Chapter 20
"Rose, Rose, sorry but I need you to wake up." The Doctor reached over to the passenger seat and jostled her shoulder a little to aid the process.
"What?" Rose slowly returned to consciousness. She had been so deeply asleep that at first she didn't know where she was, and then she remembered she and the Doctor were driving back from Cardiff on the M-4. With a start, she realized they were nearing London. "Oh my God, sorry, I must have fallen asleep," she said, yawning. She really hoped she hadn't been snoring. Or drooling. She wiped her mouth with her hand, just in case.
"No problem," the Doctor said. "You obviously needed it."
"I guess I did." After returning the back of her seat to an upright position, she took off her sunglasses and vigorously rubbed her face with her hands in an effort to wake up. She yawned again. "How long was I out?"
"I'm not exactly sure," he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. "What was the last thing you remember?"
She thought for a moment. "Dunno," she said. "I think we were still in Wales. Don't really remember crossing the bridge."
"Do you remember anything I said to you?" he asked, slightly anxiously.
"You were saying something about a robot, maybe?" she guessed. "Oh, and maybe Sarah Jane, yeah?"
He groaned inwardly in frustration. Despite responding to him, she had been asleep most of the time he had been talking to her. She had somehow slept through his entire description of the meta-crisis. "You were asleep just over two hours. We hit traffic a while back and that slowed us up, but I'm gonna need those directions now."
Stopping for a quick bite to eat first, at a noisy, crowded restaurant that allowed them virtually no opportunity to talk, the Doctor noted in frustration, they made it to Torchwood Four shortly before one o'clock. The Torchwood security guard, after briefly checking their IDs, and complementing them on Pete's car, waved them through the gate. After they parked, Rose led him through the main entrance where their IDs were checked by another guard who informed them that Pete Tyler wanted to see them but was currently in a meeting.
"Now what?" Rose asked as they walked down the hall. Their IDs hung from cords around their necks and gently swayed as they walked. "We still have over an hour before the meeting. We could go to my office."
"We should take a look at Richard Bradford's lab," the Doctor suggested. "Maybe there'll be a clue to what happened to him in there."
When they got to the lab, however, neither of their IDs would open the door, despite Rose's security clearance, and Bradford's assistants were nowhere to be found.
Rose looked up and down the hall to make sure they were alone. "You could always sonic it," she said softly enough so that the CCTV, which had audio capabilities at Torchwood, wouldn't pick it up.
The Doctor shook his head and leaned against the hallway wall. "No sonic," he told her.
"What?" she demanded in a normal tone of voice. "Seriously? You're kidding."
He shrugged apologetically. "Didn't have an extra one. Don't normally keep a spare," he told her. "Didn't you notice when you took everything out of my pockets?"
She shook her head and started down the hall. She led the way in what the Doctor guessed was the general direction of her office. He noticed that the section of the building that they were currently in seemed to hold primarily laboratories.
"I can't believe I didn't notice," she said. "The Doctor without a sonic screwdriver. That just seems … wrong."
"At least that is easily fixed. Well, I say easily," he told her, rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture of mild frustration. Frustration seems to be the theme for the day, he thought. "It's not really that easy to make a new sonic. But at least it's doable. Mostly just need the parts, some time, and a place to work. And I really haven't had any of those."
They turned down a hall and passed through a set of fire doors. Another hall, another set of doors and a stairwell. Periodically, they would have to pass through security doors and Rose would stop, scanning her ID to unlock them. Eventually they reached a plain door at the end of an empty corridor.
"This is it," she said, and opened the door.
It was a tiny office, only really large enough for a desk, a filing cabinet, and a couple of chairs.
Despite the size of the room, there was a cot, folded up and shoved in one corner. The rest of the office was completely clean of the typical types of clutter offices usually accumulate, no piles of paper, no stray coffee mugs, not even a half-dead potted plant. It could have been anyone's office, or no one's, except for one thing. On one wall, near the desk, was a cork bulletin board filled with photos. But they were impossible photos.
