Rose took in the whole office at a glance, and started to laugh.
"Been busy, have you?" she asked, noting the paper chains and tinsel the hung all over the room, as well as the small Christmas tree that stood on the edge of Lily's desk.
"I don't see what everyone's so grouchy for. It's Christmas," Lily said, grinning. "So of course I decorated."
"Marks is going to have twenty fits when he sees this place," Rose commented.
Lily rolled her eyes.
"Who cares?"
Rose smiled.
"I love Christmas too," she said, her mind wandering to various different Christmases she had spent on different planets and different times, some right after the other. "Although, you haven't really known Christmas till you've spent it with Charles Dickens," she said out loud, thoughtfully.
"Ah, A Christmas Carol," Lily said, "I love that movie. With the Gonzo and Michael Caine."
"That too," Rose smirked. "Charlie's version isn't too bad either. He wrote a mean story."
Lily chuckled.
"Books are for people who don't like the Muppets."
Andy walked into the office, and stopped short on the threshold.
"Whoa! Was there a tinsel explosion in here?" he asked. "Did the tinsel fairy come in the night? Did it snow tinsel?"
Lily pouted.
"It's Christmas. I don't see why everyone has to be such Grinches all the time. It's just a little bit of decorating."
"A little bit of decorating I could handle. This is something else entirely," Andy replied.
Lily stuck her tongue out at him.
"I think the decorations are nice," Rose piped up, more in support of Lily than because she appreciated the paper chains.
She was rewarded by a dazzling smile from the redhead.
"See? Rose likes them," Lily shot at Andy.
Andy rolled his eyes.
"Girls always stick together," he grumbled.
"Speaking of girls, how's your little angel?" Rose asked. Andy's daughter Isabella was 4, and a little darling. She was tiny and pixie-like, with the delicate features of her Asian mother. She had slanting, elegant almond eyes, and long, dark hair. She looked like a kitten next to the St. Bernard that was her father, and yet she had the big man wrapped around her little finger.
Andy's eyes lit up at the mention of Isabella. He loved talking about her.
"Isa can't wait for Christmas morning. She keeps shaking the presents, and the paper's nearly coming off some of them. I had to wrap them over again so she wouldn't see what was underneath. I keep telling her not to, but when does she every listen to me?"
Lily and Rose both laughed.
"Oh, let her shake them," Lily said. "She only gets one shot a childhood, and Christmas is all about shaking your presents."
"Yeah. Christmas is way more fun when you have kids around," Rose agreed, sitting down at her own desk.
"Or are one yourself," Andy added.
"Mentally or physically?" Lily shot back.
Andy mock-winced.
"Ouch. That hurt. If you keep slinging arrows at me like that, I may not give you your present."
Lily's green-gray eyes lit up.
"Present?" she asked, eagerly.
Rose busied herself with turning on her computer, and pretended not to listen.
Out of the pocket of his greatcoat, Andy drew a small box.
"For you," he said, almost shyly.
Lily smiled, and took the box, which fit into the palm of her hand, and shook it.
Andy chuckled.
"Thanks, Andy," she said, smiling up at him.
"Merry Christmas, Lily," Andy replied.
Behind her desk, Rose hid her smile, and pretended not to notice.
--
"So what's with Michelle and that weird kid from R&D?" Lily asked.
Rose raised her eyebrow.
"Which weird kid are you referring to? There are a lot of weird people in this building."
"True," Lily said, inclining her head. "You should know him. He's John's partner."
"Max Davenport?" Rose asked.
"Yeah. He and Michelle from front desk are always together now. Did you ever see a stranger couple?"
Rose smiling, thinking of the Doctor and herself.
"Yes," she said.
"But Michelle's so pretty, and he's such a…."
"A geek?" Rose asked. "He is. But he's got a good heart. And hey, geek is good."
"You're just saying that cuz you married one," Lily replied.
Rose grinned with her tongue between her teeth.
"There are definite advantages to being married to the smartest person in the room," Rose replied.
"Yeah, but Max Davenport. He's just a kid," Lily objected.
