Don't Blink - 41/?
Title: Don't Blink - 41/?
Characters: Ten, Rose
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
1~ 2~ 3~ 4~ 5~ 6~ 7~ 8~ 9~ 10~ 11~ 12~ 13~ 14~ 15~ 16~ 17~ 18~ 19~ 20~
21~ 22~ 23~ 24~ 25~ 26~ 27~ 28~ 29~ 30~ 31~ 32~ 33~ 34~ 35~ 36 37~ 38~ 39~ ~ 40~
The Doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This still puts us all in the awkward position of knowing that you are siphoning energy off of the sun.”
Mr. Troy sighed heavily. “I was only planning on remaining in London for another year. It’s just not hot enough for our needs. I may as well leave now that our secret is out.”
Iris seemed to snap out of her shock and finally spoke up. “You’re... you’re really an alien? From...from another planet?”
Mr. Troy looked at her with affection. “Iris, you are a marvelous employee. The best that I have. But your prim and proper background has rendered you incapable of absorbing new and interesting ideas. Rather unusual for a human being, in my experience. Perhaps you can take this as a lesson to expand your horizons.”
Iris stared at him in shock. “I beg your pardon?”
“See?” Mr. Troy asked the others. “Proper to the very end. Marvelous.” He cleared his throat. “Now. If you don’t mind, I have some loose ends to take care of. I don’t suppose you’d take my word that I will clear out and just go home now?”
The Doctor appeared to consider it, even though Rose knew the answer he would give.
“Not until I’m sure you’re gone,” the Doctor replied, giving Rose’s expected answer. “I’m sure you’re quite the upstanding citizen on your planet, but I’d prefer to ensure the continuation of the sun.”
Mr. Troy glanced at the ceiling with a long-suffering expression that Rose had seen on the faces of beings around the universe and all through time. The Doctor had that effect on people. It was like a special talent of his.
“Very well.” Mr. Troy reached into his jacket and pulled out a small device half the size of the mobile phone Rose had tucked into a drawer at home.
Mr. Troy spoke rapidly into the device in a language Rose did not understand. Then he returned it to his pocket.
“Is that it?” Jim asked. He sounded disappointed, as though he’d hoped for more of an alien spectacle.
Mr. Troy looked at him oddly. “No, that’s not it. I’m simply alerting one of my associates.”
There was a pause, and then the same portal that had let Mr. Troy in opened up again and a tall girl with long dark hair stepped out. She looked directly at Mr. Troy and spoke to him in the same language. After a few moments of heated conversation, she seemed to agree with whatever he was saying and nodded. As she did so, Mr. Troy indicated the others in the room with a wave of his hand.
“This is Helen,” he said. “She will arrange for the...device to be returned. Helen, these are some of my employees.”
The girl turned her head to look at them all. She had a regal bearing and Rose thought she resembled an ancient Greek or Roman statue brought to life.
“Hi,” Rose said with a small wave.
“How do you do?” Helen responded. She spoke English without a trace of an accent. She glanced from Rose to Jim and Iris, smiling politely. Then she saw the Doctor and her face turned white. Rose followed her gaze and was surprised to see the Doctor staring with his mouth agape.
“Oh,” Helen said faintly, and looked back at Mr. Troy with a panicked look.
“It’s you!” the Doctor said indignantly, and Rose and Mr. Troy both chorused, “Who?”
“You just disappeared! And you took my dissertation with you! Have you any idea how much work went into that?”
“Helen, do you know this man?” Mr. Troy asked.
“He’s the one from Cambridge. The one with the dissertation that -” She bit her lip and stopped talking.
“I appreciate that you don’t wish to reveal our secrets,” Mr. Troy said slowly, “but our secrets have already been revealed to these people, Helen.”
“I took your writings with me,” Helen said apologetically. “I really didn’t want to.”
The Doctor was almost speechless. “Then why did you? I need them back!”
“You wrote of a scientific theory that haven’t been conceived of yet on this planet. Just a passing reference that no one would even notice, but it didn’t make sense to me, so I brought the manuscript home with me to show the...the others.”
“We were quite curious as to your advanced knowledge,” Mr. Troy agreed, eyeing the Doctor closely. “And I’m afraid I forbid her from returning the manuscript to you, since we didn’t know where your knowledge came from. I like to steer clear of anything or anyone that might identify me as a non-human. And of course, since Helen couldn’t return it to you, she had to quit her job at the university.”
“That is the most short-sighted explanation I have ever heard of!” the Doctor exploded. “It’s a new theory so you jump to conclusion and destroy a man’s work? How do you think scientific achievements are made if not by new theories and ideas?”
Helen looked deeply embarrassed. “I didn’t want to keep it! I thought I could show it and then return it to work the next day!”
“Perhaps I was a bit hasty,” Mr. Troy admitted.
“You certainly were!” the Doctor snapped. He was so agitated that Rose could practically feel him buzzing with anger.
“Helen, please retrieve the manuscript and return it to him.”
Helen nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared into the portal, and Mr. Troy sighed.
