"I don't often say this, but I'm sorry I killed your body, Rose."

"You're just jealous, Rose. I mean, c'mon!"

Rose quirked her right brow, giving Mickey her patented 'I'm superior to all' look, and crossed her arms. Mickey shifted uncomfortably under that gaze; a gaze that she'd had since she got stuck in this world, or, if he was really honest, even before; the gaze of someone who's seen more, done more, learned more than anyone combined on this single lonely rock. It was an old gaze, a wise gaze, a gaze Jackie'd said meant Rose was far from human any more.

"I can't believe you, Mickey. Out of everyone, I thought that you'd believe me! I'm all for geniuses in the workplace, knowin' things about aliens an' helpin' out an' savin' the day. The more, the merrier, I say even! But look at Tehrani's credentials; she's a first class nerd from Trinity, spent all her time in the lab (or so she says), but the first alien invasion that comes along, from a species some of our alien residents've never even heard of, and she suddenly knows how to stop 'em? Just like that? Before recon, before first contact, and wham! She's got an idea? Doesn't that seem suspicious to you?"

As she took a deep breath, trying to recover from her rant, Rose noticed the looks thrown her way. They've all got a slight bit of fear deep in their eyes, not something Rose'd ever been too fond of (or even understood), but around the edges, there's amusement. She sighed and hung her head, her hair falling forward to cover her exasperation, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

A warm, familiar hand cupped her shoulder, squeezing reassuringly as Mickey moved into her face and met her, forehead to forehead.

"Babe, it was just a lucky guess, all right? You need to calm down, take a vacation, maybe some Valium. You're cracking, yeah? Becoming paranoid… the Doctor wouldn't want this for you."

Rose tensed, the words you don't know what he'd want! sticking in her throat, and she had to hold herself back from lashing out at Mickey. Unlike her, he'd never taken advanced martial arts and she didn't want to break him. Tosh would never forgive her. Forcing her annoyance down, she relaxed her coiled muscles, released her frustration with a gusty sigh, and fixed her patented 'I'm really all right' look back onto her face.

Nodding, she looked into Mickey's eyes and smiled tiredly. "You're right of course. Bit out of sorts, s'all." She forced a deprecating laugh from her throat as she continued, "'N maybe I'm a little jealous. Never done well with sharing the spotlight, me. 'Specially when it comes to the important men in my life."

Mickey smiled, kissed her square on the forehead and murmured, "That's my girl."

She smiled back, chucked him on the shoulder, responded with a 'See ya later" and watched the man who'd once been her best friend, lover, boyfriend, walk away. As he turned the corner, out of sight, her façade dropped. He'd never been the best at reading her expressions, but she'd thought he'd gotten better. She took a deep breath, performed an about-face, and marched down the hall in the opposite direction. She shouldn't be surprised that they weren't that close any more and truthfully, she wasn't. He'd grown and changed, came into his own here at Pete's Torchwood. She'd changed too. The Doctor'd seen to that. Now, they were not only worlds apart, but eons. She didn't think they'd ever be in the same orbit again.

Mickey'd learned things here, but still, he didn't know enough. Not like Rose. And Rose knew that Tehrani Bhanjee was not the person she presented to the world.

The readings were off the charts, whatever they were, and the scientists were abuzz like overexcited munchkins after the fall of the Wicked Witch. Too bad only Mickey and mum'd understand that reference, Rose thought idly.

She flipped through the report slowly, trying to understand why the energy signature seemed so familiar.

"Could be 'cause I saw it sometime on the TARDIS console screen. Could be I seen it in class. It's just not comin' to me."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist about it. You and thirty other scientists declared it safe radiation. We should just ignore it for now, keep an eye out 'course, wait till it surfaces, but if it's not dangerous…"

Rose didn't even glance up at him as she spoke.

"Just 'cause it's not dangerous in and of itself doesn't mean it can't be used as some sort o' weapon, Mickey. You should know that."

A loud, put upon sigh echoed from the corner of her office, where Mickey sprawled exhaustedly.

"You're killin' me, babe. I used to be the big man on campus here, yeah? Then you come along with your wise eyes and serious air and wham! You're the queen of the ball."

Rose smirked and tossed an amused glance Mickey's way. "So sorry, mate. Didn't realize you wanted to be queen."

Mickey sent a glare her way and a badly mimicked facial expression before he launched himself from his chair.

"Comin' to lunch with me and Tosh today?"

"I can't. I've-"

"Got work to do, I'm busy Mickey! The world can't protect itself. It'll explode if it doesn't have Rose Tyler protectin' it 24/7 because after all, it didn't exist before I blessed this reality with my presence."

