The Doctor tilted his head back to look all the way up to the top of Torchwood Tower. In his universe, there was a plaque on the building, dedicated to all the people who had died at the Battle of Canary Warf. Rose's name was on it, he knew. The thought made him shudder.
"I don't think this is such a good idea," he said.
"Don't be silly, Doctor. You need a job, and Torchwood needs another bloke in the research and development department who knows his way around a hydrospanner. You'll be in your element, telling them everything they're doing wrong and how rubbish they are at putting together alien tech. You're more than qualified," Rose argued.
The Doctor took another long look up the side of the Torchwood Building.
"But Torchwood. Aren't you forgetting it was invented to keep me away from Britain? It's in its constitution," he asked.
Rose shook her head.
"Not in this universe. In this universe, Queen Victoria invented it after an encounter with a werewolf. She saved herself here, and then established Torchwood to protect the world against other hostile unknown forces."
"So I'm not in the constitution then?" the Doctor asked, feeling a little let down.
Rose sighed dramatically.
"Nope. Here you're just plain old John Smith, and you're going to go get a job. Now come on!" she hugged him lightly from the side, and then ran ahead towards the doors.
The Doctor felt his face grow warm, and his blood sing in his veins. It was very strange, but every time Rose touched him now he got this same reaction. He had never felt like this when he was a Time Lord. He had been attracted to her, yes. Very much so; he had even gone as far as to daydream physical intimacy between them. But this was something entirely different. Human hormones were a foreign thing to him, and he wasn't sure he liked them. How did humans cope?
And then there was Rose, always touching him lightly, and then flitting off. The tease. Didn't she know what she did to him? Probably not, he reflected. She probably had no idea that when she brushed hand along his arm, or gave him a light sideways hug, or squeezed his hand that he wanted to take her in his arms and ravish her right there and then… The Doctor shook his head at where his thoughts had lead him. Really, he was going to have to do a better job of hiding all these new and alarming feelings that were seething up.
Rose was already at the door, holding it open impatiently.
"Where were you? Off far away in your thoughts again," she scolded good naturedly.
"Actually, close to home," The Doctor replied. He would rather have died then told her what he was really thinking of.
The inside of the Torchwood Tower was just as impressive as the outside. And just as institutional. Rose waved at the girl behind the front desk, and continued along to the elevator.
"Personnel is on the 20th floor," she said, pushing buttons.
The Doctor used the cramped quarters of the elevator as an excuse to pull Rose to him. He could see the reflection of her smile in the glass opposite them as he put his arms around her waist, and rested his chin on her shoulder. She craned her neck and kissed his forehead, making his heart pound all over again. As the elevator slowly rose floor after floor, the Doctor studied their reflections. They looked like a single person, melded together. That's the way it should be, he thought. Her and me, together.
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. Rose took his hand, and lead him down a rabbit's warren of desks and offices.
"How am I going to find my way back?" he asked weakly.
Rose chuckled.
"Don't worry. You'll find your way around soon enough. Can't be any harder than navigating the TARDIS, and her corridors moved around!"
"True," the Doctor admitted.
They came to a door which had the neat label "Personnel" beside it. Rose pushed the door open.
"Hi!" she said brightly to the woman at the desk. "I'm Rose Tyler. I'm bringing in John Smith for his interview?"
The woman checked her computer.
"Oh right. Miranda is in her office, if you want to go there. It's second door on the right."
"No need!" came a voice behind them.
Rose and the Doctor turned to face a short, plump woman with a heap of frizzy blond hair.
"I'm right here. Rose, darling, you look positively radiant. Can I venture a guess that it is the doing of this young man?" Miranda asked.
The Doctor smiled appreciatively.
"I'm John Smith," he said holding out his hand. Miranda shook it.
"I'm Miranda Richardson. Rose and I are old friends. But not so old, I see, that she told me about you. Well, well, you are something, aren't you?"
The Doctor found himself blushing under her scrutiny. He could tell that behind her breezy attitude, this Miranda had a sharp eye, and not much escaped her.
"I'm something alright," he said cheerfully. "Just not sure what that something is."
"No indeed. Neither am I. How are you, Rose dear?"
Rose smiled.
"I'm fine, Miranda. Much better than fine, actually."
"And am I to surmise that this handsome fellow has something to do with that, or has your finger just grown that lovely ring all by itself?"
I was right about that sharp eye, the Doctor thought to himself.
Rose blushed.
"How do you know these things without me even telling you?" she asked.
"Oh, darling, your face speaks for itself," Miranda replied, leading the way into her office.
"Mr. Banks is already there, Ms. Richardson," the secretary called.
Miranda nodded her head in thanks.
They made their way to her office. It was more spacious than some of the other offices that the Doctor had glanced at on his way past, but it was made to look small by the giant of a man who was sitting in one of the chairs. He stood up.
"Ah Miranda, you're here. And I see you've brought the applicant. Good. I'm Theodore Banks, head of the Research and Development department here at Torchwood." Mr. Bank's hand, when the Doctor shook it, dwarfed his. The man was a good four inches taller than the Doctor himself, and solidly built. The Doctor wondered idly if he had ever considered a career in rugby.
