-Four years prior-

Despite Jack telling them to only work on the issue with the Doctor on their own time, Martha and Mickey immediately began talking as soon as they stepped out of the office. Mickey followed Martha down to the autopsy room and into her office closing the door tightly behind them. Normally they would use the privacy to have a quickie at work. Something that neither one of them imagined doing in a normal job but Jack encouraged with his own escapades with Ianto. He just asked that they still got their work done in between bouts, even if Ianto was always behind due to Jack's distractions. Now, though, they wanted to talk in private as they tried to figure out how to help the Time Lord they had once called a friend.

Mickey had heard about the Master before from Martha. Before they had been intimate for the first time, she had opened up to him about the scars that now lined her body. She had told him about the Master's rule and how she had walked the desolate Earth in a desperate attempt to spread the Doctor's story in order to save them all. The cut across her stomach had been particularly worrisome but thankfully didn't cause too much internal damage and she would still be able to have children one day.

"If I were still in Pete's world, I would have contacts that could go in and extract the Doctor. Unfortunately, I haven't been back in this universe long enough to reestablish contacts who I trust and my old ones wouldn't have the training to safely take the Doctor," Mickey informed Martha as he took a seat on her desk.

"I agree that we are going to need outside help. Personally, I think we should talk to Jack about bringing in UNIT to help us. They should be able to provide a doctor or nurse who can give him an injection of sedatives but also has the necessary military training to get the Doctor safely out of London," Martha responded. "It is up to Jack to figure out their level of involvement, though."

"What do you mean?" Mickey asked.

"Well, we could just lie to the Brigadier and tell him that we need help extracting a human from a weevil den. That would get us the necessary help and we could always retcon the man after so that he isn't aware of his true mission or the Doctor being here on Earth. The other option would be to tell the Brigadier about the Doctor being held in London by the Master or as the earth knows him the former Prime Minister Harold Saxon. We could ask him to apprehend the other Time Lord while we bring the Doctor here to Torchwood for treatment," Martha explained.

"It is a good plan and I am surprised that Jack hasn't thought of it already," Mickey told her.

"I am sure he has. The worry about involving UNIT is that they will take the Doctor to their military base to be treated. While it may be better for him due to their medical expertise, I don't feel that Jack would agree. I feel that he would want to treat the Doctor here in private where we could figure out what happened to him without the eyes of the entire military base staring down at him," Martha answered. She knew from experience that they idolized the Doctor at UNIT. Every one of the cadets learned of his escapades and were taught about how he helped save the Earth time and time again. He was a hero to those men and women. Anyone who was recruited to help extract him would have to be carefully briefed beforehand and secrecy would be of the utmost importance. Hopefully, she would also be able to convince the Brigadier of that as well.

"This would be so much easier if we could just put a bullet in the Master's head," Mickey sighed.

"I agree, but do you want to be the one to tell the Doctor that you just made him the Last Time Lord, again?" Martha wondered. Mickey shook his head no without looking at her. He had seen how devastated the Doctor had been over the loss of his people. Rose had changed the man for the better but there had always been something distant about him to even the woman he cared for. Mickey had even seen him choose to take a bottle of brandy and disappear for the night rather than allow himself to follow Rose to her bedroom. He wasn't going to be the one to make the Time Lord hurt again if he could help it.

"Then since we are in agreement, we will talk to Jack after work tonight about bringing in UNIT to help. In the meantime, I need to finish up the tests from the autopsy on the weevil and run the blood samples taken from the one we captured alive," Martha informed Mickey. Mickey stood moving to stop her as she went around her desk.

"We haven't had a break yet today," Mickey told her as he leaned in for a kiss. She gave him a quick kiss back.

"Later, right now I really want to get started on my work," Martha told him. Mickey kissed her again as he accepted her choice. Leaving the office, he went up the stairs to where his own desk was situated by the rift computer. It was easy for him to hack into London's traffic cameras and pull up the recent pictures from the soho district. He wasn't quite sure where the Doctor was located still, but now that he knew what his companion looked like it gave him more to go on.

"You're never going to find him that way." He jumped as Jack's voice interrupted his thoughts. He turned to see Jack fully dressed standing behind him. "The Master is smart enough to stay off the main roads and only uses the back alleys in order to travel. I know because I have spent hours trying to catch him on camera and have only been able to retrieve less than a full minute of footage. Also, I told you to work on this outside of work so if you could please put it aside for now. I have another task for you to work on."

"Yes, sir," Mickey answered letting the sarcasm come through in his tone as he closed the footage. Jack ignored his tone as he handed him a stack of papers to go through. They were all recent missing person's reports and he needed to find out if any of them were related to the recent weevil activity. Pushing the thoughts of the Doctor aside, he set to work.

At closing time, however, Mickey and Martha both stayed behind in order to talk to Jack. Jack once again sat behind his desk listening as they explained their plan to involve UNIT. Jack's face gave away nothing as Martha detailed her idea of retconning the doctor they brought in or using the Brigadier to help capture the Doctor. He told them that he would need to think and get back with them in the morning as he dismissed them for the night. After they left, he pulled out a bottle of whiskey as he leaned back in his chair. He had had the same idea to bring UNIT into the fold but Martha was right and he was worried about them taking the Doctor back to the base. Still, he was coming up with no other ideas and the sooner the Doctor was away from the monster he called a friend the better. Picking up the phone he dialed the familiar number to the Brigadier.