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The answer only served to irritate the Doctor more. It implied that there was something wrong with him if he couldn’t trust Davin simply because Rose did. But he wasn’t an automatically trusting person, until Rose came along he’d been on his own for a very long time and he’d fallen out of the habit of trusting others. Even though he trusted Rose implicitly, had done almost from the moment she’d walked in the TARDIS doors, it would be somewhat naïve of him to not follow what his gut was telling him in regards to Davin, just because Rose thought he should.
More often than not his gut proved to be a more accurate indicator of where he should place his trust than anything else. It had kept him out of trouble more times than he could count and prevented all sorts of crises from blowing up beyond his control. Trusting his gut was always a good idea and his gut said Davin was a pretentious pretty boy up to no good where Rose was concerned. Of course, it was also entirely possible his gut was being a possessive, petulant child. He wasn’t fool enough to think he was above being affected by simple jealousy, because it reared its head every time Davin looked at Rose tenderly. And the damn man kept doing it.
He’d heard Rose throwing up earlier and he knew that meant the other man had kissed her. Not just kissed her, but had touched her in some way severe enough to trigger a fuller reaction than he’d had with the dry heaves when Jackie had bussed him too familiarly. Even now his fists were clenching tightly under the table as he thought of this pretty boy kissing his Rose. It made him feel sick. It made him want to wipe what probably was not actually a smug, knowing look off Davin’s face. His feelings for Rose were reducing him to a jealous school boy.
Rose’s hand sought his under the table and she had to unclench his fingers in order to hold his hand. She hooked her ankle around his, their legs pressing together and he relaxed infinitesimally at her touch. Finally the Doctor broke the stalemate and began to outline what he knew about the spheres and Monoc’teru. By the time he was done telling the information, Davin had a very dark look on his too handsome face.
“And they shimmer? You’re sure?” he questioned.
“Yeah. It’s not constant or anything. Seems to happen only when they get angry or their concentration is broken. Least that’s how it worked with the one impersonating Pete. Why?” the Doctor asked.
“Because I don’t think Pete’s the only one who’s been replaced. The DCI in charge of the kidnapping case lost his temper and there was a very strange distortion around him. And Ava Hartman at work, Pete’s personal assistant? I saw the same thing with her. Who knows how many more people may have been replaced at Torchwood?”
“We’re going to have to tread very carefully when we go in there,” Rose said.
“Rose, if someone sees you mucking about at work when you’re supposed to be missing--,” Davin began.
“It should clear your name right up.” Rose gave him a cheerful smile.
“I don’t want my name cleared right up,” he said. “I want you safe and these aliens not knowing where you are.” Does he have to be so selfless? grumped the Doctor to himself.
“I need to find out what’s happened to Pete,” Rose insisted.
“I can find it out for you. If you show up there and the imposter sees you, he could track you back here or to the Doctor’s ship, or worse, hurt you. You said you had telepathy now because of your bond with the Doctor and his ship, the…?”
“TARDIS,” the Doctor supplied.
“Right, the TARDIS. How is it that your telepathic ship doesn’t draw their attention?” he interrupted himself.
“Because her mind is in a different dimension than her hull,” the Doctor explained, his attention focusing sharply on Davin at the excellent question.
“Ah, so she’s the perfect hiding place then, isn’t she? Anyone inside her would be untraceable by the Monoc’teru,” Davin mused. The Doctor felt a grudging respect for the man’s quick mind. “Anyway, I don’t have a trace of psychic ability. It was one of the things they tested for when I was tapped to work for Torchwood. So, other than being a chief suspect in a kidnapping investigation, I’m pretty well off the radar.”
“That’s a pretty big other than,” Rose muttered.
“Yes, but Rose, anyone who knows us, knows how we are together, knows I’d never hurt you or your family. Our friends and colleagues at work will just think Pete is grieving and not take his rantings seriously.” The Doctor had tensed up again at Davin’s use of the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ in regard to Rose. She pulled her hand out of his grasp and ran it soothingly down his thigh over and over again.
“You don’t know that. And if Ava’s been compromised, well, you know how seriously people take her opinions. I need to come with you. It will let them know that I’m safe and that I’m on your side. And if I tell them I know where my family is--.”
“Then you’ll just be putting yourself in jeopardy,” the Doctor interrupted. “Your going is a dangerous enough idea all on its own. Talking about Jackie and the twins could make you a target and endanger your life.”
“I can’t just let people go on thinking Davin did something horrible to my family!” Rose protested.
“Yes, you can,” Davin said. “I know the truth and you know the truth, and Rose, as long as you still trust in me, then I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I never have.” He reached out and covered her free hand that was resting on the table with his own. The Doctor tensed again and Rose carefully slid her hand away from Davin’s with an apologetic nod.
“I know,” she said. “I do know that, Davin.” She sighed. “I just hate that they’re doing this to you. Especially that smarmy anchorwoman. No scruples, that one. Never has had.”
“She’ll look a fool when the truth comes out,” the Doctor said.
