Chapter Twenty-Nine
After he finished making the perception filters, the Doctor wandered back into the house. As he walked through the front door, he sniffed and then wrinkled his nose. There was an odd odor pervading the house. He grimaced as he wondered who was cooking. Even Jackie's cooking didn't smell that bad.
He looked around the room. Gwen was sitting on the sofa watching telly with Tony, but no one else appeared to be about.
"Where is everyone?" he asked her.
"Owen and Ianto are in the kitchen, setting the table for our tea, and Jackie and Rose are off somewhere, not exactly sure where. I think they went upstairs. Before they left, Jackie said to tell you they'd be done in about…" she glanced at her watch. "A half an hour or so."
"Half an hour!" the Doctor protested. "We need to get going!"
"Well, you're not ready yet, either. You need to change," Gwen told him firmly.
"But I've got…" he said, holding out his hand. The perception filters he had made hung from thin cords looped around his hand.
"I don't care what you've got; you should change just in case. Now go," she said. He raised one eyebrow.
"Yes, ma'am," he said with a mock salute. "But I should tell you; almost everything I own basically looks like this. Unless you think I should go in my pyjamas and dressing gown."
She looked at him evenly. "If necessary," she said, trying to hide a smirk.
His mouth quirked in amusement. "Already saved one world in jimjams and a dressing gown; I suppose I could save another."
There was definitely a story there, Gwen thought, and one she'd love to hear, but they didn't have time for that at the moment. Instead of asking about it, she looked at him pointedly and jerked her head at the stairwell. He stood and stared at her for a moment before bowing to the inevitable.
As the Doctor walked up the stairs, he noticed that the bathroom door at the top of the stairs was closed. That was odd. They didn't normally use that bathroom; it was designed to be used by the occupants of the other bedrooms. He and Rose usually either used their en suite or the loo off the kitchen. As he neared the room, the strange odor grew stronger, and it seemed to be emanating from there. Well, at least it's not the food, he thought in relief. The smell was vaguely familiar; it was a combination of chemicals he felt he should have recognized but he couldn't immediately identify them. And mixed in with the rest was definitely a blend of artificial floral scents and shampoo. His sense of smell was still keener than a human's, but he couldn't always distinguish individual chemicals in a mixture by scent alone anymore. Now if he could taste them, however….
"Rose?" he called.
"Be out in a bit," she called back.
"Go away." The sound of Jackie's voice coming from the bathroom was enough to make him immediately retreat to his bedroom. Whatever Rose was doing in there, if Jackie was involved he was certain he didn't want to know about it.
Once in his room, the Doctor opened up the walk-in wardrobe he shared with Rose and looked through his clothes. Pinstriped suits, primarily in blue but one in brown. A couple of pairs of dark trousers. Button down shirts and ties, rarely worn because he usually preferred tees in this body. Oh, and in the way back, a pair of jeans and a black leather jacket. He had forgotten about those.
To his surprise, he felt oddly drawn to the jacket. Oddly, because he rarely favored more than one style of clothing during any particular incarnation. Instead, he almost always wore variations on a theme: velvet smoking jackets in a variety of colors; a long, multicolored scarf to an even longer one in shades of burgundy; a leather jacket and jumpers; brown pinstripes and blue ones.
He pursed his lips thoughtfully and frowned. Was it the human in him that drew him to the jacket? For a moment he wondered if Donna through the metacrisis was somehow influencing him in this as she still did his speech patterns sometimes. That was a frightening thought. As brilliant as Donna was, and as much as he had come to love her as a sister in their time together, he was more than a bit uncomfortable with the idea she might have affected this version of him to that extent.
Then the Doctor suddenly remembered Rose's comment a few weeks earlier; she had mentioned that he sometimes reminded her of his ninth self. And on the beach in Norway, his other self had accused him of being like that version of him. Perhaps there was more to it than just an occasional accent shift.
Slowly he drew his fingertip along the shoulder of the jacket. Rose had given it to him, along with a pair of blue jeans, when they had first arrived in Cardiff. At the time she had said she just wanted to see him in them, so he had obligingly put them on… and they had stayed on for about the five seconds it took for Rose to pull them off again. He smiled briefly at his memory of what had happened after that.
