"Steve Connelly? You're brining in Steve Connelly? What could Steve Connelly have to contribute to this investigation? The first and last time we brought Steve Connelly into an investigation, his given information wasn't even helpful until after we caught the guy and," remembering exactly who said 'guy' was- Ellie's ex husband- Alec cut his ranting off abruptly and cleared his throat as he refused to meet anyone's eye. Lowering his voice, Alec gave a quick sniff before he began again, "He's no more a reliable source than the victims."

The last murder in the town of Broadchurch was Danny. "We've never had a murder," was once said about the town. That was no more than four years ago. Alec had heard that Steve had been called by a big hush, hush government (above government, he thinks now) facility. Back then, he nearly laughed at the thought, as he never believed it. But now? Well. Earlier today, he was told that aliens are real. If that's true, he supposed that anything of the ridiculous and unbelievable, maybe even impossible could happen. So long as the bastard isn't smug about it when he comes in.

"Dunno, I'd say a victim would be pretty reliable. Even deceased," Mickey almost sniffed in mock of the man seated on the other side of his best friend, but suddenly thought better of it.

"Does he always do this?" Rose, whose temple rest on the pointer and middle fingers of the hand closest to Alec, asked Ellie. With a side glance, Alec noticed Rose's thumb sticking out, making the positioning of her hands look like a gun pointed to her head. For a brief moment he wondered about it before chastising himself to look away. "Persists with questions?"

Alec scoffed and rolled his eyes before directing them back to Rose's hand, "I do not persist."

Maybe he should take it offensively. Or maybe he should take it as a warning, or possibly a caution regarding the lady beside him. As Rose dropped her arm to the table and turned her head towards him, he decided to file the thoughts away for later. She quirked an eyebrow at him and failed to notice Ellie doing the same.

"Yeah, you do," the women agreed.

It's only, what? Two o'clock? Three? One? No. And definitely not four. This day could not go any fucking slower. And- AND this was only day one of god knows how many. Alec started to feel a headache build and started rubbing his forehead with his middle and pointer finger, imitating the same hand gesture Rose made only moments ago. This only lasted for a good two seconds before Alec thinks better of himself and curls his middle finger towards his palm, using his pointer to rub at one of his eyes instead. But when he finally stopped and opened his eyes, he's meet with a strange, almost sad expression from Rose. Maybe it's.. Was that.. No, that wouldn't be longing. He saw sadness and longing in every mirror. He knew sadness and longing. And there was no way this lady was sad and.. Why would she be..Why're you thinking about this? For fuck's sake, and now you've probably made some angry face and scared her off because she can't even look at you now and why do you care?

"Right, so Steve will be here within an hour. Jake, did you finger print the family?" Rose straightened her posture, wiped her face of any readable emotion, and took control of the room. She could do that. What she couldn't do is continue to stare at Hardy as if he's the Doctor in disguise and will make a subtle gesture any moment to tell her that he was in character and that everything would be just fine. But it would be. Just fine. Everything would be just fine. Fine.

"Yeah, and I sent 'em over to Mickey-"

"And I put 'em into the lab results-"

"Which should be finished soon enough," Drew finished with a smile broad enough to appear oblivious to what just went on before him. But Rose knew better. He was worried and so were the rest of her boys.

She smiled in return, "Good."

"You didn't say.. How does that work?" Ellie asked with honest curiosity. Though not understanding Rose's reactions, she was not unaware of them, nor was she unaware of Alec. What had happened between them while she was at the Lamb household? They seemed civilized enough when she and, as Rose referred to them, 'the boys' got back to the station. He even held the door to his office open for Rose, who in turn, held the door to 'the room' open for him. And they both thanked each other. Well. If you consider a grunt and nod from Alec to be a 'thanks' then, yeah, sure. She thought that maybe she should keep her eyes on them, but one look around the room showed that there were already three boys ahead of her.

"Torchwood technology," Mickey began to explain and Ellie reminded herself that he was the tech specialist of the group. Oh, how her Tom would probably aspire to be like him. For a second, she thought the thought might scare her. "We have one piece of tech that can do multiple things, including scanning for fingerprints. Comes in pretty handy in abandoned areas. But anyhow, we can get the prints, scan 'em, send it through the Torchwood system in a locked file, unlock the file, and process it into the forensics. Easy enough when you're five or so years trained to do it, but it still takes time," he finished with a shrug.

"Why can't you just put it all in the same machinery?" Now, Alec may have been some grumpy old man, but he was still a man. A manly man that enjoyed machinery and electrical devices from time to time.

