Chapter 4: The New Torchwood pt. 2

Morning came all too soon for them as Jackie's shrill voice began to ring down the corridor telling to get their lazy butts up. Groaning in annoyance Rose snuggled in closer to the stirring man beside her. She moved a finger in slow circular patterns on his chest, a smile creeping onto his lips even though his eyes were still shut.

'That tickles, my dear.'

'Serves you right for waking me up to talk to my parents last night.'

'Oi, I was right, you would have left me to fend for myself against your mother. That's just plain cruel, Miss Tyler. I think I shall have to ban you from sneaking into my room in the middle of the night.'

'All right then, hope you like living here then, do that and I won't show you to my condo. You'll have to hear my mother every morning or get a mortgage...'

He paled at the ideas she and began to sputter indignantly. 'Y..you'd really leave me at the mercy of your mother?'

'haha...No, I just wanted to see your reaction. No, we'll move over there this evening, but for now I think we had better get up before mother comes looking for us.'

They climbed reluctantly out of the comfort of his bed, she went to go across the hall to get dressed in her room, but as she opened the door she found Jackie in the process of raising her hand to knock on the door, both scaring the wits out of the other. Her mother held out some clothes saying they were some of Pete's old things and they looked like they may fit the Doctor, so he would have some clean clothes today. Rose took the clothes from her with a quiet thanks and walked back into the room to give the clothes to him. Before she could completely turn away from him he grabbed her elbow and pulled her back to him, one hand cupping the side of her face as his lips brushed softly against hers. This kiss was not like the one on the beach, hard and feverish, but soft and sweet. It only lasted a few seconds but it left Rose feeling dizzy and warm. She blushed up at him as he gave his famous smirk whenever he knew he had left her speechless.

Twenty minutes later they walked down the stairs to join the three other family members in the dining room. Toby was screaming gleefully while playing with his breakfast in the highchair. Pete looked up from his breakfast and gave a friendly good morning to them as Jackie ushered them to hurry up and eat. She wanted to get into town before it got too crazy with traffic and people. They did as they were told, not wishing to bring her wrath down on them so soon in the day. When everyone was done Pete bid them goodbye, and that he would see them later at Torchwood. Jackie and Toby were going to ride in her car while Rose and the Doctor would ride in Rose's car so they wouldn't have to transfer their shopping from two cars before heading back to the condo.

The mall was already crazy when they arrived much to Jackie's dismay, she had hoped that they would get in and out quickly, but Rose reminded her that it was Saturday and all the students would be coming here to hang out with their friends and be away from nagging parental. Jackie snorted in response saying she'd never been that type of parent when they lived in the other universe, Rose just rolled her eyes in amusement. They went into a store for men's suits and tuxedos and had the tailor show them some of the more popular casual suits that would look good on the Doctor. While trying on some to see how they looked first before having them taken back to be properly tailored to his exact fit the Doctor found himself alone with Jackie Tyler while Rose roamed about the store looking at other items for him.

'Doctor, how did you know that stroking Rose's cheek like that last night would wake her up. It's a rather intimate gesture, don't you think.'

'Well, as you know Rose and I travelled together for a while, and we were the only company each had...now I'm not saying we were, uh...intimate and that way, but she would get upset at times and she would come to me for comfort. There were times when she would come lay with me after a particularly bad dream and by chance I found that stroking her cheek calmed her into a soothing sleep and could also bring her back around.'

'But you were never intimate with my daughter? I find that very hard to believe, Rose is beautiful enough to even tempt a Time Lord, and as you said it was just the two of you on that spaceship.'

'Jackie, I can assure you nothing happened between us on my TARDIS but you are right she is beautiful enough to capture even this Time Lord's heart.'

Rose walked back up to them and gave him an appreciative glance in the suit he had on, completely unaware of the fact they had just been talking about her. They got several of the casual suits tailored for him, and some more shoes similar to the ones he wore on the TARDIS, though Rose did make him get at least one pair of dress shoes. When Jackie suggested that he get a proper tuxedo he , outright refused claiming something bad always happens when he wore one. Rose declared with a small laugh that trouble followed him no matter what he wore. While he agreed this was true the difference as that normally people didn't die on him, but always did in the tux. Rose let him off the hood with the tuxedo since it really seemed to bother him.

They grabbed some lunch in the food court then decided to head out to Torchwood so the Doctor could check out the institute himself. They had found him a chain to hold his key on, and it now rested against his chest beneath the shirt he wore. The drive out to the new building took them an hour from the city, the large building stood ten stories high and half as wide as it's height. There was a perception filter surrounding it, Rose explained that since they held keys to the building they could see it.

'So stealing TARDIS technology I see. I knew you were trouble when I first met you, but a thief...' The grin on his face gave him away.

'Don't blame me, blame Mr. Captain Jack Harkness. He is the one who gave us the notes to make it possible here.'

'I should have known he'd meddle in places his nose doesn't belong...there's not an alternate version of him in this world is there?'

