amberfocus | Leap of Faith: Chapter Two

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Title: Leap of Faith (2/?)
Author:

amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: John Smith (alt!Nine)/Rose Tyler, Toshiko Sato, Jake Simmonds, Mickey Smith, Ianto Jones, Jackie Tyler/Pete Tyler, Tony Tyler, various original characters
Genre: Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe
Rating: Adult
Betas:

amyo67,

jeprdyfrndly,

thetesh
Summary: Hiding from the Family of Blood, the alt!Ninth Doctor turns himself into John Smith via the chameleon arch and with his companion Toshiko Sato, takes a job at Torchwood. He clashes with everyone he meets and Rose Tyler, the beautiful young director of Torchwood Field Operative Training and the daughter of his boss, is no exception. AU after season 2 and based mostly, but not completely, on my short story Third Time's the Charm: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/319447.html, but it is not necessary to have read that.

Previous chapter: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/327026.html

Chapter Two: Sato and Tyler

Dr. John Smith did not suffer fools gladly. Apparently in this job he was going to have to put up with more than his fair share, but it wouldn’t be gladly. It wasn’t that they were all stupid, it was just that as brilliant as he was, hell, as brilliant as Toshiko was, he’d come to expect a certain level of intelligence around him. It was sorely lacking from everyone he’d had the displeasure to meet so far since starting his job at Torchwood.

“Do you know that that upstart kid in research and development thought this was a weapon of some sort?” he asked Toshiko waving around a device that was handheld and admittedly quite gun-shaped.

Tosh looked up from her notes with a hearty yawn and stuck her pen in her ponytail. “Imagine that. How foolish of him. It’s obviously not a weapon.”

He chose to ignore her sarcasm. “Obviously,” he agreed.

She pushed away from her desk and walked over to pick up the device. “Looks like it’s made by the same culture as that thing we figured out last week, the Plesh’tek curling wand.”

“It’s Plesh’tek all right.”

“So that makes this…hmmm, a hair dryer?” she asked.

“Very good, Tosh,” he said smiling at her fondly. She gave him a sour look. He must be using that voice again that she disliked so much, the one she said made her feel like he was patting her on the head and giving her a doggy treat for being smarter than he’d expected. That was completely wrong, of course. He’d long ago figured out that Tosh was exactly as smart as he’d expected. That’s why he’d taken her on as an assistant back at Oxford. Brilliant she was, though not in his league, but who could be? Smartest man on the planet, him.

She’d been with him a long time, put up with so much that an ordinary woman might not. She left him from time to time to explore other avenues of research, but he always managed to talk her into coming back. She was the closest thing he had to family and he liked having her around, even though there were times when he was convinced she couldn’t stand him. Then again, few people could, and the fact that she’d put up with as much as she had was somewhat impressive.

“So the Plesh’tek are what? Hairdressers on holiday?” she asked.

He gave a half smile. “Maybe they came here to set up shop, vain as humanity is about its hair.” He pushed a hand through his own off the shoulder locks. He wasn’t vain, exactly. With ears and a nose like his he couldn’t afford to be, but he did have to admit that the reason he kept his hair so long was in direct relation to singeing it down to the roots in an explosion several months ago. That had caused his hair to fall out and had left him bald for a few weeks. He’d not cut it since it started growing back.

He ran his hand over his face. The beard, of course, was sheer laziness and a bit overdue for a trim. He hated shaving. No point to it really. Just scrape it off and there it was again next morning. Pain in the arse, if you asked him. He seemed to remember not needing to shave so often once upon a time. He wondered if excessive facial hair was a sign of male aging. Not that he was old. He was still fighting fit and in the prime of his life.

“Doctor Smith?” The words were spoken sharply.

Oh, Toshiko must be talking at him again. He brought his attention back to the young woman. “Hmm?” he said.

“Mind off on a wander again, Doctor?” she teased lightly.

“Just thinking,” he said.

“Big old important thoughts, too, I imagine,” she said.

Again he gave another half smile. One of these days she was going to get a whole one out of him. Another reason why he kept her around. He genuinely enjoyed her company, her sense of humor, and her ability to keep him from spiraling too darkly down into depression. Life wasn’t so dark with her around. “Of course. What other thoughts would I be having? Impressive brain, I’ve got.”

“So I’ve heard, over and over again. Do you want to tell me how it works so I can go shatter Eli’s ego with your track record?” she asked.

“My brain?” he asked.

Tosh rolled her eyes. “No one is ever going to know how that works. I meant the hair dryer.”

“Sure you don’t want to take a crack at it?” he asked.

“You can have the honors,” she said waving away his offer.

Dr. Smith pressed three buttons in sequence and the device began blowing warm air in her direction. “Nothing to it.”

“Red, blue, green?” she asked to be sure. He nodded then tossed it to her and she caught it.

“Has a self-charging battery, too. Quite a good design, really. Eco-friendly and everything.”

“Right. I’ll just be off to break poor Eli’s heart then, shall I?”

