Everyday Fantastic: A Time Lord's Guide to the Slow Path (12/15)
Title: Everyday Fantastic: A Time Lord's Guide to the Slow Path (12/15)
Author: Roxyk630
WARNING: There are S4 spoilers beyond this point.
Character/Pairing: Ten II (10.5, Human!Ten, Blue!Ten)/Rose, Appearances by: Jackie, Jake, Pete, Tony and others
Rating: PG-13 (for sexual situations)
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who nor any of the characters contained within. All rights belong to the BBC. I do inflict humiliation upon my dalek action figures and make them wear silly hats and aprons. So... even more concern than the BBC coming after me... is the Cult of Skaro, an encounter I definitely would not survive.
Betas: otahyonifor this chapter. Thank you! <3 Special thanks to swankkat, who cheered me on through this entire thing!
Summary: The Doctor learning to live day by day on the slow path with Rose.
Author's Notes: The Doctor learns about the realities of Torchwood, and his new Universe.
Previous Chapters: Teaspoon, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8 , Chapter 9 , Chapter 10, Chapter 11
CHAPTER 12
The Doctor is still nursing his headache a few hours later, grumbling the entire time. At Rose’s request, he accepts Jackie’s peace offering of aspirin with a wary eye. Having been allergic to it for over 900 years he isn’t sure exactly how things carry over into his new form. At further complaint, and a bit of explanation, Jackie searches the cupboard only to find she’s out of paracetamol. So, for experiment’s sake, he takes one aspirin, instead of two and downs the glass of water, this time having the intelligence to warn Rose, very vocally, about anything that could happen.
As he stands before the mirror not an hour later, poking at the hives that seem to be covering his body he realizes his allergy may still be very real, but luckily not as severe.
“Rose!!!”
She runs into the hallway powder room, where the Doctor stands in front of the mirror. He watches as she observes him for a moment, completely curious.
”Doctor, are those hives? When did-”
“Yes!” He’s whining while he pokes at the red hives covering his face before scratching at the hives on his arms roughly. “I’m still allergic to bloody aspirin!” He grabs her arms and stares at her nervously, “if I have an asthma attack or faint- Wheezing? Am I wheezing?”
"No, you aren't wheezing. What do I need to do? Liquids? Do you want something to eat.”
“No, I have to wait this out. No liquids, no food for a few hours till it leaves my system.” He grimaces to his reflection, poking at his hives.
Rose hears the front door click as Jackie returns from her grocery trip with Bev and Tony. They’re loaded down with bags when she looks out the door gesturing for the Doctor to stay. He doesn’t.
“Oh good lord! What did you get into now?!” Jackie looks at him, circling him, Tony on her hip. “You’re positively covered!”
He still itches.
Jackie covers him in a primitive topical cream with a pink tinge. The Doctor insists repeatedly that he doesn’t need it before she calls the physician to see if he needs any further care. The Doctor crankily states the obvious with a cough-to avoid aspirin and any other NSAIDs-but Jackie ignores him and phones anyway.
Rose holds his hand the entire time. He thinks it might be both for support and to keep him from scratching. She tries to remain positive on the issue; while he still has the allergy, at least it doesn’t cause him to die or regenerate. He grumbles before muttering in agreement.
When Jackie leaves to make a cup of tea after phoning the physician, Rose pops in Muppets Take Manhattan for Tony. The Doctor remembers this particular film as a personal favorite. Muppets can cure all ills.
He settles on the couch, still a bit grumpy, before Rose snuggles into his itchy side and smiles. Some things do carry over and stay the same, he muses, both good things and bad.
He and Rose report to Pete’s office the following Tuesday, as requested. They’re both running late, something Rose doesn’t seem overly surprised by.
“Right, Doctor. I apologize,” Pete begins. “Today’s going to be a bit hectic. We’re going to run you down to HR first thing for your identification. Torchwood and UNIT work on a series of keycards allowing certain levels of clearance. Yours should be ready before the end of the day but we need a photo for multiple security reasons.”
