Rose
Title: Rose
Author: onabearskinrug
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: G
Summary: 'Rose' with a certain...pinstriped twist
Author's Notes: Written for challenge 91 over at then_theres_us, photo prompt 9. Muchos gracias to the best gals ever, kelkat9, timelord1 (who I blatantly stole some lines from), and who_in_whoville for all of the help and encouragement with this!
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. All recognizable dialogue and characters belong to the BBC.
Rose Tyler was an ordinary 19-year-old girl, living on a council estate in London, England. She woke up at 07:30 every morning, hopped a bus, went to her job at the department store, ate chips with her boyfriend, and went home. She would watch telly with her mother or go down to the pub with her mates before heading off to bed only to wake up and start the day all over again.
Rose would not have been surprised if, eventually, she went mad with boredom.
On this particular day, she followed her morning routine to the letter. The entire day went off without a hitch. Then Dan the Security Guard handed her the lottery money. Rose sighed. She’d have to take it down to Wilson, their chief electrician, so he could put it in the safe.
Well…at least it was something different.
Rose took the lift to the basement and called for Wilson. No answer. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to find him. Maybe she’d have to spend the night in the furniture department. That certainly would be an adventure.
She walked through a set of red double doors into some kind of storage unit. Several of the shop dummies were there, sporting last year’s fashions. Rose strolled through the room, still calling for Wilson and feeling quite irritated that he seemed to have knocked off early. He didn’t seem to be anywhere close by, and Rose couldn’t open the safe by herself.
Rose started as the red doors slammed shut with a bang. Heart suddenly slamming in her chest, she raced over and tried to open them. Locked.
A rattling noise halted her attempts. “Is that someone mucking about? Who is it?”
One of the dummies peeked around a corner and started towards her. Rose was shocked. Dummies couldn’t move on their own! It had to be a person in a costume. Or remote controlled. It couldn’t be that the plastic dummies were coming to life! She moved steadily backwards as it advanced on her.
“You got me, very funny! Right, I’ve got the joke! Who’s idea was this? Is it Derrik’s? Is it? Derrik, is this you?”
More and more dummies began moving, backing Rose into a corner. The one closest to her raised his hand, moving as if to strike her down. Rose’s heart was racing. There was no way out. Here she was, 19 years old, and about to be struck dead by a shop window dummy in the basement of Henrick’s department store. She shut her eyes, bracing herself for the impact.
Until a smooth hand slipped effortlessly into hers. She opened her eyes and only had time to register a man with unruly brown hair tugging her towards him and saying, “Run!”
So she did.
The man pulled her through the corridors, the dummies in hot pursuit. She could barely keep up, despite his firm grip on her hand. His long, tan coat billowed behind him. Rose couldn’t help but look back at their pursuers. She noticed he never did.
Once they made into the life, he jabbed the “close door“ button repeatedly. Rose was tempted to tell him it wouldn‘t make the doors shut any faster, but she held her tongue. One of the dummies had managed to shove an arm into the lift, blocking it from closing. The man started pulling, only to have it disconnect from its shoulder with a loud “pop”.
Rose gaped at him after the lift finally started moving. “You pulled his arm off!”
“Hm?” he murmured, turning towards her. “Oh, you’re still here. It’s alright, it’s plastic. See?” He tossed her the arm. He was right…plastic.
Looking up from the appendage, Rose was finally able to fully see the man who had saved her. He was tall and skinny, dressed in a brown pinstriped suit that he had paired with white Converse trainers. It was an odd combination, but somehow it…worked on him.
“So, what are they students? Is this a student thing?”
He looked at her like she had just dribbled on her shirt. “No, definitely not students.”
“Well, since you seem to know everything!” Rose couldn’t help snapping, she was frustrated. She’d just almost died! She deserved an explanation.
“Pardon me if I don’t have time for your questions!” he snapped back. They had reached the ground level, and the man pulled a slender, silver tube out of his suit pocket. “Hold on,” he murmured, holding Rose back as he shined a blue light on the lift button and it started sparking. He turned and began striding towards the street exit.
“What’s that thing, then? Who are they down there? I said, who are they?” Rose started after him.
“Number one, I do not have time for this! I am on a very strict timetable here. And B, you need to go that way and I am going this way, because you need to get as far away from here as possible.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on!” Rose exclaimed, still following him. “Those things nearly killed me!”
“Oi! You‘re fine, eh? Not even a scratch. You‘re luckier than most.” He turned and studied her intently. Rose was struck by the depths in his lovely, haunted brown eyes. For a moment, she could barely breathe for the loss and pain she saw there before they hardened over once again. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“Nope.”
He sighed. “Right, short answer then. Those creatures are being controlled by something that can use thought to animate anything made of plastic. Now, you really need to go!”
They had reached the doors. He shoved her onto the street and turned to leave before Rose shouted, “Wait!”
“Oh, what now?” he asked, clearly exasperated.
“You saved my life! Can’t you at least tell me who you are?”
His eyes softened a bit at this. “I’m the Doctor. You?”
“Rose. Rose Tyler.”
“Rose Tyler,” he repeated, the ghost of a genuine smile gracing his lips for the first time since she he took her hand. Despite the fact that looked a bit awkward, like he hadn’t used those particular muscles in quite some time, Rose decided she liked the look on him. “Pleasure to meet you. Now, I highly recommend that you get the hell out of here.”
He slammed the door shut behind him.
Despite her desire to go right back in there and find out more, Rose decided to take Doctor Whatever’s advice and began running. She managed to get herself safely across the street before the building exploded.
*****
After a rather long evening that consisted of her mum reassuring every last friend and relative that she was indeed alive, nagging her about finding a job, and also a bout of crying after hearing on the news that Wilson’s body had been recovered from the building, Rose once again awoke to her alarm blaring at 07:30. It took her mother to remind her that no, there was no point in getting up. She didn‘t have a job to get to anymore.
Still, there wasn’t much point in going back to bed either. She got up, showered and dressed, and managed to make it into the kitchen before her mum was even out of her dressing gown. Jackie wasted no time in delving into Rose’s job situation.
Rose shuddered at the thought of working full-time at the butcher’s.
A noise from the door startled Rose from her thoughts. As she chastised her mother for forgetting to nail down the cat flap, she briefly considered just how much she sounded like Jackie and just how long it would be until she turned into her.
As Rose crouched down to inspect the little cat door, she noticed that there were indeed nails scattered around on the floor. Really? Her mother just brought the nails to the door and then, what, forgot the hammer?
Wait…wouldn’t she have noticed a pile of nails on the floor before today?
The cat door flapped once again. Startled, Rose poked it back, and slowly lifted it up to reveal a familiar pair of brown eyes.
Instantly, Rose was on her feet and opening the door.
“Oh, really? Well, it would be you, wouldn’t it?” Doctor Whatever-His-Name-Was huffed.
“Well, I do live here!” Rose shot back. “And I’m only home ‘cause someone blew up my job!”
“Hm, yes…tragic…” He once again was holding the silver tube with the blue light on the end. “Must have the wrong setting. Unless you've got breast implants or something..." He proceeded to look her up and down in a rather clinical matter.
"Oi! They're real, in case you were wondering."
"I was in fact. Well, if you haven't got any live plastic, then I'll be off!"
“Oh, no you don’t!” Rose grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into her flat. “Inside. Now!”
“Who’s that?” Jackie called from her bedroom.
“It’s about the shop, he’s part of the inquiry. He’ll give us ten minutes,” Rose answered on their way to the living room.
“She deserves compensation!” Jackie told the man who had just stopped at her bedroom door.
“Yes, well, don’t we all?” he replied absently, glancing around at the various items in the flat.
