RishiDiams totally saved my life and kicked out TWO BETAS today! Sorry this has taken forever, but it is completely outlined and I fully intend to finish this series! Thank you all for bearing with me and for your continued reviews and support! YOU ROCK!
Rose and the Doctor somehow managed to enter the station on time, him immediately breaking off to find Jack while Rose made her way immediately to her father's office. She knocked on the closed door and entered upon hearing his stressed voice reply, "Come in!"
A man and woman were sitting in the chairs opposite her father, both looking tired and worn down while still dressed and coiffed impeccably. Her father's face was concerned, but held a hint of relief when he saw her standing there.
"Detective Tyler, thank you for gracing us with your presence," Pete muttered, rubbing a hand over his face.
Rose rolled her eyes. "Well, sir, I had to move some things around to make it in on my day off."
Her father gave her a small smirk. "Dr. and Mrs. Clark, this is Detective Inspector Rose Tyler and apart from her cheek, she's one of our best. Tyler, the Clarks' daughter, Theresa, has been missing for three days. We're opening up a case and could use all the help we can get."
He handed her a case file and Rose nodded, going over the beginnings of the investigation. There wasn't much, just some interview notes in her father's handwriting and a copy of the official missing person's report. The lovely young woman's photo was also in the file, one that looked professionally done with her long, sleek brown hair perfectly straight and her huge blue eyes looking directly into the camera.
Though why her father was taking such a personal interest in this case was something that sat in the back of her mind. He was an insanely busy man, and he gave as much personal attention to each case as he could, but there were many others who could conduct interviews and build a case report. There was something going on here, something that required the Chief's interest.
"May I have a word with you, Chief Tyler?" Rose asked, trying to sound as casual as she could. He gave a brief nod, and she smiled reassuringly at the Clarks as they stepped outside and shut the door behind them.
"What's going on here?" Rose asked. "All of these case notes are in your handwriting. I haven't seen you write case notes since I was at uni."
Pete sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "I was asked to take a special interest in this case. Dr. Clark is the lead researcher on the most recent round of stem cell experiments that they hope will lead to a cure for cancer..."
"Oh, I'll bet people don't like that," Rose breathed.
"No. His lab has gotten dozens of threats. MP Blake has been a huge supporter of the research, and he gave me a call asking to make sure I've got my best people on it."
Rose sighed. "We don't have much to go on. She was talking to her mum on the phone, the call cut out, they haven't heard from her since..."
"I know, Rose. Trust me, I know. But please...let's try our best on this one, all right?"
"Always do," she replied, turning back and re-entering the office. "Sorry, Dr. and Mrs. Clark. Had a few things to discuss with Chief Tyler. Now, why don't you tell me how your daughter seemed the last time you spoke."
"Fine," Mrs. Clark responded. Something in her voice was...odd. It was soft, sounded stressed, but there was a quality that she couldn't place. She furrowed her brow and continued to listen. "She said she was coming from class and she was meeting a friend for lunch. I thought that the call had simply dropped..."
She broke off, dabbing a lace trimmed handkerchief to her eyes. Rose covered the woman's hands with her own and gave them a gentle squeeze.
"I know this must be very difficult for you," she told Mrs. Clark in a soft voice. "I can't even imagine what you're feeling right now. But I promise you, every bit of information is vital."
"Yes, sorry, I don't know what came over me," Mrs. Clark began. Dr. Clark placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Rose strained her hearing, trying to identify the odd quality that didn't seem quite right about her voice when the door to her father's office flew open and made everyone jump.
"Rose! There you are! Your station manager is absolutely brilliant,, Pete. He found these incredible pastries and there was banana, Rose! A perfect banana Danish sitting right there in the box!"
"Doctor," Rose hissed, fully expecting to give him a firm reprimand about his unprofessional behavior but found her lips suddenly fused with his. It was a brief kiss, but intense as usual, and Rose flushed bright crimson when she pulled away and met the confused gazes of Dr. and Mrs. Clark.
"Sorry, um, this is Dr. John Smith, one of our...consultants..." Rose flushed further at Dr. Clark's raised eyebrow. "And my...um...partner. Obviously. I don't let random men come in and kiss me..."
"That's quite all right, dear," Mrs. Clark assured with a small smile. "We were young once as well."
"Is there something you needed, Dr. Smith?" Pete asked, somewhat exasperated.
The Doctor had gone oddly quiet since he'd pulled out of their kiss. He was staring at the Clarks, an odd expression on his face, the expression on his face the one that Rose knew meant he was about to be ridiculously clever.
He sniffed the air deeply before opening his eyes and grinning widely. He snatched the handkerchief out of Mrs. Clark's hands and, ignoring her indignant cry, darted out his tongue to lick at the damp spots her tears had left.
"Doctor!" Rose practically screeched, darting up from her chair. "What on Earth has gotten into you? You can't just..."
"Rose!" he interrupted, his face breaking into a grin of pure delight. "I promise, you can yell at me all you like later on but really!" He turned to the Clarks and began heartily pumping their hands. "I don't know how you managed to get here, but well done! Really, really well done! Brilliant, in fact!"
