Chapter Sixteen

He was sitting at his desk when he felt his mobile vibrate, signaling a call. He reached into his pocket to pull it out and realized in shock that he wasn't receiving the call on his everyday phone. Instead, it was that mobile.

Lips pursed, he stared at it for a moment while it quietly buzzed in his hand. Although he always carried it with him, he only rarely received calls on that phone, and he had never received one during the day, let alone at work.

He stood up, walked to the door of the office and looked up and down the corridor to see if there was anyone within earshot. He heard voices and laughter coming from an office at the end of the hall, but he saw no one. He closed the door and answered the phone cautiously.

"Can you talk?" said the voice in his ear.

"Yes, but I might not have been able to," he said pointedly. "What if I had been in a meeting? You're taking a big risk by calling at this time of day."

"Where are they?"

His brow furrowed in confusion, and he asked the obvious question.

"Where are who?"

"John Smith and Rose Tyler! Where are they?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"They are gone! They are not here!"

His heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean they aren't here?"

"As in, not here! Not in London! And none of my sources know where they went! You were supposed to be watching them and you lost them!" There was silence for a moment, and then the other's voice grew low and dangerous. "You were supposed to be watching them and not only did you lose them, but you didn't even know, did you?"

He swallowed nervously and didn't answer.

"How could you not know? Haven't you been monitoring the surveillance we put in Tyler's mansion?"

"I've tried," he said, unable to prevent a whiny tone from creeping into his voice. "But I haven't been able to get anything off of it. I don't think it's working."

The silence coming from the other end of the line was deafening, and the longer it lasted, the more anxious he became. He had screwed up. Not once, not twice, but three times. And things did not go well for those who screwed up.

"Find them," the other growled finally. "Look for them as if your life depended on it. Because it very well may."

~oOo~

The next day, the Doctor began to work on analyzing Rose's physiology again. He had all the data from the first battery of tests that Owen had performed several weeks earlier, and now he and Owen ran all of the tests again, along with as many other tests they could think of: x-rays, C-T scans, MRIs, DNA analysis… Throughout the course of the day, they would periodically call Rose down from her office to run another test. They used human medical equipment and alien technology from Torchwood; the Doctor even scanned her multiple times with his sonic screwdriver to get more data. They did so many blood tests Rose began to complain of feeling like a pin cushion.

But no matter what they tried, they got the same results. According to every test they performed, including some that the Doctor invented, she was physically and genetically perfect. Her DNA tests stated that she was completely and utterly human. And what's more, she was completely free of any alien influences or parasites. There was nothing wrong with her. Absolutely nothing.

By the end of the day, he and Owen had exhausted all of Torchwood's medical resources and had no more insight into her condition than they had begun with. The most discouraging part of it all was the fact that even the sonic screwdriver hadn't found anything. He had been sure that at the very least the sonic would have been able find the answer. He reminded himself that it was possible his new screwdriver just wasn't sensitive enough to pick up minute readings from her. If that were the case, it would actually be good news because that could be fixed with a little programming and calibration. But what really worried him was that if fine tuning his sonic didn't work, he might have hit a dead end.

~oOo~

Over the next several weeks, Rose tried to get used to the day to day grind of working for Torchwood Three again. Her shoulder had completely healed within two days; even all of the scarring had disappeared. Yet despite letting him perform every medical test known to mankind on her, and many that weren't, she could tell the Doctor was still concerned about her. He'd frequently get a worried look on his face that would instantly turn into a manic grin as soon as he realized she was looking at him. But whenever she tried to question him about it, he wouldn't discuss it, only saying he needed to do more research.

So she put the questions about her health in the back of her mind and concentrated on her job. Even though they were part of the same organization, working for Torchwood in Cardiff was completely different than working in London. For one thing, with a smaller facility and a smaller staff, Torchwood Three was a lot less formal than Torchwood Four. Work hours were more flexible, dress was more casual, they had a pteranodon for a pet… And for another, the cases that they had to handle were completely different than what London usually dealt with. Although dealing with aliens was always a strange business on the best of days, the cases in Cardiff were much more… bizarre. There were the ghosts at Cardiff Castle, the fish-head people, the fairies in the woods, the leprechauns in Splott….

One day, there were reports of enormous black dogs the size of elephants roaming the area. It turned out to be a group hallucination brought on by the exhaust of an alien spacecraft. It was evidently overdue for a tune up and was releasing a hallucinogen into the air along with the typical exhaust fumes. Then there was the case of an alien family who had come as tourists and had missed their transport back off-planet. Their shimmers had stopped working and they had run out of money and couldn't book passage home. They also had the misfortune of looking like 6 ft tall mauve rabbits with bright green polka dots, so they were having an understandably tough time earning the money for tickets on the next ship out. They had only managed to avoid causing a panic because people just thought they were in fancy dress. In the end, Ianto found them a place to stay and got them bookings to appear at children's birthday parties.

Not to say there weren't dangerous cases in Cardiff. There were. And quite frequently in fact. But they always seemed to be a bit more odd than the ones in London, almost as if the Rift had made everything a quarter turn off. And of course there were more of the endless weevil incidents, but fortunately there were no more injuries.

And to Rose's relief, there were no more Owen incidents. At least for the time being.