Immediately, she heard her mother enter flirt-mode. “Oh…I’m in my dressing gown…”
She turned just in time to see Doctor Whose-Its wink saucily at her, before leaning causually against her mother’s doorframe with his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Well, would you look at that! Yes you are!”
Jackie must have been encouraged at this. “There’s a strange man in my bedroom…”
He feigned surprise, sending Jackie a devastating grin. “Why, I suppose there is! Fancy that!”
“Well…anything could happen…”
His grin widened. “Well, certainly anything could happen, but now you’re talking probability versus possibility. There is always that 50-50 possibility that anything could or could not happen, but really when you think about it, what is the probability? There would have to be certain variables met, such as the weather, time of year…”
“Oh, forget I said anything!” Jackie exclaimed, slamming the door in his face.
Rose could barely hold back her giggles.
“And what do you think is so funny?” he asked, moving into the living room and sending a small smile her way.
“Nothing at all! Do you want a coffee?”
“Tea, if you have it. Three sugars.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Coming right up. You know, we should go to the police…”
She nattered on a bit more while she prepped their drinks. Wilson was such a nice man, he didn’t deserve to die like that. They really ought to let the police know.
“Have you got a cat?” Doctor Whoever called from the living room.
“No,” she answered, pouring water from the kettle into two mugs. “I mean, we did, but they’re mostly strays that come in off the estate.” She moved to the living room, placing both mugs down on the coffee table. She turned, and Doctor What’s-His-Face was on the sofa, holding that ridiculous plastic arm up to his neck, pretending struggle as it choked him. “I thought Mickey chucked that out! Give it a rest, will ya? ‘S really not funny anymore. I didn’t even get your name! Doctor…what was it?”
Before he could respond, he managed to push the arm away from him and, seeming of it’s own accord, it hovered in mid-air for a moment and latched directly onto Rose’s face. She began to panic, falling onto the sofa as she attempted to pry it off. Doctor No-Name sprang into action, also tugging at the arm but only succeeding in pulling them both backwards onto the coffee table and shattering it to pieces.
They rolled about on the floor a few times, Rose panicking further as the hand refused to leave her face. Finally, Doctor Something-Or-Other managed to free her and held up that ridiculous silver tube to the hand, only to have it stop wriggling and die with a pathetic-sounding groan.
“It’s okay, I’ve stopped it.” He immediately turned to her, scanning her for any injuries. “Are you all right? It didn’t hurt you?”
Rose was shocked at the concern in his voice, a direct contrast with how aloof and fairly rude he’d been with her up until this point. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good.” He rubbed his hands over his face briefly before hopping up, all energy once more. “Well, Rose Tyler, always a pleasure, but I must dash. Bye for now! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
He started purposefully towards the door. For a split second, Rose just stared after him. Then, she sprang up from her spot on the floor, grabbed her hooded sweatshirt from the hook by the door, and chased after him.
“You can’t just go swanning off! That’s not fair!” she called once she had caught up to him on the stairs.
“Of course I can! Blimey, now there’s a phrase that doesn’t make sense, ‘swanning off.’ What does that even mean, ‘swanning off’? I tell you, the English language is so ridiculous sometimes…”
“Don’t change the subject! That arm tried to kill me! You’ve got to tell me what’s going on!”
“I don’t have to tell you anything! You’re not supposed to have anything to do with this!”
“But first those plastic men tried to kill me, and now an arm? Why me? What have I done wrong?”
“Contrary to what your mother might have told you, the entire world does not revolve around you,” he responded, still not breaking his stride. “They were after me, not you.”
“So what you’re saying is that the entire world revolves around you,” Rose told him, a bit of an attitude in her voice.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it exactly like that…” he trailed off a moment. “No, no actually I would. Well done, Rose.”
Rose laughed in disbelief. “You’re full of it.”
“Been told worse.”
Rose decided it was about time to turn on the patented Tyler charm. No man could resist. She bounded up to him, wrapped her arms around one of his, and looked up at him with her eyes wide and pleading. “Come on, tell me,” she began in a soft voice. “I’ve seen enough.”
The near constant ice behind his eyes seemed to melt, just a tiny bit. Enough for Rose to feel triumphant. “Oh, all right,” he relented. “What do you want to know?”
She still had to jog to keep up with his pace, but Rose was determined not to let this opportunity pass her by. “First of all, I don’t even know your name!”
“I told you, the Doctor.”
“The Doctor?”
“That’s me! Hello!” He smiled and waggled his fingers at her in greeting.
Rose chuckled a bit. Was it her imagination, or did his smile widen a bit at this? “Okay, fine, Doctor, tell me this: shop window dummies, what’s that about? Someone’s trying to take over Britain’s shops?”
“No, no, definitely not,” the Doctor told her, his voice and expression hardening considerably. “This is a classic invasion plan if I ever saw one. You have here a telepathic creature with the ability to control anything made of plastic on the entire planet. It wants to destroy the human race so it can have the planet all to itself to feed off.” He glanced over at Rose. “Do you even believe me?”
“No,” she shot back immediately, although she wasn’t so sure.
“Well, you’re still here. That’s something, I suppose.”
“Who else knows about this?”
“No one. Just us.”
Rose looked over at this man, the Doctor, a wave of understanding and sympathy passing through her. “So, what, you’re on your own?”
Something flashed in his eyes at this, something Rose could barely identify before it was gone. “Who else is there? You’re all oblivious. You’ve got your sleep and your telly and your beans on toast, meanwhile a war is raging around you and you’ve got no clue!”
“So tell me!” Rose was getting frustrated again.
“I just did! Now, really, it’s been lovely chatting, but I must be off. Planets to save, evil to vanquish, just a normal day in the life!” He pulled away from Rose and began striding across the street.
“Really, Doctor!” Rose called to him. He paused, and Rose noticed his shoulders slump just a fraction before he turned back to face her. “Who are you?”
If possible, the hardness in his eyes seemed to take over his entire face. He rushed over to her and grasped both of her hands, the coolness of his touch taking her by surprise. He looked down at her and directly into her eyes.
“Now, you listen to me, Rose Tyler,” he began, voice bordering on furious. “I am not the sort of man you want to get mixed up with. I’m not nice, and I’m not safe. I’ve seen and done things that you couldn’t possibly comprehend. People close to me tend not to live very long, and you seem like the sort of person the world could stand to have around a bit longer. Now, forget me. Go home.”
He dropped her hands and immediately started back the way he came. Rose was stunned. The look in his eyes while he had been talking to her…she nearly shivered. She turned to head back to the estate.
A gust of wind blew all around her, accompanying an odd grinding and wheezing noise from behind her. Immediately she turned and jogged back in the opposite direction, just in time to see an odd blue box fade from sight.
******
While he certainly was a nice enough man, Clive had been a bust. Alien? Immortal? Really? How about go down to casualty and get your head examined, Clive.
Rose was so lost in her thoughts she hadn't even noticed Mickey's strange behavior until he started asking so incessantly about the Doctor. Then she was so focused on him that she didn’t even notice a man in brown pinstripes come up to their table.
“Oh, Rose! Fancy seeing you here! Small world, isn’t it?”
Surprised at the familiar voice, Rose looked up and saw the Doctor standing alongside their table, hands tucked into his trouser pockets and looking jovial.
“Ah…gotcha,” Mickey smirked.
“Hmmm…” the Doctor leaned over and, to Rose’s complete surprise and mild disgust, licked Mickey right across the cheek. “Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, Rose, but it seems your boyfriend here is made of plastic. Best come with me…”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Mickey suddenly leaped from the table, and Rose screeched as his hands flattened into giant paddles and chopped the table right down the middle.
