Wolves & Houses

Rose glanced from the marks in the sand to the rapidly darkening sky; a frigid spray of salty air whipped around them and her grasp on the hand in her own tightened a little. Her ears pricked at the sound of his voice but she did not turn, barely registering his words as he spoke to her mother over the increasing noise of the waves and the oncoming storm.

Their eyes met and after finding what she was searching for, she glanced down at their hands, clinging to each other, and the two of them to this tiny little world. Her lip quirked slightly at the memory and the familiarity of this manly hairy hand now attached to a man who to her both was and wasn't the Doctor, wasn't her Doctor. Her exhausted mind couldn't quite wrap itself around the sheer mechanics of the current situation, but was comforted none the less by the weight of his grasp and panic swelled momentarily in her as he shifted away. She glanced up at him, his ancient brown meeting weary blood-shot blue eyes.

"What do we do now?" She mumbled, glancing away from him.

She startled slightly as he slipped his hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out the dimensional jumper, smaller now than they once were, and ran the sonic over it as Jackie moved to stand between the two.

"How about we get out of here?" He replied quietly, gently prying open the jumper and after crossing a few wires and another quick sonicing he closed it and looked up at the two Tyler women.

"Torchwood?" Rose asked looking between the Doctor and her mother who had already grabbed hold of his forearm.

"Torchwood." He replied gesturing with a tilt of his head for her to take his hand once more.

"Pete's waiting for us there," He stepped closer into her side, dragging Jackie with him, "And I need to dismantle the Cannon." He murmured quietly to Rose, and with her nod of understanding he pressed the button and the beach around them faded to black.

What felt like an eternity later, the three of them screamed back into reality amongst the throng of white coated personnel dashing about with mirrors inside a large warehouse at the direction of Pete and after a few moments, the Doctor.

"What the bloody hell was that!" Jackie screeched at a briefly apologetic looking Doctor and a very relieved Pete who embraced his wife before resuming the issuing of orders at the Doctors instruction.

"Sorry." grumbled the Doctor back over his shoulder as he dashed off to plunge his hand into a mass of wiring in a large console. "The connection was unstable." He continued by means of explanation.

Jackie snorted and glanced at her daughter rubbing her temples and watched as she swayed out of her reach, caught effortlessly by deft hands and a flash of blue. The Doctor pressed the sonic to her temple and she leaned heavily into his side. A few moments later the buzzing of the screwdriver shut off and Rose looked up at him thankfully. He nodded in silent response, brushing her hand almost imperceptibly as he moved away.

"You alright love?" Jackie asked concerned, wrapping an arm around her daughter for support.

"Side effects of the dimensional retro-closure." Jackie startled slightly at the Doctor's voice, Rose's eyes never leaving his as he stood beside her mother, hands in his pockets.

"Side effects?" Jackie huffed and fussed over her daughter.

"Relax Mum it's sorta like motion sickness yea, only temporary." Rose glanced away from the Doctor's quirked eyebrow, the knowing stare behind it not quite something she could deal with right now. But he remained silent and she breathed a sigh of relief when Jackie dropped the subject and joined Pete.

Rose found the nearest corner and flopped down onto a pile of canvas dust covers, they were almost comfortable enough to fall asleep on but that was the furthest thing from her mind as she watched the last 4 years of her life's work being dismantled and destroyed. It was, funnily enough, a relief to know that it was now a burden she no longer had to bare.

She vaguely registered a conversation between her Mother and the Doctor and a promise to call them if they needed anything but she could only stare blankly across the floor as the cannon and all its accompanying equipment disappeared before her eyes, her perception of time accelerating until Pete and Jackie departed and there was nothing left of what had once occupied the warehouse, instead now white sheets covering only those items too big to remove without heavy machinery and a solitary white coat stirring up dust particles in the darkening room as he swept.

"You have temporal bio-plasmic ischemia." He leaned casually against the door frame, hands in pockets.

"Knew it had to have some long winded name like that." She replied quietly, lip quirking in an almost smile.

"How long?" He queried quirking an eyebrow, pushing away from the wall and extending her his hand.

"Long enough." She replied cryptically, allowing him to pull her from the floor. He stuffed his hands back in his pockets as they shuffled across the open warehouse floor.

