Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Rose and Ten The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Rose tentatively fingered the healing remnants of the gills on her cheeks and neck as she contemplated how a visit to a grieving friend, ended up with her being a host for millions of alien fish eggs, and the Doctor foiling an alien invasion. They had called themselves the Waterhive, and the Doctor had averted the "feast of the drowned", where all the infected people would be consumed by the aquatic alien life forms.

She shuddered at the thought of it, having seen that sort of thing on the Discovery channel. "All things bright and beautiful", the hymn went; what it didn't say was that the Lord God also made all the things that were dark and ugly as well.

The Doctor was all for clearing off as soon as possible (as usual), but Rose wasn't going anywhere until she knew the people she loved were safe. Luckily (for her nerves and his attention span), the news came sooner rather than later.

They were down in the gigantic labs under Aldgate Tube Station, where the remnants of the HMS Ascendant had been brought, complete with the alien infestation. The soaked, baffled, and frightened victims of the Waterhive, were being helped out of the drainage pit and the darkness. It had been a bit of a scramble, but everyone had got out alive.

Vida Swann was an oceanographer with the European Office of Oceanic Research and Development, and had been using newly developed tracers to analyse the sea's constituent elements over time. The tracers were tiny organic transmitters and receivers made up of subatomic filaments in an aqueous base. Fortunately, these tracers transmitted a signal which interfered with the Waterhive queens mind control signal, and had been instrumental in helping the Doctor defeat the Waterhive.

Vita had just found her boss Andrew Dolan, and the two were enjoying a tearful reunion that bordered on the indecent.

'Good workin' relationship?' Rose observed with her cheeky, tongue between the teeth smile.

Mickey looked at her shyly. `Proper hug sounds good after all this.'

`Does it?' She glanced round to check on the Doctor. He was standing alone in the wrecked laboratory, his back to them all. `Well. Professor Huntley's got a good grip. Try him,' she said a bit too sharply. She was still hurt by Keisha's revelation that she had slept with him.

`Funny.'

`I mean it!'

Huntley was moving between bedraggled groups of survivors, giving the plainest explanations he could manage and trying to help. `I've never met so many people in my life,' he said, all puffed up and proud.

`Plenty more where they came from above ground,' said Vida, leading Andrew over by the hand. He looked to be in a bit of a daze, but Rose saw his scars were healing even faster than her own. `Now I'd better get this one to a hospital and catch up with Kelper. There's a hell of a mess to clean up.'

"That's a cue to leave if ever I heard one", Rose thought to herself.

'Will you and the Doctor be sticking around?' Vida asked her.

Rose wrinkled her nose. 'Not really our style.'

'Aha. Well, I won't ask where you'll be going,' Vida said.

'We don't even know ourselves," Rose confessed.

`But wherever it is - don't drink the water.' She smiled, blew Rose and Mickey a kiss and walked away, Andrew trailing behind her.

`You don't have to go yet, do you?' Mickey said.

Rose didn't answer.

Mickey took a step closer. `Nothing happened with Keisha,' he said.

She looked away. `It's all right. It was all ages ago, anyway.'

`I mean it. Stay and you can ask her!' Keisha had confessed to him that even when she had gotten him blind drunk, she still couldn't seduce him. He was still loyal to Rose, and that had made her angry, which is why she started spreading the malicious gossip that he was responsible for her disappearance.

`I don't need to ask her,' Rose said kindly. She knew Mickey, knew what kind of a bloke he was. He'd come running to Cardiff that time, when he thought they would be getting back together again. And when she was trying to get the TARDIS to take her back to Satellite Five, she told him that there was nothing for her back on the estate, he still stood by her.

She felt pangs of guilt and remorse about the way she had treated him in the past. She had been wooed by the boyish charms of Jimmy Stone and the promise of a rock star lifestyle. And then she had been wooed by the promise of travelling through the whole of time and space. She didn't deserve someone like Mickey, and he certainly deserved someone better than her.

`Nothing went on! I was so cut up about you going that -'

`Good choice of words, cut up,' she said, touching her scars. `Like it.'

