a/n: Not a particularly fluffy chapter, but I promise, fluff IS coming. Fairly soon. And I've been making huge progress on the rough draft, so I may start posting twice a week. Thanks as always to bittie752 for beta-reading and being a great friend. But I tend to add stuff and change stuff after she's looked at it, so all mistakes are mine. And as usual, thanks to everyone who is following this story or has favorited it, and thanks in particular to everyone who takes the time to review. It means a lot to me.

Chapter Five

That evening after dinner, the Doctor and Rose went to Pete's study. When they got to the open door, they saw that Rose's stepdad was seated at his desk, facing away from them and talking on the telephone.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "Of course. No, I didn't realize that. Yes, I agree. Just let me know the time and place and I will be there." He swiveled his chair back to face the desk. "Thank you, President Jones." He rang off and stared into space.

Rose lightly knocked on the door frame. "Dad," she called softly.

Pete Tyler looked up in surprise and gestured for the two of them to enter the room. They joined him at his desk, sitting on chairs opposite him.

"What can I do for the two of you?" he asked, smiling, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

"What was all that about?" Rose asked, gesturing at the phone.

"Oh, just minor organizational problems," Pete answered dismissively with a small wave of his hand. "Nothing to worry about. What did you need?"

"We went to dismantle the dimension cannon today," she told him. "And on the way back, the Doctor and I got new mobiles. Mine has the same number, but if you give me yours, I'll program his into it."

Pete pulled out his mobile and handed it to Rose.

"When we got to Torchwood, there was this really long queue to get in," Rose continued, handing the phone back to her stepdad when she was done. "What's with the extra security guards and barwanding people? And do we really need metal detectors? I mean, we already have armed guards at the gate, security doors, ID cards that track your whereabouts… Do we really need even more security?"

"You were kidnapped from inside the building," Pete reminded her.

"None of this would have prevented that," she countered. "Lisa still would have been able to kidnap me with or without the metal detectors."

"Yeah, I know," Pete said. "And I tend to agree with you; despite everything that happened with Lisa Hallett, I still believe our security is more than adequate. But this is really not my call. This was pushed through by Congress over the objections of the President. All public buildings are now required to have a certain amount of security, over and above CCTV."

"When you say all public buildings…" the Doctor started.

"I mean all public buildings," Pete answered. "Everything from government buildings to banks to the cinema to the local Tesco's. Everything is to have a minimum amount of security. Now most of those buildings already have it, but there are hints in the background that this is just the beginning."

"Pete, there was something else I wanted to ask you about," the Doctor said. "While we were in the queue to get in, someone mentioned rumors of an alien invasion. What was that all about?"

The other man shook his head. "I've heard those rumors, too, and I have no idea where they are coming from. They're not coming from Torchwood, at any rate. And if there were anything to it, I'd know about it." He sighed. "At least I hope I would."

~oOo~

Sunday morning had the Doctor and Rose going in different directions.

At the Torchwood Institute, Pete Tyler and the Doctor wandered through an enormous storage bay located in the west end of the main building. The powers that be in Torchwood, Pete included, had decided that the Canary Wharf location was too high profile and had purchased a large, disused factory to the west of London proper. To the world, it was a baby formula factory, but in reality it was a high tech facility: part intelligence agency, part scientific lab, part diplomatic organization.

"There's a number of things I'd like you to help me with, but the primary thing I need you to do, the one that absolutely needs to be done here," Pete had said when he had asked the Doctor to accompany him to Torchwood, "is I need you to help identify some of our backlog of alien tech." When the Doctor had begun to protest, he had continued. "I'm not asking you to reverse engineer it, or even tell us how it works necessarily, although that would be very, very helpful, but if you could just tell us what things are and how dangerous they are, our scientists can take it from there."

After arguing with him for a bit, the Doctor had finally agreed to identify everything, reasoning to himself that the scientists at Torchwood would be less likely to accidentally blow themselves up if they knew what they were dealing with.

The storage bay, large enough to hold several zeppelins, primarily held scavenged alien technology that was too large to place anywhere else or that had yet to be identified to determine which lab it should be assigned to. At least, when they arrived the items had yet to be identified. By the time they left, the Doctor had told Pete what everything was, what it was for, and whether or not it was dangerous. Most of the time the smaller items, which included anything smaller than a shuttlecraft, were useless pieces of junk that were either missing important components or broken off from larger pieces of equipment. Occasionally, they were human in origin that were just out of their proper time period and had come up through the Cardiff Rift. But then there was that one percent, that small number of items that actually worked.

And most of those were dangerous. Really, really dangerous.

The Doctor's first instinct was to remove them, damage them, or destroy them in some way to prevent people from either hurting themselves accidentally, or hurting others on purpose. The problem was, of course, how. He was just one man, one man without many resources these days, and the only way to get rid of it all would be to blow up the building.

Which he definitely considered. After all, it wouldn't be the first time he blew anything up. Not the first time in this body and not even the first time on this planet. Wouldn't even be the first time this week.