Mickey came after the Doctor next, who took off running and expertly dodged him all over the restaurant. Mickey slapped his paddle-hands anywhere he could reach, people were screaming and running towards the exit, and Rose had no idea what to do.
Except, the next time the Doctor ran past her, Mickey not far behind, she instinctively stuck out her foot. This sent Mickey flying, sprawling out gracelessly on the floor.
The Doctor screeched to a halt, turned, and gaped at Mickey’s still form. He slowly looked up at Rose, a huge smile gracing his features. He let out a gorgeous, throaty laugh. “Ohhoho, Rose Tyler! You are brilliant!”
His mood was infectious, and Rose found herself giggling along with him. He moved towards her quickly, arms outstretched as if to pull her into an embrace, but seemed to stop himself at the last second. Instead, he crouched down to Mickey’s plastic copy on the floor.
“Sorry, mate, not the best way to get ahead in life,” he said, grasping both sides of Mickey’s face and, giving one sharp tug, pulled his head clear off.
Rose stood there, stunned. “You pulled off his head!”
“Don’t worry, it’s not your boyfriend,” he hopped back up and grasped her hand. “He’s alive somewhere, they had to maintain the copy. Come on, hurry, I need to trace the signal.”
The Doctor pulled her through the dining room and kitchens, out the back doors and into an alley behind the restaurant. Apparently, the copy of Mickey had decided not to stay down for long, and she could hear him banging through the restaurant behind them. The Doctor aimed the silver tube at the door and strode calmly towards the same blue box Rose had noticed earlier.
Rose, meanwhile, was trying to pull the lock apart from a nearby gate. “Come on, use that tube thing!”
“Oi! Sonic screwdriver, thank you very much! Don’t bother with that, let’s go in here.” He gestured towards the box, pulling out a key and letting himself in.
“We can’t hide inside a wooden box!” Rose protested, panicking further as she heard Mickey’s double banging away on the locked door.
Despite herself, Rose followed the Doctor into the blue box, only to take one look and run right back out. However, upon hearing the restaurant doors start to give way, Rose decided to take her chances with the impossible blue box.
“It’s gonna follow us!” she said to the Doctor, who was hooking up leads and wires to the plastic head.
“Not to worry, nothing can get through those doors,” he mumbled absently before turning to face her, hands in his pockets. “There we are then. So…where were we?”
Rose looked around the cavernous room. “The inside’s bigger than the outside?”
“Yes…”
“It’s…alien.”
He looked around the room, scratching the back of his head. “A bit, yeah…”
“Are you alien?” she looked directly at him.
“Yes,” he answered simply. When Rose didn’t respond right away, he seemed hesitant. “Is that…alright? Because, well…I mean, there‘s not much I can do about it if it isn‘t. You‘ve been a right trooper through all of this, and I’d hate it…I mean really hate it if this was the sort of thing that scared you off…”
“Wait,” she held up her hands to stop him. “Just…hold on for a minute. Yeah, it’s all right.”
A bit of the tension and nerves melted out of him at this. “Yeah?” he asked, a slow grin forming on his face.
“Yeah,” she smiled back, letting out a breathy little laugh.
He chuckled a bit at this as well, before clapping his hands together excitedly. “Well, now that’s settled, Rose Tyler, welcome to the TARDIS! That’s T-A-R-D-I-S, Time and Relative Dimension in Space.”
“Right…” Rose made her way towards the center console. “It’s…gorgeous.”
The Doctor beamed at her. “That she is.”
“So…Mickey’s all right, you said?” Rose asked, turning towards him.
“Most likely,” he answered. “Hopefully when we trace the signal from the head, we’ll find him.”
“Okay,” she muttered, eyes going downcast. She wrapped her arms across her chest, concern for Mickey overtaking her thoughts
“Rose…look at me,” he told her softly, grasping her by the shoulders. She looked up and was struck by the intensity in his gaze. “I promise, I will do everything in my power to bring him back alive. I am not about to lose anyone else, do you understand?”
Rose took a deep breath, pulling herself together. “Yeah,” she answered. “’Cept…why’s the head melting?”
“What?” he asked, turning back to the console, where Plastic Mickey’s head was currently melting into the controls. “Oh no no no no! Don’t do this now! I‘m gonna lose the signal!”
He began racing around the console, turning bits and bobs and occasionally shouting in frustration. Eventually, the groaning of the engines stopped and he bounded down the ramp and out the doors.
“Doctor!” Rose called, chasing after him. “You can’t go out there! It’s not safe!”
She raced out of the doors, only to find that they had moved. Instead of the back alley behind the pizza restaurant, they were on the Victoria Embankment.
“We moved!” she exclaimed, turning around to survey her surroundings.
“Weell…sort of. More like disappeared there and reappeared here. Simple spatial relocation, from one set of coordinates across a synchronous temporal plane to a second set within the same relative parameters…”
“Yeah, you can stop right there!” Rose grinned at him. “Lost me at simple.” Something suddenly occurred to her, and she looked over at the slender man quizzically. “If you’re an alien, how come you sound like you’re from London?”
“Oh, and I bet you thought there was only one Barcelona, too?” the Doctor answered her.
Rose stared at him before shaking her head. She wouldn’t even attempt to understand him anymore. “What’s a ‘Police Public Call Box’?”
The Doctor grinned at her. “Oh, brilliant question, Rose Tyler. It’s a disguise. A telephone box, from the 1950’s. Gorgeous, eh?”
“Oh, yeah. Lovely,” Rose agreed. “And this…living plastic…what’s it got against us?”
“Oh, nothing at all. It loves the Earth. Has the fixins of a seven-course gourmet meal for the Nestene Consciousness. All of its protein planets rotted in the war. It just wants to eat, but doesn’t realize that it shouldn’t kill billions of people to do it.“ His voice had gone hard again.
“How do we stop it?” Rose asked.
“We don’t do anything!” he snapped back. “I am going to find it and try to reason with it, maybe even give it a lift off-world if it agrees. You are going home where it’s safe.”
“Yeah, no chance,” Rose brushed him off. “And what if it doesn’t agree? What then?”
The Doctor sighed, pulling a tube filled with a deep blue liquid out of his suit coat. “Then I have this. Anti-plastic. For emergency use only. And you really, really should go home.”
“Not happening! So, how do we find this thing? What are we looking for?”
The Doctor blew out a breath. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t got the foggiest.” He ran his hands over his face in frustration. “The Nestene Consciousness will need to use a huge transmitter to control the plastic. It must be using a shield or a cloaking device. How else could you hide something that big in a city so small?”
“Well, what would it look like?”
“Hmm…now there’s a question. Huge, round, right smack dab in the center of London. I‘m missing something, something right under my nose. What is it?”
The Doctor had moved so that right behind him, Rose could see the very large, very round London Eye. There, it had to be! She gestured a bit to the Doctor, trying to indicate what she figured out.
“What?” he asked, turning around to look. “What?”
She pulled a face and gestured again.
She could tell he was beginning to get frustrated. “What is it, Rose, what?” He turned once more and, finally, seemed to notice the giant metal disc sitting right across the river.
“Oh,” he breathed, once again giving Rose that slow, genuine smile that was beginning to do funny things to her insides. “Brilliant you, Rose Tyler! Come on!”
He grasped her hand and, together, they ran across the Westminster Bridge.
******
They had managed to find their way underneath the London Eye, Rose immediately stiffening at the sight of a large, moving orange blob that the Doctor explained was the Nestene Consciousness.
“So, what…,you’re gonna just dump in the anti-plastic and be done with it, yeah?” Rose asked.
“No,” he stated. “We’re not here to kill it. It gets one chance.”
