Notes: Rose has to see her counsellor and the Doctor puts the pieces of the puzzle together. (Bare with me because there's a stonker of a cliff hanger in the next chapter.)

Chapter 15

THUD! THUD! THWACK! THUD! WHACK!

Rose was in the gym practicing her kick boxing on the heavy bag.

Jab, jab, cross. Low round kick, elbow, knee, knee, elbow.

As she hit the bag, she could see the face of her attacker. (Jab, jab, hook).

"Nice moves 'Wife'," Andy McNab said, using the nickname he had given her. He had come to the gym, apparently to work out, but really he wanted to see how Rose was doing.

"Thanks," she panted. "They should be, you taught them to me," (THUD! THWACK!) she said with a grin.

"Fancy a spar?" he asked her.

"Yeah, okay." They went over to the equipment locker and pulled out gloves, head guards, rib protectors and shin pads. They helped each other to get kitted up before moving over onto the mat area.

They nodded at each other, touched gloves and started circling each other. Rose threw a couple of exploratory jabs at his head, and Andy threw a low kick to her thigh, which she easily dodged.

They traded a few punches and kicks and then Rose managed to grab Andy and throw him to the mat. As he hit the mat she punched the front of his head guard.

"I bet you'd have loved to do that to that rapist, wouldn't you?"

"Wha?" she said.

He swung a kick at her head and knocked her off of the top of him.

"Hah! Gotcha. You have to try and not let yourself get distracted."

They got back to their feet.

"That was cheap," she said angrily. "Does everyone know I was raped?" She launched herself at him, catching him with a barrage of punches and kicks before he caught one of her kicks and tripping her onto the mat.

"Oof!" She landed heavily on her back.

"Anger clouds your judgement. If you're gonna get angry, learn to focus that anger and control it. As to your question, I have access to the report because I'm your section leader."

"And as far as I was aware," He said, as he braced his forearm under her left leg that he'd caught and leaned back to put pressure on the calf. "You weren't raped. Or was that a falsified report?"

"Ow!" Rose exclaimed as the ankle lock came on.

She arched her back and put her hands on the mat, pushing herself into a handstand and taking the pressure off the calf. The sole of her right foot caught Andy full on the face guard, making him stagger back.

Rose gracefully brought her right leg forward, then her left before straightening up from her slow backflip. She had her arms out and a big grin on her face.

Andy was grinning right back at her. "I didn't show you that one. That was very Bruce L..."

WHACK! She caught him with a circling kick to the head. She hadn't relaxed, she had duped him into thinking she'd relaxed.

"Mmmm. Nice move Wife," he said as he rolled across the mat onto his hands and knees, shaking his head to recover from the blow. He span on the mat with his leg out and tripped her up.

"You don't always win a fight you know Rose, and some fights you can't win," he told her. "But you can survive, even if you lose the fight, you can survive."

He stood up and took the head guard off and held out his hand to help her up. She looked at it suspiciously.

He grinned at her. "No tricks, just a helping hand…. if you want it."

She took his hand and he pulled her up onto her feet. She took off her head guard and shook her hair free.

"Thanks Captain," she said quietly.

Andy was quiet and thoughtful as he removed his gloves. As he was helping Rose remove her rib protector, he spoke.

"Can I tell you something in confidence Rose?" he asked her.

"Yeah, sure you can."

"I was on a mission once that went wrong. We had out of date intelligence and the mission was compromised," he said as Rose unfastened his rib protector.

"We were on a covert operation for the government, and officially weren't even in the foreign country."

"What happened?" Rose asked him with concern.

"We all stuck to our cover story of being an advanced surveillance team that were checking for landmines and gun positions. They didn't believe us at first and continued to interrogate us."

"Oh God Andy, that must have been awful. I can't imagine what that must have been like for you," Rose said sympathetically.

Andy smiled kindly at her. "Oh I think you can Rose. I had to let myself be tied face down on a table. I'll let you imagine the rest," he said with a lopsided grin.

