What can you do with a day? What will you wake up and see?
"I'm coming to work today," the Doctor says that morning. "I'm not meant to stay home all day."
"Owen said that another day off would be good for your injury."
"I don't care what Owen says. I'm bored."
"I thought you had some work to do," Rose says from over her bowl of cereal.
"I finished up my latest scientific monograph." He says this casually but still manages to infuse a certain amount of smugness into his voice.
"What's this one about, then?" Rose always listens politely when he talks, even when he reaches points that she simply can't understand. It's something that he adores about her.
"Black holes and the time-space continuum."
As he suspected she would, Rose shudders a bit. "I don't need that one explained to me, thanks. I know enough about black holes to last a lifetime."
"It's nothing much. Just something I thought of the other night. Dr. Knowles of London University thought it sounded very promising."
"Well, that's nice." Rose gets up and pours a bowl of cereal for him. "Here. Sit down."
"I can get my own stuff," he protests.
"Can you?" she asks, bending down to kiss him once he's sitting down. "Did you type that paper?"
"Yes."
"Your hand still hurts," she tells him. "I can get your breakfast for you."
"Thanks." His hand is still very sore, although slightly less so than the day before.
"Have you showered?" she calls from their bedroom.
"Er, no." He takes a quick sniff of his shirt. "Maybe I should."
"I can get you a glove for your hand to keep it dry," she offers, coming back into the kitchen. She's started to change out of her night clothes.
"A glove?" He makes the face that Rose privately calls the pouty one. "I don't need a glove."
"It will hurt if you get your hand wet."
He looks at his hand and then looks at her, smiling hopefully. "How about a sponge bath?"
She can't help it. She bursts out laughing. "No way. But I'll help you wash your hair."
"Deal."
Washing his hair ended with water all over the bathroom, and Rose wearing a top that's now soaking wet.
"You got soap in my eyes," he complains.
"Oh, shut up." Rose strips off her wet clothes. "I didn't know the tap could spin around like that."
"Me either." He swipes at his head with a towel. "We might as well have stepped in the shower."
Rose looks around at the bathroom. "I ought to mop. The water will soak through the floor."
He's stopped toweling his hair and is looking at her, a very familiar gleam in his eye.
"What?" she starts to say. "No, not now."
"Oh, yes, Rose Tyler. Right now."
"We're soaking wet," she protests half-heartedly.
"That's what makes it fun," he tells her, and kisses her.
oOoOo
They share a shower together afterwards, Rose washing his hair for him again.
"I'll wash yours next time," he offers.
"I won't forget," she warns him.
He dresses himself a bit clumsily but capably. He even styles his own hair, something he would never allow Rose to help him with. Afterwards Rose helps him change his bandage and apply more blister cream. As she gets dressed he fetches the morning newspaper and settles down on their bed to read it.
"You ought to make the bed before you sit in it again," Rose says mildly.
"Mm hm. Bright lights flashing over London last night. They're claiming it was a zeppelin."
"Wasn't it?" Rose fastens her belt and chooses a blue top to go with her jeans. "London's full of zeppelins."
"That's what the unsuspecting populace is supposed to believe. I'm sure Torchwood is already on it."
He's sitting against their pillows, bent over the paper that's opened up on the bed. His hand is resting in his lap, the other one turning the pages. Scattered here and there on the bed and on the floor are several varieties of teddy bears and other animals.
Rose can't help herself. She picks up a small stuffed dog and places it on the bed beside him.
"What's that?" He peers down at the dog over his glasses. "Oh, it's Max."
"The dog is named Max? Why Max?"
"Why name a dog, is what you should be asking. I don't know. Seemed like he should have a name."
Rose sits down next to him, close enough that he can smell the shampoo in her hair. It's a light apple scent, same as the scent in his hair. He likes it better on Rose.
"What else is happening today?" she asks. She puts her arm behind his back, leaning on it to look at the paper with him.
"You will be approached by a mysterious stranger."
"Still reading the horoscopes, then?"
"I am to be on the lookout for someone mysterious."
"Yeah? I wonder who it is."
"Could be anyone. So many mysterious people in London."
She nods seriously. "I'd watch out if I were you."
He turns his head so their eyes are on the same level. "Oh, I will. It's the smart thing to do."
She takes his glasses off and kisses him. "You know what else would be smart?" she murmurs.
"Calling in sick today?" he suggests, pulling her onto his lap so he can better kiss her neck.
"Yes. No! Yes, do that."
Things are progressing to the point that they may need another shower before work, but they're interrupted by Rose's mobile phone.
