Disclaimer: As per previous chapters

The girl was sitting down at a seat in a cafe, sipping a bottle of water, and looking slightly upset. In front of her was an open pad of paper with lots of scientific equations scribbled all over it, and hastily drawn scratches written in the top left hand corner. And beside her was a plate of half eaten spaghetti.

She chewed on the end of her pencil and groaned, looking as if she would like nothing more than to rip the paper into tiny pieces, and throw them into the nearest black hole, and then throw the pencil in for good measure.

She looked so much like herself, with her blonde hair and brown eyes, and the same attitude she had had when she herself had been the girls own age.

But this girl looked much smarter than her jeans and t-shirt attire announced.

She sat down at a table close to the girl and then ordered a batch of chips with vinegar and salt, and a bottle of coke for good measure, and then relaxed into her seat before digging out her own work to do.

She loved this town, this little place called Café Diem.

And most of all she loved Eureka.

In Eureka, it didn't matter if you had little impossibilities popping up, such at the designs for her new improved sonic screwdriver on her pad of purple paper, which was her own little inside joke.

And it didn't matter if you had alien Tec' here, coz you could always say it was a new invention of yours.

It might had been her fault; actually it had been her entire fault, but she had wanted to speak to Zoe Carter, because the young lady would be a very important person in the future.

Did the words 'First official alien contact.' Have any meaning here? In future kiddie textbooks, Zoe Carter would go down as the person who was the first person to speak an alien language and negotionate with them

Even if the aliens were like giant sheep with black and yellow striped horns.

She had needed a reason to speak with her, and somehow, sliding into the seat next to her and talking about possibility strands didn't seem like a good way to start of a conversation.

So she pulled out the (untested) new and improved sonic screwdriver, and as Zoe picked up her plate to slid on the counter, she flicked the sonic screwdriver on and tripped her, sending spaghetti flying through the air and landing onto her nice and comfy purple blouse.

Such a shame.

Zoe gasped and heaps of people in a eight table radius, looked at her with a strange unreadable expression.

"I am so, so sorry..." Zoe started, looking shocked.

Rose lifted the sonic screwdriver, pointed it to herself, and hit the frequency needed to removed the spaghetti and sauce from her shirt, it dropped to the floor, but her blouse wasn't even messy now.

"'S, ok." She cheerfully responded, Zoe started at the device almost wistfully.

"Whats that? A food remover?"

"A sonic screwdriver." Rose grinned, before looking around and pointing to the light, "watch this."

She pointed it at the ceiling and made the light flicker, turn off, and then come back on, then shrugged in a non-committal way, noticing there was now the entire café looking at the device like they were starving and the device was food.

"It can reverse transportation, turn off lights, break into locks, mess with electronics, open doors, really hurt someone's ears, cook with it, and do all kinds of thousands of things with it."

She boasted, her sonic screwdriver was the best. Ever and she wasn't ashamed to admit it, but she might have been a little stupid to mention it in a room full of super smart genius scientists.

"Woh. Reverse transportation?" Zoe raised her eyebrow, she had caught onto that, damn, stupid Rose. "Yea, but don't ask. It's classified."

Zoe snorted in disbelief, and moved her hand around the room, "In case you hadn't noticed, this entire place is classified, nothing is more secret than Eureka."

Rose grinned on of her special, your-so-stupid-stupid-apes looked that she usually wore when around people who didn't believe her, or the aliens who were convinced of their own superiority that they though her stupid.

"Ever heard of Torchwood?"

That got her attention, she frowned and shook her head, looking much to interested for her own good, in fact now everyone looked interested, and she knew it must be killing them not to fire questions at her.

"Secret. Our classified makes your classified look like the secret of a kid stealing a cookie."

Zoe looked slightly annoyed, and Rose chuckled to herself, they were fighting over what was the most classified, but the girl looked like she was going to get defensive, and then that would be bad news.

"But I'm not here to debate which is more classified. I'm here to find a Zoe Carter."

Zoe sat up straighter, and narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

"That's me. Why?" she paused for a moment, then thought of something. "And who are you?"