"So, tell me, what can I do for you, Mr. Smith?" Miranda asked, sitting down in her chair behind her desk. With four people in the room, it felt more crowded than ever.
"Weeeeeeell," the Doctor said, flopping into one of the chairs on the other side of Miranda's desk. "Rose tells me that Torchwood is in need of people familiar with alien technology."
Miranda raised an eyebrow.
"Oh did she? And are you, Mr. Smith? Familiar I mean?"
"You could say that," the Doctor said modestly
"What else could I say?" she asked.
"Well, I've worked with a lot of alien devices in my time, and I know a thing or two about fixing them, if that's what is needed," the Doctor replied.
Miranda consulted a paper in front of her.
"You seem highly qualified. Rose seems to think you have a degree in 'Spock', when we talked on the phone, although I don't see that listed on your resume." Miranda's eyes sparkled with hidden humour.
The Doctor shot Rose a glance. She looked innocently at him.
"Well, I have one in transdimensional astrophysics, if that counts as 'Spock'," he said.
"Dear me. Transdimensional. I'm not familiar with that term," Miranda said, fixing her sharp eyes on the Doctor.
"Transdimensional you say?" Mr. Banks said leaning forward and looking interested. "Would you know how to work particle theory?"
The Doctor shrugged. He had played with particle and string theory in the nursery.
"Anyone can work particle theory if they know base eight math," he replied.
"Particle theory and base eight math have nothing to do with one another," Mr. Banks said blandly.
"Haven't your scientists found the link yet? Huh. No wonder you're having problems," the Doctor said.
Rose elbowed him.
"Rude," she hissed.
"Tell me, Mr. Smith, what you make of this," Mr. Banks said, holding out an object for the Doctor.
The Doctor took it and carefully examined it. His eyes lit up.
"I haven't seen one of these in ages," he murmured.
It was round and flat, and fit inside the Doctor's palm comfortably. The surface was of cool black metal. The Doctor traced his fingers over it, delicately.
"We think it's some sort of weapon," Mr. Banks said, watching the Doctor carefully.
The Doctor shook his head.
"You humans. You always think everything is a weapon. Could be anything." He waved his hand over the top, and a light flashed. Six round spots in different colours appeared around the edges of the object. "It's a storage device. It's like a CD player. But what it plays isn't music, it's emotions. If you press this top button, it plays the emotion for everyone to feel."
The Doctor pressed the button.
A surge of wonder and joy flooded him, sweeping him along with it. He was reminded of the first time he had looked up at the burnt orange sky, and saw the stars twinkling away, and wanted to be among them. It was like the look on Rose's face as he showed her the most beautiful things in the universe, and watched her marvel at them. It was amazing. Then, just as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped.
Rose opened her eyes, and brushed a tear away. Miranda sniffed. Mr. Banks looked at the Doctor with wide eyes.
"You're hired," he said.
"But Theodore, you haven't even interviewed him fully yet!" Miranda protested, a little half heartedly.
"I don't care. Anyone who can make something do that can work in my department any day. Welcome to Torchwood Mr. Smith," Mr. Banks extended his large hand, and shook the Doctor's once more.
The Doctor's face broke into a smile.
"Just for making it do what it was designed to do?" he asked, handing the emotions recorder back to Mr. Banks.
He took it back carefully, almost reverently.
"We didn't know it could do that before," he replied. "You start in ten minutes. Let me get my coat, and I'll show you down to where we work."
"I guess you have your answer," Miranda said, with a shrug. She smiled at Rose. "Come again, dear, and visit. I want to here all about how you became engaged to this singularly interesting man."
Rose smiled, and followed the Doctor as he tugged on her hand.
"Well, that was easy," she commented as they walked back into the Personnel lobby.
"Yeah. A lot easier than I thought it would be," the Doctor said.
Rose looked at him.
"What you did, that was beautiful," she said.
"Yeah. It was. Made by an empathic race. That's how they talk to each other. I think what we found was a 'hello'."
"Blimey. If that was just hello… I wish we had visited that planet," Rose sighed.
The Doctor grinned.
"You should see them when they're angry," he said. But he was filled with regret. Why didn't he take Rose to that planet when he had the chance?
Rose smiled.
"I gotta go back to my department now. You're going to be looked after, yeah?"
The Doctor nodded.
"It seems so."
"We can meet up after work down in the front lobby," Rose said. "Now, don't patronize people too much, and remember not to be too rude. And remember to explain things for the others, and that they're just humans, and they can't help it if they're a tad slow."
The Doctor laughed.
"Play nice with the other kids?" he summed up.
Rose laughed as well.
"Exactly."
"I will. I know it's irrational of me, but human beings always have been quite my favorite species."
Rose smiled obligingly.
"Yes dear," she said, clearly humouring his madness.
She stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him lightly.
"Love you," she murmured.
"Love you too. Have a good day," the Doctor replied.
Rose fluttered her hand as a farewell, and walked out of the doors. The Doctor watched her as she went, feeling a little lost.