'Haven't ran into him yet, but who knows for sure. Oh, and Pete wanted me to tell you that he has a surprise for us when we get here. Tried to pry it out of him, but he rightly refused to give me anything.'

Pete was waiting for them at the front entrance, Jackie and Toby next to him, they got out of the car and walked up to her family.

'Are the two of you ready to make this a working facility?'

'I am, it's time we got this profession headed in the right direction. Not just for a greater Britain either, but a greater, peaceful Earth.' Rose looked for approval from the Doctor who grinned in return.

'Ok, well Doctor there is only one outside slot for your key and it is here at the main entrance, and since Mickey didn't come back with you we will need your key to open the building completely for sure. The rest of us will go to each entrance and in exactly five minutes insert our keys and activate all the areas, then follow the hall straight to the center lobby, don't go anywhere else just yet.'

Nodding an affirmative they moved into position, waiting for just the right moment. At the five minute mark the keys were inserted and a female voice spoke a welcome to Torchwood Tower through the speakers beside each key. The stainless steel doors began to slide open to reveal four long hallways connecting by a central lobby. A circular desk split in two to provide two entrances to the center of the circle; six computers sat upon the desk. Four were on the back desktop, the other two on the front.

'Now that we are all here I am sure the two of you would like to know what this surprise is, and you Doctor will probably want a tour of the whole building which Rose will be able to do now, and since the surprise is at the very top level where everything we've put under lock for you, Doctor, that can be the last thing for you. Honestly, if you go see it now you will just get very distracted for the rest of the night.'

The two looked at Pete in pure confusion, what could possibly be THAT distracting? After a moment her family got on the elevator and went on up.

'Well then, not entirely sure he is mentally stable today, I mean we've travelled all over the universe, what could possibly be that shocking?'

'Well, we won't get any closer to finding out just standing around now will we?' The Doctor jumped from one foot to the other excitable.

'Ok, well as you can see the lobby is the only thing on level one, it will basically be used as a sign in and directory. No one will be allowed past the lobby without signing in and announcing what field they wish to speak to. Secretaries will be placed here and will have the minimal knowledge of what really lies on the upper levels and will not be permitted to go up without proper supervision of the field area leaders.' She led them to the elevator and went up to the next floor. 'Floor two, check in of any alien technology and weaponry, basically the same rules as before: any confiscated alien technology or weaponry will be processed and if we can use it to help move Earth forward we will, if it proves to be too dangerous for the world we send it up to floor ten to either be locked up from use or destroyed all together. Basically, the final decision will be left to you.' She sat down at a chair and turned on the computer at the main desk, a few other desks and computers sat behind them. 'This is where we will log in the alien items so we know they are in the building and give them a barcode, then they will be divided up between the employees at the desks behind us to determine if they are safe or not and what field area they belong in. Those people will page the field the item is intended for and someone will come down to retrieve it.'

'Security is going to be a task just to get past.'

'Yes, well as we mentioned the idea is to create a better and uncorrupted facility. Proper knowledge for every field.'

'Do you think that it will make a difference?'

'To be honest we will not know until we have the proper staff available, and only time will tell if everyone will uphold to the ideas of this Torchwood. We've selected a handful of the old staff that we felt were eligible to join us, which leaves out all of the management from the old one. They will more than lightly be put on this floor to do the procession. Here is a list of all the items we have on site at the moment.'

'While a significant amount, that's nothing compared to what the old one had, right?' He pulled out his dark rimmed glasses and scanned the screen.

'Correct, Pete and Mickey spent weeks smuggling the more dangerous items here one at a time. We got most of those and a few items we could use without bringing harm to the general public. Nothing was amiss until right before I made the jump to the other universe, that's why Pete stayed behind. He'd been fortunate enough to be assigned to oversee that nothing else went missing, and to find the missing invetory. He took a few last things and set the bomb up. It was rigged to explode after a scan of the entire tower to clear that no one was inside. Pete took the liberty of visiting vital staff members to "inform" them of the accident and either wipe their memory of Torchwood of gave them an invitation to this one. Anyways, we should move on, the third floor is bathrooms and lunchroom. It is the only floor the staff on levels one and two can go outside their own, there is a special elevator for those two and it is operated by an employee key. The elevator won't allow anyone from level one get to level two...'

'What if there is one from each level in the elevator couldn't they just get off with the other?'

'Fair point, the cameras will scan each person exiting, if one did the system will alert one of us immediately informed and we can terminate their position in the company on the spot, their memory will be wiped and they will be escorted out of the building by us personally.' They got on the elevator and went up to level four. 'Level four: small gadgets, no weapons in the sense of guns or lasers, more like Jack's time jumping gadget on his wrist. Relatively safe items. They can also manufacture such items here too, but they will have to be cataloged back down on level two.'

They moved through the next few levels quickly: small weapons, large weapons, bombs, small aircrafts, large aircrafts and other transports. The elevator moved up the long shaft between levels nine and ten, due to the items belonging in level nine the ceiling for that level had been raised considerably making the ride up to ten longer than normal. Upon reaching its destination the elevator door opened and they were bombarded with a loud shout of...

'SURPISE!'