"You know that was stupid."
"I know."
"And you did it anyway?"
"What, are you my mother?"
"Might as well be. Clearly there's no one else about to kick your arse."
Pete ignored Miles and stalked off into the large, white room at the very top of Torchwood Tower. If Jake and Mickey's intel was right, in the other world, this room was being used to open the hole between the two worlds, where somewhere the Cybermen were waiting. "Nothing happened, the universe didn't end, and all I got out of it was a nasty cough from the shit cigs I smoked."
"Serves you right, and you are avoiding the fact that anything could have happened over there." Miles wasn't about to let this one go. "You step off a curb wrong, you go down an alley that you thought was safe and in that world is filled with criminals, you walk into the middle of a crime scene…"
"You really do sound like my mother." Pete spun around the room, looking it over. It had been used as lab space once, even office space, and currently was the home to a series of cardboard cartons and some forgotten desks.
"Do you ever stop to consider you are the head of not just one company, but two now? That world leaders like Harriet Jones look to you for advice and insight."
"Shows you what judgement they've got. You think we can get maintenance to clean this place up?"
"You aren't taking this seriously," Miles finally cracked, bellowing into the emptiness of the white room.
Pete turned to stare at him. He'd had Miles with him for years, assigned to him first as a PA, then as his assistant director for field operations. In all that time he'd only ever seen the man calm, cool, collected, and critical, usually in a sarcastic way. Unflappable, he was the level head in a crises. And how he stared at him, face red, hands on hips as he glared at Pete across the expanse of white tile floor, one strand of his normally perfectly coiffed golden hair dangling over his glasses. And in that moment, for all that Pete did know of this man who held his confidence, it occurred to him that really, he didn't know the man at all.
"You don't think I'm not taking this seriously?" Pete shoved his hands into his trousers, both because it was cold in that tiled, stark room, and because he was resisting the desire to punch Miles in the face. "People's lives are at stake. Two entire universes, hell, all of reality for all I know could disappear in the flash of an eye, and you don't think I'm not taking this seriously?"
"You haven't been in the field in nearly three years, and you presumed to do it last night," Miles snapped back.
"What, so I stepped all over your clean carpet and left tracks, is that what this is about? I was doing field work when you were still learning how to write your name, and I don't care what special ops you did before Torchwood, or how many people you killed, or if you can take me down with a brillo and a paperclip, you aren't talking to an idiot going over there."
He had rather hoped his condescension would sting a little, but it only seemed to make the other man more angry. "You weren't going over there for field work, you were going over there because Mickey wanted you to go see a woman who happens to be another version of your dead wife."
Not that it was a secret, but it did make Pete flush a tad guiltily. "No harm in that, Miles, not like she even saw me." Course, he neglected to mention how he'd snuck into her apartment like a creeper. The situation was a bit too volatile for that.
"Your wife is dead, Pete. She's not coming back...ever!"
"You don't think I know that?" Now it was Pete's turn to roar at the other man, quickly losing patience with this situation. "You don't think I didn't realize that the minute I saw her in that dingy little apartment that I once called home over here that she wasn't my Jackie? Doesn't mean she isn't less of a person, does it? And her world is being threatened by something we created, that we caused to happen. And I let one Jackie Tyler die because I didn't move fast enough, do you think I will let another die because of it? Now tell me, Miles, what's this all really about, 'cause you can't tell me you are pissed off because I went off without your permission."
As suddenly as his cool, collected friend had puffed up, he had deflated again. Whether it was Pete's anger or his point on their responsibility to the situation, he couldn't say. With shoulders slumping, he leaned against a stack of boxes, jaw working as he stared at the tile floor.
"I just...didn't want all this to be some game for you. That you were trying to use this to get a Jackie back, any Jackie."
"That's not what I'm doing."
"I know." Miles huffed. A sharp look crept on his face as he peered over his glasses at Peter. "How did you know about the special ops?"
"Director. Your files are open to me."
"That's classified."
"Not to Torchwood," Pete pointed out.