"Can you treat it?" She slipped her security card down the main door and it open with a hiss and a groan of hydraulics.

"Of course I can." He huffed indignantly moving ahead of her through the small white corridor, waiting for the second steel bulkhead. He pushed it open easily and they stepped out into the darkness of the Torchwood lobby. He took her hand gently and pulled her towards the doors and out into the cold London night.

"Where are we going?" She asked wearily, not particularly caring but asking all the same.

"You'll see." He smiled gently.

"Doctor," She sighed, eyes heavy with exhaustion.

"I just need to check on something," He pulled her a little closer, tucking her under his arm. "Then I'll take you home."

"Home?" She breathed resting her head against his shoulder as they walked; knowing that their true home was now lost to them along with what was now the second last of the Time Lords.

"You didn't think I'd abandon myself here without a leg to stand on did you?" He quirked his lip as he glanced down at her.

"I-" She frowned as they stopped at a small internet café and he held the door open for her, "I guess not."

She slid into a booth not far from the door as he deposited himself across from her, slipping on his glasses and sonicing the computer console on the table.

"I've been stranded on Earth before Rose," He began, ordering two teas as a waitress approached them, "And if I'm very lucky and unbelievably clever, which I am-" He paused for effect, "I've made sure that the two of us will be well taken care of."

"So you are you?" She asked softly.

"Of course I'm me." He gave her his best you-just-drooled-on-yourself look and she almost chuckled at the familiarity of it. "Who else did you think I'd be?"

"I dunno it's just-" She shrugged wrapping her fingers around the warm polystyrene cup the waitress returned with, "Thank you."

"I'm still me." He gave her a curious look and tilted his head slightly, ceasing his fingers assault on the keyboard. "Or do you make it a habit of snogging strangers on shitty beaches?"

"No, o'course not," She frowned indignantly, "Hold on, did you just cuss?"

"I, what?" He raised an eyebrow sipping his tea carefully.

"Is that you or Donna?" She narrowed her eyes at him.

"What?" He almost choked, eyebrows shooting up to meet his hair, "No. I'm me, one hundred percent Doctor, the side-effects of the meta-crisis, aka, Donna's mannerism, will clear once I've had some proper sleep. Now, as for my clearly abhorrent language, it's no longer being censored by a millennia old time ship with prudence to rival Queen Victoria herself, therefore you hear it how it's intended."

"Oh right so 'nesduri hustal desnunya'," Rose quipped. "That's Time Lord for get nicked yea?" The Doctor spluttered into his cup, his face turning red as he coughed.

"More or less." He squeaked, "Not bad recall I have to say."

"Yea well," Rose replied quietly, focusing on the cracks in the table top, "Memories were all I had weren't they."

She chanced a glance up at him, an unreadable expression crossing his features.

"Anyway," She urged sipping her tea, attempting nonchalance, "You were sayin'."

"Right," He replied softly then turned back to the monitor, "Yes, well, in light of recent events I was sure I would have gone back and sorted a few things and here we go," He turned the screen towards her.

"An entire history of family, completely fraudulent of course, but legitimate enough to carry on with. Although whatever possessed me to buy that I'll never know? But I suppose it's conducive of the alias so-"

"Who are you?" Rose blurted suddenly, regretting the way in which she posed the question judging by the hurt expression on his face.

"Rose?"

"Not what I meant," She corrected quickly, "The alias, I meant officially, here."

"And as I was saying," He continued with a nod, "If you had let me finish….Officially I am Doctor James T.S McCrimmons current resident of Torchwood House, Scotland."

"You're jokin' right?" Rose laughed, the first honest to goodness chuckled she'd had since they were all on the TARDIS together.

"Nope," He popped with a grin, "And," He paused flashing the sonic at the monitor once more, "With quite a substantial nest egg that appears to have been sitting around for ohhhh at least the last two hundred years gaining interest."

"You what?" She chuckled again as he turned the monitor back to her and almost wore her tea as she snorted it across the table at the amount of zero's staring back at her.

"Not even Pete can boast that much," She gaped at him, "What are you gonna do with that sorta money?"

