A:N: Thank you for your continued patience with my dodgy updating schedule. Good news though - this will 100% be 4 chapters now, which makes this the penultimate one. I hope you enjoy it.

Super Bra to the Rescue

"Next left."

"My left or your left?"

"My- Jackie, we're facing the same way."

It had been like this for the past ten minutes and the Doctor was beginning to worry about the standard of the DVLA in Pete's World.

"Just to clarify, Jackie," he said as they went through another red light, "you do have a driving license?"

"In the old universe, yeah." She gave him a smug look which apparently couldn't be done while watching the road. "Passed first time, I did."

"But not this universe?"

"Nah. Already had the paperwork from the other Jackie."

She sped through another red light and the Doctor gripped his seat belt to make sure it was still there. While he appreciated her urgency, he also wanted to get to Rose alive. Even he'd struggle to save her after crashing through the windscreen. As a roundabout loomed in front of them, he wondered if it would be worth explaining the very complicated circumstances surrounding Jackie's driving license to the relevant authorities if it meant they would take it off of her.

"Which exit?"

The Doctor checked the tracker, grateful for the chance to not look at the potential dangers outside. "Second."

"Second from here?"

"No, from where we started."

"Which was?"

"How can you- there!"

"I can't see where you're pointing!"

"That one! The one we just went passed! The place we were not thirty seconds ago!"

A screech of tyres and blast of a horn later and the Doctor was curled up as best as he could in his seat as though he were a hedgehog. "LORRIES ARE SOLID OBJECTS, JACKIE!"

"Not if they're in my bleeding lane, they ain't."

"PULL OVER!"

Jackie rolled her eyes and turned the wheel.

"Not here!" the Doctor squeaked as they nearly collided with another car. The other driver swore at them, a sign that he probably wouldn't rescue the Doctor if he asked him to. "Get off the roundabout!" he pleaded.

Three near accidents later, Jackie had finally parked in a side street and was trying to take the tracker from the Doctor.

"You give the worst directions!" she insisted, grabbing for the device. The Doctor did his best to pull away. Her nails may have been fake but they were still sharp. "Lemme have a look for myself."

"Worst directions?" the Doctor laughed. "You are the worst driver I have ever met in over nine hundred years!"

"You being the expert in bad driving, of course."

The pair glared at each other. This argument had been had several time before - three times already this week, in fact - and usually contained no malice. Snarking at one another was just what they did. Rose claimed it was the best way they had to show each other they cared and he had to agree. Not aloud, obviously. He reckoned it'd be a few decades yet before either of them admitted they had felt anything but contempt towards the other.

This time it was different. Behind each insult was the very real fear that the person that had bought them together and made them care about each other was in danger and they were unable to stop it.

"Jackie," the Doctor began in what he hoped was a calming voice, "we can't lose our heads here, okay? Rose needs us."

"Yeah," Jackie nodded. As she took her hands off the wheel, the Doctor saw they were shaking.

"How about we switch? You tell me where to go?"

"Probably for the best," agreed Jackie. "Men are crap with directions."

Grateful that she was seeing the bigger picture and was staying as strong as he knew she could, the Doctor grinned.

Once they had switched seats, Jackie was able to direct the Doctor who was much better at driving under pressure. Despite a couple of wrong turns and near brush with a boy racer, the pair found themselves outside of warehouse. Broken glass crunched under the Doctor's trainer as he stepped out of the car and looked for any sign of Rose. Judging by the lorries and vans parked at the far end of the car park, it was some kind of distribution centre but was closed up for the night.

"The beepy thing says she's here, Doctor," came Jackie's uncharacteristically subdued voice. "You been here before?"

The Doctor shook his head and tried calling Rose again. "It's still off." He pocketed his phone and ruffled his hair. "But she must have been here at some point if her phone is here."

Surrounding the grey building was a high fence, topped with barbed wire with a handful of plastic bags caught in it. The Doctor assumed there would be a main gate around the front, but that was also likely to be where the security was based so he thought it best to avoid that. He approached the fence and gave it a shake to see how strong it was.

"Right, Jackie, we need to climb this."

"Climb?" she laughed. "You barmy? It's got barbed wire on it!"

