Once again in her sturdy Torchwood uniform, Rose smiled as she stepped into the lobby of Canary Wharf. It was good to be back at work. Rose stepped into the line for security and waited patiently, chatting with a few of the security guys. She was one of few people in a good mood that early on a Monday. She took an elevator to the thirtieth story. For the field operatives, this was part of a routine they fell into during training that they refused to break out of pride. Take the elevator to the thirtieth story and run the remaining twenty. It did, she admitted, keep all the operatives in good shape for chasing after aliens. And for being chased; they did a fair amount of each. Field Operations was located on the top floor of the building for quick access to the roof for helicopters and zeppelins. They also had a reserve, express elevator for leaving the building quickly and, in a real emergency, ropes and harnesses for base jumps.

Rose was the first member of her team in for the day. Their five cubicles clustered near the door of her office were all empty. She hoped they hadn't gotten up to trouble while she was away, or worse, been grounded. Her medical leave was bad enough, but if her team was grounded they would be grumpy from a week of paperwork. Her second, Vance, was trusted enough to lead operations. Hopefully they'd been out on at least a few missions. Rose opened the door to her corner office and shucked off her backpack and jacket.

She was able to confirm that her team did get into the field. She grinned as she read over the reports, they shouldn't be too grumpy then. Their last trip out was the day before and it was a simple snatch and grab. Torchwood called them Tribbles for their fuzzy appearance, but the small aliens came from a planet on the other side of the galaxy where they were the equivalent of tree squirrels. The more sentient species on their planet had set up a standing transmat beam for Torchwood to send home any that they found. Somewhere there was a rift linking the two planets and the Tribbles were a daily, if minor, problem. Her team went on retrieval and captured six of the little blighters. Not a bad haul for an afternoon out, especially as no one got bitten.

The field operations division of Torchwood wasn't as adrenaline filled as Rose had first expected. They had five teams of six in main operations each led by a captain. The whole division was overseen by Commander Davis. Each team had a scheduled training time every day. The forty ninth floor was the training compound. There were six trainers so that each member of the team could work one on one as needed.

The main task of the operatives was to sort through news reports and call-ins to find incidences of alien activity. Those with suspect activity were reported to the captain of the team, who passed them on to the commander if he or she agreed. The commander then handed out assignments based on the team's capabilities and recent activity. Commander Kurt Davis was fair and levelheaded. He knew each of his people and their talents. All of the operatives respected his decisions. The teams took turns on weekends. Two teams at the office and a third on call. At night there was a shift of scanners, as the teams called them. They watched reports to see if anything unusual happened and called in to the commander if something was urgent.

Most of the other branches were trained in combat and operations as well, in case of emergency. They reported for intensive training every six weeks so they could be called in for the largest threats. Large parts of the science and accounting departments were exempt from this, but every man and woman in Torchwood had some degree of defense and psychic training.

Rose quickly scanned the reports queued in her bin from the day before. Two of the five seemed worth checking out. She walked them to the commander's office as the first members of her team arrived, breathing a little heavily from their run up the stairs.

"Rose!" Lucy cried, dropping her things at her desk and rushing to her captain for a hug.

"Captain." Brennan said with a grin and a cheeky salute before he too gave Rose a hug.

Lucy was a few years older than Rose and despite the hard line of their work, retained an optimistic shine on life. It could fool you though, the slim woman was tall with a dark pixie cut and held a black belt in most forms of martial arts. Brennan Simmonds was Jake's cousin and it showed. By education, he was a mechanical engineer with a gift for aerospace. His specialty was repairs to damaged spacecraft to help crashed visitors get off world again.

Rose smiled as she hugged them back; it seemed she'd been missed.

"Alright, you two. Work to do, I have to drop these reports off with Kurt." She said as she pried their arms off her.

They padded obediently back to their desks like puppies as Rose walked on.

Once back at her desk, Rose checked her email. One from her dad, welcoming her back to work. One from Owen, reminding her to come to medical if she felt poorly at all. Pete forwarded her a very exciting message from the Mursagi ambassador Rose had helped with negotiating a peace treaty between Mursag and Rettlfirce. He was inviting Rose to a ball in celebration of the first anniversary of the treaty. The ball was coming up in what Rose calculated to be about three weeks. There was a note attached from Pete saying she was approved to go, and the Mursagi would send transport. She wrote an immediate acceptance. Maybe on Saturday she and her mum could go shopping for a dress. Though, she did have quite a few that her mum insisted she couldn't wear again from the multitude of parties she'd been forced to over the past few years. With all the press following her, Jackie forbid her from wearing the same dress twice. But that was on Earth, it wouldn't matter on another planet. And besides, she needed the weekend to practice Tardising.

