She was going to kill him when he came back. He said he'd be gone for a couple of days at the most, and now he'd been gone two weeks without a clue of when he'd return. And now the Johnson's house was on fire.
She wasn't completely helpless, though, as she climbed the nearest tree to the bedroom window of the burning building, and using her foot to kick in the glass. Climbing in, she noticed that the flames hadn't quite reached this room, but the thick black smoke had, and it enveloped her instantaneously.
"Lucy," she called, coughing immediately after, "Lucy, talk to me, I need to know where you are!"
There was a high pitched cry to her left, which she assumed was Lucy's attempt at communication. "Okay, I'm going to need you to lay down, alright," Rose called out. "Breathe in as close to the floor as you can until I can reach you," she started coughing again, the smoke dancing in and out of her lungs.
"I want my mama," Lucy cried from the far right corner of the room. Having narrowed down the girl's location, Rose stumbled over the mess and waded through the smoke.
"I know, sweetheart," she cooed, feeling for the girl's hand and picking her up. She pressed her little face into her shoulder, hoping the cloth from her blouse would act as an air filter that the child could breathe through, and started her way back toward the window.
There was a wave of heat as the bedroom door began to burn and grumble under the weight of the wood that began to burn and the flames which were finally entering the room. Rose swore silently, trying to use one hand to lift the girl onto the window sill.
"Can you climb down this tree, Lucy," she asked.
"I- I think so," the girl coughed.
"Okay, here you go. Grab that branch," she pulled it down for the Lucy to reach, "There," she instructed. The flames grew higher, gnawing at the beams of the wooden room as Lucy started to slowly swing her body along toward the trunk of the tree that she would have to climb down. Rose knew she couldn't jump out onto the branch until the Lucy was safely on another branch; so she waited in the midst of the growing fire and the unstable house, cursing in every language she'd accumulated on the TARDIS.
Five seconds later, she could hear the gathering neighborhood cry in relief as Lucy made it down far enough to jump into her father's waiting arms, and cries of her own name. A segment of roofing collapsed three feet behind her, which she took as her cue to exit the building. Stepping onto the windowsill wasn't as easy as she'd expected, as her bell-bottomed pants snagged on the splintering wood and sent her pitching forward. Thinking as quickly as she could, she grabbed onto the nearest thing, hoping it'd be stable enough to hold her weight.
The metal piping on the side of the house was hot, she realized, rolling her eyes and gasping in pain simultaneously. It was very hot, but she held on despite the searing pain. Eyes filling with tears and searing with the heat of the metal, she released the piping with one hand to find something to grasp lower down. It was an eight foot drop from this side of the house and she knew there was no way on Earth she'd land that unscathed.
The flames had reached the very top of the house and were flaring out the window, it's roar adding to the noise from the crowd below.
"Rosie, be careful," she heard Lucy shout. She heard an older man cry out to someone else, "the poor dear, her hands will be charred!" And an other woman yell, "my God, what if she falls?" There were children crying. The searing pain from the pipes and her added weight from hanging from her hands began to impair her judgment.
"Doctor," she whispered, "I'm going to kill you if I get out of this alive!" Closing her eyes and breathing in deeply, she used her legs to propel herself from the building and released the pipes.
The screaming that followed was unbearable, though she couldn't tell if they were her own screams or those from the crowd. Or both. Time moved slower than it ever had in the TARDIS as she prepared herself for the impact which would surely break her. 'Come on Tyler,' she thought, 'loosen up.'
The first impact she made was not with the cold grass, but with a body.
"Ooomff," she heard as the two of them collided with the ground. "I gotcha, Miss," the boy beneath her breathed out.
"Rosie," Lucy screamed, "Miss Tyler," and, "somebody call an ambulance!"
"It won't do us any good," and elderly woman choked out, "the fire department is already on it's way. We have to wait!"
Remembering the body beneath her, Rose rolled herself off of the boy who had "caught" her and flopped onto her stomach. The pain was disorienting- and all the clamor being made over her was making her head pound. Or was that the work of the smoke, she wondered.