"I can put my jacket over the top of it."

"You wonder why I don't trust you," she muttered, eyeing up the fence. "Normal people don't know how to hop barbed wire fences."

Pointing out that he was a unique hybrid between an almost extinct species and her own, making him possibly the most abnormal person in the world, seemed counter-productive. "C'mon, before someone wonders why we're hanging about."

With practiced skill, the Doctor managed to drape his jacket over the fence and offered Jackie a boost. She stared at his cupped hands with wide eyes. "I'm going first?"

"Yes, or you'll have to go over by yourself."

Grumbling, Jackie gripped the Doctor's shoulders and placed her foot on his hands.

"Now, remember when you land to be sure to bend your knees or you'll injure yourself."

"If you make one more joke about my age-"

"I wasn't!" protested the Doctor. "This is serious safety stuff! I don't want to be the one explaining to Rose how her mother ended up with a preventable broken ankle!"

Looking as though he wouldn't make it to Rose if he let her get hurt, Jackie lifted herself up and the Doctor stood to help her reach the covered section of the fence. To her credit, Jackie made it over the fence after only kicking the Doctor in the face twice, something she credited to doing 'yoga with the girls twice a week'.

"You should show your face next Wednesday," Jackie suggested from the warehouse car park. "Now you're one of us you'll need to think about looking after yourself."

The Doctor spared her an insulted glance before climbing up the fence. As he was executing the tricky part at the top, the entire fence wobbled and he nearly fell. Clinging to the fence so hard that he could feel the sharp metal through the jacket, the Doctor saw that Jackie was the one shaking the fence.

"Are you trying to kill me?" he hissed as she stopped.

"I think I saw someone!"

"So you thought you'd kill me?"

"No!" she snapped. "I thought I'd let you know silently so we wouldn't be caught!"

"We've been talking this entire time!" Now that the shock of nearly being dislodged had worn off, the Doctor scoured the area for signs of life. The overnight security was the least of their worries if whoever had Rose had found them, but he didn't want any civilians involved. Brave people always came forward to help or try and stop him because they didn't understand what he was doing and the Doctor had seen too many of them die for a cause they were never really a part of. He didn't want that tonight.

About five hundred metres away from them, he saw the flash of a torch coming around the corner of the building.

"We've got company," the Doctor informed Jackie as he scrambled over the rest of the fence. His long limbs acted against him and he almost tripped on his way down, but managed to land with a wobbly landing. He grabbed Jackie's hand and pulled her towards the fire exit closest to them.

As they ran, the Doctor couldn't help notice how similar Jackie's hand was to Rose's. The skin was softer and the nails longer, but otherwise, the differences could only have been spotted by someone who knew Rose's hands as well as the Doctor did. He could recall all the times she had moaned about how she thought she had stubby fingers. A few months ago, as they had sat, cuddled together on the sofa, he'd gently kissed every finger and pronounced them perfect. She'd nudged his shoulder and accused him of being a sappy git, but couldn't properly fight her smile.

He couldn't lose her.

Once they'd reached the door, he pulled his home-made sonic screwdriver from his trouser pocket and pointed it at the door.

"Hurry, Doctor," Jackie urged.

He gave the screwdriver a bit of a shake and it came to life with its usually buzzing. "Aha!" he cheered and pushed the door open. Jackie quickly followed and shut it behind her.

"Good job you didn't have that in your jacket, innit?" Jackie nodded at the screwdriver as she leant against the door.

"Why - oh bollocks," the Doctor cursed. His jacket was still caught up in the fence outside. "I liked that jacket."

"You've got others. Stop pouting," said Jackie, checking the tracker. "It says Rose is down this way."

And as though there wasn't a murderous, unknown alien down the corridor, Jackie set off without a backwards glance. The Doctor pulled himself together and caught up with her. No wonder Rose ended up in trouble so much, if this was her only example of responsible behaviour growing up.

By the looks of the inside of the warehouse it seemed completely normal with staff notice boards covered in smudged marker pen and faded health and safety posters peeling off the walls. It meant it was more likely that whoever had taken Rose was using this place as a temporary base, rather than it being a front for something. While this made it more likely that they would be up against a less organised enemy, it also meant they would be desperate and more likely to make mistakes. They couldn't afford for any mistakes.

