Disclaimer: Doctor Who (c) to the BBC.

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Beep. Beep. Beep.

Rose awoke to the monotonous bleeping of a machine somewhere overhead. Sleep tried to call her back, but she dragged herself away and opened her eyes. They fixed on a white ceiling, and then she lowered her head to see the blurry shape of a hospital bed, stretching away from her, and the lumpy shapes of her legs and feet under the pink blanket. She slowly turned her head to the side, and was rewarded with a view of a row of identical beds leading away from her. She was in hospital? She couldn't quite remember what had happened. Maybe she had been in an accident; there was a horrible pounding in her head, and an even worse pain in her hands. She raised an arm to her forehead, causing agony to spike through her palms and fingers. She quickly dropped her hands, and that was when she saw the bandages wrapped round them.

"What?" she mumbled, staring blankly at the bulky wrappings. A memory tried to swim its way up through her muddled brain, but it was gone before she could grasp it. Something had happened to her hands, but what? Another thought came to her then, of someone's voice, and the smell of burning flesh. She remembered her sleeves catching fire, and hitting the flames with her hands. So that was it. But what happened after that, and before? Where had the fire come from?

The whole picture hit her with such force it sent her head reeling. Tobias, Sarah Jane, Mickey…

Mickey. He had carried her somewhere, after the house exploded. She had rested her cheek against his chest, and drifted into sleep or unconsciousness. She remembered blood on her hands, red on stark white – was it hers or his?

"Mickey!" Rose suddenly cried, terrified, and then broke into a fit of coughing. Her eyes streamed and her throat burned as coughs racked her ragged lungs. As the coughs subsided and Rose slumped forwards, shuddering, a hand holding a glass of water appeared in front of her and helped her to drink. Rose gulped down half of the contents and then collapsed back onto the pillows, drained.

"How are you feeling?" said a man's voice. Rose looked up at him through beads of moisture, and for one wild moment was sure it was the Doctor.

"Doctor?"

"No, love. It's your Dad." He sat down beside her on the bed and took her hand, and as Rose's blinked Pete's worried frown came into focus. "How are you feeling?" he repeated.

"Oh, fantastic," she joked, and smiled weakly. Pete didn't smile back. Rose suddenly went cold. "Where's Mickey?"

"He's gonna be fine," Pete let go of her hand to gesture at the bed across from Rose's, and with a wave of relief, she saw Mickey's familiar form slumped against the pillows. Then she saw the wires leading from his arm and nose and the bandage round his head, and the relief turned to worry. She glanced at her father anxiously.

"How long has he been like that?"

"He wakes up every few hours to ask how you are, but apart from that he's been asleep for three days. He has a concussion, but no lasting damage. Should be all right, no thanks to you."

Rose looked at her dad to see if he was joking, but his usually kind blue eyes were as hard as flint. "What do you mean?"

"You should have called me as soon as he went missing, but you had to act the big hero, rush in and get everyone blown up. Your mother's been sick with worry; I only persuaded her to leave your side a few hours ago. Of course, she blames herself for not raising you better."

"But…" Rose didn't know what to say. She stared at her hands, twisting the blanket between her bandaged paws. "I didn't think,"

"Obviously not." Rose hated the tone in his voice. She hadn't even known him for six months and her father already thought she was a complete idiot.

"I just…I'm used to doing it all myself, you know?" she tried to explain, avoiding his eyes. "We never have – had – backup or anything, it was just me and the Doctor. I thought…I thought I could handle it."

"You nearly got yourself killed," Pete said bitterly, and at last Rose managed to look at him. He didn't meet her eyes, choosing instead to stare at his chewed fingernails.

"I'm sorry…" she tried to say, and Pete finally looked at her. His eyes were full of tears.

"You're not invincible, you know. You're not the Doctor. You can't just rush into these things and expect nobody will get hurt," he muttered. "I've only known you for a few months, and I nearly lost you already. It's not fair to your mother or me to keep on doing this, keep pretending you're still with him."

