a/n: For those keeping score, with this chapter I believe we are approximately at the halfway point. It moves a little more quickly from here on out. Thanks as always to my lovely beta, bittie752.
Chapter Seventeen
The evening that the Doctor had purchased a house, Rose phoned her parents to let them know about it.
"Now don't forget," Pete said over the phone, "let me handle the paperwork. You'll own it, but I don't want anyone to be able to trace you through it."
"Alright, Dad," Rose agreed. "'S fine with me, and the Doctor doesn't care what the title says. He doesn't believe in 'em anyway."
Pete laughed. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"
While Pete Tyler was pleased that they had found a house, Jackie Tyler, having known the Doctor for years, was shocked.
"A house," Jackie said in disbelief. "The Doctor bought a house?"
"Yes, Mum," Rose said. "He… we… bought a house. I told you we were thinking about it."
"Yeah, but I didn't think you were gonna really do it."
"Why not?" Rose asked.
"Cos it's the Doctor," her mother replied. "Never could picture him with a house. Never could picture him with a flat. Actually, I never could even picture him…." Her voice trailed off.
"What?"
"Well, I never could picture him… stuck in one place like this."
Rose sighed. She had had the same thoughts. Somehow, the Doctor living in a house and being tied to one place and time still seemed… wrong. "Yeah, I know."
"How's he doin' with all this?" Jackie asked.
Rose was silent for a moment. He seemed happy most of the time, but every once in a while she'd catch a glimpse of something in his face and she'd know he was worried about something, and she suspected it wasn't just about her. And she knew that most nights, after he thought she was asleep, he'd get up and stand at the windows of the flat and stare out, and not at the bay or the city, but at the stars.
"Fine," she answered, suspecting it was a lie. "He's doing fine."
~oOo~
"Have you found them yet?" said the voice on the other end of the phone.
"No," he admitted. "None of my sources have any idea where they went, and many didn't even know that Rose Tyler and John Smith had left London."
"We need to find them. Our brothers have confirmed the details of Harper's medical report. This John Smith is not fully human. He is actually a dangerous alien known as the Doctor, and his enemies have called him The Oncoming Storm and The Killer of His Own Kind. He is utterly ruthless, and he is all the more dangerous and unstable because of a quirk of his creation."
Although he knew John Smith – no, the Doctor, he told himself – was a risk to their operation, initially he truly hadn't believed that the man was even part alien, and certainly not as the other had just described. It didn't fit what he knew of him. For a moment, an image of the man in question flashed through his mind. Tall, thin, and young looking with a manic personality and decidedly questionable tastes in hairstyle and clothing, he didn't appear to be a threat to anyone. "Are you certain? I have met him and he seems so… ordinary."
"Do not let outward appearances fool you. Our brothers have seen into his soul. We must find and destroy him before he destroys us."
"There may be a way," he said thoughtfully. "Phase two is set to begin."
"Oh, you can't possibly imagine he is just going to turn himself in."
"Stranger things have happened," he said. "Meanwhile, I'll arrange to step up the surveillance of Pete Tyler. And Jake Simmonds. He's been put in charge of the investigation of the Tyler break-in."
"Watch Jackie Tyler as well. Rose Tyler is particularly close to her mother. She'll eventually contact her, and when she does, we'll find her. And when we find her, we'll find him as well."
~oOo~
Pete Tyler was stuck in traffic. Deciding to take the motorway home rather than the side streets was proving to be a mistake. A lorry had taken a turn too sharp and now there were approximately five thousand watermelons covering the road ahead. The big, black SUV he was driving probably would have been able to drive straight through them, but that wasn't an option considering there were at least ten cars in front of him.
Plus with his luck, he'd probably end up getting watermelon seeds in his transmission or something. And his Aston Martin was still in the shop.
He groaned. It looked like he was going to miss tea again. He had promised Jackie he'd be home in time to have his tea with her and Tony at least four times this week, but he had already missed three times and it was only Thursday. He was not looking forward to calling home to tell her he was going to be late.
Finally, one of the lanes had been cleared and traffic started moving. Slowly. Very, very slowly. Glancing at his watch, Pete realized that if he took the next exit and somehow managed to avoid stopping at any traffic lights, he might make it home in time.
Cutting through traffic as best he could, he finally made it to the far left lane. He pulled onto the shoulder, bypassed a number of cars, and made it to the exit.
Evidently he wasn't the only one to have that idea as at least a half dozen other cars followed him off the motorway and onto the side streets. He wasn't certain he was actually going to make it home any more quickly, but it did feel like progress to have the car moving rather than stopped in traffic or crawling at 5 mph.
Traffic seemed to be slowing up ahead so he took a quick left, heading into a shopping district. A glance in his rearview mirror made him chuckle. Several cars had followed him, evidently having the same idea.
"Well, great minds think alike," he said to himself.
As he drove, he congratulated himself for having managed to avoid a lecture from Jackie. He loved that woman but blimey, she had a mouth on her sometimes.
He turned again, heading generally south, and a couple of cars followed him, obviously not just avoiding traffic but headed the same direction as he was. He recognized one of them as having been several cars behind him while on the motorway.
The traffic light ahead was red. Pete glanced at his watch and winced. He had five more miles to go and Jackie would consider him officially 'late' in ten minutes. He took the first left before the light, headed down three blocks and then took a right, now driving on a road parallel to the one he had been on before. And then groaned in frustration when the light changed right before he got to the intersection.