"Yeah, we've tried that, actually. But this is the best we could do so far. Actually, this is the latest prototype. The main bosses are trustin' us to test it."

"Why you?" Alec asked, not unkindly.

Mickey smirked in response and leans back in his chair, "'Cos, we've got the daughter of one of the boss's as our team leader."

"I thought your father owned Vitex?" Ellie asked Rose.

"Oh, he does. But he's also one of the main head's of Torchwood. Actually, his main focus and division is the field agents, like us. Not that I get any special privileges from it, other than telling him to tell mum I say 'hello' so I don't have to see her every day I have free. OH!" Rose snapped her fingers before pointing between Ellie and Jake. "Did you get someone to I.D. the body?"

"Both parents came down, and confirmed," Ellie informed them.

"Oh, and we've got his electronics," Drew added. "Figured we'd look over Lamb's hard drives while we're going over forensics later."

"Okay. What else is there to do?"

"Did anyone check the CCTV feeds around the abandoned lot and Lamb's apartment?" Alec abruptly remembered and started to get up so he can head to his office computer.

"Sit."

Rose grabbed Alec's arm to stop him and if anyone thought she pulled her arm back too quickly or that Alec practically obeyed instantly, no one said anything. She positioned her laptop on the table, angling it so that both her and Alec could see. She noticed Jake do the same with his tablet for himself and Ellie, while Drew and Mickey took out their own devices.

"It's almost spooky, the way you four work," laughed Ellie as she admired Jake's quick work.

"You should see us drunk," Drew winked at Ellie, causing Alec to raise his eyebrows at Rose, who kept her eyes trained on her computer as she felt her face heat up.

"I've got the lot," Jake called out.

"I've got the apartment," Rose mumbled, her tongue pressed against the corner of her mouth as she focused her attention to her computer screen.

Mickey and Drew decided on different parts of the roads between Lamb's apartment and the lot. It became a silent agreement that this was how the time waiting for Steve would be spent. Watching CCTV feeds and figuring out their next move. Rose and Alec were leaned in close towards Rose's computer, both careful not to touch the other.

"I'd say we've gotten quite a lot done for the first day," Ellie mused.

"Still have more to do, Benson. There's the house-to-house, another bloody town meeting-"

"Steve," Rose added, slightly dragging out the vowels in a sort of tease.

Alec groaned and Rose had to bite her lips to stop herself from laughing. If Alec noticed her lips twitching (he did) he didn't say anything. And if one corner of his mouth started to tremble (it did) he didn't notice (he did).

"I kept getting calls all morning, the town is scared and demanding answers. They've called another town meeting at six."

"Well we don't want to scare anyone more than they already are, so we better keep you off the streets." Alec rolled his eyes. "I'll do the house-to-house," Ellie offered. Jake said he'd go with her while Mickey and Drew said that it would be best for them to stay at the station to check on the forensics results and "dissect" Lamb's electronics, leaving Rose to attend the town meeting with Hardy.

"What is this, the buddy system?" Alec asked, although with only a little bit of heat.

"Well, we are working a partnership, mate. But don't worry, I can guarantee I'm having just as much fun as you are," Rose said flatly, no sign of heat or sarcasm.

Torchwood would have had to announce their presence at some point, anyways, and it's not as if Rose hadn't done this before. When she first started working for Torchwood, they were hesitant to let Rose put herself in the eye of the media, but with enough, ahem, words, from Torchwood, the media quickly backed off. Sure, sometimes her picture would be put in the paper while on a mission, but those moments were rare and quickly retracted by Torchwood. The only issue is when paparazzi get too close to a case and either get hurt or learn a little too much. Depending on the situation, either retconn or money is enough to keep their mouths shut. However, Rose and her team were very aware that in most towns, their local papers tend to help the police, which happens to be the case for Broadchurch.

Nearly an hour later, and the CCTV feeds gave nothing to further their case.

It was 3:27 when Steve walked into 'the room.' He sat himself down in a free seat around the table, placing himself in front of Rose. First, introductions were made. Then, Steve briefly discussed his workings with Torchwood. It is believed that he has a sort of "psychic connection" to the dead, where he can hear a dead person speak to him mentally. This only happens in the right circumstance. When Steve first "heard from" Danny, it was after he had seen his crime and autopsy photos. With Torchwood's help, he was able to learn to control his gift, with little bits and pieces sneaking in every now and then. [No one's mental shielding is perfect. Well. No one but Rose Tyler's. Not that that's widely known (it's one of Torchwood's biggest secrets and only known to less than ten people.)] One bit that got through was Jude. And what did Jude tell him?

