Chapter Nine: The Old Man Tree

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Barry, Wales (UK):

Bobby hadn't intended to do more than slip in, get what he had come for and then slip right back out of the Doyle home as quickly as possible.

When he noticed the stack of Pippa's drawings sitting on her desk, however, he couldn't help but leaf through them. The one of a stick figure that looked suspiciously like him made him smile. Kids, he thought. He'd wanted kids once. That was before Torchwood.

He had gleaned from conversation that Gwen and Rhys were discussing the pros and cons of children; but Gwen was right, there was a good reason that Torchwood didn't have a maternity plan. Chances are they would all die before any children they might ever have graduated from high school.

He sighed and shook himself, trying to clear his head of thoughts like that. In a way children, if not his own, were exactly why he was doing what he was doing. Allison's kids, if she ever had any, these two little girls. Future generations.

Bobby glanced back at the picture of him and smiled again.

The next picture in the stack was of a tree that looked as if it be called an 'old man tree'; there was even a big rock in the background. He used his mobile to take a picture of the drawing.

He stacked the drawings back the way he'd found them and pulled out the hand-held detector, hoping it would help him find the cigar box and those crystals.

"Try under the bed."

He jumped and whirled around, several curses poised on the end of his tongue. Then he recognized the girl standing in the doorway.

"Rhianna! Jesus! What are you doing here?" he slipped the detector into his pocket quickly, although he was fairly certain she'd seen it.

"I could ask you the same thing, you know, Dr. Chase." A wry smile played at her deep-red lips as she closed the distance between them.

He frowned, "How do you know what I was looking for?"

"I took a guess. Besides, whenever the girls want to hide something, they usually put it under the bed and whatever you're looking for is probably important, right?"

He blinked at her. It made sense. "You still haven't explained what you're doing here."

"I saw you pull up and I was coming over to let you in." She held up a house key. "But apparently you didn't need the assistance. I didn't think the police could just break into someone's home like this."

"I never said I was with the police, did I?" Without waiting for an answer, he knelt down and peered under the bed. Sure enough, there was the cigar box.

"What do you want with that?" Rhianna asked as he pulled it out.

"Look, you should stand back. Just in case." He lifted both the cigar box and his field kit onto the bed.

"In case of what?"

"In case of anything." Reluctantly, he pulled the detector out of his pocket. It blipped right on cue.

Rhianna peered over his shoulder. "What is that?"

"Nothing you need to worry about."

"Who are you?"

Bobby sighed. There was really only one answer. "Torchwood."

"I knew it!" Her grin surprised him as much as her sudden appearance.

"You… What?"

"You people think you're so clever, but honestly, who else can go anywhere they want to asking questions and breaking into people's houses? So what happened? How did Mr. Miller die? Is it true what they say about aliens in Cardiff?"

"Whoa, slow down Nancy Drew," he held up his hand to silence her. He lifted the lid of the cigar box. Inside it were the three coloured stones, and an assortment of other trinkets and treasures, just like before.

"Come on, I came over here to help, you have to give me something!"

"How about a piece of advice…?"

She groaned, "I can get advice from my mother."

"Then how about just standing back a little," he told her, physically moving her back behind him. He pocketed the detector and pulled a small lead lined box out of the field kit. Using a large pair of tweezers to grasp the crystals, he plucked them from the cigar box and put them inside the specimen box.

"What are those?" Rhianna asked him.

"The honest answer is that I don't know, at least not yet." He sealed the box and set it back into his case, feeling only marginally better.

"So, is it true what they say about that American who's supposed to be in charge of you guys or something?"

He shot her a look, as he slid the cigar box back under the bed, wondering briefly what the girls were going to make of some of their treasure gone missing. "That depends on what you've heard about him," he told her.

"They say…" she blushed. "They say he'll shag anything… " she shot him a meaningful look.

Bobby chortled, "Erm… Right… Jack has a boyfriend. And it's not me."

"So does that mean you're available?" Her voice took on a sultry tone.

God, I wonder if Jack realizes we have groupies, he thought to himself."Not really, no," he lied. "Do you think you could do me a favour and not mention you saw me here today?"

"If you let me take you out to lunch some time."

"Rhianna, I've got to be at least ten years older than you."

"So?"

He sighed, "Fine. But not today."

"Do I get your phone number?"

"No, I'll call you."

"If you don't…"

"I will," he promised her. After all, it was just lunch, what could it hurt? "Just… don't expect it to be right away, ok?"

"Ok. But I'll hold you to that." She walked with him out the front door of the house.

Bobby watched her head back down the road to her own house.

He put the field kit in the trunk of Ianto's car. He doubted that the distance between him and the stones was enough to make transporting them safe, but he couldn't leave them behind, either. Hopefully Jack was right about that lead lined box.

He pulled out his phone and dialled Gwen's number.

"Hello? Bobby?"

"Yeah, it's me. You can access satellite images from there, right?"

"Sure. Why?"

"I'm going to send you a picture. It's pretty crude. I need you to see if there's any place around here that looks like it."

"What are you up to?"

"I'm not sure yet, but since I'm here, I might as well check it out if I can. Hang on," he pulled the image up on his mobile and sent it to hers. "Got it?"

"It's a kid's drawing."

"Miller's granddaughter drew it. It's where they found the crystals."

There was a brief pause on the other end. "All right. This could take a few minutes… "

"Can you talk and work at the same time?" he leant up against the car.

"I'm a woman of many talents, thank you." The smile in her voice was audible.

Bobby chuckled wryly. He glanced up the street, but it seemed as if Rhianna had really gone back home. "So what's the story with Ianto's friend, Wendy?"