“One chance,” Rose repeated. She scanned the room, eyes falling on a form sprawled on a lower level. “Oh, my God, Mickey! Doctor, he’s alive!”
She immediately started down the stairs and embraced her boyfriend. “Are you all right?”
“That thing! That blob down there, Rose! It can talk!”
Rose immediately went to hug him again, but backed away when she caught a whiff of his clothing. “Ugh, you stink.”
“I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract. According to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation,” the Doctor’s voice suddenly boomed through the room. The blob in the vat gurgled something out in response.
“Thank you. May I?” he gestured towards the creature, who again gurgled something that the Doctor apparently understood.
“"I am addressing the Nestene Consciousness. You have infiltrated this civilization by means of warped, shunt technology, in violation of several statutes of the Shadow Proclamation. You have one chance to depart this planet in peace."
Rose gazed at him. Here was this man, who had smiled at her, called her brilliant, and promised that he would save her boyfriend. Now, he was the man in charge. He was imposing and intimidating, giving that wriggling orange blob a stare that could cut diamonds.
Rose shivered. Whether it was from fear or excitement, she had no idea.
The Nestene Consciousness made another noise in response. “Now, you really, really ought to think about this. There are no second chances. I can find you a planet where you can feed without the cost of six billion lives. I am asking you, on their behalf, to come with me.”
As he was talking, two plastic dummies were sneaking up behind him. Rose was a second too late in shouting, “Doctor!” before they grabbed him by the arms and began inspecting his pockets. One pulled out the tube of anti-plastic.
The Consciousness roared in anger.
“Oh, no! No no no! I did not come here to kill you! I wasn’t going to use that solution, it was just…insurance!”
A door opened above them, and Rose’s heart sank when she saw the TARDIS pushed in. The Doctor was suddenly pleading, arguing with the grumbling of the Consciousness about his ship, a war, and planets that he couldn‘t save. Rose‘s heart nearly tore at the broken, defeated tone his voice had taken on.
A blue light suddenly shot up from the vat, straight through the ceiling. “What’s going on?” Rose shouted.
“The Consciousness sensed the TARDIS and it’s superior technology! It thinks we are attacking it! It’s starting the activation signal! Rose, please, get out of here! Go!”
Rose pulled out her mobile immediately, calling her mother and making sure she was safe. Of course, Jackie wouldn’t listen to her. Late night shopping, honestly! Rose sometimes wondered if she inherited her knack for trouble from her mother.
After pocketing her mobile, Rose immediately began searching for the exit and turned just in time to see the stairs collapse. “The stairs have gone!”
“Get to the TARDIS!” the Doctor called to her, still struggling with the dummies holding him back.
Rose pulled Mickey up to the TARDIS doors, and shrieked in frustration when the door wouldn’t budge. “I never got the key!”
Mickey was clinging to her middle. The dummies were still holding onto the Doctor. They were trapped. No way out.
Except…Rose scanned the room, a plan forming quickly in her head. She wasn’t positive it would work, but what did they have to lose?
She pried Mickey’s arms off of her and stood on shaky legs, catching the Doctor’s eyes. He was begging her in his gaze to leave, to try and escape and not to do anything stupid.
Yeah…fat chance.
Despite Mickey‘s pleas to just leave the Doctor, Rose knew she couldn‘t do it. She ran over to the wall and unhooked an axe. “That does it. He's out here alone,” she swing the axe at a chain, allowing it to swing free, “protecting the universe, but who's making sure he's safe? Nobody. Just me.” She grasped the chain. “I don’t have much, no job, no A-levels, but I have got something. Jericho Street Under Seven’s Gymnastics Team.” She turned, bracing herself to go at a run. “I’ve got the bronze.”
She swung on the chain towards the Doctor and the dummies. The Doctor’s reflexes must have kicked in, because he ducked in time for her to miss him and threw one dummy over his shoulder into the vat containing the Nestene. Rose managed to catch the other dummy with her feet, sending it toppling into the vat, along with the the loosely-capped bottle of anti-plastic. The Nestene Consciousness began screeching in agony.
“Rose!” the Doctor shouted gleefully on her swing back, catching her around the middle and steadying her on her feet. The look on his face made Rose glow. He stared at her with a mixture of pride, awe, and sheer incredulity. “You completely, completely stupid girl! Now we’re in trouble! Come on!”
He let go of Rose’s waist in favor of her hand, pulling her up to the TARDIS, and efficiently maneuvering around Mickey who seemed to be glued to the doors. The Doctor shoved to two of them into the doors and raced over to the console, pushing buttons and flipping levers like mad, until the engines suddenly silenced.
Of course, Mickey was the first one out, and completely speechless at what he’d just experienced. Rose followed him, immediately retrieving her mobile and laughing in relief when her mother answered and began warning her not to go outside. Rather than answer back, she simply hung up and turned her attention on Mickey.
“Fat lot of good you were,” she chastised him. He didn’t answer, he simply stared wide-eyed back towards the TARDIS.
The Doctor was standing in the doorway, leaning casually against the side and giving her a charming grin. “Oh, what was that, Nestene Consciousness? You wanted to take over the Earth? Well, not while Rose Tyler’s around, you’re not! Oh, well done you!”
Rose beamed. “Well, seemed like you saved me often enough. Nice to return the favor.”
“Oh, obviously,” he answered, his smile turning soft and even slightly embarrassed. “Thank you.”
Rose smiled at him.
“Well, then!” the Doctor clapped his hands together. “Lots to do! Planets to visit, evil plots to foil and whatnot.”
“Yeah, well…” Rose began, trying to figure out how to even begin saying goodbye to this man.
“I mean,” he began slowly, hands tucked into his pockets and suddenly looking like a shy little boy. “You could, if you wanted to…come with me? Maybe? I mean, if you want, you don’t have to, but I can take you…anywhere. Not just London. Clom, Poosh, we could orbit around Saturn, watch supernovae being born, ride the tails of a plasma storm…what do you think?”
Rose stared. Planets? Plasma storms? It all sounded too good to be true. He could take her anywhere? To the stars?
Mickey latched onto her once again, and she hesitated. If she went, who would take care of him? And her mum? They needed her, didn’t they?
The Doctor must have taken her hesitation to mean “no.” His eyes turned downcast and his face crumpled, almost imperceptibly. “I mean, it’s no problem if you want to stay, I just thought you might…but really no, it’s no trouble, I mean…”
She looked at this man, someone she really had just met. She knew nothing about him, didn’t even know what sort of alien he was. But she knew he needed someone. Why couldn’t it be her? Her mum and Mickey would be okay.
“Hold on!” she protested, cutting off his rambling. “Give me a chance to answer before you write me off, you great lump!”
He looked up again, delight starting to shine through on his face. “So…?”
“Yeah,” she finally said, grinning at him.
“Yeah?” he replied, his answering smile brighter than the sun.
“Yes.” Rose turned to Mickey, slowly prying him off her, pulling him to his feet and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you…for everything. I’ll see you soon, okay?” She turned and ran towards the TARDIS, a huge smile stretching across her face.
The Doctor, still wearing that incredible grin, raced out of the doorway of the TARDIS to meet her halfway. He picked her up in his embrace and twirled her around joyously, Rose laughing the entire time.
He finally set her down on the ground, still holding her close and still smiling. “Rose Tyler,” he began. “I am going to take you to so many places!”
He grasped her hand in his and, together, the Doctor and Rose Tyler ran gleefully into the TARDIS, on the way to their next adventure.
"Oh, I nearly forgot!" the Doctor turned to her as they crossed the TARDIS threshold. He leaned in, very close to her ear, and practically whispered the next words. "It also travels in time."