The blonde woman sighed and held out her hand "I'm Rose Tyler, Director and Head of Torchwood, I've come to offer you a job."

"I'm 15!" Zoe replied almost awed, and then grumbled again "Besides, I've only been in Eureka a month! Dad would never let me."

Rose smiled then looked around, everyone was still looking at her, like they expected her to pull out a gun and start randomly shooting people, gee, like she would do that.

"I've checked your entire profile out, you are intelligent enough, have a pretty open mind, and have the street smarts. You are physically fit enough and would be extremely welcome at Torchwood. If you are worried about your age, we have people at Torchwood from the age of 10 to well over 100."

Zoe crossed her arms, she was getting defensive now, she honesty thought this was a joke, a huge practical joke created for her own suffering.

Had her life really been that bad?

"What would this job involve?" she spoke almost coldly, then brightened as a man walked into the café, spotting her almost immediately.

"Dad, over here now!" he noticed her and quickly walked over and slid into a spare seat, looking questionably between her and his daughter.

"This is my dad Sheriff Jack Carter."

The man was tall enough, and had sort an expression that said, anything she said would be taken as a 'yea. Okay.' Like nothing would surprise him.

Hell she could still try.

His hair was slightly brown-blonde and he had the tannish skin of someone who spent a lot of time outside. And he was very fit.

Probably from running away from all those explosion and doomsdays that happened in Eureka on a usual, daily basis.

"She offered me a job." Zoe said to her father in a disbelieving voice, like she didn't truly care. But her eyes said she was itching to find out more.

"Wait. What? She's 15."

Why did she bother sometimes? Honestly? She would have better luck trying to convince people she was actually Santa.

"Torchwood is a very secure facility that has been in operation for over one hundred years with few casualties." That wasn't completely true, but it wasn't lying, in a sense either.

They looked at each other, the Sheriff, give the impression of being someone who didn't care about that, but there was no way she was going to come and work for torchwood, eh. Ever.

"What's Torchwood." He replied, then gave her a dark look, "Not a history. The whole basic point of it."

She bristled at those words, even if she had been expecting it, she paused as a waiter, or the owner, whatever, came and placed down a plate full of burning hot chips dripping with vinegar and salt, both carters scrunched their noses up at it, but she picked up one and shoved the whole thing in her mouth, enjoying the taste before continuing.

"I'm not sure what I can say about it, other than." She looked at they both straight in the eyes, which was a problem, she looked at Jack first then at Zoe.

"Do you believe in Aliens?"

There was quiet in the café.

"Aliens? You mean little green aliens in flying saucers?" scoffed Jack, but Zoe thought for a moment then rolled her eyes.

"Dad, Aliens are not the little green men from Mars."

"Martians are reptilian humanoids actually." She mumbled under her breath, noticing only Jack seemed to catch that; he looked at her suspiciously.

"Aliens? Seriously?" she deadpanned "Looking at planets and aliens in photos and looking through telescopes?"

Rose smiled, and then traced a Gallifreyan symbol on the table, which meant both future, time and past, all jumbled up together.

"No, like sorting through bucket loads of alien tech, finding things and people who fall through the rift in time and space, sorting out invasions and dealing with hungry weevils."

She responded so cheerfully, they probably thought she was insane.

"Just to know, there are things in this Universe, and in E-space which are so much like humans, but aren't at the same time. Look at me. Don't matter what you see."

She frowned, and noticed they didn't believe her, she sighed and let her shoulders sag, before handing a Torchwood card to the blonde girl who was still narrowing her eyes.

"When you want to take me up on my offer, tomorrow or tens years from now. Call them ,and ask for Jack Harkness and tell him Rose sent you."

She handed him the card which wasn't hers to give and walked towards the door, sorrowly leaving her proper chips behind.

"And if he doesn't believe you. Tell him. Tell him Bad Wolf is back. And that she 's sorry." The jingling of the door and the slam as it shut was all she could hear for a moment.

The card burned a hole in her hand, and somehow Zoe knew that that woman, if she was a human at all, knew she was going to keep this card.

She tucked it into her purse.

The equations on her notebook were finished.

Read and Review