Sunset

---

Back to Act 3

ACT 4: the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

--e e cummings, "i carry your heart with me"

Chapter 14

Rose's official debriefing began at nine o'clock sharp on Wednesday. It was called a "debriefing" because, apparently, "crucifixion" had already been taken. Mr. Winslow's mouth was so twisted up it practically disappeared under his mustache, but this time he wasn't the only one she had to address; he was joined by Mr. Goldman, a beefy man with no hair on his head at all, and Mrs. Harter, who made Rose think of a sword, with her long thin nose and pointed chin and a boxy blazer that should've gone out of style in any universe before 1987. They sat in a row at a table; Rose stood in front of them, and they were just three rifles short of a firing squad.

"Ms. Prentice, your report states that you were unaware of the steam tunnels beneath the factory ground an the modifications made thereto," Goldman was saying gravely.

"That's correct," Rose said.

"Did you not do you due diligence in researching the site?" Harter asked.

"We studied blueprints of the site dating from 2005 onwards," Rose said. "The tunnels had been sealed in 1998 and were not included on those prints."

"Yet the current factory owners had clearly opened them again," Goldman said. "You found no sign of underground workings during surveillance?"

"Our surveillance only lasted a matter of days on this particular site," Rose pointed out. "And no, sir, we did not see any evidence of underground activity, because we weren't looking for any."

"Yet Dr. Sato tells us there is now a high likelyhood that materials were removed from the factory grounds through the tunnels," Harter said. "She produced satellite images to support her argument."

And Rose had to order her to turn them over to Mr. Winslow, damning though they were, because Tosh had been willing to sit on them in order to cover the team's collective arse. "Hindsight is, as they say, twenty-twenty, ma'am," she said. "I repeat: we didn't know there were any underground tunnels, and so we didn't look for anything of that nature."

Winslow harumphed and fiddled with his laptop. "Let the record show that the exit point of the tunnels was eventually located more than five miles away."

"Along with absolutely no physical evidence about the suspects," Harter said.

"These are sophisticated people," Winslow said. "And the weather hasn't exactly been on our side the past few days."

Goldman cleared his throat. "Ms. Prentice, you indicate that on the eleventh of September Dr. Noble proposed the use of a...a 'resonance wave' weapon to neutralize the synthorganic technology, is that correct?"

"That is correct."

"And you permitted him to pursue this idea?"

Rose swallowed. "I asked him to search for a way to make it feasible, sir."

"Because it wasn't feasible in the first place?" Harter asked.

"It required too much time to construct the resonators in sufficient quantity," Rose said. "I told him I'd consider the idea if he could simplify the design. When it was clear that he had no results to speak of at the onset of the operation, I told him to abandon the project."

"Except he clearly did have results," Harter said. "Your own reports indicates he brought a prototype with him to Leeds."

"That's correct, but-"

"Did you know he had completed the resonator prototype?"

"No, ma'am-"

"Did you know he was planning to use it?"

"I did not--"

Harter's voice rose. "You're telling us you live with this man and you weren't aware of what he was planning?"

"Agatha, please," Winslow said sharply, and Harter looked at him sharply but subsided.

"What about the explosion?" Goldman asked. "It was caused by the on-site generator, correct?"

"That's what we've determined, yes, sir," Rose said, avoiding Harter's eyes. "The factory occupants had written a script that shut down the generator's coolant pumps when their computer detected an attack on the system. It overheard and ignited a secondary explosion in the adjacent warehouse, which appears to have been stocked with ammonium nitrate fertilizer and plastic explosives."

"Did you know that the generator would explode if the computers were tampered with?" Goldman asked.

"No, sir," she said.

"Had you prepared for the possibility of booby traps within the factory?"

"We prepared a withdrawal plan, sir," Rose said. "But booby traps were not specifically discussed."

"And was this withdrawal plan followed?" Harter asked.

Rose let her eyes fall to the floor. "No," she said. "The withdrawal plan was not followed."

"Why was that, Ms. Prentice?"

"Because personnel had moved into the tunnels and become disorganized."

"During the failed pursuit of your fleeing suspects, is that right?" Harter asked, but didn't wait for Rose to respond. "And whose fault was that?"

"We're not here to assign guilt," Winslow said quickly, but Rose interrupted him:

"It was my fault, ma'am." She took a deep breath. "It was my decision to order pursuit into the tunnels. I failed to call off pursuit quickly enough once I realized the radios weren't functioning properly. I..." She swallowed. "I failed to recognize Dr. Noble's intentions beforehand and I failed to stop him before the explosive device was tripped. I take sole responsibility for the operation, sir."

Mr. Goldman nodded. "We appreciate your honesty, Ms. Prentice."

"Although," Mr. Winslow spoke up, "I do wonder about Dr. Noble's behavior. He is a bit...erratic, isn't he? Difficult for any of us to know he was planning to undermine the operation."

Rose stiffened; Mrs. Harter narrowed her eyes and said, "We've already established that Ms. Prentice cohabitates with Noble, Edward. If anyone should have known his plans--"

"I'm merely saying he's a difficult man to read," Mr. Winslow blustered. "And last I checked, Torchwood did not require unit leaders to read minds. A certain amount of responsibility must fall upon the insubordinate agent--"

"With respect, sir," Rose blurted, drawing three raised eyebrows. "I had prior warning that Dr. Noble was not...integrated into the leadership structure." She swallowed again. "My family and I vouched for him. I live with him. I chose him for my team. I--" Her throat closed up, and she clenched her jaw, because she'd already done enough crying in the bathroom at home, and she was not, absolutely was not going to do it in front of her superiors.

Winslow nodded firmly. "I think you've answered all of our questions, Ms. Prentice. You may go."

"I hardly think--" Harter started to say.

"You may go," Winslow repeated firmly, and gave Harter a significant look. "I think the three of us have matters to discuss amongst ourselves."

Rose didn't speak to anyone on her way back to her office, not even Ianto, who hadn't asked any questions about what happened in Leeds but was keeping her topped up on the really good coffee anyway. She collapsed into her chair and looked at the message on her computer screen: the Doctor had used his credit card again, at a restaurant in Bangalore. She was, strictly speaking, not supposed to use this program without a warrant or at least official approval, and she certainly wasn't supposed to use it to cyberstalk her boyfriend (if she could still call him that) but if he wasn't going to turn on his mobile she needed to keep an eye on him somehow. Just to know he was okay. Or if not okay, alive, at least. It was probably deeply unhealthy but she found she didn't care.

A knock on her door made her jump. "Come in?" she called.

Grace stuck her head inside. "Hi," she said. "How're you doing?"

Rose sighed. "Ask me again in a few hours. Everything wrapped up in Leeds?"

Grace nodded. "I got back late last night and checked in on Jake this morning. Doesn't look like he'll need a skin graft on that hand after all, but it's gonna leave one hell of a scar."

"I bet he's pleased," she said. "He's always wanted a really interesting scar."

"I'm just worried about him losing range of motion in his fingers," Grace said. She slipped inside and leaned against the wall. "But they've already got him talking to a physical therapist, and I think Pierre was taking notes."

Rose managed to chuckle a bit. "Then that's all taken care of. And who knows, he might come back to a promotion, too."

"Don't talk like that," Grace said sternly. "The document recovery team in Edinburgh is working on everything we're recovered, and Tosh with them running some tests on debris for traces of synthorganic molecules that might've survived the fire. And we have that whole box of Mike O'Connell's stuff, he's practically spelled out the real delivery schedules."

"And the authorities in North America and Brazil are pursuing that missing equipment from the Cybus factories," Rose added wearily. "But none of that changes the fact that we're back to playing catch-up while the Horatii have time to cover their tracks. I'll be shocked if anything remains in the Commonwealth by the end of the month, and that takes the case out of Torchwood's hands."

"So we give up the case," Grace said. "That doesn't mean they're going to fire you."

"Maybe they should," Rose said.

Before Grace could react to that statement (and judging by the way she puffed up, a solid reaction seemed to be in the offing) Rose's phone rang. It was Winslow. "Ms. Prentice, I'd like to see you in my office, if you could. As soon as possible."

"Of course, sir," Rose said, and shrugged at Grace. "It's been good working with you, if it comes to that."

"It won't," Grace said furiously. "You and I are going to talk, okay? And there will be chocolate."

That made Rose smile a bit as she left. "Whatever you say."

Winslow was alone in his office when she got there, squinting at his computer-she sometimes wondered if his obsession with paper had anything to do with a vision problem he didn't want to own up to. "Ms. Prentice, please take a seat," he said.

She sat down and asked, "What has the committee decided, sir?"

He shut down the computer, folded it away, and steepled his fingers on his desk. "The committee. Yes. We had some...words, the three of us."

"And?" she asked, because there was no point in dragging this out.

Winslow studied her over the rims of his glasses. "When was the last time you took any leave, Rose?" he asked.

The non sequitur, and her first name, threw Rose for a loop. "Er...July? Right after I returned from the other universe?"

"I mean a proper holiday," Winslow said. "You've been under a great deal of stress these past few months, and a few days' respite in the middle of the whirlwind can't possibly have been sufficient. I can ask the security department how many weekends you've worked, you know."

"You ask us to work weekends," Rose said. "And I haven't been working any harder or longer than--"

"Rose," Winslow said again. "Your record with Torchwood over the past two years has been exemplary. I would hate to see it blemished by a few stress-induced mistakes on your part."

She felt a bit foolish when she realized what he was saying, and then anger took over. "Mr. Winslow, people died on my watch," she said. "I fumbled a serious counter terrorism investigation. You can't just sweep that under some rug because you like me."

"Whether I like you or not has nothing to do with the facts of the case," Winslow said. "And those facts clearly show that Dr. Noble shoulders the largest part of the blame for what happened this week. Your own failures in judgment would not have had the same ramifications if not for his reckless behavior."

"He is my failure in judgment," Rose said.

"Then it's quite convenient that he's already resigned, isn't it?" Winslow asked. "Taking full responsibility upon himself in the process, I should add."

It was an elegant and awful solution. "That's not fair," Rose said bitterly. "You're making him a scapegoat."

"I'm well aware of that," Mr. Winslow said. "But Torchwood needs you, Rose. You are the single best agent we have, and that record is what has earned you this second chance. I suggest you think very carefully about how to use it."

She weighed her next words carefully. "And if I don't want a second chance with Torchwood?"

Winslow looked genuinely sad. "We would regret the loss of a fine agent," he said. "And I will recommend you for any other position with nothing but praise."

"Even if I don't deserve it?" she challenged.

He shut his eyes for a moment. "Rose, it is a terrible thing to bear the burden of another's death," he said quietly. "I was an RAF man myself in my day, I know how it is. I want you to take some time off, get out of Cardiff for a few days, and think about things. Don't make a hasty decision that you're going to regret later on."

"No," she agreed. "No, there's been too much of that already, I think." She stood up. "Will the case be transferred?"

"Honestly, Ms. Prentice, your team at 60% is better than some others at 100%," Winslow said, and the surname brought back a measure of normalcy, of distance. "I think they can be trusted to continue the case in your absence, and I'll begin the search for Dr. Noble's replacement with renewed vigor."

"I don't know if he can be replaced," Rose said, but she wasn't sure she was only talking about Torchwood. "Thank you, Mr. Winslow."

"Think nothing of it, Ms. Prentice," he said with agonizing gentleness. "Enjoy your holiday."

---

She locked up her office, told Ianto to forward her calls, and went home; within fifteen minutes she had reserved a train ticket for London. It was one thing to come home and pass out in bed while preparing for her debriefing, but the thought of having a large block of free time here, with some of the Doctor's clothes still in the bureau and his deodorant in the bathroom and his ridiculously expensive cookware in the cabinets, it was just too much. She could monitor his credit card transactions via computer but she couldn't bear to sit on the couch, where the cushions still clung to his scent.

