Notes: This story will have three chapters, the first from Greg's POV, the second a bit longer and from Rose's, and the conclusion shorter and Greg again. Meant to be read alone, but in vaguely the same 'verse as Perchance to Dream, etc. Rated for swearing, drinking, and some mild innuendo and brief nudity later. Tell me what you think!

Greg Henning slid back into his cubicle after his lunch break just in time to collide with someone coming out of it.

"Greg!" said the taller man, helping Greg regain his balance. "I was just looking for you."

"Hey, Jimmy," Greg greeted the enthusiastic young writer. "What was it you needed?"

"You know that press release I was supposed to email to Rose Tyler to get it approved?"

"Yes . . ." said Greg warily, setting his miraculously un-spilled coffee on his desk. "What, did she not like it?" He would have been mildly surprised by that, but not shocked. While Rose tended to be fairly relaxed about publicity, as long as it remained above her strict privacy threshold, she occasionally censored unpredictable things. They sprung, Greg was certain, from her PR nightmare of a boyfriend – and those thoughts were quickly leading to places which were less than appropriate in a professional environment, so Greg refocused on Jimmy's answer.

"I don't know. I just finished it this morning."

"Jimmy," Greg groaned. "We have deadlines for a reason! We have to get that out by five, and you know she only checks her email at night."

"I know; I'm sorry. I thought maybe you could ring her –"

"She's in Torchwood; she won't have reception. Get me a hard copy; I'll take it down to her."

"Thanks," said Jimmy with a relieved grin. "I'd do it myself, but I haven't got the clearance. I owe you one."

"Just make sure it doesn't happen again," Greg sighed, accepting the folder from him and picking up his coffee. It looked like he wouldn't be returning to his desk anytime soon.

-DW-

It wasn't that Greg didn't want to see Rose. In fact, a part of him which was much bigger than he liked to admit leapt at the chance. It was just that he shouldn't. Rationally, he knew that he shouldn't, that he should avoid her at all costs, but he couldn't quite manage to put that into practice.

He had admired her from a distance from the first moment she appeared, seemingly from nowhere, four years ago. Everyone had. She was young and pretty and mysterious, but more than that, she was a genuinely good person. She was kind and friendly to everyone, told all the staff to call her by her first name, and honestly seemed to care about the answer when she asked how they were. The riddle of her past and the sadness which always seemed to linger behind her smile only added to her appeal.

Then, at the annual banquet at the Tyler Mansion, he had met her properly. She was a vision in the elegant blue gown which was so different from her usual no-nonsense attire, and he had stuttered and stumbled his way through an invitation to dance. She had accepted. When the song ended she pecked him on the cheek, smiled warmly, and called him sweet. He had gone home with one thought firm in his mind: Rose Tyler was the most beautiful thing in the world.

That had been one year ago. Soon afterwards the stars began going out, and she withdrew from public sight to focus on Torchwood. Six months later she disappeared completely, only to return a few days later with a walking enigma who turned out to be her boyfriend.

If Rose's past was slightly fabricated (and after five years in Public Relations, Greg knew fabrications), her significant other's was a bald-faced lie. Smith (Greg refused to call him 'the Doctor', as if he was the only one in existence; honestly, how egotistical could you get?) was obviously not who he said he was: a top secret Torchwood agent, now turned consultant. No one who knew anything about Torchwood would believe that they had actually managed to keep a man's existence under wraps for any length of time, and no one who spent ten seconds with Smith would believe that he'd consent to be kept under anyone's thumb. The way that he twitched whenever it was brought up suggested that he had barely consented to pretending that he had been.

Greg had only met the man a few times, but he despised him. He knew that it wasn't fair or rational – Smith had been nothing but cordial to him, except for his insistence on calling him 'Gregory.'

("Nobody calls me 'Gregory,'" Greg had said stiffly.

"Nobody calls me 'Smith,'" Smith had retorted. Rose had laughed and dragged him off while Greg watched them go, fuming.)

In truth, Smith was infuriatingly decent. Oh, he was certainly odd, even rude from time to time, but it was nothing that couldn't be passed off as the eccentricities of a genius. Within Torchwood, the people who didn't like him at least respected him. Outside of it, he got on well with the Tylers and, despite frequent rumors and speculation, there had never been any concrete evidence of anything criminal or particularly scandalous. Most grating of all, Rose just glowed when she was with him.

Therein lay Greg's problem. He knew that he had no claim whatsoever to Rose's affections, and that the only perceivable flaw in her relationship with Smith was that the man was, perhaps, a bit older than societal norms would dictate for a woman of her age. Logically, Greg had no reason at all to want to wring Smith's scrawny neck every time he saw him with Rose.

Unfortunately, logic seemed to have very little do with it. He therefore was doing his best to avoid seeing them together, or separately, or at all. That would have been easier if he wasn't the only one on his floor with clearance to go to Torchwood. It would have been a lot easier if he didn't work for the Tyler family at all, but he needed this job.

He would just have to deal with it.

-DW-

"Drake!" Greg called once he got past security and to the main floor. "Is Rose in?"

May she wasn't. Maybe he could just leave, give Jimmy a lecture about deadlines, and get the press release out in a later edition . . .

"Yeah," said Drake, lounging back in his chair with a wicked grin. "She and the Doctor are – mm, how to put it? – having a private meeting."

