Chapter 21

Sorry about the delay. This chapter tried to drive me crazy. And I'm still not sure if it didn't succeed at last...

"Thank you," Colin gave back, started the motor and drove through the gate, parked the car and opened the door for Harriet. She got out, followed by Rose, and the small group walked over to the side entrance where James Sutton waited for them.

~o~o~o~

With Harriet's vast experience on international conferences they had easily agreed to meet with the heads of state after dinner. No one would be surprised to see small groups of diplomats gather for informal discussions, that was just normal procedure when it came to international politics. So the TARDIS eventually appeared out of thin air next to a moonlit garden shed, disturbing early brown leaves on the soil that the gardeners had not yet taken care of. The doors opened and Romana stepped out, followed by the Doctor and the Foamasi delegation. As Mala was dead on her feet the TARDIS had provided her with a small bed in the room she had played in earlier and the ship had also promised to babysit her.

"The dematerialisation felt strange this time. Don't you think, Doctor?" Romana asked while she took in their surroundings, trying to find out where exactly they had landed.

"What?"

"When we dropped off Rose and Colin," the Time Lady elaborated.

"Romana, I still don't know what you're talking about," the Doctor replied exasperatedly. He thought back but couldn't remember anything special.

"Well, when I brought her back into the Vortex the TARDIS felt as if she didn't want to leave them," she explained, having discovered a path leading in the direction of the main house.

A feeling he only knew too well. But no, he hadn't felt anything like that. Although he might have been occupied with his own thoughts at that moment and then with figuring out a way to cross the Void.

"Why?"

"I don't know. It just seemed she didn't want to leave them behind. At first she didn't want to dematerialize."

A dreadful memory sprang into his mind. The last time his TARDIS didn't want to do something, more specifically, landing somewhere with Rose on board, had been Krop Tor. And he had nearly lost her there. And now Romana's ship hadn't wanted to leave her alone. That couldn't be good.

The group surrounded a small glass house on their way to the main complex. Rose had explained the layout of the estate in detail, so the Doctor and Romana knew where they would meet their contact person. When they approached a sunken stone garden they had agreed on as meeting point they were greeted by a young man with blonde hair in an expensive suit who introduced himself as "James Sutton, personal assistant to Harriet Jones."

If Harriet's assistant was astounded to see humans accompanied by a couple of chameleon-like creatures he didn't show it. But perhaps that did happen more often than he knew about, the Doctor thought. After splitting up with Rose the only contact person he had left in Torchwood had been Jake. Every couple of weeks they had exchanged e-mails, mostly to keep in touch, sometimes to swap information, although Jake had always kept him informed on Rose, sensing that was one of the Doctor's intentions. Jake had never so much as hinted that Rose knew about their e-mail conversation but he was pretty sure Jake had told her. Rose might have been mad at him or disappointed but she was professional enough to use a resource when she could.

"I'm Professor John Rutherford," the Doctor answered, deliberately using his human alias, "and this is Romana, uh, Smith," he carefully avoided to mention her origin and quickly added a surname, not certain if James was trustworthy, "and Commander Vaesite and his staff." Hiding their extra-terrestrial nature was pointless, he decided, although he didn't want to take any risks with Romana's identity. Something was going on, he was certain of it. Better to keep everyone in the dark for a bit.

"The former president, Harriet Jones, and Ms Tyler and Mr Jordan, who both represent Torchwood, expect you in the Blue Drawing Room, Ma'am, Sirs." He nodded politely at them. "The heads of state of Algeria, Mali and Morocco, as well as the President of Great Britain, will join you shortly after dinner," the assistant said. "If you would follow me around the building, we're going to use the entrance of the orangery."

The small group followed James through several gardens, each with a different layout. The TARDIS obviously had materialized in a more natural part with large red cedars and pine trees. A small doorway in a hedgerow led to a rosarium which opened up to a lawn. James crossed it and led them along the rear facade of the main house to a small entrance in an annex.

"This is the orangery," he said, opened the heavy wooden door and continued his way through a hallway, followed by the Doctor and the Foamasi delegation, Romana taking the rear position. Eventually he halted at a richly ornated door and opened it, then he stepped aside and said, "The Blue Drawing Room, ma'am, sirs."

~o~o~o~

James had led Harriet, Rose and Colin to the Blue Drawing Room which usually was used for informal meetings during conferences. Harriet set down in a comfortable armchair next to the fireplace which only served decorative purposes while Colin selected a chair at the conference table.