So she packed a bag, called the Janislowskis, and took a train to London. The Doctor wasn't the only one who needed to be anywhere but here.

Lena met her at the train station, though Rose hadn't asked her to. "It's nothing," she insisted. "I come to the city every Wednesday for shopping. Rosichka, do you ever eat in that place?"

"I eat fine," Rose said. "And I know for a fact you do your shopping on Mondays."

"It rained on Monday," Lena said. "Besides, Oleg never lets me drive the car, I had fun."

"Did you leave him with Tony?" Rose asked, vaguely remembering that Pete had a thing in Brussels all this week. She climbed into the passenger seat and failed to point out the total lack of shopping bags in sight.

"I hadn't any choice, yes?" Lena threw the car into gear and accelerated sharply. "So let's be certain they haven't burnt down the house, okay?"

They hadn't; Oleg gave her a hug and a kiss and Tony reached out his arms, crying "Ose! Ose!" and nobody asked about the pile of sweet wrappers on the kitchen table. "Do you want some lunch, Rosichka?" Lena asked. "Maybe a snack?"

Rose let Tony pull on her hair for a bit, then passed him off to Lena. "I'm actually a bit tired," she said. "Think I'm going to take a nap."

"Of course, of course," Lena said. "I'll wake you in time for dinner."

Rose headed up to her room, for all it could be hers when she barely used it; Lena had cleaned up since last July, possibly a dozen times, but Rose remembered what a mess they'd made back then, when she'd joked around with the Doctor in here just before they left. She was too worn out to cry again, but the memory still burned uncomfortably somewhere in her stomach, and as she lay on the bed she wondered if there was any point in ever getting up again.

---

She did get up, of course, when Lena called her dinner, and even ate most of it; she let them talk about the garden and the one drippy sink and Tony and their own kids back home, who were utterly failing to produce them grandchildren according to schedule. They could've been talking in Polish for all Rose minded them. And when dinner was over and Lena had refused to let her help with the washing-up, Rose wandered into the lounge and watched the first stupid thing to come up on the television until late into the night.

Mrs. Winslow suggested that Rose use this time think. And she was thinking, honest. But if it just so happened she did her best thinking in her pajamas, watching soap operas and reality shows while munching on every permutation of blini Lena could think of...well. It wasn't like she was wallowing. She just needed the time to decompress.

It was remotely possibly that Pete had had a point about her working too hard, after all.

"Look, Tony, do you see him? With the beard? He's going to get voted off this week," she announced while she and Tony rolled the ball back and forth across the floor. "At least he won't get executed, though. We've got a couple thousand years before that's a problem. And yet somehow we're going to have the same six programs still running over and over. I don't know what that says about the BBC."

Tony picked up the ball and lobbed it at her. It deflected off her shoulder and rolled under a chair. He started to whine.

"Nope, you threw it, you've got to go get it." She changed the channel, but it was all weather. Tony fussed louder. "I refuse. It's time you took some responsibility around here, young man."

He set into a wail that could shatter crystal.

"Fine, fine, lazy little fiend." Rose dragged herself off her cushion and rooted around under the chair until she found the soft rubber ball. "Times like this I wish you were old enough to swear at, you know. Or at least appreciate a complete sentence."

She rolled the ball back to him. Once again, he bounced it off her head. "Brat!" she cried. "Lena!"

It wasn't that she meant to be lazy so much as the hours slipped away from her, streaming by in a blur of commercial breaks and the shifting angle of the sun. She kept promising herself just one more program, just one more round with the ball, just a few minutes more of relaxing, and her best-intended plans to, say, help Lena in the kitchen, or maybe take a walk around the grounds, ended up melting away into television and entertaining Tony. Since Tony was more entertained by the Wiggles than conversation, it was a nice vacation for her higher brain functions. Probably not so nice for her waistline, but Lena always nagged Rose to eat and was probably having the time of her life.

And Rose wasn't wallowing in anything. Really.

Saturday morning found her laying in bed again-she wasn't sure it could be properly called a lie-in when she was sleeping such odd hours lately, naps in the afternoon and nights broken up by restless, burning dreams now that she wasn't working herself to exhaustion. She lay awake but still drowsy, thinking vague thoughts about maybe going into the city today, or not, or maybe calling somebody, though she didn't know who. She could watch the clock on the bedside table click over to nine, to ten, nearly to eleven, and know there was nothing better she ought to be doing, no responsibilities weighing on her, nobody waiting for her input and nothing she urgently needed to read. For the time being, the world was looking after itself.

She fiddled with her phone without getting out of bed; an email alerted her that the Doctor had used his credit card at a hostel in Samarkand. Enjoying Turkestan without her, then. She buried her head under a pillow again.

And then she heard a car pull up the drive, when she knew that both Oleg and Lena were still in the house. It was followed shortly by her mother's voice, too blurred by walls and distance to make out the words. Rose seized her phone again and checked the date. Yep, back from China today, she'd even made a note of it. Bugger.

Rose leaped out of bed and managed to brush her teeth and smear on some deodorant before Jackie made it upstairs. "Rose, dear, what are you doing here?" she asked, swooping into Rose's room like Rose was twelve again and personal space was something that happened to other people. "Lena said you're on holiday but I know that place never gives you any time off, and I heard about the big thing in Leeds all the way in China but I couldn't call-you know how the phones are-that was you, wasn't it? It's usually you when something big explodes." She flopped down on the bed and threw her arm around Rose's shoulders. "What's the matter? You haven't been sacked, have you?"

"No, Mum," Rose said. "That's actually part of the problem."

Jackie blinked-she must've been terribly jet-lagged, even if she didn't show it-and pulled Rose close. "Come on, then. Tell me about it."

Rose did. She started with the Horatii, and veered onto the Doctor, and at some point they became two sides of the same problem and she didn't know if she was making any sense because-big surprise-she started crying again. Jackie held her close and let her sob it out, and that was something Rose had missed, having a literal shoulder to cry on. Mickey used to do that for her. Mickey was long gone.

"Oh, Rose," Jackie said once the worst of the sobbing had subsided into snotty hiccups. "You're a mess, you. My poor little girl."

"'M not a little girl," Rose mumbled into her shoulder. "I save the world."

"Yes, you do," Jackie said, like she was talking to Tony. "And you forget that sometimes somebody has to save you."

Rose pulled away and felt around the bed for a tissue to blow her nose with. "I don't need saving," she said. "Winslow and them, they think they're doing me a favor and they're really not."

"What do you mean?" Jackie said. "Rose, people died. They're giving you time to deal with that."

"Grace and Tosh get to stay at work," Rose pointed out. "Jake gets to come back as soon as his physical therapist says. And anyway, it's not even about the work, it's about blame, it's about-they ought to have sacked me for this, Mum."

"And they didn't," Jackie said. "So how are you going to use your second chance?"

That was too much like Mr. Winslow's line for her. Rose got up and went into the en-suite to blow her nose some more and wash her face and give her hair a proper brushing. When she came out again, Jackie was making the bed. "Oi, I was using that," Rose said weakly

"Not now, you aren't," Jackie said. "Now, I am just going to drop if I don't get some sleep soon-there was a layover in bloody Astana, I don't ever want to see another plush camel-but this afternoon we're going out and doing something positive. If you need to take your mind off things, laying in bed isn't the way to do it."

"I don't know if I want to go out today, Mum," Rose said.

Jackie just smiled at her. "It'll do you good, I promise."

"Sleep does me good, too."

"Rose," Jackie said firmly. She finished smoothing the duvet and then turned around to take Rose's face in her hands. "You need to leave this house or Lena will feed you to death. You know she's worried about you?"

"What?" Rose said. "What's she worried about? I'm eating!"

"That's why she's worried," Jackie said. "She told me just now that it was getting too easy."

Rose rolled her eyes and squirmed away from Jackie again. "All right," she said. "But I get to nap at least as long as you are."

"Why?" Jackie asked. "Aren't you sleeping well?"

"I'm still catching up from last weekend," Rose said. Probably it wasn't even a lie.

Jackie studied her sharply, then nodded. "All right. Two hour nap and then we're off. If you're going to have a holiday for once, we might as well try to enjoy it!"

Chapter 15

In hindsight, Rose should've thought more carefully about what Jackie would consider "positive" and "constructive" before agreeing, but once the words were spoken there was no getting out of it. Jackie took her shopping in the city and insisted on paying for just about anything Rose said she liked, even when Rose insisted she could pay for herself or didn't really want it. "You wear the same three things all the time these days," Jackie said by way of justification.

"I do not," Rose protested. "Besides, I don't need new clothes right now."

"I know you don't need them," Jackie said, hefting the bags with the grace of long practice. "But that doesn't mean you can't have them anyway."

"You're implying that I want them," Rose pointed out.

Jackie rolled her eyes. "Rose, dear, sometimes I think you've forgotten the difference between needing and wanting."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rose asked, stung and a little bit confused. She wondered what her mum had been reading over there in China.

"Just that bloody Torchwood's done a bit of a mind job on you, is all," Jackie said. "Oh, look there, half-off sale-I need a new pair of pumps for the benefit on Tuesday and so do you."

"Benefit?" Rose made have squeaked that bit. "What benefit?"

"The benefit tea for my foundation," Jackie said, as if it should've been obvious. "Don't tell me you won't be coming, either, because you're here and you're free and it'll be fun and you'll get to talk to five people who aren't relatives or coworkers for once."

"Oleg and Lena aren't relatives or co-workers," Rose pointed out, because she was feeling contrary.

"Oh, you know what I mean." Jackie took her by the wrist and hauled her into the shoe shop. "Now come on and please tell me we're still the same size."

The thing was, Rose knew that a few years ago she would've enjoyed the hell out of a weekend like this. She did manage to get into the spirit of things a bit on Sunday, when Jackie scheduled them both for the hairdresser's and a full-service spa thing, even though she couldn't stop pointing out that she really didn't need a manicure, couldn't take care of it properly in her line of work. "I forbid you to mention that word again," Jackie had declared. "That's not what a holiday is for." But any time Rose's mind drifted from whatever was at hand, she found her mind back on work, on Torchwood, on Leeds, on the Doctor. She was so used to snatching an evening here, a weekend there that she wasn't used to shifting her focus away, even if she could've dropped all the nagging questions in the back of her mind, the weight of memory.

Perhaps Pete was right about the workaholic thing after all. Perhaps Rose needed a holiday more than she thought.

The benefit tea was indeed nice, in one of the few big hotels left in the city center, which had been eager to donate space and food and decorations and anything else Jackie Tyler desired. It was an excuse to dress up more than Rose normally did (though she couldn't help but think of how, the last time she dressed up this much, she'd been celebrating with the Doctor-more than a month ago, and everything had seemed to be going so well at the time). She also got to see Jackie at her work, really in her element, and it struck her yet again that her mum was really made for this sort of thing-just chatting with people and being friendly and remembering job titles and birthdays and spouse's names, and telling stories about China that somehow elicited thousands of pounds in donations without ever having to openly ask. These were the skills that, back in their own world, had made Jackie Tyler a champion gossip and an agony aunt to half the middle-aged women in the Powell Estates. Here it made her a celebrity and bought schoolbooks for a thousand Chinese orphans.

In her own world, before the Doctor, Rose worked in a shop. Now she gave orders that got people killed. Sometimes it was hard to see how she'd gotten from there to here.

