And here's the 20th chapter! I find it hard to believe that it's nearly been a year since I started this story, and that I was able to make it this far. A big thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and favored over the past year. I don't think I would have been able to get this far without your support, and I hope you'll all continue to enjoy the stories I write.

It had been one of the worst nights Harry had in a long time. First, there had been all the disturbing thoughts which kept running through his mind whenever he tried getting some sleep. Then it was finding Christine awake, discovering she'd been kept awake by what appeared to be the sounds of the wind, and the horrific screaming which came out of the earplugs which Harry had owned for years. Afterwards, there had been finding a strange woman around the lobby when he went to buy some herbal tea, hearing the screams once again in his dreams when he finally managed to get some sleep, and finding out that Clara was gone early in the morning.

And now, Harry was trying to get around in his rented car, feeling as if he couldn't stay focused on the road for even a couple of seconds. Twice, he felt himself at the brink of dousing off, only to be roused due to the honking of horns and the loud swearing coming from the angry drivers. The only thing which seemed to keep him awake was the hot, vanilla flavored coffee which he'd bought at Northern Horizons before leaving. Living not that far from a popular coffee shop in Longview, Harry had grown as accustomed to what he once saw as a dry, bitter beverage as he'd been to tea throughout most of his life. Perhaps, he started thinking as he was driving, it was because it seemed to fill him up during those days when he couldn't eat a big breakfast when those awful digestion problems he'd had since after his travels with the Doctor started kicking in, or because of how good of a stimulant it was when he'd been up half the night working on reports. Or maybe, as his neighbor Michelle Collins said upon paying him a visit a month after moving into the condominium building, Americans really did make the beverage a lot better.

"Hey, move that damn car, you imbecile!" he heard yet another cranky driver yell out.

Harry sighed and tried to once again stay focused on driving. Thankfully, he didn't have a long way to go, as would have been the case if he'd to go all the way to UNIT HQ. However, once someone was part of UNIT, they always remained connected to it, even if they retired or went on to do other work. As a result, if a former or current member had something to report to the organization, it was permissible for them to contact former members if necessary, as long as that member was able to give the report to a current member. Harry had been able to call an assistant for former UNIT members yesterday, who said she would be able to have someone there for him in an office in London on Saturday morning. He was not told who it would be, although the assistant did say that it would be someone whom he'd worked alongside with.

He hoped it would be former Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart. Not only was he the one who'd given him a position as medical officer, but for a while, he'd also helped him after he'd started getting inexplicably sick after he returned to Earth for good. Lethbridge Stewart had put him on sick leave after an incident where he fainted during a meeting in which his findings on ESP during his travels with Sarah were being reviewed and discussed. However, instead of allowing him to get better, Harry appeared to getting worse on account of the rest he was getting, to the point where he got terrible fevers and would not be able to eat anything without getting terrible stomach aches and vomiting. Upon visiting him and seeing how bad he was, the Brigadier said the strangest thing you could tell a sick person:

"You should probably go out more, Harry."

"Are you serious, Brigadier?" Harry had asked. "Just look at me right now. I feel sicker than I've ever been in my life, barely able to get out of bed on most days, and your advice for helping me get better is to go out more?"

The Brigadier laughed a little upon hearing this. "As strange as it may seem, Harry, your illness is actually getting worse because you're just lying around in bed all day. What's happening to you right now also happened to Jo Grant Jones upon returning to England after her honeymoon in the Amazon. She thought she would be all right staying at home after all the adventures she'd had over the past couple of years, but instead, she started getting the exact same illness as you now have. And what do you think happened later? Just by stepping out of the house and assisting her husband with some plant research in the countryside, she got better right away. No trips to the hospital or seeing any doctor was necessary."

"Wasn't she…"

"Yes. She traveled with the Doctor just as you did," the Brigadier explained. "If I have to guess what's been going on with you, the exposure to radiation and other chemicals which you had upon traveling through time and space only starts having an effect on you when you try to settle down for good. You're literally unable to be well without having an adventure of some kind, which makes your body more capable of fighting back against all those harmful chemicals which could make you seriously sick."

Harry nodded, starting to understand a little. "So what should I do now, Brigadier? Go back to work?"

"Better yet. The research committee which visited UNIT was very impressed with what you were able to find out on ESP. They want you to present your research at the University of West Berlin and I approved of this idea. I think the change in environment might actually do you a lot of good, Harry."

And that was how Harry ended up doing what he now did. If there was anyone whom he and many other former UNIT members would want to share any confidential information with, it would certainly be with former Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart.