"I'm not…" Rose was too surprised to continue. That wasn't what she was doing at all. She ran to save Mickey because she didn't have the Doctor. She would never have the Doctor again, and she wanted to know that she could still live the only life she knew. But, as it turned out, she couldn't. She didn't say any of this, because he would never understand. He had never known the Doctor, so he didn't know what it was like to be alone. "I'm sorry," she said again, and Pete quickly took her hand and squeezed it.

"I know," he whispered, in a way that made her think that maybe he did understand after all. "Oh, Sarah Jane's fine, by the way," he added before she could say anything. "Whatever Tobias did to her, it wasn't meant to last. She's back to normal."

"Oh. That's good." Rose tried to sound pleased. She had been meaning to ask about Sarah Jane, but now that she knew the answer she couldn't help feeling disappointed. She would have liked the switch to last just a bit longer. She knew it was selfish, but she longed for someone to talk to; someone outside her family, who knew how it felt.

"You know, it would have been better if you'd just let us handle it," the accusatory tone was back in Pete's voice. "I have people who would have handled it quietly. If you'd waited for backup, called us as soon as you thought something was wrong, we might even have a body to bring back.

"What?" Rose's head, which had been sinking lower and lower during her father's speech, suddenly shot up. "There's no body?"

"Well, after that explosion we never expected to find a body. We found parts of his machine – a ludicrous mushroom-shaped thing from what we could assemble of the remains – but there was no trace of Tobias. It looks like it was completely incinerated. It's really too bad; it was like nothing we've encountered before. We were counting on a body to determine what kind of alien it was."

"Sarah Jane didn't tell you?"

"She didn't know. From what she told us, he has basic psychic abilities – he was able to knock you out just by looking at you?"

"Yeah," Rose lied, realising that he must have disturbed their brainwaves in some way using his TARDIS – not psychic powers at all.

"And he must be a shape-shifter – or almost humanoid."

"Really, it was only his eyes that gave him away. They were like, silver. And they glowed. I think he channelled his psychic power through his eyes." Rose added, deciding to throw him off the scent entirely, for reasons she wasn't entirely sure of. On one hand, the work Pete and Torchwood were doing would do nothing but help the human race. But on the other hand…Tobias was a Time Lord, like the Doctor, and Rose hated hearing Pete refer to him as "it". Whatever he had done – kidnapped Mickey, betrayed his wife – it was to help another of his kind. Tobias was the same as her father, whatever Pete might think, and Rose couldn't give up the secret he had worked so hard to cover up. She couldn't let Torchwood run their tests and experiments on him – she just couldn't.

"And you're sure it never mentioned anything, about what it was or what it wanted?"

Rose bent her head, apparently deep in thought. Blonde hair covered her face, hiding any trace of guilt. "He hardly ever spoke. I have no idea where he's from, sorry."

Pete sighed, trying not to let his dismay show. "That's all right, don't worry. I'm sure something will turn up." He stood up absently and turned to go, after giving his daughter's shoulder a final pat. Then he turned back in second thought.

"I'm sorry to have to say this, love," he began, "but you have to understand. I'm your father, but I'm also your boss, and while you're working at Torchwood you have to do as I tell you." Rose opened her mouth to argue, but Pete cut her off with a shake of his head. "And that means no more running off, putting yourself in danger."

Rose turned away to hide the sudden tears that threatened to spill. She lay down with her back to him and closed her eyes, hoping Pete would get the message.

Pete sat beside Rose for a while, until her breathing deepened and she seemed to fall asleep. He reached forwards and gently brushed a strand of hair away from his daughter's face, then stood up and quietly walked away. He cast a swift glance at Mickey to see if he had woken up, but the young man was deeply asleep, still exhausted from his trials. Pete quickened his pace and strode from the ward, his thoughts already turning to Jackie, who he had left in the hospital cafeteria.

When Rose was sure he had gone, she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling once more. Pete's words rang clear in her memory as she mulled things over. Then, for the first time in what felt like years, a smile broke onto her face.

Rose knew exactly what she had to do.