Silence fell after Mickey finished his diatribe and they stared at each other. Rose blinked, tucked a piece of unruly hair back behind her ear, and stood, grabbing her deep purple leather jacket as she did. As she stormed passed Mickey into the hallway, she sulked, "I do not sound like that."

"I do not sound like that!"

"Mickey, shut it!"

"Mickey, shut it!"

He couldn't hold it in any longer, the breathy, ditzy voice he'd put on succumbing to his guffaws of laughter.

Rose clenched her fists, growled and stomped down the hall, followed hauntingly by Mickey's self-amusement. As she rounded the corner towards the lift, she shot over her shoulder, "The world must feel so safe with you on the job, yeah?"

Shutters fell fast over Rose's eyes when she and Mickey approached his and Tosh's usual table at 1/2h Café. Tehrani smiled up at them, giving Rose the eye, and exclaimed, "Rose! Just the lass I wanted tae see."

Rose gritted her teeth into a smile. "Could we not talk shop, Tehrani? Only I just got an entirely childish lecture from Mickey an' I don't want to hear his impersonation of me again any time soon."

Mickey chuckled as Tosh shot him an amused glare and a slap to the arm. She then turned to Rose and beamed.

"I'd apologize for my lesser half, Rose, but since you've known him longer, you know it's not worth it."

Mickey shouted, "Oi!" as Rose barked out real laughter, immensely enjoying taking the mickey out of Mickey. Tehrani joined in, her tinkling laughter like fairy bells and her intense chocolate eyes sharp and quick. Rose supposed, well she knew, that Tehrani Bhanjee was gorgeous, with her dark silky hair and her Indian features. And she knew that some at Torchwood thought she was jealous not over her quick thinking on the Ha'rah'lani invasion force, but because she was no longer the reigning beauty.

It didn't bother her, what they thought, really, because she was going to get out of this Doctor-forsaken reality as soon as she could find a way. There had to be a way! She smiled at the waitress and ordered a Yorkshire Pudding and tea, then put aside her menu and looked across the table at Tosh and Tehrani. It was quite the effort to live in reality sometimes.

Tehrani leaned forward, her raven hair glistening almost blue under the sun. "I didn' want tae talk shop, Rose. I wanted tae ask ye how ye like this reality, compared tae the one ye came from."

Mickey failed to cover his wince and Tosh threw a "shhh!" Tehrani's way. Rose sighed and leaned back in her chair, feeling the buttons on its squabs digging mercilessly into her back; much like Tehrani's eyes were doing into Rose's own. She couldn't help but think the Irish woman was deliberately poking her bruises.

Crossing her arms over her chest and quirking her eyebrow, Rose smirked. She was Rose Marion Tyler and if she didn't take shite from the Oncoming Storm, she sure as hell wasn't going to take any from a brownnosing wound-opener.

"I hate it, actually. The chips suck, being made out of beets instead of potatoes, we've got a president instead of a Prime Minister, dollars instead of pounds, extravagant zeppelins circling the skies and blocking out the gorgeous sun, and J.K Rowling was either never born or never dreamed up Harry Potter."

She tsked sadly, enjoying immensely the flabbergasted looks on the faces of her audience, and sighed.

"And tha', well, tha' is just the worst of the lot, tha' is."

She shook her head slowly, her hair swishing into her face. She tossed a self-satisfied wink and smile to Tehrani and finally released her mirth. It bubbled out of her like water from an overenthusiastic teapot, her shoulders shaking with the force. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Mickey shaking his head in concerned amusement, too used to Rose's complaints to even make comment. Tosh giggled uncertainly and Tehrani smiled tightly.

Ever the scientist (and evil genius, Rose was sure of this), Tehrani had no doubt tried to unearth any strange feelings Rose might be having; like the fact that this universe was wrong: it felt wrong, it looked wrong, it smelled wrong. She sometimes got dizzy and Rose was certain it was because this world spun slightly faster than her own. Mickey and her mum never complained, but to Rose, the differences were enormous. And sickening. She felt confined, though Rose knew that was just because she lacked a time and space machine, not any real fault of this world's. If she hadn't been certain there was a way back to her Doctor, she'd have stolen a space ship by now and gotten off this sedentary rock.