“All of your personal information is in order. You’ll find everything in this packet. You will have an identity outside of Torchwood, as soon as you sign the paperwork. I worked it up after we spoke.” Pete hands the Doctor a manila packet full of information.
Rose eyes the Doctor curiously. He’d never really told her if he’d chosen a name, but she’ll call him Doctor either way. She watches him flip through the contents of the packet. It all looks to be back history, biographical data, birth records, education, a life. An identity only filled with pages, no photos.
“Once we get your photos in order,” Pete continued, “we’ll get your license and a few other things taken care of.”
The Doctor nods, smiling when he eyes his biographical data sheet. Rose doesn’t get a good look before he flips it over and carries on to the next bit of paper.
“I haven’t introduced you to the staff yet or even mentioned a newcomer, I figure we can do that on rounds. I prefer to keep Torchwood on a personal face-to-face basis. The minute we start making people numbers and a series of identification cards alone is when things start mucking up. UNIT is doing all right with that system so far, but they also aren’t working with volatile technology.”
“Rose explained a bit of how your system works here. Torchwood is a smaller, more centralized group?” The Doctor questions without looking up.
“To a point, yes. We work in conjunction with UNIT; you could almost consider us a part of UNIT. We work with the military, not for the military. As of now, we work mostly under the guise of a research facility, since we essentially are one at the moment.”
“How so?” The Doctor looks up from his paperwork, confused.
“Like I said, less alien involvement on this planet for some reason.” Rose shrugs.
“We’ll show you around so you can get an idea of the business that we keep. From what I understand, it’s a far cry from the Torchwood on your planet.” Pete’s tone is grim but understanding as he gives Rose a small smile.
“Yes, well,” the Doctor says. “Torchwood is under new management in the other Universe, with someone I think we can trust to keep it in line for centuries.”
Rose grins at his words.
“That’s part of the reason we sent Mickey to stay.” Pete meets the Doctor’s eyes levelly.
”I thought- “
“He spoke to me about it before he and Rose started hopping Universes. Once Rose was found on the correct Universe with the Dimension Cannon, we were able to pinpoint where to send Mickey.”
The Doctor gives Rose a frustrated and confused glance. She hadn’t mentioned that Mickey staying behind might have actually been planned. Pete must notice because he looks at Rose before he continues.
“It was between Mickey and I.” Pete’s hand gently squeezes Rose’s upper arm before he turns his eyes on the Doctor. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but you aren’t around in your Universe enough to keep an eye on things all of the time. And I can’t say that your Torchwood has proven their organization to be as reputable as I would like. Mickey isn’t going to change things, but he is there to keep an eye on them. Last thing we need is someone opening the Rift again.”
Rose looks at the Doctor, searching for an answer she doesn’t think she’ll find. He looks upset and angry. Mickey hadn’t told her he’d been asked to stay behind; though maybe he wasn’t asked so much as he was given a mission with his personal choice.
She’d been there with Mickey when they spotted it, the spike in their readings. That’s what started the stars going out in their Universe. It was a slow process but the absorption of energy from this world to the next, that’s what they thought, had started the initial problem of the stars going out, the opening of the Rift. They’d been wrong of course, but that didn’t stop the aftershock this Universe had felt from the occurrence. They’d had nothing for months after that, nothing. Then astrologers started noticing missing stars. NASA had gone into an uproar and Torchwood was forced to work with the US in calming the building political panic while working on solving the problem.
“The Rift?” The Doctor watches them both with incredulity.
Jack hadn’t told him about that incident. The Doctor knew Jack’s staff wasn’t what he would have chosen for companions, but the Doctor had figured them mostly competent. But the Rift? That went beyond human curiosity.