"And you're Rose Prentice, isn't that right?" A woman who had undergone far too much plastic surgery for one lifetime swooped into Rose's personal space. "Jackie's niece? I'm Alice Price-Looper, I've been a major donor to the foundation."

"Charmed," Rose said, and juggled her plate of sandwiches to shake hands. Alice Price-Looper went one better, and at the last minute dove in to leave air kisses on either side of Rose's face.

"Now, I wanted to ask you something," Alice Price-Looper said. "I know you work for Torchwood, and there's all those rumors about the accident in Leeds flying around..."

"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss that," Rose said, trying to keep it cordial, because growling or bursting into tears at this woman wouldn't earn her mum any donations.

"Oh, of course, of course," Alice Price-Looper said. "But you see, I work for an immigration advocacy group-I speak fluent Mandarin, you know-and the police in Leeds tell us there's a large group of immigrants facing deportation, and you know that's not the way to solve the problem-the war took such a toll on all those industrial cities in the Far East, it's not as if they have many alternatives--"

"Alice, darling," Jackie said, coming to Rose's rescue and taking her elbow. "You're not on about your legal problems again, are you?"

"Oh, Jackie, dear, no." More air kisses all around. "I was just asking your niece if she could help us get a foot in the door with Leeds. They're hiding a whole flock of deportees and we can't help them if we're not allowed to see them..."

"I'll see what I can do," Rose said, before Jackie could demure on her behalf. It was the least she could do, after all, and it wouldn't require more than a quick email sent from her phone. "Most of them are being held as witnesses, not suspects, so they're eligible for legal representation. Do you have a business card or something?"

Alice Price-Looper had a card; so did half the people there, and by the time Rose escaped her handbag was full of them and she had resorted to writing little notes on the backs like tall thin lady with glass eye or blond bloke with ugly cufflinks or green coat person just to remember who all these people actually were. She had also had her fill of petits fours and cucumber sandwiches and Darjeeling for the next month or so, and felt a little drained, while Jackie was practically bouncing all the way back to the mansion.

"I think that went really well, don't you?" Jackie asked about four times without giving Rose an opportunity to respond. "Of course the official video won't be ready until the end of the week, some kind of audio problems, so I couldn't really show them anything, but I'm to address the General Assembly in November and I really think it'll go over well. We've got that, oh, what's his name, the nice black American man who sells the insurance, he's doing the narration, did you know? The one with the voice?"

"Don't know who you mean," Rose said, when she realized that Jackie was actually waiting for an answer that time.

Jackie frowned at her. "Are you all right, dear? You look a bit peaky."

"I'm fine," Rose promised her. "Just not used to that many people at once." The last time she'd been in such a big group just to socialize had been her welcome-back party in...good god, in July. It was almost October now. What could possibly go wrong in two months? she had asked back then. Looking back, she had to smother a little laugh, or her mum might get the wrong idea entirely.

Jackie's frown didn't entirely fade. "Well, you'll get a day to recuperate tomorrow-I have meetings with the trustees all day long. But I'll be checking in to make certain you're dressed and eating properly, so don't get any ideas..."

Rose didn't. She got up to eat breakfast at the same time Jackie did, and took Tony on a walk around the grounds, after she'd secretly stripped off about half the layers Lena insisted they dress in. It was chilly for the end of September, but not that chilly, and the sun was bright enough to keep them plenty warm as long as they didn't linger in the shade. And minding an overcurious toddler kept her thoughts plenty occupied, along with the scenes of autumn trees that she'd managed to miss entirely back in Cardiff.

She ended up carrying Tony back to the house, though, and then whiled away the afternoon following Oleg and Lena alternately in search of something constructive to do. Now that she'd overcome the inertia keeping her pinned in front of the telly, she couldn't seem to lose a certain restless energy, and arguing with Oleg about whether or not girls could use hammers was as good a way to spend it as any.

When they'd both about had it with her, she went into Pete's office and switched on the computer. She got as far as typing I hereby resign my position as leader of field operations with the Torchwood Institute and then just stared at the words, as if daring them to unwrite themselves. They didn't, but she didn't finish the sentence, either. Part of her thought it was the right thing to do, but who was it who'd said people were lucky not to get exactly what they deserve?

She changed into trackies and went for a run.

When Jackie got home, she was loaded down with shopping bags-again--and she forbid Rose to look in them. "It's a surprise," she said.

"For who?" Rose asked.

"Well, obviously, for you, or I'd let you look at it," Jackie said, stripping off her windbreaker.

"You don't let me look at surprises for Dad, either," Rose pointed out.

Jackie rolled her eyes. "That's because the two of you tell each other everything. You're gossips, you are. Now wait for me in the lounge, I need to ask Lena something."

They had a long, whispered conversation, probably because they both knew perfectly well that Rose was hiding just past the door and trying to eavesdrop. When Jackie raised her voice to declare, "And I'll just go tell her right now!" Rose scampered into the lounge and dragged Tony into her lap in order to look casual.

Jackie was not, of course, fooled. "Mmm-hmm. Aren't you the picture of innocence?" she said, hands on hips.

"I dunno," Rose said, brushing Tony's fine hair. "I've always thought he'd look good with horns and a pitchfork. Did you know he throws things at me?"

Jackie rolled her eyes. "Well, Lena and Oleg are taking him the rest of the night. Starting right now, this is girl's night in."

"Night in?" Rose echoed. "Thought you wanted to see a play or something tonight."

"Changed my mind," she said, and scooped up Tony for a cuddle. "Or, rather, you changed it."

Rose drew her knees up to her chest. "Come on, don't go changing your plans on my account."

"Who else should I change them for?" she shot back. "I have to spend too much time away from my kids as it is, but for once I'm here when you need me-and you're obviously not having much fun going out, so tonight we're staying in."

It was a beautiful piece of Jackie-logic, and Rose couldn't help but smile. "Thanks, Mum. You're ace."

"Of course I am," Jackie said. "Now stay here while I get the supplies."

Supplies turned out to be a pitcher of sangria that had probably been thrown together just minutes before; take-away Chinese food, including extra crab rangoon; several large cartons of ice cream; and a stack of all the silly romantic movies Jackie had been able to get from the kiosk in Tesco's before it ran out of discs. "D'you want to start with Bridget Jones Goes to Mars or Sliding Doors?" Jackie asked, studying the labels. "Pretty certain neither of them got made in our universe."

"I know the first one wasn't," Rose said. She set her ice cream aside to peruse the rest of the discs. "What about The Lake House?"

"Oh, no, that's depressing, I've seen it," she said. "And it's got that Keanu Reeves, I can't bear him."

"This version says it's somebody named Nathan Fillion," Rose said. "Maybe it's better in this universe?"

Jackie shrugged. "It's your night, dear, we'll watch whatever."

So she put the film on, and they ate the ice cream first and drank the sangria a little too fast. And it was depressing, especially when the time travel bits started. "That's not how it works," she pointed out when a tree planted two years earlier just materialized out of the blue. "It doesn't, the tree should've always been there if it was going to be there, it shouldn't just become--"

"Hush, I'm trying to listen," Jackie said. (Apparently she found Nathan Fillion infinitely superior to Keanu Reeves.)

"I'm just saying, they're doing it wrong," Rose said, and took another long swallow of sangria. "There's rules about changing the past. There's such a thing as destiny."

"All right, dear, now hush."

But then the man made a date and didn't keep it, and the woman told him to get out of her life, and the man asked Can't we wait? I'll wait for you, we'll make it work. Rose didn't even hear what the woman said back because her heart was suddenly pounding in her ears and the screen went fuzzy. She jumped up, spilling fried rice and sangria everywhere, and made it into the toilet before she started to cry.

After a few minutes, Jackie came in and sat on the floor with her. "Mum," Rose protested, trying to cover her blotchy red face.

"Oh, don't bother," Jackie said, leaning warmly into her shoulder. "I've seen you look a lot worse than this, lady."

"I could've been having a pee," she said weakly.

"You say these things," Jackie answered, "like I didn't see you do them every day until you were four."

"Not four anymore," Rose mumbled.

"Still. Mother's perogative." Jackie handed her a wad of tissues and Rose blew her nose messily over all of them.

They sat like that in comfortable silence for a while, until Rose's hiccups were under enough control for her to talk. That took long enough that she'd even figured out what to say. "I don't know what to do next, Mum," she declared.

"Next with what?" Jackie asked. "With the Doctor?"

"With anything," she said. "I don't know if I can go back to work and pretend everything's okay when I've made the biggest mistake it's possible to make. But if I resign...if I quit Torchwood...I mean, what else is there for me to do?"

"Lots of things," Jackie said. "You're a smart girl, Rose, and you've got a reputation. People will be throwing down jobs at your feet the moment it gets out that you're on the market. You know the UN has about a million openings for you, or if you wanted to stay in Britain--"

"I'm not just talking about a job, Mum!" Rose said. "Torchwood's been my whole life since I got here, I don't-even if I get another job, what do I do? What's the point?"

Jackie's lips got very thin, and she straightened up a bit. "It's that man," she said. "The Doctor. Or whatever he's calling himself. I knew he wasn't as good as the real one the moment I laid eyes on him."

"He's exactly the same as the real one," Rose reminded her wearily.

Jackie asked with a little sniff, "Would the proper Doctor ever hurt you like this?"

Rose thought of a man who stood on a beach and wouldn't answer a simple question, and her heart seemed to squeeze itself into nothingness. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, he would."

"Oh, Rose--" Jackie threw her arm around Rose's shoulders and hugged her close. "I always said he'd bring you trouble."

"Not always," Rose said. "You rather liked him after he regenerated."

"Well, then, I was hoodwinked," she declared. "He might save the world now and again, but to you he's brought nothing but heartache and worry."

Rose shook her head. "No, Mum, you'd got it all wrong, he's brilliant, I just..." She took a deep breath. "I spent two years at Torchwood looking for a way back to him. And now I've lost him all over again, and it's like...it's like losing everything. Even if I hadn't screwed up the case, I don't know if I could go back to work now. It's like there'd be no point to it."

"Rose," Jackie said. "You need to let go of him. You know why it didn't work out? Because he's not worth you! He doesn't deserve you! And knowing him, he's going to keep turning up over and over like a bad penny, but that doesn't mean you have to take him in. You have get shut of him."

"I can't," Rose reminded her. "Even if I wanted to-the other Doctor, the original, he asked me to take care of this one, remember?" She sniffled. "I made a promise."

"And he's in another universe where he'll never know he was too much of a git for you to keep it," Jackie said. "I keep telling you, you can't spend your whole life chasing after one Doctor or another!"

"I dunno, I'm so good at it," Rose said, sniffling again. "What else is there for me to do?"

"Rose, Rose, Rose." Jackie pulled her into a hug and stroked her hair, like she was a little girl again. "You survived the end of the universe, love. I think you can survive this."

Rose wondered if mere survival would be enough.

Eventually she was certain that the hiccups were gone, even if she now felt a little ill from too much ice cream and alcohol. "D'you wanna finish the movie?" she asked.

"Oh, sod the movie," Jackie said. "I told you it's depressing."

"How's it end?" she asked. "Do Kate and Alex ever meet each other?"

Jackie hesitated. "To tell you the truth, dear, I fell asleep before it ended. She told him off and hooked up with her old boyfriend and he went all mopey, and then I think somebody died."

Rose winced. "Definitely don't want to finish it, then," she declared.

Jackie nodded. "All right. Want to watch another one or call it a night?"

They ended up watching Bridget Jones Goes to Mars, though afterwards Rose couldn't have described a single frame.

