a/n: An extra chapter this week! If you are enjoying the story, please let me know. I live for reviews.

Thanks as always to bittie752 for beta-reading. If you haven't read her stories, you should.

And now for a bit of plot...

Chapter Fifteen

Several days after the Doctor and Rose had left for Cardiff, Pete Tyler sat behind his government-issued metal desk in his Torchwood office, examining the report on the break-in of the mansion. There was precious little in it, and nothing he hadn't known to begin with. The alarm system seemed to have been bypassed; there was no sign of forced entry, no finger prints, and there appeared to be nothing missing.

The only piece of evidence that the agents had mentioned was a single footprint in one of the flowerbeds behind the mansion, and they had only known about it after the Doctor had pointed it out to them. The surveillance equipment that the Doctor had discovered in Pete's study was not discussed because they had not told the field agents about it. The Doctor, Pete and Rose had jointly decided that they did not want to risk alerting the traitor that they knew about the bugs.

A knock on the door was a welcome relief from the report in front of him. He looked up.

"Come in," he ordered gruffly.

Pete's assistant, Todd Richards, opened the door and stuck his head in. A young man in his early twenties, Todd had worked directly for Pete for several years, having come to work for him immediately after the University. Pete trusted him implicitly. He served as Pete's personal assistant, primarily working for him at Torchwood, but also assisting him at Vitex as needed. Pete had other administrative assistants at Vitex, but Todd coordinated his schedule between Torchwood and Vitex and assisted in anything Pete needed help with, both at work and at home.

"Sir, Jake Simmonds is here to see you," Todd told him. His thick, round glasses made him look slightly owlish and his light brown hair looked, as always, in desperate need of a cut.

"Send him in."

Jake Simmonds had known Pete Tyler from before his days as the director of Torchwood. They had met during the whole Cybermen mess and had become friends during the time they had worked both with the Preachers. When Tyler had become the director, he had brought both Jake and Mickey into the organization as well, and Jake had eventually become second in command of the agency.

"Hey, Boss." Jake entered the small office and shook Pete's hand. He mouthed, is it safe to talk in here?

Pete nodded. "Yeah. The Doctor checked it out before he and Rose left."

Jake let out a small sigh of relief and sat down on a chair across from Pete. "Well, at least that's good news." He gestured at the papers on the desk. "I see you got the report."

"Yeah, for what good it does. It's not worth the paper it's written on. How did your own investigation go?"

"Not much better," Jake admitted. "The intruder was likely a male between 20 and 40, somewhere around 6 ft tall, probably weighed about 175 lbs, and likely had either a police or military background."

"So basically what the Doctor said."

Jake shrugged. "Pretty much. I do have some news, though. A dead body was discovered outside Manchester last night. Cause of death, unknown."

"What does that have to do with us? Wouldn't that be a matter for the Manchester police?"

"Yeah, except that the medical examiner's report states that the body was that of a 6 ft 1 in male, 177 lbs and approximately 35 years old."

"Really?" Pete asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

Jake nodded. "There's more. Fingerprints indicate his name was Robert Shaw, and until about 2 years ago he worked for us."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Looks like we may have found the person who broke into your house."

"Yeah, dead." Leaning back in his chair, Pete took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Now what?"

"Well, evidently whoever was behind the break-in has been tying up loose ends. I tried to find out what Shaw has been doing for the past two years, and I couldn't find anything on him. Nothing. He had no credit cards, no bank account, no car, no flat, no nothing. It's like he dropped off the face of the Earth two years ago."

Pete swore under his breath. "So we have no idea if he was part of this, whatever this is, or if he was hired."

"Your guess is as good as mine," Jake responded.

"Was there any kind of link between Shaw and Lisa Hallett?"

"Not that I could find." Jake leaned forward in his chair. "So what do you want me to do now? Head up to Glasgow?"

Pete shook his head. "Not yet. Something about this just doesn't feel right. The Doctor said that the bugs in my study came from Torchwood, but if Shaw stopped working for us two years ago, he couldn't have gotten them. Which means there's someone else here who did. I want you to go over everything one more time and see if you can figure out who it could be."

Jake was silent for a moment, running through the names of staff members in his mind. Everyone had secrets, and there was always the temptation to gossip about what they did, but for the life of him, he couldn't think of a single one who could be a traitor.

"What about Rose and the Doctor?" Jake asked.

"I don't want them involved in this," he told him. "We'll handle this one ourselves."

"Boss, does this have anything to do with all the rumors I've been hearing about an alien invasion?"

"I don't know," Pete admitted. "And I have no idea where those rumors are coming from. Jake, you have different sources than I do. What have you heard?"

"Not much," Jake answered. "Not even the type of alien involved. All I've been hearing is just that there's going to be one. But that makes no sense. Why would aliens broadcast that they were going to invade before they did it?"

"I can't imagine, unless they were just trying to gain a psychological advantage by generating fear in the populous. But I'm only hearing about it from sources in the government, not the news and not the public at large. And you'd think Torchwood would know about this first."