They kept as quiet as possible until they reached another door and Jackie stopped. She pointed at the tracker and then the door, but the Doctor knew what was behind there as soon as he'd seen the fear in Jackie's eyes. He nodded to say he understood and pointed his sonic at the lock, the thumping of his heart surely covering the noise.

"What's wrong?" whispered Jackie when he tried the door to find it shut.

He inspected the lock and closed his eyes. Why did this have to be happening today? "It's made of iron."

"So?"

"I - er - I haven't worked out the iron setting yet," he explained, holding up the screwdriver.

"Oh, you useless bloody alien."

"Hey! I made this out of three different toasters and a radio," said the Doctor. He pocketed the screwdriver that he'd spent weeks building and sighed. A few new settings were being added to it every week but there had been other things to concentrate on. Not to mention that it had taken centuries to get his old one up to scratch and he'd only had a few months and the wrong materials this time. Still, looking back, maybe the iron lock setting could have taken priority over the one that made Tony's toy cars break speed limits.

"What you gonna do?" fretted Jackie. "Kick the door down?" She looked him up and down, appearing sceptical.

"No - not that I couldn't," he hastened to add. "Have you got a thin bit of metal?"

"What?"

"Like a hair grip or something?"

She glanced at his hair. "It looks fine."

"No, I- It's for a lockpick."

"Oh." Jackie frowned as she searched her pockets. The Doctor impatiently waited until she shook her head.

"Then I guess I'll-"

"Ooh, hang on!"

Feeling as though something might actually go his way tonight, the Doctor's face lit up, expecting to see Jackie pulling out a nail file, hair grip or whatever barmy stuff she thought she might need for dinner at her daughter's flat. Instead, he was horrified to see she had her hand down her top.

"Jackie!" he squeaked, turning his back so abruptly he nearly fell and had to steady himself against the wall. "What the hell-"

"You wanted a bit of metal," she replied over the rustling of fabric. "So how's this?"

Hesitantly, the Doctor peeked over his shoulder and saw Jackie was proudly holding a thin curve of metal. He realised, as his stomach turned, that it was the underwire from her bra.

"Sickening," he shuddered.

"Grow up," Jackie chastised, trying to hand it to him. "You've seen bras before."

"Not yours!" In fact, he had planned to go his entire life without ever having acknowledged that Jacqueline Tyler owned, wore or purchased underwear of any description. As far he was concerned she was permanently clothed, Rose and Tony had been free gifts with Heat Magazine and that picture he'd seen of her in a bikini had never actually existed.

"Go on then, you great lump. Pick the lock," pushed Jackie, still waving the underwire at him.

"I'm not touching that!"

"Fine!"

Jackie manipulated the wire into shape, bent in front of the lock and started picking it herself.

"Do you - erm - know what you're doing?" the Doctor asked.

Jackie answered him with a raised eyebrow and carried on working until they heard the lock click.

"You are the most formidable creature I have encountered in nine hundred years," the Doctor told her.

She patted his shoulder. "Don't you forget that, sweetheart."

His whole body buzzing with anticipation, the Doctor gestured for Jackie to stand behind him and cracked open the door enough to show that there were no lights on. Slowly, he opened it further and stepped into the room. Once inside he could see that this was part of the main warehouse; aisles and aisles of shelves were stacked with boxes of all shapes and sizes. He felt for his phone before remembering it was still in his jacket pocket.

"Jackie?" he breathed. "Can you ring Rose?"

Even though she looked petrified, she followed his instructions, the blue light of the phone making her complexion appear pale. After a few seconds she shook her head. "Still nothing."

Frowning, the Doctor took a few more steps into the warehouse. It was silent but for Jackie's breathing behind him. Surely there would be some sign that Rose had been here? Even if she had been moved since, there should be a sign of struggle or a reason why Torchwood had sent her here in the first place. Instead, all the Doctor could see was a perfectly average warehouse.

He turned to Jackie and held out his hand. "The tracker," he demanded.

It was sign of how she was feeling that she didn't complain about his rudeness as she passed it to him.