---

She felt odd the next day, off somehow, like all those words had a physical weight and getting them out into the open had changed her balance, out of kilter. Pete got back to London and took one look at Rose and didn't say anything, didn't have to-she shoved off and sniffled in her bedroom a bit more, and when she came out he hugged her and said "I'm sorry."

"I should've listened to you," she said. "I should've listened to everybody."

"Under the bridge," Pete said. "Have you decided what you're doing next, then?" She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. "Understandable. I think Edward's willing to give you all your accumulated vacation and then some if that's what you want."

"I don't know why he's so eager to have me back," she grumbled.

"Because he cares for you, in his own bossy way," Pete declared. Rose pulled away, surprised by the statement. "And because he cares for you, he forgives you," Pete added. "He's just hoping you can forgive yourself."

"He told you that?" she asked dubiously.

"Well, I'm extrapolating a bit," Pete admitted, and Rose smacked him lightly on the chest. "But seriously, Rose," he added. "None of us like seeing you hold on to this."

"It's not just Leeds, Dad," she said, stepping away and folding her arms around her middle. "It's...a lot of things."

"The Doctor?" he asked.

Rose frowned at him. "Did Mum tell you...?"

"I rather figured it out when I got word he'd used a diplomatic passport to enter China at Druzhba," Pete said.

"Are you spying on him?" Rose asked.

"What, aren't you?" he shot back, and Rose protested mightily despite the email on her phone that said the Doctor had used his credit card to take a room in Beijing.

That evening, Pete insisted on taking the whole family out to dinner and a movie, and something inside Rose balked. "I've still got a lot to think about," she said. "I'd be bad company. Rain check?"

"We'll hold you to that," Jackie said playfully, but she and Pete both had little lines between their eyebrows. Tony just threw his ball at Rose's head again, though, so she knew she could at least fool a toddler. Or maybe he just didn't care.

So they all left, and Oleg and Lena retired to the little caretaker's house in the back of the garden after checking about six times that Rose didn't need anything. Rose had wanted more time to think, but she found herself wandering aimlessly through the mansion, thinking of all memories it held-two years of birthdays and Christmases and parties and picnics, two years of worry and illnesses and fights with her parents, the start of the Cyberwar, the last time she'd seen Mickey before she used the dimensional cannon.

Mickey. Hell. Maybe he'd had his reasons for leaving her behind after all. Maybe Jake was transferring resentment to the Doctor from her. For two years, Mickey had been by her side, her second in command, calm and brave in a way he'd never been in their own world; he wasn't brilliant at any one thing like Tosh or Jake or Grace, but he'd had a knack for putting the pieces together, for hunches that panned out perfectly. And he'd been a friend, one she'd desperately needed, and never once had he asked for anything more than that...

No, that wasn't right. Once, he'd asked.

They had been at the mansion, sitting by the very same fireplace where she stood now, and passing a bottle of wine back and forth and talking about anything and everything. The bottle hadn't been full to start with, so neither of them were exactly drunk-just warm and loose. And Rose didn't remember exactly what either of them said, but somehow the subject of the Doctor had come up, and Rose had started to cry, and Mickey had put the empty bottle aside and climbed up off the rug to put an arm around her and say, "Hey. Hey, what's this?"

"I can cry if I want to," Rose had said, because this was Mickey and she could be a brat around him in a way that Jake or Grace or even her mum wouldn't let her get away with.

He had wiped at a trail of tears and mascara with his thumb. "C'mon, you think the Doctor would want you crying over him?"

"It doesn't matter, does it?" she'd grumbled. "Since I'm never going to see him again."

"Doesn't mean you have to go moping about it," he'd replied, maybe trying to be playful, or maybe he'd been serious and she'd mistaken his tone.

"I just..." She'd sniffled, wiped at her own streaming make-up. "I still love him, Mickey. All this time and I still love him just as much as the day he said good-bye and it still hurts."

"Don't reckon it'll ever stop," he'd said.

She'd stared into the fire then for a bit, taking comfort in Mickey's warm and familiar presence. "What's the point, anyway?" she'd said. "Loving someone I can't ever have. All it does it make me a soppy mess."

"Hey, I think you're beautiful when you're a soppy mess," he'd said. (She wondered now, again, whether he'd been more earnest than he'd let on-oh, hindsight, you bitch.)

She'd swatted his arm at the time. "Flatterer. I mean...why do I even do this? What's the point?"

He hadn't asked for clarification; he hadn't needed it. Instead he shifted a little, drawing her just a bit closer, but looking anywhere else in the room. "Maybe love is the point," he said. "It...changes people, you know? You love someone, and you want to be worthy of them. You find out things about yourself you never knew, and even if you never get to be with them again...you're different for it. Better. You become the person you'd want them to be with."

Rose had looked at his profile, all warm tones in the firelight. "Do you think this is better?" she'd asked, because she knew full well she was different for having met the Doctor.

Mickey had looked at her with a tense expression, hard to read, and said, "I think you're amazing," in a soft, heavy voice. And then he'd leaned in and kissed her, warm and gentle and tasting of wine.

It had taken a beat before Rose pulled away and said, "Mickey, I can't." And he had apologized, and they'd sat on the couch together anyway until they nearly fell asleep there, Rose curled against Mickey's body but her thoughts a million miles away.

That had been months ago, before the dimensional cannon project, long before the stars started going out. She wondered now, knowing everything that had happened since, what would have been different if she'd kissed him back that night. What would've happened if he'd gone home right away instead of staying the night. What would happen if he was here right now, instead of a Void away.

She packed her bag up again that night, leaving behind most of the things her mum had bought her. Most, but not all. When they got back late in the evening, she gave Tony a kiss on his sleepy forehead and announced, "I'm going back to Cardiff for a while."

"Are you sure?" Jackie asked, frowning. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine," she said. "I promise. I just...if I'm looking for answers, I don't think I'm not going to find them here, you know?"

"Well, it's your decision," Pete said. "Though you know we're always here if you need us."

"I know, Dad." She made herself smile at them both. "Thanks for putting up with me this week, too."

Jackie snorted. "We don't put up with you, Rose, we're family."

"Which means we're legally required to put up with you," Pete said with a small wink. Rose snorted at him, but as Jackie climbed the stairs to put Tony to bed he stopped her. "Rose, I know it's your decision, but do think about what I said earlier, okay?"

"Of course I will," she promised him, and he let her go. "After I'm done thinking about the eleven thousand other things on my list."

"Cheeky," he said, but they shared a grin as they both climbed the stairs to the bedrooms.

Chapter 16

She took an early train this time round, catching a ride to the station with Pete, and made it back to her flat by mid-morning. There was a moment at the bottom of the stairs when she could almost convince herself she could hear the Doctor's voice in the echoes of the traffic outside, hear his footstep in a buzzing light fixture, and her nerves failed; but her email had informed her that he was still in Beijing, and he no longer had a TARDIS to bring him straight to her door.

So she gathered a pile of mail from her box and climbed the stairs, one at a time, like any other day in her life, and he wasn't waiting for her in the flat by any magical means, and that was fine. Rose did find something else waiting for her, though-a large bag of whole coffee beans on the table, weighting down a note and a flash drive. She didn't recognize the brand, but she definitely recognized the smell, which meant the contents of the note weren't terribly surprising.

Welcome home
Call us when you get back
Us means Grace
Jake! ^
See you soon. :-)

That made her smile. A little further investigation revealed that her pantry had been restocked, her fridge cleared of anything too perishable, and most importantly, the Doctor's remaining things had been packed away into a cardboard box at the bottom of the wardrobe. Rose didn't let herself linger over those for too long. Instead, she blew the dust off her French press and made herself one hell of a cup of coffee, now that she knew the secret of Ianto's special recipes. Then she started her computer and inserted the flash drive.

While it was loading, she called Jake. "Well, look who's finally come home," he said when he picked up. "I thought I told you to call Grace?"

"How's your hand?" she asked.

"Eh, it moves," he said. "Physical therapy is a bitch. Literally. Her name is Maureen and she doesn't approve of my lifestyle. Pierre keeps snogging me in front of her just to make her turn purple."

"Oh, that's Pierre's doing, is it?"

"Well, I'm not exactly complaining..."

Rose sipped her coffee and blinked at her computer screen, which just opened a window full of encrypted Torchwood files. "So I noticed some friendly little elves have been in my flat while I've been gone."

"Dunno what you mean," he said airily.

"Elves with access to the Torchwood mainframe?" she prompted.

"Hey, even elves have job descriptions," he said. "Which includes making regular reports to the boss."

"Even when the boss is meant to be on vacation?" she asked.

"Like you wouldn't be here if you could," he said, with such confidence that a lump rose in Rose's throat. "Got to do you homework to stay on top of your game, Prentice."

"Thanks, Jake," she said. "For everything, not just the updates."

"Even though I've no clue what you mean, I will pass that along to the others." There was a clattering sound the background, and some dire words in French; Jake must be working from home today. "Speaking of which, you know that Italian place near the office? The one Grace won't shut up about?"

"What about it?" Rose asked warily.

"Well, there's a reservation for four tonight that could very easily be increased to five," Jake said. "Seeing as Grace won't shut up about it and has no life outside of work and all."

Dinner with her team and...wait a minute. "Four?" she echoed. "Is Pierre coming?"

"Nah, she insisted on bringing the teaboy," Jake said. "Something about a favor. Anyway, are you in?"

Grace, Jake, Tosh, and Ianto. For a moment she almost said no, and then felt immediately guilty about it, because it wasn't like she didn't want to see them...and anyway, what was she going to do otherwise, sit around and mope some more? That wouldn't help her answer any questions. "All right," she said. "What time?"

Something in her voice must've seemed unenthused, because Jake said quickly, "You know, I was just asking, you don't have to come..."

"No, no, I want to," Rose said firmly, because if they were still speaking to her she'd be a fool to turn them down. "What time? And what's the dress code?"

"Seven," he said. "Everyone else is coming from the office, so, you know, whatever. Being an invalid, I will of course be wearing my pajamas."

"Great idea," she said. "See you then."

The elves must've visited recently, because the reports on the drive were only about two days old; she found the second flash drive with her encryption key on it and spent most of the afternoon browsing. Traces of synthorganic molecules found at the Leeds site were being used to pursue legal action against the Darrow Group, which had a few key Horatii pinned down, but for the most part they'd gone to ground. People like Moira Hearns had suddenly found excuses to leave for Europe or South America, while Lawrence Hadley had canceled several public speaking engagements for right-wing causes on a tenuous plea of "exhaustion." And most of the shell corporations and bank accounts that they had spent two months so painstakingly mapping out were now closed, transferred or simply off the books.

Tosh still had active radiation traces, though, suggesting that some synthorganic technology was still in Britain. They were just back to square one with trying to sort out where.

Rose started making notes on the pad by her laptop, and got as far as writing down lorry routes before reminding herself that she was still on leave. She didn't have to do this. It was so easy to slide back into the routine of the investigation and the adventure to fill up her time, but in a lot of ways that was no different than watching pointless hours of telly with Tony or going to eight million shops with her mum. It filled the time, and gave her a reason not to think when the whole point of her current hiatus was that she had things to think about.

She went to the shops instead, to restock on things like milk and bread, and see if she could figure out where Ianto bought his coffee now that she knew the brand name. That gave her just enough time to freshen up her make-up and throw on a heavier jacket, and just after seven she was jogging up to the restaurant, ready to apologize.

Inside, though, she found Jake to be the only one waiting for her. He looked loads better than the last time she'd seen him, just before she left Leeds-the burns on his face were still shiny and pink in places, and while his left hand was still bandaged he didn't carry the arm like it hurt that much anymore. "Thought I was running late," she said by way of greeting.