“I seem to have made a bit of a mess in this case,” he said to the Doctor. “You have my apologies.”
The Doctor huffed out a breath. “So long as I get my dissertation back.”
“You will,” Mr. Troy promised.
Rose thought that was a bit rich, coming from the Doctor. How often had he interfered with someone’s life in some way because they were doing something he had deemed wrong?
“I guess interfering with people’s lives has consequences,” she said softly, and the Doctor glanced at her sharply.
“What does that mean?” he demanded, and Rose raised her eyebrows.
“How often has the course of history been changed because of something that we’ve done?” she questioned, keeping her voice low enough so the others couldn’t hear.
The Doctor sighed. “It’s never easy. And sometimes I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing or not. But you of all people should know I try.”
“I do,” she said with a sudden smile.
The portal activated again, and Rose couldn’t help herself.
“How does that work?” she asked. “Is it a beam or something?”
“It’s simply a method of transport. Nothing too unusual.” Mr. Troy appeared bored by the question.
“For yourself, maybe,” Jim said, staring at the shimmering column in front of them. “And you said there’s no such thing as aliens,” he added in an aside to Iris.
She looked incredibly perturbed. “Of course I did! You were talking about life on the moon!”
“So it’s perfectly reasonable that your employer is an alien, but not that there’s life on the moon?”
“Yes! No! Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Iris finished, turning away from him.
Jim had latched on to the one thing that Iris had previously denied.
“So you admit that aliens exist?”
“Well, it’s hard to deny, isn’t it?” she asked acidly. “Seeing as how it turns out my boss is one!”
He grinned broadly. “Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
“Yes,” she said immediately, and then blushed a deep pink.
Rose smiled gleefully.
The portal disappeared, leaving in its place a tall man. He looked to be in his twenties, as tall as the Doctor and with dark blond hair, another ancient statue brought to life. He was incredibly handsome, and Rose and Iris both stood up a bit straighter. The Doctor and Jim both scowled at him as they saw the women’s reaction.
“There you are, Nicholas,” Mr. Troy said. “I need you to take the solar catcher back.”
“So soon?”
“You call that advanced piece of machinery a ‘solar catcher’?” the Doctor couldn’t help saying.
Mr. Troy looked confused and just a bit tired of dealing with the Doctor. “What should I call it? Its function is to capture the solar power of the sun.”
“Well, yes, but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a fancier name. Something with some substance.”
Nicholas looked confused. Mr. Troy jerked his head.
“Just bring it back.”
Iris smiled at Nicholas as he walked to the corner. Jim’s frown deepened and he moved a bit closer to Iris.
Nicholas deftly undid some bolts from the floor and began pushing the solar catcher back to the portal opening.
“Anything else, sir?” he asked Mr. Troy.
“No. Wait for me. We’ll install it someplace else.” Mr. Troy glanced at the other humans. “Far from England, I assure you.”
The Doctor frowned. “Just make sure you don’t absorb more power than necessary.”
“That would not be possible. The sun carries far too much power for us to harness it all. Off you go, Nick.”
Nicholas disappeared into the portal with the device. Rose gave an involuntary sigh as he vanished, and the Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her close to his side. She glanced up at him. He looked back at her with an innocent expression. She smirked.
As Nicholas left, Helen appeared.
“Here you are,” she said, handing over a thick sheaf of papers to the Doctor. “I’m very sorry to have inconvenienced you.”
The Doctor accepted his dissertation with an audible noise of relief. “You have no idea how glad I am to have this back.”
“Good luck defending it,” Helen replied. “Shall I go now?” she asked Mr. Troy.
“I’ll meet you back there. I just need another moment here,” Mr. Troy said. Helen moved back to the portal and they watched as it closed up behind her and then hung, shimmering, in the air.
“Well,” Mr. Troy said briskly. “I apologize again for any problems caused for you at the university. I’d planned to stay in London a bit longer but without the solar catcher there is no need. We’ll be heading somewhere warmer. Iris, there are papers in the office safe upstairs transferring ownership of this building, the shop and all its contents to you. I’ll let you decide what to do with it all.”
Iris’s mouth fell open. “You...you’re joking?”
“Not at all. You are very bright and capable, and one day I can only assume the rest of the males on this planet will realize the true value of its females and their abilities. Good luck, Iris. Goodbye, Rose.” Mr. Troy stepped into the portal and it closed up behind him, disappearing as though it had never been there.
“I don’t know what to say,” Iris said faintly, moving to the stairs and sitting down abruptly on one of them. “This is all so impossible!”
Rose quickly moved to her and patted her back. “Put your head down,” she advised. “That always helps.”
Iris laughed weakly. “Did he really say that the shop is mine now?”
“And the building! I’m so happy for you!”
“It’s all in order,” the Doctor announced, looking up from his dissertation. “Not a page out of place. Shall we go?” he asked Rose. “Nothing else to do down here.”
“We probably should,” she agreed. “Iris?”
Iris nodded. “Yes. Plenty of time to think about all this tomorrow.” She started to stand up and paused when Jim stepped in front of her and offered her his hand. She smiled up at him and let him help her up.
