Disclaimer: I don't own what you recognise; the drill should be familiar to you by now

Feedback: I'd appreciate it; I'm trying to do something a bit different here

AN: Reference will be made to Control at this point, but as before knowledge of him isn't important beyond the concept and that he has history with the Doctor.

The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day

When the next wave of CIA agents arrived, Gwen chose to consider it a good sign that these ones at least weren't keeping their guns trained on her and her friends, and also chose not to analyse how easily she had come to consider Esther Drummond as part of that particular category. After everything she'd heard about the Doctor from Jack, trusting him came relatively easily, which meant that his companions were people Gwen was willing to trust as well, but of their three American contacts, Esther was so far the only one Gwen was willing to consider a friend.

Granted, she liked Doctor Juarez well enough and probably just needed more time to get to know her, but it said a lot about how much Rex Matheson was frustrating her right now that she found it easier to call a robot dog her friend rather than a human being…

"Mr Shapiro, tell me something," Rex said, addressing the man who was apparently the leader of the next CIA group, as they led away Friedkin's own forces. "All that time I was on the run, did you think I was a traitor?"

"There was evidence, woven through your records going back ten years or more," Shapiro observed, looking at Matheson with an expression that Gwen could only think of as a smile. "You should be grateful that Friedkin was so eager to take care of you himself that he ended up tipping his hand, but whoever's really behind this is a lot smarter than Friedkin and operating on all sorts of different levels."

"But now we've got them on the run," Rex replied with a more definite smile.

"Maybe," Shapiro said before he turned to face Rex directly with a firmer stare. "So let's start from the beginning; exactly what is going on?"

"Oh, just a long-term conspiracy involving a trio of three families who basically erased themselves from public record at least seven decades ago so that they could ultimately destroy human society by making the human race immortal," the Doctor put in with a nonchalant shrug. "Ambitious, certainly, but it all amounts to a very sophisticated attempt at a coup."

"And you are?" Shapiro looked at the Doctor with a critical manner that made it clear he was judging the Time Lord's physical age.

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor replied, matching Shapiro's glare with his own cool counter-stare. "You may be aware of me through Control's division?"

"Control…" Shapiro began, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the Doctor uncertainly. "You knew him? He died almost a decade ago…"

"It took that little time for everything to catch up, mmm?" the Doctor observed with a shrug. "Well, in any case, be aware that I have contacts in the U.N. who wouldn't be happy if you tried to follow his example when dealing with me. This isn't a standard threat by any definition, so I'd appreciate you showing a little professional courtesy from the UNIT and Torchwood operatives who have been working on tracing the source of this problem while you're going around acting like Rufus Scrimgeour."

"…Who?"

"Minister of Magic in Half-Blood Prince?" Amy put in with a teasing grin (Gwen didn't know if this was a good idea, but she appreciated the analogy). "The man was so focused on trying to make sure he at least looked like he was doing something against Voldemort's forces that he wasn't always actually doing something useful, and ended up just arresting people who said they were Death Eaters because they were idiots trying to sound macho?"

"You're comparing the CIA to a character in a children's novel?" Shapiro looked sceptically between the Doctor and Amy before his gaze settled on the Doctor. "And this is far from a conventional situation-"

"Which is why you need to do things our way if you're going to sort this, which starts with not arresting Olivia Colasanto for helping us."

"You'd what?" Vera looked at Shapiro indignantly.

"She has admitted to an association with the people responsible for the current state of affairs-"

"See?" Amy folded her arms and fixed Shapiro with a more serious glare. "Classic Scrimgeour; you don't know where the real bad guys are so you're arresting someone convenient to make it look like you're doing something."

"I am getting sick of you already, Miss-" Shapiro began.

"If you threaten my assistant, Mr Shapiro, I should warn you that is not a good approach to take if you want my help to deal with this," the Doctor put in, glaring back at the other man.

"Doc, this is Allen Shapiro; you can't-" Rex began.

"Agent Matheson, you never had the right to tell me what to do, so don't think you acquired it now when you made this situation more complicated," the Doctor shot a glare at the CIA agent before he turned back to Shapiro. "I repeat for your benefit, Agent Shapiro; right now the CIA need us and our insights more than we need the CIA."

"And what makes you think that?"

"Do you have the names of the people responsible for the Miracle and information about how they did it?" Gwen put in. As much as she liked the Doctor and Amy, she didn't want to give the impression she was just a spare herself.

"Ah, the English girl-"

"Welsh, and not a girl," Gwen said with a glare.

"Captain Jack Harkness," Jack put in, his tone the least flirtatious Amy had ever heard from the former immortal as he looked at Shapiro. "Like the Doctor said, Mr Shapiro, right now you're wasting time making pointless arrests while my team have been tracing evidence and finding names; we can get more done right now if you return the Doctor's blue box and actually listen to us rather than trying to take charge yourself."

"Blue box?"