As tempting as that was, he didn't know what was in the archives, and blowing it up with the rest of the items could potentially be more dangerous than just leaving things alone. Depending on what was down there, an explosion could take out half the planet instead of just the building. The Doctor warned Pete thoroughly of the dangers and suggested that somehow the items from the storage bay get 'lost'. Well, at least until he had time to dismantle them.

"We can't just take apart everything that is in working condition, Doctor," Pete argued. "It is Torchwood's job to protect this planet and sometimes that involves a show of force. And we can't have a show of force if all we have is a bunch of broken down equipment that doesn't even look like it could work."

The Doctor looked around at the huge amount of alien tech in the bay and then rubbed his forehead. As a full Time Lord, human stubbornness often gave him a headache, and it evidently still did despite him being part human now.

"Pete, there's stuff here that could blow up the planet if it's not handled properly. Unless you have a death wish for humanity, you've got to get rid of it."

"With all due respect, Doctor, you haven't been here all that long. We've had problems with aliens for years. Misunderstandings have led to confrontations which we barely made it through and usually only because we were able to scare them into backing off."

The Doctor sighed loudly and switched from rubbing his forehead to rubbing his left eye. "Some of the most lethal stuff in here doesn't look hazardous at all, and that's the problem. It's like having a nuclear warhead that's in the shape of a teddy bear. You could blow someone up with it, but you can't use it to threaten anyone because no one would believe that it was dangerous. Well, not until it exploded at least. Anyway, you need to store some of this stuff. Safely. Possibly in the archives. After all, you could lose an entire spaceship down there.

"And if your problem is misunderstandings," he continued, "what you really need is an upgraded translator."

Pete looked at him appraisingly. "Is that something you could do?"

The Doctor waved a hand dismissively. "Upgrade a translator?" He tapped his temple with one finger. "Five billion languages, Pete. Still all up here. I could do it in my sleep."

"So will you?"

"Will I what?" the Doctor said blankly. Pete raised his eyebrows at him and the penny dropped. "Oh! You want me to upgrade your translator for you. Certainly. Not a problem."

"And as far as the archives are concerned," Pete said, "I could use your help down there as well."

"Pete," the Doctor protested, "I could be down there a month and barely scratch the surface."

"But a number of pieces down there might need further study. And perhaps you would be able to work on those as well as the translator. So we might want to transfer some of that equipment to Torchwood Three," Pete said. "Perhaps you could let me know which ones would be worth shipping to Cardiff."

The Doctor slowly grinned. Undoubtedly there would be items down there that he'd be able to use in growing the TARDIS. And he was touched that Pete had made the offer, especially considering he would have worked on the translator anyway and Pete knew it.

"Certainly, Pete," he said. "I'm guessing there's a fair amount of things down there that should be shipped to Cardiff."

Pete returned his grin. "Good. Starting tomorrow, we'll hit the archives."

~oOo~

While Pete and the Doctor were at Torchwood, Rose and Jackie went to pack up Mickey's flat.

"I've still got the key he gave me for emergencies," Jackie had told her daughter before they had left the mansion. "Doing his flat is the least I can do for him."

Mickey's flat was on the outskirts of London, not far from the Torchwood compound. He had spent a year running the Torchwood Three branch in Cardiff before returning to London, so he really hadn't had this particular flat for all that long. He had been in this universe even longer than Rose, though, and she knew he wasn't a particularly good housekeeper, so she expected that they would find the accumulation of nearly a decade's worth of stuff in addition to Mickey's usual mess.

She was wrong.

The minute she and her mum had opened the door of the flat, they were both surprised at how empty it was. His bed had been stripped of its bedding. The bathroom had been cleaned and emptied of all personal items. And the kitchen only held the minimum of dishes and cookware. Even the refrigerator was empty.

The tiny sitting room had also been cleared out. There was a threadbare couch and an old chair near an ancient television. A low, scuffed table sat in front of the couch, and in the center of the room were half a dozen cardboard boxes, presumably filled with his personal items. And on top of them lay two envelopes, one addressed to Jackie, the other to Rose.

Jackie and Rose looked at each other in shock.

"He knew," Rose said softly. "He had planned this. It wasn't a spur of the moment decision to stay there. He had no intention of coming back."

Later, in the living room of the mansion, Rose and her mum sat on the floor, staring at the cardboard packing boxes that they had brought back from the flat. At first, each of them had wondered privately if they had the right to go through them and then independently realized that Mickey wouldn't have left the boxes for them to discover if he hadn't intended them to have the contents. Still, they were almost afraid to open them, as if opening them would make the whole situation more real. Mickey was alive and safe in the other universe, but they'd never see him again so it was almost as if he had died.

Rose pulled the envelopes he had left for them out of her pocket and handed her mum's to her. Jackie opened hers and began to read aloud.

Dear Jackie,

I'm leaving you this note just in case I don't…

Jackie's voice broke and her eyes welled up. "Here, you read it," she said, thrusting it at Rose. "I just can't."

Rose took the letter from her mother's hands and began to read aloud.

