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Give Up And Live (Ten/Rose; PG)
Rose Tyler's life was forever changed when a mysterious stranger grabbed her hand and told her to run from attacking shop window dummies. But what if this stranger didn't have a daft old face and a leather jacket? What if he was a tall, thin man (with some really great hair) in a pinstripe suit?
If being attacked by mannequins was the equivalent of life "making sense," she would happily go back to beans on toast and checking her watch every five minutes. 6,594
A/N: I was going to wait and not be the first one to post, but I'm so excited for this that I can't help myself! This is a concept that a friend of mine on tumblr posed a few months ago: what would have happened if it had been Ten in that basement, not Nine? It got me thinking a lot of what Ten would have been like post-Time War and without the influence of Rose Tyler. And this is my take on that. I don't know if this is within the parameters of the challenge. If it's not, I'll gladly take it down. Remember, this is a Ten who has never known Rose. I think he'd be quite different than the Time Lord we all know and love.
As the herd of plastic dummies backed her into a corner, Rose Tyler wondered how she came to be here, in the basement of a shop, about to be killed by a mannequin.
The day had started out ordinarily enough: her alarm went off at 7 o'clock and, after hitting the snooze button four or five times, she'd made breakfast for her and her mum. Of course, Jackie wouldn't be up until the crack of noon, but like a good daughter, Rose made sure there was some left over bacon in the fridge. Daughter taking care of mother. Not as it should be, but such was the life she led.
Right, so her day had started off normally with blaring alarms and breakfast and the ever-present feeling of when will my life begin? Then off to work in the shop she'd come to loath, counting down the minutes until lunch when, as predicted, Mickey would bring her a peanut butter sandwich and they'd eat together by the fountain in the cool Spring afternoon.
From there, she counted down the minutes until five o'clock when she was finally done for the day. It seemed that she spent her life constantly counting down, hoping time would catch up with her and maybe this dull, meaningless life she was living would start to make sense.
And if being attacked by mannequins was the equivalent of life "making sense," she would happily go back to beans on toast and checking her watch every five minutes.
The dummy closest to her raised its hand. This is it, she thought, this is how I’m gonna die. She closed her eyes, accepting her fate (and thinking of the irony that the story of how she died would be far more exciting than the story of how she lived), when suddenly she felt a hand close around hers and she gasped at the sudden contact of cool skin, her eyes shooting open.
Beside her stood a tall man in a pinstripe suit and a brown trench coat, with hair that was sticking up all over the place. His brown eyes shone with determination behind sleek black-rimmed glasses as he tightened his grip on her hand and said just one word: “Run!”
The plastic hand missed her by inches, and she was off, running for her life. She thought vaguely of someone in her youth telling her not to run off with strangers. Considering the circumstances, she felt she could be pardoned just this once.
They burst through a door and finally reached the lift, but it seemed like they weren’t quick enough. The man fought with an arm and finally popped it clean off. She felt her mouth drop open in shock. “You pulled his arm off!” she exclaimed.
The man tossed it back to her without even a glance in her direction. “Plastic,” he said, as if that would explain everything.
She caught it deftly. “Very clever, nice trick,” she said, waving it at him. “So who were they then, students? Is this a student thing or what?”
Now the man actually looked at her, taking his glasses off and pocketing them. “What makes you think they were students?” he asked.
Something about his piercing gaze made her feel so small, insignificant, dumb. Suddenly, every thought she had sounded completely laughable. Why would they be students? “I dunno,” she mumbled.
“You’re the one who said it,” he countered.
“T-To get that many people dressin’ up, bein’ silly,” she rambled, “they’d have to be students.”
The man snorted derisively. “They’re not students.”
“Well, whoever they are, once Wilson finds them, he’s gonna call the police.”
“Whoever Wilson is, I can guarantee you that he’s dead.” He said this as if it were something you did everyday, talk about electricians being killed by living mannequins.
“What!” she cried, following him out as the lift opened. “That’s sick, that’s-”
“Could you just shut up, and mind your eyes,” he snapped, turning his back on her and pulling a silver instrument from his inside coat pocket.
