a/n: Thank you for all the reviews for the last chapter! I really appreciate them.

In one of the reviews, someone asked about my mention of two times the Doctor contacted Rose telepathically. Both are canon; once was during Doomsday, when he called her across the Void to lead her to Bad Wolf Bay. The other was in the BBC novel The Nightmare of Black Island.

The reference to red velvet cake in this chapter comes from something Eve Myles said in a convention last year.

As always, many thanks to bittie752 for her beta-reading. As is typical, I made a number of changes to this after she read it, so all errors are mine.

Chapter 14

In that space of time between being deeply asleep and entirely awake, Rose had the best dream in her life. Warmth, she thought, the most wonderful warmth in the world. Warmth against her back. Warm breath and warm kisses against the nape of her neck. A warm hand cupping and gently massaging her breast. A hard, warm presence pressing firmly against her….

Now fully awake, her eyes opened wide and she turned her head. The mouth from her dream, which hadn't been a dream, kissed her deeply.

"Mmm. For a minute there I thought you weren't real," she said after a moment.

"Oh, I'm very real," he said in a low voice full of promise. He rocked his hips forward and in response she tilted hers backwards.

"Thought I was dreamin' again," she said after another kiss.

The Doctor smirked. "You dream about me?"

"Might have done," she answered with a still sleepy smile.

"How does the reality measure up to the fantasy?" he asked after another kiss, a touch of amusement in his voice.

"Not sure yet," Rose replied, biting her lip in an effort to hide a smirk of her own. She rolled over to face him and wrapped her arms around him. "Might have to run more tests."

"Good idea," he said. He brushed her silky blonde hair away from her face. "The scientific method… calls for… repeated testing… to verify results." He punctuated every phrase with a kiss.

"Well, we wouldn't want to go against the scientific method, would we?"

"Oh, no, no, no. Can't do that," he said, kissing her throat. His unshaven face was a pleasant roughness against her neck, as was his smattering of chest hair against her breasts.

"How 'bout you?" she asked, her eyes half closed. "Dream about me?"

"Oh yes," he murmured emphatically, moving up to kiss her lips. "For years, decades, centuries."

Out of anyone else, it would have been a line, but with him you never knew. She pulled away from him just enough to stare into his eyes. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," he told her, meeting her gaze. He was matter-of-fact about it; he could have been talking about what to have for breakfast. "I always knew there was something, someone, missing in my life, and when I met you, Rose Tyler, I discovered who it was. I've waited for you my whole life."

Rose was astonished at his words. She knew he loved her, but this…. How could she possibly respond to that? After a moment she began to grin.

"Well, then," she said, pushing him onto his back and climbing on top of him, "we mustn't make you wait any longer." She began kissing his neck and after a moment she moved lower. And lower. And lower.

The Doctor grinned crookedly as his head fell back on the pillow and his eyes fluttered closed. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly in a sigh of pleasure.

"Molto bene."

~oOo~

Late that morning, the Doctor and Rose walked hand in hand across the short distance from their flat to Mermaid Quay, where the entrance to the Hub was located. Although it was overcast, it felt almost uncomfortably warm with the humidity caused by being located right on the bay. The weather report predicted a break in the heat wave with rain coming that afternoon, and although Rose would welcome cooler temperatures, she would believe it when she saw it. Already it was the warmest summer she had ever experienced in Pete's World, and it felt like the heat would never end. She was looking forward to spending the day in the natural coolness of the underground Hub.

They made their way down a flight of stairs and along the boardwalk to the small room that masqueraded as a tourist information center but was actually the entrance to the Hub. Like any other travel office anywhere, there were large posters plastered on the outside walls advertising local places to visit.

The door to the office was unlocked, and they felt a blast of cool air from the air conditioner as they entered. To their surprise, they found Ianto Jones behind the desk. As was typical for him, despite the heat he was immaculately dressed in a suit and coordinating tie, his hair neatly trimmed and combed. Rose couldn't help but contrast him to the Doctor, who was wearing one of his new blue pinstriped suits with a coordinating t-shirt and red trainers, his hair intentionally, and artfully, messy. As nice as Ianto looked, Rose preferred the Doctor's sense of style. And his really, really great hair. In deference to the weather, Rose herself wore a tee and trousers with white trainers, her hair in a simple style she knew the Doctor liked.