“After you,” he said, and allowed her to start upstairs ahead of him.
“Took you long enough,” Rose told him.
“Well, she’s a hard one to pin down,” he said before following Iris upstairs.
Rose turned back to look at the Doctor. “There’s always an alien, isn’t there?”
“Too often,” he said with a smile. “Shall we?”
Once they’d all reached the sales floor Jim shut the trap door and flipped the rug back over it.
“I’ll come back tomorrow and make sure it won’t trip anyone up,” he said. “But it’s a nice storage space down there.”
Iris was checking the till to make sure the day’s receipts and cash were still there.
“That would be lovely,” she answered. “Thank you.”
“Let me get my things and we can go,” Rose told the Doctor, but her attention was caught by a face peering in through the door.
“We’re closed!” she called, pointing to her watch, but the person at the door started to tap at the glass.
Jim let out an exclamation. “I forgot my dinner date!”
The Doctor sensed impending drama and decided to avoid it. “I’ll get your things, Rose.”
Iris looked at Jim in shock as he hurried to the door and unlocked it.
“Come in from the cold!” he said, and ushered two women inside. “Were you waiting long?”
“Long enough to come looking for you,” the younger of the women said.
“I’m so sorry!” Jim looked around. “Let me introduce you! This is Iris,” he said, and Iris forced a smile to her lips. The women both looked immediately interested. “This is my sister,” Jim continued, “and my mother. We meant to have dinner and do some Christmas shopping tonight. Mum, there’s Iris.” He turned to Rose. “And this is -”
“Rose,” his mother said in a low voice, staring at Rose with wide blue eyes.
Rose started at the unexpected recognition. “Do I know you?” she asked in surprise.
“You’re Rose Tyler.” Jim’s mother looked both amazed and frightened.
Rose looked from Jim to his mother in utter confusion. She didn’t know - abruptly the blue eyes sparked a recognition in Rose.
“Oh my...” Rose’s hand lifted up to cover her mouth as she stared at the woman. She was almost as tall as Rose, and very, very young to have a grown son. Her eyes were clear blue and her hair was very dark and straight, and she was staring at Rose as if she’d seen a ghost.
It had been a very long time, and she had aged, but Rose could still clearly see the girl she’d met years ago. “Nancy?” Rose said tentatively. “Is it you?”
“I never thought I’d see you again!” And Nancy flung herself forward to give Rose a massive hug.
“I don’t believe it!” Rose cried, looking Nancy over. “You...you grew! You look terrific!” Realization finally struck.
“You’re Jamie!” she all but shrieked, turning to her friend Jim. “You’re Jamie.” She stared in fascination at the tall man who had once been a small boy in a gas mask.
“I go by Jim now,” he said cautiously. “Mum?”
“You don’t look any older,” Nancy whispered. “You look just the same as the day I said goodbye to you. How can you look just the same as all those years ago? Are you alone? Are the Doctor and Captain Harkness...are they with you?”
“Captain Harkness isn’t,” Rose said, forcing herself to smile at the mention of Jack. “But the Doctor is. We’re still together.”
“This is the Rose who helped save me when I was a boy?” Jim demanded. “You said she wasn’t that much older than you were. She’s younger than I am.”
“Time is complicated,” Rose murmured. She was saved by anything else by the Doctor’s voice.
“Are you ready?” he asked, coming back to the front of the shop carrying her coat and her bag. “Hello!” he said upon seeing the two women. “I’m the Doctor.”
“You’re not!” Nancy protested. “What is going on?”
“I am,” he corrected her, rather surprised at the denial. “Who might you be?”
Rose swallowed. “She’s Nancy.”
“Eh?”
“She’s Nancy?”
“Hello, Nancy. How do you know Rose?”
“Doctor. Look at her. Look. It’s Nancy.”
He mentally ran down all the Nancys he knew
Nancy. Nancy Drew? Nancy Sinatra? Suddenly he saw it in her eyes and he was jerked back to a war-torn darkness with a frightening child asking for his mummy. “Nancy. Good heavens, it’s you.”
Nancy shook her head, staring at him. “You’re not the Doctor.”
“Of course I am.” The Doctor suddenly made the mental leap that Rose had made. He turned to the blond man standing beside them. “If this is Nancy, you must be Jamie! You’ve grown.”
“She’s far too young to have been there,” Jim said, “and you don’t recognize him.”
“No,” Nancy agreed slowly, looking troubled and confused.
The Doctor sighed. “See?” he said quietly to Rose. “This is why I try never return to return to the same place. All sorts of awkward questions come up. Why do you look different? You were older, younger, blonder, last time-”
“Blonder?” Rose couldn’t help interrupting, a sparkle in her eyes.
“Never mind that,” the Doctor said sternly. “It’s me, Nancy,” he said. “I changed a bit after an...an, er, incident, but I swear I’m the same man you met that night. My people have the ability to alter appearances on occasion. I couldn’t help it, but you must admit this is an improvement! I still remember you, though. And you, Jamie! How are you liking pop music?”