Author: onabearskinrug
Character/Pairing: Ten/Rose
Rating: G
Summary: 'Rose' with a certain...pinstriped twist
Author's Notes: Written for challenge 91 over at then_theres_us, photo prompt 9. Muchos gracias to the best gals ever, kelkat9, timelord1 (who I blatantly stole some lines from), and who_in_whoville for all of the help and encouragement with this!
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. All recognizable dialogue and characters belong to the BBC.
Rose Tyler was an ordinary 19-year-old girl, living on a council estate in London, England. She woke up at 07:30 every morning, hopped a bus, went to her job at the department store, ate chips with her boyfriend, and went home. She would watch telly with her mother or go down to the pub with her mates before heading off to bed only to wake up and start the day all over again.
Rose would not have been surprised if, eventually, she went mad with boredom.
On this particular day, she followed her morning routine to the letter. The entire day went off without a hitch. Then Dan the Security Guard handed her the lottery money. Rose sighed. She’d have to take it down to Wilson, their chief electrician, so he could put it in the safe.
Well…at least it was something different.
Rose took the lift to the basement and called for Wilson. No answer. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to find him. Maybe she’d have to spend the night in the furniture department. That certainly would be an adventure.
She walked through a set of red double doors into some kind of storage unit. Several of the shop dummies were there, sporting last year’s fashions. Rose strolled through the room, still calling for Wilson and feeling quite irritated that he seemed to have knocked off early. He didn’t seem to be anywhere close by, and Rose couldn’t open the safe by herself.
Rose started as the red doors slammed shut with a bang. Heart suddenly slamming in her chest, she raced over and tried to open them. Locked.
A rattling noise halted her attempts. “Is that someone mucking about? Who is it?”
One of the dummies peeked around a corner and started towards her. Rose was shocked. Dummies couldn’t move on their own! It had to be a person in a costume. Or remote controlled. It couldn’t be that the plastic dummies were coming to life! She moved steadily backwards as it advanced on her.
“You got me, very funny! Right, I’ve got the joke! Who’s idea was this? Is it Derrik’s? Is it? Derrik, is this you?”
More and more dummies began moving, backing Rose into a corner. The one closest to her raised his hand, moving as if to strike her down. Rose’s heart was racing. There was no way out. Here she was, 19 years old, and about to be struck dead by a shop window dummy in the basement of Henrick’s department store. She shut her eyes, bracing herself for the impact.
Until a smooth hand slipped effortlessly into hers. She opened her eyes and only had time to register a man with unruly brown hair tugging her towards him and saying, “Run!”
So she did.
The man pulled her through the corridors, the dummies in hot pursuit. She could barely keep up, despite his firm grip on her hand. His long, tan coat billowed behind him. Rose couldn’t help but look back at their pursuers. She noticed he never did.
Once they made into the life, he jabbed the “close door“ button repeatedly. Rose was tempted to tell him it wouldn‘t make the doors shut any faster, but she held her tongue. One of the dummies had managed to shove an arm into the lift, blocking it from closing. The man started pulling, only to have it disconnect from its shoulder with a loud “pop”.
Rose gaped at him after the lift finally started moving. “You pulled his arm off!”
“Hm?” he murmured, turning towards her. “Oh, you’re still here. It’s alright, it’s plastic. See?” He tossed her the arm. He was right…plastic.
Looking up from the appendage, Rose was finally able to fully see the man who had saved her. He was tall and skinny, dressed in a brown pinstriped suit that he had paired with white Converse trainers. It was an odd combination, but somehow it…worked on him.
“So, what are they students? Is this a student thing?”
He looked at her like she had just dribbled on her shirt. “No, definitely not students.”
“Well, since you seem to know everything!” Rose couldn’t help snapping, she was frustrated. She’d just almost died! She deserved an explanation.
“Pardon me if I don’t have time for your questions!” he snapped back. They had reached the ground level, and the man pulled a slender, silver tube out of his suit pocket. “Hold on,” he murmured, holding Rose back as he shined a blue light on the lift button and it started sparking. He turned and began striding towards the street exit.
“What’s that thing, then? Who are they down there? I said, who are they?” Rose started after him.
“Number one, I do not have time for this! I am on a very strict timetable here. And B, you need to go that way and I am going this way, because you need to get as far away from here as possible.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on!” Rose exclaimed, still following him. “Those things nearly killed me!”
“Oi! You‘re fine, eh? Not even a scratch. You‘re luckier than most.” He turned and studied her intently. Rose was struck by the depths in his lovely, haunted brown eyes. For a moment, she could barely breathe for the loss and pain she saw there before they hardened over once again. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“Nope.”
He sighed. “Right, short answer then. Those creatures are being controlled by something that can use thought to animate anything made of plastic. Now, you really need to go!”
They had reached the doors. He shoved her onto the street and turned to leave before Rose shouted, “Wait!”
“Oh, what now?” he asked, clearly exasperated.
“You saved my life! Can’t you at least tell me who you are?”
His eyes softened a bit at this. “I’m the Doctor. You?”
“Rose. Rose Tyler.”
“Rose Tyler,” he repeated, the ghost of a genuine smile gracing his lips for the first time since she he took her hand. Despite the fact that looked a bit awkward, like he hadn’t used those particular muscles in quite some time, Rose decided she liked the look on him. “Pleasure to meet you. Now, I highly recommend that you get the hell out of here.”
He slammed the door shut behind him.
Despite her desire to go right back in there and find out more, Rose decided to take Doctor Whatever’s advice and began running. She managed to get herself safely across the street before the building exploded.
*****
After a rather long evening that consisted of her mum reassuring every last friend and relative that she was indeed alive, nagging her about finding a job, and also a bout of crying after hearing on the news that Wilson’s body had been recovered from the building, Rose once again awoke to her alarm blaring at 07:30. It took her mother to remind her that no, there was no point in getting up. She didn‘t have a job to get to anymore.
Still, there wasn’t much point in going back to bed either. She got up, showered and dressed, and managed to make it into the kitchen before her mum was even out of her dressing gown. Jackie wasted no time in delving into Rose’s job situation.
Rose shuddered at the thought of working full-time at the butcher’s.
A noise from the door startled Rose from her thoughts. As she chastised her mother for forgetting to nail down the cat flap, she briefly considered just how much she sounded like Jackie and just how long it would be until she turned into her.
As Rose crouched down to inspect the little cat door, she noticed that there were indeed nails scattered around on the floor. Really? Her mother just brought the nails to the door and then, what, forgot the hammer?
Wait…wouldn’t she have noticed a pile of nails on the floor before today?
The cat door flapped once again. Startled, Rose poked it back, and slowly lifted it up to reveal a familiar pair of brown eyes.
Instantly, Rose was on her feet and opening the door.
“Oh, really? Well, it would be you, wouldn’t it?” Doctor Whatever-His-Name-Was huffed.
“Well, I do live here!” Rose shot back. “And I’m only home ‘cause someone blew up my job!”
“Hm, yes…tragic…” He once again was holding the silver tube with the blue light on the end. “Must have the wrong setting. Unless you've got breast implants or something..." He proceeded to look her up and down in a rather clinical matter.
"Oi! They're real, in case you were wondering."
"I was in fact. Well, if you haven't got any live plastic, then I'll be off!"
“Oh, no you don’t!” Rose grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into her flat. “Inside. Now!”
“Who’s that?” Jackie called from her bedroom.
“It’s about the shop, he’s part of the inquiry. He’ll give us ten minutes,” Rose answered on their way to the living room.
“She deserves compensation!” Jackie told the man who had just stopped at her bedroom door.
“Yes, well, don’t we all?” he replied absently, glancing around at the various items in the flat.
