Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who - What If ❯ Gridlock ( Chapter 6 )

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Rose and Martha eventually got a good night's sleep at the Elephant Tavern, and joined the Doctor for a fry up breakfast before setting off for the Globe theatre with the Doctor. He went looking for any copies of Love's Labours Won, whilst Will flirted with the girls on the stage.

`And I say, a heart for a hart and a dear for a deer,' he said with a clever word play.

`I don't get it,' Martha told him.

`Is it like an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth?' Rose asked. `Cos I've heard that one before.'

Will was stumped by Rose's question. `Why not give me a joke from Freedonia.'

`Okay, Shakespeare walks into a pub and the landlord says, Oi mate, you're Bard,' Martha said with an expectant smile.

Rose laughed. `That's a good one.'

`That's brilliant. Doesn't make sense, mind you, but never mind that. Now come here.' He put his arm around Martha's waist and pulled her towards him. Rose gave him a disapproving glare.

`I've only just met you.'

`The Doctor has his fair lady Rose. Why not allow me to have my dark lady Martha?'

`Cos yer married?' Rose said sarcastically, trying to rescue Martha from his amorous advances.

Martha however had her own reasons for rejecting his advances. `I don't know how to tell you this, oh great genius, but your breath doesn't half stink.'

At that point, the Doctor walked onto the stage wearing a small stiff ruff and carrying an animal skull. `Good props store back there. I'm not sure about this though. Reminds me of a Sycorax.'

`Oh yeah, I see what yer mean,' said Rose as she looked over at the Doctor.

`Sycorax. Nice word. I'll have that off you as well.'

`I should be on ten percent. How's your head?'

`Still aching.'

`Here, I got you this.' The Doctor took off the ruff and put it around Will's neck.

`Neck brace. Wear that for a few days till it's better, although you might want to keep it. It suits you.'

`Now that's how I imagined Shakespeare should look,' Rose said.

`What about the play?' Martha asked.

`Gone. I looked all over. Every single copy of Love's Labours Won went up in the sky.'

`My lost masterpiece.'

`You could write it up again,' Rose suggested.

`Yeah, better not, Will,' the Doctor warned. `There's still power in those words. Maybe it should best stay forgotten.'

`Oh, but I've got new ideas. Perhaps it's time I wrote about fathers and sons, in memory of my boy, my precious Hamnet.'

`Hamnet?' Rose said.

`That's him.'

`Hamnet?' Martha repeated.

`What's wrong with that?' He and Anne liked the name Hamnet.

`Anyway, time we were off. I've got a nice attic in the TARDIS where this lot can scream for all eternity, and we've got to take Martha back to Freedonia.

`You mean travel on through time and space.'

`You what?'

`You're from another world like the Carrionites, whilst Rose and Martha are from the future. It's not hard to work out.'

`That's incredible. You are incredible,' the Doctor said in admiration.

`We're alike in many ways, Doctor.' He turned towards the ladies. 'Rose, let me say goodbye to you with a quote from one of my plays.' He took Rose's hand and kissed her knuckle. `A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'

`Thanks Will. It's been . . . an education,' she said, and then remembered a famous quote, something from English literature at school. `Parting is such sweet sorrow. You can have that one an' all.'

Will laughed. `You've seen my play then.'

Rose looked puzzled, until the Doctor whispered in her ear. `That's from Romeo and Juliet as well.'

`And Martha, let me say goodbye to you in a new verse. A sonnet for my Dark Lady. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.'

Two of his players, Burbage and Kempe hurried into the theatre from the street.

`Will!' Burbage called out excitedly.

Kempe was just as excited as he spoke. `Will, you'll never believe it. She's here! She's turned up!'

`We're the talk of the town. She heard about last night. She wants us to perform it again,' Burbage told him.

`Who?' Rose and Martha said together.

Burbage grinned with pride. `Her Majesty. She's here.'

There was a fanfare which announced the arrival of the monarch, who strode into the theatre, flanked by two pikemen.

`Queen Elizabeth the First!' the Doctor said with undisguised enthusiasm. He'd always wanted to meet the queen that defined Englishness.

`Doctor?' the queen said in surprise.

She wasn't as surprised as the Doctor though. `What?'

`And your good lady wife, the Mistress Rose. I hope I find you both in good health. It is so good to see you again.'

Now it was Rose's turn to be surprised. `What?' Did she say good lady wife?

`How many years have passed? Thirty seven, and you have not aged a day,' she told them.