"I thought you were still in London," Rose said to Ianto in confusion.

"My presence there was no longer required so I came back," he answered dryly.

Okay, she thought. Wonder what that's about? She and the Doctor surreptitiously exchanged glances.

"Textbook enigmatic," the Doctor whispered out of the corner of his mouth so quietly that she was certain Ianto didn't hear him. She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.

"Well, I'm glad to see you here, Ianto. You wanna let us in?" she asked.

Ianto reached under the desk and the giant cog wheel that served as the door rolled to one side. The Doctor and Rose passed through the circular doorway and walked through the long tunnel that connected the tourist office to the Hub. Although she had been there less than two weeks earlier, she almost felt like she was coming home after a long time away. She had worked there for several years before working on the dimension cannon, so the Hub was in some ways even more familiar to her than the mansion had been.

And now she was returning as the boss.

She had led her own team before while working on the cannon, but there was just something different in leading this office, with these people who were almost family to her.

Possibly sensing what she was feeling, the Doctor reached over and grabbed her hand. He gave it a gentle squeeze and her a proud grin. And she grinned back. Knowing he was proud of her was even more important to her than having the respect of her coworkers.

They walked into the Hub's atrium only to see a dark brown shape fly above them. It suddenly streaked down low enough to ruffle their hair before soaring back upwards. A loud, unearthly screech echoed through the room.

"What the hell?" the Doctor exclaimed. He ducked down, hands over his head. Rose, who was used to being dive-bombed in the atrium, didn't bother to move. "Was that…"

She nodded. "A pteranodon," she answered. "Her name is Myfanwy. Ianto named her after some sort of Welsh goddess. He and Jake caught her after she came up through the Rift right after Ianto started working here."

"Oh, she's beautiful," he said in awe, staring up at her. "Myfanwy, eh? Seems Ianto has a sense of humor." When Rose looked at him curiously, he continued. "Myfanwy had a heartbreakingly lovely singing voice. Or at least she did in our universe. She could reduce a man to tears with a single note. I ought to know; she made me bawl like a baby." He paused for a moment as they watched her circle above their heads. "Why didn't I see her before?"

"She was probably out hunting. We try not to let her go out during the day so she won't be seen, but sometimes she gets out anyway. She always comes back, though." Rose pointed upwards at a ledge that was near the arching roof. "If you look hard you can see her nest up there."

He squinted and could just barely see a darker shape where she was pointing.

"You'll be able to see her better later. If you're good, I'll let you feed her a bar of chocolate," she told him with a cheeky grin, and he raised his eyebrows.

"She likes chocolate?"

"Yep." She looped her arm with his. "Let's go find the others," she said.

They found Gwen Williams and Toshiko Sato on the small balcony that held their workstations. Toshiko, casually dressed in a tee and jeans, looked very studious in her spectacles. She was doing something on her computer while Gwen, wearing a maternity dress that resembled a floral tent more than anything else, didn't even pretend to be working. Instead she sat watching the other woman with her feet propped up on a chair in front of her.

"Thank God you're here," Gwen said without preamble once she noticed Rose and the Doctor climbing the stairs to the balcony. She didn't even attempt to move her heavily pregnant body from where she was seated. "I am officially relinquishing the position of Torchwood Three's head and handing it over to you, complete with all the problems therein."

Toshiko snickered, and the Doctor and Rose looked from one woman to the other curiously.

"What problems are those?" Rose asked, not certain she wanted the answer.

"Have you seen Owen yet?" Tosh asked.

"Oh God, what's he done now?" Rose gritted her teeth apprehensively. Now she was sure she didn't want the answer.

"Nothing he hasn't done before," her friend, and former roommate, responded dryly.

"That doesn't narrow it down much. Where is he?"

"In the medbay. Hiding since he knew you were coming."

Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head before leaning over the railing of the balcony.

"Oi! Owen! Front and center," she hollered down the stairwell.

"Oh, by the way," Gwen added. "Director Tyler sent a whole truckload of stuff for you, Doctor. We didn't know what the hell to do with it so we just stuck it in one of the storage rooms in the basement. What is all that stuff anyway?"

"Oh, just a little project I'm working on," he said, his face breaking out into a wide grin. He looked at Rose hopefully.