He finds, in that moment, as he stands facing Pete, that he thinks differently as a human. Time Lord brain, but now instead of praising their brilliance of getting it closed and saving the day, the first thought that enters his brain is ‘who would be so daft as to open it, and more importantly why?’ Why wasn’t he notified? He knew about the Master, and the year that never was, but the opening of the Rift, purposely, by Torchwood? Was there a reason? The curiosity of how they managed to close it comes later, but as he watches Pete, he realizes that neither Pete nor Rose would know that information, only the location, which they’ve mentioned. Torchwood, their Universe. He has questions for Jack now, unimportant emotional questions, ones he’d never have even bothered regarding before, and ones he’ll never have answered. For the first time, it eats away at his composure.
“That’s why we sent Mickey. This universe may have Cybermen at the hands of egomaniacal rich men, but we don’t have Daleks, Rift openings, skies ripping in half, dead talking, or any other anomalies the universe can devise and intervene with. I don’t want just anyone playing with powers they aren’t meant to possess. And I plan to keep it that way, Doctor. That is what Torchwood is for. ”
He wants to add and emphasis the values of trust in such a high security organization, to berate, to feel high and mighty about humans and their ability to fathom such technology. “What about the research?” the only wording the Doctor can find, said stiffly and angrily at Pete’s genuine smile. He anxiously waits the famous ‘trust me on this.’ That never comes.
“I have a request, Doctor.” Pete replies with a sigh. “See for yourself what we do here, first; you can reserve your judgment for later.”
What they do, the Doctor finds after his first week on the job, is bore him slowly and possibly to death. “Torchwood: Alternate Universe,” as he’s decided to dub it, is from what he learned on the tour his first day, and after doing some digging, has become a research and development facility. Established by Queen Victoria, the Torchwood Institute covers anything from engineering to vaccine development for obscure (alien) disease, bacteria and viruses. The first research experiments were done on the disease that plagued the Queen herself, in later years. The Cybermen incident has been the largest and most time consuming tragedy they’ve had to ‘clean’ so far. It was attributed to military experimentation, a program developed by Lumic and funded by his own investments. Nothing alien, nothing crazy, just a megalomaniac bent on seeing his project complete. The tragedy couldn’t be blamed on anyone beyond Lumic, since no governmental parties held funding in the project, only interest. The governmental organizations with interest in the project were left, unsurprisingly, out of the file.
Over the course of the past week he has started reminiscing about his younger days, his time with UNIT and the Brig, doing things not all that different from what he does now, including working on a TARDIS. Now, he’s still a trusted resource, but to Torchwood instead of Unit. He has clearance to most, if not all levels of the organization, more than Rose, he notices, but figures they can work past that when she learns of it. He also notes that his intelligence far surpasses that of his co-workers.
He and Rose are in the middle of a rather animated conversation as they walk down the corridor about the primitive equipment and methods and how much easier it would be if they just had this device or if his co-workers were more observant. His job isn’t so much about saving the universe and running from danger any longer; it’s about finding a solution to the things that plague the universe and what might cause dangers in the future, finding cures for the past, a series of daily puzzles. Furthermore, it’s completely and dreadfully normal. He’ll never admit it to Rose, but he absolutely loves it.
“They’re brilliant, just lacking in the observation of minor details. They use normal screwdrivers! Can you believe it? Just a phillips head! The multi-universal, multi-dimensional tool! How novel!”
“Screwdrivers? Novel? You must be bored out of your mind.” Rose laughs, giving him a look.
He thinks she may have figured him out.
“I am! It took me an entire hour to get the thing together! Then- “
“Why don’t you just rebuild the sonic screwdriver?”
“Getting to that bit. It’ll only take a few hours once I find all of the parts. Anyway-”
He’s enjoying working with his hands, getting his fingers dirty, emerging fully into the slow path in every way, using the tools that take forever. He had his privilege to power tools removed shortly after reconfiguring them, now his job takes time, which is both frustrating and fascinating. He can still feel time edging past him, but he isn’t as constantly aware of it passing. Now, he can spend what he thought was only five minutes taking something apart only to look up and find an hour or two has passed. It’s both startling and delightful. It also makes his heart beat a little faster.
“There’s an obvious difference, Rose. I’m surprised they didn’t notice in the first place. No wonder they couldn’t get it back together. Don’t you notice the details?”