"Did not know that," Miles muttered. "And should have. There are things in there I'm not proud of."
"Things I've done I'm not proud of either. So what?"
"Point was, I was here because this was supposed to be different. You know, save the world from alien invasion, meet new life forms, do something good in the world instead of tear it apart. And since I've arrived, all Torchwood has managed to do is stupid shit after stupid shit, and we've had to pull it from the brink, and all because someone was an idiot, someone was careless. Directors were friends with Lumic, they don't seem to think twice about allowing a madman to run rampant through their files, and the world almost ends. When the dust clears, there's no one left, really, save a handful of people around here who can lead, and I pushed you in that role. You were what, some spy, not even a high level one at that, most of the time you just ran a business and kept your idiot wife out of trouble. But you were good at running a business, and you loved your idiot wife and treated her right, and yeah, you were selling shit to the masses, but you were doing good things too. And you stopped a madman from destroying us all. And I believed in that, Pete Tyler. And I pushed you into this because on that night when I thought the world was burning, you helped right it again, and I thought, that's a man I want running this place."
It was the most honesty he'd ever heard out of this notoriously closed mouth man. "Miles..I...don't know what to say. Thanks, I guess, for your belief in me?"
The other man snorted, shoving his glasses up his nose with an angry finger. "That's the problem. I do believe in you, Pete. But then you go and do boneheaded things like you did last night. And then I have to ask myself if I'm a complete and utter arsehole and I've made the world's greatest mistake. And this time, it's not just people's brains getting shoved into cyber bodies, it's the end of existence as we know it, all because you wanted to assuage your survivor's guilt."
There was more truth in that statement than Pete ever wanted to admit. "Did you honestly believe I was going to jeopardize the lives of everyone in two universes just because I miss my idiot wife?"
"People have been known to do stranger things. John Lumic just wanted to have a body that wouldn't fail him."
"Good point." Pete sighed, turning to spin in place, brain twisting. "You know, this wasn't ever the life I wanted to lead. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an inventor, have a lab and stuff, like Edison. And then when I got older, and there wasn't money for things like school, I decided I wanted to be in a band. Didn't matter I was shit at it, chicks dug it, and I just wanted to be someone...special."
He exhaled, remembering those long ago dreams and aspirations. "I wanted to tour things, do things, change the world once. And then I married Jackie, and then I thought I'd make a businessman out of myself out of all my ideas. And you know, none of that worked...not till Yvonne Hartman showed up and gave me a deal I couldn't refuse. I took it as a sign, a gift from fate, finally going my way. I didn't realize that it would be one of those Trojan horse type gifts, one with so many strings attached to it, right? And now, here I am. Jackie, gone, Yvonne, Lumic, gone. I'm rich, I can spend money to change anything. I head up this secret organization tasked with protecting the world, and I can do anything. And really, all I want to do is go down to the pub, watch a game, have a drink, and let someone else deal with it."
That drew a laugh out of Miles, hard and ironic. "Tell me about it."
"Isn't that the pisser," Pete wondered allowed, turning to regard Miles with a chuckle. "I mean, on the telly and at the cinema, they make saving the world so glamorous, right? At the end of the day it's really just about not tripping over your own feet and hoping you don't muck it all up in the end."
"They don't tell you that when they sign you up, no." Miles agreed, standing up straight again. "And they don't tell you how bloody thankless it is, either."
"Yeah, but at least I have this side job that pays me a lot and feeds my overweening need for attention," Pete quipped dryly.
This earned another snort of laughter from Miles. "Because you love the spotlight, indeed."
"Right," Pete nodded as eyed the stack of boxes and desks. "And what is all this stuff in here again?"
"Storage. I think this was supposed to be used for some alien whatever once a long time ago, but they never got around to building it."
"Think Singh could take it over? Put his lab here?"
"Why?"
