Alec had just got her t-shirt off and Rose had unfastened his shirt when she suddenly sat up.
"Alec, please, tell me if there's something wrong with you. I noticed last night you were having some difficulties and whatever it is, it won't put me off, I just want to help you."
He traced his finger along the top of her bra, dying to get it off of her but she was inquisitive and he knew she wouldn't give up until he admitted it. So he told her what had happened and what was wrong with him and made her swear that she wouldn't tell anyone or his career was ended. Rose was shocked that this man she now knew she cared so much about had to go through all this on his own, even his ex wife had not known the full extent of his illness, just him and his physician and now her. She knew she could help him, Torchwood had miracle cures for almost everything and they must have a cure for this. Alec saw her concern.
"Rose, I've learned to live with it, if I lead a really quiet life, I'll survive a while longer. Don't feel sorry for me, it's not your concern, it's up to me to make sure I don't do anything stupid like go back to crime fighting in a big city and if my superiors find out, I'm finished and my life may as well be over. Please Rose, you have to promise me you won't tell anyone."
"Then can't you have an operation or something? Alec, you can't live this way, it's not fair."
Rose had tears in her eyes. What was this man doing to her? If the Doctor had been around he would have cured Alec in five minutes flat but he wasn't, Torchwood was and they could probably cure him, she just had to get Alec to trust her.
Alec shook his head. "There is an operation but my chances are very slim of surviving one. If I keep quiet, my doctor says there is a possibility I may be able to have the operation and my chances will improve but until then, I have to lay low and keep out of trouble and you, Rose Tyler are not helping," he smiled and reached around to unfasten her bra then pushed her back onto the cushion.
Rose giggled as he took her bra off then taking his shirt off, lay on her and began kissing her breasts.
"You are gorgeous Rose, do you know that?" he said between kisses. Rose giggled some more and pulled his head down.
He undid the button on her jeans and pulled the zip down then getting up, pulled the jeans down her legs, pulling her shoes off with them then unfastened his own trousers and stepped out of them, kicking his shoes off. Then climbing back on her, pulling her legs onto the sofa, lay on top of her, kissing her breasts again.
"So much for you keeping quiet Alec," Rose giggled as he bit into her left breast then the other one and she slipped her hands down the back of his shorts.
Her panties were soon down and he pulled his shorts down at the front until they touched each other and he gently rocked on her hips, causing her to shiver with delight. He whispered in her ear, that she was more than worth it.
They didn't quite have sex right there on the sofa but came pretty close, Rose squealing with delight as he moved on her, Alec laughing to himself that she was so selfless and was just enjoying what he had to offer, she wasn't demanding for him to get on with it, she was easy to please and content to do whatever he wanted which for him was a refreshing change. Of course he was worried she was younger than he was but he didn't care, Rose made him feel young and wanted again. Rose managed to swap places with him without falling off the sofa and was squealing even more as she laid on him, moving her hips on his to feel him touching her. What seemed like hours passed as they delighted each other until Rose became worried he might be overexerting himself and sat up on him, smiling.
"I think you should conserve your energy for later Alec don't you?"
Alec didn't agree with her, he was feeling just fine. He wasn't even out of breath nor his heart rate slightly above what was normal for him. What had she done to him? How was this even possible? He should be reaching for his pills at this stage, they must have been like this for well over an hour, perhaps longer and he wasn't feeling any pain or breathlessness at all.
"Oh, Rose, I haven't felt this good in a long time. What have you done to me? You're my miracle girl, do you know that?"
He kissed her again but didn't want to test himself to the limit, just in case he was wrong.
Rose sat up again, questioning Alec's behaviour. "I thought you said you were seriously ill and your heart could give out if you overexerted yourself but look at you, you're not even out of breath."
She had to call Pete and get him to send a Torchwood doctor down to examine Alec but how was she going to do that?
"Well sometimes all it takes is a bit of affection and some tenderness Rose, it's you, you did this to me. You made me feel wanted again, after all I went through, my divorce, my ex wife's betrayal and my failed case, you made me forget everything that was bad about my life."
Alec looked at her, trying to get her to lie down again but instead, she got up and retrieved her panties which she had somehow lost in the process and her t-shirt and threw Alec's shorts at him which he had managed to lose and his shirt. Alec thought he was getting thrown out as he gave her a questioning look but she hadn't thrown his trousers to him so that was a good sign but he looked for an explanation, which she was willing to give, just not without any clothes on. Rose sat on the edge of the sofa and looked at him.