"Well, at least I'd hope so," Jake said ruefully. "I'd hate to think we were losing our touch with this sort of thing." He leaned forward. "Pete, why aren't Rose and the Doctor involved in this? I'd think that with their experience, you'd want them to be in the thick of it."

"Jake, Lisa Hallett found out that the Doctor isn't entirely human and tried to blackmail Rose with the information. I don't want to risk that happening again." He looked at the other man grimly. "Whatever is going on, I want them as far away from it as possible. If someone gets wind of exactly who, and what, the Doctor is, it could put not only him and Rose in danger, but Jackie and Tony, too. No," he said. "I want more information before we pull them into this."

"So where are they, Rose and the Doctor?"

Pete shook his head again. "Nope. I'm not even telling you. It's not that I don't trust you; I don't want anyone to know where they are. It's safer for everyone this way. We've already got too many people who know." Like Jackie, he thought. But he hadn't thought of a way to keep it from her without flat out lying to her, and he had never been able to lie to her without her figuring it out instantly.

"Back to Preacher procedures, then," Jake said and Pete nodded soberly. If the boss wants to go back to doing things the Preachers' way, things must be worse than I thought. The younger man stood up to leave.

"Wait, Jake. I need to talk to you about one more thing." After he sat back down, Pete took a deep breath. "It's about Mickey. After Rose, you were his best friend. Did you know what he was going to do?"

Jake looked at the older man evenly for a moment before responding. "Yes," he admitted quietly.

"Why didn't he tell me?" Pete asked.

Jake shrugged. "He thought it would be easier on everyone this way. He was worried that you or Jackie might try to stop him, and you had the power to do it. Don't get me wrong, he loved it here, but he always felt in the back of his mind that he didn't really belong here. Particularly after his grandmother died. And when he realized that he might have a chance to go back, he jumped at it."

Pete was stunned. "I had no idea he felt that way. I just wish he had told me. I wouldn't have stopped him if he really wanted to go."

"He didn't want to risk it," Jake told him. "And he wouldn't have admitted this, but I think that he was afraid if Jackie knew in advance, she might have been able to get him to change his mind and that was the only chance he'd have to go back."

They both fell silent, remembering the man who had become one of their closest friends and confidants. "Mickey Smith is a good man," Pete said after a few moments. "I'm gonna miss him."

"Yeah," Jake said. "Me too."

~oOo~

"It was supposed to be routine," Rose explained. "And it would have been if that dog barking in the next street hadn't spooked it. These things happen."

She was sitting on the examination table in the Hub's medbay with her t-shirt off and her bra strap lowered. Owen Harper stood next to her, cleaning a very deep Weevil bite she had received on her left shoulder. Meanwhile, the Doctor had scanned her with his sonic and was examining the readings he got.

"Weevil bites are extremely nasty," Owen told her, "as you undoubtedly remember. An extremely high risk of infection. That's assuming you even survive the encounter. Most people don't. You're lucky it didn't rip your arm off." As he spoke, he bandaged up the wound with a large square of gauze and medical tape.

The Doctor took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an attempt to control his anger over her injury. He had been working in the basement when the call had come in to deal with an alien caused disturbance. Rose had assured him that they could handle it themselves without his help and urged him to continue working on the pieces that would form the new TARDIS console. He reluctantly agreed, not wanting to put her in a position of ordering him to stay in the Hub. But now he was kicking himself for not insisting on going with, despite knowing there was nothing he could have done to prevent her injury. When Owen and Ianto had returned with her, with Ianto carrying her in due to the blood loss she had sustained, he had been both livid and terrified. After his initial flash of rage, which he had only just barely contained, he reminded himself that Rose proven to him time and again that she could handle anything the universe, any universe, could throw at her. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

"What happened to the weevil?" he asked.

"Got away," Torchwood's doctor answered.

"What do you do with the weevils when you catch them?"

"We wanted to ship them off planet, but we didn't know where they were from and we didn't know how to find out," Rose told him. "We knew we had to put them somewhere; we couldn't keep them locked up indefinitely. About five years ago there was a tiny island for sale about halfway between here and Ireland, so tiny it didn't even have a name. Well, Torchwood bought it and stocked it with chickens and rabbits. After a couple of years we started putting any weevil there that we captured. It's perfect for them: no predators, no people and plenty of food. Eventually if we ever figure out where they're from, we'll ship them back there, but in the meantime they're not bothering us and we're not bothering them."

While she spoke, Owen crossed the room and opened a cupboard. He retrieved a syringe, filled it, and crossed back over to his patient. "Now I've already injected you with a painkiller, but this is a broad spectrum antibiotic which should help prevent you from getting an infection." After giving her the shot, he then went back to the cupboard and withdrew a large jar filled with pills. He shook some out into a small container, handed it to the Doctor and put the rest back.

"This is a combination of hydrocodone and paracetamol," he told the Doctor. "If she wakes up in the middle of the night, give her one of these with a full glass of water. The medication I already gave her could make her drowsy, so I'd get her home fairly quickly."

"Can she walk?" the Doctor asked. "Or should I go get her car and bring it 'round?"

