get Rose back, and if it didn't work...

"Not long," Mickey replied, breaking her train of thought. He peered hard through his glasses. "Just a couple more corridors..."

Yes, now that she looked closer, Sarah could recognize the area they were in. A few moment's later the camera squeezed through a gap that Mickey had purposefully left in the door, and they were in the capsule room that they had been thrown out of just two hours before.

"We're in. What now?" Mickey looked to Pete.

"See those controls by the wall?" instructed Pete, speaking for the first time. "Can you get onto the table?"

"Not really. I can zoom in..." Mickey fiddled with his modified games controller, and a control panel loomed in the screen. "That OK?"

"Perfect." Pete reached for his laptop and tapped a few commands into the keyboard. The others watched with interest as the control panel seemed to come alive, lights blinked and a few of the sliding switches became animated. Pete typed quickly, looking back at the screen to check he was doing it right. When he was satisfied,Pete made a few last changes and pressed Enter.

"Done."

"What?" Jackie was confused. "What did you do?"

"When the ship disappeared, it changed the status of everything in the room. Temperature, air density, oxygen-hydrogen ration, you name it. The entire room changed state. If I change it back, maybe that will reverse whatever happened to make the thing disappear..."

Mickey quickly scanned the camera around the room, looking for any sign of change. There was nothing. Pete sat back, deflated.

"What now?" said Jackie, voicing all of their concerns.

"I..." Pete didn't know what to say. Science had never been his strong point; he had only got the job with Torchwood due to his good business skills. He had never expected anything like this to happen. "I don't know." He typed something else, and then something else. Pointless streams of numbers flashed across the screen with no effect.

"For God's sake, Pete." Mickey suddenly burst out. "It's not working!"

He stood up. Sarah grabbed his hand, but he snatched it away. "Mickey -"

It was no good. He stormed out of the room, and a few minutes later they heard the front door slam. Sarah cast a worried glance at the Tylers, and hurried after him.

"They'll be back," Jackie assured the others. "This isn't the end; we're not going to give up."

"Why not?" Pete said bleakly. "There's nothing else we can do. It's over."

The hopeless look in his eyes shocked her. The Pete she knew wouldn't give up so easily, and though she knew this was technically the same man, she couldn't help but wish for the old Pete back. He would know what to do, he always had an answer. Her husband tried to put an arm round her, but Jackie shrugged it off. She knew he needed her to comfort him, but couldn't stand it. Rose wasn't dead, and they were not going to grieve her.

She left him sitting there, head in his hands, and climbed the stairs to the baby's room. Watching him always calmed her down, even when she was worrying about Rose or just missing her old life, before the Doctor had come like a whirlwind into their lives, and ruined everything.

She leaned over Jack's cot and scooped him into her arms. He woke up briefly and made a noise of complaint, but settled back down once he saw who it was. Jackie cradled his in her arms and buried her face in his soft hair, not wanting to look into his eyes, because they were Rose's.

"Jack," she whispered. "Promise you'll never leave, OK? Stay here with your old mum. I'll look after you..."

She stared with dry eyes out of the window. It was nearly midnight, but Jackie knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. Pete might have given up, but there was no doubt in her mind that Rose would come back. She had been through too much grief over her daughter for it to end like this. The only question was what to do now...

She didn't know how long she stood there thinking, but when she finally stole back downstairs, Jack snoring softly and drooling on her shoulder, it was dark downstairs and Pete was nowhere to be seen. Jackie trod as quietly as she could, heading for the living room. Just as she suspected, Pete had left the laptop awake on the table and the television on standby, just like she was always telling him off for. Maybe there was no such thing as a carbon footprint in this universe, but that was no excuse. Now, though, she was grateful for it.

She pulled the table nearer the sofa with one hand, then sat down and loaded up the same screen as before, absent-mindedly rocking Jack with the other arm. This was the only thing she could think of doing, but if it didn't work, she had faith that she would think of something else tomorrow, and the day after that, until she got it right.

She reached out to the keyboard, and typed two words.