The Cyber Rebellion

Rose ran over the reports sitting on her desk again. They all were missing persons reports and didn't seem to really have anything in common. It was busy work, honestly. Torchwood had been quiet lately. There had been no invasions and no need for her skills as an Ambassador. Because of this, she was stuck catching up on some of their more routine cases.

At least, they were handed to her as routine cases. As she stared at the text, patterns began to emerge. Each and every one of the cases was a human, which was unheard of. Since the Cyber Invasion, this Earth had accepted aliens in their many forms to live among them. Something was out there, purposefully picking off humans. Folders in hand, she rushed towards Pete's office.

~DW~~DW~~DW~

Rose burst into Pete's office, interrupting his teleconference. She'd be embarrassed except the news she had for him was important.

"They are all human," she panted. She raised an eyebrow before apologizing and ending the meeting. Pete knew that Rose wouldn't have interrupted him if it were important.

"Who are all humans?"

"The reports that you put on my desk. Random places. Random times. Nothing to really tie them together. The only thing they had in common was the fact that every single victim was human. No traces are being left by whatever is taking them, either. These people just vanish into thin air."

"Well done. You've discovered more about those files than anyone in a couple of weeks. And that narrows down the culprits a bit. Grab Joshua and Jake. Pour over the reports and see if, between the three of you, you can come up with something we can work with." Rose nodded at her not-father before marching out of the room, determined.

Joshua, Rose, and Jake spent the rest of the day, pouring over reports, hoping to find more clues. Unfortunately, there wasn't much else that could be found. They left Torchwood discouraged.

~DW~~DW~~DW~

They lay in bed together, both on their backs. They had their hands clasped and both were content to lay there, savoring the other's mental presence. It was intimate, but not sexual. Because of their telepathy, actual intercourse had been replaced with a more fulfilling act. They still had sex, of course, but it wasn't as urgent as when they first came together.

Joshua was thrilled by this, in many ways. Not that intercourse wasn't great, because it was. But Time Lords had drifted from the physical long before he was loomed. It was still ingrained into his psyche that sex was taboo. Sure, he was known to bend or outright ignore rules. Except that one. In his 900 or more years (he'd stopped counting during the War), he'd only broken that taboo a handful of times. Rose Marion Tyler would always be his exception. Even in his previous body, he had wanted her. He'd had to stop himself numerous times from initiating any telepathic touches and for the first time in a couple of centuries, he'd felt himself drawn to someone physically. It had unnerved him greatly at first. That's why he had tried to push her away when they had first met. But after Platform One, he'd realized that she accepted him. To have her companionship and her trust had lowered his defenses around her and before he knew it, he had fallen for her hard. He found himself doing things for her that he normally wouldn't do. And they had both learned lessons the hard way because of it.

But the woman laying beside him now, while the same, was also very different from the one he had fallen for. Different wasn't a bad thing. As a matter of fact, he enjoyed the fact that she was telepathic immensely. She'd grown up and matured along the way. She'd gotten her A-levels as well as several Degrees in Astrophysics and was an accomplished linguist. All without losing her compassion. There was a hardness to her that hadn't been there before, but she'd seen so much in her 24 years of life. Much more than most her age. She was more his equal now and he loved it. He loved her and it felt liberating to be able to show it now.

Her mind nudged against his, stirring him from his thoughts. They had been laying there, enjoying the buzz of one another's mind, not intruding. But he sensed a question directed to him so he opened himself to let her in.

'I want to grab some of the other light case files tomorrow, to see if there are more connections we may be missing. I want to focus on the "unusual sightings" cases and see if we can't find links between the two.'

'I hadn't thought of that. That's brilliant. I say we focus mostly on the reports from the varying aliens in the area. They obviously aren't the targets.'

'Hmm...I love it when we think alike.'

Joshua turned onto his side and wrapped Rose tightly in his arms.

'I love you.' He kissed her passionately, letting all his love for her flow through their bond. She responded immediately. Soon, all that could be heard were the breathless moans and whimpers as they strove for completion, both physically and mentally.

