amberfocus | Leap of Faith: Chapter Twenty-Two

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Title: Leap of Faith (22/?)
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, Fluff, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe
Rating: Adult
Betas:

amyo67,

jeprdyfrndly
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.
A/N: Okay, guys, I'm just throwing this up here with only having Amy go over it for errors, since Victoria is really sick right now. With the day I've had wrestling with my computer I didn't have an inclination to proofread it more than twice. So if you see a typo, kindly let me know and I'll fix it tomorrow.

Previous Chapters: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/327895.html

Chapter Twenty-two: Ghosts from the Past

A knock on the door of Brigadier General John Benton had him looking up from his paperwork with a slight frown on his face. He had nothing on his schedule for the next couple of hours and usually if there were a drop-in visitor, his secretary would at least clear it with him over the intercom before letting anyone back to see him. His wife was up visiting their eldest granddaughter who was due to deliver her first child any day now. Who else would Ellie let back without an announcement?

The knock came again. “Come on, Benton, open up. It’s just me.”

A slow smile of pleasure crossed his face as he recognized the voice and he called out, “Enter.” He rose to greet the man who came through his door. “Hello, Mike,” he said reaching out for the hand offered him across his desk. “What are you doing here?” he asked with genuine surprise.

“It’s good to see you, too.” Mike Yates said with a half smile. The man had served with him in UNIT for nearly forty years before he’d retired five years ago to care for his wife after a car accident had broken her back and she’d never healed entirely properly. She’d been confined to a wheelchair, or on her good days, crutches, for the last several years. It had been just as well. The spirit had gone out of Mike after the Cyberwar. He’d not been the same man since. Not that Benton blamed him, but the events set into motion that night followed by his wife’s injuries had been all the excuse the man had needed to get out of the service.

“Yes, of course,” said John, “it’s good to see you, but I know you, Mike. You wouldn’t be here without a good reason. What brings you back?”

Mike sighed and lowered himself into a chair. “It’s Emma,” he said.

“Not bad news, I hope,” said John. Every week these days it seemed like someone he knew was dying, or getting terminally ill, or falling prey to dementia. It was the fall out of lives lived out to old age, he knew, the natural course of things, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“No. Not as such. Just…you know that she’s been unable to walk unassisted since the accident, right?” Benton nodded. “Two days ago she got up and walked.”

“What?”

“She just…she’s walking. She’s healed. We had a scan done of the injury site and it’s gone. Not just gone, but there’s no trace of it. It’s like the accident never happened. And she’s not the only one. You know she takes physical therapy once a week at Gresham’s Long Term Care Facility to help her keep the muscle tone in her legs, right?” He nodded. He was vaguely aware of that fact. “Well, it’s also where they keep a lot of coma patients and paraplegics or people with other severe physical disabilities that limit their mobility almost completely. They’re all better. The coma patients are awake and people who couldn’t even wiggle their toes yesterday are up and about.”

John frowned. “Let me guess. There was a man there, visited all the rooms, had a strange device?”

“How did you know?” Mike asked in surprise.

“Because he’s been hitting the hospice centers and healing terminal patients,” said John. “I don’t suppose they had security cameras and got this man on video?”

“I’ve been so involved with what’s happened to Emma that I didn’t think to ask. The doctors I’ve talked to have all said this is far beyond our current technology, so I’m thinking aliens.”

“It’s likely, though by all accounts the man looks human.”

“We both know looks can be deceptive.” There was a slightly bitter note in his voice. “Do you know if the effects are permanent?” Mike asked.

“So far they seem to be, but…I don’t know how to tell you this…” He ran his hand over his face and then returned his solemn gaze back to Mike. “There are side effects. Namely, they’re rejuvenating; becoming younger.”

“What’s so bad about that? Wouldn’t we all like to shave a few years off our lives?”

“Not like this,” Benton said sharply. “There’s no off switch, Mike. They’re getting younger, but it doesn’t stop. And with it goes the memories of everything that occurred in the years that are being erased. So yeah, Emma can walk, but if it follows the same pattern pretty soon she’ll start forgetting the things that have happened recently,” John said. “And then more and more as it all slips away.”

Mike looked horrified. “Who do you have on it?”

“We’ve batted it over to Torchwood. It’s not an invasion force and it’s more medical than anything, so they’re better equipped to deal with it,” he said.

“So the muckity-mucks in London are actually getting involved?” he said disparagingly.