Jim smiled faintly. “Love it. There was a man,” he said tentatively. “A tall man. Dark. He gave me a hug. Everybody lives. He said that in my ear. Everybody lives.”
Rose nodded. “This is him.”
The Doctor smiled. “Best day of my life. Just that once, everybody lived.”
Jim frowned. “I don’t remember much, but he wasn’t like you.”
“As I said, I’ve changed a bit.”
“He’s always remembered your black leather jacket, though,” Nancy said suddenly. “That’s why he wears his. Some things you don’t forget, even as a small boy.”
Jim looked embarrassed and tugged at his black leather jacket. Rose smiled as she suddenly saw the similarity between Jim’s jacket and the one the Doctor used to wear.
“And this is my Rose!” Nancy said, tugging her daughter, who was listening intently, forward. “I remarried after the war and had Rose. We named her for you,” she said to Rose. “If there was a nice girl’s name for Doctor, we would have added that, too.”
“Oh, it’s so nice to meet you!” Rose’s cheeks were pink with embarrassment. “Nancy, thank you.”
“You saved us,” Nancy said simply. “And you were right. We won. We did it.”
“See?” Rose hugged Nancy and smiled. “It was all worth it, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was. Worth doing it all over again, just to have Jamie back. He’s going to be an architect, did he tell you? He took sometime off to work and save up some money, but in the spring he goes back too finish his degree. No more carpentry work with his dad.”
“That’s enough bragging, Mum.”
“It’ll never be enough.”
The rest of the evening was spent at home. They said goodbye to Jim and Nancy, promising to stay in touch. A bewildered Iris kept asking what was going on, and how Rose had known Jim as a child, and what could she possibly have been doing in London during the war?
Jim promised to answer her questions the next evening, and Rose promised to return in the morning to help sort out what was to be done with the shop.
The Doctor put together some soup and sandwiches for dinner as Rose changed out of her work clothes. They watched television while they ate, and the Doctor couldn’t help noticing that Rose was not her usual chatty self.
In fact, she didn’t speak at all as they ate.
The Doctor waited until they had cleared the dishes back into the kitchen to speak.
“All right. Let’s have it.”
Rose glanced at him from the sink where she was washing up. “What?”
He crossed his arms in the doorway of the kitchen, frowning at her.
“Let me have it. Something is bothering you. You’ve been silent all night. What’s wrong?”
She turned back to the dishes. “Nothing.”
“I know you,Rose Tyler. You were fine until we saw Nancy. What is it?”
If he had been combative, or uncaring, or even argumentative, she could have withstood it. But he asked her in the gentlest of voices, and she broke. Tears filled her eyes, and she turned her head so he wouldn’t see them.
“Nancy aged,” she said, staring down into the sink. “Jamie grew up.”
“That’s usually how things work, yes.”
“That’s always how it works,” she snapped, tossing down the brush and turning to face him. “Unless you’re some Time Lord who lives forever.”
“Not forever,” he objected, but she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. Maybe she really hadn’t.
“I’m human, though, aren’t I? I don’t get nine extra lives or however many your lot gets. I’m gonna age and get old and die, and it’s probably all gonna happen while we’re stuck here! If I’m lucky you’ll stick around until I do die. Make sure I get a nice burial.”
“Rose,” he said, genuinely shocked. “Rose. Don’t talk like that.”
“Why not?” she demanded. “Because you don’t want to be upset? Well, too damn bad. I want you to be upset! I’m upset about it, why shouldn’t you be? I don’t want to die and get left behind by you!”
“Rose, that’s enough!” He tried to reach for her but she danced away.
“How long will you want to stay with me like that? How long until you get tired of watching me get older and older?”
“I will never tire of you!”
“You say that now! What about when I’m old and gray and on death’s doorstep?”
“I don’t give a damn if you stay like this forever or if you get old and gray and wrinkled,” he snapped, grabbing her by her arms. “I will love you no matter what.”
His words, dropped out of the sky the way they were, took the wind out of Rose’s anger. She stood limply in his grasp, staring at him with her mouth open.
“What?” he said defensively. “Surely you’ve picked up on that by now?”
“Picked up on what?” she asked, her voice squeaking just a bit.
“Picked up on the fact that Rose Tyler, I love you.”
The actions between them were there, had been for a long time, but the words had never been spoken. Perhaps out of fear, perhaps out of reluctance to admit they were in the midst of something bigger than he’d ever encountered. But he did love her. So, so much.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh.”
“I reckon for about as long as I’ve known you,” he added for good measure. “How could I help but fall in love with you? And every moment we’ve spent together only confirmed it. It doesn’t matter in the slightest what happens to us next, as long as we’re together.”
“Oh,” she said again, still staring at him in shock.
The Doctor was a man full of self-confidence, but he was finding this conversation not to be going the way he had perhaps envisioned it going.
“Anything that you, er, wish to say to me?” he suggested.
She smiled up at him, and he suddenly realized that she was crying. “I love you,” she said through her tears. “I’ve loved you for so, so long.”