"Oh, like you didn't take the box from the plane once we had to run away after Agent Peterfield tried to kill Jack?" Amy grinned. "If you know anything about the Doctor, you'd have recognised that box, and that means you've got it on lockdown somewhere even if you can't get into it."

"…Fine," Shapiro said, shaking his head in exasperation before he turned to the Doctor. "So what do we do now?"

"Give me the blue box and let us explain what we're dealing with," the Doctor said firmly. "Oh, and Esther Drummond retains full pay for the time since she's been working with us; she only left the CIA because people in the agency were definitely going to at least try to kill her if she'd stayed."

"She deserted her post-"

"To help us investigate this situation," Amy interrupted. "Do you really want to punish one of the only people who's been doing anything useful in this crisis?"

Amy credited her time training with the Doctor for the fact that she didn't start laughing at the sight of Shapiro fuming as he stared at the Doctor. Evidently, this man was at least smart enough to recognise that the Doctor had too much information for him to just dismiss her strangely-dressed, seemingly-young… travelling companion.. as some eccentric nut, but just wished that he could do such a thing.

"…Fine," Shapiro shook his head in frustration. "The Colasanto family stays free… but I reserve the right to arrest them if I find they're deliberately hiding anything important."

"If you give them the chance to confirm whether or not they knew it might be important beforehand."

"I… suppose I'll have to accept that," Shapiro nodded at the Doctor, a slight curl to his lip the only sign that he still wasn't happy with this situation. "Just… give me time to get your box transferred here."

"And make sure that whoever brings it here also has a suitable truck that they don't have to return somewhere later; I'd like to have the option of taking the box away afterwards."

"Whatever you say," Shapiro shrugged as he took out his phone and walked off, leaving the Doctor to turn his attention to the fuming Rex Matheson.

"Can I assume you have a problem with my strategy, Agent Matheson?"

"A pro- you bet I have a problem!" Rex all but growled at the Doctor. "You're treating the CIA like a potential enemy; we're all trying to solve this-!"

"Right, because not only were those camps set up by someone apart from the government, but obviously the CIA weren't infiltrated by the people we're after in the first place!" Amy countered, before shooting Rex a mocking grin. "Remind me, why did you end up with us when we got to America? Wasn't it because someone inside the CIA was trying to frame you?"

"She makes a good point," Gwen observed with a cool grin. She would defend her ex-colleagues in Cardiff on principle, but there was nothing wrong with enjoying having the advantage over other intelligence services…

"We've got Friedkin in custody-"

"Again, obviously these people will have told every double agent about every other double agent they have in your organisation?" Gwen countered with a bitter shake of her head. "Friedkin isn't going to know everyone these Three Families have got in the agency; can you give us a cast-iron, rock-solid guarantee that there is no way in Hell another agent of these Families is going to be able to take over the investigation? They don't even need to be in charge of it; they just have to be part of the team and make sure that everyone either misses that one important lead or stop you making contact with whoever or whatever you need to find to put it all together…"

"That won't happen-!"

"You need to be open to the possibility, Agent Matheson," the Doctor observed, looking firmly at Rex. "I'm not one of those paranoid conspiracy theorists who think that governments are always telling lies and trying to manipulate their people, but I do recognise that every government is made up of people who have the potential to be corrupted by their power and influence. The priority right now is to undo the Miracle, and if the CIA can help us do that I'm all for it, but the only people I'm willing to trust without question are the rest of our group, and I'm only including you because I know you can't be part of the Families after everything you've been through."

"I'm trying to help you stop this-"

"Then let us handle this, because you really should start accepting that you're out of your depth," Jack interjected with a brief glare at Rex. "You're good at dealing with standard criminals, Rex, but when it comes to the world losing the ability to die, the Doctor is the only man who can do anything."

"And talking of doing anything, where's that Friedken guy?" Amy looked over at where Shapiro had just finished his call.

"We're taking him to a nearby-" Shapiro began, before an explosion shook the building. Instantly all of the group ran for the nearest window, a glance outside revealing a burning car in the middle of the courtyard and a few burnt bodies inside it, one distinctly larger than the rest even amid the fire.

"OK," Doctor Juarez said, looking anxiously at the burning car and then glancing over to the others, "that's… Friedkin was in that car, right?"

"How the…?" Shapiro said.

"Because you are dealing with some very scary people who don't care who they have to intimidate to get what they want and have had decades to come up with convincing arguments and terrifying threats," Jack said firmly.

"…Shit," Shapiro said in exasperation as he looked at the rest of the team. "This is… not going to go well."

"Did you realise that before or after the camps opened up?" Amy pointed out with a pointed edge to her tone as she looked at the CIA agent. As the older man fumed at Amy and Rex stared at her in surprise, clearly still surprised that anyone would talk back to his boss like that, Amy wondered how long it would take before Shapiro either accepted that he needed the Doctor and them to solve this or he tried to ditch the rest of the TARDIS travellers because he convinced himself he didn't need the Doctor's eccentricities.

We need a new lead and we need it fast; we've got the edge for the moment, but these Families didn't get this far by making mistakes…