"Remember who you're talking about," he said, and surprisingly, gave her a small hug. "They're not late for another two hours, and only if it's not because of an alien invasion."

"You're looking better," she added. "When are you allowed back on the job?"

"Starting back on Monday," he said, and wiggled his bandaged fingers. "Be a while before these come off, though, and the cream stuff they gave me smells awful."

"Hey, at least you don't need a skin graft," Rose said.

"Least I'm alive," he said with a small snort. Rose felt herself go stiff, and Jake flinched. "Sorry. Christ. I'm sorry, Rose, I...reckon I haven't been on my best lately."

"Neither have I," she admitted.

"I don't blame you," he announced. "If that's what you're worried about. Not for any of it."

She looked down at the tiled floor and scuffed it with her foot a bit. "Maybe you should. Blame me, I mean."

He sighed. "Only as far as I blame myself, you know?"

Before she could figure out what that meant-or, indeed, whether they were talking about Mickey or Leeds-Grace blew in with her long coat billowing melodramatically behind her. "I hate," she said, "Swiss banks. Welcome home, Rose."

Which cued the next round of embracing, which did more to reassure Rose that she was forgiven than any awkward conversation. "Where's Ianto and Tosh?" Rose asked. "They're not buried in paperwork, are they?"

"No, they're wrapping up something in Tosh's office-she's half-kidnapped him all this week trying to work on the satellite thing." Grace examined her hair in a little decorative mirror and then sighed explosively. "And I declare that is the last thing any of us says about work for the rest the night."

Jake rolled his eyes. "What are we supposed to talk about, then? The cricket?"

Neither Tosh nor Ianto hugged Rose (she thought Ianto's blush might become permanent if he tried) but they were clearly just as glad to see her, and after a bit of confusion at the coat check and a tiff at the table over whether Jake was allowed to have a beer on his medication, they settled down and ordered.

"We're nearly ready to push the next set of updates--" Tosh started to say as the waiter left.

"A ha ha!" Grace said, cutting her off. "No shop talk. That's why we left the office, remember?"

"We're talking cricket instead," Jake added.

"Don't make me strike a patient," Grace warned him. "I just want to talk about anything but work."

The table was swallowed in silence for a moment. Then, as if cued, they all broke up in laughter-even Ianto, who had barely ever smiled in Rose's presence before now. "Oh, we are damaged people," Tosh declared.

"That's what it takes to be the best of the best," Jake said.

"So we'll have to think of something," Grace said doggedly. "Um. Hmm. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"

"A tree?" Jake said. "Grace, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of."

"Yew," Ianto said quietly.

Jake turned to him. "What about me?"

"Not you, yew," Ianto said, over-pronouncing the eeeew part. "As in, if I were a tree, I think I'd like to be a yew."

"You've thought about this?" Jake asked incredulously. Ianto shrugged. "I hate yew," Jake added with a raised eyebrow.

"Perhaps you're prefer to be a cactus, then?" Ianto asked.

"That's not a tree," Tosh pointed out. "Maybe bristlecone pine."

"Can we count poison oak?" Grace asked.

Jake gave them all an exaggerated scowl and waved his bandaged hand in the air. "Oi, what is this, mock the cripple?"

"You invited it," Ianto said blandly.

"Yeah," Grace said, "I mean, if you hate yew so much..."

"Rooose," Jake wailed. "Make them stop. This is inhumane."

"You did leave yourself wide-open," Rose said, but her heart wasn't really in it; she realized she'd absently torn a bread stick into inch-long segments while listening to the others. "I, er, I suppose I'd be a birch. I like birches."

Nobody picked up on the diversion. "Is everything okay?" Grace asked. "Nothing happened in London, did it?"

"I'm fine," Rose said quickly. "I'm...not fine, but I'm okay. I'm dealing." She sighed. "I've just been thinking a lot about different things."

"Anything that won't invoke the Wrath of Grace?" Jake asked.

She pushed her pile of bread stick segments around the plate. "I'm been thinking of resigning from Torchwood."

Four faces all at once turned shocked and dismayed to different degrees, and they all blurted out some variation of No or why or you can't! Grace, with her brows deeply knit, added, "If this is about the current case...I mean, we all made mistakes, Rose, nobody's asking you to fall on your sword here."

"It's not that," she said, feeling suddenly defensive. "Well, not all that. I just...I'm not sure why I'm here anymore, you know, and if I can't answer that question I don't know how much longer I can keep it up."

"Oh, is that all it is?" Jake asked. "And here I thought it was something serious."

Grace swatted him with her napkin. "Don't joke about this Jake."

"Well, somebody's got to, or she might actually think she needs to leave!" He sipped his beer. "Talking about reasons-your career isn't your life, Rose. You don't need a reason for it."

"You've worked at Torchwood how long and you can say that?" Grace asked.

"Maybe it's not your life," Rose said, suddenly feeling a surge of jealously at Jake and Pierre. "But it's mine. It's all I've done since--" since I got here, she almost said, but only Jake knew that. "Since the war. I don't have any hobbies, I don't have any friends..."

"Oi," Jake said. "And what are we, then?"

"She means friends outside of work," Tosh said. "Not that there's any difference."

"I dunno, I always kind of thought that making friends at work was kind of cheating," Grace said. "Not that I don't consider any of you friends, of course, but it doesn't exactly take effort, does it?"

"I was under the impression we were required by our contracts to like everyone," Ianto said in such a perfect deadpan that Rose didn't know whether to believe him or not.

"We do stuff outside of work, though, yeah?" Jake said, ignoring Ianto entirely. "It totally counts if we do stuff together that's not work. This counts."

Rose considered the faces around the table. Tosh was absolutely in love with her computer, but she took the occasional holiday to see her family and she and Ianto were friendly-not in a romantic way, but they went to films with subtitles together and ate things with tentacles still attached and Rose had once seen Tosh handing off a slightly battered The Smiths CD with a guilty expression. She even let Grace drag her on ill-advised double-blind dates from times to time. Jake had Pierre, of course, who regularly dragged him back to Paris for family visits, and he and Mickey had used to play football on what passed for their weekends. Grace had season tickets to the opera and the orchestra and took anyone who dared express even a passing interest, which had included Ianto and Brynn in the past, as well as Mr. Winslow and most of the regular medical staff. Mr. Winslow had a wife and and an allotment and some antique car. Ianto had Tosh and Grace and his security guard and his desk bamboo.

Rose had Torchwood, and parents who were more often than not in different time zones, and a nonverbal brother, and the Doctor. Only not anymore.

"I'm going to need some more to drink," she declared, and ordered a bottle of wine as soon as she could flag down a waiter.

By the time their entrées had arrived, Rose had gotten pleasantly muzzy in the brain, or perhaps a little more than pleasantly muzzy considering the concern with which everyone watched her when she went to the toilet. She wasn't drunk, though-she hadn't truly been drunk in a long time, not when at any moment she could be called up to save the planet. Maybe that was something else she could do while she was on vacation-get drunk, and have a manicure, and wear impractical shoes, and look at the stars without wondering where the next monster was coming from. Or whether one of them held the way back to the Doctor's side. She could stop looking for him down every back alley and in the mouth of every other singularity, and instead she could look for...instead...

She stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. "What am I looking for?" she asked.

Someone knocked on the door, and Jake's voice called through, "Hopefully not your knickers!"

She found him waiting for her in the nook concealing the toilets. "Are you following me?" she asked, suddenly annoyed.

"'Course not," he said. "Can't I take a piss, too?"

Of course. She shouldn't be so paranoid. "Of course you can, sorry, I'm just a bit...out of sorts."

"Can see that." He didn't seem in a particular hurry to get into the gent's. "What with you talking shit about leaving Torchwood."

"I'm not talking shit," Rose protested. "I've been thinking about it."

"Yeah?" He shoved his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders a little. "You're really gonna do it?"

"I...dunno," she said. "I've got a lot of things I need to sort out in my head first, before I decide. That's sort of what the vacation is for."

"I thought the vacation was so the higher-ups didn't use you for target practice," Jake said.

Rose shrugged. "Maybe that, too. But this is my time, I might as well use it."

He waggled his eyebrows teasingly at her. "And for what purpose might you be using it?"

She looked away, just starting to feel bashful, when her eyes landed on a fellow talking into a mobile phone in the lobby. He was just paying his bill, it looked like, and he was tall and thin but dark and olive-skinned, and his jacket did not cover the firm swell of his arse.

And Rose thought about how she'd waited and waited for the Doctor, searched for him, looked for him, even when it was absurd to think he'd actually come; and how long it had been since she'd even looked at a man, any other man, and really let herself enjoy it. It felt like a kind of freedom. This was her time, time to get drunk and get manicured and wear beautiful shoes, and look at men again, and maybe more than look...

Jake followed her eyes. "Oh," he said. "Oh no. That's not what I-I wasn't serious, Rose!"

"Maybe I am," she said, watching Tall, Dark and Skinny pocket his phone and head to the bar.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Going from Epic Love Story to picking up blokes in restaurant bars in like two weeks?"

"You think I'm off my game?" she asked.

"Okay, one, I don't think you've actually got a game," he said, "and two, it's not a question of whether you're on it as whether you should be on it, yeah? You think this is a good idea?"

"I think it's my mistake to make." She fished two twenties out of her purse and pressed them into Jake's non-injured hand. "This is for my share. If I don't come back, tell the others I'm sorry, okay?"

"Just...don't do anything I wouldn't do, okay?" he said. "And that includes swallowing on the first date."

Rose swatted him on the arm with a smile and then walked up to Tall, Dark and Skinny, who was toying with a bowl of nuts and not actually eating anything. She stood back a while, considering how to approach him (because Jake might've been a little right about her lack of any game to speak of) until he looked up at her.

"Looking for something?" he asked. Not a local accent, she decided right away, but that wasn't unusual with so many people moving out of the London area the past two years.

"Maybe," she said, coming closer. "Are you waiting for somebody?"

He looked her up and down, and she hadn't really dressed to flirt-a sweater and jeans and boots with a modest heel-but she thought he liked what he saw. "Maybe," he allowed. "Why do you ask?"

"You looked lonely," she said. "Thought you could use some company, maybe."

"Do you come sit with every lonely man you see?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Well," she shrugged and flicked her hair back with one hand. "Only the ones who seem worth the effort."

"And I'm worth the effort, am I?" He had a really nice smile. Point in his favor.

Rose nodded and perched on a stool. "So are you waiting or aren't you?"

"Not anymore, it looks like," he said, leaning closer to her, and Rose decided this was definitely a better way to spend her night.

---

Wakefulness didn't come on slowly, by soft degrees that let her get used to the sunlight and the ache in her head; that would've been too kind. She came awake in a lurch, and later she wouldn't be sure whether to blame it on her stomach or some noise from the street or the sudden awareness of unfamiliar breathing on the other side of the bed. There was an insane moment when she wondered if the Doctor was back, if maybe he'd never left-but when she mustered the strength to look over her shoulder, it was Tall, Dark and Skinny sprawled on the other side of the bed with some really impressive hickeys on his collarbone.

How had the gotten back here? When had they gotten back here? She remembered picking him up in the restaurant bar-god, she was astonished that even worked, really. She remembered walking out with him, and a glimpse of her team at their table watching her with surprise. She remembered he'd had a really nice car, but the conversation they'd had inside was patchy, and the night club was a total blur. He'd bought her drinks, she recalled. Many drinks. Every single one she'd asked for.

When had they left the club, though? Oh god, had they used a condom? She sat up a little more and scanned the room. The box of condoms from the nightstand lay against the far wall, and she remembered it suddenly, like a scene in a film rather than something she'd actually done-she'd reached for the box, but for some reason it had made her angry, angry beyond words, and so she'd thrown it and then jumped on him anyway.