The Doctor was stumped. `What?' It was one of those occasions where he met people out of sequence.

`You know Elizabeth the First?' Martha asked.

`No . . . well, yes, apparently . . . but not yet.'

Elizabeth was open mouthed in sudden realisation. `Oh, the moment has arrived. You said we would meet again and I should tell you nothing of our previous meeting.'

`Did I? Well, that's a relief,' he said, running his hand through his hair and rubbing the back of his neck.

`Although, by the look on Mistress Rose's face, I may have said too much already,' the queen said.

`Er, no harm done I think your Majesty. It has been a pleasure to meet you . . . again.' He bowed low. Rose and Martha curtsied.

`Nice to meet you Ma'am . . . again,' said Rose.

`A pleasure Ma'am,' Martha said.

`I must apologise for the brief nature of this meeting your Majesty, but we have to take our friend Martha home.'

`In your TARDIS no doubt.' The Doctor was flabbergasted. How much did she know? `Oh dear, I suspect I have done it again.'

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The Doctor landed the TARDIS, stopped the Time Rotor, pulled on the hand brake, and shut down the console. `There we go. Perfect landing. Which isn't easy in such a tight spot.'

`You should be used to tight spots by now,' Rose said cheekily. `Where are we?'

`The end of the line. No place like it,' he said. Martha looked puzzled, and walked down the ramp with Rose, wondering where he had taken them.

They stepped out of the TARDIS into a small, tidy flat.

`Home. You took me home?' Martha said in surprise. It had been so exciting, that she'd forgotten that she'd only been offered one trip.

`In fact, the morning after we left, so you've only been gone about twelve hours. No time at all, really,' he said as he stepped out behind them.

`But all the stuff we've done. Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth, witches, and magic?'

Rose laughed at her amazement. `Yeah, I know. Isn't it brilliant?'

'Yep, and all in one night . . . relatively speaking.' That was good for him.

`When he took me home from my first trip, we were 12 months late. My mum was furious. She gave him a right slap,' Rose said, laughing at the expression on the Doctor's face.

He rubbed his cheek, remembering the event. He turned his attention back to Martha. 'Everything should be just as it was . . . books, CDs, laundry.' He hooked a pair of knickers off the clothes horse with his finger and held them up.

Martha snatched the offending lingerie from his fingertips and stuffed it in her pocket.

'So, back where you were, as promised.'

'This is it?' She asked, knowing the answer. He had only promised one trip, as a thank you for helping him trap the Plasmavore in the Royal Hope Hospital.

He took a deep breath in. 'Yeah, we should probably . . . um . . . one trip is what we said.'

`Thank you. For everything,' Martha said.

`It was my pleasure,' he said with a smile.

`Oh come here,' Rose said and pulled her into a hug. `Thanks for savin' him an' everythin'.'

`And that was my pleasure,' Martha replied. `And according to Queen Elizabeth, it sounds like you two have got an interesting future ahead of you.'

`Er, that's enough spoilers for one day thank you,' the Doctor said, waggling his eyebrows. He touched his forehead in salute to Martha and stepped into the TARDIS. Rose gave her a wave with her fingers and mouthed “bye”, before following him into the TARDIS.

Martha heard the engine start up and backed away as the TARDIS started to dematerialise, sending a gentle breeze through the room. "Now what?" she thought to herself as she turned her back on the space where the TARDIS had been.

What did she do now, go back to her studies, and become a doctor? That would be hard, after the distraction of the last few days. I mean, come on, she'd been to the moon, met aliens, met Shakespeare, and saved the Earth, it would be hard to top all that by just living a normal life.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor moved around the pulsing Time Rotor, making adjustments to the controls as he went. Rose was sitting on the jump seat, deep in thought.

`Doctor?' she started tentatively.

`Hmm,' he replied distractedly.

`Your good lady wife, the Mistress Rose?' she asked in a “would you care to elucidate” tone of voice.

`Yeah, I know,' he said with a boyish grin. `I can't wait to see what that's all about.'

Rose looked puzzled. `Well obviously it's all about you and me gettin' married. I wonder when and where you propose? I hope it's somewhere romantic. Do Time Lords go down on one knee?' She was on a roll.

`Hey, woah there girl. Let's not get carried away. Queen Liz may just assume that we are married when we meet her.'

`But we always put people straight on that when they make that assumption, tell them that we're just friends travellin' together. Although callin' us “just friends” is pushin' the definition these days.'

