Chapter 8

"Offline."

"I've got to get it upright!"

"Online and locked."

"ROSE. HOLD ON! HOLD ONNNN!"

"I can't Doctor. I won't."

"ROSE!"

Rose's eyes blazed with a dazzling, golden light. She let go of the lever and glided across the room, through the steady stream of Cybermen and Daleks, not one of them hitting her. She reached the Doctor and grabbed the lapels of his sexy, tight, brown pinstripe suit.

"Oh, my. This is different."

"Cassandra?"

"Goodness me, I'm a man. Yum. So many parts. And hardly used. Oh, oh, two hearts! Oh, baby, I'm beating out a samba!"

"Get out of him."

"Ooh, he's slim, and a little bit foxy. You've thought so too. I've been inside your head . . . You've been looking . . . You like it."

Rose had been looking, and yes, she did like it. She pulled on his lapels and pulled him into a passionate kiss . . .

Rose awoke with a groan and slowly opened her eyes. 'Phew! I'll have some more of those dreams, thank you very much.'

She lay there for a long while, revelling in that delicious, imagined kiss. There was something about her dreams. It was as if there was someone else inside her taking control. Not Cassandra, she had just taken advantage, used her. No this was someone else, someone taking care of her, helping her. As with all dreams though, the feeling faded, but thankfully the memory of the kiss remained.

She eventually climbed out of bed, and went through her usual morning routine. When she had dried herself off from the shower, she went through to the bedroom and opened the wardrobe.

'What to wear?' she said to herself. She had so much stuff now. 'Okay. Different universe, different look.'

She pulled on some brown tights, and buttoned up a white blouse just enough to show her cleavage. She then slipped on the knee length red, cotton skirt, and only buttoned it half way down. She sat on the bed and pulled on her Giuseppe Zanotti boots. She slipped on the denim jacket, and stood in front of the mirror, turning left and right. If she stood with one leg slightly forward, the unbuttoned skirt showed just the right amount of thigh.

'Not too shabby girl,' she said to herself with a smile and went downstairs to have breakfast.

Pete and Mickey had already left for work when she arrived in the dining room, which just left Jackie and Rita Anne.

'Mornin',' Rose said with a bit more spirit than she had the previous week.

'Good morning,' Rita Anne said. 'Someone sounds in good spirits.'

'Mornin', Sweetheart,' Jackie greeted her. 'Oh Rose. Those things from Henrick's go together beautifully.'

'D'ya like it? I thought "I ain't goin' anywhere anytime soon", so now would be a good time to try a new look,' Rose explained as she sat at the table and helped herself to some cereal.

'Why ain't ya goin' anywhere soon?' Jackie asked.

'I'd 'ave thought it would've been obvious,' Rose said. 'There'll be photographers with telephoto lenses and god knows what waitin' for me to step outside.'

'Oh, I doubt it, Sweetheart,' Jackie said.

'Mum. The bloke with his dog in the woods even asked if it was me in the paper,' Rose told her. 'Nah, I'll stay here and wait for the heat to die down a bit.'

After breakfast, Rose went through to the lounge with Jackie and Rita Anne, and continued reading one of the books Alice had sent her. At around eleven, Jenny brought in a tray of tea and biscuits, and Pete followed her in with a young woman in tow. The woman had black hair cut in a bob, high cheekbones, and an impish smile. Rose noticed she was wearing the same black, paramilitary uniform which Mickey wore when he was at Torchwood.

'Pete! What you doin' 'ere?' Jackie asked.

'Well. It's Rose we've come to see really,' Pete explained. 'But I thought you might want to see the press release from the PR Department as well.' He handed Jackie a sheet of headed paper with the Torchwood logo on it.

Jackie looked at the release and started to read.

"Peter Tyler, current director of the Torchwood Institute would like to announce the welcome return of his wife and daughter from Rolle, in Switzerland. His daughter, Rose has been studying at the Institut Le Rosey, out of the media spotlight, and a recent photograph in a Sunday newspaper has shown that this was a wise decision. His wife, Jackie moved to Switzerland to be with their daughter, after the tragic and appalling events of April the first, two thousand and seven. Whilst living there, she has been recovering from post traumatic stress disorder, away from media attention. Mister Tyler would like to assure all of Jackie's followers on social media, that she will be back soon. The family asks for some privacy whilst they adjust back to normal life."