She really needed to figure out his name.

He was still dead to the world, so she figured it was safe to slip into the toilet, and there was the used condom-she never thought she'd be so happy to see one of those. She made herself drink water, a lot of it, and brush her teeth, and thought about jumping into the shower when she heard signs of life from the bedroom. Oh god. Just pretend it's a Dalek, she told herself as she shrugged into her robe, and then boggled at what her life had turned into.

He was sitting up, rubbing his face. In the stone-sober daylight he didn't look quite as handsome as she remembered-he had no chin to speak of, and kind of a hairy chest, and his nose was crooked. "Morning," she said, because she wasn't quite sure how to handle this. The last time anything like this had happened she'd had to sneak the boy out before her mum woke up.

"Hi," he said with a smile. It was still a nice smile, even without a chin. "How's the head?"

"Not good," she said. "Erm, yours?"

"Been better." He looked around the bedroom. "Nice flat. Didn't get a good look at it in the dark."

"Thanks." Was she supposed to offer him a tour? What the hell? "So do you want to, er, use the shower, or...?"

Or what? She had no clue what. But thank God, he seemed just as awkward now as she was. Maybe because she was. "I actually have, er, a puppy," he said, and then made a face like the words had spoken themselves.

"A puppy?" Rose echoed.

"Yeah, a little puppy," he said, "It's a present for my-sister, but I really shouldn't leave it alone too long or it'll get neurotic and have abandonment issues, so I should just...go."

"Yeah," she said, "I mean I understand that. That you need to go."

"Sorry," he muttered. "Maybe I could...call you sometime?"

He said the words like he was facing an execution, and when Rose said, "I don't think that'd be such a good idea, actually," he actually sagged with relief. "Your y-fronts are over by the wardrobe, by the way."

"Thanks," he said with a little wince.

Rose waited in the kitchen area while he got dressed-name, she was certain she'd known his name at some point-and put on a pot of coffee that her stomach was too roiled to let her drink. She let him out with a few more hideously embarrassing niceties and gave herself a few minutes to wallow in self-loathing. Then she found a bottle of Tylenol, ate about four, and climbed back into her bed, dirty sheets and all. Her phone was still in the pocket of her jeans, which had migrated partway under the bed. The number she wanted was fifth on her speed dial.

It rang twice. "Holloway," said the tinny voice on the other end of the line.

"Grace," Rose moaned, and pressed the side of her face not holding the phone into the pillow. "Tell me I haven't got the clap."

"Oh, honey," Grace said warmly, and without a trace of the schadenfreude she so richly deserved. "That bad?"

"Bad enough." Rose nuzzled her bare feet under the sheets. "Would it violate your ethics to just give me some Retcon for the whole mess?"

"I don't think there's a dose big enough."

"Not for a weekend?"

"You're only talking about the weekend?"

Ouch. Rose supposed she deserved that one. "I can't believe I was that stupid."

"You were hitting in the wine bottle awfully hard,,,."

"Why didn't anybody stop me?" she said, and then, "I know, I know, I'm a big girl who can make my own mistakes."

"And this one sounds like a doozy."

There was sunlight seeping in through the blinds; Rose rolled over and switched the phone to her other ear. "I just...I guess I wanted to prove I don't need him. The Doctor."

"You mean John?"

"Whoever he is."

"Rose, if you don't know who he is, I don't think the rest of us can help you."

She sighed into the phone. "It's just...it's really complicated. John Noble isn't his real name. He didn't used to be human. He's from a parallel universe."

"I got that, actually." Rose heard somebody speaking in the background, thin and incomprehensible, but Grace must've waved them off. "He mentioned it when we met, remember? That he'd met some other me?"

"Oh, yeah..." Rose chuckled. "He said you'd killed him."

"I didn't do anything of the sort," Grace said. "I remember every patient I've ever lost, and I'd certainly never seen John before, whatever name he was going by. Unless he was a shape-shifter at the time?"

"Something like that, yeah," Rose muttered.

"Well, still," and Rose heard a door close and a sudden drop in the background noise. "Sorry, hiding in the paper closet, Winslow's giving a tour or something-look, Rose, I don't know how you got mixed up with a man from a parallel universe, but that doesn't make him the person you knew in this one. If you can't decide which one he is-and which one you want-then picking up random guys in Italian restaurants isn't going to do anything but give you the clap. He didn't actually have the clap, did he?"

"How am I supposed to know, I didn't ask him," Rose said. "And that's one of the complicated parts-he is the same man. Mostly."

"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades," Grace said ominously. And then: "Shit, Winslow's looking for me, gotta go. Just, I'll write you a referral for a pelvic if you really have got the clap, and in the meantime you really should think about what it is you're chasing after."

"Yeah, all right," Rose said glumly.

"And Rose--" Grace must've stepped into the hallway, because the background noise suddenly spiked, but not enough to muffle her words. "For what it's worth, I think of you as a friend."

That was oddly touching. Rose blamed the hangover, partly. "Thanks, Grace," she said, and switched her phone off. After a few minutes, she managed to drag herself into the shower.

What was it she was chasing after? The Doctor, of course, but what did that even mean? She didn't care about the TARDIS and all that, never had; she'd been drawn to the Doctor because he was strange and lonely and about as far from Henrik's and the Powell Estate as she could get. And she'd stayed with him because he was magnificent and bizarre, brave and funny, because he'd showed her a universe that was a astonishing and terrifying and heart-breaking and he loved it, every bit of it, even if he didn't always accept it. And when she was with him she felt brave and strong, too, felt like more than what she was-because the Doctor didn't care about her school records or employment history or how she talked and dressed and took her tea. He didn't care that she was nineteen.

He'd made her better than she was-she'd made herself better just to keep up. And she'd loved him for it, for every time he looked at her and saw that she was good enough.

So maybe that's what she was after, not just the Doctor but that feeling he gave her of hope and joy and wonder. God knew Torchwood was good for wringing the wonder out of anything that came within a hundred yards. Though she did like the work, usually-and she certainly got enough praise for it. Winslow was protecting her because she was more than good enough, everyone was asking her to stay...but the Doctor had gone, and somehow that was the only thing that mattered.

She got out of the shower and combed out her hair, then wandered around the flat in her pajamas for a bit; she couldn't really bear to get back in bed until she'd changed the sheets, and she couldn't bear to change the sheets just now either. Why did it all come back to the bloody Doctor, anyway? How had her life come to this? It was one thing when they were flying through time and space and he was giving her the stars...but she'd had him here, earth-bound, and he'd still filled her whole world, she'd still needed him...she needed him, plain and simple, and she hated herself a little bit for that.

It had all seemed so simple in Norway. No, that last time in the TARDIS. She'd had him-both of him-and it was like everything she'd ever dreamed, like all the things she'd been waiting for were finally going to happen-she'd have the Doctor back by her side, he'd take her to every amazing place he knew, things would all go back to the way they'd been. She'd told herself so many stories about that part, while she searched this universe for a way to the other one, but it had never ended with her back on that beach and him saying goodbye.

Sure, he'd also stayed with her-her Doctor, the part of him that brave enough to say I love you when he felt it. The bit that the other one couldn't stand to keep around. So none of the stories she'd told herself in two long years of waiting had involved clones, but that was okay, since they were the same man, right? Except one had stayed. One had wiped out the Daleks. One said he loved her.

Had she been telling everyone they were the same to convince them or herself?

She went and poured herself that cup of coffee, which by this point was slightly burnt. "So what?" she asked it, and oh, god, she was really going mad. "So what if they're not the same? So what if I have to settle? Maybe I don't have to settle, maybe I can find him again, maybe--"

Maybe he'd leave her on some beach again. Maybe he'd blame her for not keeping busy with his other self. Maybe he'd walk away.

"Why do I even like this bastard, anyway?" she growled, and drank her coffee.

She liked him because he made her feel strong and clever and brave. She liked the wonderful things he showed her. She wanted him for his smile and his hands and his absurd plume of hair, but she liked-she loved-how he made her feel.

Maybe it wasn't the Doctor she'd been chasing all this time. Maybe it was the idea of the Doctor, of all the good things they could do and be, of all she'd become because of him, for him. She'd loved him and missed him and so she'd made him over, bit by bit, in her head, into someone waiting just as patiently for her to find a way home. She should've known the moment she saw Martha Jones that she'd been deadly wrong.

"I haven't been chasing a dream, though," she told herself. The Doctor was real, or he had been once; they really had done and seen amazing things. What she'd been chasing all this time was a memory, like the memories her Doctor shared with the other one, beautiful and clear and out of reach.

She hadn't gotten her wish because she'd wished for something impossible, and that, not even the Doctor could do.

Rose cried into her coffee a bit after that, and lay on the couch with a sweater wrapped around her shoulders. Surely such a profound revelation should've been cathartic, freeing, but she wasn't feeling catharsis just then; it was more like grief, like Canary Wharf and Bad Wolf Bay and Donna's parallel world all in one. It was a bit silly, since she hadn't really lost anything but a man who'd never been. But she'd been able to mourn her father before she ever met him; this wasn't much more of a stretch.

But eventually, she stopped crying; she didn't even hiccup. Eventually she pulled herself off the couch, and got properly dressed, and changed the sheets. Eventually she sat down at her computer, because she might not have a Doctor but she did still have a life, such as it was, and it would be a shame to go and waste it.

Dear Mr. Winslow, she wrote, knowing he'd check his work emails even on a weekend. I am writing to inform you that, effective 5th October, I am returning to my position with the Torchwood Institute...

Chapter 17

All told, Rose's first day back at work was something of an anticlimax; she got up more or less as always, checked the news while she ate her toast, brushed her teeth in the kitchen and put on her makeup while riding the bus. It was an old routine, from before the Doctor, though she didn't recognize it until she was walking into Torchwood's lobby and realized she wasn't scanning the security lines for him anymore, that she didn't need to.

She swiped her badge at the gate, let them search her purse, and waved to Brynn at the big desk. "Hello, Rose!" she called out, grinning. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes? People were saying you'd been sacked, you know!"

"Nah, they can just try to keep me away," Rose said, projecting a better mood than she was feeling. The hallways and corridors were familiar, the same, but at the same time everything seemed new and unsettled. This was her life, but it seemed like she had only just started to live in it.

Mr. Winslow had written back that he wanted to see her first thing, so she took the lift up to his office and waited for the secretary to wave her in. Winslow was Winslow, from his walrus mustache to his paper-strewn desk, but he smiled a bit when Rose came in. "Welcome back, Ms. Prentice," he said. "I admit I'm surprised to see you again so soon."

"It's been a week and a half, sir," Rose pointed out.

"Yes, well, you've got accumulated vacation through February, if you'd wanted to take it..." He harumphed and stabbed at a few keys on his computer before taking off his glasses. "Have you given any thought to our previous conversation?"

"I've not done much but think, sir," Rose said.

"And have you reached any conclusions?" he asked.

She hesitated for a moment, choosing her words. "Sir, I wouldn't be back here if I hadn't."

That drew a real smile out of him, a rare and wondrous sight. "I thought as much. You should know that in the absence of both you and Mr. Simmonds, Dr. Holloway has petitioned heavily for your team to remain assigned to the Horatii case."

She imagined Grace and Tosh up to their necks in the work of five agent and winced a little, even as she admired their dedication. "I think we'd all like to finish what we've started, sir," she said. "I understand Mr. Simmonds returns to active duty today?"