Whoever this guy thought he was, Rose was having none of it. A look that a moment ago left her intimidated to the point of speechlessness now just filled her with inexplicable anger. “Someone’s died, this isn’t a joke!” He didn’t respond, and she pressed further. “Who are you, who’s that lot down there, what’s going-”
She followed him down a corridor, and he turned around, now pointing some kind of beeping gizmo at her. “This doesn’t concern you, so why don’t you just go home, live your stupid boring life, and leave the Doctor to save you yet again!” he nearly growled at her, and with a swish of his coat, he was gone.
Deciding to heed his advice, Rose ran as fast as she could out of the building, and didn’t stop running until she was across the street and around the corner, allowing herself to turn around once she put a bit of distance between herself and the building. The moment she did, the whole street shook as the building exploded.
She couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the mysterious Doctor.
The next morning, she sat at the table in the tiny flat she shared with her mum, looking into the depths of her mug of tea as Jackie rambled on about compensation. Her head was reeling from what had happened, and what it all meant. Who could she tell? Who would ever believe her that she’d been attacked by mannequins in a shop that was now just a pile of rubble?
A noise coming from the door interrupted her thoughts and she groaned, taking a sip of tea before standing up. “I thought I told you to nail that cat flap down!” she called to her mother.
“I did!” Jackie called back.
Rose rolled her eyes. “No, you thought about it, but…” she trailed off, seeing four nails lying on the floor in front of the door. Checking to make sure her mum was properly occupied before kneeling down and tentatively poking the cat flap. The air was still for a moment, before the flap moved, and she opened it all the way: there, just outside, was the same man from yesterday, his eyebrows raised, wearing an expression that clearly said not you again.
Quickly, she stood up and opened the door. “What are you doing here?” he asked, standing up straight.
“I live here,” she replied.
He rolled his eyes. “Well yes, obviously,” he said, and she noticed he still had that uncanny ability to make her feel worthless with just a few words and a look. “But why are you here?”
It was her turn to roll her eyes. “I live here,” she repeated slowly, as if talking to a child. “And I’m only at home because someone blew up my job!”
“Oh yes, sorry,” he snapped. “So sorry that I inconvenienced you by saving your life!”
“I’ve had enough of this, get in here,” she said sharply, pulling him into the flat and shutting the door, ignoring his protests. “You’re gonna explain everything.”
He laughed as he sat down. “To explain everything to you would take a better man than me, and, well,” he paused, straightening his tie, “I am rather brilliant.”
“And you’re gonna cut that attitude,” she said, pointing a threatening hand at him as she started pacing. “So what were those things, really-”
She stopped abruptly as the Doctor pressed a finger to his lips. In the silence, they heard rustling behind the couch. “Have you got a cat?” he whispered.
Rose shook her head, paralyzed with fear. Slowly, the Doctor shifted and turned around, looking at the space between the wall and the couch. Suddenly, he was launched backwards and into the glass coffee table, shattering it to pieces. The plastic hand (which she had told Mickey to get rid of last night) was gripping his neck, choking him.
Panicking, she tried to pull it off of him, and with three or four good yanks, she finally removed it, only to have it turn and grip her face. “Get it off me, get it off!” she screamed.
She heard a strange mechanical sound and the hand let go of her, becoming still and falling to the ground. The Doctor grabbed it before she could, and with a murmur about “useless humans,” he was out the door again.
“Oh no you don’t.” Rose grabbed her jacket and was following him in a flash, chasing him down the stairs. “You can’t just go swannin’ off!” she called after him, catching up with him quickly.
“And I suppose the great Rose Tyler is going to tell me what to do,” he countered.
“That thing was alive, it tried to kill me!” she exclaimed, quickening her pace to keep up with him.
“And yours is the most important life on this planet, now is it?” he asked condescendingly.
“You can’t just take off, it’s not fair!”
“Watch me.”
They were outside now, and she walked alongside him. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go to the police. I’ll tell them you’re the one who blew up Henrik’s.” She paused dramatically. “Unless you tell me what’s going on.”
“Was that supposed to sound tough or something?” he asked, laughing. “Am I supposed to feel threatened?”