"Go on," she said with a jerk of her head, and after a kiss, which almost turned into a snog, he quickly headed back down the stairs. At seeing the kiss, Gwen and Tosh both raised their eyebrows and smirked at each other.

Owen still hadn't arrived, so Rose hollered down to him again. After a moment, the three women heard his footsteps on the stairs. When he arrived on the balcony, he was rubbing his forehead with his fingertips as if he were trying to get rid of a headache, but Rose strongly suspected he was just trying to shield his face from her. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Owen, put your hand down," she ordered.

Owen dropped his hand to his side. His nose was taped up and had obviously been broken, and he had two black eyes. Rose groaned.

"What happened?" she demanded.

"Yeah, tell her, Owen," Gwen urged. There was a trace of amusement in her voice.

"Nothing," he answered. "Nothing in particular happened."

"That's not what Andy told me," Gwen said. PC Andy Davidson was Gwen's old partner on the police force and often kept her informed on the goings on in Cardiff. "Evidently our resident doctor got a little drunk last night in a pub across from the Stadium and propositioned the wrong girl. When she turned him down, he called her a slag, among other things, and her boyfriend, who happened to be twice as big as he is, took exception."

Rose glared at him. "You. Office. Now."

The tiny room that was Rose's new office was on a higher level in the Hub than the workstation level, so Rose led the way up a short flight of stairs. Once they had arrived there, she closed the door and whirled on him.

"Less than five minutes, Owen," she said angrily. "I've been here less than five minutes and I'm already dealing with you. This has got to stop. I don't know what your problem is, and at this point I don't care, but you are acting like a complete arse. Every time you pull a stunt like this you are risking drawing unwanted attention to us, and you know Torchwood is trying to keep a low profile these days. I've got to tell you, Dad wanted to fire you last time there was a problem with you, but I stuck my neck out and asked him to reconsider. But if something like this happens again, I'll fire you myself. Do you understand?"

Owen's jaw tightened and he nodded sharply. They both knew that employees who had been fired were considered a security risk by Torchwood and were routinely Ret-conned. Owen could potentially lose years of memories.

"You are officially on probation. I don't want another bar fight, another charge of sexual harassment, hell, I don't even want to hear that you've gotten a parking ticket. Now there is no way I am going to let you ruin today for me," she continued, "so I suggest you go back down to your lab, get busy, keep out of trouble, and try to stay out of my sight for the rest of the day."

After he had left, Rose sank down onto the chair behind the desk. Elbows resting on the desk, she dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her forehead. What a way to start a new job, she thought. But her ability to deal with Owen was a large part of why she had gotten the position.

After a moment, she sat back and sighed. With her head resting against the back of her chair, she surveyed her new office. This was the same office that Jake and Mickey had used when they had headed Torchwood Three. The Doctor had told her that Jack Harkness headed Torchwood Three in their home universe, and for a moment Rose wondered if his office was anything like this one. Jack's office could be totally different, and in an entirely different location, she told herself. Maybe he didn't even have an office. But she wanted to believe that it was exactly the same, from the old wooden desk cluttered with papers to the shelves filled with alien artifacts. Of all the people she had known in her home universe - her extended family, her friends, her coworkers from Henrik's - she had always missed Jack the most. After the Doctor, of course. And sitting at this desk, even if it wasn't the same desk he would sit at, made her feel closer to him.

For a moment she wondered if there were an Owen Harper in their home universe. There was certainly a parallel Gwen and a parallel Ianto. She had seen them on a screen in the TARDIS after dealing with the Daleks on the Crucible. Assuming there was a parallel Owen, and that he also worked for Torchwood, she wondered how Jack would have handled him. Kicked his arse, probably. And after today it was definitely an approach she was considering.

A gentle knock at the door startled her out of her reverie. Toshiko stood in the doorway, a concerned look on her face.

"You all right?" she asked.

Rose gave her a wry grin. "I'm fine. Nothing I didn't expect. Of course I didn't expect it quite so soon. I was hoping for at least a half an hour before there was a problem with Owen."

The other woman laughed as she sat down in a chair opposite Rose. "I think that was a little too optimistic."

"I'm beginning to realize that," she answered with a laugh of her own.