“Nothing ever sticks to that kind,” Rose objected. “Especially not Merrilyn Dawson. She used to be a society reporter. Because I suddenly appeared out of nowhere, heir to Pete’s fortune, she used to track my every move. She had me shacking up with the rich and famous and pregnant on more than ten different occasions. When I settled down into dating Davin she dragged him through the mud, too. Every little appearance in public where we didn’t hold hands or show affection was a break up. Every time we did show affection it was an unseemly display in a public forum. Now that she’s an actual news reporter, she still twists things towards the salacious as much as she can get away with. She had a built in fan base and they followed her, but they want their gossip still.”
“We’ll make it stick,” the Doctor said darkly and Rose gave him a surprised glance. “What?” he asked. She raised her eyebrows.
“How are we going to do that?” she asked.
“It only takes a few words whispered in the right ear, a few very well-placed words, to bring down a career,” the Doctor said grimly.
For the first time in quite a while, Rose flashed on her other Doctor. It had been the Christmas the Sycorax had invaded and he’d just regenerated and he’d destroyed the career of President Harriet Jones with just six words in the right place. Six words that had spread like wildfire, much to her dismay and the pleasure of the free press and anchormen and women nowhere near as vindictive as the one now persecuting Davin.
The memory was so vivid a powerful pang of missing the other him punched through all of her defenses and nearly took her breath away. She shoved it viciously back down and pulled herself together with a visible shake. It did no good to think of a man she would never see again. “You okay, Rose?” Davin asked. “You looked like you went off there for a minute?”
The Doctor turned to study her face with a sharp gaze, but she gave a small shrug. “Mind just wandered. I’m fine.” At the Doctor’s shrewd glance she added, “I’m just worried about my dad. And I don’t want to stay behind while you poke around at Torchwood. I want to do whatever I can to find him.”
Davin pursed his lips and stared at Rose for a long moment before shifting his eyes to the Doctor. “Can you block her telepathy from being recognized by these Monoc’terus?” he asked.
“It can be done,” the Doctor said slowly.
“If we put glasses on you and dress you up like Suzie Symmonds-Smith, you could probably use her ID to get into the building,” Davin said.
“She’s called in sick today,” Rose said.
“So no one will be expecting her down in Archives. It’s the perfect time for you to snoop around.”
“But Suzie doesn’t have clearance to a lot of places,” Rose protested.
“Yeah, but I do.”
“The fake Pete hasn’t rescinded it?” Rose asked.
“He can’t without proven cause. It would break all kinds of protocol. And so far, all he has is his own accusations against me, which he can’t prove because they aren’t true,” Davin explained.
Rose’s mobile suddenly rang and she stood up and fished the phone out of her pocket. “It’s Mickey,” she said glancing at the caller ID and she put it on speaker phone. “Hello, Mick, I’m here with the Doctor and Davin. What’s up?”
“You know that super sub trawl I set going through the Torchwood network’s backup security footage?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
“I found a huge chunk of data that had been erased. But you know that with digital files nothing is ever actually erased and I managed to recover the images,” Mickey said.
“Well, aren’t you the brilliant boy?” Rose replied.
“Yes, I am." They could almost see his grin. "I found the footage where they captured your dad, Rose. And I know where they’re keeping him.”
“Where?”
“In sub-basement thirteen. Behind the cryogenic storage units,” Mickey replied.
“Can you get to him?” Rose asked.
“Not without backup. And I don’t have clearance for that area.”
“I do,” said Rose.
“No, Rose,” said Mickey. “It’s not safe for you to come here.”
“I wish the men in my life would stop trying to protect me,” Rose groused. “You all act like I don’t have years of experience working under dangerous conditions. I’m going in. This is my step-father we’re talking about!”
“Fine, Rose, but not alone. Bring Davin and the Doctor. Jake will meet you on level G-7 of the parking garage and take you in through the service elevators. You won’t set off any bells or whistles that way until you use your ID card to get into cryogenics,” Mickey gave in. “When can you be here?”
“It’ll take about fifteen minutes for me to put blocks up in Rose’s mind to prevent the Monoc’teru from tracking her via her telepathy,” the Doctor said. “And they’ll only last a few hours.”
“It shouldn’t take that long to get Pete out. There’s only two guards on him and neither one was hired for their intelligence,” Mickey said.
“If they’re human and not shape shifters in disguise,” muttered the Doctor.
“Well, you should be able to get here well within the hour,” Mickey said ignoring the Doctor’s comment. “Least if you come by TARDIS.”
“I’m not taking the TARDIS inside Torchwood,” the Doctor said.
“Not asking you to. Just put it in the parking garage. There’s an alcove behind the utility closet where it’ll be hidden. Rose knows where it is, she can tell the TARDIS where to go,” Mickey said. “Now get going. I’ll have Jake in place in ten minutes.”
Mickey hung up the phone and Rose shut hers. She turned to the Doctor. “Okay, then,” she said. “Do me.”
The Doctor gave her a slow, sexy smile. “Oh, I will. After we save your father,” he said with a smug glance in Davin’s direction. The other man looked like he’d just been punched in the stomach. Rose smacked his arm but the grin did not leave the Doctor’s face as he raised his hands to her temples and carefully began placing telepathic blocks around her abilities.
Ch. 15: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/89166.html ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