“Torchwood Cardiff, actually, though I’m trying to get one of our best doctors reassigned to help.”

“Cardiff? They’re made up of what? Two people?”

“Five. And they’ve got some people down from London. Mayumi’s granddaughter for one, because she was healed as well. She’s the one who brought it to my attention. And Rose Tyler’s got her nose in it,” Benton said.

“Really? That seems…odd.”

“She is a fully qualified field operative and she is responsible for the ‘spirit of cooperation’ that’s evolved between Torchwood and UNIT since she started working there. The girl knows what she’s doing,” he said.

“I’d feel better if there was someone with a lot more experience taking care of this. Tosh isn’t as young as Rose, but she’s still young. Delilah might be impressive in a crisis, but this is low key medical stuff. It’s hardly world-ending. She might not take it seriously enough.”

“Dr. Harper is in charge of the medical end and he knows his business.”

“I suppose, but…” He shook his head. “If something bad is going to happen to my wife I’d prefer the best in the field.”

“Well, you’ve got your wish there. You’re not going to like this, but…the Doctor’s there, too.”

“The Doctor!” Mike roared on his feet in an instant, anger flushing his face red as he clenched his fists at his sides.

“Settle down, Mike. He is the best.”

“I don’t want the Doctor anywhere near this,” Mike grated out through clenched teeth.

“He’s the best man for it. You know that if anyone can figure this out, he can. He’ll find a way to save everyone before it’s too late,” John said.

“Like he saved Josie?” Mike snapped. “I trusted him with my daughter, John. My baby girl. And he just…he killed her.”

Benton closed his eyes. “She was cyberized, Mike. You know that. There was no saving any of them after the inhibitor chips quit functioning.”

“He’s so brilliant he could have found a way. If he’d really cared, if he’d really tried, he could have—he could have saved her!” Mike insisted. “Or gotten her the hell off this planet the minute he realized there were Cybermen in the mix!”

“Mike, that’s not fair.”

“I don’t have to be fair. My daughter is dead and it was at his hands. She was twenty-five years old. Twenty-five! She had her whole life ahead of her and he just…he had to get involved in her life. He had to take her away from us. Our only child. He had to…” Mike was close to tears, fighting them back as best he could.

“Josie loved him,” Benton said simply. “You know she was going to do whatever she wanted. Headstrong, she was, and she wanted to go, wanted to be with him. You and Emma couldn’t have stopped her if you’d wanted to and at the time, you didn’t. You never could stand between her and what she wanted.”

Mike sighed and rubbed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose and settling back into the chair. “She wasn’t…we weren’t even supposed to be able to have kids. We were thirty-five. We’d given up trying nearly a decade before she was conceived. She was such a surprise and such a joy, and he…just took that away from us forever.”

“The Cyberwar did that, Mike, not the Doctor.”

“Yeah, but if she hadn’t run off with him in the first place we’d at least have had more time with her. He took what was left of her time away from us,” he said.

“He feels his responsibility in that, I can assure you.”

They were silent for a few minutes and then Mike sighed again. “All right. I’ll talk with the man, but I won’t be happy about it.”

“Try not to be too difficult, Mike. He…right now he doesn’t even know who he is.”

“How can he not know who he is?”

“He’s in hiding. He’s changed himself into a human.” Mike raised his eyes. Before he could ask how, Benton said, “I don’t know what’s behind the technology, but he did it to hide from some aliens that are after him. He’s not the Doctor anymore. Not really. He’s just Dr. John Smith. A brilliant man, someone who can still solve this, but he doesn’t remember being the Doctor. He has a whole new identity. Thinks he’s my nephew.”

“So you’re telling me he doesn’t remember Josie at all?” Mike asked looking furious. “He doesn’t remember what he did to my daughter?”

“Oh, he remembers that very clearly. It was the one thing he told the TARDIS not to change when it constructed his new memories. He said he never wanted to forget what he’d had to do and he never wanted to forget Josie Yates. He thinks they worked together at UNIT and that they were…close.”

“Lovers.”

“No, I don’t think so. But in love, possibly. Anyway, when you speak with him, it’s imperative that you don’t try to push his cover story aside. He can’t remember who he was and it would be very dangerous if he did, because it would cause him to revert and the aliens would find him and we can’t have that. It wouldn’t just be bad for him; it would be bad for the entire universe, those things getting a hold of the powers of a Time Lord and his TARDIS.”

“I won’t shatter his identity, but I won’t hide the fact that I despise him,” Mike said.