She opened her eyes to see feet. Trousers and shoes and legs and knees surrounding her on all sides. But a glimpse of something bright blue drew her attention back. With all the strength she could muster, she peered through the gaps in peoples legs to see a pale little girl, long silvery blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Her cheeks were stained with grime and tears, and Rose knew that she'd never seen the girl before.
However, her body was unwilling to sustain her inquiring mind in its current state, and her eyes drifted shut. She could hear sirens growing in the distance and the fire growing with them. Then she felt herself be lifted by strong arms into a cool house.
"Don't worry, dear," a calm elderly voice calmed her, "the ambulance'll be here in a tic- oh, hello," she said into what Rose guessed was a telephone pole. "Doctor Smith, it's Glenda Simmons from Ottery St. Catchpole." A pause. "Yes." Another pause, "There's been an accident, Doctor. Rose has been hurt."
DW – DW – DW – DW – DW – DW –
After arriving at the hospital, the Doctor spoke to every doctor and nurse who had cared for Rose in the two days it took him to get back to her. He'd run straight for her charts to asses her situation for himself, and used the sonic screwdriver to examine her head to toe.
Exhaustion, oxygen starvation, two major burns to the hands, and minor internal bruising were all he could find. According to the physician on duty, a young man attempted to catch her and broke her fall. The injuries she sustained could have been fatal if it hadn't been for the lad's injury.
Bill had been his name. Barely thirteen and attempting to be the hero. Surprisingly, the lad had walked away unscathed, if not a little short of breath. The Doctor made a not to go see the boy and thank him himself, the minute Rose woke up.
But right now, the only thing on his mind was the girl on the hospital bed. His brave, selfless, and somewhat stupid companion. Rose, who was lying before him, bandaged up from her hands to her head and hooked up to an IV machine which was dispensing her pain medication. Rose, who like Bill, had decided to play the part of the hero. But unlike Bill in his luck. He didn't know whether to proud of her for saving little Lucy Johnson, or furious with her for putting her life on the line like that. Or, he mused, terrified at himself for having left her in that little town while he hunted down the creature that the people of Ottery St. Catchpole had been haunted by.
They'd only been in town for a week since the TARDIS had refused to leave her place of landing for whatever reason the Doctor had not figured out. So he'd rented a car and insisted that Rose stay in town with the Stevenson girls who had planned to take her to an Aerosmith concert. He would only be gone two days, and Rose would have never given up an opportunity to see an authentic 80's rock band in the 80's. Which, of course, was the only reason she'd agreed to stay behind this time.
But as his luck would have it, the Doctor was delayed. The car had broken down beyond repair with the sonic screwdriver, forcing him to have to hitchhike- something he hadn't done in years. He reached a payphone five days after the fact, and informed Rose of his troubles, and that he was safely in London.
While he was there, he'd run into more trouble, when a woman had claimed to recognize him as her son. She'd chased him around with a broom in her hand, ordering him to come home because it wasn't safe.
"They'll find you, it's not safe! It's only been a year..."
He'd had absolutely no idea what she'd been on about and was about to chalk it up on substance abuse when he'd had to duck a burst of light which had been hurled at him. Turning, he saw a group of men in black robes running toward him and wielding long thin sticks in their hands. "We've got you now, Crouch," one had shouted. So he ran.
He ran as far as he could for as long as he could, finding a nice little hole-up by a newspaper stand which was displaying his own face to the public with the headline "ARMED AND DANGEROUS."
He nicked a copy of the paper and read it to find out that a man with a similar appearance to his, by the name of Bartemeus Crouch, imprisoned for torture and homicide, had escaped prison and was on the prowl.
Five days after having been holed up, he'd nicked another paper which apologized profusely to the public and to "Crouch's unfortunate" doppelganger for the scare and inconvenience as the convict was reported to still be safely behind bars. And that was when he'd gotten the call from Glenda Simmons and promptly stole a car and drove the two days back to Ottery St. Catchpole and to the hospital where Rose had been taken.