Rose shrugged.
"I think he's cute. He makes me think of what John must have been like as a teenager."
"Grab your gear," Marks said, walking briskly into the room.
Rose looked up from her conversation with Lily, rather annoyed.
"Spoilsport strikes again," she murmured under her breath.
Lily gave an unladylike snort that she covered up with a cough.
"What's up?" Andy said, unfazed.
"Are they sending us off on another rabbit trail?" Lily asked sarcastically. Their last three assignments had ended up either being false alarms or leading to nothing.
Marks looked grim.
"There's been a sighting of cybermen."
Everyone grew silent, and a muscle in Andy's face twitched. His wife had been killed by cybermen three years ago.
"Let's go," Marks instructed.
They assembled their gear without a word. As they got into the elevator, Rose touched Lily's arm.
"You ok?" she whispered.
"I'm going to destroy them," Lily whispered back intensely. "I'm going to finish off every last one of them and smash them into a million pieces."
Rose was stunned by the force with which Lily said those words. Usually she was such a happy-go-lucky person.
"Cybermen killed any family I had left," Lily said, looking down at her clenched fists.
"I'm sorry," Rose whispered.
"Me too."
The elevator slid open, and they marched across they lobby with an air of determination. Out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw the Doctor's partner Max in animated conversation with the girl at the front desk, Michelle. She couldn't help smiling. Michelle would do the introverted and socially awkward Max a world of good.
They walked to the van without saying a word. Today there was none of the usual arguing about who would ride shotgun.
--
The car was filled with a tense silence.
"Where are we going?" Rose asked, when she could bear it no longer.
"Just outside of London. Two 70 year-old ladies live together in this country farm house. They reported seeing cybermen early this morning."
"Are they sure?" Andy rumbled from the front seat. "They could be scaring a lot of people for nothing."
"After all, they are 70," Lily said.
"I would say the same thing," Marks agreed. "Except that they're not the first people to report a pair of rogue cybermen running around the countryside. There have been several other reports, but nothing conclusive till now."
"What made this one conclusive?" Rose asked.
"One of the ladies had a camera." Marks handed a photo to Andy, who sat in shotgun beside him. Andy glanced at the picture.
"I guess that's pretty conclusive," he said, passing it back.
Lily took it, and together she and Rose bent over the rectangular, glossy sheet. Although it looked about sunrise, the shapes of two cybermen could be clearly seen, striding across an open field. Rose shivered, remembering the trouble they had caused before. Lily gave a sharp intake of breath, her normally dancing gray eyes stormy.
"That's them all right," Rose agreed.
"We're going to their last known location- the old ladies' house." Marks said, keeping his eyes on the road.
"What then?" Lily asked quietly. "What if there are more of them? What if these are just the scouts? We're not much good against a squad of cybermen."
"I brought metal-piercing bullets," Andy volunteered. "They were specially engineered to pierce the armour of cybermen."
"Besides, it seems they're just rogue ones. On the loose. After all, if there were more, wouldn't they be sighted before now?" Rose asked.
"Not necessarily," Andy replied. "Cybermen are good at hiding. They're cold and they're ruthless and they're calculated, but they're good strategists."
Rose remembered the first time she had come into contact with a cyberman – a head in Von Statton's museum. It was frightening how they had managed to endure across the centuries and the universes.
Marks pulled the car into a narrow lane, with hedges looming on either side.
"Where are we?" Lily asked.
"Middle of nowhere," Max said. "Thank goodness for Atmos, or we would probably be lost in the middle of nowhere by now."
The road seemed to stretch on forever disappearing around a bend. As Marks navigated the bend, Rose stared out the window. The lane was empty, and quiet, and under the grey sky had an eerie quality about it, as only things in the lonely country could have. Rose was glad she was in the car. She wouldn't like to be walking along that road right now.
The cottage they had pulled up to looked like a postcard. It was small and neat, with gingerbread trimming, and whitewashed sides. The shutters and the roof were green. All around was a gardener's paradise of flowers and trailing vines.