"I said I had something to tell you Alec, we sort of got distracted a bit. Since you're in the police, you must have heard of Torchwood?"
She saw by the look on his face that he knew about them.
"Well, I used to belong to it and my step-dad, Pete Tyler, Jake and Mickey are still part of it. I left, I qualified as a nursery school teacher because I was tired of the life I was leading, I wanted a fresh start. Torchwood have all kinds of resources Alec, things you couldn't imagine and I'm sure they can do something for you. Let me get them to send someone to examine you, you don't have to go to London, someone can come here, it's worth a try, isn't it?"
She saw the worried look on his face. "Please Alec, it would be in the strictest confidence, I promise. No-one in the police will ever know, I can have someone come here or we can go to London, it's up to you. Please, just say you'll try?"
Alec sat up beside her, he knew what she was trying to do and he'd heard of Torchwood, of course he had but Rose was part of it?
"So, you left?" It was more of a statement than a question. "What could they do for me Rose, that you already haven't done? You've done something to me Rose and I don't know what, maybe I'll never know and that's enough for me, I don't need a specialist to tell me. What have you done Rose?"
She knew Alec now knew she was holding something back but how could she tell him without him thinking she was completely certifiable? Her mother had believed it all, Mickey too and now Jake and Pete knew but Alec? She hardly knew him and she was just about to have someone cure him. She had to tell him, well part of it and hoped he would believe it. The story they had come up with about how she had got there if there was the slightest possibility she had to tell someone she fell in love with and never thought she would use, not the cover story they gave to everyone else.
"I think we'd better get dressed Alec, in case you feel you have to leave when I've told you because it won't be easy for you to hear."
They silently got dressed, Alec didn't look happy about it and wished now he had remained the same, scared of showing his true feeling towards her but he felt different, he knew he did and it was only since meeting Rose and being with her last night and this morning in his office when he felt like he should panic and he didn't and the way he had felt when he thought Rose was with another man, he should have felt something then but he felt normal, proper normal, not normal for him. He prepared himself to listen to what she had to say. It was not what he expected.
Leaving out the bit about travelling through time and space with an alien from another galaxy, the whole coming from another universe was bad enough, Rose told him her well rehearsed story of how her mother, Mickey and herself had got there and how Pete had taken them in and also omitted the part she had been here before. Alec had known about the Cybermen and how they had suddenly vanished without a trace but he also, along with just about everyone in the country, thought they had simply got wiped out but them going to another parallel universe and Rose and her mother and friend getting caught in the middle of it and Pete Tyler bringing them here, to keep them safe then the walls of the universe closing before they could get back? It didn't sound as impossible as all that, he had locked himself away for many an hour reading comic books when he was younger and the truth was always stranger than fiction.
So he believed her, much to his own surprise as much as hers, she half expected him to get his jacket and walk out. He simply stood up and paced the room for a few minutes, evaluating how this was possible and that Rose was indeed a miracle, a woman from a parallel universe and Pete Tyler was just about the only man left in the country that had the power to do all this and for the man to take them in when they had become stranded, well that must make him the most humanitarian person he had heard of and he could see her reluctance to tell anyone for fear they would be taken and held prisoners for being alien because to all intents and purposes, they were, they were not from this world. If only he had known the whole truth.
Rose was getting worried, he'd not interrupted her while she was giving him the shortened version of how she got here but he hadn't stormed out yet. He sat down again and took her hand.
"Well, you appear to be real, you're definitely human," he said, touching her heart. "You've only got one heart so I can only conclude you told me the truth but I know you can back all this up, if I were to ask Peter Tyler. Do I need to ask him?"
Rose shook her head and as for the one heart bit, he was getting a bit too close to that subject.
"So, you say Torchwood have all kinds of resources that may have the cure for my ailment? I feel fine Rose, I really do but if you think I should get checked out then I'll do it, just for you, to satisfy you that I won't collapse on you and I'll be good, I won't get too overexerted but that also depends on you, you don't know what you do to me."
Even though it was late on a Saturday afternoon, Rose still called Pete and told him about Alec. Jackie had told Pete about Rose's mysterious encounter and so naturally, Pete wanted to know all about him but when he learned Alec was in the police, he was quite impressed. Rose persuaded him to get a Torchwood doctor down on Monday and Alec would take a few hours off to save them travelling back to London.