"Not to change the subject or anything, but I saw the kiss the Doctor gave you earlier. I assume that means you two managed to uncomplicate things?" Toshiko raised her eyebrows suggestively.

"Oh, yeah." Rose bit her lower lip and giggled, remembering how often they had uncomplicated things the previous night. And that morning. She moved to stand up. "And speaking of him…."

Tosh grinned. "Go on. Go find him," she suggested.

~oOo~

Rose traced his steps down to the basement. He was in a large storage room at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by what looked to be piles of broken alien tech. For a moment, she leaned against in the doorway and just watched him. Glasses on, he was deeply absorbed in examining a piece of equipment, turning it over and over in his hands and muttering to himself. Eventually, she could pick out a few words.

"Dunno, could work. But it would need a lot of modifications. Maybe if I added a temporal regulator. Have to build that, though. Maybe there's something else here…" When he began to look around the room, he spotted her standing at the door. "Oh, Rose, there you are," he said happily.

"Having fun?" she asked.

"Oh yes!" He gave her a manic grin.

The way his face lit up when he smiled like that was infectious. She grinned back and then gestured around the room. "So what is all this?"

"This is essentially my pay for a little job I'm doing for Pete. I'm updating Torchwood's translators, and in exchange he gave me all of this."

She raised her eyebrows. "Dad gave you a load of rubbish in exchange for doing something Torchwood really needs? And you are happy about it?"

"I am happy about it, and I definitely got the better part of the deal. This is not a load of rubbish, as you so eloquently put it, although all of it is completely useless to Torchwood. This," he waved his hand, encompassing everything in the room, "is going to be our TARDIS. Well, part of it anyway."

"Our TARDIS? I thought that that was what was in the tank on our kitchen counter."

"For the most part, yes. TARDISes are grown. But they are also part mechanical; they need some things integrated into them, like the controls and the time rotor. That's why I always had to scavenge for parts for the old TARDIS."

He began to pick up various items and tell her all about them, what they were and how they could be used. She smiled as she watched him talk. He was almost bouncing with excitement. In her mind's eye she could see him dancing around the console of the new TARDIS as they took their first trip somewhere.

He stopped when he saw her grinning at him.

"What?" he asked.

"'S just nice to see you so happy," she said.

The Doctor walked over to her and pulled her into his arms. "Doesn't take TARDIS pieces to make me happy, Rose Tyler. The TARDIS pieces are just the frosting on the cake. Or the whipped cream on the pie. Oh! Or the cherry on a banana split! You know, I like a good banana…"

He didn't sound like he was going to stop, so pulling his head down to hers, she shut his gob the best way she knew how.

~oOo~

That afternoon, Rhys Williams walked into the Hub carrying a huge box from a local bakery.

When Gwen had first started working for Torchwood and they had not yet gotten married, Rhys had had no idea what Gwen actually did for a living after she had left the police force. Eventually, circumstances had changed so much that not only did Rhys know about Gwen's role in Torchwood, Rhys had helped out occasionally, although in very minor ways. For example, right now he was acting as a delivery boy for his very pregnant wife.

Early that morning, Gwen had asked him to pick up a cake for her, her cravings never having subsided with the advance of her pregnancy. Rhys had argued with her over the purchase, citing health reasons. Their obstetrician had recommended no more than a 25 to 30 pound weight gain, and that through healthy foods. Gwen had listened, and then she promptly decided to ignore him. Since the meeting with her doctor, Rhys had tried to encourage his wife to follow the advice, but as usual he had lost the argument.

This time was no different. In all the years they had been together, he had never been able to change Gwen's mind when it was set. Hence the cake delivery.

As soon as Gwen saw her husband, well, as soon as she saw what her husband was carrying, she launched herself out of her chair and crossed over to him. Although launched wasn't exactly the best word to describe Gwen heaving her eighth month pregnant body out of the chair she had been sitting in.

"Oh, you are an angel of mercy, you are," she said, looking at the box rather than greeting her husband. "Red velvet?" she asked hopefully.

"A'course," he answered.

Now Gwen really did look at her husband. "Thank you," she said with a bright smile, trying to stand on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. She was a bit unsteady in that position, and her husband caught her before she tipped over.

"Bloody pregnancy," she muttered, taking the box from him and setting it on a nearby desk. "Why can't men have the babies?"