“Maybe,” she replied.
He just shook his head. “Doesn’t work,” he said simply.
She sighed, realizing defeat, and jogged a bit so she wouldn’t lose him. “But who are you?” she asked for the umpteenth time.
“The Doctor.”
“Yeah, but Doctor who?”
“Just the Doctor.”
“The Doctor?”
“Are you deaf or something?”
He was starting to get infuriating, but her need for answers outweighed her urge to slap him in the face. “Come on then, tell me,” she pushed, reaching for his arm but he moved away from her, glaring at her hand. “I’ve seen enough.”
His laugh now was full of disgust and disbelief. “You think you’ve seen enough?” he asked. “One afternoon in a basement with a bunch of autons and Rose Tyler thinks she’s a world traveler.”
“Are you the police?” she asked, ignoring his insult.
He laughed again. “The police,” he repeated disdainfully. “If any of them were half as clever as me, your world wouldn’t be in such disrepair.”
“But why do the plastic things keep coming after me?”
“And what makes you so special?” he countered. “The whole world does not revolve around you. You were an accident, one I don’t plan on making again.”
“It tried to kill me!”
“It was after me, not you.”
“Oh, so now the whole world revolves around you?” she asked, turning his question back on him.
“Finally, she understands,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “Last night, it was after me and you got in the way. This morning, I was after it and again, you got in the way. Now, if you would kindly get out of the way and stop asking stupid questions, maybe I could save your ungrateful planet and you can go back to your life of work and telly and chips and toast, blissfully unaware of the war that rages in the rest of the universe.”
“Well what do living mannequins have to do with wars and world savin’?” she asked, taking the arm out of his hand so that maybe he would finally listen. She held back the satisfied smirk as he stopped and turned to her. “Just tell me, Doctor. Who are you?”
He was silent, staring at the arm for a moment before looking back to her. She was taken aback by what she saw in those brown eyes: instead of the general look of disgust he’d been wearing since they met, the Doctor’s eyes were full of anger and remorse and sadness, and he just looked tired. He looked so tired, and so old, like he was about to just throw up his hands and leave her to deal with the living plastic.
She took a step closer to him. In that moment, she realized there was so much more to this mysterious Doctor than she’d initially realized. If he really was saving the world, it was so that a little bit of the remorse that lined his brow could be erased, a little bit of the weight his shoulders suddenly seemed heavy with would be lifted.
With just one look, she went from fury with this man to deep, inexplicable pity. She repeated the question. “Who are you?”
He sighed, and reached out for the plastic arm. “I’m no one,” he said, but it wasn’t like before, like he was trying to get rid of her. It was a warning. “I’m just passing through. Now forget about me.” She was so mesmerized by how low his voice had gotten, how so incredibly different he was from just a few moments ago, that she just let him take the arm. “Go home.”
Before she could say anything, he was walking away, and there was nothing she could do. But if she never saw him again, she knew that that look on his face would stay with her forever. Resigned, she took one last look at him pulling a key out of his pocket and unlocking the door to a blue wooden box and stepping into it, shoved her hands in her pockets and turned around, heading home.
That was when she heard it. It was a kind of whirring noise, and it chilled her to the bone, made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. A breeze picked up and whipped her hair about and she turned around, running to the spot where she’d just left the Doctor. Except there was no sign of him or the blue box.
Sudden determination gripped her and she took off running back to the estates, to Mickey’s flat. She was not giving up on this Doctor, she would find him again, whatever it took.
~*~
“Complete nutter,” Rose said as she got back into Mickey’s car. “Crazy, off his head, online conspiracy freak.” She sighed biting her lip and shaking her head, refusing to let this get to her. “Now that that’s over with, I’m starving…how about pizza?”
“Pizza!” Mickey exclaimed. If she hadn’t been so caught up in her own thoughts, she might have realized something was off with him. “P-P-Pizza!”
Instead, she just stared out the window. “Or maybe Chinese?” she suggested.
“Pizza!” he insisted and Rose just shrugged, hugging her knees to her chest as they drove away.