He raised an eyebrow at that comment. `Well, maybe it was a ruse we had to use . . . Ooh I like that. Use a ruse.' And suddenly, his thoughts were off on a tangent, and she knew that was the end of the discussion.

Rose sighed. `Yeah, it must have been somethin' like that.' It wouldn't be the fact that he loved her enough that he wanted her to be his wife.

He watched the Time Rotor grinding up and down as he thought about the Mistress Rose, his good lady wife. `One day . . .' he said, looking at her. She thought he was going to finish the sentence with “I'll ask you”. But instead he said, `we'll find out.'

`Yeah . . . one day,' she echoed quietly.

`But until that day comes, let's go and see what's out there. What do you say?' he said, giving her his enthusiastic smile. He made some adjustments to the controls, and pulled back the materialise/dematerialise lever. They heard a gentle “clump” as the TARDIS landed, and the Time Rotor slowed to a stop.

`Where are we?' she asked, her mood lifting as the excitement of exploring a new horizon increased.

`Do you remember our first outing in my new body?' He'd remembered how excited she'd been about that visit, and wanted to try and recapture that feeling for her.

`Oh yeah. New, New, New . . . New York to the power of fifteen,' she said as an abbreviation.

`That's the one. Well, I thought we could go and see how they're getting on now that they're not using people as lab rats and incubators for incurable diseases.' He grabbed his long, brown coat off the coral strut and pulled it on as he made his way down the ramp. Once he'd got his coat on he held his hand out for her. `Coming?'

She hurried after him and took his hand, and everything was all right again. He might be reluctant to talk about his feelings, and about the possibility of them getting married, but when she held his hand, she always got that special feeling that everything was right with the universe, that everything was right between them.

`Lead on husband,' she said with a teasing smile. She wasn't going to let him off that easily.

He stopped and gave her a disapproving look, but she just winked at him. `Just tryin' it out, road testing the word so to speak.'

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. There was no point asking her to stop it, it would just make her tease him even more. The best thing to do was to ignore it until she got bored with the subject and moved on to something else. He opened the door and stepped out into a narrow alleyway that was pouring with rain.

`They've let the place go a bit,' Rose said as she stepped out behind him and pulled up the hood on her hoodie.

`Hmmmm. Come on, let's get under cover!' He ran down the alley, with Rose close on his heels, until they came upon an open area filled with plywood huts that made it look like a shanty town.

'Hold on, hold on. Let's have a look.' He used his sonic screwdriver to get a monitor working, and a pleasant blonde lady appeared, giving a traffic report.

“And the driving should be clear and easy, with fifteen extra lanes open for the New New Jersey expressway.” A view of a high-tech Manhattan was shown, with flying cars, the view they remembered.

'Oh, that's more like it. That's the view we had last time. This must be the lower levels, down in the base of the tower. Some sort of under-city.'

`The slums yer mean?' Rose said.

A plywood panel lifted up on one of the shacks to reveal a man, standing in a kiosk.

`Oh! You should have said. How long you been there? Happy. You want Happy.'

More hatches opened up, and two women look both surprised and delighted.

`Customers. Customers! We've got customers!' one of them called out.

`We're in business. Mother, open up the Mellow, and the Read,' the other woman said.

The man started custom mongering.`Happy, Happy, lovely happy Happy!'

`Anger. Buy some Anger!'

`Get some Mellow. Makes you feel all bendy and soft all day long.'

The man leaned out of his kiosk to talk to the Doctor and Rose. `Don't go to them. They'll rip you off. Do you want some happy?'

`No, thanks, the Doctor told him.

Rose frowned. `Are they selling drugs?'

`I think they're selling moods,' he replied.

`Same thing, isn't it?' Rose asked him. She had never taken drugs, but thought they were a form of artificial happiness.

More people started to enter the area, listless and dressed in rags. The kind of people Rose had seen on the Powell Estate, whose lives had taken a turn for the worse and were on a downward spiral.

`Over here, sweetheart! That's it, come on, I'll get you first!' one of the women called.

`Oi! Oi, you! Over here! Over here! Buy some Happy!' the man shouted.

`Come over here, yeah. And what can I get you, my love?' the woman said as the female customer approached her kiosk.

`I want to buy Forget,' the customer told her.

`I've got Forget, my darling. What strength? How much do you want forgetting?'

`It's my mother and father. They went on the motorway.'