"Well Rose, you seem to have made a least one new friend since you've been there, though how you managed to find someone with such a high ranking in the police, I don't want to know," Pete joked. "I'll send someone down, if Alec agrees to it, then if all goes well, Alec may have to come to London if it's as serious as you say it is but I'll leave that to the expert. Your brother is nagging to come down there Rose, have you settled in? Oh and don't thank me for the little surprise I arranged for you, it was all Jake's idea, are they staying with you?"
"No, they set off back a while ago, you know those two and well, I sort of had other things on my mind, I thought I'd lost Alec, we both thought the other was leaving town and well, we found out before it was too late we were both still here so we had a lot to talk about. Alec's only just told me about his condition and I couldn't just leave him, you'll like him, I'm sure you will. Tell Tony, maybe next weekend eh? See how things go."
Rose said goodbye, leaving all the arrangements for a visit from a Torchwood specialist to him and turned back to Alec who had been taking it all in, hardly believing that a few hours ago he thought his life was really over after he thought he would never see Rose again and now here she was, using her influence with one of the top men in the country and a top organisation to find an end to his illness. Why would she do that, just for him?
"So Rose, I guess now we both have secrets and we just have to trust each other not to tell them, don't we? You were risking everything by telling me you know. I take it you don't go around telling everyone so why tell me?"
"I trust you Alec, just like you have to trust me now and it was the only way, I had to tell you. I want to help you get better."
"I will Rose, you make me better."
Rose had heard that before, she buried her head in his shoulder, looking up at him. She might have only got to know him a few hours ago but she couldn't leave him now, he had seemed so sad this morning when she had left, she regretted she wasted so much time trying to find him.
"Just one thing Rose, why here? Why did you move here, to Broadchurch to become a teacher? Why not stay in London?"
"I wanted to be near the sea and I wanted to teach. I've got a younger half brother and when he was in nursery school, I started thinking about it so I got myself qualified."
"How long have you been here Rose, in this universe?"
"About eight years but in this world, well I know it sounds strange but time runs ahead, it runs faster here but since I've been here, I've aged more slowly, like I've not got used to being here. It's hard to explain Alec, it makes it difficult for you to understand, to get your head around it, I still don't understand it. As for my mum, well, she hasn't got it yet and we plan on telling my brother when he's old enough."
"There's still one thing Rose, if you got the chance, just one, would you go back? Would you go back to your old universe?"
Rose looked at him. If the Doctor came back, appeared on Broadchurch beach and held his hand out and said "Come back with me Rose," would she go running back to him? If she had found someone else, someone who would make her happy, someone who loved her back and someone who didn't hide their true feeling or change their face, did 'domestics' and would grow old with her, would she take it, stay in one place and never travel the stars again?
Alec was looking at her, he put his arms around her and held her tight, kissing her forehead. "Well, would you? Or would you stay here, with me perhaps?"
That was all she needed to make her mind up. "Yes Alec, given the choice, I'd stay here, with you, if you wanted me, with all my complications, being an 'offworlder' and all, you'd have to keep my secret though."
"Oh, I think I could do that, Rose, you gave me my life back and something to live for. I felt something last night I've never felt before, something I've never shared with anyone else. I could be myself with you, you had no demands and you were satisfied with what I had to offer you. No-one's ever done that before." He leaned forward and kissed her.
They still had a lot to talk about, depending on what the specialist from Torchwood had to say when he arrived. If it meant Alec had to have an operation, they decided he would go for it and Rose would be by his side, even if she had to delay starting her new job. It was early evening, they had gone to sit on the patio, debating whether to go out for dinner or get a takeaway delivered but decided to go out. Walking down the esplanade hand in hand, laughing, Alec saw his DS out with her family and waved them over, introducing Rose as his girlfriend, well Rose didn't exactly correct him anyway and Miller took an instant liking to her, inviting them both over to her house for dinner when Rose said she had just moved there and only knew Alec and the woman at the hotel.
After dinner they walked back to the hotel for Alec to get a change of clothes and Rose waited downstairs. They walked back to Rose's house and eventually after fooling around on the sofa again, Alec taking his pill just in case as he knew that he might just get a bit carried away this time and had told Rose what to do in case he did but he was feeling confident the need wouldn't arise. The sun was almost setting, they stood at Rose's bedroom window, looking out to sea, Alec not even minding it, putting aside his hatred for the water as he put his arms around her, just the light from the moon that had suddenly appeared as the sun went down, Alec kissing her cheek as he stood behind her, Rose now just wearing a see-through black negligee with nothing underneath and stood back in the shadows so no-one could see them from the path below.