Rose smiles as he carries on. It may be primitive, boring, and lacking in sonic screwdrivers and running, but she thinks the Doctor is a bit melodramatic, considering his current enthusiastic speech about the difference between one type of obscure bolt to another.
“Rose?”
She realizes she must be looking at him strangely when he stops and stares at her in the middle of the hall.
“Did you listen to a single word I said?” He’s giving her the concerned, ‘is there something else on your mind’ look.
“Bolts?” She looks at him absently, hoping she guessed correctly.
“Exactly! And what’s really odd about it? It’s so old. Even for alien technology, it’s rather dated.”
“I said before, alien occurrences are rare here, yeah? Considering the other universe seemed to have so many.” Rose nods casually.
“Rare? I’ve been at Torchwood: AU a week and nothing!” He slumps. He pauses and tilts his head inquisitively a few seconds later.
“Then again, the alien occurrences in the other universe just seemed common. They were actually months apart.” His expression changes to that of shock when his eyes turn to Rose. With a gulp he continues, “Do you mean to tell me it may be months- “ Terror crosses his features.
Rose snorts. “Torchwood: AU?”
“Alternate Universe. Rose…” he adds after a pause, his tone warning. “How long has it been exactly?”
She smirks at him heading toward the teams office area.
“Months? More than three months?” he inquires, following on her heels.
Rose meets his eyes without saying a word.
“Six months to a year?” he questions.
“Try a few years. You are the first alien in a long while.” She bites her lip, holding back a grin.
“WHAT?!”
“Even then, you aren’t really all alien anymore are you? Half-human, yeah?” Rose looks at him blankly.
He’s still standing, slack-jawed and horrified, in the middle of the hallway when she continues speaking.
“Oi! If it’s any consolation, until Dad gets your paperwork filed and sorted, according to the UK government, immigration services, and NHS, you’re still an illegal alien.” She grins at him with a quirked brow.
That seems to lighten the mood a bit, but he still sulks the rest of the day. He’s been putting off signing the paperwork for his new identity. He still hasn’t told Rose.
Author: Roxyk630
WARNING: There are S4 spoilers beyond this point.
Character/Pairing: Ten II (10.5, Human!Ten, Blue!Ten)/Rose, Appearances by: Jackie, Jake, Pete, Tony and others
Rating: PG-13 (for sexual situations)
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who nor any of the characters contained within. All rights belong to the BBC. I do inflict humiliation upon my dalek action figures and make them wear silly hats and aprons. So... even more concern than the BBC coming after me... is the Cult of Skaro, an encounter I definitely would not survive.
Betas: otahyonifor this chapter. Thank you! <3 Special thanks to swankkat, who cheered me on through this entire thing!
Summary: The Doctor learning to live day by day on the slow path with Rose.
Author's Notes: The Doctor learns about the realities of Torchwood, and his new Universe.
Previous Chapters: Teaspoon, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8 , Chapter 9 , Chapter 10, Chapter 11
CHAPTER 12
The Doctor is still nursing his headache a few hours later, grumbling the entire time. At Rose’s request, he accepts Jackie’s peace offering of aspirin with a wary eye. Having been allergic to it for over 900 years he isn’t sure exactly how things carry over into his new form. At further complaint, and a bit of explanation, Jackie searches the cupboard only to find she’s out of paracetamol. So, for experiment’s sake, he takes one aspirin, instead of two and downs the glass of water, this time having the intelligence to warn Rose, very vocally, about anything that could happen.
As he stands before the mirror not an hour later, poking at the hives that seem to be covering his body he realizes his allergy may still be very real, but luckily not as severe.
“Rose!!!”
She runs into the hallway powder room, where the Doctor stands in front of the mirror. He watches as she observes him for a moment, completely curious.
”Doctor, are those hives? When did-”
“Yes!” He’s whining while he pokes at the red hives covering his face before scratching at the hives on his arms roughly. “I’m still allergic to bloody aspirin!” He grabs her arms and stares at her nervously, “if I have an asthma attack or faint- Wheezing? Am I wheezing?”