Immediately, she heard her mother enter flirt-mode. “Oh…I’m in my dressing gown…”
She turned just in time to see Doctor Whose-Its wink saucily at her, before leaning causually against her mother’s doorframe with his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Well, would you look at that! Yes you are!”
Jackie must have been encouraged at this. “There’s a strange man in my bedroom…”
He feigned surprise, sending Jackie a devastating grin. “Why, I suppose there is! Fancy that!”
“Well…anything could happen…”
His grin widened. “Well, certainly anything could happen, but now you’re talking probability versus possibility. There is always that 50-50 possibility that anything could or could not happen, but really when you think about it, what is the probability? There would have to be certain variables met, such as the weather, time of year…”
“Oh, forget I said anything!” Jackie exclaimed, slamming the door in his face.
Rose could barely hold back her giggles.
“And what do you think is so funny?” he asked, moving into the living room and sending a small smile her way.
“Nothing at all! Do you want a coffee?”
“Tea, if you have it. Three sugars.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Coming right up. You know, we should go to the police…”
She nattered on a bit more while she prepped their drinks. Wilson was such a nice man, he didn’t deserve to die like that. They really ought to let the police know.
“Have you got a cat?” Doctor Whoever called from the living room.
“No,” she answered, pouring water from the kettle into two mugs. “I mean, we did, but they’re mostly strays that come in off the estate.” She moved to the living room, placing both mugs down on the coffee table. She turned, and Doctor What’s-His-Face was on the sofa, holding that ridiculous plastic arm up to his neck, pretending struggle as it choked him. “I thought Mickey chucked that out! Give it a rest, will ya? ‘S really not funny anymore. I didn’t even get your name! Doctor…what was it?”
Before he could respond, he managed to push the arm away from him and, seeming of it’s own accord, it hovered in mid-air for a moment and latched directly onto Rose’s face. She began to panic, falling onto the sofa as she attempted to pry it off. Doctor No-Name sprang into action, also tugging at the arm but only succeeding in pulling them both backwards onto the coffee table and shattering it to pieces.
They rolled about on the floor a few times, Rose panicking further as the hand refused to leave her face. Finally, Doctor Something-Or-Other managed to free her and held up that ridiculous silver tube to the hand, only to have it stop wriggling and die with a pathetic-sounding groan.
“It’s okay, I’ve stopped it.” He immediately turned to her, scanning her for any injuries. “Are you all right? It didn’t hurt you?”
Rose was shocked at the concern in his voice, a direct contrast with how aloof and fairly rude he’d been with her up until this point. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good.” He rubbed his hands over his face briefly before hopping up, all energy once more. “Well, Rose Tyler, always a pleasure, but I must dash. Bye for now! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
He started purposefully towards the door. For a split second, Rose just stared after him. Then, she sprang up from her spot on the floor, grabbed her hooded sweatshirt from the hook by the door, and chased after him.
“You can’t just go swanning off! That’s not fair!” she called once she had caught up to him on the stairs.
“Of course I can! Blimey, now there’s a phrase that doesn’t make sense, ‘swanning off.’ What does that even mean, ‘swanning off’? I tell you, the English language is so ridiculous sometimes…”
“Don’t change the subject! That arm tried to kill me! You’ve got to tell me what’s going on!”
“I don’t have to tell you anything! You’re not supposed to have anything to do with this!”
“But first those plastic men tried to kill me, and now an arm? Why me? What have I done wrong?”
“Contrary to what your mother might have told you, the entire world does not revolve around you,” he responded, still not breaking his stride. “They were after me, not you.”
“So what you’re saying is that the entire world revolves around you,” Rose told him, a bit of an attitude in her voice.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it exactly like that…” he trailed off a moment. “No, no actually I would. Well done, Rose.”
Rose laughed in disbelief. “You’re full of it.”
“Been told worse.”
Rose decided it was about time to turn on the patented Tyler charm. No man could resist. She bounded up to him, wrapped her arms around one of his, and looked up at him with her eyes wide and pleading. “Come on, tell me,” she began in a soft voice. “I’ve seen enough.”
The near constant ice behind his eyes seemed to melt, just a tiny bit. Enough for Rose to feel triumphant. “Oh, all right,” he relented. “What do you want to know?”
She still had to jog to keep up with his pace, but Rose was determined not to let this opportunity pass her by. “First of all, I don’t even know your name!”
“I told you, the Doctor.”
“The Doctor?”
“That’s me! Hello!” He smiled and waggled his fingers at her in greeting.
Rose chuckled a bit. Was it her imagination, or did his smile widen a bit at this? “Okay, fine, Doctor, tell me this: shop window dummies, what’s that about? Someone’s trying to take over Britain’s shops?”
“No, no, definitely not,” the Doctor told her, his voice and expression hardening considerably. “This is a classic invasion plan if I ever saw one. You have here a telepathic creature with the ability to control anything made of plastic on the entire planet. It wants to destroy the human race so it can have the planet all to itself to feed off.” He glanced over at Rose. “Do you even believe me?”
“No,” she shot back immediately, although she wasn’t so sure.
“Well, you’re still here. That’s something, I suppose.”
“Who else knows about this?”
“No one. Just us.”
Rose looked over at this man, the Doctor, a wave of understanding and sympathy passing through her. “So, what, you’re on your own?”
Something flashed in his eyes at this, something Rose could barely identify before it was gone. “Who else is there? You’re all oblivious. You’ve got your sleep and your telly and your beans on toast, meanwhile a war is raging around you and you’ve got no clue!”
“So tell me!” Rose was getting frustrated again.
“I just did! Now, really, it’s been lovely chatting, but I must be off. Planets to save, evil to vanquish, just a normal day in the life!” He pulled away from Rose and began striding across the street.
“Really, Doctor!” Rose called to him. He paused, and Rose noticed his shoulders slump just a fraction before he turned back to face her. “Who are you?”
If possible, the hardness in his eyes seemed to take over his entire face. He rushed over to her and grasped both of her hands, the coolness of his touch taking her by surprise. He looked down at her and directly into her eyes.
“Now, you listen to me, Rose Tyler,” he began, voice bordering on furious. “I am not the sort of man you want to get mixed up with. I’m not nice, and I’m not safe. I’ve seen and done things that you couldn’t possibly comprehend. People close to me tend not to live very long, and you seem like the sort of person the world could stand to have around a bit longer. Now, forget me. Go home.”
He dropped her hands and immediately started back the way he came. Rose was stunned. The look in his eyes while he had been talking to her…she nearly shivered. She turned to head back to the estate.
A gust of wind blew all around her, accompanying an odd grinding and wheezing noise from behind her. Immediately she turned and jogged back in the opposite direction, just in time to see an odd blue box fade from sight.
******
While he certainly was a nice enough man, Clive had been a bust. Alien? Immortal? Really? How about go down to casualty and get your head examined, Clive.
Rose was so lost in her thoughts she hadn't even noticed Mickey's strange behavior until he started asking so incessantly about the Doctor. Then she was so focused on him that she didn’t even notice a man in brown pinstripes come up to their table.
“Oh, Rose! Fancy seeing you here! Small world, isn’t it?”
Surprised at the familiar voice, Rose looked up and saw the Doctor standing alongside their table, hands tucked into his trouser pockets and looking jovial.
“Ah…gotcha,” Mickey smirked.
“Hmmm…” the Doctor leaned over and, to Rose’s complete surprise and mild disgust, licked Mickey right across the cheek. “Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, Rose, but it seems your boyfriend here is made of plastic. Best come with me…”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Mickey suddenly leaped from the table, and Rose screeched as his hands flattened into giant paddles and chopped the table right down the middle.