Stopped yet again, he idly looked around. He hadn't been to this section of town before. A department store, a few restaurants, a couple of pubs…. And then something in the rearview mirror caught his eye. A blue sedan, three car lengths back. He recognized that car. That was the same car that had been behind him on the motorway. And it had been three cars back then, too.
The coincidence was too great. He had driven randomly in an attempt to get through the city more quickly. There was no way that that car should be going in the same direction. No, the car had to be following him.
The light changed as he was pulling out his mobile, but instead of moving forward he stayed put, one foot on the accelerator, the other on the brake. He ignored the sounds of car horns behind him. Just as the light was about to change again, he slipped his foot off the brake and sped through the intersection. The sedan remained where it was, stuck behind a careful driver who had decided not to try and beat the light.
Pete made several more turns at random, heading in the opposite direction of the mansion. It probably was pointless; undoubtedly they knew where he lived, but better safe than sorry. Once he was fairly certain the car was no longer following him, he pressed the speed dial on his mobile.
"Yeah, Boss?"
"Jake, I've got a problem," Pete said. "I picked up a tail driving home tonight. Luckily whoever it was wasn't particularly experienced, and I lost him pretty quickly."
"You're not the only one who picked up a tail," he replied. "I just shook one off a few minutes ago."
Pete swore, using a long combination of words in both human and alien languages.
"Did you see the car that was following you?" Jake asked.
"I didn't get a good look at it. Could have been a late model Cavalier, dark blue, but I'm not sure and I didn't see the number plates."
"Not really worth checking with that little information."
"Nope." Pete sighed exasperatedly. "Listen, you be careful. I think it's time for you to head up to Glasgow."
"Boss, Mickey and me, we faced a lot tougher things than this. I'm not afraid of these arseholes."
"I know you're not, but I need you up there anyway and now's as good a time as any," he said as he pulled back onto the motorway and headed out of town. "I'm gonna drive around a bit before going home, just to make sure I'm not being followed anymore. Maybe you should do the same thing."
"Not a bad idea," Jake said. "Good luck."
"Thanks. You, too," Pete answered and rang off. "And I'm gonna need it cos now comes the dangerous bit," he muttered under his breath. "I've got to call Jackie and tell her I'm not gonna be home in time for tea."
~oOo~
Rose spent the next week getting their new house outfitted with furniture and the other necessities of owning a home. The Doctor decided to go with her on the first of her shopping trips, but she strongly suspected before they had even left that that would be a mistake. She got the confirmation, though, when his eyes began to glaze over at the first store before they had made a single purchase.
"You seriously want me to discuss whether we should purchase Danish Modern or Mission Style furniture?" he asked, a pained expression on his face.
"Well, yeah, unless you want to sleep on the floor." She tried to say it seriously, but she had to bite her lip to try and prevent herself from laughing at his expression.
"And then you want us to pick out… curtains? And… and… and throw rugs?" He looked like he had bit into a lemon. Or maybe a pear. "What is a throw rug anyway? It sounds like a bizarre sporting event. You've got the javelin toss, the shot put and the throw rug." He shook his head in disbelief. "This is going to kill me. Literally kill me, and may I remind you I can't regenerate anymore? And do you really want my death on your conscience?"
"And may I remind you that it was your idea that you come with in the first place? Why'd you want to come along anyway?" To her surprise he gave her a look that reminded her a bit of a lovesick puppy. She laughed, and he grinned at her.
"C'mon," she said, looping her arm through his. "If you're a very good boy, I'll take you out for a banana split later."
~oOo~
The rest of the week, while Rose finished with the shopping for the house, the Doctor concentrated on converting the old barn into a high tech research laboratory. On the day they were to actually move in, he enlisted the help of the entire staff of Torchwood Three, as well as Gwen's husband Rhys, to get it set up. Rose had been able to get delivery people and movers to set up the house, but the things necessary to outfit the lab largely came from Torchwood and were classified. Hence using the staff as movers. Everyone was happy to help, even Owen, who was still trying to get in Rose's good graces.
Bored out of her mind due to inactivity brought on by her pregnancy, Gwen would have been delighted to help as well. Unfortunately she wasn't up to much more than sitting back with her feet up and barking out the occasional order at the last of the movers delivering the furniture for the house. Rhys was thrilled at that; it meant she wasn't barking orders at him.
After the lab was finished, computer installed, future TARDIS materials delivered and stored, and the TARDIS coral set up in a nutrient filled growing tank, everyone gathered in the large kitchen of the farmhouse eating the pizzas Rose had ordered. A box containing a chocolate cake that Gwen had brought sat on the counter nearby.
"By the way," Gwen said between bites of cheese and pepperoni. "Did you two know that you are currently in Asia?"
The Doctor and Rose exchanged puzzled glances.
"What are you talking about?" Rose asked.
"While all of you were moving things around, I was watching How the Other Half Lives on telly. You know how at the end they update what's going on with famous people? They announced the two of you were traveling, were currently in Tokyo, and were headed to Hong Kong next."
"I heard that, too," Ianto interjected. "It was in the human interest section on the news last night. It was part of a press release from Vitex. According to them, the two of you are visiting Asia to determine the most likely sites to build a new Vitex plant. I assumed you knew."
"Pete is trying to mislead people about where we are," the Doctor said thoughtfully. "But why?"
"And they said Hong Kong?" Rose asked Ianto. "You sure it was Hong Kong?"
"Yes," he answered.
"Why? What's so special about Hong Kong?" the Doctor asked.
Rose shook her head. "Nothing. 'S nothing." Probably, she added silently. Hopefully.