Her internet search for “Doctor” and “blue box” had yielded one reliable result: a man named Clive, who lived just outside of London. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but definitely not what he had to offer: according to Clive, the Doctor was an “alien from another world.” Just thinking about it made her laugh. The man she met yesterday may be a lot of things (rude, arrogant, broken were just a few words that came to mind), but an alien? Immortal? She didn’t know if she could believe that.
Then again…she shook her head to rid herself of the thought. No, she told herself firmly. They were just students playing a prank, nothing more.
Then why would he blow up the building? She groaned at the battle going on in her head. However much she wanted to deny it, there was a part of her that thought Clive’s theory was true. He has one constant companion…death. She almost laughed out loud at how dramatic and ridiculous that sounded. And she didn’t have any proof that it was the Doctor who blew up the building. Still, something about him didn’t sit right with her. Maybe Clive was right. Maybe he was dangerous.
These same thoughts plagued her all the way to the restaurant, but once they sat down, she decided to change the subject. “Do you think I should try the hospital?” she asked, toying with a string on her hoodie. “Suki said that had a few jobs going in the Canteen…that’s it then, is it?” She sighed, sitting back in her seat and shaking her head. “Dishing out chips? I could always do A-Levels…I dunno. It’s all Jimmy Stone’s fault. I only left school because of him.” Yeah and if it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have been in that basement, wouldn’t have met that man, wouldn’t…She leaned forward again, forcing all thought of the Doctor from her head. “What do you think?”
“So when did you meet this Doctor?” Mickey asked.
Rose stared at him in shock. Just a few hours ago, he never wanted to hear the word “Doctor” again. “I’m sorry, wasn’t I talking about me for a second?”
“Because I reckon it all started back at the shop, am I right?” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Is he something to do with that?”
“No,” she said defensively.
“Come on,” he insisted.
Her shock was slowly wearing off…and it would be nice to be able to talk about this with someone other than a crazy person. “Sort of,” she replied, shrugging.
“What was he doing there?”
“I’m not going on about him, Mickey,” she told him firmly. “I’m not, because…I know it sounds daft but…” she lowered her voice and leaned closer, “I don’t think he’s safe. I think he’s dangerous.”
“But you can trust me, sweetheart!” he exclaimed loudly, and Rose motioned for him to keep his voice down. “Babe, sugar, darling, sugar. You can tell me anything. Tell me about the Doctor and what he’s planning, and I can help you, Rose. Because that’s all I really wanna do, sweetheart, babe, sugar, sweetheart.”
Her eyebrows raised way up, disappearing behind her bangs. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked.
But he ignored her. He grabbed her hand and she flinched. Something was off. His hand felt stiff, and he was gripping hers way too tightly. “Where’s the Doctor?”
“I’m right here, geeze, there’s no need to get your knickers in a twist!” Rose felt her heartbeat increase as Mickey’s gaze shifted to somewhere behind her and she looked too. There he was, wearing the same suit as yesterday, hands in his coat pockets, looking thoroughly bored.
“Ah!” Mickey exclaimed, and Rose took his moment of distraction to pull her hand away from his, scrambling out of her chair and behind the Doctor. However dangerous he may be, he felt a hell of a lot safer than her boyfriend did at the moment. “Gotcha!”
“Well,” the Doctor said, shrugging his shoulders. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say you’ve got me, but we sure are-” He was cut off as Mickey stood up and raised his hand, which turned into a paddle.
It was then that Rose realized that wasn’t Mickey. How long had he been like that? Was he even still alive? All because of this bloody Doctor.
Pandemonium had broken out around the restaurant. Somewhere in the struggle between the Doctor and the plastic version of her boyfriend, his plastic head had been popped off and now he swung the paddle blindly, destroying everything in his path.
Panicked, Rose did the only thing she could think to do: she pulled the fire alarm. “Out, come on, everybody out!” she exclaimed, ushering people toward the front door, while out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Doctor head toward the back, Mickey’s head under his arm.
Quickly as she could, she followed him through the kitchen and out into the night. While he fiddled with the door they’d shut behind them, she ran around the yard, desperately trying to find a way out.