Dear Jackie,

I'm leaving you this note just in case I don't have a chance to talk to you later. You know we've had our problems in the past, but over the years I have come to think of you as family. Thank you for taking me and my gran in when you got here. You made her last years very happy.

Jackie, I want you to know you've been like a second mum to me. I love you and am always gonna miss you.

Mickey

The tears that had threatened before started to fall in earnest now, and Jackie reached for some tissues. She wiped her face and blew her nose loudly, but for once she didn't say anything.

Rose turned to her own note, scanning it silently.

Babe,

I don't know if you'll ever see this, or if you too will be home in the other universe, but in case you end up back here, I wanted to leave you a note as well.

We've been best friends for a lot of years, most of our lives, and the time we were together was… nice. It wasn't until recently that I realized that all we were was nice. And you deserve better than nice. And frankly, so do I.

I'm always gonna love you in a way, and I'm always gonna miss you, but for your sake and his I really hope you find him again. Cos what the two of you had together was a whole lot better than nice. I've known for a long time how much you love him, and since day one it was written all over him what he felt for you. If you do find him again, don't ever let him go. You two deserve some happiness.

Mickey

Tears threatened as she tried to swallow the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat.

After a few moments of sitting quietly and trying to compose themselves, they turned to the boxes in front of them. The first two boxes were filled with clothing with a note to donate them to charity, and the third was similar, instead containing towels and bedding rather than clothes.

Three of the boxes were labeled with names, something Jackie and Rose hadn't noticed earlier. One box was labeled 'Tony', and Rose took a quick peek in it. Inside were a variety of football items Mickey had evidently accumulated over the years: posters, a football signed by a famous player, a jersey from his favorite team. All items a small boy would treasure.

Jackie's box was filled with knickknacks and had a short note on top. These used to belong to my gran. I know she would have wanted you to have them. She loved you like a daughter. Jackie's eyes began to tear up again.

Rose opened her box carefully. It was smaller than the others, yet it was still the heaviest. Inside it was filled with photo albums and an external hard drive labeled Photos and Journal. She raised her eyebrows. She had had no idea that Mickey had kept a written record of his experiences in Pete's World, and she was touched that he had wanted her to have it. Quickly flipping through the photos, she noticed that the shots dated from before she had been trapped on Pete's world to some that were taken approximately a week before they had found the Doctor. There were pictures of Mickey and Jake from all over the world: Mickey mugging for the camera in front of the Eiffel Tower, both of them standing in front of a giant statue of the Buddha in Hong Kong, Jake in front of the Sydney Opera House, and then the two of them in San Francisco, the Emerald Bridge (the parallel version of the Golden Gate Bridge) in the distance.

Others had been taken closer to home. There was a candid shot of her holding her brother in the hospital when he was born. A picture of her first Christmas here, essentially a family portrait, his gran sitting next to her and Tony in her mother's arms with Pete and Mickey behind them. A shot taken at Tony's first birthday. With a smile, Rose recognized a number of the pictures as coming from the Hub in Cardiff. Tosh at her workstation, Ianto making coffee, and a truly disgusting one of Owen performing an autopsy on a purple and green tentacled alien from Degrev 5. That one made her laugh in spite of herself. Sometimes she wondered about Mickey.

Picking up the hard drive, she debated whether she should read his journal entries. He had obviously meant for her to have them, but she still didn't know if she ought to. Deciding to make a decision later about it, she packed everything back in the box and closed it up. Glancing up at her mum, she realized Jackie had Mickey's letter to her in her hands, and tears were still silently falling. She leaned forward and hugged her mother before getting up.

"I'll go make us some tea."

~oOo~

Late that evening, Pete and the Doctor returned to the mansion from Torchwood only to find Jackie and Rose had held off their tea so the men could join them. The cook had made a cassoulet, with crusty French bread and butter on the side, and the four of them sat down to eat.

The meal was subdued. Tony had long since been put to bed, and Jackie was uncharacteristically quiet.

On the way up to their rooms, the Doctor asked about Jackie. "What's wrong?"

"We cleaned out Mickey's flat today," she told him. "It was just tougher on Mum than she expected it would be."

"How are you doing?" he asked seriously.

"I'm alright," she answered quietly. "I'm always alright," she continued, plastering a fake smile on her face to lighten the heavy mood.

"No, you're not," the Doctor responded, cupping her face in his hands. "Something's wrong, and I don't think it has anything to do with Mickey. You've been having nightmares for the last couple of nights."

Rose looked away, unsure if she should answer. Finally she shook her head. "No, I haven't."

"Yes, you have. I've been there."

"That's not what I meant. I mean, it's not just the past couple of nights."

He looked at her in concern. "How long has this been going on?" he asked.

"A while."

"How long?" he asked again, this time separating the words and asking slightly more firmly.

She wasn't sure how she should, or even if she should, answer. She took a deep breath. "Since Canary Wharf," she admitted finally.

His heart broke and he pulled her into his arms. She automatically wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder.

Tightening his grip on her, he brushed her hair away from her face and kissed the top of her head. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked softly.

"You're already doing it," she said. "Just by being with me."