"Come off it, Tom," said Simmonds, pushing away from his desk to join them. "They're not shagging."

Everyone within earshot gave him highly incredulous looks, and he rolled his eyes.

"No, I mean, obviously they're shagging, but not right this instant." He lowered his voice slightly, shooting a glance over his shoulder at the picture window which overlooked the bullpen. Normally it gave a clear view of Rose pulling her hair out over paperwork or, more often, her empty desk, but at the moments the blinds were closed. "He's probably asleep. You've seen how he's been lately."

That last comment was evidently not intended for Greg, who had not seen Smith in several weeks. Perhaps he'd been ill. Well, if he had, it wasn't Greg's problem.

"Right," he snapped. "Smith can sleep whenever he likes, but I need this approved by four."

He marched up to Rose's office, ignoring Simmonds' protest from behind him. He pounded on the door, not bothering to be quiet about it. It swung open almost immediately, and Greg caught a glimpse of a darkened room, illuminated only by the glow of a laptop, before Rose stepped out. She pulled the door almost closed.

"Hey, Greg," she said, smiling, her tongue peeking out between her teeth. Some of Greg's irritation melted away despite himself. "Jimmy miss a deadline again?"

"Yeah, well, you know how he is," he said, smiling nervously and silently cursing himself for not being wittier.

Smith was witty. Even when he wasn't, Rose still laughed.

There was an awkward pause.

"So, um, you need me to look at something?" Rose prompted.

"Oh! Yes, sorry." Greg fumbled with his bag to extract the right folder. "I just need you to approve this –"

He was cut off by a strangled cry from inside the office. Rose spun and darted back into the room, seeming to forget about Greg completely.

She had left the door open. Greg wrestled with his conscience for a moment, and then gave in to curiosity. He shifted just enough to see Rose crouched beside a low sofa, stroking Smith's hair and murmuring soothingly.

"It's okay, Doctor; it's just a dream."

Smith was twisting and whimpering in his sleep, tears on his face and hands clenched in pain.

"C'mon, wake up."

Smith gave a gasp and his eyes snapped open. He sucked in much-needed air, then let it out in something suspiciously like a sob. Rose wrapped him in her arms and – Greg swallowed bile – Smith clung to her, bony hands grasping her with a sharp-edged desperation as he buried his face in her neck. He gave a few more shuddering breaths as she rubbed his back calmingly, and then – he looked up.

Both men froze as their eyes met. It was Smith who regained his voice first (of course it was), and he uttered one word, rough and low.

"Rose."

She sprung to her feet and turned on her heel in a single, fluid movement.

"Greg!" she snapped, eyes flashing. "For god's sake, I haven't got time for your stupid press release!"

-DW-

". . . and then she slammed the door on my face! As if I had done something wrong! She's the one who left it open, and that bloody Smith is the one falling asleep in her office."

"That's rough, mate," said Chad sympathetically, signaling the barkeep for fresh pints. "You know what you should do? You should get back at her."

Greg laughed bitterly.

"And how would I do that? She's Rose fucking Tyler."

He didn't usually swear. It felt strange on his tongue, and he took a swig of beer to wash it away.

"Yeah, and you're her PR guy," said Chad, clapping him on the back. "You know all her dirty little secrets!"

"Okay, first of all, I'm not 'her PR guy.' I work for her father's PR department. I'm not even the most senior member."

There was a pause as he took another draft.

"Second?" Chad prompted.

"What?"

"You said 'first of all.' So what's second?"

"Oh. Right." He frowned, trying to get his thoughts in order. "Second . . . I don't know any dirty secrets."

"Sure you do!" Chad insisted. "You just don't realize it."

"No, no, I don't know anything. They're really private."

"Come on, man, think," Chad pressed. "You're always popping in and out of Torchwood and parties and stuff. You overhear things, see things you weren't supposed to. There's got to be something."

Greg thought. Snippets of conversations, out-of-context looks and touches, glimpses of confidential communications . . .

Ah. There it was.

"Get me some paper."

-DW-

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The harsh sound of the alarm clock pounded on the inside of Greg's skull like a sledgehammer. Groaning, he forced his leaden muscles into motion and slammed on the sleep button. Hell, what had he done last night? He remembered being upset about something, heading down to the pub, running into – oh, hell, running into Chad McCurry. That explained the hangover, at least. Chad had always been trouble. Greg just hoped that he hadn't let himself get talked into anything too stupid or illegal. What had they talked about?

Oh.

Oh shit.

Greg rolled out of bed, muttering words he had never used in his life as he flinched away from the window and searched desperately through his pockets. Not in his pants, not in his jacket, not anywhere between his bedroom and the door –

"Shit!"

The napkin was gone. The napkin on which he had scrawled half-forgotten evidence and drunken speculation, all leading to one sickening conclusion. Where was it? Had Chad taken it? It was the sort of thing he'd do, the sort of thing he always did.

Shit.

Then again . . .

Greg extracted his laptop from beneath his crumpled jacket and turned it on, squinting in the glow of the screen as he clicked a few familiar bookmarks. He sighed in relief as he found one benign piece of celebrity trash after another. If he or Chad had taken that story to any of the gossip rages, it would have undoubtedly been on the front page.

Maybe there was no damage done after all.