He smiled back. “Quite right, too.”
Forty-two
Characters: Ten, Rose
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
1~ 2~ 3~ 4~ 5~ 6~ 7~ 8~ 9~ 10~ 11~ 12~ 13~ 14~ 15~ 16~ 17~ 18~ 19~ 20~
21~ 22~ 23~ 24~ 25~ 26~ 27~ 28~ 29~ 30~ 31~ 32~ 33~ 34~ 35~ 36 37~ 38~ 39~ ~ 40~
The Doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This still puts us all in the awkward position of knowing that you are siphoning energy off of the sun.”
Mr. Troy sighed heavily. “I was only planning on remaining in London for another year. It’s just not hot enough for our needs. I may as well leave now that our secret is out.”
Iris seemed to snap out of her shock and finally spoke up. “You’re... you’re really an alien? From...from another planet?”
Mr. Troy looked at her with affection. “Iris, you are a marvelous employee. The best that I have. But your prim and proper background has rendered you incapable of absorbing new and interesting ideas. Rather unusual for a human being, in my experience. Perhaps you can take this as a lesson to expand your horizons.”
Iris stared at him in shock. “I beg your pardon?”
“See?” Mr. Troy asked the others. “Proper to the very end. Marvelous.” He cleared his throat. “Now. If you don’t mind, I have some loose ends to take care of. I don’t suppose you’d take my word that I will clear out and just go home now?”
The Doctor appeared to consider it, even though Rose knew the answer he would give.
“Not until I’m sure you’re gone,” the Doctor replied, giving Rose’s expected answer. “I’m sure you’re quite the upstanding citizen on your planet, but I’d prefer to ensure the continuation of the sun.”
Mr. Troy glanced at the ceiling with a long-suffering expression that Rose had seen on the faces of beings around the universe and all through time. The Doctor had that effect on people. It was like a special talent of his.
“Very well.” Mr. Troy reached into his jacket and pulled out a small device half the size of the mobile phone Rose had tucked into a drawer at home.
Mr. Troy spoke rapidly into the device in a language Rose did not understand. Then he returned it to his pocket.
“Is that it?” Jim asked. He sounded disappointed, as though he’d hoped for more of an alien spectacle.
Mr. Troy looked at him oddly. “No, that’s not it. I’m simply alerting one of my associates.”
There was a pause, and then the same portal that had let Mr. Troy in opened up again and a tall girl with long dark hair stepped out. She looked directly at Mr. Troy and spoke to him in the same language. After a few moments of heated conversation, she seemed to agree with whatever he was saying and nodded. As she did so, Mr. Troy indicated the others in the room with a wave of his hand.
“This is Helen,” he said. “She will arrange for the...device to be returned. Helen, these are some of my employees.”
The girl turned her head to look at them all. She had a regal bearing and Rose thought she resembled an ancient Greek or Roman statue brought to life.
“Hi,” Rose said with a small wave.
“How do you do?” Helen responded. She spoke English without a trace of an accent. She glanced from Rose to Jim and Iris, smiling politely. Then she saw the Doctor and her face turned white. Rose followed her gaze and was surprised to see the Doctor staring with his mouth agape.
“Oh,” Helen said faintly, and looked back at Mr. Troy with a panicked look.
“It’s you!” the Doctor said indignantly, and Rose and Mr. Troy both chorused, “Who?”
“You just disappeared! And you took my dissertation with you! Have you any idea how much work went into that?”
“Helen, do you know this man?” Mr. Troy asked.
“He’s the one from Cambridge. The one with the dissertation that -” She bit her lip and stopped talking.
“I appreciate that you don’t wish to reveal our secrets,” Mr. Troy said slowly, “but our secrets have already been revealed to these people, Helen.”
“I took your writings with me,” Helen said apologetically. “I really didn’t want to.”
The Doctor was almost speechless. “Then why did you? I need them back!”
“You wrote of a scientific theory that haven’t been conceived of yet on this planet. Just a passing reference that no one would even notice, but it didn’t make sense to me, so I brought the manuscript home with me to show the...the others.”
“We were quite curious as to your advanced knowledge,” Mr. Troy agreed, eyeing the Doctor closely. “And I’m afraid I forbid her from returning the manuscript to you, since we didn’t know where your knowledge came from. I like to steer clear of anything or anyone that might identify me as a non-human. And of course, since Helen couldn’t return it to you, she had to quit her job at the university.”
“That is the most short-sighted explanation I have ever heard of!” the Doctor exploded. “It’s a new theory so you jump to conclusion and destroy a man’s work? How do you think scientific achievements are made if not by new theories and ideas?”
Helen looked deeply embarrassed. “I didn’t want to keep it! I thought I could show it and then return it to work the next day!”
“Perhaps I was a bit hasty,” Mr. Troy admitted.
“You certainly were!” the Doctor snapped. He was so agitated that Rose could practically feel him buzzing with anger.
“Helen, please retrieve the manuscript and return it to him.”
Helen nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared into the portal, and Mr. Troy sighed.
“I seem to have made a bit of a mess in this case,” he said to the Doctor. “You have my apologies.”