"Hey Rose, it's your turn to pick up lunch." Jake said, sticking his head into her office.

"Hmm? Yeah, 'course." She said, looking up from a report on increasing alien tourism in southern London. She, Mickey, and Jake were all captains and devised a schedule for who was responsible for lunches. Whatever takeaway the buyer wanted was the rule. Rose frowned slightly as she returned to the report, that area of London shouldn't be a big draw for tourists. She added the report to the suspicious stack. She turned her mind back to lunch. She glanced at the clock. Her team had training from ten to noon, just before lunch. It was almost nine-thirty and she had no idea what she wanted. She opened the Torchwood newsletter and scanned the restaurant recommendations column. Rose laughed aloud. A new restaurant had gone in down the road, Bad Wolf Baguettes. They served sandwiches on homebaked baguettes and the review claimed they had the best chips in London. That sounded pretty good to Rose.

"Seriously, Rose?" Mickey asked, staring at his wrapped meatball sub like it was going to bite.

Rose smiled her tongue touched grin. "New place, it was recommended in the newsletter." She said, stretching her slightly sore muscles.

"What's wrong, Mick?" Jake asked. "You like meatball subs."

"Nothing. Nothing is bloody wrong with the bloody sandwich." He muttered darkly, glaring at Rose. Oh, she definitely knew something.

Rose spent the afternoon checking her list against the Torchwood database of acquired artifacts. She found almost everything she needed. She chewed on her lip as she thought. Some of the missing pieces were critical, but she knew almost exactly what they looked like. On a whim, she launched her internet browser and searched "Bad wolf 3D plotting." A London based company immediately popped up. They did advanced three dimensional printing in both plastic and combinations of metals. All she had to do was send them computer mock ups. They guaranteed printing within the week. It was perfect. She'd have to go over designs a bit more thoroughly with River to assure there would be no errors, but the cannon looked feasible. As her dad had given her permission to use the Torchwood labs to tinker after earning her degrees, gaining access wouldn't be too much of a problem. It was the when that she worried about. Weekends definitely, but she would also have to sacrifice some of her sleep cycle and work in the evenings. At least until she mastered time travel. That would be risky, having two of her in the same city at the same time.

"You can't go back in someone's own personal timeline."

The Doctor reminded her in her head. Rose shook her head, last time she'd done that, she'd nearly ended the world. Maybe she would visit River every other day once she started building. That was a better plan though she would be sad to see less of her friend. Her heart twinged, the other woman was probably bored and lonely too. For most of her life, River had all of time and space at her disposal. Now, trapped in one building and it's surroundings, however lovely, would be devastating. Ok, so maybe short visits to River on days she stayed at Torchwood to build and long ones on other days.

"Whatcha workin' on Rose?" Mickey asked from the doorway. Rose jumped, too absorbed to notice him walk up. That in itself was unusual, Mickey thought, Rose was hard to startle these days.

"Just checkin' to see if those scramble Praxian gamma converters were cataloged properly. The Doctor used one of those to cause an explosion once, I don't want that to happen here. Who know what else might go off." Rose lied smoothly.

"Right, well, we're all heading home. Are you comin?"

"Is it really that late? We didn't get a single trip out today." She pouted.

"No doubt Kurt wanted to make sure you were up to it first."

"I was 'up to it' a week ago." She growled.

Mickey chuckled. "Yeah, sure. C'mon, let's get you home."

Rose shrugged into her jacket and tucked her notebook back into her backpack before following Mickey out the door.

Rose called Jackie as she waited for her takeaway to be delivered. They chatted casually for a bit. Rose told her mum about the Mursagi ball she was going to and Jackie told her everything Tony had gotten up to during the day. They finished their conversation with Rose agreeing to have dinner at the mansion on weekends indefinitely. Rose knew they'd only have between four and six weekends before she'd be gone. So little time. It terrified her as much as it excited her.

She wolfed down her curry as soon as it arrived, hoping she wouldn't pay for that later, and went to see River.

She greeted the other woman with a long hug.

"I'll still be able to come see you from the other universe, right?" Rose asked.

River blinked a few times. "I imagine so, I hadn't thought of it before. It's funny, at the Library, you were mentioned twice and the Doctor didn't know. When I died, more or less, I asked him not to tell you. My whole life the Doctor knew how I was going to die and I could sense it, a little. Whenever he looked at me, there was always something a little wistful about it. But never with you. Maybe that's why."

"Probably. When else was I mentioned?"

"You will tell Donna to tell me something. Except she doesn't know that it was you."

"Oh goody. What did I tell you?"

