Ummm yes hello. Sorry about the delay between chapters, but this is a long one so I hope it makes up for it! We're finally at the robbery! I've also caught up to the section I wrote months back (the ending scene) that I've been building up to. Hope you enjoy! Thank you so much to all of you who are reading, whether silently or not. I really really appreciate it and I love reading what you have to say about it!

Also I lost some of the italics I had in here when transferring formats but I'm sneaking time on my work computer to post this so I don't have time to fix it right now!

At 1 am on the appointed night, Rose was standing on the rooftop of the Agency's building, preparing herself for the task ahead. After checking her bag one last time to make sure she wasn't missing anything, Rose began to slip on her new harness. Adrenaline was already slipping through her veins, steadying her hands and sharpening her senses.

"Cameras have been out for an hour," John's voice fractured the night's silence, "in case you were wonderin'."

Rose jumped at the sound of his voice, eyes searching the darkness for him. "What the hell are you doing up here, John?"

He stepped out from the deep shadows next to a different set of air ducts than the ones Rose was planning to use and leaned against one, smirking at her.

"I would ask how you got up here without me noticing but I don't think I want to know," she continued, returning to tightening the straps on her harness, checking and double-checking every strap.

John watched intently. His partner was dressed in all black. Apparently her version of the traditional catsuit was some sort of skin tight black trousers and a form fitting, long sleeved, black t-shirt. Her blonde hair was hidden under a cap and christ she just had to be running her hands all over herself while checking that harness.

He bit his tongue before the offer to check it for her actually came out of his mouth.

Satisfied with the harness she turned to face John. "So why are you up here? Checking up on me?" There was steel in her voice despite her teasing tone.

"Just thought I'd let you know that I've confirmed the cameras are down." He shrugged, "Like to be thorough me."

"Alright," she said, looking at him like he was a bit of a nutter. "Since you're up here, is there anything you want to go over before we go in?"

"You let me in, I go to the server room, you go to the vault. We meet on the executive level, clean it out and then get the hell out of here and meet at the rendez-vous point.

"No human guards, cameras are out. You have the equipment needed to bypass the electronic security you'll find on the way to the vault." John stopped and grinned at her. "Did I miss anything?"

"Don't look so smug, mister. Its not attractive."

That was an utter lie. The little smirk on his face was screaming "fuck me" and it almost made her want to ditch the mission and drag him off and make him honor its intent.

Later, she promised herself.

"You did leave one thing out actually, but I'll let it slide since I just remembered them this morning myself." She tossed a small box at him. "Was going to give it to you when I let you in but this is better."

Rose waited for him to open the box and take out the small earbud that was nestled inside. "Thought it would be nice to be able to communicate while we're in different parts of the building."

John looked at the device skeptically as Rose rushed on.

"They're secure. I've used them on the couple of cons I've run with a partner."

He still didn't say anything, just slipped it in his ear, silently acceding that it was a good idea.

Rose took one more look down the ventilation shaft then started walking towards John, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Her gear was all securely attached to her.

John was a little unnerved by the predatory gleam in her eyes as she stalked forward but stood his ground.

"See ya downstairs," she said. He heard a click behind him as she rose up on her toes and planted a quick kiss on his cheek.

Then she took off running. Rose lept into the open ventilation shaft and John was left on the roof watching the rope she'd secured to the railing behind him disappear after her.

And she looked at me like I was crazy, he thought. She definitely had a few loose screws.

It'd take an interrogation team to make him admit it out loud, but he liked that about her.

Grin firmly in place and ready to get started, John left the roof to go break into the Agency's maintenance closet.

Rose crawled through the air ducts, counting the opening she passed, ticking them off against her mental map until she reached the vent she wanted to use. So far the calculations she'd made (that John had insisted on checking) had held true and she had enough rope to make it to the ground.

She carefully removed the vent cover and laid it inside the duct so she could replace it on her way out. Rose stuck her head out to make sure the layout matched what she had studied on the blueprints.

