Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Rose and Nine The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Seventeen ( Chapter 17 )

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The Doctor woke up in a spinning room . . . no he was spinning, and the room was still . . . no, actually, nothing was spinning, except his head. He tried to stand, and the room, he, his head started spinning again.

`What is it? What's happening?' He continued to spin until he found a door and fell through it.

`Oh, my God! I don't believe it! Why'd they put you in there? They never said you were coming,' a young woman said as she stooped down and tried to help him up.

`What happened? I was . . .' He stumbled again as the larger room now started to spin.

The young woman tried to support him but he fell again. `Careful now. Oh! Oh, mind yourself! Oh, that's the transmat. It scrambles your head. I was sick for days.' She helped him up again. `All right? So, what's your name then, sweetheart?'

That was a very good question, who was he? `The Doctor . . . I think. I was, er . . . I don't know, what happened? How . . .'

`You got chosen.'

`Chosen for what?'

`You're a housemate. You're in the house. Isn't that brilliant?!' the young woman enthused.

`That's not fair. We've got eviction in five minutes! I've been here for all nine weeks, I've followed the rules, I haven't had a single warning, and then he comes swanning in,' a young man said from the sofa.

`If they keep changing the rules, I'm going to protest, I am. You watch me, I'm going to paint the walls,' a young dark skinned woman said.

Suddenly a robotic female voice came from the ceiling. `Would the Doctor please come to the Diary Room?' So, somebody knows who he is, that was a start. The young woman indicated a door with the stylised eye on it, so he opened it and went in. There was a single comfy chair in the middle of the small cubicle, so he sat down.

The robotic voice spoke again. `You are live on channel forty four thousand. Please do not swear.'

Hang on; this was like that daft TV show that Jackie used to tell Rose about. ROSE! he was travelling with Rose . . . and Jack. His memory was returning.

He looked at the camera in front of him. `You have got to be kidding.'

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Rose came to on a cold, shiny black floor in a large, dimly lit room; a dark skinned man was leaning over her.

`What happened?' she asked him.

He smiled at her knowingly. `It's all right, it's the transmat, does your head in . . . Get a bit of amnesia . . . What's your name?'

Hang on, she knew that one. `Rose. But where's the Doctor?'

The man ignored her question. `Just remember, do what the android says. Don't provoke it. The android's word is law.'

What the hell was he on about? `What do you mean android? Like a robot?' She was suddenly aware that there were a lot of other people in the room, she could hear them. Was she in some kind of factory?

`Positions, everyone! Thank you!' an officious woman said.

The man pulled her up to her feet. `Come on, hurry up. Steady, steady.'

Ooh, the room was spinning. `I was travelling, with the Doctor and a man called Captain Jack. The Doctor wouldn't just leave me,' she told him.

`That's enough chat. Positions! Final call! Good luck!' the officious woman's voice said.

Rose was definitely confused. `But I'm not supposed to be here.'

`It says Rose on the podium, the man said. `Come on.'

What the hell? He was right, that was her name on the podium. And the podium, it looked very familiar, it looked like . . . `Hold on, I must be going mad. It can't be. This looks like the . . .'

`Android activated!' the officious voice said.

`Oh, my God, the android. The-Anne-droid.'

The android spoke. `Welcome to the Weakest Link!'

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Jack could hear echoey voices in his head. `Here we go again. We've got our work cut out for us.'

Urgh, she sounded all scratchy and mechanical.

`I don't know. He's sort of handsome. Has a good lantern jaw.'

That was a different scratchy voice, but at least she had good taste.

`Lantern jaws are so last year,' the first scratchy voice (with no taste) said.

Jack felt that he had stopped rotating, and cautiously opened his eyes. He could see two, white robots either side of the couch he was lying on.

`Sorry, but . . . nice to meet you, ladies, but where exactly am I?' he asked, trying to remember where he'd actually come from.

`We're giving you a brand new image,' scratchy voice one said.

His memory started to filter back. `Oh, hold on, I was with the Doctor.' Hang on, did she say `brand new image'? `Why, is there something wrong with what I'm wearing?'