`Oh, that's a swine. Try this. Forget Forty three. That's two credits.' The young woman handed over the coins and took the plastic patch.

The Doctor approached with a frown on his face. `Sorry, but hold on a minute. What happened to your parents?'

`They drove off.'

`Yeah, but they might drive back,' he said as though it should be obvious.

`Everyone goes to the motorway in the end. I've lost them.'

`But they can't have gone far. You could find them.' As he was talking to her, she applied the patch to her neck. `No. No, no, don't.'

`I'm sorry, what were you saying?' she said with a smile, the haunted look gone from her eyes.

`Your parents. Your mother and father. They're on the motorway,' he reminded her.

`Are they? That's nice. I'm sorry, I won't keep you,' she said and walked away.

`What's happened to this place?' Rose asked. `Was it like this in the lower levels when we came last time?'

The Doctor was about to answer, when without warning, a young man grabbed Rose around her neck from behind, and put a gun to her head. A young woman pointed a gun at the Doctor. The stalls all closed their hatches in one movement.

`I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry. We just need three, that's all,' the man said apologetically as he dragged Rose backwards.

`No, let her go! I'm warning you, let her go! Whatever you want, I can help. Both of us, we can help. But first you've got to let her go.'

`I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Sorry,' the woman said.

The man dragged Rose through a green door, and the woman locked it behind them. They ran along a passageway while the Doctor tried to get it open. They ended up in an alleyway, where a car that looked like a truncated tram was parked.

`The Doctor is so gonna kill ya, and never mind him; I'm gonna kill ya m'self! Let go of me!'

`Give her some Sleep,' the man said, holding Rose's head back to expose her neck.

`Don't ya dare! Don't put that stuff in me, don't! Gerroff me!'

`It's just Sleep Fourteen. No, baby, don't fight it,' the woman said.

Rose struggled. `I'm tellin' ya, don't!' The woman put the plastic patch on Rose's neck and she quickly became unconscious.

`That's it. Come on. That's it.'

`Get on board.'

The man started up the box shaped car. `Engaging anti-gravs. Hold on.' He released the handbrake and the car rose into the air before turning around and flying off down the alleyway.

The Doctor ran out on to the fire escape and watched the large box fly down the alley. `ROSE!'

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The Catkind female Novice Hame and the Doctor picked themselves up from the rubbish-strewn floor of the Senate. `Oh! Rough teleport, the Doctor said, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. `Ow. You can go straight back down and teleport people out, starting with Rose.'

`I only had the power for one trip,' Hame explained.

`Then get some more!' the Doctor said angrily, before looking around at the wrecked room. `Where are we?'

`High above, in the over-city.'

`Good. Because you can tell the Senate of New New York I'd like a word. They have got thousands of people trapped on the motorway. Millions!'

`But you're inside the Senate, right now. May the goddess Santori bless them.' Hame used her teleport bracelet to turn on the lights in the room. The Doctor looked around at the scene of death and decay. The Senate was populated by skeletons.

`They died, Doctor,' Hame said sadly. `The city died.'

`How long's it been like this?'

`Twenty four years.'

He crouched down and looked at a skeleton lying on the floor. `All of them? Everyone? What happened?'

`A new chemical. A new mood. They called it Bliss. Everyone tried it. They couldn't stop. A virus mutated inside the compound and became airborne. Everything perished. Even the virus, in the end. It killed the world in seven minutes flat. There was just enough time to close down the walkways and the flyovers, sealing off the under-city. Those people on the motorway aren't lost, Doctor. They were saved.'

`So the whole thing down there is running on automatic?'

`There's not enough power to get them out. We did all we could to stop the system from choking.'

The Doctor frowned. `Who's we? How did you survive?'

`He protected me. And he has waited for you, these long years,' Hame said, as though she were quoting a sacred prophecy.

[`Doctor,'] a deep resonant voice echoed in his head.

He looked around to locate the source of the thought, and ran around the corner, into an alcove containing complex control panels, and a large, cylindrical, transparent tank.

`The Face of Boe!' he exclaimed. He approached the tank and crouched down in front of it.

[`I knew you would come.']

`Back in the old days, I was made his nurse as penance for my sin,' Hame said guiltily.

`Old friend, what happened to you?'

[`Failing,'] the Face of Boe told him.

`He protected me from the virus by shrouding me in his smoke. But with no one to maintain it, the City's power died. The under-city would have fallen into the sea.'

`So he saved them,' the Doctor whispered.