The Doctor huffed out a breath. “So long as I get my dissertation back.”
“You will,” Mr. Troy promised.
Rose thought that was a bit rich, coming from the Doctor. How often had he interfered with someone’s life in some way because they were doing something he had deemed wrong?
“I guess interfering with people’s lives has consequences,” she said softly, and the Doctor glanced at her sharply.
“What does that mean?” he demanded, and Rose raised her eyebrows.
“How often has the course of history been changed because of something that we’ve done?” she questioned, keeping her voice low enough so the others couldn’t hear.
The Doctor sighed. “It’s never easy. And sometimes I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing or not. But you of all people should know I try.”
“I do,” she said with a sudden smile.
The portal activated again, and Rose couldn’t help herself.
“How does that work?” she asked. “Is it a beam or something?”
“It’s simply a method of transport. Nothing too unusual.” Mr. Troy appeared bored by the question.
“For yourself, maybe,” Jim said, staring at the shimmering column in front of them. “And you said there’s no such thing as aliens,” he added in an aside to Iris.
She looked incredibly perturbed. “Of course I did! You were talking about life on the moon!”
“So it’s perfectly reasonable that your employer is an alien, but not that there’s life on the moon?”
“Yes! No! Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Iris finished, turning away from him.
Jim had latched on to the one thing that Iris had previously denied.
“So you admit that aliens exist?”
“Well, it’s hard to deny, isn’t it?” she asked acidly. “Seeing as how it turns out my boss is one!”
He grinned broadly. “Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
“Yes,” she said immediately, and then blushed a deep pink.
Rose smiled gleefully.
The portal disappeared, leaving in its place a tall man. He looked to be in his twenties, as tall as the Doctor and with dark blond hair, another ancient statue brought to life. He was incredibly handsome, and Rose and Iris both stood up a bit straighter. The Doctor and Jim both scowled at him as they saw the women’s reaction.
“There you are, Nicholas,” Mr. Troy said. “I need you to take the solar catcher back.”
“So soon?”
“You call that advanced piece of machinery a ‘solar catcher’?” the Doctor couldn’t help saying.
Mr. Troy looked confused and just a bit tired of dealing with the Doctor. “What should I call it? Its function is to capture the solar power of the sun.”
“Well, yes, but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a fancier name. Something with some substance.”
Nicholas looked confused. Mr. Troy jerked his head.
“Just bring it back.”
Iris smiled at Nicholas as he walked to the corner. Jim’s frown deepened and he moved a bit closer to Iris.
Nicholas deftly undid some bolts from the floor and began pushing the solar catcher back to the portal opening.
“Anything else, sir?” he asked Mr. Troy.
“No. Wait for me. We’ll install it someplace else.” Mr. Troy glanced at the other humans. “Far from England, I assure you.”
The Doctor frowned. “Just make sure you don’t absorb more power than necessary.”
“That would not be possible. The sun carries far too much power for us to harness it all. Off you go, Nick.”
Nicholas disappeared into the portal with the device. Rose gave an involuntary sigh as he vanished, and the Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her close to his side. She glanced up at him. He looked back at her with an innocent expression. She smirked.
As Nicholas left, Helen appeared.
“Here you are,” she said, handing over a thick sheaf of papers to the Doctor. “I’m very sorry to have inconvenienced you.”
The Doctor accepted his dissertation with an audible noise of relief. “You have no idea how glad I am to have this back.”
“Good luck defending it,” Helen replied. “Shall I go now?” she asked Mr. Troy.
“I’ll meet you back there. I just need another moment here,” Mr. Troy said. Helen moved back to the portal and they watched as it closed up behind her and then hung, shimmering, in the air.
“Well,” Mr. Troy said briskly. “I apologize again for any problems caused for you at the university. I’d planned to stay in London a bit longer but without the solar catcher there is no need. We’ll be heading somewhere warmer. Iris, there are papers in the office safe upstairs transferring ownership of this building, the shop and all its contents to you. I’ll let you decide what to do with it all.”
Iris’s mouth fell open. “You...you’re joking?”
“Not at all. You are very bright and capable, and one day I can only assume the rest of the males on this planet will realize the true value of its females and their abilities. Good luck, Iris. Goodbye, Rose.” Mr. Troy stepped into the portal and it closed up behind him, disappearing as though it had never been there.
“I don’t know what to say,” Iris said faintly, moving to the stairs and sitting down abruptly on one of them. “This is all so impossible!”
Rose quickly moved to her and patted her back. “Put your head down,” she advised. “That always helps.”
Iris laughed weakly. “Did he really say that the shop is mine now?”
“And the building! I’m so happy for you!”
“It’s all in order,” the Doctor announced, looking up from his dissertation. “Not a page out of place. Shall we go?” he asked Rose. “Nothing else to do down here.”
“We probably should,” she agreed. “Iris?”
Iris nodded. “Yes. Plenty of time to think about all this tomorrow.” She started to stand up and paused when Jim stepped in front of her and offered her his hand. She smiled up at him and let him help her up.
