I LIKE IMPOSSIBLE
Chapter 3: Not the Doctor

Jack Harkness leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. He'd been researching the enigmatic Rose Tyler all morning and had come to no satisfactory conclusions about her.

Rose Marion Tyler. Age 25. No record of birth. Residence: The Tyler Estate, London, England. Parents: Pete and Jackie Tyler (Oddly enough, the mother went missing for three years after the Cybermen incident, then reappeared five years ago--no logical explanation for her absence seemed to be recorded anywhere. The tabloids at the time had mentioned a separation and a reconciliation, with her supposedly living abroad in the interim, but that was all.) Brother: John Tyler, nearly 5. Schooling: no records before University; graduated with honors. Employed by the Torchwood Institute for the past five years, before that no work history. In fact, before five years ago, there was no evidence at all that Rose Marion Tyler existed.

Of course, in the past five years, she'd been very busy indeed, if one knew where to look because most of her activities certainly hadn't been made public record... She'd thwarted a Sycorax invasion (the records seemed to indicate that some sort of sword fight had been involved--Jack would have liked to have seen that), she'd negotiated at least four impossible alien treaties in addition to a dozen easy ones, she'd gone on two of earth's first three interstellar missions, and she'd been part of the British delagation to the first Earth Council on Extraterrestrial Affairs.

Attempting to make more sense of the situation, he'd called several contacts whom he thought might have had interactions with either her or Torchwood in the last five years and gotten a variety of reports about her. One former colleague had called her courageous and smart. Another had called her brilliant-beyond-her-years. In fact, he got at least a dozen reports of that nature, about how she was clever and compassionate and honest and all that sort of thing. And then, a final inquiry from a slightly shiftier source had intriguingly called her "bloody scary."

Rubbing one hand through his hair and lifting his martini glass in the other, he stared at his computer console, on it were two photographs of Rose Tyler. One was quite recent, taken at a Torchwood function of some kind. Her hair was pulled up off of her shoulders and she was wearing an elegant pink dress. In it she was smiling at that stooge who'd been waiting outside in the hallway today and another guy that he didn't recognize, but her smile, while sincere, was no where near as bright as the one she'd given him when she'd first seen him. The other was the first photograph that he'd been able to find of her, from just five years ago. It had been taken by one of Torchwood's internal cameras. In it, she's wearing a fuzzy blue sweater, sitting against a plain white wall, with her knees drawn up to her chest, fresh mascara trails clearly indicating that'd she'd been weeping just moments before the picture was taken... Taking a big swallow of his drink, he leaned forward and, touching the screen, asked aloud, "Rose Tyler, who the hell are you?"

While Jack was trying to puzzle out Rose Tyler, Rose had spent the morning hard at work. She'd given Jake the morning off after his efforts of the night before, but she'd invited him to lunch at the mansion. She was calling a "family meeting", she said, and he'd better well be there. She'd called her Dad and Mickey as soon as the hour was reasonable, and told them to keep lunch free as well. So, at the appointed hour, the Tyler family along with Jake and Mickey gathered in the Tyler kitchen to discuss Rose's exciting news over cucumber sandwiches.

"Ok, sweetheart," Jackie began in a guarded tone, "You've got us all here together, and you're sitting there nearly glowing. And, I just wanna know what for?" Jackie was nervous. Rose was almost flying, she seemed so happy, and Jackie had had enough experience with Rose to suspect that that might not be a good thing. When they'd first crossed over into this world and Rose'd started working for Torchwood she'd gotten like this nearly half-a-dozen times, and each time it was because she'd cooked up some sort of scheme to get herself back to the Doctor. But, inevitably, Rose's plans had failed and her daughter had crashed in despair, though no one outside the family had seen it. It had been over three years, since Rose had last concocted a fool-headed strategy, and Jackie had thought that she'd finally settled in and given up. Now she feared that she'd been mistaken, that her precious Rose was once again setting herself up for disappointment.

"Mum, Dad, Mickey," Rose began, trying to keep herself contained. "We found him."

Her parents and Mickey looked at her a little dumbfounded. Which "him" was she talking about? Did she mean "the Doctor"? Cause if she meant the Doctor that might not be a good thing, or it might be a great thing. There were too many possibilities to even begin to consider...

Jake, reading their confusion, aided them by adding, "Not the Doctor." He paused, noting that both Mickey and Jackie immediately looked happier at that pronouncement while Pete looked just a little deflated. He quickly realized that both Mickey and Jackie would rather Rose always be here with them even if that meant she'd be a little unhappy than back with the Doctor... "She means Jack Harkness. We found Jack Harkness this morning."

"Really?" Pete asked, grinning broadly. "So your extrapolator trap finally worked, did it?"

Rose smiled at him. Though he wasn't technically her birth father, he was so much more sympathetic towards her plight than the others. Maybe it was because he was so much of a dreamer himself, but he didn't like to see her content to have her wings clipped, not if he could encourage her to fly. "It did. I met with him this morning. Offered him a job, yea? Just like I told you I would."

Mickey's body language had totally changed. His relief that Rose hadn't found the Doctor had been rapidly replaced by a seething jealousy that she had found her Captain Jack. His memories of the con-man and their adventure in Cardiff was clouded by the fact that Rose had left him then, again, to chase after the Doctor and Jack. And he was burning inside just knowing that by only meeting with her for a few minutes in the morning that he'd somehow made her smile like the old-Rose, like the Doctor's Rose had smiled. He crossed his arms and asked stiffly, "And what'd our man have to say?"

Rose, not noticing Mickey's negative reaction to the situation, quickly answered. "He turned me down flat. He was so rude, so arrogant and contemptuous. It was perfect. Perfect Jack Harkness."

"But, sweetheart," Jackie queried, puzzled. "How is that perfect? If he turned the job down, if he was rude about it..."

"Mum," Rose continued unfazed. "You'd just have to know him, Mum. He'll come around. He'll say yes." Her eyes grew bigger and more dazzling, flecked with golden light. "And, then he'll become the man that I know he can be, a better man. He's got so much potential to do good, to help protect this planet... It'll be like it was when he was with the Doctor. "

"But, love," Jackie responded softly, her words careful, "You're not the Doctor."

"No, Mum, I'm not. But to save Jack, to save this world, I just know that I've got to try to be..."

TO BE CONTINUED...