He'd now approached the address which had been given to him over the phone. The location was supposed to be an office, but to Harry, the building where he was now parking looked more like a hardware store or some other small business. Stepping out of the car, he was glad to realize that he felt more alert than before. However, he was still slightly tired and hungry due to having no breakfast before leaving, and the bag containing his files felt heavier than usual, perhaps as a result of how he was feeling at the moment. Despite his efforts at trying to get around without any trouble, he soon found himself tripping on a small rock in the sidewalk, resulting in the bag falling to the floor and him bending over as he fell, and feeling a slight pain in his ankles as he landed beside the bag.

When Harry looked up, he noticed that a muscular woman in a grey coat had been watching him from the building's window, and upon seeing what happened to him, she immediately raced outside, as if she'd just witnessed a major emergency instead of simply seeing a man tripping on the sidewalk, making it to his side in what felt like only a couple of seconds.

"Are you okay, sir?" she asked, and Harry soon recognized her voice as that of the assistant who had spoken with him over the phone yesterday. Her voice seemed to have a trace of both a British and North American accent, while sounding steady and authortive.

"I am," he responded, allowing the woman to hold onto his arms as she helped him get up. "I've just been a little tired this morning, that's all."

"A little?" the woman said, looking as if he was speaking nonsense. "Just when I saw you getting out of the car, I could already tell that you looked as if you were in no shape to be driving. And believe me, I have plenty of experience when it comes to knowing when someone hasn't gotten any sleep. You really should be more careful about what you do when you're in that state."

Harry sighed. Seeing how this woman had been able to spot his foolishness within such a short amount of time was more than a little embarrassing. "Thanks for helping me, and sorry for all the trouble I put you through."

"Don't worry. I've handled cases twice more dangerous than this," the woman replied, sounding as if it were all nothing. Then, she finally asked, "Are you Dr. Harry Sullivan, by the way?"

"Yes, that's me," Harry answered. "And are you the assistant for former UNIT members?"

The woman nodded. "It's a temporary job for me, but I already feel as if I've made a career out of it. I'm Sergeant Lieutenant Benton."

Harry now looked confused. "Benton? But isn't that…"

She laughed upon hearing this. "Believe it or not, John Benton is actually my uncle, and so far, I've been almost completely following his footsteps. I joined the military when I got out of school, and I moved up rather quicker than most young solders, which is even more impressive considering I was one of only two women in my regiment. Of course, it helps a lot when you come from a military family and spend your childhood in three different countries, spending four years of my life in Vancouver, two in Illinois, and one in Australia, before returning to England at thirteen to finish secondary school."

"Yes, I can already tell how good you are," Harry said, impressed by this woman a lot more than he'd already been. "So, what do people usually call you?"

"Oh, you can just call me Laura," she responded with a smile. "I just love seeing the reactions I get from former UNIT members when I introduce myself as Sergeant Benton, especially since that's technically my military title. But when they get to know me, they become almost as fond of me as they are of Uncle John. As a matter of fact, I think you're the only former member which I hadn't met before, but I am aware of everything you've done since leaving UNIT, and I even read that book you wrote about ESP. It made me look forward to the day when I would finally meet you."

"And did I disappoint you already?"

"Not really. Despite how tough I act, I've never been someone who's turned off by clumsiness. Back in my regiment, I always preferred helping such people rather than ridiculing them, and they were always able to improve because of it."

"That's good to know," Harry said. "By the way, is your uncle here right now?"

"He's been waiting for you for two hours," Laura answered cheerfully. "He got really excited when he heard that you were coming over, since he hadn't seen you in three years. Best if we go inside right now, since I don't want to keep him waiting any longer." Then, she escorted Harry to the building, and upon opening the door, she shouted out, "Uncle John, Dr. Sullivan's here! He had some trouble getting here, but he's all right now."

It didn't take long for former Sargent Leutenant John Benton to come up to them. Looking quite well in civilian clothing, and with the same gentle yet strong demeanor which everyone had liked about him during his UNIT days, he put an arm around Harry and said, "Welcome back, Harry. It feels like a long time since I last saw you, and we've all missed you."

Harry smiled and embraced his old coworker and friend. "It's great to see you again too, John. For some reason, it didn't even occur to me that it would be you who I'd be meeting up."

Benton laughed. "I didn't think I'd be seeing you again until the next century before I got the message from Laura. People are always surprised to see how much time I've been putting into my car business, which actually leaves me with little free time with my family on some occasions. And with Laura's return from military duty several months ago, I never get a day off."