Rhys decided not to answer her, as they had had that conversation a multitude of times before, particularly while she was suffering morning sickness. And none of those discussions had gone particularly well, not for him and not for his gender.

From his desk in the Hub, Ianto raised his eyebrow at the size of the box. "I don't suppose there's enough cake in there to share with the rest of the class," he said dryly.

"How big is it?" Gwen asked Rhys.

"It's a full sheet, luv," he responded. "Made to feed forty people."

Gwen wrinkled her nose and turned to Ianto. "I suppose you can have a piece," she allowed. "A small one."

"You better be careful, Gwen," Owen said from his desk across the room. "The more weight you gain now, the harder it will be to take off later, and the harder the delivery will be."

"You just mind your own business, Owen," Rhys snapped. "If she wants cake every day, she can bloody well have it."

Gwen tried not to laugh at Rhys's reaction to Owen, given Rhys had said the same thing that very morning.

"Don't get between a pregnant woman and her cake, Owen," she warned. "Not unless you want to take your life in your hands. I may be large as a barge, but I could still take you with one hand tied behind my back."

Mind always in the gutter, a very inappropriate image of Gwen, large as a barge, crossed through his mind. But for once, Harper bit off his reply, given that Gwen's very large husband was there, glowering at him. His nose was still taped up from the last time he had insulted anyone.

At that moment, Rose and the Doctor emerged from the basement holding hands and grinning at each other. Owen nipped back to autopsy, determined to stay out of her way. Lucky for him, Rose was so focused on her Doctor that she hadn't noticed him bolting from the room.

"Gwen," Rose said without looking away from the Doctor. "We're going out. If anyone needs us they can ring my mobile."

"But don't ring us," the Doctor said without taking his eyes off Rose. "Not unless there's a full-fledged Sycorax invasion or something."

When Gwen cleared her throat, the Doctor and Rose turned to look at her and finally noticed Rhys standing there.

"Oh. Hello, I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said, letting go of Rose's hand just long enough to thrust it at the man standing next to Gwen. "We haven't met."

"Doctor, this is my husband, Rhys," Gwen said, introducing them. "Rhys, this is Rose's Doctor."

"This is him?" Rhys asked his wife.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow as he wondered just what the Cardiff gossip mill had been saying about him.

"Glad to meet you," Rhys said to him as they shook hands.

"Thank you," he replied. "Pleasure to meet you as well."

"Would you like a piece of cake? There's plenty here," Rhys offered.

"Thank you very much, but no. We'd stay…." He glanced at Rose and grinned.

"But we're heading home," Rose said, smiling with her tongue between her teeth, something that Gwen had never seen Rose do. And then she giggled, which Gwen was certain she had never heard Rose do.

The Doctor's grin widened and he raised his eyebrows suggestively, causing Rose to giggle louder. She took his hand and they walked out of the Hub, somehow managing to avoid tripping over anything even though they weren't watching where they were going.

Gwen turned away, grinning herself. In all the years she had known Rose Tyler, although she had always tried to cover it up, she had always had an underlying sadness just under the surface that Gwen could sense. And now the sadness was gone. She and her Doctor seemed so happy, she thought. And it was a truly beautiful thing to see.

~oOo~

Ten minutes later, the remaining staff had settled around the long conference table upstairs, eating the cake Rhys had brought.

"So the Doctor…" Rhys said. "He's not exactly what I expected."

"Why? What did you expect?" his wife asked him curiously.

"I dunno," he said. "From Rose's descriptions over the years, I guess I kinda expected someone, y'know, a bit more impressive. A bit more intimidating. Maybe a bit better looking, too."

They all stared at him in surprise.

"Rhys, if you knew what I know about him, you'd realize he's plenty impressive," Ianto answered, remembering his interaction with the Doctor in London.

"And he's plenty intimidating, too," Owen interjected. "Having been on the receiving end of it, believe me, you don't want to see him when he's being intimidating. Just be glad he's on our side."

"And Rhys, even you have to admit he's a bit nice," his wife added teasingly. Crossing his arms in front of him, Rhys scowled at her.

"Nice?" Toshiko said, grinning. "I think he's kinda hot."

Everyone stared at her after her uncharacteristic comment. Gwen bit her lip, trying not to laugh.

Tosh looked at them curiously. "What?"