There was a photo of the two of them in 1953, her in the pink skirt, pink headband and blue jean jacket, him wearing a motorcycle helmet with his pinstripes, at the block party for the Queen's Coronation, sitting on the scooter they had given to Tommy. He remembered Rose had had Tommy take that one. Another photo, this one taken by Jackie, was of the Christmas he had spent with Rose at the Powell Estate, right after he regenerated. Both of them were wearing the ridiculous paper crowns that had come out of the Christmas crackers and were grinning like idiots. Well, he was grinning like an idiot, he thought. Rose was beautiful as always. A third was taken by a couple of strangers that happened to be walking by and were recruited as photographers by Rose. It was at the 2012 Olympics, not long after she had given him the lovely fairy cake with the edible ball bearings.
There were over a dozen photos, some taken at significant moments, others just taken at random moments. But three of the photos truly surprised him. One was a shot taken in present day Cardiff. Another was taken in her mum's flat at the Powell Estate. And the third was a truly beautiful photo taken at a distance of a man in a leather jacket and a woman wearing winter clothes walking underneath a frozen wave, the man's arm protectively wrapped around the woman's shoulders, his head bent toward hers. Their body language toward each other made them look as if they were very much in love. It was obviously taken at Woman Wept. And those three all featured his ninth self.
"How on Earth…" he asked.
"Camera phones. These," she said, pointing out a number of earlier pictures, "were stored on the memory card of the phone Mickey kept when we left him here the first time. And these," she said, pointing out the others, "were on the memory card of my new phone, the one I had in my pocket at Canary Wharf."
"I had no idea you had these. I remember some of these being taken, but how…" He took the shot from Woman Wept off the wall and held it in his hand. It was one of his most precious memories of that regeneration. Make that any regeneration.
"Yeah," Rose said, a small smile on her lips, "that's always been one of my favorites. Near as I can figure, Jack must have swiped my mobile and taken that one. I didn't discover it until I got here and Mickey gave me back my phone."
She looked back at the bulletin board. "While we were doing the dimension jumps I didn't use this office much, but when I did, I wanted to remember why I was fighting so hard to get back. These pictures reminded me." She paused, her mind racing through the events of the past week. Her initial anger and frustration at being left behind by the Time Lord Doctor at Darlig Ulv Stranden were beginning to fade, were slowly turning into a sadness and resignation that more closely resembled grief, but she was still upset with him. Finally she sighed. "Guess I can take them down now. Obviously I don't need them anymore."
"No, don't," he said quickly, grabbing her hand before it reached the bulletin board. "Please." He looked down at the photo of Woman Wept that was still in his other hand, and when he spoke again his voice was low, deeper than usual, and his accent had unintentionally shifted to be slightly Northern. "You were so beautiful that day, Rose, your hair all tucked up in that silly hat you used to wear, your face all pink from the cold. And I never told you. I should have told you then, but I didn't. I'm sorry I didn't." He let go of her hand and pinned the photo back in place. "There are so many things I should have told you back then."
Her eyes widened in astonishment. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything, a little voice whispered in her ear. Her brain tried to understand what that meant. Same thoughts, same memories.
"I'm the same man, Rose," he said as if he had read her thoughts, his Estuary accent returning to his voice. "Same thoughts, same memories. Same hand," he said wryly, lifting his hand up and wriggling his fingers. He grinned. "I love this hand. This is the same hand that took yours when I first told you to run. Same hand." He looked in her eyes, trying to will her to understand him. "Same man, Rose Tyler."
Rose stared at him and wished she understood what he meant. He couldn't mean it literally. There were so obviously two separate people who stood on that beach with her in Norway. And he was wrong anyway. He and the other Doctor were very alike, but they were so different as well. He never told her he loved her. He never would have told her he regretted not telling her she was beautiful. And he had abandoned her, had abandoned the both of them.
Her mobile chirped, this time signaling a text rather than a call, and Rose sighed in frustration. She pulled it out of her pocket, thinking the Doctor might have a point about not carrying one.
"Dad needs to see us."