She wasn't going to divulge any of this to Tehrani however. And, Rose thought smugly as she observed Tehrani, that didn't sit well with her colleague. Not the least bit. And if the rest of lunch was slightly strained, Rose didn't care. Her mind, as usual, started to wander as she catalogued the newest pieces of alien technology Torchwood had acquired, running down the list to see which devices might be a good fit for busting through an invisible wall. Safely, of course. And Mickey, well, he was already older than her, already that much more removed from her than he'd been when he'd been the abandoned boyfriend. It wasn't hard for him to focus on Tosh and even Tehrani, to an extent, content with his new life in Discworld.

Blinking as the sun finally emerged, quite unexpectedly, out from behind a behemoth zeppelin, Rose brought her mind back to the present. She cast a fond eye onto Mickey, a slight smile spreading across her lips. She didn't begrudge him this existence, this happiness, this sense of awareness and confidence he'd acquired. She was ecstatic for him. But he was different, they didn't gel, not any more, and it made this lonely place just a bit more desolate. Sighing, she turned back to her food. If she was honest, they hadn't gelled since she'd come back from those first few trips with the Doctor; and that was her fault.

She let out a small laugh as Mickey's voice, mature and wiser, echoed through her mind her first week here, after she'd tried to apologize.

Hey, babe, you can't help that he vwooped you off your feet.

"A hundred for your thoughts."

Rose glanced up, blushing when she noticed the entire table staring at her, Tehrani with avarice gleaming in her eyes.

Breathing deep, Rose answered Tosh's sweet voice. "Nothin' much. Just thought of somethin' someone said to me sometime, s'all."

Mickey dropped his fork and dusted his hands off. "Yep! That clears it up for us."

Rose snorted and shoved him lightly.

"Shut up!"

"Shut up!"

"Don't you start that again!"

"Don't you start that again!"

"Mickey!"

Rose wrinkled her nose as they passed, yet again, through another sludgy patch of sewage. The odor wafted upwards as their boots stirred the stagnant mess of human waste around in the ankle deep water, stinging her eyes and tickling her gag reflex.

"Another entire outfit I'm gonna have'ta toss when I get home."

Jake laughed and said, "I'd call you such a girl if I didn't concur wholeheartedly. In any case, no one ever said this life was glamorous."

Laughing quietly, Rose rejoined, "I could take it when it was aliens' guts, or slimy mud, or even bug juice, but the Doctor an' I never once walked through a sewer. Quite the gent, 'e was!"

She winced. Bhanjee didn't need to know about him. Sighing, she ignored that for now and paused to sweep her Electro-Magnifier out in front of her, from side to side. Not even a blip.

"Either of you gettin' any energy readin's?"

"Nada."

"None."

Rose growled inwardly, trying to keep herself from punching Tehrani on the nose. There was something in her voice, something that had been lacking the first half hour of their hunt, and it grated on Rose's nerves. Pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind, she continued forward, sweeping her torch back and forth carefully, thoroughly. Tehrani needed to be put on the backburner when there was Thraxin scuttling about London.

"Jake, tell me. Why exactly is it that aliens like to take a tour of London sewers? It always seems to be their first stop and there isn't even a little shop to make it worth the while."

A choked chuckle escaped from her Second as his beam swept upwards to the ceiling.

"You sayin' we should set up a little shop for their pleasure and convenience, then?"

"Well, least then I'd understand the draw. If'n it had good stuff on the shelves. Like jam. Or laser spanners. I like them. That cheeky Emily Pankhurst stole ours that one time."

There was nothing but the gentle sound of fecal infested waters lapping at their wellies following Rose's words. She winced, biting her bottom lip in chagrin. She knew Tehrani had heard that she was from a parallel reality, but she hadn't meant to allude to anything about the Doctor in front of the soon-to-be-revealed villainess; what really got her was saying anything in front of Jake, though. He was a good friend, the greatest even, to both her and Mickey, and she knew it pained him that she was still in pain, still thinking about him even after four years.

Finally, after Rose felt that she'd break under the weight of the silence, Jake spoke softly, compassionately.

"You sound like him, you know? Sort of wise and serious and intense, but manic and scary at the same time. All with the knowledge of the stars echoing in your voice."

He quieted once more and the trio resumed their search of the squalid labyrinthine maze in the bowels of London in contemplative quiet.

As they came to a trident in the sewers and decided that splitting up was a good idea, Jake whispered before they separated, "Must be killin' you, forced to live in a place an' time too small."

She fixed a confident smile on her face and looked at Jake. He was great, the Torchwood in this reality equally as great, and she was making them think she was ungrateful. Skimming her eyes passed Tehrani, Rose murmured, "Yeah, well, I may want to go back but stuck here with you an' the rest… s'not so bad."

