Chapter Two
When he woke the next morning she was gone. For a moment he didn't remember where he was and panic curled in his stomach. The he reached out his hand to where she had lain beside him. The bed was still warm. He closed his eyes and counted to ten. He was in Pete's world, yesterday was not a dream, and Rose was here somewhere. He glanced at the clock on her bedside table and blinked. It was not yet six in the morning. When Rose was on the TARDIS she only ever woke before eight if he forced her up, and then she abandoned her bed begrudgingly. He rolled out of bed and groaned. His muscles screamed at him as he stretched, trying to shake off his stiffness. Stupid part human body, stupid Davros with his stupid electrical finger.
He peeked into the other rooms. Rose wasn't there. Still, better safe than sorry. He grabbed his suit from the back of the chair on which it had been resting and headed to the bathroom to change.
He found Rose sitting at a table that was tucked away in a nook off the kitchen. She was holding a mug of what appeared to be tea and a plate with a few stray crumbs dusting the surface lay next to her elbow. Pete sat across from her with a newspaper shielding his face. He was drinking coffee, strong stuff going by the smell that permeated the room. The Doctor kissed the top of Rose's head.
"Good morning."
She smiled at him. "G'morning. D'you want some tea?"
"Yes, thanks."
She set her mug down and wandered over to the kitchen proper. The Doctor followed her. As she set about making him a mug of tea he perused a bunch of pastries sitting on a plate. He selected one that he thought was cream filled. He bit into it, and made a face. Raspberry jam.
"Bleh." He discreetly spit the offending bit into a napkin and wiped his tongue for good measure.
"You are so weird." Rose handed him his tea.
"It was raspberry, Rose." He said by way of explanation. She laughed.
There was noise in the hallway—a small tornado seemed to be making its way to the kitchen.
"Here comes trouble." Pete remarked as Tony burst into the room with Jackie hot on his heels. He tackled Rose.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart." Jackie pried him off. "He's just so glad you're back. Now, you little menace, sit down so I can get you some breakfast!"
Pete checked his watch as he stood and gave Jackie a kiss on the cheek. "See you later, love." Rose squeezed the Doctor's hand and moved to join her father.
"And where do you think you're going?" Jackie asked.
"I've got to get back to work, Mum."
Jackie put her hands on her hips. "Rose Marion Tyler you sit back down. You have pushed yourself for almost three years on this bloody project. You need a day off and he—" she gestured at the Doctor, "needs new clothes."
"What's wrong with my suit?" The Doctor objected.
"For starters, it's the only one you've got." Jackie responded scathingly. She switched tactics as she turned back to her daughter. "Take a day off, Rose. Just one. The world doesn't end because Rose Tyler enjoys herself."
"What about this, then?" The Doctor strode out of the fitting room and spun for Rose's benefit.
"Another suit?"
He shrugged. "I like suits, don't you?"
"I'm not complaining." She straightened his collar. "Never thought I'd see you doing this."
"How do you mean?"
She gestured around them. "Shopping, for clothes. The TARDIS had the wardrobe, but this is all so…domestic."
"That's what makes it an adventure! It's brand new. Never done anything like it." The Doctor said as he examined his image in the mirror. As much as he wanted to believe the words himself, he had to admit that shopping for clothes was not his favorite activity and he only endured it because he had no other choice.
"Are you sure about that tie?" Rose asked, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
The Doctor frowned. "What's wrong with my tie?"
"It's covered with little chickens." She bit her lip as she tried to hold in her laughter.
"Marvelous animal, the chicken. If it didn't exist where would you get the eggs you use to make bread? And what about fried chicken? The chicken is a perfectly good bird!"
Rose laughed.
"All right, maybe not." It was worth looking ridiculous to see her smile.
Rose arranged to have the clothes that the Doctor picked out sent to the mansion. They strolled the streets of London, watching the busses and cars and people rushing about.
"You know, I never asked, but how are you paying for this? I mean, we're going to have to start paying for things like chips and taxis and—and a mortgage. I'm actually going to have to get a mortgage." He pulled a face. "Now there's something I didn't see coming. Me in a house, a proper house with windows and doors"
"And carpets?" Rose asked and grinned at him, her tongue between her teeth.
"And carpets. Or maybe not. What are they even good for, besides tripping you up in the middle of the night on your way to the loo?"
"You're not the only one, you know."
"The only one who trips on carpets?" He was being deliberately ridiculous.
"The only one to get a mortgage, you plum!" She punched him in the arm lightly.
"Oy!" He protested. They both laughed. "What about Pete and Jackie? You've got a place there."