Rose glared at both of them. "'She' is gonna punch both of you if you keep on calling her 'she'."

"Depends on how she feels," Owen answered, ignoring her. "You two live close. If she feels well enough to walk, you can walk. The drowsiness shouldn't kick in for at least another half an hour. Just try to get her to take a day or two off, or at least until she's not in any pain without the meds."

A voice called down to them from the observation level. "Rose, we couldn't find a spare shirt for you, but Ianto offered to loan you his," Toshiko said as she descended the stairs to the medbay. Ianto followed close behind, holding a short sleeve button down shirt in his hand. He had discarded his suit jacket and was now only wearing a vest with his trousers. "He was the only one of us who wore a shirt today that you don't have to pull over your head."

"Thanks, Ianto," Rose said, taking the shirt from him. Rose's own top had both been shredded by the weevil and cut off of her by Owen. The Doctor helped her carefully put the shirt on over her injured shoulder while she slipped her arm through the other sleeve. He bent to button it for her when she turned back to the shirt's owner. "I really didn't feel like flashing Cardiff while we walked home."

"No problem," Ianto responded.

"By the way, nice muscle definition, Yan," she said with a grin. She winked at him. "Have you been working out?"

The Doctor looked up at her sharply while Ianto raised his eyebrows and Toshiko tried to stifle a laugh.

Owen snickered. "Oh, did I forget to mention that the pain reliever I gave her also has the side effect of acting like an intoxicant? Looks like it's kicking in."

"Okay, let's go," the Doctor said while he helped Rose to her feet. She swayed a bit and he caught her. She looked up at him.

"Oh. Hello," she said, sounding as if she were surprised to see him there.

"Hello," he replied, smiling back down at her. "Time to get you home and into bed."

Rose gave him a flirtatious smile, the tip of her tongue peeking out from between her teeth.

"Promise?"

~oOo~

The Doctor closed the door to their bedroom, after finally having gotten Rose back to the flat and in bed. After she had fallen asleep, which was almost immediately after her head hit the pillow, he had scanned her again with his sonic. The readings were disturbing. Oh, she was doing fine, better than fine, actually, and it was how well she was doing that concerned him. If he hadn't known better, based on the scan he had just taken he would have guessed that the injuries had happened days ago, rather than just hours. His mind returned to a conversation he and Rose had had with Owen only a couple of weeks earlier.

"These are Tyler's results. I put them on the USB drive as well. There's nothing wrong with you," Harper said, addressing Rose directly.

"Well, that's good," the Doctor said. Owen looked at him evenly. "That's good, right?"

"No. It's not good. It's impossible." Torchwood's doctor responded. "I have never seen anyone with nothing wrong. Even the healthiest people in the world will have a touch of arthritis, evidence of a previous bone break, a cavity, a cold sore. She has nothing. And she should. She broke her wrist about five years ago, I set it myself, and not only has it completely healed, but there is no evidence it was ever broken. That shouldn't be possible. Other than being overly tired and a bit thin, she is physically perfect. So I looked at her genetically. Again, physically perfect. Not one coding sequence out of order. I've never seen that. I've never even heard of that. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have said it was statistically impossible."

The Doctor walked to the window and stared out at the stars shining over the bay. Not only was he troubled because he couldn't identify the source of the changes to Rose's physiology, he also didn't know what the end result might be, how it would affect her long term. And, most importantly, he was concerned that her ability to heal could lead her to be more reckless than she otherwise would be. The weevil could easily have killed her rather than just wounded her, and her ability to heal wouldn't have brought her back from that.

In his focus on the move to Cardiff, he realized he had neglected researching Rose's condition. And that was going to change.

~oOo~

The next morning, the Doctor awoke and blindly reached for Rose. To his surprise, he found that her side of the bed was empty. He had expected her to wake in the middle of the night needing a pain reliever, but she had slept through the night and had evidently gotten up before he had.

After pulling on his dressing gown, he walked into the other room to find Rose sitting at the kitchen island drinking tea. Her long blonde hair hung about her shoulders and she was only wearing the oversized button down nightshirt and knickers she had worn to bed.

Blimey, she's gorgeous, he thought. He crossed the room and sat on a bar stool next to her.

She grinned at him. "Hey, you're up. You want a cuppa? It's still hot. I thought we could grab some coffee at the Hub later."

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were supposed to stay home today," he said pointedly. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine."

"No pain in your shoulder?"

She shook her head. "Nope."

His brow furrowed. "I need to check your wound," he told her. She unbuttoned her shirt and he carefully removed the tape and gauze covering her injury.

It wasn't there. The only evidence that it had even been there were several thin white scars where her wound had been, and he suspected she wouldn't even have those in a few days. Troubled, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"It's all better," he said quietly.

"And it shouldn't be," she said, continuing his thought. "And that worries you."

The Doctor was silent for a moment. He thought about lying. He thought about telling her she was fine, that there was no problem, that there was nothing to be concerned about. She might even believe it. After all, he was good at lying. Very, very good.

"Yes," he admitted finally. "It worries me."