“Good enough. He’ll still know you as Josie’s dad. He’ll expect a level of contempt. I’ll put in a call to Torchwood Cardiff. Someone will be by to interview you soon, I’m sure,” Benton said.

“Fine. Just as long as it’s not the Doctor.”

“That’s out of my hands.”

Rose and John had arrived at an old manor house that Torchwood used for housing temporary agents at last. The house was beautiful and not in the sort of half neglected way of many of its neighbors. The stonework was in good repair, the multi-paned windows trimmed with what looked like fresh white paint, and the grounds were impeccable. It was still a little startling to see flowers towards the end of November, but the seasons here had never been quite right since she’d arrived.

Pete said it had something to do with when the Torchwood back in her old universe had started punching holes through to this one. The temperature of the oceans had risen and never gone back down. So had the temperature of the Earth itself. Summer lasted through October and sometimes into November, as it was doing now. It wasn’t necessarily hot, she often needed a light jacket, but it was sunny and warm enough for many things to continue to bloom.

As for winter, it didn’t start in earnest until mid-February. There hadn’t been a white Christmas for the last half decade, though there were plenty of white Valentine’s and St. Patrick’s Days. Winter was cold and harsh, but lasted only until mid-April. Spring still managed to shove her way through the craziness and life would renew pretty much on its old schedule for the next two months before the more vigorous growth of the too hot summers would take over again. At least the temperatures had stabilized. Too much higher and things would have been very, very bad for this Earth. Two percent of the previous decade’s landmass was underwater from the melting ice caps, but that, too, seemed to have stopped with the sealing of the universes.

Rose sighed as they stepped onto the front walkway and approached the house. “Something wrong?” John asked. He gave her a slightly worried look. She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. She had her reasons for not quite wanting to be there, but Torchwood wouldn’t give her a hotel allowance when they had openings in temporary housing.

“Nah, not wrong exactly. Houses like this just give me the creeps. I always expect a werewolf to be chained up in the basement, or a ghost to be haunting the attic,” she said.

“You believe in ghosts?” His voice was condescending, reminding her of how he’d been with her when she first met him.

“Not ghosts so much as Gelth,” she muttered glaring at her feet. “The more important question, don’t you think, should be whether or not I actually believe in werewolves?”

“Why? They’re real,” he said. “Well, maybe not werewolves themselves, but I’ve run across a lupine wavelength haemavariform before. Certainly not chained up in someone’s basement, though. I’m sure that’s where the legend comes from.”

“You’ve…you’ve come across…what?” she asked.

“A lupine wavelength haemavariform,” he repeated easily. Rose felt her stomach turn over as the words flowed easily from his mouth. “It’s a—.”

“I know what it is,” she snapped. John looked at her with hurt eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. She ran her hand through her hair. “It’s a species that can infect humans, makes them turn wolven in the right lighting conditions, like that of the full moon. It’s not exactly pretty.”

“You’ve seen one change?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah. Nearly killed me.”

“What happened?” he asked.

She shook her head, shivering. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t blame you. It wasn’t much fun going up against my own big bad wolf,” he said.

Rose shivered. Even in casual conversation, the words bad wolf always did that to her, even though they had long since ceased to hold any meaning in this world other than that belonging to a fairytale. “No,” she said. “I don’t imagine it was. He reached for her near hand just as she shoved it into her pocket. He frowned but didn’t say anything else. She didn’t mean to pull away from him but she had her reasons for not wanting to be here or to talk about certain things from her past.

They arrived at the front door and Rose slid her Torchwood ID into the reader box. Next John scanned his. The door clicked open and they went inside. A tall, thin man met them as they came to the end of the entryway and faced a massive staircase. He had a sallow expression and his nose and chin were narrow and pointed. He reminded Rose of a weasel and not just from his appearance. “Hello, Miss Tyler, Dr. Smith,” he said smoothly.

John nodded. “Antonicso,” Rose said shortly with a nod of familiarity but no welcome in her tone.

“Your rooms are on the second floor. Follow me.” They did, lugging their bags up the marble steps. The man moved lightly before them, his footfalls making no sound though their own echoed off the ceiling above them. He went to the left leading them down the long, narrow hallway. “I’ve given you adjoining rooms,” he said. “Unless you’d care to cohabitate.” He turned questioningly to Rose.

“We don’t,” said Rose flatly. The man nodded and gave her an oily smile. He held out a key to her and she took it, being careful not to touch him in anyway. He handed John a second key.