Pete Tyler kept three offices. One was located at the Vitex corporate offices and was designed to be impressive. Located at the top of a skyscraper in Central London with a dazzling view of the Thames and the London skyline, the office had wall to wall windows and took up an entire floor of the building. It was filled with expensive, modern furniture and original works of art. His office at the mansion had been decorated by a professional decorator, and was designed to match the look and furnishings of the rest of the house.
And then there was the office at Torchwood. Larger than most others in the building, it still was only a fraction of the size of his office at home. The bulk of the office was taken up by a government issued metal desk. Along with Pete's desk chair, there were two other chairs that sat in front of it, and an ancient uncomfortable-looking vinyl sofa had been shoved against one wall. Instead of oak bookcases, it had utilitarian metal shelves that held tomes on scientific topics. And instead of fine works of art, the walls were filled with scientific graphs and star charts. All in all, it looked like an office for a typical mid-level government worker, rather than that of one of the richest men on the planet.
These days, Pete Tyler spent more hours on a typical day in his office at Torchwood than he did in a week in his home office or in a month in his office at Vitex.
"Sit down," he urged the Doctor and Rose as they entered the room. "We don't have much time before the meeting, but I do need to talk to you about a few things. First, did you learn anything in Cardiff?"
The Doctor summarized what they now believed about the alien being sentient as well as his current theory that it was his energy signature, rather than his species, which allowed him to live through the attack at the substation.
"But we need to be careful with that information, Pete," he concluded. "I really don't want anyone guessing that I'm not from this universe, let alone that I'm not fully human."
"Understood," Pete responded. "Although most of the people who work at Torchwood know about the dimension cannon project, only the people who were directly involved know anything about you."
"And the people I worked with in Cardiff," Rose added.
The Doctor nodded. "And let's keep it that way if at all possible. I don't know this world, but most planets at this developmental level have a strong xenophobic streak. If word got out I was an alien, it wouldn't just be bad for me, it could be bad for you and your family as well."
Pete nodded in understanding. He and Rose had had similar discussions when Jackie and Rose had first been trapped in his world. Although Rose and Jackie were both human, no one knew what could have happened if the wrong people had discovered that they were in the wrong universe, and no one wanted to find out.
The Doctor continued. "Is there any way we can postpone this meeting? Rose and I really haven't had time to look over Richard Bradford's research, and we haven't had a chance to examine his lab or talk to his lab assistants."
Pete looked over at the clock on the wall, then at his appointment calendar. "I can give you an hour," he finally said. "But that's all. Bradford's research is only one part of this investigation."
"Oh, but I think it may be the key to the whole thing," the Doctor said, jumping up from his chair. "Ready, Rose?" Rose jumped up to follow him.
"Doctor, you can go," Pete said, "but I need to talk to Rose about something."
"What?" she asked. "Can't it wait?"
"Not really," said Pete. "There have been some serious allegations made about something that happened during your trip to Cardiff."
"What sort of allegations?" Rose demanded.
"Doctor, you can go," Pete said again, nodding at the door.
The Doctor looked from Pete to Rose questioningly.
"No, he stays," she said.
The tension in the room ratcheted up a notch as the Doctor watched the battle of wills play out in front of him. "Rose, it's all right, why don't I just go," he said. As curious as he was, he really didn't want to be here if this turned out to get a bit domestic.
She turned to him. "No, you stay," she insisted, pointing at him. "Anything he has to say to me, he can say to you as well. I'll just tell you anyway, and this way it'll just save time, yeah?"
Pete Tyler sighed loudly and rubbed his temples. "Fine, fine," he said, giving in. "But it's not really about either one of you. It's about Owen Harper."
"What?" they both said as they sat back down in their chairs.
"Someone made a serious allegation about him. I was told that when you arrived, he made some comments to you that could be construed as sexual harassment."
The Doctor and Rose glanced quickly at each other.
"Judging by both of your reactions, I am guessing these allegations are true," Pete said angrily. He swore. "Do you want to make a formal complaint?"
"No," Rose said. "I handled it, and I don't believe he's going to do it again. Not to me at any rate."