“The pleasure is all yours,” he said. “And can you bring back a sandwich for me after you’ve had your lunch, please? I’m going to work through again and I don’t want to be bothered for a bit. Need to have a bit of a think.”

Tosh nodded at him and walked out the door. He turned back to the bin of artifacts and reached his hand down deep into the center, like a child reaching for the prize in a cereal box. He plucked something out at random and smiled when he saw that it was actually going to be a challenge. “Fantastic!” he said and busily began taking it apart with the multi-tool he kept in his trousers pocket.

Most of the time, Tosh took her tray of food down to artifacts and reclamation and ate lunch with the Doctor. Or she left the facility all together and grabbed lunch at a café within walking distance, a book as her only company. It was raining today, though and she had no umbrella so going out wasn’t an option. He’d made it clear in his roundabout way that he’d wanted a bit of alone time so neither was returning to the lab.

Feeling like a transfer student on her first day of school Tosh held her food in front of her and looked around the cafeteria for a place to sit. She’d spent so much time in her life being the shy, nerdy girl, that coming back to Earth and working a normal, well, normalish, type job again had brought it all back. She never felt that way when she was out seeing the universe with the Doctor. She thought she’d overcome it on all their travels, but being back in the same old grind showed her she hadn’t changed as much as she might like to think.

“Overwhelming, isn’t it?” said a soft voice beside her. “All these people and you don’t know anyone, and you’re right back as a teenager looking for somebody to wave you over and end that horrible feeling creeping into your stomach.”

Tosh glanced over and saw the woman she’d met the other day in Ianto’s office. “How did you know?”

“It’s the deer in the headlights look. Gives it away every time.”

“Miss Tyler, isn’t it?”

“Please, call me Rose. You can come and eat with me if you like. Normally I take my tray back to my office, but I felt like bearding the lions in their den today for some reason.”

“I’d like that,” Tosh said far more grateful than she felt she ought to be for a simple act of kindness from the younger woman. She followed Rose over to a corner table and noted that like the Doctor, Rose chose the chair with her back to the wall where she could survey the entire room. It was the behavior of a soldier, though Rose looked too young to have ever fought in any war she knew about. Well, maybe the Cyberwar. There hadn’t been a lot of choice there and age hadn’t made one bit of difference. That war was generally swept under most rugs. Too painful for most people to think about considering almost everyone on the planet had lost a family member or two. Rose would have been a teenager, probably, but one never knew. Maybe she was older than she looked.

“So what exactly do you do here, Toshiko?” Rose asked.

“Tosh, please,” she said. “Well, mostly I help the—I help Dr. Smith identify alien artifacts. He’s got a huge range of knowledge on such things and I do what I can. He’s taken me on several…digs with him since I’ve known him. We’ve found evidence of alien incursions in ancient Egypt and more recently in South America in some Mayan ruins.” That wasn’t precisely a lie. They’d visited both places during invasions in the Doctor’s time machine and they’d dug through a lot of rubble saving people.

“Sounds interesting,” Rose said. She said it in a way that many people didn’t. She said it as if she truly believed it was an intriguing job and not in such a way as to just be making polite conversation. “Jake and Mickey and I got sent up to a dig near Stonehenge last July. We found a small two person fighter craft with the mummified remains of two alien bodies. The tech heads went nuts over the gear. Some of it still worked. And I think they’re still working on the remains down in autopsy.”

Tosh shivered a bit. “I know,” Rose said. “I’ve been here three years and it still creeps me out a little bit how much the slice and dice boys down there love taking corpses apart.” She spooned some yogurt into her mouth and swallowed. “So where are you from, Tosh? I can’t quite place the accent.”

“Wales. Cardiff until I was ten. My grandfather was an interpreter during the Second Great War and he settled there afterwards. After he died we moved around a lot,” she said.

Rose got a faraway look on her face. “I always liked going to Cardiff.” She paused so long that Tosh searched her mind for ways to jump start the conversation, but Rose shook herself out of it and brought herself back to being a…well, hostess wasn’t quite the right word, but it would do. “What brought you into the world of Torchwood and aliens? I saw in your file that you worked with UNIT before coming here.”

“You saw my file?” Tosh said in surprise.

“New hire files cross my desk,” Rose said with a shrug. “Especially when I’m looking for new field team members. I’m in charge of the training program for field work.”

Tosh put down her sandwich. “I’m not being considered for field work, am I?” she asked with surprise.

“We like to get everyone out on occasion. It gives them experience in the case of a true emergency like…” Rose trailed off.

“Like the Cyberwar,” Tosh finished softly.

“Yeah. Or any other invasions. So I go over the files of all the new hires. Anyone who’s good at it on a test run gets a few more trials and then offered a position if they have what it takes. Otherwise most employees go out on a mission at least once every couple of months. Is field work something you’d be interested in?”

Tosh felt conflicted. The idea of not being stuck down in the stuffy old cellar all the time was appealing, but she knew what her job was. She had to look after the Doctor while he didn’t know who he was. Still, he hadn’t expected her to babysit him 24/7. He’d made that very clear when he’d insisted on separate flats, instead of a shared abode in Torchwood Housing. So maybe he wouldn’t mind too much. Then again if something happened to him when she should have been there…

“Tosh?”