`Will you just listen?'

`Honest, Mickey, it's all right.' She half-smiled. `Today I was drowned and turned into a fish. Sort of puts things in perspective a bit.'

Mickey shook his head sadly. `So even the bad stuff that happens when the Doctor's around wins out over you and me?'

She put a hand on his still damp chest. `I believe you, OK? And I'm sorry for what I put everybody through. How it changed everything so fast. You and me, we were different people then. And though we'll go on changing . . .'

He nodded. `Maybe some things can stay the same.'

His damp arms were just slipping round her damp waist for a close hug when her mobile started to trill, despite the total soaking it had received. That was the Doctor's jiggery-pokery for you. Just as well, since with all that tampering, the warranty must be royally stuffed.

`Some things will always stay the same,' groaned Mickey. `That'll be your mum!' And he was right of course.

She was calling from a box. `You all right, sweetheart? I've been queuing for this phone for an hour. An hour! We've been so worried, Rose, me and Keisha. You've been driving us out of our minds, you have. So are you all right?'

`I'm fine,' Rose insisted, `so's Mickey. So's himself.' I think.

The Doctor was still standing well apart from the others.

`What about you, Mum, you OK? Where are you?'

`Down the embankment. We've got the Red Cross, Sally Army, coppers taking our names. It's crazy. Oh, and I met this gorgeous man on the river! Most people were in a bit of a daze, but me and him, we were so excited we ended up dancing this fandango, right across the Thames! He's a lovely mover -'

`Is Keish all right?' she interrupted. `Is she there?'

`She's with Jay. They're catching up. But you wouldn't believe the state of him.'

Oh, yes, I would. `He helped save us, Mum. He was brilliant.'

`Well, the navy doctors will be getting to him soon,' Jackie went on. `They'll look after their own, won't they? Oh, hang on, I've run out of change. These things eat money! Will I see you, sweetheart? See you soon, I mean?'

The phone clicked as she was disconnected. `Yeah, Mum,' Rose whispered. `See you soon.' She switched off her mobile and glanced over at the Doctor. he was facing her now. Converse wet through, suit dishevelled, his great hair all over the place . . . and he was giving her THAT smile, the one that gave her butterflies in her stomach.

It was time to go she realised.

She looked back at Mickey. 'I'll be back again. In about ten minutes probably, just you wait.'

And though neither of them really believed it, they smiled and nodded like it was true. She pressed a kiss against his cheek, waved to Vida and the others, then turned and walked slowly away, squelching and texting Keisha as she went.

"Wotever you do, b happy. C u soon. Love r xx".

She reached the Doctor and he raised his eyebrows at her. 'Finished?'

'Not quite,' she said distractedly.

"P.S. Big hugs to your gorgeous bruv". She pressed send, and then switched off the phone. That was it now, no more pretending to be au pairing in France or back packing in the Far East. One of her friends knew the truth, and that friend could keep a secret like a sieve could hold water.

She would keep quiet until it became physically painful for her, and then she would be down the pub telling everyone and dragging Mickey into the tale for him to confirm the story.

Rose smiled at the thought, and then remembered something from their childhood. 'Y'know there was this bloke who used to scare Keisha and me when we were kids,' Rose started to tell him. 'Old Scary we called him. He used to go around shouting stuff in this 'orrible voice. All sorts of things, he even made the nice things sound frightenin'. I'd hear him from my room sometimes. I'd hide under the covers and listen to him goin' on all night.'

She had a far away look in her eyes as she cast back her mind, and then turned to look into the Doctor's deep, timeless eyes. 'Many waters cannot quench love . . . That's one he came out with a lot. Neither can the floods drown it . . .'

'And?' the Doctor prompted, wondering where her reminiscing was heading.

Rose gave him a shrug, not sure herself. 'Maybe he really wasn't so scary after all.'

'You want scary?' The Doctor took her hand. 'I'll show you scary. On the planet Jack Dusty, in the Dusty Jack nebula, the chips cost a tenner a portion. And they don't even come in a newspaper.'