"But it's not just you," Pete said. "Harper has been pulling this sort of thing regularly for years. It may be time to get rid of him."
"No, Dad, you can't," Rose pleaded. She knew that if Owen Harper lost his job, Torchwood would probably Ret-Con him because of all the classified information he knew. He had been working there long enough that he could end up forgetting whole years of his life. "That would destroy him. Besides, he is the best expert we have on alien anatomy and physiology. Well, other than the Doctor."
"No one is irreplaceable, Rose," Pete told her. He then turned to the Doctor. "You were there. How bad were his comments?"
"Disgusting and inexcusable," the Doctor responded.
"But I handled him and later he apologized," Rose said.
"Really?" the Doctor asked, glancing at her in surprise. His mouth twisted in a slight grin.
"Yeah," she said. "You had gone back to look at the CCTV video again and he cornered me before Gwen and I went to work on all that junk in the storage area." She paused thoughtfully. "Funny thing is, Owen has never apologized to me before. I don't know if he's ever apologized to anyone before."
She looked at the Doctor suspiciously. He was the picture of innocence itself, but she knew that expression on his face, had seen it easily a hundred times before on the other Doctor, and his previous regeneration as well. He had the slightest smirk that only she could see because she knew the expression so well. What had he done?
Pete turned back to Rose. "I'll give him one more chance, but we've got to get this under control. Cardiff is a mess with him there. The only people that have been able to handle him have been Jake and Mickey, but Jake is busy with some other projects and now Mickey's gone. Gwen just doesn't seem to have the same influence over him. And she's going on maternity leave anyway. And no one who is qualified seems to want to take over Torchwood Three. It's almost as if there's a curse on it or something." He stood up, sighing loudly in frustration. "This isn't over, but we've got much more important problems on this planet than one foul mouthed doctor in Cardiff. I'll send someone over to open Richard Bradford's lab for you and reprogram the lock so your own IDs will get you in from now on."
On the way back to the lab, the Doctor and Rose discussed the situation regarding Owen.
"But who do you think told Pete?" the Doctor asked.
"That's what I don't get," said Rose. "There were only the six of us who knew about it: you, me, Tosh, Gwen, Ianto, and of course Owen himself. If we take off you, me, and Owen, that only leaves Tosh, Gwen and Ianto, and I just can't see any of them complaining to Dad."
"Why did you automatically exclude me?" the Doctor asked with amusement.
"Because I know you," she said. "You'd be more likely to threaten him than to tell on him." She glanced at him and saw something that looked like a hint of satisfaction in his expression. Her eyes widened. "Oh, you did, didn't you? You threatened him. I told you not to let him get to you."
He scratched the back of his head and looked sheepish.
Making a noise that almost sounded like a growl, Rose shook her head and stalked off down the hall. As the Doctor followed her he heard her mutter under her breath. He thought he could pick out a few words that sounded suspiciously like "men" and "bunch of idiots" and "honestly", as well as what might have been a long string of expletives. He hung back and decided the wisest course of action for him was probably to not say anything. Once he was certain she was finished, he caught up with her.
She glared at him for a moment, and then sighed loudly, exasperated.
"Okay, who is left?" he asked, hoping that by returning to the question of who turned in Owen, she'd forget her irritation at him. "Let's take them one at a time."
"Well, I think we can pretty much exclude Tosh," she said to him eventually, most of her annoyance at him gone. "She is very quiet, very shy, and very nonconfrontational. I just can't see her going to Dad about this. Plus, she's in love with Owen."
"Really?" the Doctor said, surprised. Well, there was no accounting for taste.
"Oh yeah, and I don't see her wanting to get him into trouble."
"And Gwen?"
Rose stopped walking and glanced around her. There was no one else in the hall.
"Promise not to tell anyone, yeah?" she said to him softly.
The Doctor sighed, looking pained. "Why do I get the feeling this is going to get terribly domestic?"