She shook her head. "I love them all, but that's not my home. Every time I'm there it reminds me of…of…before."
He took her hand as they walked. "We could share." He offered, quietly. "Or not, if you'd rather be alone."
She shook her head. "I've spent the past six years alone." She smiled to herself. "D'you remember what I said when we were stranded on that impossible planet, orbiting a black hole?"
"When the TARDIS fell into the center of the planet and we thought we were stuck?"
"Yeah."
He shrugged. "You said a lot of things."
She rolled her eyes. "I said, 'Stuck with you isn't so bad.'"
The Doctor was quiet for a moment. "Yeah."
"I meant it." Rose's voice was very serious. "
He sniffed, and grinned as a familiar fragrance wafted through the air and reminded him that he hadn't had anything to eat except a mouthful of donut. "Rose?"
"Yeah?" She glanced up at him.
"Can you smell chips?"
She grinned. "Yes, yes I can."
Rose paid, of course, as the Doctor still had no money.
"Nothing but the clothes on my back." He remarked as they sat on a bench and ate chips. "You're going to have to get a job." Rose pointed out. "Dad would be right pleased to take you at Torchwood."
The Doctor made a face.
"Don't look like that!" She replied to his obvious distaste at her suggestion.
"But it's Torchwood, Rose. After everything that they've done, working for them would be like, like—"
"Like a betrayal?" She asked quietly. He nodded.
"But it's not, because this isn't the same Torchwood. If it was, d'you think I would be able to work there? D'you think that I've forgotten that the only reason I ended up here was because Torchwood couldn't leave that spatial disturbance alone?" She pressed her lips into a thin line and stared at her chips. "I hated them," she said after a while. "I blamed them for everything, but working for them was the only thing I could do, the only thing I was good at. And after a while, I realized that this world, this Torchwood, is different. Dad made it different, and Mickey and I helped." She raised her eyes from the ground to regard him. He looked away. "This universe needs a Doctor. It needs someone to save the world by being clever, instead of having the biggest gun or the deadliest bomb. You could do that, with Torchwood." She hesitated, suddenly unsure. "And…and they might be able to help you with the TARDIS." He jerked his head around to look at her sharply. "What Donna said on the beach, how you could speed up the TARDIS's growth. They might be able to help with equipment."
He sighed. "I'll think about it, Rose."
She squeezed his hand. "Thanks."
"For what?"
"For—" Something exploded and the world seemed to heave like the deck of a ship in a storm. Rose and the Doctor were on their feet in a flash, clinging to each other to keep their balance.
"Where?" He asked tersely. Rose cast her eyes around until they fixed on a pillar of smoke.
"That way!" She pointed, he nodded, and they were off. Rose Tyler and the Doctor were running. He clenched her hand tightly as they wove through crowds of people who were dashing away from the thick black smoke that rose like a beacon through the still air. She was glad that she wore jeans despite her mother's comments on her appearance. His trainers hit the ground in the regular rhythm of someone who is used to running for his life. Her hair streamed out behind her like a banner of liquid gold. He was smiling. So was she.
They stopped about twenty feet away from the spaceship. Its nose was buried in the wall of a warehouse. Broken bricks and twisted metal littered the ground around it, and a wide, charred scrape in the earth marked where the ship had originally landed, and then slid forward with the force of its fall. People were standing outside the building, gawking at the twisted hunk of metal that did not at all resemble an Earth craft. The crowd fell back a bit as a muffled explosion made the ship shudder. The Doctor and Rose pushed through the throng. He walked around the ship, taking stock of it. She pulled out her phone and pressed something on the speed dial. The call was brief and she joined him once it was over.
"Torchwood?" He asked, his eyes still roaming about the craft in front of them.
"On their way." She glanced back at the crowd. "They'll take care of this lot."
"We need to get in there."
"Is it safe?"
He shook his head. "I don't know, but the crew could still be alive. Ship this big, should have two people at least. Well, not people."
"I figured." She rolled up the sleeves on her jump. "Let's go, then. Do we have to worry about radiation?"
He shook his head again. "No, they wouldn't use an independent nuclear drive on something this size. Let me just—damn." He reached into his left jacket pocket but his hand came out empty. "No sonic."
"Allow me." Rose pulled a device that looked rather like a pen out of her purse. "Where's the door?"
The Doctor led her around to the back. "The mechanism's jammed, there's no way we can get it open without the sonic."