“After you,” he said, and allowed her to start upstairs ahead of him.
“Took you long enough,” Rose told him.
“Well, she’s a hard one to pin down,” he said before following Iris upstairs.
Rose turned back to look at the Doctor. “There’s always an alien, isn’t there?”
“Too often,” he said with a smile. “Shall we?”
Once they’d all reached the sales floor Jim shut the trap door and flipped the rug back over it.
“I’ll come back tomorrow and make sure it won’t trip anyone up,” he said. “But it’s a nice storage space down there.”
Iris was checking the till to make sure the day’s receipts and cash were still there.
“That would be lovely,” she answered. “Thank you.”
“Let me get my things and we can go,” Rose told the Doctor, but her attention was caught by a face peering in through the door.
“We’re closed!” she called, pointing to her watch, but the person at the door started to tap at the glass.
Jim let out an exclamation. “I forgot my dinner date!”
The Doctor sensed impending drama and decided to avoid it. “I’ll get your things, Rose.”
Iris looked at Jim in shock as he hurried to the door and unlocked it.
“Come in from the cold!” he said, and ushered two women inside. “Were you waiting long?”
“Long enough to come looking for you,” the younger of the women said.
“I’m so sorry!” Jim looked around. “Let me introduce you! This is Iris,” he said, and Iris forced a smile to her lips. The women both looked immediately interested. “This is my sister,” Jim continued, “and my mother. We meant to have dinner and do some Christmas shopping tonight. Mum, there’s Iris.” He turned to Rose. “And this is -”
“Rose,” his mother said in a low voice, staring at Rose with wide blue eyes.
Rose started at the unexpected recognition. “Do I know you?” she asked in surprise.
“You’re Rose Tyler.” Jim’s mother looked both amazed and frightened.
Rose looked from Jim to his mother in utter confusion. She didn’t know - abruptly the blue eyes sparked a recognition in Rose.
“Oh my...” Rose’s hand lifted up to cover her mouth as she stared at the woman. She was almost as tall as Rose, and very, very young to have a grown son. Her eyes were clear blue and her hair was very dark and straight, and she was staring at Rose as if she’d seen a ghost.
It had been a very long time, and she had aged, but Rose could still clearly see the girl she’d met years ago. “Nancy?” Rose said tentatively. “Is it you?”
“I never thought I’d see you again!” And Nancy flung herself forward to give Rose a massive hug.
“I don’t believe it!” Rose cried, looking Nancy over. “You...you grew! You look terrific!” Realization finally struck.
“You’re Jamie!” she all but shrieked, turning to her friend Jim. “You’re Jamie.” She stared in fascination at the tall man who had once been a small boy in a gas mask.
“I go by Jim now,” he said cautiously. “Mum?”
“You don’t look any older,” Nancy whispered. “You look just the same as the day I said goodbye to you. How can you look just the same as all those years ago? Are you alone? Are the Doctor and Captain Harkness...are they with you?”
“Captain Harkness isn’t,” Rose said, forcing herself to smile at the mention of Jack. “But the Doctor is. We’re still together.”
“This is the Rose who helped save me when I was a boy?” Jim demanded. “You said she wasn’t that much older than you were. She’s younger than I am.”
“Time is complicated,” Rose murmured. She was saved by anything else by the Doctor’s voice.
“Are you ready?” he asked, coming back to the front of the shop carrying her coat and her bag. “Hello!” he said upon seeing the two women. “I’m the Doctor.”
“You’re not!” Nancy protested. “What is going on?”
“I am,” he corrected her, rather surprised at the denial. “Who might you be?”
Rose swallowed. “She’s Nancy.”
“Eh?”
“She’s Nancy?”
“Hello, Nancy. How do you know Rose?”
“Doctor. Look at her. Look. It’s Nancy.”
He mentally ran down all the Nancys he knew
Nancy. Nancy Drew? Nancy Sinatra? Suddenly he saw it in her eyes and he was jerked back to a war-torn darkness with a frightening child asking for his mummy. “Nancy. Good heavens, it’s you.”
Nancy shook her head, staring at him. “You’re not the Doctor.”
“Of course I am.” The Doctor suddenly made the mental leap that Rose had made. He turned to the blond man standing beside them. “If this is Nancy, you must be Jamie! You’ve grown.”
“She’s far too young to have been there,” Jim said, “and you don’t recognize him.”
“No,” Nancy agreed slowly, looking troubled and confused.
The Doctor sighed. “See?” he said quietly to Rose. “This is why I try never return to return to the same place. All sorts of awkward questions come up. Why do you look different? You were older, younger, blonder, last time-”
“Blonder?” Rose couldn’t help interrupting, a sparkle in her eyes.
“Never mind that,” the Doctor said sternly. “It’s me, Nancy,” he said. “I changed a bit after an...an, er, incident, but I swear I’m the same man you met that night. My people have the ability to alter appearances on occasion. I couldn’t help it, but you must admit this is an improvement! I still remember you, though. And you, Jamie! How are you liking pop music?”