~DW~~DW~~DW~

Rose, Joshua and Jake sat huddled closely in Rose's office. It had become their ritual to gather here, pouring over files. Nothing had happened all week and they seemed to be no closer than when the files were piled onto her desk on Monday. The answer, though, came to Joshua like a slap in the face.

"Oh! I'm thick!" Rose blinked her eyes rapidly at him. She was close to dosing before his exclamation.

"What?"

"It's been staring us in the face this entire time. How could I have missed it?" Rose placed her hand in Joshua's.

"What did we miss?"

"The sightings. Several of the non-humans had heard rhythmic stomping but could never place a source. Were it a human stating this, it could be passed off as flashbacks. But the fact that the aliens who reside here now, well after the Invasion, are hearing them. Rose...this could be very, very big."

"What...what are you saying?"

"We need to go talk to Pete."

~DW~~DW~~DW~

Pete's eyes were wide as they told him their theory. Cybermen, loose again. It was his worst nightmare. He immediately called Jackie and made sure she and Tony were safe. Before she hung up, she promised she would pack a few things and head towards Torchwood. It was the safest place in London.

Torchwood prepared itself. Once again, in the span of a couple of weeks, they would be sending teams out to scour London for an alien threat. This one was much more dangerous than Gloa had ever been. His focus was on Torchwood. But if Joshua was correct and there were Cybermen loose, they would not discriminate as to whom they upgraded.

Calvin, Joshua, and the rest of R&D busied themselves in creating specialized weapons for the Cybermen. While Joshua generally shied away from brute force but he was smart enough to know that there was no reasoning with Cybermen. Torchwood still had a way of humanizing them, if the Cybermen hadn't already adapted to it. Just in case, though, Joshua helped put together a weapon that would be the most effective. In short, it was a gold bomb. Similar to a grenade, when it exploded it shot out particles of shaved gold. As he'd explained to Pete, gold was lethal to Cybermen. He'd even adapted the grenades to launch from a traditional grenade launcher, much to the delight of the armed agents who would be going head-to-head with them.

Joshua frowned when he saw Rose suit up for a mission. She kissed him chastely before brushing his mind with her own.

'I'm Defender of the Earth. More so now than when we were separated. Torchwood depends on me to be the front-man. I'll come back in one piece, love.'

'Doesn't mean I won't worry.'

'Joshua, I've faced worse than this. Trust me. When I was looking for you, the right you, I almost died several times. When this is over, I'll show you. You need to know, to understand.'

'I love you, Rose Tyler.'

'And I love you.'

Rose and the rest of the teams left without much preamble. It had been exactly 24 hours since he'd broken the news to Pete. It had taken that long for Joshua and Calvin to prepare what they could. Now it was up to Rose and the rest of Torchwood to quell the threat.

Jackie sidled up to him and grabbed his hand. He started, instantly realizing that the hand didn't fit right in his own but immediately relaxed. Of all the people in the world, he knew that Jackie would understand his apprehensions. He smiled wanly at her, which she returned. She'd had much longer to get used to her daughter's dangerous life, with and without him.

"She'll be alright."

"I still worry, Jackie."

"Of course you do! We all worry about the ones we love. But I promise you, Rose will be fine after this is all said and done with. You'll see."

~DW~~DW~~DW~

Three days later, he was cursing Jackie Tyler and her words. He was sitting in a hospital room with a comatose Rose. They had bandaged her almost from head to toe. She'd suffered severe burns at the hands of the Cybermen. They'd tried to delete her. Miraculously, they couldn't. At least not at first. One Cyberman wasn't enough to down Rose, let alone kill her. It didn't take them long to gang up and before the Team knew what had happened, Rose was lying in a heap on the floor with six Cybermen surrounding her. She was blackened from where the electricity had course through her body and tried to find a way out. Her feet were splotched and burned, as was her torso. They each had gotten a hold of her somewhere on her upper body. It looked horrible.

When he'd first seen her, Joshua had broken down. Then he became angry. He screamed at Pete until his throat was raw. Jackie burst through the doors not long after and screamed at both of them. The only one who wasn't phased by the toll on her body was Jake. Through the whole ordeal, he remained strangely quiet. It wasn't until Joshua quieted that Jake made his presence known. He thrust a tumbler of some sort of alcohol into Joshua's hands. Joshua grimaced at the concoction before downing it in one large gulp. It burned going down. Jake hoisted him to his feet and maneuvered him to the ground floor and outside into the semi-fresh air.