While Rose was settling into her new job, the Doctor worked on shatterfrying the plasma shell of the baby TARDIS coral using setting 457-A on his new sonic screwdriver and finished examining all the alien tech that had either come from Torchwood London or up through the Rift. He also upgraded Torchwood's alien language translator with hundreds of new languages from the galaxy as well as corrected the vocabulary and grammar of the ones that the translator already had.

At the same time, Toshiko helped him get set up with an advanced computer system. They had initially looked at a variety of computers available in stores, and while they managed to buy Rose a new EPad, they couldn't find anything that even approached his requirements. Finally, they decided on making him one with the best components available from computer supply companies as well as a few items from the Hub. Once it was built, he immediately upgraded it with the help of his sonic screwdriver.

In between projects, he took tours of various properties with an estate agent that Ianto had recommended. He had received an extensive map of the Rift and all its branches from Toshiko and used it to plot out the most likely places for growing a baby TARDIS. To his disappointment, the TARDIS was not growing as he had hoped it would. Shatterfrying the plasma shell didn't seem to be working, and he wasn't sensing the coral telepathically yet. He had hoped that moving it to Cardiff would help it grow, but up to this point having the coral near the Rift didn't seem to be working. He tried to reassure himself that it was only a matter of time before it would respond, and that made him all the more determined that when they found a place it be close to a branch of the Rift.

Not knowing about the TARDIS, or even about the Rift, the estate agent couldn't understand his decisions, rejecting some properties out of hand, sight unseen, while deciding to look at other properties of dubious value. Finally, at her wit's end, she told him about a property that was farther out of town than they had originally discussed but seemed on the surface to meet his requirements. The Doctor took one look at it and purchased it immediately, not even quibbling about the price.

"And it's empty right now so we can move in right away," he said on the phone to Rose later.

"You already bought it?" she asked, shocked, and then wondered why she should be shocked. Of course he'd buy it without talking to her. "And you didn't think I might want to see it first?"

"But Rose, it's perfect, absolutely perfect. And I tried ringing you, but you weren't in the Hub and you weren't picking up your mobile."

She sighed and hoped that what he had found wasn't a complete disaster.

Following the instructions he had given her over the phone, she made her way out to the property. It was a centuries-old stone farmhouse on ten mostly wooded acres at the end of an unpaved road. A long, low outbuilding that had once served as a barn sat next to it. Entirely surrounded by forest and farmland, it was at least a half a mile from its nearest neighbor and fifteen minutes out of town.

She pulled her car up to the front of the house. The door stood open, so she approached it cautiously, her Torchwood training, history with the Doctor and television watching all coming into play.

However her concerns were unfounded. The entrance opened into a moderately sized sitting room containing oak floors finished to a glossy shine, white plaster walls that had been freshly painted and exposed beams on the ceiling that spanned the width of the room. Wide windows stretched across the front of the house, filling the room with natural light, and a large, river rock fireplace took up most of the side wall. It was beautiful, far nicer than she had expected. The Doctor was a brilliant man, but his taste was often questionable, or at least unconventional, and she had been afraid he'd chosen something… well, she wasn't sure exactly, but bizarre at any rate.

"So, what do you think?" he said, entering from the far side of the room.

"No carpets, huh?"

He grinned. "Not a one in the entire place. C'mon, let me show you."

Grabbing her hand, he dragged her from room to room, telling her the history of the house and pointing out what he considered were all the important features. Rose barely paid attention to him, instead focusing on the rooms around her. Besides the living room, there was also a large kitchen on the ground floor at the back of the house and a small loo off the kitchen. Above, there were three bedrooms and two bathrooms. While they toured the place, he told her that the house had been completely gutted and remodeled recently, complete with new wiring and plumbing, and that the barn had both electricity and running water.

Rose noticed in relief that there were all new appliances in the kitchen and a luxuriously remodeled en suite off the master bedroom, complete with a separate, tiled shower, a double sink vanity, and a bathtub that was large enough for two.

"Now this is unusual for a farmhouse," she said. She grinned as she thought of all the ways that tub could be put to good use.

"Primary selling feature. Well, that and the location. The Rift runs right along the far side of the property. Oh, and the barn, of course."

"Yeah, I saw that outside," she said. "What d'ya need a barn for? Are you planning on raising livestock? I understand organic farming is quite trendy nowadays." Her mouth twitched in amusement.

He shot her a look. "Of course not," he said. "That's for my lab and my workshop. And the TARDIS nursery of course, and, well, other stuff. Unless you would prefer me to do my research in our bedroom."

She raised an eyebrow. She was sure he had missed the double entendre. Until he leered at her. Evidently he intended it.

"You know, we could christen our new room." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"Might I remind you that there is no furniture in this house? And there is a beautiful bedroom, with a beautiful bed, just 15 minutes away in our flat?"

He tutted and shook his head. "If I hadn't seen it for myself, I'd have never believed it. You, Rose Tyler, are getting stodgy. Stodgy! I blame it on the fact that you are now the boss at Torchwood Three."

She gaped at him, eyebrows raised. Now there was a challenge if she had ever heard one. And Rose Marion Tyler never backed down from a challenge.

"Stodgy, am I? I'll show you stodgy," she said. She grabbed his jacket and pulled him into the bedroom. "Allons-y, Doctor."

He grinned widely at her. "Allons-y, Rose Tyler."