"No, you aren't wheezing. What do I need to do? Liquids? Do you want something to eat.”
“No, I have to wait this out. No liquids, no food for a few hours till it leaves my system.” He grimaces to his reflection, poking at his hives.
Rose hears the front door click as Jackie returns from her grocery trip with Bev and Tony. They’re loaded down with bags when she looks out the door gesturing for the Doctor to stay. He doesn’t.
“Oh good lord! What did you get into now?!” Jackie looks at him, circling him, Tony on her hip. “You’re positively covered!”
He still itches.
Jackie covers him in a primitive topical cream with a pink tinge. The Doctor insists repeatedly that he doesn’t need it before she calls the physician to see if he needs any further care. The Doctor crankily states the obvious with a cough-to avoid aspirin and any other NSAIDs-but Jackie ignores him and phones anyway.
Rose holds his hand the entire time. He thinks it might be both for support and to keep him from scratching. She tries to remain positive on the issue; while he still has the allergy, at least it doesn’t cause him to die or regenerate. He grumbles before muttering in agreement.
When Jackie leaves to make a cup of tea after phoning the physician, Rose pops in Muppets Take Manhattan for Tony. The Doctor remembers this particular film as a personal favorite. Muppets can cure all ills.
He settles on the couch, still a bit grumpy, before Rose snuggles into his itchy side and smiles. Some things do carry over and stay the same, he muses, both good things and bad.
He and Rose report to Pete’s office the following Tuesday, as requested. They’re both running late, something Rose doesn’t seem overly surprised by.
“Right, Doctor. I apologize,” Pete begins. “Today’s going to be a bit hectic. We’re going to run you down to HR first thing for your identification. Torchwood and UNIT work on a series of keycards allowing certain levels of clearance. Yours should be ready before the end of the day but we need a photo for multiple security reasons.”
“All of your personal information is in order. You’ll find everything in this packet. You will have an identity outside of Torchwood, as soon as you sign the paperwork. I worked it up after we spoke.” Pete hands the Doctor a manila packet full of information.
Rose eyes the Doctor curiously. He’d never really told her if he’d chosen a name, but she’ll call him Doctor either way. She watches him flip through the contents of the packet. It all looks to be back history, biographical data, birth records, education, a life. An identity only filled with pages, no photos.
“Once we get your photos in order,” Pete continued, “we’ll get your license and a few other things taken care of.”
The Doctor nods, smiling when he eyes his biographical data sheet. Rose doesn’t get a good look before he flips it over and carries on to the next bit of paper.
“I haven’t introduced you to the staff yet or even mentioned a newcomer, I figure we can do that on rounds. I prefer to keep Torchwood on a personal face-to-face basis. The minute we start making people numbers and a series of identification cards alone is when things start mucking up. UNIT is doing all right with that system so far, but they also aren’t working with volatile technology.”
“Rose explained a bit of how your system works here. Torchwood is a smaller, more centralized group?” The Doctor questions without looking up.
“To a point, yes. We work in conjunction with UNIT; you could almost consider us a part of UNIT. We work with the military, not for the military. As of now, we work mostly under the guise of a research facility, since we essentially are one at the moment.”
“How so?” The Doctor looks up from his paperwork, confused.
“Like I said, less alien involvement on this planet for some reason.” Rose shrugs.
“We’ll show you around so you can get an idea of the business that we keep. From what I understand, it’s a far cry from the Torchwood on your planet.” Pete’s tone is grim but understanding as he gives Rose a small smile.
“Yes, well,” the Doctor says. “Torchwood is under new management in the other Universe, with someone I think we can trust to keep it in line for centuries.”
Rose grins at his words.
“That’s part of the reason we sent Mickey to stay.” Pete meets the Doctor’s eyes levelly.
”I thought- “
“He spoke to me about it before he and Rose started hopping Universes. Once Rose was found on the correct Universe with the Dimension Cannon, we were able to pinpoint where to send Mickey.”