Mickey came after the Doctor next, who took off running and expertly dodged him all over the restaurant. Mickey slapped his paddle-hands anywhere he could reach, people were screaming and running towards the exit, and Rose had no idea what to do.
Except, the next time the Doctor ran past her, Mickey not far behind, she instinctively stuck out her foot. This sent Mickey flying, sprawling out gracelessly on the floor.
The Doctor screeched to a halt, turned, and gaped at Mickey’s still form. He slowly looked up at Rose, a huge smile gracing his features. He let out a gorgeous, throaty laugh. “Ohhoho, Rose Tyler! You are brilliant!”
His mood was infectious, and Rose found herself giggling along with him. He moved towards her quickly, arms outstretched as if to pull her into an embrace, but seemed to stop himself at the last second. Instead, he crouched down to Mickey’s plastic copy on the floor.
“Sorry, mate, not the best way to get ahead in life,” he said, grasping both sides of Mickey’s face and, giving one sharp tug, pulled his head clear off.
Rose stood there, stunned. “You pulled off his head!”
“Don’t worry, it’s not your boyfriend,” he hopped back up and grasped her hand. “He’s alive somewhere, they had to maintain the copy. Come on, hurry, I need to trace the signal.”
The Doctor pulled her through the dining room and kitchens, out the back doors and into an alley behind the restaurant. Apparently, the copy of Mickey had decided not to stay down for long, and she could hear him banging through the restaurant behind them. The Doctor aimed the silver tube at the door and strode calmly towards the same blue box Rose had noticed earlier.
Rose, meanwhile, was trying to pull the lock apart from a nearby gate. “Come on, use that tube thing!”
“Oi! Sonic screwdriver, thank you very much! Don’t bother with that, let’s go in here.” He gestured towards the box, pulling out a key and letting himself in.
“We can’t hide inside a wooden box!” Rose protested, panicking further as she heard Mickey’s double banging away on the locked door.
Despite herself, Rose followed the Doctor into the blue box, only to take one look and run right back out. However, upon hearing the restaurant doors start to give way, Rose decided to take her chances with the impossible blue box.
“It’s gonna follow us!” she said to the Doctor, who was hooking up leads and wires to the plastic head.
“Not to worry, nothing can get through those doors,” he mumbled absently before turning to face her, hands in his pockets. “There we are then. So…where were we?”
Rose looked around the cavernous room. “The inside’s bigger than the outside?”
“Yes…”
“It’s…alien.”
He looked around the room, scratching the back of his head. “A bit, yeah…”
“Are you alien?” she looked directly at him.
“Yes,” he answered simply. When Rose didn’t respond right away, he seemed hesitant. “Is that…alright? Because, well…I mean, there‘s not much I can do about it if it isn‘t. You‘ve been a right trooper through all of this, and I’d hate it…I mean really hate it if this was the sort of thing that scared you off…”
“Wait,” she held up her hands to stop him. “Just…hold on for a minute. Yeah, it’s all right.”
A bit of the tension and nerves melted out of him at this. “Yeah?” he asked, a slow grin forming on his face.
“Yeah,” she smiled back, letting out a breathy little laugh.
He chuckled a bit at this as well, before clapping his hands together excitedly. “Well, now that’s settled, Rose Tyler, welcome to the TARDIS! That’s T-A-R-D-I-S, Time and Relative Dimension in Space.”
“Right…” Rose made her way towards the center console. “It’s…gorgeous.”
The Doctor beamed at her. “That she is.”
“So…Mickey’s all right, you said?” Rose asked, turning towards him.
“Most likely,” he answered. “Hopefully when we trace the signal from the head, we’ll find him.”
“Okay,” she muttered, eyes going downcast. She wrapped her arms across her chest, concern for Mickey overtaking her thoughts
“Rose…look at me,” he told her softly, grasping her by the shoulders. She looked up and was struck by the intensity in his gaze. “I promise, I will do everything in my power to bring him back alive. I am not about to lose anyone else, do you understand?”
Rose took a deep breath, pulling herself together. “Yeah,” she answered. “’Cept…why’s the head melting?”
“What?” he asked, turning back to the console, where Plastic Mickey’s head was currently melting into the controls. “Oh no no no no! Don’t do this now! I‘m gonna lose the signal!”
He began racing around the console, turning bits and bobs and occasionally shouting in frustration. Eventually, the groaning of the engines stopped and he bounded down the ramp and out the doors.
“Doctor!” Rose called, chasing after him. “You can’t go out there! It’s not safe!”
She raced out of the doors, only to find that they had moved. Instead of the back alley behind the pizza restaurant, they were on the Victoria Embankment.
“We moved!” she exclaimed, turning around to survey her surroundings.
“Weell…sort of. More like disappeared there and reappeared here. Simple spatial relocation, from one set of coordinates across a synchronous temporal plane to a second set within the same relative parameters…”
“Yeah, you can stop right there!” Rose grinned at him. “Lost me at simple.” Something suddenly occurred to her, and she looked over at the slender man quizzically. “If you’re an alien, how come you sound like you’re from London?”
“Oh, and I bet you thought there was only one Barcelona, too?” the Doctor answered her.
Rose stared at him before shaking her head. She wouldn’t even attempt to understand him anymore. “What’s a ‘Police Public Call Box’?”
The Doctor grinned at her. “Oh, brilliant question, Rose Tyler. It’s a disguise. A telephone box, from the 1950’s. Gorgeous, eh?”
“Oh, yeah. Lovely,” Rose agreed. “And this…living plastic…what’s it got against us?”
“Oh, nothing at all. It loves the Earth. Has the fixins of a seven-course gourmet meal for the Nestene Consciousness. All of its protein planets rotted in the war. It just wants to eat, but doesn’t realize that it shouldn’t kill billions of people to do it.“ His voice had gone hard again.
“How do we stop it?” Rose asked.
“We don’t do anything!” he snapped back. “I am going to find it and try to reason with it, maybe even give it a lift off-world if it agrees. You are going home where it’s safe.”
“Yeah, no chance,” Rose brushed him off. “And what if it doesn’t agree? What then?”
The Doctor sighed, pulling a tube filled with a deep blue liquid out of his suit coat. “Then I have this. Anti-plastic. For emergency use only. And you really, really should go home.”
“Not happening! So, how do we find this thing? What are we looking for?”
The Doctor blew out a breath. “To tell you the truth, I haven’t got the foggiest.” He ran his hands over his face in frustration. “The Nestene Consciousness will need to use a huge transmitter to control the plastic. It must be using a shield or a cloaking device. How else could you hide something that big in a city so small?”
“Well, what would it look like?”
“Hmm…now there’s a question. Huge, round, right smack dab in the center of London. I‘m missing something, something right under my nose. What is it?”
The Doctor had moved so that right behind him, Rose could see the very large, very round London Eye. There, it had to be! She gestured a bit to the Doctor, trying to indicate what she figured out.
“What?” he asked, turning around to look. “What?”
She pulled a face and gestured again.
She could tell he was beginning to get frustrated. “What is it, Rose, what?” He turned once more and, finally, seemed to notice the giant metal disc sitting right across the river.
“Oh,” he breathed, once again giving Rose that slow, genuine smile that was beginning to do funny things to her insides. “Brilliant you, Rose Tyler! Come on!”
He grasped her hand and, together, they ran across the Westminster Bridge.
******
They had managed to find their way underneath the London Eye, Rose immediately stiffening at the sight of a large, moving orange blob that the Doctor explained was the Nestene Consciousness.
“So, what…,you’re gonna just dump in the anti-plastic and be done with it, yeah?” Rose asked.
“No,” he stated. “We’re not here to kill it. It gets one chance.”