Jake smiled widely, understandingly, before he took off down the tunnel straight ahead. Tehrani pretended to gag before she took off to the left. Rose seriously considered getting her hands mucked just to nail the back of her silky head with shite. She shook her head, reminded herself that she was a Torchwood Director, forced the echoes of another time she'd said those words down, and turned into her own channel. Before they all disappeared into the dark, she whispered, "Keep your radios to hand."

There's nothing in the universe like hearing a Thraxin shriek. It gets into your bones, rattles your mind, severs your link to reality. The closest approximation to understanding it Rose could ever give someone, if they even asked, would be the word banshee. Her head jerked in the direction Jake had gone, south, and she took off like a shot. She yanked her radio out and yelled down the line, "Jake, Jake!"

The radio crackled, clicked to dead space, crackled again. She growled.

"Damn it!"

Her legs pumped strongly, the muscles in her thighs and calves flexing, as she rounded corner after corner, following the inhuman shrieks and growls of the alien. She'd only lost one member of her team before and she had no intention of raising that number to two. As she approached Jake's tunnel, the noises quieted down and she could see light ricocheting off the walls, casting eerie shadows on the fungus covered ceiling and glaring off the murky water. She slowed her approach, evened out her breathing, and tightened her grip on her stun gun.

Creeping slowly around the rounded corner, her shoulder brushed the wet moss dangling from cracks in the concrete. A dank smell wafted passed her nose and Rose resisted the urge to wrinkle it. She was Torchwood, damn it, and former companion of the Doctor. No smelly moss would get the better of her; least, not 'til I've saved my team, flitted past her brain.

"And any and all personal commentary will be struck from the record of this mission," she muttered. Good thing Thraxins are deaf as door knobs. She stepped carefully, one foot crossing the other slowly, as her hands tightened on the handle of her gun. It didn't bode well, this eerie silence. As she approached the last leg of her journey, she cocked her head, listening intently. Absolutely nothing.

Well, actually, there aren't any eatin' sounds, so it can't be all bad. Right?

Her boot sent a rock skidding across the ground and into the Thraxin's sight. Rose winced. Her hands brought her stun gun to bear as distorted echoes started emanating from the cavern ahead. She steeled her nerves, and her ears, and forwent any attempts at stealth. The creature knew she was there, might as well confront it now as later. She swung around into the open space, finger tense on the trigger, and came face to icky face with-

"Oh, it's you." Description still fits, she thought cattily.

Tehrani lowered her own stun gun, face blanched like she'd smelled something bad. Rose dismissed her, however, eyes roving quickly through the room until they landed on Jake. Heart bloated with fear, Rose ran to him, falling onto her knees in the muck by his side, and frantically felt for a pulse.

"He's fine. Just out fer the count."

Rose gritted her teeth, but continued to feel for a pulse. "How about the Thraxin? Where's it?"

"'Bout seven meters leeward of ye."

Rose glanced over her left shoulder, taking in the oddly colored goo that splattered the walls and ceiling and puddled on the floor. This time, she allowed herself the luxury of wrinkling her nose.

"Didn't hold up to bein' stunned, 'm guessin'?"

"An' rightly so."

A sigh burst from Rose's chest as she removed her pack and settled it underneath the, thankfully, unconscious Jake's head before she stood and stretched. Pops echoed in the room as her vertebrae squeezed out the pressure, but Rose still heard when Tehrani started forward. Her senses were always tuned to that woman. Turning, Rose smiled when Tehrani stopped what Rose could only call her 'creeper walk'.

"Food for thought! Why, exactly, are there aliens out there smart enough to build spaceships that actually work, but still devolved enough to communicate in grunts and have a taste for human flesh, but the human race can't even get people farther than the moon?"

Tehrani laughed. It was genuine too, Rose was startled to realize. At least, it didn't sound tinny and forced like the other times Rose'd heard it. Laughter out of a can, Rose called it, runny and sickly; not to be confused with canned laughter, of course. I hate canned laughter, havin' been on the receivin' end once too many when I was still the new It Girl and going on interview after soddin' interview, fake laughter playin' every time I uttered somethin' even remotely funny.

And, Rose thought vaguely, watching Tehrani with hawk eyes, Jake is right. I do sound like him. I ramble. I wonder how long that's been goin' on. Rose wasn't exactly sure how to feel about this new revelation. She'd heard that dogs or owners started to look like one or the other after a time, but never aliens and their not-girlfriends. Or TARDIS' and their alien's not-girlfriend; her eyes fell from Tehrani, only briefly, to assess that yes, she was wearing TARDIS blue and yes, she might possibly resemble the TARDIS if one squinted and tilted their head to the left —

"I heard ye don' trust me, Rose.