"You told me to have fun." She looked at Rose's blank face and smiled. "A while before the Library, you told me that when I meet the Doctor and he doesn't know me, I should have fun with it. Be as mysterious as possible, flirt a bit, tease him a little. And if I needed him to trust me, tell him something out of one of your stories."

"Did you have to tell him something?"

"Yes. He was being very stubborn. I don't know how you get on with that man."

Rose laughed. "What'd you tell him?"

River giggled. Rose blinked at the unexpected sound from the older woman. "Lots of planets have a north."

Rose grinned. "Did it work?"

"Oh yes. But he was very confused."

"So I told you to have fun, knowing you were heading off to get stuck here?"

"It was a bit odd. I wondered if I was changing time. Especially as my crew was killed off. One. By. One. You said something else though, and I think it was a reference to this place."

"An' what was that?"

"Nothing that can be remembered is ever truly lost."

"You know, I'm looking forward to the day when I get to be the cryptic one."

"Sweetie, that was you, being cryptic." River laughed.

"Doesn't count, you told me I'd say it so now I have to say it."

River raised an eyebrow at her. "Should we get started then?"

They set to work on the designs again. Rose went over the specific pieces she needed fabricated. She still had drafting software on her computer from university, she could begin the drawings at home.

She was back home earlier than she expected; it was only ten. She could work on the designs for the parts she needed for an hour before she needed to sleep. Although she was no longer arriving in her body exhausted since her telepathic abilities were getting stronger and easier, the hours at Torchwood required her to get quite a bit of sleep.

Most of the rest of the week passed without incident. Well, as much as it could working for Torchwood. Rose and her team helped a lost merchant home, dealt with a Tribble infestation on a scale Rose hadn't seen before, and stopped the alien drug trade running in south London that was causing the unusual amount of tourism to that area. The more unusual one was straight out of a soap.

Reports of armed aliens in the middle of Trafalgar Square swamped the office late Thursday afternoon and Rose, Mickey, and Jake were all ordered in with their teams. They arrived to find an argument had turned into a standoff and was about to devolve into a shootout between two groups of aliens, obviously from the same planet. While the Torchwood teams surrounded the area to prevent casualties and keep the press out, Rose stepped in to negotiate between the sides. She was grateful to have the translation matrix working again for her as none of the aliens spoke English and they were all tense and peeved. It was all very Hatfield and McCoys, Rose thought. The two groups were, in fact, families that had been feuding for generations. Wealthy families. They were on Earth for a destination wedding that would join the two families and stop the feud. The argument had started with the couple to be married disputing the proper order of the courses at the wedding feast. As more and more relatives joined the argument, the topic fell back onto the old grievances which quickly caused the escalation. Their shimmers were set aside as the families prepared to solve their problems the old-fashioned way. The couple had walked away from their families in disgust and were sitting dejectedly on a bench watching the scene play out. Rose spoke with them briefly and found that they had decided together on an order for the courses.

After an hour of walking between the two sides, Rose finally convinced them to remember why they were seeking the marriage in the first place and to leave the past behind them. The Wookie-like aliens put their shimmers back on, shook hands with each other, then Rose, and swore on their family honor not to cause any more trouble on Earth before going on their merry way. Rose decided that every sci-fi movie was based on something alien.

Rose, gulping down water to ease her dry throat from all the negotiation, was glad that Torchwood had beat the press to the scene. The teams had managed to keep them from so much as seeing Rose and threatened to confiscate any cameras they saw. The tabloids were desperate to get pictures of the young Vitex heiress in the role of 'super spy'. Though Torchwood was no longer a secret organization, an air of mystery and almost dread still surrounded it that made people not want to look into it too deeply. To Rose, it was spaceships crashing into Big Ben all over again. The things that were right in front of them were ignored in favor of a more comfortable lie.

"So." Mickey said when they were back at the office, leaning in her door frame.

"Hello, Mickey. As you can see, I'm writing a report on today's incident."

"Now, I was wondering about that. Mostly when you learned to speak Wookie. Secret Starwars marathons?"

Rose sighed, as glad as she was for the languages, it wasn't the most best for it to be shown in front of everyone.

"The Tardis translation matrix Mick, it gets inside your head and translates stuff."

"I traveled in the Tardis too and I couldn't make out a word they were saying."

"Well I traveled longer."

"So you've been able to do that all this time and you never used it until now?"

Rose sighed. He really was being a pain about this. "Mickey, I promise you that it's because of the Tardis. I absolutely promise."

Mickey glared at her, his arms crossed. "Something's up with you Rose, and don't even try to pretend there isn't. I can tell. If you don't want to tell me, fine. But don't treat me like an idiot." He turned his back and walked away from her.

She rubbed her eyes. How would she even begin to explain? It could wait, she decided, a little longer.