'Ooh. That's good,' Rose said.

'Yeah. And if you think that's good, wait 'til you see what we've got for you,' Pete said with a grin. 'Rose, Jacks. This is Chrissie Anderson. She's the head of Technical Operations at the Institute.'

'Hi,' Chrissie said, giving them a little wave.

'She's got something in this case which I think you might like, Rose,' Pete told her. 'Shall we go to the dining room and set up on the table there?'

In the dining room, Pete put a cloth on the table so as not to scratch the polished wood with the metal briefcase. Chrissie put the briefcase on the cloth, clicked the latches open and lifted the lid.

'This little device has been retro engineered from some alien tech we came across a few years ago,' Chrissie explained.

'What does it do?' Rose asked, looking at the alien tech in the case.

'It'll be easier if I just show you,' Chrissie said. 'You might want to tie your hair back Rose. Just to give us a clean impression of your face.'

'Impression?' Rose asked. 'Er, yeah. Okay.'

'Here y'are Sweetheart. Let me,' Jackie said, and tied her daughters hair back into a ponytail.

Chrissie took a ring shaped device out of the case, which had a thin, translucent membrane stretched over it.

'Now. This membrane is going to stretch over your face,' Chrissie explained, and saw the panic on Rose's face. 'Don't worry, it's only for a second. It'll be like having a face mask at a beauty salon. If you just have a seat, I need you to keep your face as neutral as possible.'

'O-kay,' Rose said with hesitation.

'Ready?'

When Rose nodded, Chrissie moved the ring forward, and the membrane stretched like a rubber balloon over Rose's face. When she pulled it back though, the membrane had retained the exact outline of Rose's face.

'Oh, that's perfect,' Chrissie said. 'We got it first time.'

'Got what?' Rose asked.

'This is the template for your disguise,' Chrissie said excitedly. 'Have you seen "Scooby Doo" where they peel the mask off the villain at the end?'

'Wha? You're making me a mask? Like they use in "Mission Impossible"?'

'Not just any mask,' Chrissie told her. 'This is like a second skin. Who do you fancy looking like?'

On the lid of the case, was a screen which displayed dozens of rotating 3D heads. Rose leaned forwards and scrutinized the models.

'What about that one?' she asked, pointing to one of the heads which resembled the actress Jennifer Aniston.

'Okay. Now, watch this,' Chrissie said with a grin.

In the base of the case, was a circular device with hundreds of tiny hexagonal pins, forming a flat surface. When Chrissie selected Rose's model, the pins started to retract into a semicircular bowl, forming a "negative" impression of the model. She then placed the template of Rose's face into the "negative" impression, and pressed a button. After thirty seconds, a green light illuminated and Chrissie removed the template.

'There we are. A new identity for you,' Chrissie said as she peeled off a thin mask. 'It's a special breathable polymer, so you can wear it all day and not get sweaty . . . Try it.'

Rose took the offered mask. 'How do I put it on?'

'Here. Hold it the right way up, and put your nose in first,' Chrissie instructed.

The mask seemed to spread itself over Rose's face and gently cling to her skin. Even the eyelids and mouth formed a perfect seal.

'Oh my gawd,' Jackie said. 'Oh,Rose. That's brilliant.'

'Where's a mirror?' Rose asked, and went through to the entrance hall to look in the mirror there.

There was a stranger's face staring back at her out of the mirror. The stranger pulled faces at her as she tried out the new face.

'This is brilliant!' Rose said as she turned her head left and right. She turned to Chrissie. 'Thanks for this. I thought I was goin' to be stuck in the house for ages.'

'Your welcome,' Chrissie replied and accepted a hug from Rose.

Rose then hugged Pete. 'Thanks for arrangin' this, Pete. I've gotten used to my runs in the woods now.'

'No problem, Sweetheart. Can't have you moping about here under siege, can we?' Pete replied with a lopsided smile.

'If we go back to the dining room, I've got something else you might like,' Chrissie said.