"That's right." He examined one of his papers. "And the search for Dr. Noble's replacement continues at the predictable pace. You should make time in your schedule to interview possible candidates...or to nominate them, if you have any preferences."

"That didn't go so well last time, sir," Rose said, and swallowed a small lump in her throat.

"Be that as it may, you're the unit leader and you deserve input." He glanced up at her. "Forgive a bit of irrelevant curiosity, and feel free to ignore the question-where has Dr. Noble gone now?"

"I really don't know," Rose said, because she'd canceled all the traces on his credit cards and passports and erased them from the system. "He left Cardiff after he resigned and we...haven't been in touch."

"I see. I'm sorry." Winslow gathered some of his papers into a stack and shuffled them, as if just looking for something to do with his hands. "You may go, Ms. Prentice. And once again, welcome back."

So back down the lift to the field division's floor, and the corridor where her team were housed. She wasn't quite sure how to face them after her shameful performance at the restaurant, but she also figured she sort of deserved any embarrassment they could throw at her, and so she walked past Ianto's empty desk with her head held high, past the silence of Jake's office and the one that had been Mickey's, and unlocked her own door--

--to find everyone crowded in her office, around her desk. Eating cake. "Surprise!" Grace shouted, with enough gusto that Rose thought the rest of them were meant to be doing it, too, but weren't. (This was confirmed when Grace glared at them all.) The cake was a plain yellow sheet cake, probably from a supermarket, though no supermarket Rose knew would decorate a cake quite like this one; one side, the one already cut, said -LCOME BACK JAKE with a bloody bandage underneath in garish red gelatin icing, while the other said CONGRATULATIONS ROSE! YOU DON'T HAVE THE CLAP! with something that looked for all the world like a smiling cartoon condom.

"You people," Rose said, but couldn't help the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Oh, bollocks, so you are staying, then?" Jake asked, but he was smiling. "I was about to go through your desk for staples and Sellotape."

"I was going to take the whole office," Tosh added. "It'd be nice, you know, having a window."

"Don't worry, Rose," Grace added. "I intended to defend your office. After I finished my cake."

"Yeah, about the cake," Rose said. "What gives?"

"It's friendship cake," Jake said, sounding vaguely offended by the thought. "Not that I thought we needed it, but it made Tosh get all teary-eyed and I'm never opposed to free cake, so, here we are."

Tosh said, "Liar," but she was also very interested in her cake.

"We figured, with both of you coming back from the disabled list on the same day, it was worth celebrating," Grace said. "You can have a slice, but only if you promise not to run off in the middle to ravish Ianto."

Ianto choked on his cake, and Rose laughed. "I promise, no more running off from me," she said. "Besides, no offense, Ianto, but you're not my type."

"At least he's more attractive than that manorexic you pulled," Jake said.

"Stop it, sir, you'll make me blush," Ianto deadpanned, even if he was still pink in the face, and Grace cut Rose the piece of cake with the condom on it. If that didn't mean all was forgiven, then Rose didn't know what did.

Eventually, of course, Ianto went off to make coffee and the rest of them ended up talking about the Horatii case. "They've changed their routes, but they're still shipping with the same firms," Tosh said. "I've been trying to narrow down where they're shipping to, but it's hard going."

"What about the people signing those contracts?" Rose said. "I know they're using aliases, but can't we do handwriting analysis? Something?"

"Comparing it to who?" Jake asked. "We haven't got baseline samples for even a fraction of the possible suspects, never mind the odds it's someone we don't know."

"We could try fingerprints," Grace said. "Seize the invoices and do an analysis."

"I feel like we're missing something," Rose said, tapping her fork against the empty plate. "We're got the trucks in our sights-we know exactly where they are."

"Where they were," Tosh corrected. "I still can't track them in real time with any accuracy."

"So we ditch the idea of tracking them entirely," Rose said. "Ferret things out the old-fashioned way. Where is everything being delivered?"

Grace reached over Rose to bring something up on her computer. "Warehouses, mostly. Dockside properties in Liverpool, London and Dover, an industrial park in York, an empty paper mill in Bristol..."

"The last two are close to airports," Jake pointed out. "Because they're moving things out of the country, which we already knew. Should be just about done, shouldn't they?"

Tosh nodded, reluctantly. "Highway traffic is down. They must be nearly finished."

"But we've got no way to tie the contents of the warehouses back to the Horatii at this point," Grace said. "Thousands of synthorganic God-knows-whatits sitting around and the paperwork leads back to ghosts in every direction. They're even paying the transportation companies in cash."

It took a moment for Rose to realize why that sentence bothered her, and when she did she sat up so quickly she nearly put her elbow in the remains of the cake. "Tosh, you can estimate how many circuits are in one location by the signal strength, right?"

"I think I can," she said. "It's a ballpark figure, but--"

"I know, just-is it more or less than the number of photomorphic cells that would give off the same signal?"

Tosh frowned for a moment, but Jake seemed to follow Rose's train of thought; he started writing something down right on his frosting-smeared paper plate. "More," Tosh said. "I mean, loads more-Grace is right, we're looking at hundred, if not thousands of circuits in each location."

"Then all we need is one traceable shipment," Rose said. "One shipment that traces back to the Horatii at any level."

"And where are we going to get that?" Grace asked. "If there's no paper trail to the warehouses?"

"They're not staying in the warehouses, though," Jake said. "They've got to be loaded onto ships eventually-the air and water varieties both."

"And somebody has to be hiring those ships," Rose said. "And if they don't know we know they're bringing in materials from offshore, they might not be as careful with the ships as they are with the lorries."

"Might not," Jake said. "Not the same as definitely not."

"Still, it's our first lead in a while." Grace starting gathering up the plates and forks and napkins. "Tosh, help me move this to Ianto's fridge, will you? We've got work to do."

---

The plan they worked out was brilliant, by Rose's own modest estimation. It was elegant, it was simple, and it didn't require any large detachments of police or military, no overwhelming force.

The trick would be getting Mr. Winslow to agree to it.

Rose stood before his desk, watching him read the proposal over again-because surely he'd already read to the bottom once?--and waiting for his opinion. She didn't squirm, but it was a very near thing. It seemed an age before he looked up, one eyebrow quirked skeptically, and asked, "Are you quite certain this is going to work, Ms. Prentice?"

"I have absolute confidence in my team, sir," she said. "Dr. Holloway and Mr. Simmonds are already in Dover, scouting the location, and Dr. Sato has arranged round-the-clock surveillance on Arthur Dale."

"I find it hard to believe that the personal assistant of an member of Parliament would be personally involved in an illegal smuggling operation," Winslow said.

"We managed to pull a CCTV image, sir, and the computer puts his face at a 98% match," Rose pointed out. "MP Hadley ran an import-export business before the war and has plenty of ties in the shipping and transportation community; Dale's using his own name to contract the boats and supplying a different set of fraudulent invoices for the bombs."

"I did read the report," Winslow said dryly. "Are you quite certain you don't require any back-up on this? Police or military?"

"We're already involving the local police, as part of our contingency planning, but as I said, I have absolute confidence in my team," Rose repeated.

"You team which is still short one person," Winslow pointed out.

Rose stood straight as she could and looked him in the eye. "Sir, too many people have died already," she said. "I assure you I'm not about to add any more. We can do this, and we can do it without firing a shot."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Lofty claims, Ms. Prentice. I look forward to seeing if you can back them up."

"Is that an approval, sir?" Rose asked.

"It is," he said. "Tell your team I wish you good luck."

---

She arrived in Dover on a Saturday afternoon, with Tosh and Ianto trailing after her. Ianto had nearly dropped his coffee when she asked him to be involved in the operation. "Me, ma'am?" he'd asked. "Why me?"

"Because you're calm, reliable, and you've got a driving license," Rose had said. "And not only do we need a fifth man to make this operation work, it has to be somebody with your unique skills."

"What unique skills?" he'd asked, looking honestly confused.

"You'll see," she'd assured him. "Unless, of course, you'd rather stick to the coffee machine..."

He hadn't; and so they arrived in Dover, and met with Jake, Grace and the chief of police behind closed doors. "Everything's set," Jake said. "The ship leaves tomorrow night, and they won't be loading the macguffins until the last minute-don't want to be caught with Dale's name on anything."

"And I've made all the arrangements on my end," Grace added. "They were pretty eager to cooperate when I made it clear what the consequences were.'

"Dale himself just arrived in town," Tosh added. "I've got his hotel, the license plate of his car and the GPS of his phone. I can pinpoint his location in real time."

"And is all the equipment set up?" Rose asked.

"Ianto and I are doing the final test run on that this afternoon," Tosh said. (Ianto was being fairly quiet; perhaps he was just unused to being the one served the coffee.)

"My men will be in position as well," Chief Reed promised. "I'm diverting all available units, and they'll have riot gear and K-9 units available if the situation gets out of hand."

"I sincerely hope that won't be necessary, sir, but thank you," Rose said. She tried to imagine how this could possibly get that out of hand, but those thoughts led back to Leeds, and she couldn't keep refighting that battle in her head any longer.

They spent the next day tracking Arthur Dale's every movement, until about tea time, when they all broke up to attend their separate tasks. Rose walked along the harbor for a while, with one eye on the sky-it was a waning moon tonight that wouldn't rise until nearly midnight, she'd checked-but as the sun fell to the horizon she headed back to the rooftop office building where Jake had already set up the laptops, along with a small space heater and a couple of camp chairs.

"Dale is having dinner at a fancy restaurant right now," he announced as Rose cleared the ladder. "Everyone's in position waiting on him. I'm a little bit tempted to give him a call and ask him to skip dessert, you know?"

"Don't you dare," Rose declared, more forcefully than she meant to.

He raised his hands in defense. "Hey, ease up, it was just a joke."

Rose took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Sorry," she said. "Just a bit tense."

"Everybody is," Jake said. "But unless Dale's got a hidden crate of Cybermen up his sleeve, I think this time 'round we've got everything under control."

"Don't even joke about Cybermen," Rose said wearily. "I mean, these are the same people with hidden underground tunnels who rigged a whole factory to self-destruct. That's the sort of stuff James bloody Bond is supposed to put up with, not us."

Which lead them to discussing the next Bond film, of course, and the rumor that the villain would be a Cyberman (Rose was intrigued; Jake thought it was too soon) which somehow lead into their favorite television shows from childhood and how they differed from one universe to the next. It was fully dark by the time Tosh got on the radio to say, "Dale is moving towards the docks. I'm already in position."

Rose thumbed her microphone on. "Copy that, Tosh. All units, report."

"I'm right where I have been, waiting for Dale," Grace said. "Tosh, wave-I can see you!"

"I'm ready, ma'am," Ianto said.

"Don't call me 'ma'am,'" Rose reminded him. "Chief Reed, are your men in position?"

"Waiting for your signal, Ms. Prentice," Reed said. "I've copied them in on this frequency. Detective Inspector Craig is in charge."

"Waiting and ready, ma'am," someone, presumably Craig, added.

Rose took a deep breath and shut off her microphone. "All right, here goes nothing..."

"Rose, he's using his phone," Tosh said suddenly. "Copying you in on the call."

Rose quickly switched from the radio to the laptop feed, as one of Tosh's clever little programs came to life. A man's voice, presumably Dale's, was already speaking. "--ley, please? It's urgent business."

"Mr. Hadley is in a meeting with the Prime Minister," answered a very familiar voice in reply. "I'm afraid he can't be reached. Shall I pass along a message?"

"No, that's-wait, yes, do. Let him know I'm taking care of the last of the post, will you? I'll back in London by morning."

"Very well, sir. May I ask who is calling?"

"It's Arthur, just tell him it's Arthur, he'll know who it is."