"Cos it is," Rose answered quietly. She didn't want her voice picked up on the CCTV. "Okay, when Gwen first started working for Torchwood, before she got married, she and Owen had a 'thing'. It's just… kind of a secret. I only found out by accident. Anyway, it didn't last very long and it was a very long time ago. But if she reported him that could all get out and I know Gwen doesn't want that. Especially now that she's married with a baby on the way."
"A thing?" He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"Yeah, a thing."
"What's a 'thing'?" the Doctor asked.
"An affair," she clarified.
"What? With Owen?" the Doctor said loudly in disbelief. Rose shushed him and he lowered his voice. "Gwen had an affair with Owen and Tosh is in love with him? Aren't there any other eligible men in Cardiff?"
"He can be very appealing when he wants to be," Rose said with a shrug.
"Oh, he can, can he?" he said in a low voice. "And just how appealing is that?"
At the tone of his voice, Rose looked at him in surprise.
"Are you jealous?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. She tried to keep the amusement out of her voice.
"What, me?" the Doctor said quickly. "Jealous of Owen Harper? Of course not. Why on Earth would I be jealous of Owen Harper? I mean, well, look at me," he said, adjusting his suit jacket. "And look at him. Besides, I wouldn't really have a reason to be jealous of Owen, would I?" He tried, and utterly failed, to keep a worried, needy edge out of his voice. "I mean, it's not like someone I care about used to be involved with him or anything, right?"
"Doctor…"
"Not that there would have been anything wrong with that, of course… I mean, seven years is a very long time… "
"Doctor…" she said again.
"I mean, it would have been bad enough if it had been Mickey…"
"Doctor…" she repeated, slightly more loudly.
"At least I'd understand that, since you used to date him…"
"Doctor!" Rose said sharply.
"But Owen, Rose, really? He's not even that good looking…"
"Doctor!" She didn't want to yell, but honestly, didn't he ever listen?
"Hmm?" He turned to her.
"I was never involved with Owen Harper. You have nothing to be jealous about." He didn't need to know that Owen had made a play for her when she had first started working in Cardiff. Especially now that she knew that he had already threatened him over one crude remark that was actually quite mild compared to what Owen usually said.
"Jealous, Rose?" the Doctor asked, trying to hide the relief in his voice. He failed at that as well. "Who said I was jealous? In fact, I distinctly remember saying I wasn't jealous."
Rose rolled her eyes.
"Anyway," she said, "that just leaves Ianto. Now, I know that Owen and Ianto don't really get along too well, but with Ianto's history I just don't see him leveling a sexual harassment charge on Owen."
"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked. "What kind of history?"
"Ianto used to be engaged to a woman when they both worked at Torchwood One," Rose said. "When she broke up with him he couldn't accept it right away and she eventually filed harassment charges against him. That's when Dad transferred him out to Cardiff. Ianto's originally from Wales and it just made sense to send him there."
The Doctor felt a headache coming on. He put his hand up to rub one temple. "Sounds like an episode of EastEnders."
"Doesn't it though?" Rose laughed, and then a thought occurred to her. She stared at him curiously. "Wait a minute, since when do you watch EastEnders?"
They had gotten to Bradford's lab and were met by a security guard who let them in and, on Pete's instructions, reprogrammed the door to accept the Doctor and Rose's IDs.
Bradford's laboratory was a long, narrow room with cupboards along one wall and a long granite topped workbench running down the center. The opposite wall held several computer terminals and two doors, one leading to a small office, the other to the loo. A thin notebook computer sat on one end of the counter, surrounded by a variety of electronic equipment. Stacks of papers, coffee mugs, and a variety of small tools and more electronics were scattered about on a variety of horizontal surfaces, as if the occupants of the room had been there and had just stepped out for a moment.
"Okay, where do you want to start?" Rose said upon entering the lab. She flipped through one of the stacks of papers.
"I thought I could check on Bradford's research while you investigate his assistants," he said. "Who they are and where they are. And why they aren't here."
"Right away, Sarge," Rose said with a grin and a mock salute.
He grinned widely at her, delighted at her referencing another of their joint memories. "Hop to it, Lewis."