When Rose was sitting back on the chair in the dining room, Chrissie asked her to take her hair out of the ponytail and let it hang loose. She then put a soft cowl over her hair, and pressed a brown coloured button on a small handset. When she took the cowl off, Rose had brown hair.

'Instant hair dye!' Chrissie said. 'How cool is that?'

Rose rubbed her hair between her fingers. 'How the hell did you do that?'

'Nano fibres from the cowl latch onto some strands of your hair and can be programmed to alter their absorption of the various wavelengths of the visible spectrum,' Chrissie explained.

To Rose, it sounded like something the Doctor would say, and Chrissie saw the "dribbled down her blouse" look on her face. 'The little fibres change colour, and so change the apparent colour of your hair.'

'Hah! You are brilliant!,' Rose exclaimed.

'So this is . . . Sylvia Prentice?' Jackie asked Pete in the lounge that evening as they cuddled up on the sofa. She had a photograph album and her biography open.

'Yep. She's your best friend,' Pete told her.

Because of the article in the Sunday paper, Pete realised that many of "his" Jackie's old contacts would be getting in touch with his present Jackie. He found out the old photo albums to coach her on the people in the photographs so that when they eventually got in touch, she would be able to react as though she had known them for years.

'What's she like then?'

'You're like a couple of naughty school children when you get together. Very similar sense of humour to yours, and she loves to share gossip with you.'

'Right. Got it,' Jackie said. 'Oh-my-gawd. It's Harriet Jones!'

'That's right. She was vice president when that was taken,' Pete informed her.

'An' who's that guy shakin' yer hand?' Jackie pointed to a dark skinned man in the photograph.

'That was the president. He was killed by the Cybermen . . . In fact, a lot of the people in these photos died that night,' Pete said, sadly.

Jackie reached up and stroked his cheek. 'It must 'ave been awful, Love.'

'Yeah, it was. But some people made it out, me included. Thanks to the Doctor, Rose and Mickey.'

'Y'know, Rose never told me about any of this,' Jackie told him.

'That's because you'd have done your nut,' Pete said with a lopsided smile.

'Yeah. S'pose you're right. The Doctor just said they'd been a long way away, and Rose said Mickey had stayed on another world 'cos he'd met someone special.'

'Rita Anne is pretty special,' Pete said.

'Y'not wrong there,' Jackie agreed, and then realised something Pete had just said. 'Hang on. If Harriet Jones was vice president, does that mean . . .'

'Harriet Jones is the president, yes.'

'Blimey! You couldn't make this up,' Jackie said with raised eyebrows. 'She was Prime Minister when these aliens parked their ship over London.'

'What happened?' Pete asked, wanting to know all about her adventures in the other universe.

'Rose said the Doctor challenged their leader to a sword fight of all things. I thought it would be all ray guns and lasers. Anyway, he sent 'em packin', gettin' 'em to swear they wouldn't come back, and Harriet Jones blasted their ship out of the sky.'

'And they'd already surrendered?' Pete asked in surprise. That didn't sound right to him.

'Yeah. The Doctor was furious with her. He whispered somethin' to her private secretary, an' rumours started circulatin' about her health. A few months later, an' she was out with a vote of no confidence,' Jackie explained.

'I wonder what he whispered to her secretary?' Pete wondered. He knew the Doctor was clever and resourceful, but to bring down a Prime Minister with a few whispered words . . . That was impressive.

'So what's your Harriet Jones like?' Jackie asked.

'She's been a good president so far,' Pete told her. 'She cares about people and she's fair, but she's nobody's fool. I have a meeting with her every month to keep her up to date with Torchwood operations, and she's always done her homework and is well informed . . . Talking of homework . . .' Pete turned another page of the photograph album. 'That's Jessica Hatfield. She's the wife of MP Geoffrey Hatfield . . .'

The next day, Rose was jogging through Queen's Wood, when she came across the elderly man walking his Labrador.

'Mornin' again,' Rose said, as she stooped to ruffle the dogs ears. 'He does love that, doesn't he.'

'Er, yes. He does, Miss,' the man said with a puzzled expression. 'Have we met before then?'