Over the noise from the restaurant, she heard the Doctor sigh. “Come on, get in here,” he said, sounding like it’s the last thing he wanted to be saying.
She turned around and saw him heading toward that same blue box from yesterday. “Are you nuts?” she demanded, continuing her futile attempts to open the gate.
She yelped as a hand closed tightly around her arm and pulled her in the direction of the box. “Come on, get in here before I change my mind,” the Doctor said.
“Get your hands off me!” she exclaimed, pulling away from him. “Why don’t you use that tube thingy and open the gate?”
He looked highly offended, more disgusted than she had ever seen him. “It’s called a sonic screwdriver,” he corrected her, seemingly unaware of the banging on the door to the restaurant. Only some wood and metal was keeping the homicidal plastic version of Mickey from them. “And if you don’t want to come in, fine, finish your date with your plastic boyfriend.”
This put things into perspective really quickly. As soon as the door was open, she followed him in, not looking forward to how cramped it was going to be.
But that didn’t seem to be a problem. Rose felt like she might faint as she entered the cavernous room the box seemed to hold. This was insane, impossible. There was no way the small wooden box could actually…this was…
“Well?” the Doctor asked, standing before her expectantly.
It took a moment for Rose to find the words. “It’s…bigger on the inside?”
“Yes,” he replied, in a duh sort of way. “This here is the TARDIS, stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.”
“It’s…alien,” she said, her hands starting to shake. Clive was right.
“Yes.”
“You’re alien.”
Now, he seemed frustrated with her. Again. “If you’re done pointing out the obvious?” he said turning back to the controls with a sigh.
“Mickey!” she exclaimed, only just remembering, and oh God, he could be… “Is he dead? Did they…did they kill him?”
“Does it matter?” the Doctor asked, putting on his glasses and examining a screen.
“Of course it matters!” she exclaimed, tears filling her eyes, her heartbeat increasing. She was becoming hysterical. “You tore off his head, they copied him and…and now you’re just letting him melt!”
The Doctor stopped his typing and frantically ran to the melting head on the console. “No, no, no!” he shouted, quickly typing and rambling, “The arm didn’t work so I was using the head to track the signal…damnit!”
He pushed a few buttons and pulled a lever and there was that noise again, the same one from yesterday. Before she could comment on it or even think, he was pushing her out of the way and running out the door. “Wait! You can’t go out there, it’s gonna kill you!” she exclaimed, running after him.
But they weren’t behind the restaurant anymore. They were somewhere else entirely, right by the London Eye. “We’ve moved!…Does it fly?”
“Disappears there, reappears here,” he replied. “Not that you would understand.”
“Wait, but if we’ve moved, what about that…that thing?” she asked. “Isn’t it still on the loose?”
“Melted with the head, can you just shut up for about five seconds?” he snapped, glaring at her and turning away.
The Doctor was cursing and gripping his hair in frustration, speaking in some language she didn’t understand. That’s when it hit her. “I’ll have to tell his gran,” she mumbled to herself.
He stopped and turned to her. “What was that?”
She looked up and shook her head, embarrassed that she’d started crying again. “Mickey,” she said. “He’s dead, and I’ll have to tell his gran.” When the Doctor looked unfazed, anger gripped her again. “Does that even matter to you? Wilson, Mickey, they’re both dead and you don’t even care!”
“So what if I don’t care?” he rounded on her, standing close to her now, a storm brewing behind his eyes. “I’m trying to save the lives of everyone on this stupid planet! Two casualties is a small price to pay.”
For the first time since she met him, the Doctor was beginning to scare her. The anger that was shaking him now was frightening; she half expected him to reach up and strangle her, what would a third victim be to him?
But at the same time, she got that feeling from yesterday. She knew his anger didn’t come from his encounters with her, didn’t even come from trying to defeat living plastic. Something told her that it ran much, much deeper. While eyes may be the windows to the soul, she knew that he’d drawn the blinds a long time ago and was willing to do anything to keep them shut.