Just as Jackie had told him, Rose's phone should have been in this room. He zoomed in further and narrowed their search down to a set of shelves two rows across from their current position. They jogged towards the spot and saw that it was the same as the rest of the place - empty.

"Doctor, where is she?" Jackie asked uncertainly.

Not bothering to answer, the Doctor tried to stop the frustration consuming him but he could already feel it clawing up his spine. This was their one lead, their one chance to find Rose. It couldn't end here. He'd have to get Torchwood in, but that was problematic to say the least. If they weren't part of this then why didn't they already know? Why hadn't they informed him? Even if he wasn't an employee, then he was still her family. More than that, he had literally been created to keep her happy and since that moment had been doing everything within his power to live up to that. Without her, what did he have left? Surely he had a right to know she was in danger?

"This doesn't make sense," he hissed. He stormed over the nearest shelf and roughly pulled a box off it. It hit the floor with a thud as the contents spilt from the top. Amongst thousands of tiny polystyrene pieces were a dozen rod-like objects, wrapped in plastic. Part of him knew he wouldn't find Rose's phone, but until he had a better plan, he would tear this place apart.

"What's with the brollies?"

"What?" he snapped, whirling around to see Jackie frowning at the mess on the floor.

"What kind of alien maniac keeps boxes of brollies?"

The Doctor followed her gaze and saw that the rod-like objects he had so readily dismissed were umbrellas still in their cellophane wrapping. In fact, they were very familiar looking umbrellas. He stooped to pick one up and inspected it.

"Jackie," he said, lips barely moving, "when you had the tracker, you didn't press any buttons, did you?"

"'Course not!" she insisted. "I ain't stupid enough to play around with your rubbish. Didn't touch any of the buttons. Oh - except when the light went off. Had to press one then to see what I was doing."

Not breathing, the Doctor pressed a few buttons on the tracker. "Oh, isn't that just wizard."

"What? Have you found Rose?"

Pinching his nose as he put the tracker in his pocket, the Doctor hoped he was more patient a man than he had ever been in the past. "Do you know what's handy about a tracker this accurate, Jackie?" He paused for her to shake her head. "It tracks things accurately. All sorts of things. Phones for security purposes is only one example of one of the brilliant things this tracker can track.

"It can also track items bought online," he finished, holding up the umbrella. "And you can scroll from one thing you've tracked to another by pressing that little button at the bottom. Since you took over directing us, we've not been heading towards Rose. Oh no, we've been saving your birthday present."

Jackie stared at him for a long moment, her mouth open but silent for a change. She looked from the umbrella to his face and back again.

"You've bought me an umbrella for my birthday?"

It was the Doctor's turn to splutter. "That is hardly the issue right now!"

"An umbrella? What kind of moron thinks an umbrella makes a good present?"

"What kind of moron doesn't realise a map looks completely different than it did two seconds before?"

"Is this an alien thing? Did your people buy crap presents for each other?"

"It isn't exactly rocket science, is it? Looking at a dot?"

"Happy four hundredth! Have an anorak?"

"Why did you-"

"Hello?"

The Doctor's mouth shut with a click. Jackie took this as an opportunity to shout more abuse at him, but he covered her mouth with his hand before she could draw breath.

"Security," he whispered and she nodded. Wondering what kind of security announced their presence in such way, the Doctor gestured for Jackie to follow him as he crept along the outer wall and towards the door. Hopefully the poor guard was alone and continued to show the same level of ineptitude and left their exit open.

"Someone in here?" he called again.

Judging by his voice, the Doctor guessed he had moved further into the room so he began jogging silently towards the door. Once the two of them were out, Jackie shut the door behind them.

"Now what?"

The Doctor was already fiddling with the tracker. "Thankfully Rose's signal is only about a mile away. We get out of here without Dopey in there catching us and find her." He didn't want to think how much time had been wasted already. "If he's abandoned his post then we should have enough time to leave through the front door."

"Good," nodded Jackie as they started running back the way they came. "I ain't climbing another fence."

"I thought you were good at it," the Doctor said in a surprised tone. He held a door open for her and smiled as she passed him.

Jackie, in return, shot him a warning glare. "If you're thinking of getting me climbing gear for Christmas then I will smack you."