"That's… kind of a complicated."

"Is there anything around here that isn't complicated?"

"Not really, no. She helped Ianto out of a tough spot when he was a kid. You should probably read her file when you get back. Jack said she could stay on with us. Hang on… here we go… smile, you're on satellite camera."

Bobby grinned and looked up, waving, wondering just which satellite system she'd hacked into. In the background, he heard Jack asking what was going on and Gwen explaining.

A moment later Jack's voice came over the phone. "Bobby? What do you have out there?"

"Miller's granddaughters said they found those stones by some old tree. They drew a picture of it… "

"We can be there in half an hour."

"I don't need you to hold my hand, Jack."

"And I don't need you getting fried. Wait for the rest of us. That's an order."

Bobby sighed. "Fine. But I can't wait here. I think one of Doyle's neighbours has a crush on me."

In the background he heard Gwen giggling. Then her voice came over the line, "There's a café not to far from where you are. Hang on, I'm sending you directions. We'll meet you there in about forty minutes. Well, maybe twenty, since Jack's the one driving."

"Hey!" the Captain exclaimed in the background.

………………………………….…….……..

"Just coffee, please," Bobby said to the waitress as he settled into a booth to wait. It seemed almost a little weird having nothing to do.

He pulled out his mobile phone and accessed his email… Shit… Allison; Allison; Allison; Cuddy; Foreman; Allison; Cuddy; Allison; Wilson…

Bloody Hell… he swore silently.

He glanced at his watch trying to calculate the time difference, but with Al's rotation, it probably wouldn't matter what time it was in New Jersey. He decided to call her work first; he'd called her there often enough to remember the number for direct line into the ER.

"Is Dr. Cameron in?" he asked when the nurse picked up.

"Dr. Chase?"

Right. Of course his accent would give him away. "Yeah, it's me. Is she in on today?"

"Hang on a minute."

Most of the ER staff knew they'd been dating, so it was probable that everybody knew they'd broken up as well. He wondered what she'd told them.

Not that it matters, he told himself. He wasn't even sure why he was calling. She had been the one to dump him, by all rights he shouldn't be bothering, but her emails had gone from politely concerned to nearly frantic. And I suppose I was a bit of an ass taking off like that.

The hold music cut out. "Robert?"

"Hi." It felt strange to have someone calling him Robert again; it had only been a week, but he'd gotten used to being Bobby.

"Are you all right?" Her voice sounded strained.

"I'm fine," he lied. He wasn't fine. He had been a minute ago, but he wasn't now. Now he had this big, cold, hollow space inside him, the place where he used to have her… only she doesn't love me, he reminded himself. He cleared his throat before trying to speak again. "How, erm… how's everything there?" He smiled his thanks up at the waitress when she brought his coffee.

"All right, I guess. How's it there?"

"Fine."

"Must be busy. You haven't answered your email."

"Yeah, sorry," he struggled to keep his tone light. "I got here just as something came up."

"Oh?"

He dumped some sugar into his coffee and gave it a stir. "Yeah."

"Anything interesting?" she asked.

"Sort of. This is honestly the first chance I've had to catch up on anything and I've really only got a few minutes."

"Sounds like the old days." It sounded like she was forcing a smile.

"A little bit," he conceded. "Although the job perks are better."

"Oh yeah?"

He chuckled despite himself; he wasn't going to tell her about Jack's idea of fringe benefits. "My boss actually ordered me to get six hours sleep last night."

"He must be a saint."

"Not hardly. But he's a good man to work for," he told her honestly.

"I'm glad."

"Yeah." He realized he didn't have anything else he could say but he wasn't ready to hang up. As much as it hurt, it was good to hear her voice.

"So… where are you?" Allison asked before he could come up with something else to say to try and keep the conversation going for just a few more minutes.

"Right now?" he asked.

"Sure."

Bobby looked around, trying to figure out the best way to answer her. "Hang on." He used his phone to take a picture of the parking lot outside the diner window, sending it to her. "I just sent you a picture. It's the view from this little diner I'm sitting at in Barry. That's about half an hour south of Cardiff."

"Are you by yourself?"

"I'm waiting for some friends to show up."

"Making friends already?"

"From work. I haven't done much except work and sleep, but the people I'm working with are really great."

"Not like here, huh?" she laughed, but just barely.

"I don't know, I can think of some people there were pretty great to have worked with."

"Robert…"

"Allison, don't."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right. You made the right decision not to follow me here." Daleks… Cybermen… Dagoni… she was better off not knowing about any of it.

There was an extended silence on the other end before Allison asked him about the case he was working.

"I …" he hesitated. "Burn victim."

"I guess that's right up your alley."

"Dead burn victim." He corrected, although he knew hadn't meant to say that, the words just slipped out. He drank some coffee and realized he'd dumped entirely too much sugar into it.

"Oh. I'm sorry…"

"Just part of the job." He realized he'd better get off the phone before he said anything else he didn't mean to.

"How can that be part of the job?" She sounded surprised at the easy way he'd said that.

Bobby shrugged, but of course she couldn't see it. "It… it just is."

"Where are you?" she asked again.

"I told you. I'm in this little diner…"

"That isn't what I meant, Robert. What's going on? Why can't I find this Torchwood anywhere on the Internet?"

A familiar black SUV pulled into the lot, "I have to go. I'll call you again when I get the chance."

"Robert…"

"Tell everybody I said hi. I… I'll try to get around to my email when things settle down here. It was good to hear your voice," he added quickly, before losing his nerve. He hung up before she could respond and threw a couple of bills down to cover his coffee and the tip.