"Rose hasn't talked to you about her travels, has she?" Joshua glared at Jake. This was a subject that Rose should breach with him. Not someone else. No one had that right. He was about to say as much before Jake grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him dead in the eyes. "Rose cannot die, Doctor. One of her first trips she was shot through the heart. As soon as her vitals dropped, we pulled her back to safety. There was so much blood everywhere. The medics on site did as much as they could but no one expected her to make it. Three days later, she woke. The wound in her chest, while still gruesome, was no longer life threatening. She was discharged after a week. She's had much more serious wounds than this, and has made it just fine. The best thing you can do, from here on out, is not panic. Because when she wakes, she's going to be a wreck. Take care of yourself until she wakes, then take care of her. She'll need your support more than anything once she does."

~DW~~DW~~DW~

Joshua took Jake's words to heart. He went to one of the suites in Torchwood and showered. He dressed into a set of clothes he kept in his locker for emergencies. Rose had given him the idea and right now, he was grateful for it. He refused to go home. He went and bought new clothes and moved into the suite until Rose woke. During the day, he was in R&D, keeping his mind as busy as possible. He became a machine, really. He produced over a hundred of the translation devices that would work on humans. Then he concentrated on developing some that would work for the other species working at Torchwood. No ear pods, though.

At night, he stayed by Rose's side as long as he could stand it. He didn't really want to leave her, but he couldn't stay at her side with her looking so much like Death. It unnerved him. He felt guilty when he left her side but it was either that or drive himself more mental.

It took almost two weeks for her to wake. When she woke, it felt like he'd been punched in the gut. Her psychic scream could be heard by every telepath in Torchwood. He immediately started running down the corridors, towards her room. Several other telepaths followed him. During her stay here she'd become their guide. The kept a respectable distance as soon as they could feel the mental imprint of her mate.

When he got to her room, she seemed to still be asleep. Her brows were scrunched together like she was in pain. Other than that, she still looked like Death.

Joshua reached out an unsteady hand to caress her temple. While it wasn't necessary to initiate their bond in this way, it did make mental contact easier. He didn't get a chance to breathe before he was sucked into her nightmares.

~DW~~DW~~DW~

Joshua found himself surrounded by different scenes, each worse than the last. In several, Rose was being tortured. Others, himself. He saw each of his incarnations in her mind and wondered if they ran into one another in one of those Universes, or if she picked the images from his own mind.

Other places he looked, he saw her sacrificing herself to save others. The area that seemed to be the darkest, however, are all the times he pushed her away. It was another lifetime ago, for him, but he remembered doing these things to her. Images flowed around him. Time and Time again he has left her, abandoned her. Time and again she has fought her way back to him. Her mind also conjured images where he would leave her. Not from dying, he noticed. But from him making the conscious choice to leave her side.

It was almost too much for him. He gathered all the love he has for her and thrust it into her mind. He hoped to erase the fear he has put into her of him abandoning her. He's here now. He'll never let her go as long as she wants him to stay. He caressed her mind with his own until she quieted.

~DW~~DW~~DW~

When Joshua finally came back to himself, the first thing he saw was that her eyes were open. The second thing he became aware of is the fact that he has been in her mind for hours. Jackie had fallen asleep in a chair by the bed opposite him. Joshua blinked and straightened. That was when he noticed Pete standing in the doorway.

"I'll let the doctors know she is awake now." Pete turned and walked from the room. Joshua's heart felt so conflicted. If the Bad Wolf had changed her this much, how would that change their relationship? She had to have known most of this before she found him. Why had she not said? Why had she saddled herself with this him? The one who would wither and die. He couldn't wrap his mind around it.

A tentative touch of her hand to his brought him back from his internal struggle.

'It needed saying.' Joshua blinked twice before Rose's eyes fluttered closed. Joshua felt her mind soften into an untroubled slumber. He relaxed slightly, knowing she was mentally much better than when he had rushed to the room before. He pulled the other chair close to her bedside and tried to get comfortable. He kept her hand in his own as he nodded off.