Rose walked over to one of the windows and stared into the growing darkness, lost in thoughts. For the second time in her life she was going to lose everything, after leaving behind her old universe involuntarily. After he had stranded her here for the second time it hadn't been that worse because she still had her job and her family and friends. But both were gone now. In most cases thanks to Torchwood. Again. History apparently repeated itself. How they'd found out wasn't important. Not really. More important was what she was going to do now, after she'd sorted the Foamasi incident. Staying in this country wasn't really an option, even this planet was risky. She was much too well-known for that. And there was only so much she could change about her outward appearance. Maybe she could hitch a ride with Romana? Great, she thought sarcastically. Now she was inviting herself on a trip in a time ship. Although, now that Romana was here there might even be a possibility to...

'Stop it!' she told herself. Down that road lay only the hopeless state she had found herself in after being stranded here for the first time. And she really didn't want to repeat that experience. She had rebuilt her life from the scratch once and she could do it again.

When she heard a polite knock on the door she stayed still for a few more seconds to pull herself together, then she turned around and faced the new arrivals. Following an aide who began to set up beverages on a table at the side of the room, four people entered. One of them was the President of the People's Republic of Great Britain, Stephen Connors, and one of the others, a woman with jet black hair, Rose recognized as Mounhira Naybet, newly elected prime minister of Morocco. She had met her years ago on a Torchwood mission, when she herself was just a field operative and the other woman was one of the leading scientists of her country. The others had to be the presidents of Mali and Algeria.

President Connors walked over to Harriet and greeted his predecessor politely. "Harriet, may I introduce Prime Minister Naybet of Morocco and President Oudjani of Algeria? And of course you know President Coulibaly of Mali." Harriet smiled at them and shook hands with each of them. Rose admired her for her acting skills as she knew very well that Harriet's last encounter with Amadou Coulibaly had been less than friendly. His acting was apparently not as good as Harriet's because she could see him narrow his eyes to hide a glare. He was going to be a problem, Rose decided. The president then introduced Rose and Colin, for a second stumbling over his name.

Mounhira Naybet walked over to Rose and said, "Nice to see you again, Agent Tyler. It's been a long time."

"That's true, ma'am. Congratulations."

"Thank you. I'm still not completely used to it," the other woman admitted. "So, what are we here for? Harriet Jones was exceptionally close-mouthed about the meeting."

Harriet Jones cut in, having overheard their conversation, "I didn't want to talk about this over official communication channels. Oh, and please take a seat at the conference table. This is going to take us some time." She walked over to the small side of the table facing the fireplace and sat down; President Connors took the place at her right, followed by Mounhira Naybet, while the others sat at her left. Rose remained standing. She had discovered over the years that she could organize her thoughts much better if she moved around.

When everyone had settled down, Harriet continued, "Rose, could you please give everyone an overview of the current situation?"

"Of course, ma'am," Rose agreed. "In the last few hours we were contacted by an alien race called Foamasi who threatened to invade Earth." She heard a few gasps but went on, "My team and I discovered that they had lost their planet in a war. About fifty thousand survivors are onboard an entire fleet of heavily armed alien ships."

"And what are you going to do about this threat?" Samir Oudjani, the President of Algeria wanted to know.

"Sir, we contacted them and persuaded them that negotiations would be a better means of reaching their goals."

With a polite knock on the door an aide to President Connors entered the room. He walked over to his boss and whispered something in his ear. The President immediately got up and followed him.

"I see," Amadou Coulibaly sneered. "You basically invited them to invade."

"No, Sir, I didn't. You really should know us better than that." Indeed, he should. Torchwood had saved Mali from a nasty infestation of a bunch of twenty foot long, extremely venomous desert vipers from the planet Eryx who had planned to use the country as a hunting ground. Her team'd had no choice than to kill all of them. And that specific mission was one of the reasons Harriet Jones and President Coulibaly weren't exactly on best terms with each other. To be honest, the man couldn't stand her as well, just because she had saved his life and had proven his life guard totally incompetent in dealing with alien invasions. "Actually we have an idea how to deal with this of which both parties could benefit. According to one of our counsellors they are much more resilient to ionizing radiation than humans. This should also give you an answer to the question why you are here."