Alec was now kissing her neck and working his way down until he could contain himself no more and went to pull the blinds across and took her gown off, the light from the moon now shining through the window as she stood in front of him. "You're beautiful Rose," he whispered in her ear as she turned to face him and started unfastening his shirt buttons, slowly and not stopping until he was just in his shorts. He expected to be led over to the bed but instead, she pulled his shorts down slowly and gasped when she saw him standing there, almost ready to take her as he stirred and brushed himself up against her, making him press into her as she gasped again, begging entrance to her as he leaned down to kiss her.
"Do I really need to go get something out of my wallet Rose?" he asked with a big grin on his face.
"Oh, I don't think that will be necessary, do you?" she teased and putting her arms around his neck, pulling her even closer as he lifted her up, her legs wrapped over his as she was kissing his neck.
They walked together as though joined, then fell onto the bed, Alec scrambling to pull the covers back without pulling away as he was almost ready and neither of them could wait any longer, they just stayed on top of the covers, not quite able to contain themselves until they had crawled beneath them as Alec kneeled over her until she called out his name and grabbed his hair, pulling his lips down to kiss her there again, squealing with delight as she felt herself tingle at his touch and arching herself.
"Now Alec, please, now, I want you, I can't wait any longer." She called out grabbing him around his neck and smiling at him.
He smiled back at her, knowing he was about to let go, he couldn't wait any longer either as he grabbed her legs then positioning himself on her hips, he let go and gave everything he had as she made it easy for him as they moved together, Rose calling out his name as he moved smoothly, not really caring if this finished him off or not as he called her name. They both came together, falling over the edge and Rose squealing with delight, riding hers out by digging her fingers into his back. Alec collapsed on her, breathing steadily and not getting the pain he expected after he had clearly got more physical than last night.
Rose looked concerned and asked if he was ok. He was, surprisingly. He lay for a few minutes, kissing her breasts and slowing moving away from her.
"I feel great Rose, I really do. You have done something to me Rose, you must have done. Maybe my condition was self induced, brought on by everything that happened to me and you were the cure."
Rose slipped from under him and pushed him onto his back. "So, you up for more then?" she asked playfully, straddling him.
"Oh yes," was the reply.
ooooo00000ooooo
Epilogue
After spending Sunday together walking on the beach and talking, making plans, the Torchwood specialist came down from London on the Monday afternoon and declared Alec was in good health but he wanted to do more tests. Alec had told how he thought the condition had started in the first place and subsequently, since he was less stressed and more relaxed, the condition had eased and once more tests were done, they would be able to make a diagnosis and recommend treatment.
Alec was overjoyed and Rose went with him the following Friday, introducing him to Pete then he went into the specialist's office and was told his condition had remarkably improved and there was a simple treatment they could offer him, failing to mention it was of alien origin but Alec would have taken anything just to be with Rose, she was worth it and he was to go back on Monday morning.
They spent the weekend at the Tyler mansion, Alec got on well with Jackie, who knew to keep quiet about him looking familiar and with Rose's brother Tony and they took him out for the afternoon on the Sunday. Alec went back to see the specialist on Monday morning and following a simple procedure was discharged a few hours later, being told he could lead a normal life again, no more pills but they left out the part that he had an alien device inside him that was undetectable to human eyes and human tests and he would never know about it, it was an alien equivalent of a pacemaker with a 100 year guarantee to work and never fail, the aliens they acquired it from were quite adamant about it and a bit put out that any of their workmanship was not wholly perfect and had to be appeased at the time with tonnes of chocolate they had become quite fond of and had given precise instructions as to how it was fitted and had been used numerous times amongst Torchwood staff and vip's without their knowledge.
Since they were going back on Tuesday, Rose said Tony could go back with them and Pete would have him collected the following Sunday so Monday night was chaos trying to get him all packed up and getting him to go to bed early. Since Tony was staying, Alec would spend all evening with them either taking him to the beach while Rose prepared dinner or they would play on the patio and Alec moved out of the hotel on the Friday evening but they had to keep their noise down until Tony was collected.
Rose started her new job, Alec was happier at work, even inviting DS Miller and her husband for dinner and now introducing Rose as his other half. Their love grew stronger and they were already making plans to go on holiday together abroad and he surprised Rose by asking her if she wanted to make it into a honeymoon.
They got married and spent their honeymoon in the Caribbean when it was freezing cold in the UK, their wedding and reception in a grand marquee in the back garden of Pete and Jackie's house, it was no longer Rose's, she had her own now with Alec.
The End!