"Doctor," Rose prompted him impatiently.
He pulled out of his crouch and beamed at her. "Rose, this lovely couple are visiting Earth from two galaxies over. They're from Liptoria! How brilliant is that?"
His grin faded as he glanced around the room. Everyone, including Rose, was staring at him with a completely gobsmacked expression, including her father.
"Oh," he said. "Right. Yes, well, we've got some explaining to do, haven't we?"
"Time Lord," Dr. Clark breathed. "We thought..."
"That we were extinct," the Doctor finished for them. "Yes, well, just me lately. Now the questions is, what are you two doing on Earth?"
"I'm sorry," Pete interrupted. "But am I the only sane person in the room?"
"It's true, Dad," Rose told him quietly.
"So it's not only that you two are aliens," he gestured to the Clarks. "But my daughter is dating one? I had enough trouble believing that you were psychic, and now this?"
"Well..." the Doctor began, and Rose had to cover her face to hide her smile at his I am about to lecture tone. "I wouldn't call myself psychic, Pete. That's such a human term. My species could read timelines. We are touch telepaths as well. Of course, I don't always need to rely on those. Simply the pheromones and chemicals you excrete can tell me just as much about your state of mind as telepathy sometimes..."
"Doctor," Rose crossed the room and stopped him mid-ramble with a hand on his arm. "Right now, I think we need to concentrate on finding Theresa, yeah? We can talk about all of this later, right, Dad?"
Pete shook his head, as if trying to clear it. "Right, yes, of course. Rose, let's agree not to tell your mother about any of this just yet?"
"Lips are sealed," she agreed. "Now, Dr. and Mrs. Clark...can you think of anyone who might want to harm you or your family? I know your research is controversial, but there was no ransom demand, no note. If someone were kidnapping your daughter to make a statement, they would want us to know, wouldn't they?"
"Right you are, Inspector Tyler," the Doctor said with pride in his voice. Rose didn't bother to hide her grin. "So, I think our next step would be to check the location where she disappeared. Do we have her mobile?"
"Haven't found it yet," Pete replied. "She was somewhere between King's College and wherever she was meeting her friend."
"I didn't get a chance to find out where or who," Mrs. Clark interjected. "The call cut off before she told me."
"So we'll need to ask around, see who she was meeting, find out where, see if we can map out her route. Maybe someone found the phone and turned it in..." Rose began planning out loud.
"Oh, there's no need for all that," the Doctor told her. "Dr. Clark, Mrs. Clark, if I could have her mobile number..."
"Doctor, you haven't even been assigned to this case," Pete replied, sounding exasperated. "I need approval to hire you, but of course our office lackeys can't be bothered to come in on a Sunday..."
"I'm just helping out my lady, Pete," the Doctor replied with a grin. "Consider it thanks for not committing xenocide when you found out your daughter was dating an alien."
"That has yet to be decided," Pete murmured. "I want to be kept up to date on everything, Rose. Fill Mickey in when he and Jake get back."
"Got it," Rose replied. She turned back to the Clarks and gave them a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, if anyone can find your daughter, it's the Doctor. You're in good hands."
The Doctor had quickly used Theresa's mobile number to activate her GPS and located her phone's last known coordinates within ten minutes. Rose was certain that hacking into satellite data was questionable, but he reassured her it was perfectly acceptable and that they wouldn't even know he was there. He drove them to the location while Rose gave Mickey and Jake the information she had thus far. They agreed to meet when they were done investigating a convenience store robbery and rang off just as Rose and the Doctor exited his little blue Echo.
The Doctor was carrying a small, odd-looking device that he had cobbled together from the contents of his pockets. It was beeping, the tiny screen covered in odd, concentric circles that seemed to make sense to him, because he began walking towards a set of garbage cans nearly the moment he hopped out of the vehicle.
"Ah-ha!" he crowed triumphantly, crouching down and pulling on the latex glove Rose had handy. He rummaged around under one of the cans and, after several moments, pulled a bedazzled smart phone. Rose held out an evidence baggie and the Doctor dutifully dropped in the phone before sealing it up and snatching it from her hand.
"This might give us something," he muttered, pressing buttons through the plastic and uttering a Gallifreyan swear when the phone proved to be dead. He glanced around them and tugged the sonic out of his pocket, aiming it at the cell's battery and Rose watched in awe as the tiny device lit up inside the bag.
"This is so tampering with evidence," she muttered.
"The sonic leaves no traces, Rose...at least, not to 21st Century humans anyway. But there's nothing here, no threatening text messages, no calls from odd numbers...but ohhhhh..."
Rose watched as a soft breeze swept leaves and debris all around them and the Doctor breathed in deeply through his nose. "A transmat...I can smell it on the air, it's faint, but definitely there..." He met Rose's gaze, and she gasped at the storm brewing in his dark eyes. "A transmat has no place on 21st Century Earth. Rose, we have to get back to the TARDIS so she can analyze the phone."
"Will that do anything?" Rose asked as they both hurried back towards the car.
"I don't know," he muttered, buckling himself into the driver's seat. "But it's the only thing we have so far."