`The Face of Boe wired himself into the mainframe. He's giving his life force just to keep things running.'

`But there are planets out there. You could have called for help.'

Novice Hame shook her head sadly. `The last act of the Senate was to declare New Earth unsafe. The automatic quarantine lasts for one hundred years.'

`So the two of you stayed here, on your own for all these years.'

`We had no choice,' Hame said, casting her gaze to the floor.

The Doctor touched her shoulder. `Yes, you did,' he said kindly. He was letting her know that she had paid her penance.

[`Save them, Doctor. Save them,'] the Face of Boe implored.

Down in the fast lane of the motorway, in a hovering box of a car, Rose and her two carjackers were sitting silently, trying not to attract the attention of the giant crab like animals that lived on the hydrocarbon exhaust gases. The animals couldn't detect them with the power off, however, they couldn't escape, and the air recycler couldn't provide them with fresh air.

`How much air's left?' asked the female carjacker who had introduced herself as Cheen.

`Two minutes,' the male carjacker replied. He had introduced himself as Milo.

`There's always the Doctor. That friend of mine. He'll think of somethin,' Rose told them.

Milo shook his head in resignation. `Rose, no one's coming.'

Cheen remembered the look of concern on the Doctor's face when they kidnapped Rose, the look of someone who loved her very much. `He looked kind of nice.'

`He's a bit more than that,' Rose said without thinking.

Hah! She was right. Cheen knew that look. `Are you and him?'

`It's complicated,' she decided to say, rather than the usual “we're just friends”, because she wasn't sure that was true anymore.

`I never even asked, Cheen realised. `Where's home?'

`It's a long way away.'

`So, er, who is he, then, this Doctor?' Milo asked.

Rose smiled. `Oh he's magnificent! He's brave and he's clever and he's resourceful . . . And today is your lucky day.'

Milo looked around the inactive car, not feeling particularly lucky. `How so?'

`Because you're with me. And the Doctor won't stop until he's found me and got me out of here. And that means he'll get you out too.'

Cheen frowned. `But that means that the only hope right now is . . . one man . . . Well, that's no use.'

`It is, though, because you haven't seen the things that one man can do. Honestly, just trust me, both of you. You've got your faith, you've got your songs and your hymns, and I've got the Doctor.'

`Right,' said Milo. If this Doctor was as good as she claimed, then there was only one thing for it. He began the start up sequence for the car.

[`Systems back online,'] the onboard computer told them.

Milo and Cheen held hands. `Good luck,' he said.

`And you,' Rose said, as Milo started to weave around the snapping claws of the alien monsters.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, the Doctor had got a computer working and was looking for a particular transponder. `Car four six five diamond six. It still registers!' he shouted. `That's Rose. Oh she's brilliant.'

He needed to get her out of there now. He needed to provide power to the roof of the motorway and open it to the sky. `Novice Hame, hold that in place,' he called to her, indicating the lever he was using to power the computer.

He started following a collection of snaking cables to a distribution panel. `Think, think, think, think. Take the residual energy, invert it, feed it through the electricity grid.'

`There isn't enough power,' Hame told him.

`Oh, you've got power. You've got me. I'm brilliant with computers, just you watch. Hame, every switch on that bank up to maximum. I can't power up the city, but all the city needs is people.'

`So what are you going to do?'

'This!' the Doctor said, throwing a switch with a flourish he usually reserved for the TARDIS and causing the lights go out.

'No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The transformers are blocked,' the Doctor told them. 'The signal can't get through.'

['Doctor,'] the Face of Boe called in his mind.

'Yeah, hold on, not now.'

['I give you my last.'] The Face of Boe groaned and sighed as the power came back on.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder. 'Hame, look after him. Don't you go dying on me, you big old face. You've got to see this.' He went over to a lever and pulled it. 'The open road. Ha!'

Down on the motorway, Rose wasn't having much luck either as Milo's car was grabbed by a claw. Fortunately, another crab monster wanted to eat them as well, and knocked them free.

Suddenly, the Doctor's face appeared on the monitor. `Oi! Car four six five diamond six. Rose! Drive up!'

Rose squealed with delight. `That's the Doctor!'

`We can't go up! We'll hit the layer!' Milo warned.

Rose gave him a stern look. `Just do as he says! Go up!'

`You've got access above,' the Doctor told him. `Now go!'

Milo weaved in between the snapping claws of the monsters and steered the car up towards the light.