--
"Right. So. This is our department."
"In the basement?" the Doctor asked.
Banks looked embarrassed. He had told the Doctor that everyone called him 'Banks', and he expected his new employee to do the same.
"It's the only space we could get where we wouldn't have people complaining if we blew something up. There's quite a lot of space, actually." Banks lead the Doctor passed several piles of technology heaped on tables that he would have loved to take a look at. But Banks was walking at a brisk pace.
"Maxie!" he called. "I've found a partner for you, Maxie!"
A skinny teenage kid came out from behind a massive pile of junk, wiping his hands on a dirty cloth.
"What's that, Boss? Finally found someone who can keep up with me?" he asked.
"Cheeky," Banks scolded good naturedly. "Maxie, I want you to meet our latest victim, John Smith. Smith, this is Max Davenport. We all call him Maxie."
Max rolled his eyes.
"You call me Maxie, Boss. No one else."
The Doctor looked the kid up and down.
"We're going to be partners?" he asked skeptically.
"That's the way things work around here, Smith. We work on projects in partners. Fresh ideas and new perspectives and all that stuff."
"I hate to sound conceited," the Doctor said, knowing what he was going to say was conceited, and wanting to say it anyways. "But I'm a bit cleverer than your average genius down here. This kid has to be what, eighteen?"
"Seventeen. Last month," Max said, his smile showing all his teeth.
"I know what you mean. We were all skeptical about Maxie at first. But he's our resident boy-genius. We hired him cuz he's got an interesting perspective on things."
"I'm just doing this until I can find a school that doesn't bore me to death," Max said.
The Doctor grinned at that. He could relate to that.
"I'll let you two get acquainted," Banks said, and walked off in giant strides.
Max looked the Doctor up and down.
"John Smith, huh?" he asked.
"Yeeep. That's what my mother named me. She was a bit daft though, to call me that. Everyone said so. But she did it, just to be different."
"Be different by being the same?" Max asked.
"Yeah, something like that," the Doctor said. "So why are you here at Torchwood?"
"Like I said, got bored of school. I'm too clever for most of them. I was fixing cars when Banks found me, and offered me a job here. You?"
"Heard it was where all the geniuses went. Besides, I've got a fair hand with alien stuff. Got quite a 'Spock' way with me," the Doctor said, smiling the reference to Rose. Something on the table behind Max caught his eye.
"Is that a Optronic Laverscope?" he asked.
Max stood beside him, arms folded.
"Is that what it's called?" he asked. "I was just calling it 'that piece of junk'. It doesn't work."
"Have you tried tweaking the neuronic base?" he asked, taking his black-rimmed specs out of his pocket and jamming them on his nose to get a better look.
"It doesn't have a neutronic base," Max said, sounding surprised.
"Well then, there's your problem," the Doctor said confidently.
Max whistled.
"Banks was right. You're not bad. How do we jury rig on to make it work?"
The Doctor grinned. Now this is what he liked.
"Weeeeelll…. If we tried getting together some spark plugs, and a length of copper wire, and jamming it together with some rubber bands and radio transistors, that might work when combined with the obtronic pathways…"
--
Rose hurried down to the R and D department. She had been worried about the Doctor all day, so much so that she could hardly concentrate on all the paperwork that she had to catch up on. Marks had been annoyed as usual, but who cared what he thought?
Her thoughts were constantly on the Doctor. How was he getting on with his job? Was he patronizing the others, as she knew he was bound to do if he wasn't stopped? What kind of trouble had he gotten into?
The elevator to the basement dinged, and she hurried out, biting a thumb nail absently. The department was strangely empty. As she walked through the department, she heard a voice raised above the others. It was the Doctor's.
"So you see, if you just tweak this switch a little bit, it does this..!" he moved out of the way as the device on the table levitated several inches. The gangly teenager standing beside the Doctor grinned widely, and the rest of the people burst into applause.
"How did you do that? We all thought that was broken for sure," someone in the crowd said.
"You see, all that needed doing was that the ground-to-air coordinator was broken. Max and I McGyvered a neutronic base to make it lift, and…"
Rose leaned against a desk, and grinned widely. The Doctor was going to be just fine.
Author's Note: You know, now that it's been a couple of days since the finale, it's starting to sink in. I miss Donna already! She was so brilliant, a friend for the Doctor. Also, Cybermen at Christmas? Kinda no excited about that. I mean, they've done Cybermen already. Enough with the old villains, let's make some new fantastic recurring bad guys. I was so totally psyched last year for the Titanic. This year it's like… ho hum, I could handle waiting until Christmas.
I had a lot of fun making up co workers for the Doctor and Rose. I went a little crazy, but Max and Banks and Miranda were just so much fun! I especially like Max, the gangly boy genius who can give the Doctor a run for his money in the cheek department, if not in the genius department.
Thanks to people who suggested things! I will try to work them in, and if anyone else wants to do it please feel free. I forget who suggested that the Doctor not be able to deal with his hormones, but I tried to incorporate it into the story. It's actually a really good idea, considering human physiology is different from that of a Time Lord. The poor Doctor is in WAY over his head!