"Nothing," he murmured as they stood around the TARDIS console almost a half an hour later. "There's trace bits of the transmat radiation in the phone, but not enough to track it. Still, though..."
"Means we're dealing with something alien in origin," Rose finished for him, staring at the strange, circular lettering on the view screen. "But why? What would they want with Theresa?"
"I have no idea," he said, heaving a sigh. He turned to Rose and gave her a small smile, reaching out and pulling her into his side. Rose felt a content hum escape her throat as she wrapped her arms around his waist. "More and more questions, aren't there?"
"But that's what we're good at, yeah?" she replied. "Answering questions, figuring things out. The word 'brilliant' has been bandied about on more than one occasion."
"We are that," he told her, leaning in the brush his lips gently against hers. Rose smiled into the kiss and stood on her tiptoes to press more firmly against him. It was so easy to get lost in him, in his cool kisses that made the universe disappear around them. Embarrassingly quickly, Rose's heart was racing, she was entwining her fingers in his hair, and he was shifting her so she was pressed against the console.
"Whoa!" a familiar voice called out, causing them to break apart guiltily. Jack was standing in the doorway of the TARDIS and grinning at them saucily. "You guys know I'm all for a little afternoon delight, but you might want to put yourselves together. Jake and Mickey are on their way to the office."
Rose glanced up at the Doctor. "Do you think we should tell them?"
"Rose, give them some credit," he replied. "I think they know we're dating."
She rolled her eyes good-naturedly and smacked him lightly on the chest. "No, you big dolt. About you, where you're from, about the case...?"
"Ohhhhhh!" He winked at her and pulled them apart, allowing her to shift away from the console but still keeping her tucked into his side. "Well, yes, I suppose it's important to keep them in the loop. And obviously you trust them, so..."
"Nothing will happen," she assured him. They had reached Jack and the three of them left the TARDIS, the Doctor locking her securely behind him. "I've known Mickey my whole life, remember? And Jake is a good friend. And if they're going to be on the case, there are things they'll need to know."
"Hello, hello! We're here. We brought food. What's the latest?"
Mickey and Jake barreled into the office, laden down with take-out bags and looking exhausted. "We just spent all morning trying to figure out who was trying to break into a bank on a Sunday morning," Jake told them as they set the food down on the coffee table.
"And? What did you find?" Rose prompted.
"We found a fried rat after about six hours on the scene," Mickey grumbled. "His chewing tripped the alarm system. Here we were thinking someone had slept in the vault. Inside job, you know?"
"It's rarely that interesting," Jack replied, gathering paper plates and utensils and joining them around the tiny table. "Coffee?"
"Oh God, yes!" Mickey groaned. "Tell us about this new case then. Missing person?"
"Erm...yeah...something like that," Rose replied evasively. She met the Doctor's gaze as he fiddled with the coffee grinder. He gave her a meaningful look as he switched on the device, the loud whirring enough to buy her a few minutes to compose herself and figure out how best to turn her best friend and partners' worlds upside down.
She took a deep breath as the machine came to a gradual stop. Mickey and Jake were both watching her, waiting for her to elaborate as they filled their plates. She busied herself with the food containers instead and spent an inordinate amount of time locating her cheeseburger, rearranging the toppings, making a detailed smiley face out of ketchup before squishing it with the bun, and adding the perfect proportions of salt and vinegar to her chips. The Doctor handed her over a mug of coffee and scoffed when she beamed at him gratefully.
"Such a refined palette," he teased gently, setting two more mugs down in front of Jake and Mickey and Jake. He perched himself on the arm of her chair and stole a chip, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze when she turned to glare at him. "Go on."
Rose nodded and took a deep breath. "Well, turns out there's...more to this case than we initially realized."
Mickey raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah? Sounded pretty straightforward when Pete called us earlier. What changed?"
"We were able to find her phone," Rose continued.
"How'd you manage that?" Jake cut in. "I thought the mom didn't know where she was going, who she was meeting, or anything! That's like finding a needle in a haystack!"
Rose hesitated, glancing once more up at the Doctor, who nodded at her to continue. "The Doctor managed it. You know how good he is with computers..."
"Rose, there's no way he could have found that information, especially because the phone's battery had to be completely dead!"
The Doctor sighed, jumping in before Rose could reply. "I simply triangulated the last known coordinates of the cellular towers while it was in use. Easy peasy, once I managed to hack into the satellite information from her mobile provider..."
"Doctor, we knew you were good with computers, but I don't think that's even possible!" Mickey laughed. "How could you possibly manage all that in the space of, what..." He glanced down at his watch. "Three hours?"
Rose had painted herself into a corner. She had no idea what to say, how to explain to her partners and friends that the man they'd been working with for over half a year was actually a time-traveling alien. She tried to prepare something else evasive, something to buy her more time when she felt the Doctor huff behind her.
"It's because I'm an alien, Mickey."
The pair of them stared at him, wearing identical mouths-agape expressions. Time stretched out, and it felt like hours before either of them moved. Then, very suddenly, Mickey jumped from his chair, eyes wide as he pointed excitedly at the Doctor.
"I knew it!"