Rose and the Doctor sat down at two of the computer terminals in the far corner of the lab. She watched as he stretched out his arms and wiggled his fingers.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Limbering myself up to prepare to type," he said as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his glasses. "Honestly, Rose, keyboards? You'd think this planet would have progressed further than that."
"You seem to be doing alright with our primitive technology," she said, watching his fingers fly across the keyboard.
He made a face. "This would be so much faster with a sonic. When this is all over, making a new one has to be my top priority, if for no other reason than I need one to work on our coral. Oh, this is interesting…" he said, peering intently at the screen. "I found his notes that describe the new energy he had discovered. Evidently he found it in the power cells of an alien communication device that came up through the Cardiff rift almost two years ago. Was that while you were still there?"
She shook her head. "It must have appeared there after I left."
"Hmm," the Doctor said, continuing to read from the computer monitor. "Anyway, he describes the energy at one point as radiating blue light. Remind you of anything?"
Her eyes widened. "That thing that attacked you at the substation."
He nodded. "And the fluorescent lights there all seemed a bit more blue than normal. Remember? I knew that Bradford's research was related to the disappearances somehow." He paused as something occurred to him.
"Rose," he asked, "if it was found in Cardiff, what was it doing here?"
"Anything found in Cardiff that seems the least bit useful gets shipped out here," she told him. "Almost all research on alien technology is done here. Then, depending on what they find out about it, it's either reverse engineered or archived."
He paused for a moment, thinking. "We really need to find that communication device that came up through the Rift." He glanced around the lab. "You think it might still be in here?"
"Maybe," Rose answered. "Or it could be archived down in the storage. Do you know what it looks like?"
The Doctor shook his head. "No," he said, "but I think I'd know it if I saw it."
"Well, unless it's still in here for some reason, we may be out of luck," she told him. "Torchwood currently had over a hundred thousand pieces of alien equipment of different types archived downstairs. Unless we can narrow it down in some way, we may never find it down there."
The Doctor got up and wandered the lab, looking in cupboards and under things, while Rose continued to work on the computer. The lab was filled with both high tech and low tech equipment. One cupboard seemed to be devoted to circuit boards of all types. Another contained thin sheets of various types of semiconducting materials, as well as sheets of copper and glass. A third had spools of electrical wires and connectors. More wire littered the countertops, obscuring hand tools and a small notebook computer. Several dirty coffee mugs had been left on the countertop and the desk. After searching the lab thoroughly, the Doctor searched Bradford's office. Not finding anything of interest, he eventually gave up and crossed back to where Rose was. He stood behind her, looking over her shoulder at the monitor in front of her.
"No luck?" she asked him.
"Nope," he said. "I actually didn't see anything of alien origin here. Just a typically messy lab. And an even messier office. Have you found anything?"
"Not a lot so far, but you might find this interesting," Rose said, glancing over her shoulder at him before returning to look at the screen in front of her. "When Bradford put in a request for staff, he had some very specific requirements. There was the usual stuff, had to have certain degrees, had to have at least two years of lab experience beyond the University level, but he also requested all his staff have a level 5 rating on the Armstrong scale."
"I'm not familiar with that," said the Doctor.
"That's what Torchwood uses here to classify their telepathic ratings. Purely telepathic alien species rate a ten, someone psi null rates a one. Not sure what you'd rate," she said, glancing at him appraisingly. "Typically, humans rate a one or a two."
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "And he wanted all his staff to rate at a five?"
"Yep," Rose nodded. "Or higher. Very rare among humans. Very, very rare."
"And odd for an alternative energies project," the Doctor said thoughtfully.
"There's also a staff list here," Rose continued. "According to this, Bradford had three assistants. One was a doctoral candidate named Sean Callahan who went back to Cambridge to finish his degree about three months ago, but the other two are still here. Their names are Dr. Michael Fields and Dr. Lisa Hallett."
"Lisa Hallett, Lisa Hallett," the Doctor mused. "Now why does that name sound familiar?"
"I dunno why it's familiar to you," Rose responded. "But Lisa Hallett is the one who filed harassment charges against Ianto. She's Ianto's ex-fiancée."