It was Harry took of his coat that Benton noticed how badly he was looking. Instead of the usual military uniforms and formal dress which Benton was used to seeing him wearing, he was wearing an old grey shirt which had traces of sweat around the back and the armpits and a pair of jeans that were wrinkled and appeared to be covered in dirt. But even more disturbing than this were the heavy circles that were of the same dark blue color as bruises he had around his eyes, which looked just as awful as the circles due to how they were bright red and puffy, like the eyes of a creature in a horror film.

"Oh my, Harry," he asked with concern. "What happened to you?"

Noticing how disturbed Benton was by his appearance, Harry tried to reassure him, saying, "I'm okay, John. I just had a bad night and wasn't able to sleep."

"Are you sure about that?" Benton asked, not sure if he was telling the full truth about his condition. "Could it not be that you're starting to get that time traveling sickness again? I heard from Lethbridge Stewart that you'd supposedly relapsed a few times…"

"That's not it, I promise you," Harry said once again. "I mean, there have been times when I get awfully dizzy or have an upset stomach after eating something that made me sick, but it's never been as bad as it was that first time. I rarely throw up anymore, and with some good medication, I'm usually well-off for weeks. It's just really hard to get a good night's sleep when you're staying far away from the place you now call home."

"Okay," Benton said with a nod. "I'll take that as a reasonable explanation. After all, I don't I've ever been able to sleep well when I've had to stay in hotels in the past." Then, changing the subject, he said, "Have you had breakfast yet, because Laura and I managed to get some food prepared before you arrived."

Harry looked relieved. "I can't think of anything I want more right now. All I had was coffee on my way here, so I'm starving."

"Could explain why he tripped while trying to get in here," Laura said jokingly, bringing up a tray with French toast, sausage, and scrambled eggs up to the table where Harry and Benton were now seated.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Laura," Benton told his niece, taking only a little food for himself, letting Harry have most of it. And for a while, they weren't able to do much talking because Harry couldn't ignore the food for even a second, and was eating a lot more quickly than he'd been able to do in such a long time. Upon finishing, he chuckled and said, "Sorry for keeping you waiting for so long, John. I just can't recall the last time I've been so hungry."

"Don't worry so much, Harry. I understand," Benton replied with a laugh. "As a matter of fact, seeing that you have such a big appetite, I now know for sure that you're well. Because in one of the cases I heard…"

"What case?" Harry asked.

"Did you hear anything about what happened to Tegan Jovanka, who travelled with the Doctor not long after Sarah Jane left?"

"No. What happened?"

"She got the same illness as you did, but it was made a lot worse due to the fact that she became heavily depressed and traumatized after she returned to Australia for good. She would sometimes go for as long as three days without eating, and often refused to leave the house despite the constant urging of her family. After seven months of this, she ended up being hospitalized due to malnutrition, and had to get psychiatric treatment once that was done."

"That sounds awful. It probably wasn't made any easier when she had to hide all the time traveling stories," Harry responded.

"I know," Benton said. "The good news is that Tegan did recover, and she's now the head of a tourism company in Sydney which is becoming very successful. Probably one of the more difficult cases regarding the Doctor's assistants I've heard so far, but it's good to know that it usually ends well for everyone, don't you think so?"

"Can't argue with that."

"All right, now. Can you now tell me what news you have regarding the Doctor?" Benton said, finally getting around to addressing the main reason for their meeting.

And with that, Harry began telling him about how he'd started examining children ever since he'd moved to the United States (although he didn't specify that he was mainly a doctor for Christine, nor that he'd worked with only two girls while here in London) and how while coming here with Christine, they'd been able to find a woman who needed their help. He then explained how Jackie had been able to find them, his examination of Rose as well what he'd been able to find out about her through Jackie, the little information Rose had given him regarding how the Doctor had put himself through her mind, and what she'd done after revealing this.

"Hold on, Harry," Benton interrupted once Harry had gotten to the point of explaining Rose's telekinesis. "There's no existing records or cases of any human having telekinesis. Many of those you've worked with in the past have confirmed this. Are you sure that what she's able to do isn't due to having the Doctor inside of her?"

"John, I saw the look in her eyes as everything started falling. For a while, she was blinking, and as she did this was when it all started moving. I think she even knocked a glass over as we were talking, but I thought it was just an accident."

"Actually, Uncle John," Laura, who had been listening in and writing some things down, remarked, "There was at least one case of telekinesis recorded which had been rejected by the scientific community at the time. It appeared in a magazine called Beyond Science in 1884, and it described an eight-year-old girl who managed to move her dolls around just by blinking."

