PLAGUE
EIGHT
The Doctor and Rose stood staring wide-eyed at the display monitor.
They had parked in their usual spot at the Cardiff Millennium Centre, but that was the only normal aspect on this most unusual of days.
The plaza was filled with hundreds if not thousands of people. There were film crews, production vehicles, satellite dishes and news reporters. There were security people and police trying keep the general public away from the news folks and the crackpots carrying placards or wearing E.T. masks away from the general public.
"You see?" The Doctor put on his glasses and then tapped a knuckle repeatedly on the monitor. "I could've told him this would happen! He's gone and done it now. Torchwood's going to be the magnet for every nutcase in the country who's looking to track down aliens, or who claims they've been abducted by LGMs!"
Rose looked at him blankly and shook her head.
"'Little Green Men'! Or 'Little Gray Men', depending on what television shows you watch." The Doctor continued on with his rant. "The djinni is out of the bottle and Jack, well, Jack's SOL."
With that he flashed a wicked grin and strode up towards the door.
"Doctor! You're not going out there?"
"Nah… I just want to stand in the entrance and have a look. No one can see us, especially with their minds so focused on something else. We're safe.
"Blimey!" he exclaimed as the sounds and smells of the crowd hit him in the face when he opened the door.
A man selling pasties out of a crate he was carrying walked right past him. The Doctor was tempted to reach out and grab one, but then thought better of it and snatched his hand back. He stood there for a moment, hands in his pockets, contemplating the great sea of humanity before him.
What had started out as a common reaction to a terrible disaster had morphed into an obsession of quite a different nature. The requisite national, indeed the international grieving would instead be replaced by something else. Something less admirable and potentially way more dangerous, The Doctor knew. Just how dangerous depended in part on what Jack found up at the space station, and how the authorities would spin those findings, if spinning was required.
Rose's voice interrupted his thoughts as she called him back to the monitor; he closed and locked the door and jogged back up to her.
She pointed at a small figure standing at the center of a crowd of reporters and The Doctor readjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose to get a better look.
"That's Ianto Jones. He's one of Jack's employees."
"Looks like they're trying to do some damage control." The Doctor chuckled ruefully. "I think it may be too late for that!"
"Poor Ianto!" Rose sighed.
"Oh, don't feel too sorry for him. It looks like he's holding his own, and do you see those big fellows next to him? They appear to be bodyguards. I wouldn't worry over much."
"What about us, Doctor? What are we going to do?"
"Well…" he said, taking off his glasses and looking at her. "I think we're going to have to fly direct!
"Allons-y!"
He grinned brilliantly and then paused a beat.
"Ah, too bad! If we could grab Ianto first I could say 'Allons-y Ianto!' but instead it's just… Well… let's go!"