Satisfied that they did and that she was in the right spot, she lowered herself to the floor.

"Good job the cameras are out, yeah?" She said softly, staring up into the one right next to the vent she'd just come out of. "This one is is right next to where I came down."

"Well aren't you just taking your sweet time," John snarked in her ear. He was getting impatient just standing in the closet.

"Like to see you crawl through those vents any faster."

Before he could respond, the door in front of him popped open and a triumphant Rose Tyler was in front of him, brandishing the keycard sh had procured earlier.

"Worked like a charm," she proclaimed. "Now then, let's get moving."

She set off down the corridor at a light jog, heading towards the vault without giving him a chance to reply.

John wen the opposite direction, gritting his teeth and fighting the urge to remind her that she was not actually in charge. That would just start a fight and they couldn't afford that now that the mission was in-progress. So he kept his silence and made a mental note that this was one of the reasons he worked alone.

His musings lasted him all the way to the server room. They'd upgraded the security here from what had been indicated on Rose's blueprints or in the security data he'd hack. Luckily the system was still one he was familiar with.

John popped the keypad open, exposing the wires, and hooked his codebreaker in. He cursed under his breath when he shocked his fingers.

"I can still hear you ya know," Rose chastised playfully over the comms.

"Good for you," he muttered, focused on not setting off the sensitive alarm. This model required delicacy and precision."

"God, are you ever not grumpy? You'd think being in the middle of robbing the Agency blind would put you in a bit better mood. I'm feeling great, all this adrenaline…" she trailed off.

"I'll consider a better mood when we're free and clear."

There that should do the trick. His codebreaker whirred to life, numbers racing across the screen.

"I'll hold you to that," Rose answered. She knew she probably shouldn't be flirting with him in the middle of their heist but if just felt so natural; all the banter and teasing and struggling for the upper hand.

She was enjoying this far too much, but she always did love a good break-in.

Rose skidded to a stop in front of the first door that led to the vault. She pulled out her own codebreaker and hooked it in.

The door popped open twenty seconds later as it was not as sophisticated as the one John was dealing with.

Rose stepped into the vault's antechamber. This is where the real vault security was located. Fingerprints, retinal scans, and the right keycard were required to open the reinforced steel door.

Luckily the Agency made the smae assumption they had on the roof.

Lasers wouldn't keep Rose Tyler out of the vault just as they hadn't kept her out of the building.

"Gotcha," John muttered darkly as his device, with a little extra help from him, finally cracked the code to the server room. Their equipment was good, but he was better.

"Less cryptic statements would be good when I'm dangling from the ceiling in the vault."

"Why are you-" he cut himself off, "never mind, don't want to know. I'm into the server room."

"Brilliant. Go do you tech thing, I'll take care of things here."

John shook his head. It was taking some getting used to, this having Rose in his ear. It was one thing to not be able to get the blonde off his mind and another thing entirely to be literally unable to get her out of his head during this mission.

He sat down at the computer terminal and immediately input the search parameters for Jack's stolen, top-secret project. As it ran, he set up his own equipment on the small amount of table space.

A ding alerted the hacker to the finished search. As he suspected, the stolen plans were hidden behind a partition on a secure part of the server. If he was right about who had designed the computer security though…

John keyed in a few commands.

A cold smile stretched across his face as he bypassed the partition. He hated that he was so well acquainted with the inner workings of the Agency but it had its uses today.

He downloaded the files he needed onto a flash drive before inserting a different drive that contained his virus.

He watched as it infiltrated every corner of the system, leaving nothing intact. When the off-site servers made contact to try and replace the lost data the virus, with some help from John, back-hacked them remotely and wiped them as well.

Once it was finished he packed his equipment back in his bag and headed out the door, making sure that he left no trace of his presence in the room.

It was something he and Rose had agreed upon with no argument; no one would know they had been there until they arrived in the morning to find the vault empty and the computers useless for anything besides playing solitaire.