“You were right,” she whispered breathlessly. Her voice seemed to snap him out of whatever trance he’d been in and he backed off, his eyes wide. “You are alien.” He gave her a look that she couldn’t decipher before going back to his incoherent rambling. Deciding that she wasn’t going anywhere until he let her help (she had to do something…it was all her fault Mickey was dead, she’d dragged him into this), she cleared her throat and asked, “What’s this living plastic got against us, anyway? I mean, why earth?”
“Hasn’t got anything against you, it loves you,” the Doctor said. “All the waste, all the toxins and pollution in the air, it could feed off you for a hundred years. The Nestene consciousness lost everything in the war, so earth is…”
“Dinner,” Rose supplied.
For the first time, the Doctor gave her the hint of a smile. “Dinner, yeah,” he said.
“All right, so how do we stop it?” she asked.
That wiped the smile right off his face. “Anti-plastic,” he told her. “But there is no we here, got it?”
“Anti-plastic?” Rose asked as the Doctor produced a tube of blue liquid. “Why don’t we just find the source and dump that on it?”
The Doctor rolled his eyes, stuffing the tube back into his inside coat pocket. “Yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he snapped, walking ahead of her again, but this time she kept with his pace. “The human race, blundering in and killing everything in sight, it’s a wonder you haven’t wiped each other off the planet yet!”
“It was just a suggestion,” she mumbled, stung by his words.
“Well do me a favor,” he began, rounding the corner and taking her by surprise. She had the feeling he was trying to lose her. “Don’t make anymore ‘suggestions’.”
“All right, so what are we looking for?” she asked, ignoring his condescension. “You said something about a signal being transmitted?”
“Yes, the Nestene Consciousness are controlling every single piece of plastic in the city, and they would need something to boost the signal,” he explained in a rush. “But it would have to huge, massive, probably completely invisible.”
“What does it look like?”
“Well, I don’t know!” the Doctor shouted, getting more and more frustrated. “Something huge and round, like a…”
They stopped walking and Rose smirked, putting her hands on her hips. “Like that?” she asked, nodding to the London Eye, which stood right behind him.
The Doctor turned and looked at it for a moment before turning back to her. He had a huge grin on his face and the sight left her slightly breathless. “Oh yes, brilliant!” he exclaimed, pocketing the anti-plastic and reaching for her hand, taking her completely by surprise. “Let’s go!”
She had no idea where they were going and didn’t even think to ask. They ran along the Westminster Bridge, down some stairs until they reached something that looked like a door that could lead underground. “What are we doing here?” she asked.
He let go of her hand and she found herself being only momentarily disappointed. “Well, if the Consciousness is transmitting the signal through the London Eye, they must be hiding somewhere underneath, just waiting to send the final signal and wake up every plastic thing in not just London, but the whole world,” he explained, pulling out the sonic screwdriver and fiddling with it for a second, pausing to grin at her again. “Imagine, every artificial thing come to life! Shop window dummies, phones, wires, cables…”
“Breast implants,” Rose continued and he actually laughed.
He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the door and pressed a button. It made the same mechanical noise she heard when the hand was attacking her face until the metal door burst open. “Aha!” he exclaimed triumphantly, shoving the screwdriver in his pocket before turning and holding his hand out to her. “Coming?”
She didn’t even hesitate before taking his hand and following him down under the city. Smoke and red light assaulted her senses and she coughed, waving it out of her face. “All right, where is it?”
“That’s it, inside the vat,” the Doctor told her, pointing to a massive vat just below them, filled with what she now knew was the living plastic creature.
“Well come on, tip in your anti-plastic and let’s go,” she said.
There was that glare again, aimed in her direction with the force of a hundred daggers. “I’m not here to kill it, I’ve got to give it a chance.” She followed him down a few more stairs before he walked ahead of her and leaned over the railing. “I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract, according to Convention Fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation.” When he spoke to it, his voice became like nothing she’d ever heard before: deep and loud and powerful, full of authority. It was almost mesmerizing. The creature below made some sort of noise in response. “Thank you, that I might have permission to approach?”
Rose was so caught up in what was happening that she almost didn’t hear her own name echoing off the walls in a frantic half whisper. “Rose!”