But looking sexy wasn't why he had worn a leather jacket back in his ninth incarnation. He had actually begun wearing one towards the end of his eighth incarnation. It had given him a feeling of power, of strength, and of control of himself during the events of the Time War, and later it had been his suit of armor, his protection from the universe. And the universe's protection from him.
For a moment he thought about what they faced in London and for a moment he allowed the anger that he had been burying to rise to the surface. They had arrested Pete and had threatened Jackie and Tony. They had attacked his family, and in his mind that made things oh, so very simple.
He blinked. He thought of Jackie as family. When he had begun thinking of her as more than just Rose's mum? He knew that he had thought of Rose that way for a very long time, had felt a connection to her and felt protective of her long before he had admitted it to himself, but when had he begun thinking of Jackie that way?
After a moment's thought, he realized it had been before the battle of Canary Wharf, when he knew that Jackie was in danger because of her connection to him. Or maybe it was even before that, when they had been dealing with Elton Pope. She hadn't truly been in danger with Elton, but they hadn't known it at the time.
But now she really was in danger. As were Pete and Tony.
That would not stand. No one could threaten his family and get away with it.
With a jerk, he pulled the jacket out of the wardrobe and quickly dressed.
~oOo~
Tea had ended up being a simple affair, just sandwiches and crisps eaten around the table in the kitchen. As there weren't quite enough chairs to go around, the Doctor stood to one side, leaning against the counter as he ate.
When he had come down from upstairs, wearing a snug black t-shirt along with the jeans and leather jacket Rose had given him, Gwen and Tosh had gaped at him.
"What?" he had asked, quickly glancing down at himself. Then he had looked up at Gwen. "You told me to try and look different. Isn't this different enough?"
"Yeah," she had said after a moment, her eyes wide. "You look different enough."
"Oh, yes. You look very different," Toshiko had added, nodding repeatedly, and Ianto and Owen had snickered at the women's reactions.
They were just finishing their tea when Rose and Jackie entered the room. When the Doctor saw them enter, his jaw dropped. Rose was also wearing jeans and a tee, with her ginger hair loose about her shoulders. Her ginger hair.
Now everyone stared at her for a moment, stunned into silence.
Tony chimed in first. "Rose, you look different."
"Ooo, that looks good," Toshiko said next.
"You look fantastic," Gwen said at the same time. "And really different. If I didn't know you so well, I might not have recognized you."
The Doctor, on the other hand, was completely unable to form a coherent response.
Rose for her part was surprised at how different the Doctor looked as well. He had restyled his hair to be a bit more flat, and if he had been clean shaven, he'd have looked exactly as he had when he regenerated from his ninth incarnation to his tenth. As it was, between his clothes, his hair, and his scruffy, unshaven face, he almost looked like a different person. Which was the point, she reminded herself.
Rose noticed he was still staring at her, jaw slack, eyes a tiny bit glazed. Biting her lip to hide a grin, she crossed the room to stand next to him. She pushed a chunk of her newly dyed hair behind one ear. "Jealous much?" she said in a low voice.
The Doctor swallowed and blinked and then reached up and tentatively touched her hair. "Oh, Rose Tyler, jealousy is not what I'm feeling right now." He cleared his throat. "But we don't have time for that. Jackie," he said, turning to her, "maybe you could take Tony back to the living room and put the television on for him again."
"But I want to stay here," Tony whinged.
"We have to talk about some grown up stuff and you'd be very bored," Rose told him. "But if you're very good, you can have some of the Doctor's biscuits in a little bit."
"Alright," the little boy said grudgingly and allowed himself to be led out by his mother.
"Okay, we need a plan," Rose said as soon as they had left the room.
"First, let me catch you up on what we were talking about before you got back," said the Doctor. He quickly summarized the fact that Harrison Keeling, head of the GBF, had been made the head of UNIT, and that Lisa Hallett had been a member of the GBF at one time. He also told her of their suspicions that whoever was the traitor at Torchwood was probably connected to the GBF as well.
"And while I was on the computer," Toshiko interjected, "I pulled up a list of all the members of the GBF going back to the group's beginnings and correlated it to past and present members of Torchwood. Other than Lisa, I couldn't find anyone. Now that could be because they are hiding their memberships, or because they were part of the group but not actual members."