“One chance,” Rose repeated. She scanned the room, eyes falling on a form sprawled on a lower level. “Oh, my God, Mickey! Doctor, he’s alive!”
She immediately started down the stairs and embraced her boyfriend. “Are you all right?”
“That thing! That blob down there, Rose! It can talk!”
Rose immediately went to hug him again, but backed away when she caught a whiff of his clothing. “Ugh, you stink.”
“I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract. According to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation,” the Doctor’s voice suddenly boomed through the room. The blob in the vat gurgled something out in response.
“Thank you. May I?” he gestured towards the creature, who again gurgled something that the Doctor apparently understood.
“"I am addressing the Nestene Consciousness. You have infiltrated this civilization by means of warped, shunt technology, in violation of several statutes of the Shadow Proclamation. You have one chance to depart this planet in peace."
Rose gazed at him. Here was this man, who had smiled at her, called her brilliant, and promised that he would save her boyfriend. Now, he was the man in charge. He was imposing and intimidating, giving that wriggling orange blob a stare that could cut diamonds.
Rose shivered. Whether it was from fear or excitement, she had no idea.
The Nestene Consciousness made another noise in response. “Now, you really, really ought to think about this. There are no second chances. I can find you a planet where you can feed without the cost of six billion lives. I am asking you, on their behalf, to come with me.”
As he was talking, two plastic dummies were sneaking up behind him. Rose was a second too late in shouting, “Doctor!” before they grabbed him by the arms and began inspecting his pockets. One pulled out the tube of anti-plastic.
The Consciousness roared in anger.
“Oh, no! No no no! I did not come here to kill you! I wasn’t going to use that solution, it was just…insurance!”
A door opened above them, and Rose’s heart sank when she saw the TARDIS pushed in. The Doctor was suddenly pleading, arguing with the grumbling of the Consciousness about his ship, a war, and planets that he couldn‘t save. Rose‘s heart nearly tore at the broken, defeated tone his voice had taken on.
A blue light suddenly shot up from the vat, straight through the ceiling. “What’s going on?” Rose shouted.
“The Consciousness sensed the TARDIS and it’s superior technology! It thinks we are attacking it! It’s starting the activation signal! Rose, please, get out of here! Go!”
Rose pulled out her mobile immediately, calling her mother and making sure she was safe. Of course, Jackie wouldn’t listen to her. Late night shopping, honestly! Rose sometimes wondered if she inherited her knack for trouble from her mother.
After pocketing her mobile, Rose immediately began searching for the exit and turned just in time to see the stairs collapse. “The stairs have gone!”
“Get to the TARDIS!” the Doctor called to her, still struggling with the dummies holding him back.
Rose pulled Mickey up to the TARDIS doors, and shrieked in frustration when the door wouldn’t budge. “I never got the key!”
Mickey was clinging to her middle. The dummies were still holding onto the Doctor. They were trapped. No way out.
Except…Rose scanned the room, a plan forming quickly in her head. She wasn’t positive it would work, but what did they have to lose?
She pried Mickey’s arms off of her and stood on shaky legs, catching the Doctor’s eyes. He was begging her in his gaze to leave, to try and escape and not to do anything stupid.
Yeah…fat chance.
Despite Mickey‘s pleas to just leave the Doctor, Rose knew she couldn‘t do it. She ran over to the wall and unhooked an axe. “That does it. He's out here alone,” she swing the axe at a chain, allowing it to swing free, “protecting the universe, but who's making sure he's safe? Nobody. Just me.” She grasped the chain. “I don’t have much, no job, no A-levels, but I have got something. Jericho Street Under Seven’s Gymnastics Team.” She turned, bracing herself to go at a run. “I’ve got the bronze.”
She swung on the chain towards the Doctor and the dummies. The Doctor’s reflexes must have kicked in, because he ducked in time for her to miss him and threw one dummy over his shoulder into the vat containing the Nestene. Rose managed to catch the other dummy with her feet, sending it toppling into the vat, along with the the loosely-capped bottle of anti-plastic. The Nestene Consciousness began screeching in agony.
“Rose!” the Doctor shouted gleefully on her swing back, catching her around the middle and steadying her on her feet. The look on his face made Rose glow. He stared at her with a mixture of pride, awe, and sheer incredulity. “You completely, completely stupid girl! Now we’re in trouble! Come on!”
He let go of Rose’s waist in favor of her hand, pulling her up to the TARDIS, and efficiently maneuvering around Mickey who seemed to be glued to the doors. The Doctor shoved to two of them into the doors and raced over to the console, pushing buttons and flipping levers like mad, until the engines suddenly silenced.
Of course, Mickey was the first one out, and completely speechless at what he’d just experienced. Rose followed him, immediately retrieving her mobile and laughing in relief when her mother answered and began warning her not to go outside. Rather than answer back, she simply hung up and turned her attention on Mickey.
“Fat lot of good you were,” she chastised him. He didn’t answer, he simply stared wide-eyed back towards the TARDIS.
The Doctor was standing in the doorway, leaning casually against the side and giving her a charming grin. “Oh, what was that, Nestene Consciousness? You wanted to take over the Earth? Well, not while Rose Tyler’s around, you’re not! Oh, well done you!”
Rose beamed. “Well, seemed like you saved me often enough. Nice to return the favor.”
“Oh, obviously,” he answered, his smile turning soft and even slightly embarrassed. “Thank you.”
Rose smiled at him.
“Well, then!” the Doctor clapped his hands together. “Lots to do! Planets to visit, evil plots to foil and whatnot.”
“Yeah, well…” Rose began, trying to figure out how to even begin saying goodbye to this man.
“I mean,” he began slowly, hands tucked into his pockets and suddenly looking like a shy little boy. “You could, if you wanted to…come with me? Maybe? I mean, if you want, you don’t have to, but I can take you…anywhere. Not just London. Clom, Poosh, we could orbit around Saturn, watch supernovae being born, ride the tails of a plasma storm…what do you think?”
Rose stared. Planets? Plasma storms? It all sounded too good to be true. He could take her anywhere? To the stars?
Mickey latched onto her once again, and she hesitated. If she went, who would take care of him? And her mum? They needed her, didn’t they?
The Doctor must have taken her hesitation to mean “no.” His eyes turned downcast and his face crumpled, almost imperceptibly. “I mean, it’s no problem if you want to stay, I just thought you might…but really no, it’s no trouble, I mean…”
She looked at this man, someone she really had just met. She knew nothing about him, didn’t even know what sort of alien he was. But she knew he needed someone. Why couldn’t it be her? Her mum and Mickey would be okay.
“Hold on!” she protested, cutting off his rambling. “Give me a chance to answer before you write me off, you great lump!”
He looked up again, delight starting to shine through on his face. “So…?”
“Yeah,” she finally said, grinning at him.
“Yeah?” he replied, his answering smile brighter than the sun.
“Yes.” Rose turned to Mickey, slowly prying him off her, pulling him to his feet and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you…for everything. I’ll see you soon, okay?” She turned and ran towards the TARDIS, a huge smile stretching across her face.
The Doctor, still wearing that incredible grin, raced out of the doorway of the TARDIS to meet her halfway. He picked her up in his embrace and twirled her around joyously, Rose laughing the entire time.
He finally set her down on the ground, still holding her close and still smiling. “Rose Tyler,” he began. “I am going to take you to so many places!”
He grasped her hand in his and, together, the Doctor and Rose Tyler ran gleefully into the TARDIS, on the way to their next adventure.
"Oh, I nearly forgot!" the Doctor turned to her as they crossed the TARDIS threshold. He leaned in, very close to her ear, and practically whispered the next words. "It also travels in time."