“Oh, sorry, you said field work and my mind went a million miles away. No. No, I don’t think so. After my last experience at UNIT I just…I’d rather stay down in the lab. I’m not cut out for more than the mandatory training. At the most I’d probably only be comfortable as tech support in the back of a van somewhere. I prefer working with Dr. Smith,” she said.

“Really? I’ve been hearing rumors he’s difficult to get along with,” Rose said.

“I know how to handle him. We’re partners.”

“Oh,” said Rose in an odd tone. “Romantic?”

“No! Nothing like that,” she said emphatically. “I mean, I know my official position here is that I’m his assistant, and even if he knows more than me about the work we do, he still treats me like a partner in our work more often than he does an assistant. He bounces all of his ideas off me, I help him brainstorm, do some general ego stroking to keep his mood up, and nine times out of ten, I can figure out what something is as fast as he can. It’s that tenth time that makes him truly brilliant,” Tosh said in a rush.

“I knew a man like that once,” Rose said wistfully. Tosh stared at the younger woman and the sudden sadness on her face. It flashed there so briefly that she almost missed it, before Rose pulled herself up and pasted on a smile that wasn’t quite real. She’d seen that expression on Dr. Smith’s face often enough to know that it was false. It was obvious Rose had lost the man she’d mentioned and even more obvious that she’d loved him. Still, she barely knew this woman. She wasn’t going to push.

“So do you know London at all?” Rose asked her brightly.

“Not too well. I did live here for a bit when I worked for UNIT but they had us running around so much I never really got to know my way about,” she said. “If there wasn’t a market just down the way from my flat I’m pretty sure I’d live on takeaway and nothing but. Dr. Smith does.”

“Well, if you want, I could show you around a bit,” Rose offered. Tosh studied her. The woman looked nervous, as if she thought Tosh would say no. “If you want,” Rose repeated.

“That’d be nice,” Tosh said suddenly recognizing the extreme loneliness in the woman across from her. It was almost impossible to fathom that a woman like Rose didn’t have people lining up to be her friend, but Tosh had been in this same place too many times not to know it when she saw it. “I haven’t really had a chance to decorate my flat yet. It’s all standard issue Torchwood furniture. Bland and boring.”

“We could, I don’t know, bum around the shops on Saturday,” Rose volunteered.

“Sure,” said Tosh.

“What part of TH do you live in?” Rose asked.

“Building D,” said Tosh.

“Oh, that’s near me. I’m in E. What’s your flat number?” Rose wanted to know.

“309.”

“Okay. How about I meet you there Saturday at ten o’clock? We can make a day of it.”

“Sounds great.”

Rose checked her watch and then jumped hastily to her feet. “I’ve got a meeting in five minutes. It was lovely chatting with you, Tosh.”

“You, too. Maybe tomorrow you could tell me a bit about yourself? All we did was talk about me,” she said.

Rose smiled, this time a real, full smile. “Okay. Same time, same place?” Tosh nodded. “See you later then.” And Rose was away in a rush of clicking high heels and sudden energy.

“And someone needs to rein in that Dr. Smith. He is a major pain in the arse,” Jake was saying as Rose walked into the room. Mickey and the other field team heads were already at the table waiting for her. “Arrogant son of a—.” He broke off as soon as he saw Rose. It always made her want to laugh when Jake did that. His mother had trained him not to swear in front of women and old habits died hard. As colorful as Rose could sometimes be herself, he still sought to protect her sensibilities. “Next time you can take the tech down to him.” The man he was talking to, Rose’s current partner Martin Johnson, shook his head.

“No way, Jake. It’s not even worth it to see his cute little assistant. That man’s intolerable,” Martin said.

“Oh, don’t be such a child,” Rose said as she dropped her stack of papers on the table. “He can’t be that bad.”

“Which only goes to show that you haven’t met him yet,” said Martin sourly. “Thinks he’s the most intelligent man who’s ever lived, that one.”

“Makes it worse that he’s probably right,” muttered Jake.

“Well, Toshiko seems to handle him just fine,” Rose said. “If you have problems with Dr. Smith, maybe you should bring them up with her. She might have suggestions on how to approach him.”

“I’d have thought you would, Rose. You’ve certainly spent enough time managing difficult personalities,” Jake said.

Rose shrugged. “You mean you lot?” she asked.

Mickey laughed. “I’ll take the tech down from now on if you guys can’t handle it. I’m used to dealing with a man who thought I was so far beneath him I wasn’t worth his notice.”

“Mickey that’s not fair,” Rose began.

“I’ll give him his props, he got better as you got to know him, but still, I had to deal with a lot of rubbish from him and you know it, Rose,” Mickey said.

“Mickey,” said Jake sensing that the conversation was heading toward dangerous ground, “I’ll take you up on that offer. Now, shall we start the meeting?” he asked.

Rose opened her folder. “Let’s begin with the incident in Ealing. How was it resolved?”

Ch. 3: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/328166.html