Cheen looked out the window with tears in her eyes, and they weren't because it was so bright. `It's daylight. Oh my God, that's the sky. The real sky.'

Rose jumped up and down and clapped her hands. `He did it! I told you he'd do it!'

The Doctor was looking out of a window at the city of New New York, whilst on the open microphone. He was talking to one of the drivers that he'd met on the motorway; a nice cat called Brannigan. `You keep driving, Brannigan. All the way up. Because it's here, just waiting for you. The city of New New York, and it's yours. And don't forget I want that coat back.'

`I reckon that's a fair bargain, sir,' Brannigan's Irish brogue replied through the speaker.

`And Car four six five diamond six, I've sent you a flight path. Come to the Senate.'

`On my way,' said Rose.

`It's been quite a while since I saw you, Rose Tyler,' he said to himself as he gazed out of the window.

`Doctor!' Novice Hame called out in alarm. A big crack had appeared in the Face of Boe's tank and was spreading.

Milo and Cheen landed on the roof of the Senate, and Rose hugged them, wishing them well with the baby. She hurried down the steps and made her way into the Senate Chamber, stopping in shock as she saw the remains of the Senators in their seats.

She saw a solitary skeleton on the floor in front of her. Surely the disease couldn't do that to someone in a short space of time could it? With all the weird stuff she'd seen travelling with the Doctor, of course it could!

`Doctor?' she called hesitantly, not wanting it to be true.

`Over here,' he called from around the corner.

`Doctor! What happened out there?' Rose asked as she ran around the corner. She skidded to a halt as she took in the scene in front of her.

`Oh my God, it's the Face of Boe,' she gasped. The Face of Boe was lying in front of his tank; the Doctor and Novice Hame were kneeling in front of him.

['Hello Rose. It is good to see you again my beautiful friend.']

`And you remember Novice Hame of course,' the Doctor said.

Rose gave her a suspicious look. `Yeah. How could I forget her and what she did here?'

`Now now Rose. People can change, make amends for their sins.'

`My lord gave his life to save the city, and now he's dying,' said Hame sadly.

`No, don't say that. Not old Boe. Plenty of life left.'

[`It's good to breathe the air once more.']

Rose knelt down next to the Doctor. `But you can't die.'

`Legend says the Face of Boe has lived for billions of years. Isn't that right? And you're not about to give up now,' the Doctor told him.

[`Everything has its time. You know that, old friend, better than most.']

`The legend says more,' Hame reminded the Doctor.

`Don't. There's no need for that.'

But Novice Hame continued. `It says that the Face of Boe will speak his final secret to a traveller.'

`Yeah, but not yet,' said the Doctor. `Who needs secrets, eh?'

[`I have seen so much. Perhaps too much. I am the last of my kind, as you are the last of yours, Doctor,'] the Face of Boe thought in their heads.

`That's why we have to survive. Both of us. Don't go,' he pleaded.

[`I must. But know this, Time Lord. You are not alone.'] The Face of Boe breathed out for one last time, and closed his eyes. Novice Hame started to quietly weep.

Back in the under city, the Doctor inspected one of the kiosks. `All closed down.'

`Happy?' Rose asked with a smile.

He smiled back. `Happy happy. New New York can start again. And they've got Novice Hame. Just what every city needs. Cats in charge. Come on, time we were off.'

They started walking back to the TARDIS. `But what did he mean, the Face of Boe? You're not alone?'

The Doctor shrugged. `I don't know.'

`Could there be another Time Lord out there? Another survivor of the Time War?'

`No,' he said sadly, shaking his head. `I'd know . . .' he said, tapping his temple.

`It must be me then,' she declared. `You're not alone 'cos you've got me.' She hugged his arm and gave him her special smile.

He laughed and nodded. `Yeah, that must be it. Like Sonny and Cher, “I've got you babe”,' he sang.

Rose sang the next line with slightly altered lyrics. `I got flowers in the spring; I'll get you to wear my ring,'

`And when I'm sad, you're around,' he replied.

`Ooh, hang on,' she said, `this bit's mine. And when I get scared you're always around.'

`So let them say your hair's too long.' He sang as he looked up at his own unruly mop and gave her a grin. `I don't care, with you I can't go wrong.'

Together they sang. `Then put your little hand in mine, there ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb.' They held hands as they reached the doors of the TARDIS.

They stopped and turned to look at each other, both smiling as they sang the last line. `Babe . . . I've got you babe . . . I've got you, Babe.'