That he didn't do it to himself.

"What? Getting himself killed?" Alec nearly spat.

"I don't know. That's all I'm getting," Steve regretfully replied. "But I saw you on- on the news for the town meeting when I was working on a job and I just- I heard it. I've been to Broadchurch a lot for work, of course. But I never.. I mean, not since Danny. I haven't heard anything here. It's in my contract.. for Torchwood.. that I call, since this doesn't happen as often. I didn't really think- Well I hoped that it would just be a normal case."

"Why's that, then?" asked Alec.

Steve looked down at his lap nervous before shyly looking up at the Torchwood team, "Not that there's anything wrong with Torchwood, it's just.. The last murder here was Danny and it hit even the local towns pretty hard. Didn't want to put that on you. Didn't want to be responsible for putting that on you."

"No," Rose said softly as she shook her head. "You didn't put this on us. Besides, we have a clause in our contracts, me and my boys. If at any point we feel the need to back out and hand the case over to another team, we can. Not that we're planning to," she tried to reassure Ellie.

They group talked more about what had brought the Torchwood team down to Broadchurch, and how Steve could be of any help. Basically, unless he "heard" any more, he couldn't be.

"But you were plenty helpful, enough," Rose smiled as she tried not to leave Steve with any uneasy feelings. "Because of you, we're down here now. That's what matters."

By the end of the hour, there wasn't much left to discuss and Steve was ready to go home.

"That's it? If I remember correctly, at the end of our first meeting, you tried to scare me into believing in you."

Something about the last few words Alec said didn't seem to sit right with Rose. She almost felt a sense of deja vu.

Turning to face Rose, Steve considered her for a moment before his face fell as he told her, "Well there is.. Well when I look at you.. I keep hearing.. I mean, it's sort of like.." For a second, Steve seemed to drift off, his eyes shining as if in a dreamlike state. "Just, years and years of words. A whole millennia of words. All sung in a song I can't quite make out, but there's.. Mostly I keep hearing, 'Bad Wolf' over and over, but there's also- there's something about.. the valiant child who-who died in battle."

Tensing in her seat, and slowly turning pale with each word, Rose held her breath. She hasn't heard either expression in years and suddenly Rose was very glad that she only took one pill instead of two, this morning, as she's still able to take one more. Mickey went to reach for her elbow but she pulled away, "Yeah. She-."

"He."

Rose opened her mouth only to immediately shut it.

"N-," Steve exhaled loudly through his nose as he felt his face heat up under the sudden looks of scrutiny from the fellow males at the table. "Not she. He."

There was a long stretch of silent, the seconds dragging on in the room, before Rose finally spoke again, face without expression and words evenly spoken with calculated breaths, "Thank you for coming in, Steve. We appreciate you taking the time to meet with us."

To say that everyone in the room was stunned, would be an understatement. The Torchwood boys shared worried looks with one another before turning their attention back to Rose, watching her carefully. To her surprise, Ellie was less animated than Rose who smiled kindly at Steve. He couldn't help but attempt to smile back, if even for a moment. Then there was Alec, whose eyes widened under his furrowed brows. Upon the ending of his first meeting with Steve, Alec was utterly speechless, yet here sits this not even 30-year-old woman who was smiling as if moments ago, she hadn't just acted as if she was just told that the world was going to end. Then again, she did say that she's seen the end of the Earth. She's probably seen the end of a lot of planets. Hell, she's probably seen the end of a lot, period. It takes him a moment, but he remembers- what was his name, Simmonds, Jake, yes, that's right, Jake Simmonds- Simmonds said Rose could play both good cop and bad cop at the same time. And suddenly the gun-like pose of her hand from earlier makes sense. Alec, himself, has faced down death itself back before he had his pacemaker. But Rose Tyler? Everyone needs a hand to hold, and for his companion, death chose her. Or maybe she chose him.

So much for uneasy feelings.

"If you'll pardon me for a moment, I think I need to use the loo," Rose calmly said once Steve had left, using her infamous excuse at Vitex events to escape boring or uncomfortable conversations.