"This is where the other Torchwood is building their device, whatever it is, the one that they plan on letting the Cybermen through with. And I am willing to bet that the hole we are using is somewhere up there." He pointed to the ceiling above their heads. "I want to build something that controls the flow of what's going on in that hole, to head them off at the pass. And if we control them on this end, they can't push their way into that end."
"You don't really want to keep them here?"
"Not at all. What I want to do is to hold them off as long as possible. They'll get through eventually, but we need time to stall, time to figure out how to keep the other side from pulling them in."
Miles considered this thoughtfully. "Yvonne is still the head on the other side. She may listen to reason."
"Not if she thinks the Cybermen are a new and useful tool. You know how she was in this world. And why would she listen to us? Would you listen to me if I showed up and told you I was Pete Tyler and worked for Torchwood in a different world?"
"Point. But if she understood the true nature of what these creatures were…"
"That's just it, she doesn't. And we can't explain it to her. She'd never believe us. So we will have to stop her some other way."
"We've already got Jake and Mickey in there. We can work on a plan to stop them from that end."
"And in the meantime, I want to build something on this end to see what we can do. Get Singh in on it. And I want it fast. I don't know how much time we are going to have to do this."
It was the sort of direction that Miles appreciated and clearly needed in that moment. "I'll get right on it."
Before he could even move to carry out any plan of action, Pete paused him. "Miles, who was it?"
The other man frowned in vague surprise. "What do you mean?"
"Who you lost?"
"I don't understand?"
Pete shrugged, strolling lightly over to him. "I know so little about you. You hide yourself with your polish and your wit, and it occurred to me I don't know who you are. You've worked everyday with me for what...six years? And I don't even know where you were born, or where you grew up, or what your parents did. All I have is a classified history and an employee file, and I know you have impeccable fashion sense and I'm afraid to be left in a dark room with you for very long if you are angry with me. I just...don't know you, Miles Connor. And I wanted to know who was it you lost? Cause, I have to say, you screaming at me there sounded an awful lot like a man who had the thought of finding someone he lost occur to him once or twice when he found out there was a parallel universe he could just pop into."
Outside of a muscle in his cheek, Miles didn't even flinch. "It was my...partner. Maybe would have married him, if his family had ever come around to it, maybe not. I was out on assignment, and there was an accident. Just...a normal, run of the mill accident. No aliens, no Cybermen, just a car with tires too thin, blow out, and then he was gone. Couldn't be helped."
For a second, Pete could see the aching loss and it made Miles suddenly human. "Did you think about going with Mickey to find him?"
"No," Miles shook his head. "I had him go look him up, though. He was happily married."
That ached. Pete sighed, thinking of what he would have done had he found Jackie with someone else, how it would have hurt. "I'm sorry, mate. But at least you know he is happy there."
"I don't know about that," Miles murmured, something of the dry sarcasm returning. "He was married to me."
For a moment, the hairs on the back of Pete's neck stood straight up, the strangeness and the rightness of it. "You, eh? Well, then, I guess somewhere it all worked out in the end."
"It did." Miles looked pensive for half a moment. "And you know, I'd not change that for a thing. Selfish bastard that I am, I could have wanted him, but you know, at least somewhere, I can take comfort that we're together and driving each other mad, right?"
"Yeah," Pete replied, thinking of Jackie, alone, with nothing but her telly and what she thought was her father's ghost.
"Stranger still, we had dogs. He was never a dog person here. I wanted the dog."
"That's all right. In the other world, I have a daughter."
"That girl you told me about. The one that was at your party."
"Rose," he murmured, catching Miles' snort. "Yeah, like the dog. Always wanted it for a girl if we had one."
"Guess, then, we can both consider them as examples of what might have been, had things been different."
"Guess we can," Pete agreed. "So you had a partner and you like dogs. Anything else you care to share about yourself since you work for me?"
Miles pretended to look thoughtful. "I support your football sides arch nemesis."
"You really do want me to fire you, don't you?"
"That's the general ideas, sir, yeah."
"Get me my plan to stop the Cybermen first, then I can fire you and you can go support whatever football club you like."
"I'll work on that."