"All right, sir. I'll be certain to pass that along immediately."

"Thanks."

The call ended abruptly. Jake snorted. "The post? What kind of a code word is that, the post?"

"Good enough, and we've got him giving his own name," Rose said. "Tosh, did you record all that?"

"Yeah-I'm recording everything, just to be safe." There was a vague thump on her end. "Ah! Oh my! Okay, sorry, somebody just dropped something-never mind."

"Don't get hurt down there," Jake said, brows knitting. "Can't have two walking wounded on the team, Grace won't know who to mother."

"Ha, ha, Jake," Grace said. "Remind me of that next time you need a prescription refilled."

"ETA ten minutes," Tosh reminded them. "I'll leave the equipment running, I've got to get into costume."

Jake switched off his microphone and looked at Rose. "You know, one of us could've been down there, helping her out."

Rose shook her head. "I'm too well-known and you're not supposed to do any heavy lifting," she reminded him. "Besides, she can take care of herself."

"I'm just saying, it's not so hard to run one of those fancy Geiger counters she's got," Jake said. "You could've had Grace do it and put me where she is."

"Grace is good at what she does," Rose said. "And I want you with me."

Jake frowned. "What for?"

"Because you keep me from doing stupid shit, when I bother to listen," Rose said bluntly.

His eyebrows rose sharply. "Do I, then?"

"Well, when you're not encouraging me," Rose added. "But next time you and Grace agree on something, remind me to pay attention, okay?"

"Okay," Jake said. After a moment, he added, with a small smile, "Apology accepted." Rose smiled back before turning her attention to fiddling with the binoculars.

From their rooftop, they spotted Dale's car pulling up, and Dale getting out. He was an unremarkle man, perhaps a little short and a little pudgy, but in bland ways that somehow made him even harder to pick out of a crowd. At least, to human eyes; the computers had had no trouble with him once they'd gotten a clear CCTV image. It was probably an asset, being that forgettable, when you were a politician's assistant. He pulled out his phone again, and Rose switched her earpiece to the laptop feed again in anticipation.

"Hello?"

"Captain Poole, this is Arthur Dale. Have you started loading the cargo yet?"

"Of course not," Poole said; on the second laptop, Rose suddenly got a CCTV camera image of the ship's bridge, with Poole pacing irritably back and forth. "You gave us specific instructions not to touch anything until you got here."

"Well, I'm here, so start touching," Dale said irritably. "I haven't got all night."

"Here we go," Rose murmured.

With binoculars, they could watch Dale strut about the deck of the ship, shouting at people; with the CCTV feeds they were now getting from aboard the ship, they could follow him belowdecks as he watched the shipping containers settle into place and shouted at other, different people, and even shoved some of them. "Very bad behavior for a public figure," she murmured to Jake.

He nodded. "Bloke needs an anger management course, in my opinion."

"And coming from you, that's saying something."

Jake did not attempt deny it. "Look at him, he's standing under a crate. Who gave him this job?"

Eventually, all the containers were loaded, and Dale brought out his phone again. "Hello, Mr. Hadley's office," answered that familiar voice again.

"It's Arthur," Dale said. "Tell Mr. Hadley the post is in the mail."

"Arthur, Mr. Hadley asked me to deliver a message to you," the receptionist said smoothly. "He said there's another letter to be posted yet. It's on its way by courier now."

"Another!" On the deck, Dale waved one arm in a great loop. "Does Mr. Hadley know when the deadline is?"

"I said, it's on it way to you now," the receptionist repeated. "You're to stay where you are and wait for it. Shall I wake Mr. Hadley and ask him to repeat it himself?"

"No, no, oh, Christ, no." Dale raked his fingers through his hair. "Look, I've got an angry contractor ready to cast off, I haven't slept in thirty-four hours and some Chinese kid keeps bumping me. How long am I meant to wait here without a cigarette or a shooting spree before your bloody courier arrives?"

"Thirty minutes, sir," the receptionist answered. "I can contact her and let her know you're in a hurry, if you like."

"I bloody well like!" Dale hung up and started stomping around the deck, glaring at the surly crew, who were unimpressed by him.

"That's our cue," Rose announced, pulling off her headphones. "Wait here and tell DI Craig to move in if anybody starts shooting, all right?"

"I'm a cripple, not an idiot," Jake said grumpily, and snatched up the binoculars. "Have fun and don't get shot."

"Thanks," Rose said. "Love you too."

She shimmied down the ladder to ground level, and slowly approached the ship, in case Dale had left behind any security that she didn't know about. He hadn't; miraculously, the one thing that absolutely had to go right had gone perfectly: he'd been so confident in his safety that he'd come alone. She swung around to where some of the police were waiting and gave them a thumbs-up to signify that she was going in; then, quietly, she climbed a ladder onto the deck of the cargo ship.

Dale was standing with his hands jammed into the pockets of his greatcoat, glaring intermittantly at different crew members or shuffling his feet. Rose approached him from behind. "Mr. Dale?"

He didn't turn around. "Who's asking?"

"Mr. Arthur Dale?" she pressed.

"Yes," he growled. "Yes, it's me, you'd better bloody well have the-" He turned around and froze, bloodshot eyes going wide and glassy when he saw who was behind him. "Oh, fuck me."

"No, thank you," Rose said. "Mr. Dale, in the name of the Office of Homeworld Security and as an authorized agent of the Torchwood Institute, I place you under-hey!"

Because before she got done with the little speech, Dale was off and running, across the deck. And not, quietly, either; he was screaming like a little girl, bellowing "Help me!" and "Stop her!" and "Cast off, you fucking idiots, cast off!" The crew came boiling out onto the deck like ants, coalescing into a wall of bodies that caught Dale. He spun around and started pointing at Rose. "Her! Get her! She's with the police, she'll get us all arrested!"

Captain Poole came out of the deck and stared across the deck at Rose. "Police, you say?"

Dale nodded. "Torchwood. UN. They'll arrest us all, they'll throw us all in some jail to rot, do something!" But the crew weren't moving; they were, in fact, edging close around Dale, hemming him in, so Rose could approach at a languid walk without fear of him running off again. "What are you doing? Why aren't you doing anything?" Dale fumed. "You think you're going to testify against me? Fuck you! That money you've been taking is dirty as shit, I'll tell them all you were taking a cut, you hear? I'll take you fuckers down with me, ever many of you!"

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Dale," Poole said. "I suppose it's a good thing we've already made our arrangements."

"W-what?" Dale stammered.

Grace, with the perfect timing that comes from watching too many operas, stepped out from behind Poole. "Let's start this over again. In the name of the Office of Homeworld Security and as an authorized agent of the Torchwood Institute, I place you under arrest for crimes against the people of Earth."

Dale jibbered, while two of the crew seized him by the shoulders. He looked between Rose and Grace, and then at Poole. "You...you..."

"Knew he'd need the protection once we revealed to him what you've had him hauling," Rose said. "Dr. Holloway's been watching your every move from the ship's internal CCTV and recording it. Tosh, are you up here?"

A slight figure in baggy coveralls and a cap came forward; when she whipped off the hat to let her hair down, Dale whimpered. ""I've collected swabs from your skin and clothing that test positive for synthorganic residue," she said. "And tagged the shipping containers that are emitting a radiation trace consistent with your smart bombs, so the police can search them. Also, I'm not Chinese."

"This is impossible," Dale stammered. "This isn't fucking real. I...I called him early today..."

"From the restaurant?" Tosh asked. "Would you like to try calling him again?"

"I've got it," Rose said, since Dale's arms were pinned. She patted him down, finding his phone in the process, and set it to speakerphone before dialing the number for Hadley's office in Dale's full view. "Hello, Mr. Hadley's office," the same receptionist answered.

"Hello," Rose said. "Can you tell me to whom I'm speaking?"

"Ianto Jones, Torchwood."

Dale made a squeaky noise.

"Thanks, Ianto, you were brilliant. Get down here to help us clean up." Rose shut the phone off and tucked it back in Dale's pocket. "See, Torchwood's got control of the old Cybus satellite network. The one that runs most of the mobile phones in Great Britain. Just one short step from recording your calls to redirecting them all to a dummy number of our choosing."

Dale didn't even make a noise at that; his mouth moved, but nothing came out. A few moments later, the Dover police swarmed up onto the deck, a man in a kevlar vest leading the way. "DI Craig, ma'am," he said, flashing a badge. "Need any assistance here?"

"Yeah," Rose said. "First, don't call me 'ma'am.' Second, I need you to go down in the hold with Ms. Sato here and start searching cargo containers for synthorganic technology-be very, very careful, because there could be live explosives involved. Third, take Mr. Dale here to a cell for safekeeping."

While DI Craig started directing traffic, Rose took a few steps back to look at the black water, and the half-moon just now rising on the horizon. She waved in the general direction of Jake's rooftop, and got a few flickers of a torch back. After a little while, Grace followed her. "Captain Poole's sending his crew home," she said. "He's going to stick around in case the police need him. We should call the army for a containment unit."

"Yeah," Rose said. "I'll get on that in a bit."

Grace stood by her for a moment. "So we've got Dale, which almost certainly gives us Hadley, and through them we've got a knife in the guts of the whole combined organization of All Earth and the Horatii."

"Unless they refuse to talk," Rose said. "Or the rest of the group decide to throw these two out to hang. And we're still no closer to finding the rest of the bombs that are out there."

"Well, still," Grace said. "We've got our man without firing a shot. Well played, Ms. Prentice."

"Yeah," Rose said, and let herself exhale. "This time, everybody lives."

---

What with securing the scene, calling in the UN and signing off on preliminary paperwork, they didn't get back to their hotel until the small hours of the night, when it was already well into Monday morning. Rose collapsed on her bed for a moment, trying to will herself to set an alarm on her phone so she didn't just sleep through the next day, because there would be more paperwork and the actual removal of the bombs and bomb components they'd found, and the all-important questioning of Dale, and possibly testifying to get a warrant for Hadley as well. She'd already called Mr. Winslow in spite of the hour to report a complete success, since this time round he wasn't going to hear it from the BBC.

They'd done good, her team. Won this round. Everybody lived.

She was staring blankly at her phone, caught on the edge of action, when it startled the hell out of her by starting to ring. It was an unknown number with an unfamiliar country code. "Hello?" she answered warily.

"This is Miss Rose Tyler?" a voice with a lilting accent asked.

"Yeah, I mean, my name is Prentice, but that's me, Rose Tyler Prentice," she stammered. "Who is this?"

"I'm calling from the Central Municipal Hospital in Mexico City," the voice said. "You know a Mister John Noble?"

Rose's heart skipped a beat. "Doctor," she corrected. "It's Doctor Noble, yeah. What's wrong?"

"Mister Noble, he is in intensive care," the voice said, and Rose's stomach locked up on itself. "There was a fire, you see, and he was badly injured. He had you listed with his hotel as an emergency contact. Where are you right now?"

"England," she answered numbly. "I'm in Britain, look, what d'you mean, hurt? Is he going to be all right?"

There was a pause. "How soon can you get to Mexico, Miss Tyler?"

"Prentice," she said. "I can, um, it's going to take a few hours. Is he going to be all right?"

"He is in serious condition," the other voice said reluctantly. "I can put you on with his surgeon, if you like."

"No, no, that's fine," Rose said. "I'm, I'll be on my way as soon as I can be, just, it's the middle of the night here, it's going to take a while."

"We will be waiting for you," the receptionist said. "And call you if there is any change."

"You'd better call me!" Rose said, and then hung up, so she could start placing some other calls.

An hour later, she was on her way to Mexico City.

---

Go to Act 5