John headed towards the stairs at a jog.

"Rose, where are you at with the vault?"

"Just left it. Coupla things were too bulky for me to get out with but I have quite the haul." She sounded like she was talking through a smile. "Probably gonna need to put some of it in your bag so it's not so heavy."

"Meet me a level down from the exec level so we can do that," John replied, trying to ignore the extraneous chatter so that maybe she'd stop. He was just as hyped on adrenaline as she was but John used it to fuel tight control over himself during a job. It seemed to have the opposite effect on Rose, making her chatty and cheerful.

Good thing this was a walkaway, a one time gig. She might drive him completely insane otherwise.

He leaned against the wall across from the lifts on the appropriate level, waiting for his partner to show up.

"Cleaned them out good and proper." The voice didn't just come from his earpiece, it was behind him

Rose thoroughly enjoyed the squeak of surprise her clandestine arrival had earned her. "Come on now, big man like you scared by a little thief sneaking up on you?"

She gave him an appraising look, running her eyes over the length of his body. "How old are you anyways?"

"How old are you?" He shot back, not amused by her antics.

"A lady never reveals her age," rose replied in the posh tone she'd used when they first met.

"Well then I'm not going to either."

Rose looked up from where she'd crouched to divide the loot and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Are you saying you're a lady? Because that's a damn shame. I had plans for later that required different...equipment." She raked her eyes over him again, lingering around his belt.

"Oi, mind on the mission please," John spluttered, ears turning pink in response to her blatant come on.

They finished dividing the loot as John directed the minimal conversation to what Rose had found in the vault. That done, they made their way to the stairs that would get them to the executive level.

John went first so he could take care of the security on the first door. A series of beeps announced that the door was unlocked.

He opened it a few inches and peeked into the hallway, only slightly distracted by Rose pressing against his back trying to see as well.

He was about to step forward into the hallway when he heard something that caused him to stop. Listening a bit closer he stiffened and stepped back, almost knocking his partner over in his haste.

Rose opened her mouth to ask him what he was on about but John clamped a hand over her mouth and started dragging her down the stairs, his other hand a vise around her wrist.

When they came to a stop, Rose yanked away from him, shaking her wrist. "What the hell was that about?" she demanded, something very close to anger flashing in her eyes.

"We have a problem," John said shortly, a storm of his own brewing behind blue eyes.

"I'll say! You can't just go draggin' me around like that," Rose snapped.

The hacker rolled his eyes. "Can we keep the domestics out this? You don't have to like how I do things, but I just saved your pretty little arse so maybe some thanks would be nice."

Rose just gave him an answering eye roll and made no effort to thank him.

"There's a guard up there," John finally revealed.

"What? Are you sure?" Rose blurted out, eyes wide. "There was nothing in any of the security plans to indicate there would be a guard."

"Heard them walking towards us."

"I didn't hear anything," she objected.

"Good hearing, me," he said, turning to open his bag.

"Well you should have with those ears," Rose muttered to his back.

"Oi!" he looked over his shoulder to shoot her an offended look.

Ignoring it, Rose began talking, ready to get around this unforeseen obstacle. "So, how are we gonna get past the guard without alerting them that we're here?"

She paused. "I'm assuming we're sticking to the plan where no one knows we were here until opening tomorrow?"

John shot her a withering glance that told her exactly what he thought of that question.

"Okay, yeah, that's still best. I mean with that plan in place we can't just, I don't know, knock him out," she was pacing now, gesturing with her hands while she talked. "Don't know when he'd come to and sound the alarm."

"No violence." John didn't even look up from the laptop he was now typing on as he said it, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Rose glared at the back of his head. She'd wished before that he would stop having so many mood swings but now that he was all focused and grumpy she wasn't sure she liked it. Even so, they'd been in the Agency's building for less than thirty minutes and she'd alternated between wanting to strangle him and wanting to snog him multiple times. Dear God the man was frustrating!