"That magazine had little credibility, Laura," Benton said in a rather dismissive manner. "It was the equivalent of a gossip column for manners related to supernatural phenomena, and the few cases written there which were later confirmed to be true were often highly exaggerated and written without the permission of those were the subjects of the articles."

"But it's still worth looking into," Laura continued. "And besides, haven't you said before that any trait an alien has might have at least some chance of appearing in a human? If a planet containing telekinetic aliens was able to be discovered in the first place, then the existence of humans with similar abilities should at least be taken into consideration. The fact that someone as smart as you is so willing to dismiss this is just too bloody ridiculous."

"She has a point, John," Harry said, once again impressed by well Laura was able to act during this situation. "And especially since we already know that extrasensory perception exits, we can't ignore or dismiss certain abilities it might involve just because no one has found any previous evidence of its existence."

Benton now nodded in a somewhat reluctant manner. "All right, Harry and Laura. I'll try to think about that observation and see if there's some way I can help in looking further into it, but I can already tell you both that both UNIT and the ESP research committees are not going to believe it without concrete evidence."

And if they want concrete evidence, they're going to want to observe Rose Tyler for themselves, Harry thought anxiously. Not only did he know that Jackie would hate the very the very thought of her daughter becoming a lab rat, but that despite all of the efforts of the ESP research committees at trying to remain ethical, there were researchers willing to cross the lines at all costs in order to get the information they wanted. Harry had already done his best to keep Christine away from these kinds of "special projects", and he wondered whether Jackie would be capable of doing the same.

"Anyway," Benton continued, "I forgot to bring up the fact that UNIT has already discovered that the Doctor is now back on Earth."

"Really?" Harry asked, surprised by this new bit of information. "When was this discovered?"

"Five months ago, when Jo Grant Jones was visiting Paris with her family. She and Cliff were walking around an alley with several cardboard boxes around. Curious as to what might have been going in there, they walked further into it to make closer observations. When they were at the point at making it to the furthest corner of the alley, they became surrounded by a heavy cloud of smoke that they described as being highly suffocating at first, but becoming more harmless as it started fading away. And the more the smoke started diminishing, the more clearly they were able to notice the appearance of the TARDIS."

"So then what happened? Did they manage to see the Doctor at all?" Harry asked curiously.

"No," Benton answered bluntly. "As a matter of fact, Jo kept calling out for the Doctor as soon as she saw the TARDIS, but the more she did this, the more smoke started appearing once again, which started slowly diminishing their view of the TARDIS. When it disappeared for good, a woman dressed in rags came out of one of the cardboard boxes, telling them she knew exactly who they were, and that if they cared about their safety, they should leave her presence as soon as possible. When Jo and Cliff started asking her questions, she explained that they shouldn't worry about their friend, because he was being protected through the love of a child. When they asked her what this meant, she said she couldn't go further into it because it would ruin a well-kept secret which was keeping their friend safe at the moment, and demanded that they leave at once. By then, the smoke started appearing again, so the woman took Jo and Cliff by the arms and escorted them away herself."

The love of a child. This must have meant that the Doctor had been sent to Rose for a very specific reason, and perhaps this woman knew the exact reason why…

And then, before Harry could say anything in response to this story, there was a knocking on the door.

"I'll get it," Laura said, and Harry followed her.

Within a while, the person whom was standing before then was none other than the mysterious woman Harry had seen in the lobby in the middle of the night. The woman dressed in black and white who insisted that she didn't come from anywhere in particular, but that she was aware of who he was and what his concerns were.

"I spend a long time trying to look for you," the woman said to Harry. "And it pleases me that I've now been able to locate where you…"

"Before you go on with your ambiguous explanations, would you mind telling me whether or not you come to Northern Horizons to take Clara away?" Harry asked firmly, asking what had been troubling him since early that morning.

"Yes I did, and I managed to get her home right away," the woman started to explain. "Her parents were as curious about who I was as you were last night, but they were grateful that I was able to return their daughter safely nonetheless. I should expect you to feel the same way. Little Clara Oswald herself grew to become rather fond of me after a while as well. "

"So are you saying that not even her parents were aware of who you are?" Harry interrogated, now becoming even more suspicious than before. "What made you think that you were capable of bringing her back, and how did you even know who she was and where she lived in the first place?"

The woman appeared to scoff him. "Nice to see your appreciation, sir. Most people would be glad to see that a stranger was able to give vital help to a child."

"Miss, I'm part of the British Army, and Dr. Sullivan here is a formal naval sergeant" Laura declared, stepping into the tensional conversation. "If we suspect you to be a criminal of some kind, we could report you and have you face serious consequences for whatever it is you're doing."