She turned around and her heart leapt. “Mickey!” she exclaimed, running toward him where he was cowering against a railing. She could almost feel the Doctor rolling his eyes at her as she kneeled down before Mickey, taking his face in her hands. “It’s all right, Mickey, it’s okay!”
He ignored her completely, pointing down to the Nestene Consciousness below. “That thing down there, Rose,” he whispered, trembling all over. “The liquid…it can talk!”
She inhaled and quickly wished she hadn’t, backing away from him and covering her face with her arm. “Ugh, you’re stinking!” she exclaimed. The Doctor approached them and she turned around. “Look, Doctor, they kept him alive!”
“Yeah well, that was always a possibility,” he said offhandedly as he walked past them. “Keep him alive to maintain the copy.”
She just stared at him, dumbstruck. “You knew that, and you never said?” she asked, though she didn’t know why she was surprised.
“Look, I don’t need you anymore, take your boyfriend and get out of here,” the Doctor said harshly before walking down some more steps, closer to the Consciousness.
Rose glared at his retreating form as she helped Mickey to his feet. “You heard him, let’s get out of here,” Mickey said, pulling her back toward the stairs, but Rose was looking down at the Doctor as he started to speak.
“Am I addressing the Consciousness?” he asked. Another noise from down below. “Thank you. You’ve infiltrated this civilization by means of warped, shunt technology. I must ask you to leave this world the way you found it.” Another noise, this time sounding angry. The Doctor scoffed. “This is an invasion!” he exclaimed. “Don’t talk to me about constitutional rights.” More angry noises that went on for a bit longer, until:
“I. AM. TALKING!” The Doctor’s voice echoed threateningly around the cavern, sending shivers up Rose’s spine. “I am speaking on behalf of this planet, these humans who have only just learned to walk and talk and form coherent thoughts, and if you go through with this, this invasion, they will never reach their full potential.” His voice lowered, softened into a tone Rose had never heard him use before. “So many planets have been lost in the War. Give this one a chance.”
She’d been so caught up in his speech that it was almost too late when she saw two Autons approaching him from behind. Letting go of Mickey, she leaned over the railing. “Doctor, look out!”
But she was too late: the Autons grabbed and restrained him, one reaching into his pocket and pulling out the tube of anti-plastic.
“I wasn’t going to use it!” he exclaimed frantically, and Rose detected fear behind his voice. The Consciousness roared in anger again. “I was not attacking you, I am not your enemy, I’m here to help! I swear, I’m not…what do you mean?” Two doors opened behind him to reveal the TARDIS and Rose found herself panicking as much as he was. “Yes, that’s my ship, but-”
“What’s it doing?” Rose shouted over the continued screams of the Consciousness.
“It’s identified the TARDIS as superior technology, it’s terrified!” the Doctor exclaimed. “It’s starting the invasion! Just get out of here, Rose, now!”
“Come on, you heard him, let’s go!” Mickey cried, trying again to pull her away from the scene but she just shrugged him off, pulling out her phone and dialing Jackie’s number.
Her mother picked up after two rings. “Hello?”
“Mum!” she cried, heart beating furiously. “Mum listen, you’ve got to go home!” Her mother ignored her, yammering on about compensation and late night shopping. Oh no…shopping…where all the plastic mannequins were… “Mum, stop, just go home!” But it was too late, the line went dead and Rose groaned, shoving the phone angrily into her pocket.
When she turned back to the scene before her, the Consciousness was sending out a signal. “It’s starting,” she heard the Doctor say. “The invasion’s starting.”
“End of the world,” Rose mumbled, her hands starting to shake.
“Rose, I’m telling you, get out of here!” the Doctor exclaimed.
“Yeah, great idea,” Mickey said, pulling her again, but before they could get very far, the ceiling caved in, blocking their way to the stairs.
“Damnit!” Rose spun around, remembering the TARDIS. She and Mickey ran toward it and tried desperately to get in, to no avail. “I never got a key!”
“We’re gonna die!” Mickey sobbed, holding onto Rose for dear life.
Rose watched the Doctor struggling to break free of the Autons’ grasp. She had two options here: she could leave, find a way out, find a way to fight whatever was happening on the earth above. What did she care about this man who obviously hated her? She could just let him die and no one would be the wiser.