Rose twisted the cap on her device, pushed a button, and aimed it at the hull surrounding the door. A thin beam of red light shot out of the end of the device and sparks flew as Rose moved it slowly around the door. When she had outlined the portal completely she pushed another button, twisted the cap back, and put the stick away. She strode up to the smoking metal and considered her options briefly. Then she leaned back, raised her leg, and kicked the door in.
"That was a compact laser generator." The Doctor exclaimed as he followed her into the ship. "Where did you get that?"
Rose grinned. "Thank you Tosh." As they stepped inside acrid black smoke bellowed out. She grabbed a hanky from her purse and handed it to the Doctor, then fixed another over her own mouth. It wouldn't do to pass out from smoke inhalation before they knew if anyone was hurt.
Her eyes watered and stung and she let the Doctor take the lead. The ship was about fifty feet long, and just over two stories tall. Rose was not optimistic about their chances of finding the pilots alive. They came to a split in the corridor. The Doctor motioned for Rose to take the left branch while he explored the right. The corridor sloped and curved, and a little less than a minute later she almost ran into him as the two lanes converged again.
"The bridge should be just ahead!" The Doctor shouted over the hiss of steam and the buzzing showers of sparks. Rose nodded.
The door to the bridge was open. It reminded her of the space shows that Mickey used to watch—Star Trek, and that other one, the one with the robots—Battle Star Galactica. Two roughly human-shaped figures were slumped over the control panel. The Doctor checked for life signs. Rose was glad that he knew what to look for. She was unfamiliar with the species in front of them. He nodded and held up two fingers, and then gave her a thumbs-up. They were both alive, but apparently unconscious. The Doctor grabbed one of the aliens under his/her arms, Rose grabbed the other, and they dragged the two out of the space ship and laid them on the pavement a safe distance away. Immediately the crowd swarmed around them.
"I thought you said Torchwood was coming!" The Doctor shouted at Rose as he struggled to keep the people away.
"Oh, now you can't wait to see them!" She snapped back. "All right, everyone, back up!" Her voice cracked like a whip. One of the aliens coughed weakly. Curious bodies shoved against her. "I said back!"
"Right!" Other bodies dressed in dark clothes and dark glasses pushed through the crowd and formed a protective barrier in front of the Doctor and Rose. The moved the people back and began recording their testimony and processing them. Rose sighed in relief and pulled the hanky away from her mouth. It was smudged with soot, like her face. Her hand went to her hair.
"Great. It's going to take hours to scrub the smell of smoke out." She noted.
"What's going on here?" Pete strode up to the two of them, followed by four medics.
"It appears to be a crash landing, sir." Rose responded. The Doctor blinked. She looked and sounded different. For the first time he noticed that her clothes were almost identical to those worn by the other Torchwood agents: dark shirt, dark pants, sturdy shoes. She wore the garments like a suit of armor, like he wore his suits. She stood straighter and kept her head back and her heels together, as if she had stopped just before saluting. Her tone was brisk and confident, with no trace of mischief or sarcasm.
"I thought this was your day off, Rose." Pete reminded her, at once a concerned parent and her superior.
"It was. We wandering when we heard the crash and just happened to get here first." The Doctor supplied. "We couldn't very well leave the Graxa inside to die from smoke inhalation."
"Graxa?" Pete raised an eyebrow.
The Doctor gestured to the aliens. The medics were strapping them on stretchers and preparing to load them into the waiting ambulance. "They're called the Graxa, from the planet Ehlaren." He frowned. "They're a bit far from home. The ship should have a green box," he held his hands apart, "about so big, in the control panel on the bridge. It's their equivalent of a black box. We didn't have time to get it, but it might be able to tell you why they crashed."
Pete nodded. "We'll keep an eye out. And you two had better get home and get cleaned up before Jackie has a fit."
As they trudged away from the still-burning ship, Rose smiled. The adrenaline was fading from her system, and the extreme focus and energy she had felt earlier was dissipating into a familiar ache and a welcome fatigue.
"Do you think they'll be all right?" Rose asked the Doctor. He shrugged.
"Don't know. They were in there a fair few minutes before we arrived. And the Graxa are a great deal more sensitive to toxins and pollutants than humans. The smoke might have been too much for them."
"Rose!" Jake called after them. The paused and let him catch up. "Are you coming back tomorrow?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I'll be there. Why?"
He looked at her like she was daft. "There's that interview with that doctor."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware of any interview."
Jake shook his head. "No, a regular doctor. An Earth doctor. Remember, Rose, Vernon put in for that transfer to Cardiff? Although, I've got no idea why he'd want to spend the rest of his career in Wales." The agent pulled a face. Rose giggled.
"Right, right. What was her name again?"
"Martha. Martha Milligan."