“As before, I am here to see to any…needs you might have during your stay,” he said giving Rose a penetrating stare.

John took a protective step closer to Rose and glared at Antonicso. “I think I can fulfill any needs she might have admirably on me own,” he said.

“Of course you would…think so.”

Rose put a hand out to still John, sensing his temper was rising. “You may go,” she said dismissively. The man gave her a hard look before turning on his heel and almost floating down the hallway, his steps were so smooth above the well-worn carpeting. When Antonicso had turned the corner and headed down the stairs John said, “What the hell was that?”

“That,” she said, “was a Gelth.”

She turned and put her key in the lock of her door and opened it. She set her bag inside and then went to unlock the adjoining door. “Go put your things away,” she said motioning him through. “While we’re staying here, I’d like to leave this door open, if you don’t mind.”

“Course I don’t,” he said. He took his bags into his room and then returned a moment later to find Rose sitting on her bed, back against the headboard and arms wrapped around her knees, holding them tightly up under her chin.

“So he’s not human.”

“No, not anymore.”

“You said Gelth before when we were talking about ghosts.” He sat down beside her on the bed, kicking of his shoes and settling his legs on the bed, stretching them out. Rose released one arm from around her knees and reached down, taking his hand.

“Gelth aren’t ghosts. Not really. They just appear to be in their non-corporeal form. Their natural state is gaseous.”

“What are they?”

“The unquiet dead,” she said, her voice dropping into a sepulchral whisper. “He’s the only one here.” She swallowed hard. “They have no bodies of their own. Something…something happened to them and they lost their physical form. His kind sent him here as an emissary with the idea of reanimating our corpses.” John looked disgusted. One more way he was different from the Doctor.

“After all, once we’re dead we’re no longer using them. The ultimate form of recycling.” She shuddered. “Anyway, Antonicso found out…he found out that that wasn’t the real plan. His people didn’t just want our corpses. They wanted to make more. They wanted to kill everyone on Earth and reanimate their bodies by the billions. He betrayed them, saved us from an invasion, and prevented them from coming through. But he’s stuck here, alone. Torchwood felt responsible. They gave him a body and a job and made him a citizen.”

“So you don’t like him because he’s a walking corpse?” John asked. “Sounds to me like he’s a hero.”

“No, I don’t like him because he’s a pervert,” she said. “Jake and I messed up his original body pretty badly for…misbehavior. This is his second. He’s behaved himself ever since, but he still gives me the willies.”

“He tried to assault you?” John asked putting together what she wasn’t saying and looking furious.

“He wanted to mate with me quite insistently. He’d fixated on me during negotiations. His body’s former…occupant had been taking testosterone treatments before dying. Something residual affected him, or so they tell me. That and being the only one of his kind in this dimension triggered an urge to procreate, even though they can’t with humans. Doesn’t matter to me, though. I still know what he wanted to do. Gelth are…well, they’re not intrinsically evil, but they are morally ambiguous and very species first. I don’t think it occurred to him not to act on the hormones still inside his body or the urges caused by being alone.”

“I’m sorry, Rose. Why on earth would you want to stay here? We can go to a hotel.”

“Torchwood won’t spring for it if there’s an opening in temp housing,” she said with a shrug.

“I’ll spring for it,” he said.

“No, I don’t know how long we’ll be here. It’ll get too expensive.”

“Surely your father—.”

“I didn’t want him to know, okay? He would have told Mum and I didn’t want to deal with that. Anyway, I can defend myself and even if I couldn’t, you’re here with me,” she said. “And we won’t be spending much time here. I’ll be fine, but I want that door left open.”

“Yeah, like I said, that’s fine.”

Rose nodded at his agreement. “I should call Tosh and let her know we’re here and that we’re settled. She may want us to head down to the hub.”

John reached into his jeans and pulled out his mobile. “She’s number two on speed dial,” he said.

Rose took the phone he offered her and quickly dialed Tosh. She had a brief conversation and then related to John that Tosh said to wait until morning before reporting in. They unpacked their bags and then John said, “Well, if we’re not needed yet for work, what do you say you and I go out. On a…on a date.”

Rose gave him a startled glance. “What did you have in mind?”

“A film followed by a late supper,” he said. “Or, I don’t know. What else is…?”

“First datey?” Rose asked.

“Yeah,” he said laughing at her terminology.

“Bowling. Billiards. Skating.” She glanced down at the bed. Definitely not staying in one of their rooms and making out again.