"What are we going to then?" she asked aloud.

John could hear the frustration in her voice but ignored it while he typed a few more commands into his laptop. "We're going to distract him."

He hit one last key and then shut his laptop, stowing it back in his bag. "That should do it. Let's get going."

"What did you do?" Rose's voice was dripping with annoyance and barely leashed anger. She hated being left out of the loop.

"Sent the guard on a wild goose chase," John answered, his manic grin making a reappearance. He started up the stairs again. When he realized Rose wasn't following him, he turned around with a huff. "What? We only have short window before he comes back."

"You can't just make executive decisions like that and not tell me what you're doing." John got the distinct impression that if they weren't in the middle of a job, she would be yelling. "That's not how a partnership works."

"Like I said, I don't need you to approve of what I do. This is a one-time job and I work better alone."

"Yeah, it shows," she spat as they entered the hallway on the executive level.

"I was saving us time by getting rid of the guard as quickly as possible. So sorry that I didn't ask your permission and hurt your feelings." John laid the sarcasm on thick, aggravated with this whole conversation. He just wanted to get this job over with so this little blonde thief would stop tying him in knots.

"If you have to know, I set off one of the proximity alarms by the northwest door. Those things have a hair trigger and go off all the time. It was in the logs. If there's a guard here, he'd be required to go check it out regardless."

He glared at her over his shoulder as he popped the casing off the keypad that guarded the door to the main executive office. "Satisfied?"

Not nearly, she thought, not yet.

"Good enough. Just focus on getting us in."

Rose nervously counted off the seconds while John hacked his way in.

This much time since the guard had left.

This much time until he would be back.

Seconds slipped from one category to the other and a fresh wave of adrenaline flashed through Rose's system. This was a new challenge and she was ready for it.

As soon as she heard the door lock disengage, Rose pushed past John and into the room, immediately starting her search for the safe.

John sat down at the desk, made sure the computer was indeed wiped and then started systematically checking the desk for flash drives and any other items of interest.

"Oh you're a beauty," he heard Rose croon, awe in her voice.

John turned around and saw her running her hands over a safe like he imagined she might caress a lover.

"It's a Torchwood S250," she said reverently.

"Can you break it?
"You have no appreciation for the beautiful things in life do you? This is a gorgeous piece of engineering. One single piece of steel, four inches thick, manipulated to create a seamless box. Glass re-lockers and thermal re-lockers standard plus a five digit combination instead of the standard three or four."

"'M not a safe cracker, Rose and if you're done lusting over the safe, can you hurry up and get the damn thing open?"

"Think so, yeah. Never actually worked on one of these before but I've studied the specs and brought the equipment I need."

She glanced up as she took a mini-blowtorch out of her bag. "If you're going to continue to search the room, I'm gonna need you to be quiet once I start actually cracking here."

Rose turned the safe around and then switched the torch on. She was about to hold it to the safe when John interrupted.

"I'm assuming a 'thermal re-locker' does exactly what it sounds like and won't that thing set off heat sensors?"

Rose grinned. "Cold flame. Newest thing in the safe-cracking world. Just got it last week. Been dying to use it."

With that remark Rose held the torch to the back of the safe, making a small hole through the steel. Once it was large enough, she inserted her scope and got down to the business of cracking the safe.

Finished with his search, John watched her work the safe with single-minded intensity. The frustration he'd felt earlier drained away in the face of her dedication and her glee at seeing the safe. She might be chatty and cheery while working, but she was definitely a professional. He had to admit that doing this job with anyone else would have been a nightmare and likely would've ended in a failure. He and Rose might butt heads but Jack had been right; she was the best thief he had ever seen in action.

"Aha!" Rose exclaimed as the safe swung open. She checked her watch. "Four minutes and three seconds. Not bad for a safe I've never seen before. Probably the fastest time out there since this model's only been available for a week and a half or so.