Together they walked away, new adventures were waiting, but first of all they had to get back to the Powell Estate. They made their way up to Aldgate Tube Station, and Rose bought two tickets to Queens Road, Peckham. From there, it was a short walk to the Powell Estate.

`God, I need a bath,' Rose said, lifting an arm and sniffing her arm pit as she walked up the ramp to the console.

`Well, I didn't like to say anything, but I don't think those people on the tube gave up their seats for you to be polite,” he said with a cheeky smile.

`And look at my hair,' she complained, inspecting the blonde rats tails with her fingers. `I'll see you in a coupla hours.'

A short while later, her head broke the surface through a thick carpet of fragrant bubbles with a contented sigh. She went over the days traumatic events, and the TARDIS soothed those memories as she did so, dampening the emotional content so that she wouldn't have nightmares.

She lazily reached over to her phone, and dialled her mum's number.

`'Ello?' Jackie said.

`You made it home all right then?'

`Sweetheart! Yeah, it took ages. The whole of London was gridlocked. Where are you then?'

`Havin' a soak in the bath. Tryin' to get the stink of the Thames out of me nostrils.'

`Yeah, I've got the heater on to do the same . . . Rose, about your face . . .' Rose instinctively touched the lines on her cheek. `When I saw that ghost of you in the lorry, your eyes were all pearly, and you had cuts in your cheeks.'

`I must have looked a right state,' Rose said with a laugh. `It's all cleared up now Mum,' she lied. There was no point upsetting her more than she already was.

`That's a relief Sweetheart. I couldn't bear to think of you lookin' like that for the rest of your life.'

`No, I'm fine Mum. Look, we're gonna travel about a bit, let things settle down there, and then I'll be home. Okay?'

`Okay. Take care. I love you.'

`Love you too Mum. Bye.'

A “coupla” hours later, Rose wandered into the kitchen wearing a pale blue bath robe, and a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. She was rubbing moisturiser into the gill marks on her cheeks and her neck. The Doctor noticed that she had a worried look on her face.

`Feeling better?' he asked as he put a mug of tea in front of her.

`Yeah, much better thanks.'

`So, why the long face?'

`Well, I was just wonderin' about these marks . . . I'm gonna be scarred for the rest of my life, aren't I?'

`Oh, is that all?' he said cheerily. `Nah, your cells are still reversing the effects of the anti-cellularisation. The tissues are repairing themselves from the inside out; the insides of your throat and cheeks will be perfectly smooth now.'

She breathed a sigh of relief. `That's all right then.'

`Yep, after a good nights sleep, you'll wake up as beautiful as you've always been,' he said with a look that conveyed the sincerity of what he was saying.

Rose saw the look, and for some reason it made her blush. She thought about the statue of the goddess Fortuna that he had sculpted from memory, how he had captured her essence, her soul. In fact, you could say it was a labour of . . . love.

`For a human?' she said teasingly, trying to make light of that last thought.

`Ah, yeah, right . . . sorry about that,' he said sheepishly, pulling his earlobe.

She laughed and gave him her tongue between the teeth smile before having another sip of her tea. They chatted about the Waterhive, and he explained how he had let the queen into his mind so that he could use her thought wavelengths to activate the micro transmitters in the tracers and so destroy the hive mind.

After he finished his explanation, Rose gave a big yawn and covered her mouth. 'Ooh, sorry about that.'

`It looks like someone needs their beauty sleep.' He stood up and held out his hand for her. 'C'mon, off to bed and I'll tell you a tale of the Court of King John of England at the castle of Sir Ranulf Fitzwilliam in 1215.'

'Ooh, is it all knights in white armour, noble steeds and jousting?' she asked excitedly. She loved his bed time stories; it was a way of finding out more about his incredible past.

'Nah, more evil Time Lords, sophisticated robots, and a plot to rob the world of Magna Carta and the foundation of parliamentary democracy.'

'Oh, pretty normal day for you then,' she said as hand in hand, they wandered out of the kitchen.