Rose put her hand to her open mouth.

"Let's just say that I didn't sit on a hard chair for a couple weeks," he laughed. "But we survived. We kept our secret of being SAS, and the Government maintained their integrity."

"But how can you laugh about it?"

"Oh that? As soon as we got back to Hereford, we went to the officer's club, got rat arsed and took the piss out of each other. You see Rose; we all knew that any one of us would have taken one for the team…. Even a cock," he said with a wicked grin.

Rose nodded in thought as they cleaned the equipment with the wipes provided, before heading for the showers.


Rose walked into the Standby Room and straight into a hug from Jack and Gwen, who had flown in that morning.

"Jack! Gwen! How are ya? I heard they tried to blow you up."

"Yeah, you know how it is. I always have to make an impression," Jack said with a grin.

"And we hear you had a rough time of it as well," Gwen said.

"Wha?" Rose said suspiciously. What had they heard? Who'd been talking?

"We heard that you and John got ambushed in the jungle, and typically, John resolved the situation without a fire fight. I can't wait to hear how he did that one."

"Oh that. Yeah, John was brilliant again as usual," she said distractedly.

"Hey, are you alright Rose?" Jack asked. He had known her long enough to know when something was bothering her.

"Yeah, just a bit tired."

John came up behind her and kissed her on the neck before handing her a mug of tea. Everyone noticed how she jumped slightly at the unexpected kiss.

"Did you have a good workout Love?" John asked her, choosing not to mention her jumpiness.

"Oh, thanks Love." She took the offered brew. "I gave Andy a bit of a hidin'," she said with a cheeky smile.

"Hah, I'd have liked to have had a ticket to see that one," John said. "Oh, and we've heard from Jake. He's landed and is on his way back in. He'll be here for the briefing at 12."

"Do we know how Julia is?" Gwen asked.

"Pete's been in touch with the Mexican authorities. He'll give us an update in the briefing. Apparently, Jake refused to leave her until her husband Viktor arrived at the hospital," John said.

Right on cue, Jake walked through the door of the Standby Room. He had his holdall over his shoulder and looked tired.

"Did yer miss me?" he said as he dropped his holdall on the sofa and cheekily stole Rose's mug of tea off her. He took a sip and sighed.

"Mmmm. I needed that. Airlines can't make tea to save their lives."

Everyone enveloped him in a hug and bombarded him with questions about Julia and their mission. He told them briefly as much as he could, and also wanted to catch up on what he'd heard about their individual missions.

He noticed that Rose was a bit edgy and not quite herself.

"Hey, are you alright sweetheart?" he asked quietly when they were away from the crowd.

Rose rolled her eyes at the question. Was everyone concerned about how she was dealing with her ordeal?

"I'm fine Jake, honestly," she lied.

"Good. Glad to hear it," he said with his cheeky grin.

Alice DiMaggio breezed into the Operations Room. She was responsible for the mental well being of Torchwood staff, and had come to remind them all to make an appointment with her office for a debriefing.

She saw her best friend and went over to talk to her. "Hi Rose. How are things?" she said cheerily.

"Oh not you as well? Why is everyone obsessed with how I am, or how I feel?"

"Rose?" Alice said with concern, switching to psychologist mode in an instant. "Is there a reason why people should be concerned about how you feel? I was just saying hello to what I thought was my best friend."

Rose blushed and looked guilty. "Sorry Alice. It's been a bit of a horrible week so far."

"Mmmm. You'd better come and tell me about it," Alice told her.

"I'll try and stop by later. I'm a bit busy at the moment."

"Rose, I'm the duty psychologist, I have the authority to pull you off any assignment for evaluation, but I'm asking you as a friend, come and have a chat with me in my office."

Rose looked over at John suspiciously. Had he contacted Alice to tell her she'd not been herself?

"Is that an order?"

Alice smiled. "Call it a concerned request."

She threw the folder she was holding on the desk. "I'll be in Psych Evaluation if any body wants me." She walked out of Special Operations without looking to see if Alice was following.