"Of all the times," she mutters, climbing off of his lap and off the bed. "Where is it?"
He gets up and helps her look. They find it just as it stops ringing. Rose stares at it in frustration. Before she can check the caller ID, his phone starts to ring. Another search ensues for his phone, which turns out to be in his jacket. Because it's the jacket with the Time Lord technology pockets, it takes him a long moment to dig it out. It stops ringing just as he puts it to his ear.
Rose's phone rings again, and this time she answers immediately.
"Hello!"
It's Jake. "Have you heard about the zeppelins over London last night?"
"They weren't really zeppelins?" Rose guesses.
"Not unless a zeppelin is round, glows with green lights and shoots out laser fire."
"Excellent. We'll meet you at the Tower."
The Doctor slowly puts his jacket on. "You owe me another shower," he says. His pouty face is back on, and Rose kisses him into a smile.
oOoOo
The next morning they go in to work at the normal time. The Doctor has a report to write about their zeppelin encounter the day before. It was indeed a zeppelin seen over London, but it had been driven by an alien. Jake and Rose had handled the alien admirably, seizing the zeppelin and arranging for the creature to return home by other means. It had caught a flight to Sydney, where its companions were waiting for it.
Rose leaves the Doctor typing at her computer - his desk was destroyed when a wall fell in on it the other day when the sonic screwdriver malfunctioned. He's typing one-handed, but still doing very well.
"Rose!"
Rose turns around in the hallway. "Morning, Riley."
"Knitting class tonight," Riley says in a low voice. "Anna's putting up a flyer."
"Again?"
"Yes, again. Are you coming?"
"Of course I'm not coming. I'd rather-" Rose breaks off as Anna approaches them. Honestly, she thinks to herself, doesn't she have anything scientific to do?
"Morning, Rose," Anna says cheerfully. "Are you coming to knit tonight?"
Rose knows, of course, that Anna won't be hurt if she says no. Still, she can't do it.
"Of course," Rose says. "Absolutely I'll be there."
"Great. I'll see you later."
"Good," Riley says. "You can see my scarf. It's getting better. Where are you going?"
"I need to find my knitting needles," Rose tells her over her shoulder.
She'd left her knitting needles and yarn in a potted plant in the Torchwood lobby after her first and only class, but when she goes looking for them they're gone. She's disappointed but not surprised. The cleaning crew would never overlook something like that.
"Can I help you?" someone asks from behind her.
Rose straightens up from the floor, where she was kneeling among the plants checking the pots.
"Oh, hello, Rose." Simon is standing there, looking at her with raised eyebrows.
"I was just looking for something," she tells him.
"Yeah? What?"
"Never mind," Rose says sternly.
"All right, fine. Where's Jake?"
"He's around somewhere. What do you need?"
"Just a quick question. I'll find him."
"Hey," Rose says, stopping him as he's turning around, "do you mind telling the Doctor that I'll be right back?"
"Sure. Where are you going so early?"
"Just need to pick something up for later."
oOoOo
Rose doesn't believe in horoscopes. She doesn't believe in magic tricks or illusions, doesn't believe in unexplained happenings that have no explanations. She's not superstitious. Friday the Thirteenth is just another day for her. Rabbit feet belong on the end of rabbit legs, and black cats are sweet.
But when she sees a mysterious woman dressed in a black trench coat and dark glasses hanging around outside the Torchwood lobby as she return to the building, Rose's instincts tell her to notice.
Slowing down as she enters the lobby, Rose shows her security badge to the guard and asks him to watch the carrier bag filled with needles and yarn. Slipping around the corner, she stands behind a potted plant so she can see out a window without being obvious about it.
It's the same women she saw in the Chinese restaurant, she's sure of it. Why it should matter so much she can't say, but she watches anyway.
The woman is pacing back and forth, looking nervous. What is she doing?
Rose pulls out her mobile and dials the Doctor.
"Where are you?" she asks him.
"Jake's office. Where'd you go? Is there something wrong? You all right?"
"I'm fine. Listen, can you come down to the lobby for me?"
"Right now?"
"Please?"
"I'll be right there."
"Thanks, love. Try not to pass in front of the lobby doors."
Rose waits a few minutes, watching the woman all the while. She's still walking around outside. Several Torchwood employees pass by and give her the once over. Rose hopes she can do this before someone apprehends her and hauls her in for suspicious activity.
"What are you doing?" The Doctor's breath is warm in her ear.
She turns her head and smiles at him. "I think I have a mysterious stranger."
