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The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day

Gwen wasn't sure what she had expected when she thought about the possibility of working with the Doctor Jack had told her so much about, but she had to concede that the current situation was probably unprecedented even by the Doctor's unconventional standards. Back when Torchwood had still been active, she'd had some idle thoughts about the possibility of the Doctor dropping into help out during the latest alien invasion, but after that shit with the 456…

She could speculate on why the Doctor hadn't shown up for that event, but she wasn't sure she even wanted to ask; it was possible that the 456 had somehow been keeping him away like Jack suggested, but if he'd just chosen not to help… she might understand why he would have chosen not to help, but that didn't make it easier to think about it.

God, I miss Ianto right now.

So far Esther Drummond seemed friendly enough, and Amy Pond and Natalie Kriener were at least willing to help even if she got the impression they weren't used to this kind of purely research role, but that didn't make it any easier to think about her lost friend. It was irrational to think about how Ianto would have survived the 456's attack if this Miracle had happened earlier- the image of what would have happened to the children if they'd been taken in this state was far from encouraging- but it was still hard to be back in the thick of things with so many unfamiliar faces…

"What the hell are you doing?" Rex glared at Esther, breaking into Gwen's thoughts.

"Just putting my numbers in," Esther responded.

"Whose numbers?" Rex glared.

"My sister's."

"You're gonna phone your sister?"

"No, I-" Esther began.

"Esther, what the hell is the matter with you?" Rex looked incredulously at her. "Don't you know how serious this is? The CIA is gonna be monitoring her calls-"

"Lay off it, Rex; she's not used to this, OK?" Amy cut in.

"Well, I'm not used to this either-" Rex began.

"Get over it, Rex," Gwen glared at the CIA agent. "Like Amy said, Esther's not exactly trained for this."

The former Cardiff police officer appreciated that the man was here to help them, but if he couldn't get off his high horse and stop acting like he was the one who could handle everything, she was going to hit him. Rex might make a good point about Anwen wouldn't be safe here, but it wasn't like she wanted to have it rubbed in her face that she was separated from her daughter, and the idea that he was in pain from his injury didn't excuse everything…

"That's enough!" Jack said, as Rex began to make a comment about how at least he wasn't stupid.

"And who put you-?"

"I repeat, the Doctor is in charge," Jack cut the CIA agent off.

"And what makes this man qualified-?" Rex began.

"Because I have faced threats you'll never imagine, Rex Matheson," the Doctor said firmly. "We've already established that you're completely out of your depth when dealing with anything you can't just shoot, so maybe stop criticising someone who's also out of her depth and focus on trying to help us?"

"I can do this," Esther said, looking resolutely at Rex. "It's just… you know I've never done anything like this before; you've got field experience, I sit at my desk and read blogs for a living. I know that we have to take care, Rex, but it's my sister; she's just… she's not well."

"It's irrel-" Rex began.

"Nothing and nobody is irrelevant," the Doctor cut him off, before he turned back to Esther. "That said, we've got a few more immediate priorities right now, so how have you come along trying to trace Friekdin's money?"

"I couldn't trace the bribes themselves, but I'm going through Friedkin's patterns of behaviour instead," Esther replied.

"He's a Section Chief," Rex said dismissively. "You're not getting into those files."

"You want to bet?" Esther smiled, clearly glad to be back on a topic she had more confidence in. "This Torchwood software, it's serious."

"Thank Tosh for that," Gwen put in. "She… she really knew her stuff."

"Tosh?" Natalie asked.

"Toshiko Sato," Gwen replied, a sad smile on her face. "She… she got killed during an attack on Cardiff a few years ago."

"Oh… sorry," Natalie shook her head.

"You weren't to know," Gwen said reassuringly. "So how's it going?"

"Well…" Esther looked uncertainly at the screen. "I can't be certain, but it looks like he's been trying to block the ATF from looking into a particular warehouse in Washington."

"How did he do that?" Amy asked.

"The ATF asked the CIA for information and Friedkin forwarded the request onto ancillary three times, which basically means it's lost in the system."

"Which means that we might have a lead?" Natalie asked. "I mean, he wouldn't stop people looking at that warehouse if there was nothing in it, right?"

"So," Jack smiled, "who deals with the warehouse and who follows up the phone?"