"It's a shame I can't take any credit," she mused as she moved the contents of the safe into her bag and replaced her tools.

She stood, hefting her bag over her shoulder and reattaching it to her harness. "Let's get out of here."

John let her lead them back to the maintenance door he'd entered through. She used the keycard to open it again and gestured for him to go on.

"See ya on the outside," Rose said with a grin that spread across her whole face. She reattached her harness to the rope dangling from the vent and prepared to get back up to the roof.

John slipped out of the Agency building with a grin on his face as well and made his way towards their rendezvous point to wait for Rose.

They met up a few blocks away from the Agency at the appointed rendezvous spot: an old police box.

Rose grinned at the sight of him leaning up against the battered, blue wood, looking like he owned the damn thing. She ran the last few meters to him and dropped her bag at his feet before barreling into his arms. He was waiting for her and picked her up spinning her around, his rough chuckle joining her giddy laughter.

She landed with her back to the police box and smiled up at him. "We did it!"

John looked affronted. "Did you think we wouldn't?"

"Dunno, neither of us have worked with a partner before," she mused. "Didn't know if we'd actually work well together. A lot could've gone wrong."

"Seemed to go alright to me," he offered offhandedly, as if they hadn't just gotten away with the heist of the year with little to no problems.

"Well you definitely kept your word about being in a better mood once we were out," Rose teased. "Better with two, then?"

She tucked her tongue between her teeth as she grinned up at him, deliberately trying to provoke him.

The thrill of the heist was thrumming through her veins still and all she wanted to do was act on the attraction that had been simmering between them since their first meeting.

John's eyes fixated on the sliver of tongue he could see and he broke.

Pushing her back against the blue box, he slanted his lips across hers. Rose opened her mouth immediately, inviting him in. There was nothing slow about this first kiss. It was all hunger and excitement and heat, teeth nipping and tongues dueling for control.

John vaguely registered that she'd taken off her harness before meeting him as both of their hands scrambled to find skin. Just as Rose managed to get a hand under his jumper he grabbed her wrists and wrenched them up, pinning them above her head.

He moved his mouth to her neck, sucking and nipping his way down its length. He could hear her gasping for breath near his ear and smirked as he ground his hips into hers, causing her to let loose a whimper.

Rose could barely form a coherent thought. Holy hell, she'd known that there was passion bubbling just under John's stoic surface but this was beyond anything she'd expected. She wanted everything though. She wanted his lips back on hers and she wanted to touch him. Wanted to drag him back up by his ears and pin him against the wood and have her way with him.

"Definitely better with two," John whispered in her ear darkly, pushing his hips forward again.

"Unfortunately," he swiped his tongue around the outer rim of her ear before continuing, "I still don't trust you."

The hand that had been grasping at her hip suddenly moved and Rose felt the sturdy wall behind her disappear as she tumbled into the filthy interior of the police box.

John quickly shut the door and locked it before she could recover.

"Nothin' personal, love. Just don't trust anyone. I'll make sure you still get your cut and your equipment back."

"You bloody bastard!" Rose shouted, banging her fist against the door.

John smile, imagining the seething woman on the other side of the door. He had a feeling this was going to be the only time he'd be able to pull one over on her like this.

Not that he'd get the opportunity again anyways, this was a one-time gig.

"How the hell am I supposed to get out of this fucking box?" She kicked the door violently but despite the age of the wood, it was still sturdy.

"I'll drop the key off with Jack in a couple of hours and tell him to come get you. Until then, I suggest you be very quiet so a concerned citizen doesn't call you in. Wouldn't do for a police officer to find an actual criminal in a defunct police box."

Rose could hear the amusement in his voice and wanted to strangle him. He'd been planning this from the beginning and she never saw it coming.

God help him if she ever saw him again after this.

"Nice working with ya, Rose." He tucked the key in his pocket, slung both their bags over his shoulders and strode off down the street towards his car.

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips at the litany of curses that were streaming from the incongruous blue box on the corner.