"Oh, so you've finally come!" A tiny lady rushed out of the green front door at a speed that Rose thought was not possible for a person in their seventies. She was dressed in a faded print dress, and her wispy white hair was pulled into a braid.
"Hello, Ma'am. We're from Torchwood," Andy said, towering over the woman.
"Yes, yes, how do you do and all that. I called hours ago! I thought you would never get here!"
"I'm sorry, Ma'am. It took us a while to collect our gear," Lily said, giving her a winning smile. The lady seemed to relax a little.
"I'm Rosemary Stark. My housemate, Susan Coleby, is in bed right now. She had a terrible attack of nerves after we saw those things."
"We'll need a full description of what you saw, Ms Stark," Rose said.
Rosemary seemed to recover herself.
"Of course. I have the kettle on, come in for some tea and I'll tell you all about it."
--
"So? Do you think they're really those cyber things?" Rosemary asked, pouring tea into delicate cups.
"We'll have to investigate," Andy replied. "We can't run the risk that there's two cybermen running around England."
"Not after the damage they caused last time," Marks agreed. "We have to find them before they start building more."
Rose shuddered.
"There weren't any here when the attacks came. Susan and I just stayed in our house and locked the door," Rosemary said. "But I read all about them in the papers, and knew what they looked like. When I saw the out the window I knew at once it was those cybermen. I called for Susan to bring the camera, but as soon as she saw them she started in on her attack of nerves, and hasn't stopped since. Susan's rather delicate, you know. So I had to get it myself, and by the time I got back, they were half way across the field. Thankfully, I bought the camera to take pictures of birds (I'm an avid birdwatcher, you know) and it has an excellent zoom feature."
Rosemary paused for breath, and Marks jumped in before she could continue.
"Which direction were they going in?" he asked.
"West. Yes, it was definitely west. Towards Drumlins, you know. Drumlins is the little town down in the valley. Nice sort of place, Drumlins." A thought seemed to occur to Rosemary. "Oh, dear. I hope the people are alright. Perhaps I should have warned them."
Marks held up his hand.
"Don't worry, Ma'am. We'll make sure they're alright. We have to go hunt down those cybermen."
"You make sure you do, young man," Rosemary said sternly.
Marks' face at being called a 'young man' was a study. Rose stifled a giggle. He stood up before Rosemary could start talking again.
"We have to hurry if we want to catch up with them. They already have a good two hour head start."
"Well, alright then." Rosemary looked disappointed. She probably didn't get much company, and was sorry to see them go. Rose vowed to come visit the lady, once this was all over. What's more, she would bring the Doctor. Those two could compete to see who could talk the most words per minute. The thought made Rose grin.
Rosemary was handing around the plate of cookies to everyone.
"One more for the road?" she asked Rose.
Rose grinned, and took two. They were really good cookies, she reasoned with herself as she slid one into her pocket.
--
"Are you sure that old lady wasn't just batty?" Andy asked gloomily. They had been driving for almost a half hour now.
"She said they went west, towards the village. This is the only village to the west of her house, so this has to be it," Marks said, shooting Andy an annoyed look.
"Rose is right. She did seem a bit off her rocker," Lily said with a smile.
Rose was glad of it. It was the first time Lily had smiled since Marks had announced the cybermen.
"And she could talk the hind leg off a camel," Andy added.
"Isn't it the hind leg off a donkey?" Rose asked.
"Yes," Andy said, "But camels have longer legs."
"Ah. Of course. What was I thinking?"
A dense fog was rolling in, making vision beyond ten meters in front of them almost impossible. Marks parked the car at the outskirts of the village, and they walked in. It was eerily quiet in the blanket of cloud that surrounded them. The clammy fog made the houses that appeared on either side of the road loom menacingly like brooding figures.
Once Rose got close enough to the houses to see them, she saw that every one of them had their windows shut tight, and the curtains drawn. There was not a person in sight, either at the windows of the houses or on the street.
"Creeeeepy," Lily hummed.
Rose nodded fervently.
"Anybody else getting 'Sleepy Hollow' flashbacks?" Andy asked.