The Doctor gives Rose a frustrated and confused glance. She hadn’t mentioned that Mickey staying behind might have actually been planned. Pete must notice because he looks at Rose before he continues.
“It was between Mickey and I.” Pete’s hand gently squeezes Rose’s upper arm before he turns his eyes on the Doctor. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but you aren’t around in your Universe enough to keep an eye on things all of the time. And I can’t say that your Torchwood has proven their organization to be as reputable as I would like. Mickey isn’t going to change things, but he is there to keep an eye on them. Last thing we need is someone opening the Rift again.”
Rose looks at the Doctor, searching for an answer she doesn’t think she’ll find. He looks upset and angry. Mickey hadn’t told her he’d been asked to stay behind; though maybe he wasn’t asked so much as he was given a mission with his personal choice.
She’d been there with Mickey when they spotted it, the spike in their readings. That’s what started the stars going out in their Universe. It was a slow process but the absorption of energy from this world to the next, that’s what they thought, had started the initial problem of the stars going out, the opening of the Rift. They’d been wrong of course, but that didn’t stop the aftershock this Universe had felt from the occurrence. They’d had nothing for months after that, nothing. Then astrologers started noticing missing stars. NASA had gone into an uproar and Torchwood was forced to work with the US in calming the building political panic while working on solving the problem.
“The Rift?” The Doctor watches them both with incredulity.
Jack hadn’t told him about that incident. The Doctor knew Jack’s staff wasn’t what he would have chosen for companions, but the Doctor had figured them mostly competent. But the Rift? That went beyond human curiosity.
He finds, in that moment, as he stands facing Pete, that he thinks differently as a human. Time Lord brain, but now instead of praising their brilliance of getting it closed and saving the day, the first thought that enters his brain is ‘who would be so daft as to open it, and more importantly why?’ Why wasn’t he notified? He knew about the Master, and the year that never was, but the opening of the Rift, purposely, by Torchwood? Was there a reason? The curiosity of how they managed to close it comes later, but as he watches Pete, he realizes that neither Pete nor Rose would know that information, only the location, which they’ve mentioned. Torchwood, their Universe. He has questions for Jack now, unimportant emotional questions, ones he’d never have even bothered regarding before, and ones he’ll never have answered. For the first time, it eats away at his composure.
“That’s why we sent Mickey. This universe may have Cybermen at the hands of egomaniacal rich men, but we don’t have Daleks, Rift openings, skies ripping in half, dead talking, or any other anomalies the universe can devise and intervene with. I don’t want just anyone playing with powers they aren’t meant to possess. And I plan to keep it that way, Doctor. That is what Torchwood is for. ”
He wants to add and emphasis the values of trust in such a high security organization, to berate, to feel high and mighty about humans and their ability to fathom such technology. “What about the research?” the only wording the Doctor can find, said stiffly and angrily at Pete’s genuine smile. He anxiously waits the famous ‘trust me on this.’ That never comes.
“I have a request, Doctor.” Pete replies with a sigh. “See for yourself what we do here, first; you can reserve your judgment for later.”
What they do, the Doctor finds after his first week on the job, is bore him slowly and possibly to death. “Torchwood: Alternate Universe,” as he’s decided to dub it, is from what he learned on the tour his first day, and after doing some digging, has become a research and development facility. Established by Queen Victoria, the Torchwood Institute covers anything from engineering to vaccine development for obscure (alien) disease, bacteria and viruses. The first research experiments were done on the disease that plagued the Queen herself, in later years. The Cybermen incident has been the largest and most time consuming tragedy they’ve had to ‘clean’ so far. It was attributed to military experimentation, a program developed by Lumic and funded by his own investments. Nothing alien, nothing crazy, just a megalomaniac bent on seeing his project complete. The tragedy couldn’t be blamed on anyone beyond Lumic, since no governmental parties held funding in the project, only interest. The governmental organizations with interest in the project were left, unsurprisingly, out of the file.