`It's all very twentieth century. Where did you get that denim?' number two said.

Of course it's twentieth century, that's when I got it. `A little place in Cardiff. It was called . . . the Top Shop.'

`Ah! Design classic,' two said.

`But we're going to have to find you some new colours. Maybe get rid of that Oklahoma Farm Boy thing you've got going on,' one said.

The two robots stood either side of a gun-like device on a tripod. `Just stand still and let the Defabricator work its magic,' two said.

`What's a defabricator?' Jack asked, thinking that he might be about to dissolve into his constituent atoms. A blue beam of energy surrounded his body, and his clothes started to disappear.

`Okay. Defabricator. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Am I naked in front of millions of viewers?'

`Absolutely!' the two robots said together.

“Result!” Jack thought with a grin. `Ladies, your viewing figures just went up.'

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Clifton Parade, Peckham, London.

Wednesday 6th September 2006.

Mickey Smith was on his day off from the garage where he worked as a mechanic. He was heading for the local Tesco Express to stock up on some essentials, bread, milk, tea, beer. It was mid morning, and the estate was quiet, not much traffic about, and people were either at work, or indoors, watching daytime TV.

He thought he heard the breeze whistling around the flats, the tall buildings tending to funnel the wind and concentrating it through the courtyards.

Except it was a warm, still day, and it wasn't wind he could hear, it was . . . `Oh my God, it's Rose!'

He turned and started to run back to the flats, the direction that the wheezing, grinding noise was coming from. No one else who was out and about seemed to notice the noise, only Mickey, who had been inside the TARDIS, and now had a connection with the ancient ship.

He turned the corner at a run and saw the familiar blue box at the end of the road. As he ran towards it, the door opened, and a familiar figure stepped out. It was Rose, she was home, and oh God, he'd missed her.

`I knew it! I was all the way down Clifton Parade, and I heard the engines. I thought, there's only one thing that makes a noise like that,' he said as he ran across the road towards her. He slowed to a standstill as he saw her face; something was wrong, very wrong. `What is it?'

Rose couldn't speak, she was too emotional, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, buried her head in his shoulder, and started to cry.

`Babe? What's up, where's the Doctor?' He was rubbing her back, trying to comfort her.

`Oh Mickey . . . He's gonna die, an' he's sent me away cos he wants me safe,' she sobbed.

`Bloody `ell,' is all he could think of saying. Jackie will be over the moon that he sent her back. `C'mon Babe, let's get you home and you can tell me all about it.' He put an arm around her shoulders and gently herded her in the direction of Bucknall House.

At the door of the flat that used to be her home, and was now destined to be again, she put the key in the lock and turned it.

`Who the hell's that?' Jackie's voice asked from inside.

`Jackie, it's me, Mickey, I've got Rose here.'

`ROSE!' Jackie squealed, as she came running out of the kitchen. `Oh sweetheart, you should have phoned ahead, I'd `ave got things ready for ya.' She enveloped Rose in a big, motherly hug. When she felt Rose cling onto her in desperation, she sensed something was wrong.

`Sweetheart, what's wrong?' She held Rose by the shoulders and looked into her tear filled eyes. `Where's the Doctor?' She looked up at Mickey, who silently shook his head to say `not now'.

`Oh God no, Rose I'm so sorry.' She hugged her again and rubbed her back, trying to rub away the pain and sorrow she could feel in her daughter. `Come and sit down, I'll put the kettle on.'

“Mum's answer to everything”, she thought, “a cup of tea”, but it wouldn't fix this, nothing would.

Jackie made the tea, and coaxed the story of the Game Station out of Rose. What could she say? That amazing alien had kept his promise and sent her daughter home to her.

After telling her story, and getting through half a box of tissues, Rose just sat there in the living room, numb. She looked around the familiar surroundings that had been her life for nineteen years, before she went off to travel the universe. And now, here she was, a year later . . . no, two years, because the TARDIS had brought them back a year late to deal with the Slitheen.

So how old was she now? To her, she was twenty, but to everyone else, she was twenty one. If she hadn't been so sad, she would have laughed when she thought that Mum would love being a year younger.