"And we can't question Lisa because she doesn't remember anything," Rose said thoughtfully. "And we don't even know for certain if she was Ret-conned or not."
"Let's assume for the sake of argument that she was," the Doctor said. "Would that mean that whoever gave it to her was part of the medical staff?"
Rose shook her head. "No, not necessarily. The medical staff has it, of course, but field agents and containment teams carry it as well. Plus anyone who works in supplies could get their hands on it, too."
"How much memory did she lose again?" Owen asked.
"Over five years," she answered, and Owen grimaced.
"That would take a huge dose. If she were Ret-conned, they either wanted to make sure she forgot everything, or they didn't know what they were doing. With that much, she's lucky it didn't kill her."
"We still aren't sure that it was Ret-con," Rose told him. "It might not have been. Frank Collins said she tested negative for it."
"Ret-con is notoriously hard to test for," Owen said. "Depending on when she was tested, her body may have metabolized it all."
"Owen," Rose said thoughtfully, "if someone is Ret-conned, how does that work? Are the memories completely gone, or can they be retrieved?"
"From the brain scans we've done on people who have been Ret-conned," he answered, "it appears that recent memories are completely gone. Memories from longer ago than about a week, give or take a couple of days, may or may not be gone. In some people, the brain scans seem to indicate that the memories have been completely wiped, in others it looks like the memories are still there but can't be retrieved for some reason."
"Torchwood has been giving Ret-con to people and experimenting on them?" The Doctor was outraged.
"In my defense, this was all before my time," Harper replied, throwing his hands up. "I've only seen the reports. Required reading for anyone who has held a medical position at Torchwood. And before you get your knickers in a twist, it was before Director Tyler's time as well. The experiments and testing ended more than a decade ago. Since Tyler's father took over, all human experiments have stopped."
Rose glanced at the Doctor. He still looked furious, despite the other man's assurances. She laid a hand on his arm, and he calmed down outwardly, but in his eyes Rose could still see him seething beneath the surface. She turned back to Owen.
"So if they are still there, is there any way someone else can get at them? Like with telepathy or something?"
"I don't know," Owen replied. "Don't know if it's ever been attempted, in fact. The best I can give you is a firm maybe."
Rose raised her eyebrows at the Doctor, who looked unhappy.
"You could try," she said.
"I'd need her consent," he told her. "I won't do it without her consent. You know that. And there's very little chance she'd give her consent to have me enter her mind, because she would see me as a total stranger. Although it would probably be worse if she actually remembered me."
"I might be able to convince her."
The Doctor was startled. Ianto had been so quiet up until then that he had forgotten the younger man was in the room.
"We aren't together anymore, but she still trusts me," Ianto continued. "If it worked, would you just be able to see her memories, or would she be able to actually get her memory back?"
The Doctor took a deep breath. "If everything went well, she'd be able to get her memories back. Or at least some of them. But there are no guarantees."
"Is there any risk to her?" Ianto asked.
"No more so than any other time someone has telepathic contact with someone else," he answered.
"I think she'd do it. She wants to get her memories back. I think she'd do anything to have a chance at that."
A loud chime echoed through the room and automatically they all, except for the Doctor, reached for their mobiles.
"It's mine," Toshiko said, glancing at the text she had received. After she read it, she spoke. "Rose, I have a friend in IT at Torchwood Four. She said that all the department heads have been arrested for treason and there's a warrant out for Gwen's arrest."
Rose swore under her breath and she and the Doctor exchanged worried glances.
Gwen snorted. "Me? Why me?"
"I'm assuming that it's because you are still listed as the head of Torchwood Three," Tosh answered. Her mobile chimed again, and she quickly read the next message. "She also says the rest of us are listed as persons of interest and are wanted for questioning."
"Tosh, is there any way to see if there's a Martha Jones on the list of department heads who have been arrested?" the Doctor asked.
"Let me ask," she said, typing rapidly into her phone. After a moment her mobile chimed again. "Is Martha Jones a doctor? Because there's a Dr. M Jones on the list."
This time it was the Doctor who swore. "We should never have gotten her involved in this," he snapped.