Jim smiled faintly. “Love it. There was a man,” he said tentatively. “A tall man. Dark. He gave me a hug. Everybody lives. He said that in my ear. Everybody lives.”
Rose nodded. “This is him.”
The Doctor smiled. “Best day of my life. Just that once, everybody lived.”
Jim frowned. “I don’t remember much, but he wasn’t like you.”
“As I said, I’ve changed a bit.”
“He’s always remembered your black leather jacket, though,” Nancy said suddenly. “That’s why he wears his. Some things you don’t forget, even as a small boy.”
Jim looked embarrassed and tugged at his black leather jacket. Rose smiled as she suddenly saw the similarity between Jim’s jacket and the one the Doctor used to wear.
“And this is my Rose!” Nancy said, tugging her daughter, who was listening intently, forward. “I remarried after the war and had Rose. We named her for you,” she said to Rose. “If there was a nice girl’s name for Doctor, we would have added that, too.”
“Oh, it’s so nice to meet you!” Rose’s cheeks were pink with embarrassment. “Nancy, thank you.”
“You saved us,” Nancy said simply. “And you were right. We won. We did it.”
“See?” Rose hugged Nancy and smiled. “It was all worth it, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was. Worth doing it all over again, just to have Jamie back. He’s going to be an architect, did he tell you? He took sometime off to work and save up some money, but in the spring he goes back too finish his degree. No more carpentry work with his dad.”
“That’s enough bragging, Mum.”
“It’ll never be enough.”
The rest of the evening was spent at home. They said goodbye to Jim and Nancy, promising to stay in touch. A bewildered Iris kept asking what was going on, and how Rose had known Jim as a child, and what could she possibly have been doing in London during the war?
Jim promised to answer her questions the next evening, and Rose promised to return in the morning to help sort out what was to be done with the shop.
The Doctor put together some soup and sandwiches for dinner as Rose changed out of her work clothes. They watched television while they ate, and the Doctor couldn’t help noticing that Rose was not her usual chatty self.
In fact, she didn’t speak at all as they ate.
The Doctor waited until they had cleared the dishes back into the kitchen to speak.
“All right. Let’s have it.”
Rose glanced at him from the sink where she was washing up. “What?”
He crossed his arms in the doorway of the kitchen, frowning at her.
“Let me have it. Something is bothering you. You’ve been silent all night. What’s wrong?”
She turned back to the dishes. “Nothing.”
“I know you,Rose Tyler. You were fine until we saw Nancy. What is it?”
If he had been combative, or uncaring, or even argumentative, she could have withstood it. But he asked her in the gentlest of voices, and she broke. Tears filled her eyes, and she turned her head so he wouldn’t see them.
“Nancy aged,” she said, staring down into the sink. “Jamie grew up.”
“That’s usually how things work, yes.”
“That’s always how it works,” she snapped, tossing down the brush and turning to face him. “Unless you’re some Time Lord who lives forever.”
“Not forever,” he objected, but she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. Maybe she really hadn’t.
“I’m human, though, aren’t I? I don’t get nine extra lives or however many your lot gets. I’m gonna age and get old and die, and it’s probably all gonna happen while we’re stuck here! If I’m lucky you’ll stick around until I do die. Make sure I get a nice burial.”
“Rose,” he said, genuinely shocked. “Rose. Don’t talk like that.”
“Why not?” she demanded. “Because you don’t want to be upset? Well, too damn bad. I want you to be upset! I’m upset about it, why shouldn’t you be? I don’t want to die and get left behind by you!”
“Rose, that’s enough!” He tried to reach for her but she danced away.
“How long will you want to stay with me like that? How long until you get tired of watching me get older and older?”
“I will never tire of you!”
“You say that now! What about when I’m old and gray and on death’s doorstep?”
“I don’t give a damn if you stay like this forever or if you get old and gray and wrinkled,” he snapped, grabbing her by her arms. “I will love you no matter what.”
His words, dropped out of the sky the way they were, took the wind out of Rose’s anger. She stood limply in his grasp, staring at him with her mouth open.
“What?” he said defensively. “Surely you’ve picked up on that by now?”
“Picked up on what?” she asked, her voice squeaking just a bit.
“Picked up on the fact that Rose Tyler, I love you.”
The actions between them were there, had been for a long time, but the words had never been spoken. Perhaps out of fear, perhaps out of reluctance to admit they were in the midst of something bigger than he’d ever encountered. But he did love her. So, so much.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh.”
“I reckon for about as long as I’ve known you,” he added for good measure. “How could I help but fall in love with you? And every moment we’ve spent together only confirmed it. It doesn’t matter in the slightest what happens to us next, as long as we’re together.”
“Oh,” she said again, still staring at him in shock.
The Doctor was a man full of self-confidence, but he was finding this conversation not to be going the way he had perhaps envisioned it going.
“Anything that you, er, wish to say to me?” he suggested.
She smiled up at him, and he suddenly realized that she was crying. “I love you,” she said through her tears. “I’ve loved you for so, so long.”
He smiled back. “Quite right, too.”
Forty-two