[`Have a good life, do that for me, Rose, have a fantastic life.'] She saw his holographic face in her mind and his last message.

How could she have a fantastic life here? She couldn't do that for him, because she couldn't do it without him. She belonged on the TARDIS, standing by his side, hand in hand. Oh the feeling she got every time he held her hand. She was going to miss that.

She was brought out of her reverie by Mickey gently reaching for her hand. `C'mon Rose, yer Mum hasn't got much in, so we're goin' down the cafe for lunch.'

`Wha? Oh, I don't . . .'

`No buts young lady, yer comin' with us,' Jackie said in a `mother will stand no nonsense' tone of voice. Between them, they hauled her to her feet and shepherded her out of the flat. She meekly did as she was told, still too shocked, and dazed to put up a fight.

[`And I bet you're fussing and moaning now. Typical.'] Not anymore she wasn't, all the fight had been knocked out of her, the fire was extinguished.

In the cafe, they were sitting at the Formica covered tables, eating out of the recyclable plastic cartons. `And it's gone up market, this place. They're doing little tubs of coleslaw, now. It's not very nice. It tastes a bit sort of clinical,' Jackie said, trying to have a normal everyday conversation for her daughter's sake.

Mickey picked up the baton, seeing what she was doing. `Have you tried that new pizza place down Minto Road?'

`What's it selling?'

`Pizza!' Mickey said in disbelief.

`That's nice. Do they deliver?' she asked.

`Yeah.'

Jackie could see that her ploy wasn't working. `Oh, Rose, have something to eat,' she encouraged.

`Two hundred thousand years in the future, he's dying, and there's nothing I can do,' Rose told them.

`Well, like you said two hundred thousand years. It's way off,' Jackie replied, but Rose had a different perspective on it, she'd been there in the here and the now (or the there and then).

`But it's not. It's now. That fight is happening right now, and he's fighting for us, for the whole planet, and I'm just sitting here eating chips,' she said angrily. She wasn't angry with her mum, or Mickey, she was angry with the Doctor for sending her away, and she was angry with herself for being so impotent and useless.

Jackie, though felt that Rose's anger was directed at her and responded. `Listen to me. God knows I have hated that man, but right now, I love him and do you know why?' Her voice cracked with emotion. `Because he did the right thing, he sent you back to me.'

It was difficult to explain to her mum and Mickey, what it was like to travel the stars, until you experience it, it isn't real. `But what do I do every day, Mum? What do I do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips, and go to bed? Is that it?'

`It's what the rest of us do,' Mickey said, not really understanding her point.

`But I can't!' She shouted, she'd done that at Henrick's, and even then she'd felt she could do more.

`Why, because you're better than us?' Mickey asked, perhaps with some bitterness, after all, it was the Doctor that had stolen away his girlfriend.

That hurt Rose; she had never thought she was better than anyone. She had lived her life on a council estate; you only had to look at her room to see that she was no better than anyone else.

`No, I didn't mean that,' she shouted back. `But it was . . . it was a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life.'

She looked at Mickey. `You know . . . he showed you too. That you don't just give up.' She started to bang the table with her hand. `You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I just can't.'

Rose stood up and ran out of the cafe. Jackie looked at Mickey sitting next to her and felt for him. He was still in love with Rose, and couldn't accept that Rose had moved on.

`I think you hurt her then,' she said.

Mickey was silent for a while; his emotions were all over the place. Eventually though, he knew Jackie was right, he'd hurt the girl he loved, and it wasn't her fault.

`Yeah, I'd better go an' find her, say sorry.' He stood and left the cafe, heading after her.

He found her sitting on a metal bench in the recreation area of the estate. `You can't spend the rest of your life thinking about the Doctor.'

`But how do I forget him?' she asked. How does she forget a man who has shown her so much?

Mickey took this opportunity to make his move, it was now or never. `You've got to start living your own life. You know, a proper life, like the kind he's never had. The sort of life that you could have with me.'

“That's what he was on about in that message”, she thought. [`Have a good life, do that for me, Rose, have a fantastic life.']