Over the course of the past week he has started reminiscing about his younger days, his time with UNIT and the Brig, doing things not all that different from what he does now, including working on a TARDIS. Now, he’s still a trusted resource, but to Torchwood instead of Unit. He has clearance to most, if not all levels of the organization, more than Rose, he notices, but figures they can work past that when she learns of it. He also notes that his intelligence far surpasses that of his co-workers.
He and Rose are in the middle of a rather animated conversation as they walk down the corridor about the primitive equipment and methods and how much easier it would be if they just had this device or if his co-workers were more observant. His job isn’t so much about saving the universe and running from danger any longer; it’s about finding a solution to the things that plague the universe and what might cause dangers in the future, finding cures for the past, a series of daily puzzles. Furthermore, it’s completely and dreadfully normal. He’ll never admit it to Rose, but he absolutely loves it.
“They’re brilliant, just lacking in the observation of minor details. They use normal screwdrivers! Can you believe it? Just a phillips head! The multi-universal, multi-dimensional tool! How novel!”
“Screwdrivers? Novel? You must be bored out of your mind.” Rose laughs, giving him a look.
He thinks she may have figured him out.
“I am! It took me an entire hour to get the thing together! Then- “
“Why don’t you just rebuild the sonic screwdriver?”
“Getting to that bit. It’ll only take a few hours once I find all of the parts. Anyway-”
He’s enjoying working with his hands, getting his fingers dirty, emerging fully into the slow path in every way, using the tools that take forever. He had his privilege to power tools removed shortly after reconfiguring them, now his job takes time, which is both frustrating and fascinating. He can still feel time edging past him, but he isn’t as constantly aware of it passing. Now, he can spend what he thought was only five minutes taking something apart only to look up and find an hour or two has passed. It’s both startling and delightful. It also makes his heart beat a little faster.
“There’s an obvious difference, Rose. I’m surprised they didn’t notice in the first place. No wonder they couldn’t get it back together. Don’t you notice the details?”
Rose smiles as he carries on. It may be primitive, boring, and lacking in sonic screwdrivers and running, but she thinks the Doctor is a bit melodramatic, considering his current enthusiastic speech about the difference between one type of obscure bolt to another.
“Rose?”
She realizes she must be looking at him strangely when he stops and stares at her in the middle of the hall.
“Did you listen to a single word I said?” He’s giving her the concerned, ‘is there something else on your mind’ look.
“Bolts?” She looks at him absently, hoping she guessed correctly.
“Exactly! And what’s really odd about it? It’s so old. Even for alien technology, it’s rather dated.”
“I said before, alien occurrences are rare here, yeah? Considering the other universe seemed to have so many.” Rose nods casually.
“Rare? I’ve been at Torchwood: AU a week and nothing!” He slumps. He pauses and tilts his head inquisitively a few seconds later.
“Then again, the alien occurrences in the other universe just seemed common. They were actually months apart.” His expression changes to that of shock when his eyes turn to Rose. With a gulp he continues, “Do you mean to tell me it may be months- “ Terror crosses his features.
Rose snorts. “Torchwood: AU?”
“Alternate Universe. Rose…” he adds after a pause, his tone warning. “How long has it been exactly?”
She smirks at him heading toward the teams office area.
“Months? More than three months?” he inquires, following on her heels.
Rose meets his eyes without saying a word.
“Six months to a year?” he questions.
“Try a few years. You are the first alien in a long while.” She bites her lip, holding back a grin.
“WHAT?!”
“Even then, you aren’t really all alien anymore are you? Half-human, yeah?” Rose looks at him blankly.
He’s still standing, slack-jawed and horrified, in the middle of the hallway when she continues speaking.
“Oi! If it’s any consolation, until Dad gets your paperwork filed and sorted, according to the UK government, immigration services, and NHS, you’re still an illegal alien.” She grins at him with a quirked brow.
That seems to lighten the mood a bit, but he still sulks the rest of the day. He’s been putting off signing the paperwork for his new identity. He still hasn’t told Rose.