In her office, Alice was sat on a comfy sofa, with Rose next to her.

"I've read your report on your mission to Cambodia, it's a bit…. brief," Alice said. "Is there anything else you wanted to say, but maybe thought was too…. embarrassing or intimate?"

"Like what?" Rose asked defensively.

"Well, like being held on your own in a shack by five young men. Five sexually frustrated young men."

Rose looked at Alice suspiciously.

"John's report was a bit more detailed than yours," she told her.

"What?! What did he put in there?" she asked angrily. "Surely he didn't tell everyone I was nearly raped!"

Alice looked sad and disappointed. "No Rose, he didn't. He didn't have to. I thought you knew him better than that, that you could trust him."

She reached out to hold Rose's hand. "Believe it or not, I'm pretty good at what I do. You are exhibiting all the symptoms of post traumatic stress."

Rose started to blink at the tears stinging her eyes. "I do trust him Alice, it's me I don't trust. I'm a trained agent Alice, and I let myself be captured like a complete amateur. I had to rely on John to come and rescue me like a pathetic heroine in a silent movie."

"Why don't you start at the beginning and tell me about it?" Alice said. Rose looked reluctant. "I'm your counsellor, it will all be in confidence."

Rose nodded and started to tell Alice of her ordeal in the jungle, everything, even things she hadn't admitted to herself or to John. Because Alice was right, she was good at her job, and she made Rose think about things she'd been avoiding thinking about.

At midday, everyone assembled in the Executive Meeting Room ready for the briefing. Rose went around the table and sat next to John, reaching for his hand and squeezing it for reassurance.

["Are you okay Love?"] he thought to her.

She thought about that question before she answered it. ["Really? No, not at the moment. But I will be Love, given time."] She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, feeling him squeeze her hand back in support.

Pete walked in with a cup of coffee and took his position at the head of the table.

"Good afternoon people. Thank you for attending this briefing. I'd like to start by saying a big thank you to our three teams who managed to shut down the oscillators and save the Earth."

Pete put his hands together and started the applause that was taken up by the rest of the room.

"Next. Some of you may have spoken to Jake already, but the latest news on Julia is that she came through the surgery well. They removed the bullet from her arm and she will be in a cast for six weeks."

He looked over at Chrissie Anderson. "We've sent a card and flowers, and I understand that Chrissie has started a collection if anyone wants to contribute."

He then got down to the business at hand and gave a rundown of each team's mission, the successful finding and deactivating of the crystals, and the subsequent ambush by groups of five locally hired heavies.

It turned out that Naguib El Mallakh, Research Fellow at Cairo University, had only been trying to delay Beta Team because he was being over protective of the ancient monument. He had called the police when he woke up and realised that he had been stunned.

Pete then looked to John. "I'll now hand over to Dr. Smith who will bring us up to speed on the latest intelligence."

John stood and addressed the meeting.

"I have managed to confirm that each group of five guardians had a leader who was wearing a triangular gemstone. An emerald for the Cambodian group, a ruby for the Egyptians and a Sapphire for the Mexicans."

"Are these significant?" McNab asked.

"I believe so. The last time I saw something like this, it had been a scarab ring worn by a servant of an alien called an Osirian. The gemstone was a psychic controlling device," John replied.

"So who were these people watching the pyramids?" Pete asked.

"Locally sourced heavies, paid to watch over the pyramids once they'd been activated by the servant of Sutekh. Each of the leaders was given a gemstone to wear that they were told would alert them to any theft, which it did. But it also gave telepathic control over the group."

"And you think this is another Osirian," Rose asked.

"Actually, I think it might be the same one. His name was Sutekh, also known as Sutekh the Destroyer. I thought I'd trapped him in a time tunnel, but he's clever, almost as clever as me," John said, waggling his eyebrows at Rose.

"What kind of threat level are we looking at here?" Andy asked.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, 50. I barely managed to trap him in a time tunnel last time. This time he'll know who I am and what I'm capable of. I'm going to have to try and outsmart him by thinking ahead, because he will be able to read my mind and control my body."