The Presidents of Mali and Algeria looked slightly confused while Mounhira Naybet commented, "That's brilliant. They could inhabit the contaminated parts of our deserts."

The door opened again and President Connors returned. He swiped the room with his eyes, his gaze lingering a few moments on Rose, before he sat down again next to Harriet, casting glances at the door every few seconds.

"Exactly," Rose said.

President Oudjani interrupted, "And why should we let them do that? They're aliens. They could be dangerous to our people."

That was only to be expected, Rose thought, even from people who should know better. Mali had been one of the poorest countries in her old universe and was much better off here but during a famine eight years ago many of his people had sought refuge in neighbour countries. At that time its neighbours hadn't been exactly happy with the situation as well. She took a deep breath to remain calm.

"In return you could negotiate access to their technology which according to my information gives them the opportunity to inhabit places that would be averse to any kind of life otherwise. This could be one step to the solution of our population growth problem."

"I see," Prime Minister Naybet said. "And are we to expect them here?"

"Yes, they have landed by now and are on their way," Rose said. She wasn't certain how she knew that but she felt it was true.

Someone knocked on the door and everyone looked up expectantly as it opened and revealed James Sutton announcing the arrival of the Foamasi delegation. Rose's gaze fell on President Connors and for a split second he looked disappointed. Then the expression was gone and he got up to greet the group politely.

~o~o~o~

"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen," James Sutton said, "the delegation has arrived."

Apparently dinner had ended early today, so everyone else had already met, the Doctor saw. He recognized President Connors who got up to welcome them. He got a look at Rose who leant nonchalantly against the mantelpiece of an unlit fireplace. He saw her eyes lit up when her gaze fell on him, giving away that she was happy to see him, although she otherwise kept her expression strictly under control.

After the introductions were made the president asked, "So, Professor, how do you come in here?"

Professor. He thought he'd gotten used to being called that without being reminded of Ace but he was wrong. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Weeell, I really don't want to be rude..." His glance fell on Rose who had to stifle a laugh at this. "...but apparently your staff lacks basic research abilities. Otherwise they'd have told you that I worked for Torchwood for some time. Never really liked their methods, though. Too much 'Shoot first, ask later'." He stared intently at Rose, indicating that he'd started the act, hoping she would play along.

She understood and gave back, disgust in her voice, "You've always been too weak, John. A coward, any day." Ouch. That hurt. Although her eyes told him she didn't mean it that way.

His next words came with as much venom as he could muster: "You never think first, you just act. I was right about you the first time we met your father. You're just a stupid ape." He saw her flinch at his words and desperately hoped she knew he didn't mean them. Judging by the way the other persons in the room stared at them they were obviously convinced that Rose and he would never lend each other an used tissue, let alone work together on anything, despite their common, and relatively well-known, public history.

Romana who apparently had decided to join the act, interrupted the slightly awkward silence that had followed his last, decidedly undiplomatic, words. "John, please, can we leave the domestics at home?"

When he looked at Rose again he saw with relief that her brown eyes sparkled with mirth. Quite possibly she wasn't going to kill him, then.

Before anyone else could say something Harriet Jones took the initiative and said, "Well, after this enlightening exchange of words I'd like to suggest we discuss the matter we are here for."

With relief everyone took a seat, Harriet again at the top, the Foamasi, accompanied by the Doctor and Romana on her left and the others on her right. Harriet's assistant took a seat on a small table that was place under one of the windows and prepared to take notes.

~o~o~o~

Two hours later, the clock slowly nearing midnight, Harriet Jones asked, "Have we reached an agreement?"

Both sides nodded their approval.

"Then my assistant will prepare the contract for signature."

While James got up to gather his papers the doors of the conference room burst open. The assistant turned around, his face white, and several sheets escaped his grip and fell to the floor. A group of men clad in combat gear marked with Torchwood symbols walked in.

"Rose Tyler?" the man in front asked.

Rose straightened herself and got up. She was fairly certain what this was about. "That's me." She didn't recognize him but even Director Gardiner wouldn't be so stupid to let her arrest by someone she'd trained herself. She continued, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Ms Tyler, you are arrested according to Article 73 of the Torchwood Charter."

In case you were wondering: the estate is based on a real place in the UK, thus my sudden ability for descriptions ;-) Oh, and of course I know that Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, therefore the head of state would normally be the king. But they've got a prime minister who's the head of government.