"K9 can handle the phone," the Doctor smiled before he looked around the room. "Right then, the warehouse team needs to be able to get inside and search it quickly, so Rex, Esther and Natalie can accompany me while Jack, Amy and Gwen stay here to make sure K9 isn't interrupted while he's running his search."

"And why do you get to come along?" Rex asked.

"Because if there's anything in that warehouse that has something to do with the Miracle, the Doctor's the best person to work out what it is," Jack smiled.

"Right, and I'm meant to buy that?"

"Excuse me?" the Doctor and Jack glared at the agent.

"I mean, seriously, the self-proclaimed captain who screwed up and got most of his team killed defaults to letting the idiot kid in tweed take charge?" Rex looked sceptically between the two. "How much of this is just because you're letting the kid save you from having to make the bad calls?"

"The Doctor does know what he's doing-" Amy insisted.

"Yeah, like I'll believe the little girl he's probably been grooming for-"

"Grooming?" Amy spat indignantly, her mind flashing back to the more unpleasant implications of that particular term. "I've spent the last few years of my life training with the Doctor; I'm not his-!"

"So you think I'm not cut out for this job, Agent Rex Matheson?" the Doctor cut Amy off, standing up to glare at the agent. "And you think that you are through your experience dealing with… remind me, what do the CIA handle? Crime lords, drug smugglers, terrorists?"

"That kind of thing, yeah-"

"Whereas I have faced the son of Adolf Hitler and the Fourth Reich he'd tried to assemble since he was smuggled away by his father's remaining followers," the Doctor countered. "I have faced the man known as the Butcher of Brisbane, who was responsible for over a hundred thousand deaths in the name of his own immortality. I've confronted psychopathic warriors who are convinced that their actions are justified in the name of their own victory even when that includes destroying entire planets. I've faced an utter madman who concluded that the only way to win his peoples' centuries-long war was to turn them into the most ruthless race of psychopaths in existence and unleashed the most evil race in all of creation. I've even met a woman who was so utterly consumed with her own self-importance that she ended up destroying entire planets just to ensure her own survival."

"Planets?" Esther repeated uncertainly.

"Planets," the Doctor confirmed. "She used the energy she got from their destruction to sustain the equipment she needed to keep herself alive, and didn't even care if some of them were inhabited."

"You're kidding me, right?" Rex said, looking at the Doctor as though he had even further doubts about the Time Lord's sanity. "I'm expected to believe that-"

"Look me in the eyes and tell me I'm lying, Agent Matheson," the Doctor said firmly, walking up to stand directly in front of the other man. "You must have experience of dealing with criminals and madmen in your profession, so look me in the eyes and tell me that I'm just some nut with delusions if you can."

Marching up to the Doctor, Rex glared at the Time Lord directly in the eyes, but the Doctor simply stared coolly back at the CIA agent, raising a mocking eyebrow at the other man. Rex tried to give the appearance of being the one in charge, but the Doctor simply stared coolly back at the other man, an intensity in his gaze that even made the Doctor's companions feel uncomfortable.

"I am the Doctor, Agent Rex Matheson," the Doctor said as Agent Matheson blinked uncertainly at the other man. "I've been dealing with the strange and unusual since I left a London junkyard in 1963, have seen things that you could never understand and faced nightmares that would make you wake up screaming every night for the rest of your life, have lost things you could never understand, walked in worlds where everything you think you know has been turned upside down… and despite how I look, I am far older than virtually anyone else you have met, and I assure you that I will do everything in my power to find out what caused this 'Miracle' and put it back to normal."

In response, Rex stared silently at the Doctor for a few moments, until he finally nodded in grim acceptance.

"All right," he said uncertainly. "I'll… give you a shot, anyway."

"Thank you," the Doctor nodded at Rex, before he reached out and poked his finger sharply in Rex's wound.

"Fuck!" Rex yelled, clutching at his bleeding chest.

"And that was for implying I've been 'grooming' Amelia Pond to be anything other than the best Amelia Pond she can be," the Doctor said, his expression now even colder. "She is my friend and my student, but she is not someone I have been 'grooming' for any purpose; is that understood?"

"Gotcha," Rex said, still wincing as he held his chest.

"Thank you," the Doctor nodded, before he turned to smile around at the room. "So, we have a lead; let's check out that warehouse, shall we?"