"Just know this," the woman answered seriously. "I have something with me right now which could be very helpful with the information you're trying to obtain right now. And yes, I have been watching over things a couple of times, but without any negative intentions. As a matter of fact," and she said this looking directly at Harry, "I saved Jaqueline Tyler's life two months ago, under circumstances not that different from your own first meeting with her, and it was all as I was starting these investigations."

When she was done saying this, she handed Harry a piece of paper with strange writing on it. Afterwards, she nodded and said, "This is all I can do for now. I must depart soon, but I can already tell you this won't be the end of my mission, and that whatever it is I'm doing, it's something you'll thank me for much later."

And before Harry and Laura could question her again, she was gone, looking more as if she had vanished into thin air rather than just walked off.

Benton walked up to them when he'd noticed that their visitor was gone. "What was that all about?"

Laura shrugged. "I have no idea, Uncle John. She just said she'd had some association with Harry and that she managed to bring a child whom he'd been watching over home without his knowledge. Then she handed us some weird note before leaving."

"May I look at it?" Benton demanded, already knowing they were dealing with a difficult situation.

"Here it is," Harry responded, handing the folded, stained paper to him. "But I doubt if you'll able to read it. It's written in some language that's unrecognizable."

Benton unfolded the note and scrutinized it carefully for a while. Suddenly, a look of recognition shot through his face, and he looked up at Harry and Laura, "You're not going to believe this, but this is actually Gallifreyan."

Both Harry and Laura looked shocked. "But how were you able to recognize it?" Harry asked.

"The Doctor was able to provide us with a sample of Gallifreyan handwriting during his first couple of weeks at UNIT," Benton explained, showing them the note so they could have a closer look. "I'm not able to read the majority of it, but I perfectly understand the last four words. They translate into 'by a time lady'."

Laura frowned. "So, are you trying to say that the woman we're dealing with isn't even human?"

"I believe that's very likely the situation," Benton confirmed.

After about two hours of going over the situation, Benton, Laura, and Harry were able to come up with the following plan for action:

The information Harry had given regarding the Doctor, as well as that of the mysterious woman, were going to be reported to UNIT Headquarters as soon as possible, and the Gallifreyan note was going to be handed over in order to be fully translated and examined. The case of whether Rose Tyler was truly telekinetic or not had to be handled in some way, whether by having a current UNIT member come over to her home to observe her or someone from the UK's main ESP research committee, despite some of Harry's objections to this. After this was looked into, they would have to find a method to handle the situation with the Doctor, which would require even more examinations of her, and from there, they would like into some way of getting him back into his physical form.

Despite not being very comfortable with the plan John and Laura Benton proposed, Harry eventually agreed to it because he felt that he could at least trust the two of them if they were to provide assistance during the examinations of Rose. It helped that because Laura was currently studying history, she would be a guest at the London Private Education Committee for Progress' upcoming Christmas meeting and party at Northern Horizons, where she would give an overview of the organization's history based on archives, so perhaps she would be able to set up a meeting around that time. As a matter of fact, they might even consider having Sarah Jane help them, especially since they now knew that she had become a mentor of sorts for Rose.

"Thank you both very much for taking the time to listen to what I was able to find out. It's been overwhelming enough for me already, so I think this meeting was able to help a lot," Harry told Benton and Laura as he was preparing to leave.

"No problem. And with me to talk some sense into Uncle John, we were probably able to achieve twice as much," Laura said confidently, shaking Harry's hand in a friendly manner.

"So, I guess this means goodbye once again, Harry," Benton said cheerfully, but also somewhat sadly, as he then shook hands with him. "It was wonderful meeting with you one more time, and know that if you need our help again, you'll always free to give us a ring. Even though we're thousands of miles away, help is never that far around the corner."

"That's great, John. I'll be sure to take that into consideration if I'm ever in any kind of alien or supernatural related trouble." And then, calling out one last goodbye, he left the Benton's company and drove off once again, now feeling more alert than he'd been all day.

So, part of the mystery surrounding the woman who keeps showing up around crucial moments is slowly starting to be revealed. Do any of you have theories regarding who it might be based off the information from both this and other chapters? Let me know in your reviews!

Next, we're back to Rose, Sarah Jane, and John Smith. The discovery of another psychic girl is going to strongly effect Sarah Jane's future role in the story, especially when she finds out who Christine has been with all along, and John Smith/the Doctor is going to finally be able to do something which he was incapable of doing for two years.