"Really?" He nudges his head in next to hers and peers outside. "Where? Hang on. That woman there. Where have we seen her before?"
"At the Chinese place last week. She walked by our table."
"No, that's not it," he disagrees.
"She walked right by our table. You were talking to Jake."
"I didn't see her there. But I saw her on the street the other night when I ran down to buy some milk."
"Really? What was she doing?"
"This, pretty much. Skulking about. I thought it was odd that she was wearing dark glasses at night," he admits.
"What do you think?"
"Shall we go see who our mysterious friend is, Lewis?"
"Absolutely, Sarge."
The Doctor walks out first. Rose hangs back and watches. Sure enough, as he heads down the street the woman in the trench coat starts to follow him. Rose falls in line behind her. The Doctor walks on, hands in his pockets. He's not wearing a jacket and Rose feels bad that she's sent him out in the cold without one. He turns into a bookstore and the woman follows.
Rose sighs. Whoever this is, she is apparently after the Doctor. Rose hopes she won't need a weapon.
The Doctor has paused by the science section. He's flipping through a book on the rainforests when he senses someone standing beside him. Setting the book down, he turns casually and reaches out a hand to grab her arm.
The woman jumps back, about to yell.
"I wouldn't," Rose says quietly from behind her. "Did you want to talk to us?"
The woman lets out a long breath and removes her glasses, revealing large blue eyes. "Dr. John Smith?"
"Yes," he says warily.
"I need to speak to you," she says urgently.
He exchanges a glance with Rose. "Of course."
The bookstore has a small cafe in the back, and they sit at a tiny table together, Rose and the Doctor crammed so closely together to make room for their mysterious stranger that she's practically sitting on his lap.
"So who are?" the Doctor asks.
"My name is Janet. I'm a freelance writer."
"Yes?" he says when she stops. "And?"
"My professional name is Janet Jupiter."
"You're kidding! Janet Jupiter!" the Doctor says in absolute delight. "We're big fans of your horoscopes."
"He is," Rose is compelled to interject. Just for the record.
She smiles faintly. "Yes. I write horoscopes. My real name is de Lancie, but Jupiter has a nicer ring when it comes to astrology, I thought."
"Oh, absolutely," the Doctor agrees. "Why are you following us?"
"You read the horoscopes each morning. You've caught my warnings."
"What warnings?" Rose asks. "They're just made up nonsense."
"No, they're not. Mine aren't, I mean. Mine are accurate."
"Hardly accurate," the Doctor disagrees. "Half the time nothing happens for days on end. Makes it very dull to look forward to."
"I am always accurate," Janet says frostily. "However, it's not always accurate for every reader."
"Are you saying that if we're not looking for the right answer we won't find it?" Rose asks skeptically.
"No. I'm saying that I have an ability to see what will happen. But not for everyone, obviously. Sometimes it will be correct for you, sometimes for the man who lives across the hall from you."
"What kind of ability? Are you a psychic? Fortune teller? Gypsy?"
Janet shakes her head. "I'm none of those things. My abilities come from...something else."
"Magic beans?" the Doctor can't help asking.
She flushes angrily. "You may mock me, Dr. Smith, but I assure you that this is real. I've been following you because I think you can help me."
"Yeah? With what?"
She looks around, but the cafe is deserted. "I have a friend who is in trouble. I need someone experienced to help him."
Rose shakes her head. "Who do you think we are?"
"You're Rose Tyler. Heiress to Vitex."
"We haven't got money for you," Rose says instantly. "That's not my money."
"I don't want money," Janet says in surprise. "I want you."
"You'd better explain that," the Doctor says in a quiet voice. "You don't want to be threatening her."
"I am not threatening either one of you. For a while now we've been holding it...at bay. We had no way to fix our problem ourselves. But then you came back with the Doctor, and we realized that you'd known all along!"
"Known what? You're talking in riddles."
Janet leans forward. "You weren't raised somewhere else, were you, Rose Tyler? Private schools and waiting to be reunited with your parents? Jackie Tyler was dead the night the Cybermen came here. The woman who came back with you and your dad is a different Jackie."
Rose's face pales but she rallies. "I don't know what you're talking about. My mum is my mum."
"But you weren't always here on this Earth, were you?" Janet whispers. "You came from somewhere else. Both of you," she adds. "I could tell."
"You know we work for Torchwood," the Doctor says with a friendly smile. "But that doesn't mean that we're all aliens. Our mission is to protect the Earth from them."
"But not all aliens are bad!" she exclaims.
"No, of course not," he says quickly. "But typically, the ones who come down here aren't coming to make friends and swap recipes."