After making sure that his companion would be alright, he sat on the chair by her bed and waited. Her hand was lying by her side, and the Doctor was tempted to take it into his own, like he had on countless occasions, but it was heavily bandaged and he remembered how bad the burns had been. Needing to do something with his hands, he settled for fiddling with the sonic.
He could have her checked out this hospital and take her somewhere that could heal her injuries in seven seconds flat. Like Chronnil IX. Their medicine was much more advanced than anything this hospital could offer. In fact, anywhere in the universe had better healing technology than Earth year 1984.
But the TARDIS wouldn't budge. He'd even gone back to check on her, and she'd stubbornly refused to leave her spot.
There was something, though. A tiny detail that he kept overlooking – kept filing away for later contemplation. One teensy-tiny detail that had been staring him in the face and following his every move. Literally, blue eyes watching him, small feet following out to the car and into the TARDIS, and back to the hospital. A small hand grabbing his own at every crosswalk and crowded elevator lift back up to the third floor.
A little girl sitting cross-legged at the foot of Rose's bed. She had a piece of paper and box of crayons in front of her, but didn't touch them. Instead, her big blue eyes were still fixed on his surprised brown ones.
Now, where did she come from, he wondered.
"I hope you don't mind, sir," said a matronly voice from beside him. "I brought her something to keep her busy."
The Doctor blinked. He looked from the girl to the nurse who had spoken to him.
"What? No- no," he stammered. Clearing his throat, he looked back to the child and nodded, "Go ahead and color." Her blue eyes lingered on his for only a moment longer before they diverted to the colors in a decisive focus.
"She sure is a special little girl," the nurse spoke again.
"Sure is," he mused.
"She yours," the question came, though he wasn't sure if he should have expected it or not.
"No," he chuckled quietly. "My eyes haven't been that blue in a long while." The nurse eyed him skeptically at that comment, but continued to speak.
"Well, she came in with Miss Tyler in the ambulance. Hasn't left her side since," she sighed. "We tried to ask where her daddy was, so he could come get her while Miss Tyler woke up."
"Oh, Rose isn't her mother," he said flatly. The nurse looked uncomfortable.
"Well, we weren't sure, sir. She wouldn't talk to us. I think she's a shy one."
He continued to watch her color the page in silence. She hadn't left Rose's side at all, apart from leaving to the TARDIS with him. Something was very strange about the child.
"Would you like me to take her elsewhere, sir?"
He shook his head, seeing the girl was at ease and content to be sitting with Rose. "Nahh," he dragged the word out with a practiced nonchalance. "I'll watch her until her parents turn up, it's fine."
After checking Rose's vitals and informing the Doctor that she would be just fine, the nurse left the room. The little girl stopped coloring and gave the Doctor her picture – the page was swirling with colors. Reds, greens, blues, purples, oranges, and gold were bending together in a mess of wax and flushing into the center.
"You're a Time Lord," her small voice stated. There was no question on her face. The Doctor was gobsmacked.
"How do you mean," he inquired softly, locking onto her blue orbs once again. She quietly grasped her long blonde braid and bit into it, shrugging her shoulders.
"You look it," she whispered.
Despite his shock, her answer amused and intrigued him. So before she could look away to start on another picture, he questioned her again.
"And how do you know about Time Lords?" He adjusted himself to her eye level by resting his elbows on his knees and holding his chin on his fist.
"My mummy told me," she answered simply.
"And who's your mummy," he asked her, kindly hoping for information which could help the child get home to her parents. But he had no such luck as she looked away again and stared out the window. The Doctor waited five minutes before he concluded that she wouldn't be answering that question. Trying for another tactic, he held his hand out to her in a formal gesture.
"Well," he smiled, "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord."
She smiled back and grabbed his hand enthusiastically.
"I'm Luna. I'm three," her bright smile only made his grow exponentially. Her following giggle melted his heart, "and you have Nargles in your hair."