While she thought about the message, and what Mickey had said, what he was offering her, she noticed some large letters chalked into the asphalt of the play area, letters that she had seen before. As she walked up to it, she noticed the graffiti on the walls.

`Over here,' she shouted and then looked at another wall. `It's over here as well!'

Mickey couldn't understand what she was getting excited about. `That's been there for years. It's just a phrase. It's just words.'

`I thought it was a warning. Maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's a message. The same words written down now and two hundred thousand years in the future. It's a link between me and the Doctor. Bad Wolf here, Bad Wolf there,' she said as she started to run.

`But if it's a message, what's it saying?' he called after her.

`It's telling me I can get back. The least I can do is help him escape.'

They ran back to the TARDIS and went inside.

`All the TARDIS needs to do is make a return trip. Just reverse,' she reasoned.

`Yeah, but we still can't do it.'

`The Doctor always said the TARDIS was telepathic. This thing is alive. It can listen,' she told him.

`It's not listening now, is it?'

`We need to get inside it. Last time I saw you, with the Slitheen, this middle bit opened, and there was this light, and the Doctor said it was the heart of the TARDIS. If we can open it, I can make contact. I can tell it what to do.'

Mickey had a bad feeling about that. `Rose.'

`Mmm?' She was deep in thought, trying to think of a way to get inside the TARDIS console.

`If you go back, you're going to die.'

`That's a risk I've got to take.' She couldn't look him in the eye. `Because there's nothin' left for me here,' she told him. Over the last few months, she'd faced death more than once, and although she didn't want to die, she'd learnt that sometimes you had to make a stand.

Once again, Mickey was hurt by what she'd said. `Nothin'?'

`No.'

Well, that was that. It told him everything he needed to know, and didn't want to know. There was nothing here for her, not even him, it was over. He knew her well enough to know that when her mind was made up, nothing could change it. So it was time to stop being her lover, and be her friend.

`Okay, if that's what you think, let's get this thing open.'

`Do you think we could pull it open?' he asked her.

`I don't know, last time it just kinda opened itself.'

`I've got an idea Babe; I'm goin' to get my car.'

He returned a few minutes later in his Mini, with a heavy chain from the garage where he worked.

`There ya go Rose, fix this hook onto the console, I'll fix the other end to the tow hitch.'

As Mickey was lying on the floor, attaching the chain, he saw a pair of legs standing close by.

`Watcha doin'?' Jackie asked from above.

`Tryin' to help Rose get back to the Doctor.'

Jackie's heart went into her mouth; Rose had said the Doctor was dying, what happened if she made it back, would she die too?

`Mickey, tell me honestly, is there any chance you can do it?'

`Honestly, I don't know Jackie. This thing is so alien and so complex . . . I doubt it, but I do know that Rose won't rest until we've tried.'

Jackie knew that he was right. `Well, get on with it then, ya can't keep that daft alien waitin', can ya,' she said light heartedly, knowing that Rose would hear her and think that she had her blessing.

Once he was connected up, Mickey started up the Mini and started to tug on the console. The car bounced on the end of the chain, but the console didn't budge.

`Faster!' Rose called from inside the TARDIS, and Mickey started to burn rubber.

`Come on!' Mickey shouted at his car, banging the steering wheel.

`It's not moving!' Rose shouted, before the chain failed and Mickey shot forward in the Mini. Rose kicked the console in frustration, why was the TARDIS so reluctant to help her save the Doctor.

Rose sat on the jump seat with her feet on the console, disheartened by the failure of Mickey's idea. Jackie put a comforting hand on her knee.

`It was never going to work, sweetheart. And the Doctor knew that. He just wanted you to be safe.'

`I can't give up.'

`Lock the door. Walk away.' She wanted her daughter back, living a `normal' life.

`Dad wouldn't give up,' Rose told her.

`Well, he's not here, is he? And even if he was, he'd say the same,' she told her. If only she knew what her dad was like.

`No, he wouldn't. He'd tell me to try anything. If I could save the Doctor's life, try anything.'

Jackie was taken by surprise; by the way Rose was talking about Pete, as if she knew what he was like. `Well, we're never going to know,' she said as though that was an end to it.