"Never was one for money," He admitted thoughtfully, "Never saw the point, nor had the need for it, well not until now."

"Now you're stuck." She added quietly.

"Yea," He agreed gazing at her, his lip quirking, "But being stuck with you isn't so bad."

"Yea?" She gave him a small smile.

"Yes." He replied with just as much finality as she had responded with when they were stuck on that impossible planet.

"So Mr. Moneybags," She quipped, "That mean chips are on you?"

"I suppose it's fitting," He mused with a curve of his lip as the waitress placed a basket of sweet smelling fried potato on the table, "Our second first date, must be my turn for a round surely."

"What does the T.S stand for?" She queried suddenly, dousing a greasy chip in vinegar before plopping it in her mouth.

"Hmmm oh," He replied cautiously around a mouthful of hot chip, "Must be getting nostalgic in my old age, old nick name from back home, long time ago in fact, back when I was at the Academy."

"You had a nick name?" She smirked, "As if The Doctor wasn't enigmatic enough."

"Oi," He quipped, "I like my name. Besides, Theta was always meant more as an insult rather than a term of any sort of endearment."

"Theta." She rolled the name around her mouth, his eyes carefully observing her.

"Theta Sigma." He nodded chewing on a chip thoughtfully.

"What does it mean?" She asked circling her hot cup once more to warm her hands.

"Death." He replied simply and her eyes snapped to his.

"Why would they-" She gasped.

"Because they knew," He admitted quietly with a shrug, "When they pulled me from the looms, they saw the potential-"

"Doctor-" He diverted his eyes to the plate of chips, toying with one as he continued.

"In your language it isn't quite so bad," He smiled awkwardly, "In Greek it represents change, wisdom and time. A little more appropriate if you ask me."

"I'll say." She nodded. "James Theta Sigma McCrimmons," She repeated it with a small smile, "I like it."

"Yea?" He beamed.

"Yea," She laughed averting her eyes as she blushed, "So what about the rest of it? James McCrimmons? Who's that then?"

"Old companion," He smiled warmly, "Oh he was brilliant Rose, you'd have liked him. It was his accent I pinched that day we were nabbed by Vicki."

"That's weird you know," She eyed him warily, "When you go all other voicy and stuff."

"Nah," He chuckled, "Great for showing off at parties."

"Mmmm and I know how much you love to show off Doctor." She smirked.

"Oi, cheeky." He grinned plopping a chip in his mouth.

"So," Rose breathed, her earlier exhaustion beginning to resurface, "What do we do now?"

"We are not going back to your Mum's that's for sure." He raised an eyebrow to emphasize his point. "I don't care how big that house is, I refuse to be anywhere with the likelihood of overhearing Jackie and Pete Tyler shagg-"

"Alright," She laughed, clutching her stomach at the outrageously disturbed look on his face. "Not Mum's then."

"Good." He shuddered slightly, sipping the remainder of his tea as if washing away a foul taste or thought in this instance.

"So," She drummed her nails lightly against the table.

"You are gonna come with me." He spoke softly almost hesitantly. "Aren't you?"

"Always," She slipped her hand across the table to brush her fingers gently across his knuckles. "Where are we goin' Doctor?"

"Home of course." He smiled slipping the sonic into his breast pocket as he began digging through his trouser pockets for some change to pay their bill.

"You mean Scotland," She gaped at him, "What? Right now?"

"Yup," He beamed sliding out from the table and pocketing his glasses.

"How?" She laughed following him after him, "It's the middle of the night."

"Caledonian Sleeper," He replied by means of explanation. "Euston Station, nine fifteen pm, which gives us exactly," He pulled the door open and followed her out as he finished, "One hour and ten minutes to get there."

"You're serious," She leant into his side as they walked, the cold night air making her wish he'd still had his coat, knowing he'd have wrapped her in it with him.

"Oh yes," He beamed wrapping his arm around her shoulders, "All expenses paid too mind you, nice warm bed and nothing but the gently hum of engines until morning."

"Alright then," She clasped his hand with a nod, "Scotland it is."

"Oh and one more thing I forgot," He clutched her hand tighter.

"What's that Doctor?" She frowned up at his manic grin.

"Run."