"I'm not meant for intrigue," Janet says with a sigh. "Obviously. So let me lay it out for you. You, Rose Tyler, came from a parallel world. So did your mum. You, Dr. Smith, came from there as well. You're human, but there's something else to you, too. I can't tell what it is, exactly, but I know it's there. I need your help. My friend is being threatened and I need someone familiar with aliens and other worlds."
The Doctor sighs. "Who's your friend?"
Janet looks at them both, as though trying to make sure they will help her.
"His name's Sam Lively."
"Sam Lively!" the Doctor and Rose chorus together.
"Yes. Have you heard of him?" she asks, surprised.
"We love his films," the Doctor says with a straight face.
"Look." Janet leans forward. "This may be hard to believe, but please believe it. I am not from this world. My abilities are normal for my people but unusual among humans here. I used my talents to get a job here years ago. I was happy. My friends eventually came and settled in London and around England. Sam came and thought it would be fun to make movies. He's had some success."
"Your friends," Rose says. "Other aliens? Like you?"
"Yes. Sam brought them. He gave a lot of them work at his company."
"Aliens," Rose murmurs. "Aliens already here, for years and years before we got here."
"We're not the like Cybermen. We have no wish to conquer. All we want is to blend in and live normal lives. We just happen to like Earth."
"And what's wrong with Sam?" the Doctor asks.
"Someone from his galaxy followed him here. For the past few weeks there were just threats made, comments made among certain people at certain gatherings. Sam thought it was just talk. He thought this person was just envious of his success."
"And?"
"The Sam had an accident. His car filled up with oxygen."
"That's an accident? There is oxygen all around us."
"Our people can all metabolize oxygen, but we would never go looking for more, like to breathe through a tube or something. Too much can be as deadly to us as too much carbon monoxide is to humans."
"So this happened and Sam did what?" the Doctor prompts.
"He was worried but he didn't know what to do. Where would we do? The police couldn't help us, and if any of us went to Torchwood we'd never get out of there."
"What do you mean?" Rose asks, a bit indignant.
"You hunt aliens. You keep them for study." This painful truth is whispered, as if Janet can't stand the mere idea.
"No, we don't! We don't do that."
Janet is clearly unconvinced. "At any rate, we didn't dare approach Torchwood. But I knew about you two. I knew that you were friendly with aliens."
"We don't go out for drinks with them," Rose says.
"No. But you opened up the Malandra galaxy."
The Doctor stills. "You know Deputy Corralin?"
"I know of him. I know that you're friends with him. I know that he has no fear of you. So I tried to reach you."
"The horoscopes," Rose says suddenly. "Mysterious strangers and Chinese restaurants."
"I can see things happen before they happen, sometimes. If I focused on you two I was able to see a little more clearly."
"Of course!" the Doctor exclaims. "Use your psychic abilities, see the short-term future for Rose and me, write it up in a horoscope and wait for us to come along."
"How did you know that we even read the horoscopes?" Rose asks. "Not everybody does."
Janet shifts in her chair and looks a bit nervous.
"What?" Rose asks.
"I can...see things sometimes. I can't read minds," she adds hastily. "Never, not anyone's mind. But I could tell what interests you had, and once I could focus on something that pertained to me, I was able to work with that."
"So you wrote horoscopes to follow us to make sure we were the ones you needed."
"I desperately need your help. This man from our world...I'm afraid it may be too late. Sam is missing."
oOoOo
"So let me get this straight," Rose says. "Your friend Sam runs a movie studio. He makes science fiction movies, all based on real aliens and events."
"Yes."
"He uses friends and family - all of whom are aliens - in his movies."
"Yes."
"And he's disappeared."
"He was warned to stop broadcasting all this information. People on our home world were unhappy with the idea of our secrets and identity being given to you on Earth."
"But no one believes it's real," Rose says.
"It doesn't matter. Any attention at all is unwelcome to us as long as we live here, and Sam was getting too famous. He would never do anything to harm himself or put Earth in danger, but the council didn't feel that way."
"Who is the council?" the Doctor asks.
"The ruling body on our world. They gave Sam official notice to stop. He didn't. He thought we were safe here. And then someone else started to threaten him, and now he's gone, and the rest of us are living in fear."
They sit in silence for a few moments.
"You think I'm crazy," Janet finally says.
"Well, your explanation is a bit out there," the Doctor tells her. "Under normal circumstances we'd have shown you the door, so to speak, ages ago. Luckily for you, we are not normal circumstances."
"You believe me?" she asks slowly.
"Yeah," Rose says. "We do."