Rose looked defiantly at her mum. `Well, I know because I met him . . . I met Dad.'

Jackie just looked at her, speechless. `Don't be ridiculous.'

`The Doctor took me back in time, and I met Dad.'

`Don't say that,' Jackie snapped, she was just saying anything now to justify her actions.

`Remember when Dad died? There was someone with him.' Rose's voice started to break. `A girl, a blonde girl. She held his hand. You saw her from a distance, Mum.' Tears started to roll down her cheeks. `You saw her! Think about it. That was me . . . You saw me.'

`Stop it,' Jackie shouted, this was nonsense.

`That's how good the Doctor is,' she told her.

`Stop it! Just stop it!' Jackie ran out of the TARDIS close to tears. All the talk of her dead husband was too much for her, and being in that impossible box was just making it worse.

Rose sat on the jump seat and cried. She cried for her father, who died in front of her, giving his life so that everyone could live. And she cried for her Doctor, who was going to die, so that everyone could live.

Jackie walked aimlessly, just thinking about Pete and their short time together. That roguish smile of his, which had attracted her to him from the start. She smiled as she remembered how he told her he was an entrepreneur, and was going to be a millionaire. `Trust me on this', he had said.

He was a right `Jack the lad', but she fell in love with him all the same. He was so nervous at the registry office when they got married, he got her name wrong. And all his mad, daft ideas, the flat was full of the makings of those mad, daft ideas.

And then she thought about that awful day, the day that changed her life forever and made her a single mother. When she saw Pete lying in the road, she didn't realise it was him, because . . . there was a blonde girl kneeling by his side, holding his hand. She had thought they were a couple who were involved in a traffic accident.

When one of the guests went to offer first aid, he had recognised Pete, and that's when Jackie's world fell apart. That blonde girl, she'd only seen her at a distance, and from the back, but . . .

Jackie came out of her memories and realised where she was, was it some of the Doctor's weirdness, or was it her own subconscious that had brought her to `Rodrigo's Vehicle Recovery Service', where a big yellow tow truck waited for her.

Rose and Mickey were leaning side by side against the Mini, contemplating the intransigent TARDIS.

`There's got to be somethin' else we can do,' Mickey said.

`Mum was right, maybe we should just lock the door and walk away.' Rose had cried herself out in the TARDIS, and she'd seen the similarities between the Doctor and her dad, how their lives played out the way they were supposed to, and couldn't be changed.

Mickey couldn't believe what he was hearing. `I'm not havin' that. I'm not havin' you just, just give up now. No way. We just need somethin' stronger than my car. Somethin' bigger.' He turned to look at her and then saw it. `Somethin' like that.'

A big yellow tow truck came around the corner, and they looked on in stunned amazement as they saw the driver, it was Jackie.

She climbed down from the cab and walked over to them. `Right, you've only got this until six o'clock, so get on with it.'

`Mum, where the hell did you get that from?' Rose said with a laugh of disbelief.

`Rodrigo, he owes me a favour. Never mind why, but you were right about your dad, sweetheart. He was full of mad ideas, and it's exactly what he would've done. Now, get on with it before I change my mind,' she said as she threw the keys to Mickey.

Jackie watched once again as Rose and Mickey took a length of chain into the TARDIS. Mickey came out and started up the truck.

`Keep going!' Rose shouted, watching the chain strain against the console.

`Put your foot down!' Jackie called out, lifting her foot and imitating her foot on the accelerator.

They started taking it in turns to shout encouragement. `Faster!' Rose shouted again.

`Give it some more, Mickey!'

`Keep going!'

`Come on, come on!'

`Keep going!'

As Jackie shouted `Give it some more!' the console burst open, and the chain flew out onto the pavement.

Mickey jumped out of the cab and ran to the TARDIS doors, trying to get to Rose so that he could help her save the Doctor.

`Rose!' he cried as the doors slammed in his face.

Jackie put her hands to her mouth in horror, what had she done? She'd sent her daughter God knows where, to face God knows what.

She hadn't even had time to say goodbye.