John stared into space. "If he's found a way of using his mental abilities across time and universes, then we are in serious trouble."

"So who is this servant of Sutekh you mentioned?" Jack asked.

"It's an alien, tasked with constructing the pyramids with local workers. When things got too 'hot' for Sutekh, he hopped out of this universe and the servant would have shut down the pyramids and lain dormant until activated again by Sutekh's will."

It was Gwen who asked the next question. "What does this servant look like?"

"Like anyone it wants to. Last time it took on the form of Professor Marcus Scarman, an Egyptologist."

"John, the ambush team in Cambodia said something about being paid by a monk," Rose said.

"Ah, right. The monk. Imagine someone comes up to a gang of thieves and says 'watch that pyramid for me and I'll give you lots of money'. What are they going to do? Take the money and run, that's what."

Rose picked up on his train of thought. "Oh I get it. Someone trustworthy asks them, someone they wouldn't dream of stealin' from, say, a monk, and they'll do it."

"Exactly, especially if the leader of the gang is given the gift of an emerald to help them in their task."

"And then Sutekh has them under his control. That's clever," Rose said.

"Yeah," John said. "I would imagine he appeared to the Mexican gang as a Padre, and an Imam to the Egyptians."

"And where will it be now?" Pete asked.

"I'm hoping Chrissie has some information on that," John said.

"What? Me?" Chrissie said in surprise. She hadn't been looking for any alien servant of an Egyptian God.

"Yes, the mystery buyer of the Prang Emerald?" John told her.

"Oh, right. You think that this servant has taken on the form of the owner of the emerald."

"It makes sense. It's the only one in private hands, so it would be the easiest to obtain first."

"And that would explain why it wasn't reported stolen," Jack added.

"Exactly. So what have you got for us Chrissie?"

Chrissie picked up the remote and switched on the media screens.

"I made some enquiries with Christie's auction house, but anonymous bidders stay anonymous. I had to use other, indirect methods."

She clicked the remote to show a number of lists.

"I managed to access British Telecom international call logs from 2001 when the sale of the Prang Emerald was being auctioned. Unfortunately, the logs in 2001 were not that detailed and only indicated a regional exchange in a country."

She clicked the remote again. "The newspapers reported that Christie's claimed the buyer was in the far east. This claim still maintains anonymity, so we have no reason to doubt it."

Another click. "If we look at Christie's international bank transactions for that time, and match them with the telephone call logs, we find ourselves in Singapore at the door of this man."

Chrissie clicked the remote again and the face of a young oriental man appeared on the screen.

"Lee Kuan Yang. Multimillionaire and owner of New World Electronics, and present owner of the Prang Emerald."

"Have we got an address for him?" Andy asked, already forming an covert assault mission in his head.

"Ah, now, there's the problem. His company are being a bit tight lipped on his where abouts. All the PR department will say is that he's taking an extended vacation," Chrissie said.

John suddenly got excited. "Do you have a list of properties he owns?"

Chrissie checked on her tablet. "He's got properties all over the world."

"Hawaii?" John asked hopefully.

Chrissie looked down the list. "Yes! How did you know?"

"Elementary my dear Anderson," he said with a grin. "Imagine three points on the equator. Giza is the apex of the triangle, with Teotihuacan and Koh Ker at the other corners. Where is the energy going to be focussed?"

"Er, opposite the apex?" she asked.

"Exactly! Which just happens to be the continually active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. That's where Sutekh was planning to come through before we shut down his transportation."

"Right then," Pete said. "It looks like you're heading for Hawaii."

"Okay then, Doc and The Wife will be technical lead on the mission. Jack, you'll lead the assault team of Gwen and Jake. You're tasked with getting them to this servant so that they can neutralize the threat."

"Why don't you three go and get something to eat before we go? Being telepathic, Rose and myself have to make some preparations if we're not going to become puppets of Sutekh," John said.