“Whatever you want to do,” he said. Which was stay in one of their rooms and make out again.

Rose got up and removed her laptop from its case. She powered it on and plugged in her satellite internet modem. A moment later she was scanning the theater listings for anything that might catch their fancy. They settled on a thriller and with relief made their way out of the spooky old manor house hand in hand on their way to what Rose hoped would be a fantastic first date.

“So I went digging, like Ianto asked me to,” Mickey said staring around the conference table at the other men who’d been brought into this little meeting of minds. Pete, Jake, and Ianto all stared back at him. He opened the thick file in front of him. “And at first glance, at second glance even, John Smith’s identity holds up.”

Pete looked almost disappointed. Mickey didn’t envy the man. Jackie had been so sure, even after her time in decon, that there was something off about John Smith. Now he’d have to go home and explain to his wife that she was wrong, and if there was one thing in the world that it was truly impossible to do, it was to convince Jackie Tyler that she was wrong about anything. Mickey had to remind himself that John being legitimate was a good thing.

“What doesn’t hold up, what I can’t believe we missed before, is that Toshiko Sato’s resume has been partially fabricated,” he said. “When I noticed things weren’t adding up and I pursued it, I got a phone call from UNIT. Brigadier General John Benton stopped just short of giving me a cease and desist order. What I did manage to find out before that is that although she and John were at Oxford at the same time, they never actually knew each other. They didn’t work together. She didn’t take any of the classes he taught. As far as I’ve been able to piece together, Tosh never even met John before a year ago, even though they were both working for UNIT off and on. The first time they worked together was when Downing Street blew up. If John is anything, it’s a part of her cover.”

“Is Tosh a threat to Rose?” Pete demanded immediately. “They’ve become very close in the short time she’s worked here.”

“I don’t think so. This is more…well, I saw it with Gabriel and we all know how that turned out,” Mickey said. Gabe had been a deep cover operative with UNIT for fifteen years before joining Torchwood. Of course he’d not been able to say so. Retired spies weren’t allowed to reveal their secret pasts. The only reason they knew about it was because Mickey had been so good at hacking files, he’d been able to piece things together.

UNIT had gotten far more careful since that incursion into their records. It was what made spotting the faults in Tosh’s history and resume that much harder for him to find, but he had found them. “She’s got so much training, so much experience, it’s ridiculous,” said Mickey.

“No wonder she’s been able to handle everything we’ve thrown at her. It isn’t simply that she’s third generation UNIT, like we thought. She’s been deeply trained,” Jake said.

“If she’s not a threat to Rose, than I don’t really see this as a problem. Gabe has been one of our best operatives,” Ianto said. “I think, if anything, this makes Tosh more valuable to us, not less.”

“Maybe so but I dislike any of my employees lying to me,” Pete said.

“Well, it would be counterproductive to get rid of her. We need her skills, and she and Dr. Smith are a package deal. They both made that very clear at hiring,” Ianto said. “And we need Dr. Smith.”

“Rose needs Dr. Smith,” said Mickey.

“So what do we do?” asked Jake.

“We keep a close eye on them,” said Pete. “We make sure this is strictly a UNIT thing. They did leave there in disgrace—.”

“But that was rescinded on Harriet Jones’ words,” Mickey reminded them. “They were both invited back to UNIT.”

Pete looked sour. “Still, I don’t like the idea of Rose being alone in Cardiff with that pair. Mickey, I want you to clear your desk of impending investigations and head to Cardiff. I want our own eyes and ears thrown into the mix.”

Mickey nodded. “All right. I’ve got two cases I can palm off on Martin. I should be able to wrap things up by Sunday and drive to Cardiff Monday morning. But what do I tell Rose? They just got there and they haven’t asked for extra help.”

“Tell her that things are advancing,” said Pete. “The man’s not just healing terminally ill patients anymore. He’s widened the field. They’re going to need the manpower. I doubt very much that by the time you get there, Rose will even think twice about why you’ve arrived. And Jake? I want you to be able to get yourself down there at a moment’s notice if this thing gets any bigger.”

Jake nodded. “Anything else?” he asked.

“I think that’s it for now,” Pete said. The rest of the men nodded and the meeting broke up. Mickey went to his office and began to make the necessary arrangement to join Rose in Cardiff. Actually working with John Smith on a more regular basis was going to be…interesting.

Ch. 23: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/364933.html

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Leap of Faith: Chapter Twenty-Two

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