'Oh. The disguise,' Rose said, realising the cause of his confusion. She looked around to make sure there was no one looking, and peeled some of the mask up from under her chin. 'It's me . . . The girl in the paper. I'm in disguise. Sorry about the other day.'

The man's face lit up. 'It's you!' he said and then looked around the woods cautiously. He lowered his voice. 'You're Pete Tyler's girl, aren't you.'

Rose smiled. 'Yeah. Do you know 'im?'

'What, Pete? Yeah. I've shared a pint with him in the Woodman. Lovely chap. He kept you quiet though. Never mentioned a daughter. Mind you, after that thing with the Sunday paper, I can see why. Anyway, tell him Brian and Bruno say hello. I'll let you work out who's who,' he said with a cheeky wink.

'Will do. Nice meetin' ya again . . . See ya Brian,' she said to the dog, and gave Brian her tongue between the teeth grin.

She heard Brian laughing behind her as she carried on running, relieved that the disguise had worked perfectly. She would be able to carry on adapting to life in "Pete's World" for the time being, without having to worry about cameras with telephoto lenses.

The disguise also worked on Friday night when she went to the Woodman Inn with Mickey and the gang. They walked out of the front gates, and saw a few photographers hanging about, hoping for that money shot which would pay the bills. The cameras went up, but then lowered again when they realised it was just the house staff going for a drink.

In the Woodman, Rose noticed some new faces sitting at a table with bags of camera equipment on the floor. At the bar, Mickey nodded sideways to the new faces.

'Reporters?' he asked Bob, the barman.

'Yeah. Been askin' about Pete an' 'is family,' Bob told him. 'Told 'em I 'adn't seen Pete in 'ere for a while, which ain't no lie, an' that I didn't know anythin' about no daughter, which again, ain't no lie.'

Mickey smiled. 'Thanks, Bob. The usual round when yer ready.'

Rose was in her room, sitting in her favourite seat at the window, gazing out over the grounds of the house, a borrowed paperback open on her lap. It had been three weeks now since Rose had been pulled into "Pete's World", and the Doctor still hadn't found his way back. She was thinking about the press release Pete had issued, and how it explained her sudden appearance. She wondered how Pete and Jackie would explain her disappearance when the Doctor came back for her.

She still listened out for that amazing sound the TARDIS engines made, hoping it would be sooner, rather than later when she would hear it again. What she did hear though, was the sound of the ringtone on her phone. She leaned over to reach it out of the pocket of her denim skirt and looked at the screen, which displayed the name "Pete".

'Hello?' She said cautiously, wondering what her adoptive father could want at this time of the day.

['Hi Rose, it's . . . Dad,'] Pete said with some hesitation. ['Mickey has just radioed in from a mission and he thinks you might be able to help,'] he told her.

He'd called himself "Dad", Rose realised. She'd been waiting for weeks now for him to take that step. She was suddenly happier than she had been since she'd arrived in this alternate universe. 'Me? Are you sure?'

['Yep. Something about an adventure you told him about. We need you to look at a video feed to see if you can identify an alien object,'] Pete explained.

Rose wondered which adventure in particular Mickey had been referring to. 'Erm, yeah okay, I can do that,' she replied.

['Oh that's great Sweetheart, I'll send a driver for you, see you soon. Bye for now.']

He'd called himself "Dad", and Rose hoped he was ready for her to do the same. 'Bye . . . Dad.'

Rose put on her ankle boots and leather jacket, before heading downstairs. She found Jackie in the lounge, watching some daytime television.

'Mum? Pete . . . I mean Dad, just called me. He said Mickey's found somethin' that he thinks I might know about from the old universe. He's sendin' a car to take me to Torchwood,' Rose told her.

'Really, Sweetheart? That sounds interestin',' Jackie said. 'Hey, y'called 'im "Dad".'

Rose smiled at her. 'Yeah. He called 'imself "Dad" on the phone.'

'That's progress, Love. I knew he'd come around in the end.' She stood up and gave Rose a hug. 'I'm so pleased for ya. Hold on, I'll get me coat.'

'What for?' Rose asked her.

'If you're goin' to Torchwood, I'm comin' with ya.'