Or, she could stay. Get him out of here. Make some kind of difference in her sorry existence. Making her decision, she pushed Mickey off of her and before she even knew what she was doing, grabbed an axe.
“Just leave him!” Mickey shouted.
No. That was what she’d always done. She always left, when things got rough or scary or boring. She left, she just stood by and watched things happened. This Doctor, though, he showed her a different way of doing things, a better way of living your life. She swung the axe over her head and brought it down against a chain attached to the wall.
I’ve got no job, she thought, bringing it down hard again, no A-Levels, another swing, another blow, no future. At last, the end of the train broke free and she grasped it tightly. “But I have got Jericho Street Junior School under 7s gymnastic team,” she said aloud, making sure her grip was like iron and she was secure against the chain. “I’ve got the bronze!”
Closing her eyes, she pushed off the way and swung freely over the Consciousness. She kicked the Auton holding the Doctor and swung back, hitting the one holding the anti-plastic. The tube broke open and spilled over the Consciousness, making it twist and roar in agony.
On her way back around, she ran straight into the Doctor, who caught her and held her, grinning brightly. “Hello,” he said.
She smiled back at him. “Hi!” she exclaimed and they both looked at the Consciousness, now burning before them.
After a moment, he put her down and grabbed her hand. “Come on, before we go with it,” he said, leading her up to the TARDIS, where Mickey sat against it, sniveling and crying. The Doctor took one look at him and rolled his eyes. Rose stifled a laugh.
The Doctor opened the door and stepped inside. “Come on you, let’s go,” Rose said, helping Mickey up.
“But we can’t go in there, it’s a box,” Mickey said and Rose rolled her eyes, pushing him in before her.
In a matter of minutes they were just outside the Powell Estates. Mickey was the first out the door, and he didn’t stop running until he hit a wall and crumpled against it. Rose just laughed, walking out of the TARDIS and pulling out her phone. One call to her mum ensured she was safe and Rose hung up before Jackie could start babbling too much.
“Fat lot of good you were,” she said, shaking her head as she approached Mickey. He just whimpered and turned away from her.
“Nestene Consciousness,” the Doctor said from the doorway of the TARDIS. “No problem. Molto-Bene!”
“You were useless in there!” Rose said teasingly. “You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me!”
The Doctor’s smile disappeared and his expression became clouded. “Yes, I would,” he said seriously. “Thank you.” They just looked at each other for a moment before he clapped his hands together and took a deep breath. “Right! Well, I’ll be off. Unless…” he trailed off, seeming to weigh this decision in his head before continuing, “You wanted to come with me?”
Rose’s mouth fell open; she was at a loss for words, so the Doctor kept going, “This box doesn’t just stay in London, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge.”
“Don’t do it, Rose, he’s an alien!” Mickey shouted. “He’s…he’s a thing.”
“That one is not invited,” the Doctor said pointedly. Rose bit her lip, and this only seemed to encourage him. “What do you think? You could stay here, and fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go…anywhere.”
Rose was imagining it now: tomorrow, she could be waking up in the Caribbean or on the top of Mt. Everest, or…she felt herself grinning. “Is it always this dangerous?” she asked.
The Doctor’s grin mirrored her own. “Oh yes."
The word “yes” was on the tip of her tongue when she felt Mickey’s arms close around her and reality came crashing down upon her. The adrenaline from the adventure was wearing off, and she thought of her mum, of Mickey. No, of course she couldn’t go. She had to stay, she had obligations, responsibilities. “N-No,” she managed to get out. “I’ve uhm…I’ve gotta stay…someone’s gotta look after this stupid lump.” She laughed, but it faded quickly.
The Doctor’s face fell, and she saw a flicker of sadness before he put up those walls again. His face was a mask, cold and hard and betraying no emotion. “Fine," he said. "Goodbye."
He stepped back into the box and it whirred and hummed, fading before her. The regret took a few moments to set in. She foolishly hoped he would return, ask her a second time.
But he didn’t. She was left standing in an alley with Mickey gripping at her shirt; same old boyfriend, same old London, same old life.
She’d missed her chance.