The Doctor and Amy followed Lily and Rebecca as they walked into the medium-sized building which Lily had identified as "base". A man looked up from what the Doctor gathered was the front desk as they walked up.
"Morning, Dan!" Rebecca said cheerfully as she swiped her security pass. He smiled and nodded back in return.
"Step in here, please." He gestured to what looked like a tiny metal closet. Rebecca walked inside without hesitation. The Doctor glanced at Lily questioningly.
"It's technology that enables us to see whether a person is actually who they say they are, or an alien wearing a shimmer or some such. We need two visitor passes, Dan."
"That will wait until after you've been checked. You know that, rules and regulations."
Lily rolled her eyes as her mother walked back out to them. "Yeah, fine, whatever." She walked into the box and out again a moment later. "Happy now?"
"They have to be checked too, sweetie," Rebecca said.
"One quick question: it's just set to detect shimmers, it isn't harmful to non-humans, is it?" the Doctor asked.
"No, of course it's not harmful to non-humans," Dan replied, confused.
"Good," the Doctor answered cheerfully and bounced into the box. Dan stared after him, his mouth hanging open.
"Is he an alien?"
"Yes, Dan, he is. Now do the scan so that he can get out of there," Rebecca said exasperatedly.
After they were all checked, Dan handed over two visitor passes. "Wear these at all times," he cautioned. "If you take them off you could get thrown out. But these passes will authorize you to almost any employee accessible area, although I'm guessing any place it doesn't get you into these two can." He nodded toward Lily and Rebecca.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Rebecca. "You guys really do run the place, don't you?"
She smirked. "We do our best."
"Well, what about Lily? How does she handle this and school?" he asked argumentatively.
"It's easy. Right now it's summer, so I can spend as much time as I want here. And during the school year, I go to school during the day, and if they need me here or if I need help on my homework, I come to the base after school." Lily grinned. "Don't worry, I've been plenty responsible. You don't have to nag me for me to remember to do my homework. I got through school with great grades, except for German," she said, wrinkling her nose. "The teacher there can be completely unfair."
The Doctor turned to Rebecca. "Opinion from a mother?"
"Do you really think I would let her come here if she wasn't keeping up with her responsibilities?" Rebecca looked at him with her eyebrows raised.
"Point taken." He raised his arms in surrender. "So, you going to show us what you've done with the place?"
"Let's go."
"We'll go to the research room first," Lily said excitedly.
Rebecca slid her security pass through a slot next to double doors, and opened the right one. "After you," she said with a flourish.
They walked into a room which was reminiscent of a high school computer lab. Lily stepped forward in full professional mode – with a little joking.
"We have access to most Torchwood software and archives – with permission, naturally. We also have the computer essentials – a word processer, power point software, and paint. Oh, and HALO for target practice." She grinned at them. "We do have some paper archives, but most of it is either on or is in the process of being transferred to the digital archives. Any employee has access to any of these computers at any given time unless given different instructions by us."
The Doctor sat down at one of the computers, opened some software, and experimentally tapped some keys. "This software is fantastic!"
"We've got a couple people who are pretty good with technology, they made some adjustments and upgraded the software we already have, now we've got some of the best around." Rebecca motioned Amy over to another computer and opened a list of software. "Video, archives, face recognition, voice recognition, video manipulation, we've got it all."
"Hold on, isn't some of this stuff illegal?"
Rebecca smiled and switched off the computer. "That's why you aren't going to tell anyone." Amy raised her eyebrows. "If we followed the law all the time, then how much do you think we'd get done?"
"Point taken."
"Alright, then, I think that's all we need to do in here, come on." Rebecca started toward the door, but stopped when she realized only two people were following her. "Doctor!"
"What?" He looked up from where he was giddily working with the computer. When he realized exactly how into it he'd been, he looked embarrassed and switched of the computer. "Right, sorry."
Rebecca rolled her eyes. "Right, then, off we go." She led them down the hallway and to doors that read Laboratory. She swiped her security pass and led them into a gigantic room. People bustled around, liquids bubbled, electricity fizzled, and there were a few explosions from one of the far corners.
"This is where we work on experiments," Lily explained. "Some medical emergencies are also taken care of in here, though, if all the medical bays are full."
"Maybe I should help them with a few experiments," the Doctor said thoughtfully.
"Or maybe you'd better stay out of it so that they don't get any technology way beyond our time. We don't want anything like Torchwood London happening again," Rebecca pointed out gently.
The Doctor's face darkened. "Yeah, that's true," he said quietly. He glanced around the room. "Is this a Torchwood, though?"
"Not technically, but we're thinking about possibly asking if we could become an official branch. We basically do all the same things, so it's just the technicalities that keep us from being one. It's kind of nice not being part of a big organization, though. Call us freelancers." Lily smiled.
"Wait, so if you've been in contact with Torchwood, have you spoken with Captain Jack Harkness?"
Rebecca smirked. "I certainly have. Quite a charmer."
"That's putting it mildly," the Doctor muttered.
"Why, do you know him?" Lily asked curiously.
"We traveled together briefly, and our paths have crossed a couple times since then," he said, waving his hand nonchalantly. "Although we've met a couple more times than he's aware of, yet. Complications of time travel, and complications of the impossible man himself."
"Impossible?"
The Doctor shook his head. "Not my story to tell. It's Jack's decision to tell people, not mine."
Lily piped up. "He seems nice enough, though."
"For all of Jack's flirtatiousness, I have to admit, he's got a level head and a heart of gold." The Doctor smiled. "He's good in a crisis, he does what he knows is right, even though I know the decisions kill him sometimes." He snickered subtly when he realized the unintentional pun he'd put in the sentence.
The tour continued with medical bays, offices, shaking of hands and more. The Doctor was proud of Rebecca for how well she'd taken charge of her life, and he was proud of Lily for taking so much responsibility and working well with it.
Amy watched the Doctor throughout the tour. She noticed how his eyes softened and his chest swelled up with pride, especially when Lily was explaining what was going on. She couldn't believe he could still keep his decision to not tell Lily who she was when he was so obviously proud of her.
But, she thought to herself, no secret can be kept forever.
A/N: yeah, so I didn't know how to end the chapter, so I decided to bring in the title of the story. Clever, huh? Yeah not really. I wasn't planning on bringing Jack into this, but now that I brought him up, I'm thinking maybe he could make an appearance in a later chapter? Tell me your thoughts if you like. Besides that, yup, filler-ish chapter, but I'm still working out ideas so this is kind of weird while I'm writing. Any mistakes, tell me and I'll try to fix them :) I hope you're enjoying!