Even Marks cracked a smile at that. His smile vanished as a hump in the road appeared, obscured by the mist. He broke from the group and ran forward to see what it was. The rest of the team ran forward as he dropped to his knees, bending over it.
As it came into Rose's view, a sick feeling swooped into her stomach. It was a body.
Marks stood up.
"No pulse," he said. "And rigour has set in. He's been dead a good hour by now."
Rose shivered.
Andy's voice came out of the mist somewhere on Rose's left.
"There's another one over here," he said.
Rose bumped her foot against something, and tripped. She looked down, and was very glad she had caught herself before she fell.
"Here's another one," she said, gulping. She looked down at the still face of the woman who she had stubbed her toe on. Pity flooded her. This had once been a young, pretty woman. The cybermen who did this had to be stopped before they could hurt anyone else.
Rose skirted the body of the young woman, and joined the team.
"Ok, now I'm officially weirded out," Lily said.
Rose nodded her agreement.
"No wonder there's no one around," Marks said grimly.
They came to the end of the road, and turned down another. This one was lined with shops whose front windows were dark. A few were broken. More bodies lay scattered about, only becoming visible as the team walked forward. Rose counted ten that she could see through the dense mist.
At the end of that road were several large warehouses, with storage sheds in behind them.
"Torrents, you're with me. We'll search inside the warehouse," Marks said. "DiMatto, you and Tyler go in behind. Signal if you find anything."
They split up quietly, and headed out into the fog. Rose was glad of the cover- Andy wasn't exactly the easiest person to hide.
Andy reached back into his holster and pulled out his gun, the one armed with the special anti-cybermen bullets. They slunk around the side of the warehouse and to the back. Behind the huge building was a maze of storage containers and tin-roofed huts.
They wandered in between the sheds, taking care to stay to the edges as much as possible. Andy went first, holding the gun. Rose positioned herself behind him, so that he could get a clear shot of any cyberman that might appear.
As they rounded another corner, they heard the horribly familiar clanking and machine-generated voices of their nemeses.
Andy signaled, and they both dropped down behind the shed. Two sheds up, in a small clearing, were the cybermen. They appeared to be standing, somewhat awkwardly, and attempting to move. Their movements caused the distinct whurr-clunck of metal against metal.
"It's the fog," Rose hissed in Andy's ear. "It's slowing them down."
"Like the Tin Man?" Andy whispered back.
In spite of herself, Rose rolled her eyes. Trust Andy to make a movie reference at a time like this.
Rose checked the GPS strapped to her wrist, and sent the coordiates to Lily's hand-held computer. She sighed with relief as a light blinked in return – Lily had received the coordinates and was coming. She tapped Andy on the back, so he knew as well.
There was nothing to do now but wait till Marks and Lily got to them. Rose and Andy crouched on the wet grass, watching as the two cybermen made jerking attempts to move their metal bodies. Rose gave an inward sigh of frustration. This would be a lot easier if Andy wasn't build like an American footballer, she thought to herself. To allow him to be more hidden, she shuffled backwards, hugging the wall of the shed.
Rose collided with something solid behind her. A calloused hand came over her mouth, stifling her shriek.
"Don't scream," A rough voice whispered in her ear.
Author's Note: I knew this was going to happen. I just knew it. As soon as I get an adventure going, it gets too long and I have to break it up. Which is too bad, because the next chapter I have planned is also a cliffhanger. Can you forgive me for two of them in a row? What if I promise to write the other half really, really quickly?
This chapter has actually gotten pushed back about three times, and changed a fair few more. I was having a really hard time trying to work some plot points into the story, so thank goodness for cybermen (never thought I would say that after the complaining I did about them being in the Christmas special!). It's worked out rather nicely actually. I'm rather smug.
Why Christmas? Heck, why not? I wish it was Christmas now.
To those of you who complained about the last chapter, two words: character development. No use having flat, two dimensional secondary character. Max may be secondary, but I have a soft spot for him. And it was important that he and the Doctor bond. That will be important later on.