"We'll sort this and get her out," Rose said, trying to reassure him. "She'll be alright."
He nodded, trying to convince himself that she was right. Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm himself. It was only partially successful.
"Tosh, does anyone know where my dad and the others are being held?" Rose asked.
"Not yet," she replied after another flurry of texts. "I've asked her to let me know if she finds out."
Another chime had them all reaching for their mobiles again. This time it was Ianto's.
"Rose," he said, "they've officially impounded the mansion. They are currently searching it for contraband items."
The Doctor shot a glance at Rose. "Pete was storing the battery that held the Kern in his safe at the mansion."
She shook her head. "I cleaned out the safe before I came. It's in my knapsack."
"We need to put it somewhere safe," he told her.
Rose retrieved her knapsack from the living room and placed it on the counter next to him. "I really need to put Dad's papers somewhere safe as well." She pulled everything out of the bag and laid it all on the counter. He picked up the battery out of the pile.
"Now I'll just have to find a place to store this safely," he said. He turned it over in his hands. "Hmmm," he said, frowning. He pulled out his glasses and peered at the bottom of the battery. "Where did you get this?" he asked.
"Dad's safe. Why?"
"Rose, this isn't the battery with the Kern in it."
"What? Are you sure?" she asked.
"This isn't the battery that I gave Pete," he said grimly. "It just looks like it. Do you see this code?" The Doctor pointed out the numbers imprinted along the bottom. "It says 3457986. The one I gave him said 3745982."
"How can you be so sure of the number?" Owen asked.
"Owen, I can speak five billion languages. I know the names of every planet orbiting around every star in a million separate galaxies. I can calculate in my head the time it takes for the energy of a supernova to travel from the far side of the Milky Way to the Earth down to the millisecond. I think I can remember a simple seven digit code off the bottom of a battery."
"But how could this not be the battery?" Rose asked. "Dad took it straight home and put it in the safe after you handed it to him. And then you saw it the night of the break-in."
He blinked and ran his free hand through his hair, causing it to stand on end. "I did see it. But I didn't take a good look at it. I must have seen this one. This must have been what the intruder was looking for. The battery that held the Kern. He planted the bugs and exchanged that battery for this one." He stared at her. "This has all suddenly become a lot more complicated."
~oOo~
Harrison Keeling sat at his desk at Torchwood Four, trying to make sense of the paperwork in front of him. By firing all the key staff members, and having all the department heads arrested, he had left himself no one experienced enough to run the day to day operations at Torchwood. Even if he didn't replace Pete Tyler, he needed to hire some people for the other positions. Or transfer them from other branches of UNIT. Perhaps some people from the NSA or the ISS. He needed to check to see who in those organizations was also a member of the GBF and thus loyal to him.
Well, he didn't have time to make heads nor tails of the mess on his desk. He needed to get ready for the meeting. He reached over to call for his assistant and then remembered he didn't have one here. His personal assistant was still supervising the completion of several projects at the GBF headquarters and hadn't begun working in this office. He called down to security to let them know he was leaving and to ring his partner if there were any emergencies that evening.
As he was walking out the door to his office, the telephone on his desk rang. He glanced at his watch and then at the phone; he really needed to leave. But it could be important, he told himself. Again cursing his lack of an assistant, he turned back.
"Keeling," he answered.
"Director, this is General Bambera. My men have thoroughly searched the flat in Cardiff as well as Torchwood Three as you requested. They were both empty, and the flat appeared to have been vacant for some time."
Keeling swore under his breath.
"Sir?"
"Nothing," he replied. "Continue to search the area and keep me informed as to what you find."
Almost as he replaced the receiver in the cradle, the phone rang again. He'd never get out of here, he thought, as he answered the telephone once again.
"Director, this is Darla Henning. We finished our examination of Pete Tyler's holdings and we only found one more item of interest. Evidently a few weeks ago he had his personal lawyers set up a complicated trust designed to hide the purchase of a piece of property outside of Cardiff. It appears to be an old farmhouse that sits on about ten acres of property."
His heart began to pound with excitement.
"Thank you, Ms. Henning," he said. "Excellent work."
After he rang off, he said one word before ringing General Bambera back.
"Gotcha."