She closed the door behind her softly before quickly making her way to the women's bathroom. Fortunately for her, the room is empty. When she reaches the mirror, she leans forward to rest her hands on either side of a sink, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath before opening her eyes and facing her reflection. Face blank, cheeks without a rosy tint, she remembers all those years ago how, on that dreaded last day in her home universe, her mother told her, "You even look like him." But that's not true. In a moment like this, the Doctor's eyes would burn, not shine. As she looks in the mirror, there's still light shining in Rose's eyes, despite everything she's been through, despite everything she's seen, despite everything she's done. That was one of the things the Doctor admired about her, most.

"You've changed so much."

"For the better."

"I suppose."

She tried not to think of that day, but that one conversation with her mum has stayed with her.

"You'll keep on changing. And in forty years time, fifty, there'll be this woman, walking through the marketplace on some planet a billion miles from Earth. But she's not Rose Tyler. Not anymore. She's not even human."

"Yeah?" she asked her reflection. "Well, if I hurt this much, than how can I be anything but?"

She was not going to think about Steve and what he said. Not yet. She would save those thoughts for when she returns to her hotel room.

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a round disk, smaller than her palm. To one who doesn't know, they might look at it and think it to be a very thin compact mirror. What it really was, was a bigger-on-the-inside storage pouch (okay, and mirror on the top inside lid) that the Doctor gave her in place of a purse when they went dancing on a planet that outlawed bags. Dumb law, gorgeous planet, great dancing music, and one of the most wonderful nights of her life. The pouch was small on the outside, making it easy to hide on your pocket (or your bra, as Rose had that night), while its secret transdimensional qualities made for great storage for up to a forearm's worth of anything you want. Right now, the pouch currently held survival supplies, basic self defense supplies, water, some granola bars, a few pictures, and in the closest pocket; Rose's anxiety medication. The pouch was very organize, although, like the Doctor's pockets, Rose has lost track of exactly what was in there. There was probably even an outfit or two; maybe a pair of shoes.

She removed her pills and a small bottle of water. Once her task is complete and a pill had slid down her throat, Rose retired her pills and the water to the pouch before placing it back in her pocket. She checked the mirror one more time, nodding at herself, and then returned to 'the room.'

As scared to death as Rose was, she took half a moment to be grateful that he hadn't said the words that haunted her starless dreams for the past few weeks, "Burn with me."

Rose reclaimed her seat next between Mickey and Alec and smiled at her team. Alec came to the conclusion that maybe Rose and death chose each other. Just as Rose opened her mouth to speak, beeping and buzzing fill the room.

"The forensics are done," Drew quickly accessed an assortment of files on his tablet, Mickey looking over his shoulder until he decided to pull out his own tablet and do the same.

"You're probably gonna wanna start on the hard drives soon, Mick," Jake suggested.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Got all the overrides and whatnot, already. Just gotta figure out what I'm s'posed to be looking' for."

"I'd say start with the emails," that was Rose. "See if him and Wolmer know each other or have similar contacts."

"Right, pullin' Wolmer's files up… Now. This is gonna take a while, though," Mickey said, turning to Rose as he waited for the files to load. He hadn't forgotten what had transpired only minutes ago, but he knew Rose wasn't going to talk about it. Not with Hardy and Ellie around. He knew the Torchwood team would have to drop the conversation for now. Not that they brought it up in the first place. Actually, when Rose left the room, they all sat in silence for several seconds until Ellie got a call from her sons, asking when she would be home. The call ended only seconds before Rose returned.

Still. The sooner they could get an update to Pete, the better.

"How did you get all the Wolmer files already?" Ellie asked.

"When, um, whatever his name is, Brian, maybe not Brian, but whoever it was- when they set me up on their computer to send myself 'whatever I needed' I went ahead and sent myself just that. Of course, it was agreed upon by your Chief and our Heads that I'd do so, but still. And that's how we have the CCTV files, anyways," Drew explained without looking up from his work.

"Ah, I'm guessing that's how you were able to listen to the interrogations, then?" Alec asked Rose. For now, he was also not going to let earlier's moments slide. They still have to get through the town meeting and he plans to do it without her kicking him under the table every time he opened his mouth. He would have to intrude on her thoughts afterwards. Possibly when she was more tired out and vulnerable.

"Pretty much, yeah. And speaking of; we've still got time before the town meeting. Maybe we could continue checking the feeds?"

"Aye, we still need see when and how he left."

"Actually, i think we can help with that," Ellie turned to Jake. "What do you say to us heading out for the house-to-house?"

Jake smiled kindly, "Alright, but I'm driving this time." He turned to Mickey and Drew. "Assuming you don't need the van?"

"Nah, should be fine."