Becky Griffon was on a mission. The people of London around her meant nothing; they were just getting in the way of her goal. She pushed her way through the busy crowds, not even noticing the child she had just violently shoved fall to the floor. Her mind was fixed on one thing. She didn't know what he looked like, how old he was or what he wanted, all she knew was that she loved him and he needed her.

She crossed a busy road without hesitating, causing cars to pull to a sudden stop, people were emerging from their vehicles to hurl abuse at her, but she didn't care. She was almost there. She didn't feel the hand grasp her arm and try to spin her around, and if she did she shrugged it off automatically. Her eyes set on the target; she carried on marching towards her objective. When she turned the corner into the alley, the shadows draping over her, she walked faster, she could practically feel him. Her hands flew to her necklace, and she began to spin it around between her fingers. Something she had been doing subconsciously lately. She marched onwards, finally coming to a halt in front of the large building, shutters forced down and graffiti sprayed on the bricks. Becky's face lit up. There he was, leaning against the walls and looking as perfect as she imagined. Perfect.

Rose threw the ace of spades down in annoyance. This was getting ridiculous now. The Doctor seemed to win every single game they played, at any time, on any planets.

'I thought you said you were good at this?' He asked, picking up the cards and grouping them together in one swift move.

'I am! Usually, when I'm not up against a 945 year old genius.'

The Doctor was grinning like an idiot.

'What?' Rose snapped, standing up from the rackety floor and walking over to her phone.

'You called me a genius,'

Rose rolled her eyes playfully, it was funny sometimes just how bashful he got when she complimented him. She picked her phone up and gasped, looking at the date.

'What is it? Ya' mum text you telling you she's pregnant?' The Doctor laughed,

'No- Its- Its sixteenth of June.'

'Ah. Sixteenth June! Of course! Y'know, 1915- the foundation of the British Woman's Institute!' He paused for a second, as if distracted by his own thoughts, 'I actually helped Margaret meet Harris, the founders of it. Sort of. Well, actually, you should really give the credit to Ms Alfred Watt. She was where it all came from. Real brains, that woman. Her name was Rose too!' He grinned, but found Rose staring back at him in her usual 'What the hell' face.

'You really know your history.' Rose said, clearing her throat. 'Anyways, no, that's not what I meant…its Mickey's birthday tomorrow.' She walked to his side, waving the phone (that had a picture of her and her mum as the background.) in his face.

'Oh…well, you want to go see him?' The Doctor asked, and Rose looked thoughtful for a second. Almost resentful. But she nodded,

'Yeah, I really should- he'll hate me if I don't.' She pursed her lips and started to rummage through her bag, 'We should really get him something.' She said.

'We?' The Doctor repeated, though he grinned.

'Well yeah!' Rose said, 'You know him too- and well, it would be kind of bad if we showed up and I gave him a present saying 'Love Rose' when you're standing right beside me!'

The Doctor screw his face up in distaste. 'I have to go too?' He asked, almost like a child being dragged to a shopping centre while the other kids got to stay and play. Rose gave him a look. A look he knew all too well.

'Right. I'll get my coat and we'll go get your boyfriend a present then!' The Doctor grinned and ran to the chair, grabbing his long brown jacket and pulling it on.

'He's not my boyfriend!' Rose claimed, but the Doctor merely flashed her a brilliant grin that she thought could melt anything and continued to dash around the giant bronze centre of the control room, pressing and pushing levers and buttons in random places as he set course to their newest destination. 'We're going to one of the best shopping bases in the universe!'

The TARDIS finally landed. But, as usual, it wasn't peaceful. Rose was sent stumbling in every direction when they had been making there way to the shopping base, and now they had landed she was more than happy to be able to walk in a straight line.

'You really need to learn how to land this thing!' Rose laughed,

'Hey! I'm getting better, aren't I?' The Doctor said with a mock frown, but ended up grinning, 'Aww come on, its all part of the adventure!'

Rose wasn't listening though; she was at the doors of the TARDIS and looking out in amazement at their surroundings. Everywhere she looked there were people, Shops were lined up, all small and packed with accessories of all sorts in the windows- Rose took note of all the different races walking past; some with light purple skin that looked remotely human other than the spikes on their arms. Rose nearly let out a gasp as she saw some tiny creatures slither past- speaking to each other in high pitched voices. She was about to point and squeal at them when the Doctor came up behind her,

'Aha! We appeared in the right place, ahh! Brilliant!' He strolled out grinning, hands up in the air. 'Brilliant!'

'This place is amazing!' Rose joined his side, and the Doctor nodded as he locked the TARDIS door.

'Where are we then?' Rose asked, peering at the sky and then back to the packed streets. 'It looks like London at Christmas!' She pursed her lips, 'Y'know, minus the purple people…and the slug people….And the…' She pointed a finger subtly at a group of large creatures- all in robes and hats, '…thingies.' She finished.

'Those 'thingies' actually helped the human race discover the universe as we know it. Come on.' He began to lead her away from the large blue box they called home, 'We're on a Shopping district. This place has come in handy a million times before when I've been in need of….well, anything really!' He grinned and lead her to a cash disposal. 'Right, how much do you want?'

Rose was too busy gawping at a man with three arms to answer him. The Doctor grinned, it still amused him at how amazed she looked whenever they went somewhere new. He got the sonic screwdriver out and began to fiddle with the settings on it, before scanning over the machine and watching as a stick fell out.

'Here we go- Unlimited credits!' He handed it to her. 'Don't spend it all on sweets!' The he paused again, staring off into space, 'Although that's kind of hard… considering its unlimited. Hmm. I wonder how much you can actually spend on those things.' He turned around to see the back of Roses head, rushing towards a shop opposite them. He rolled his eyes, and began to follow her. 'Rule one, never wander off! When is she going to learn that?'

Rose and the Doctor stumbled in to the TARDIS; both laughing, gasping for breath. They had just spent the last two hours in a packed bar, dancing and chatting with the other tourists, where Rose had somehow managed to convince the owner of the bar to give the everyone there free drinks for the night. Apparently, humans were particularly attractive on this planet. Especially blonde ones. Then she had tried to get him buy the whole planet a free drink, and he had caught on to the fact that she was just humouring him. Then he had asked them to leave, and when the Doctor tried to resist, they ended up getting chased by an extremely rough looking bouncer.

'We need to go out to places like that more often!' Rose said, kicking her shoes off.

'What, places where we get chased by people? Nah. Never in a life time.' He flopped down onto the shabby couch and gave her a cheeky grin.

'Very funny,' Rose laughed, sitting next to him, 'But no. I mean, like, places where we can- well, y'know…'She smiled shyly at him, something he rarely saw with her. 'Just….' She paused, and rolled her eyes. 'Never mind.'

There was a moment of silence.

'Right.' The Doctor dragged out, sitting up straighter. 'Right. Well. We've got something for your boyfriend, now lets go and see him!' He jumped back on his feet.

'We may as well get some sleep,' Rose muttered. 'Its not his birthday 'till tomorrow, and well…' She looked at her phone, 'Its around 10ish. Mickey's probably…at the pub or something. C'mon, we'll surprise him tomorrow!' She said, jumping up and walking towards the bags. She pulled out the thing they had gotten Mickey- it was a small handy knife. It even glowed when danger was near, and that reminded Rose of Lord Of The Rings (her mums old boyfriend had once made them watch it, claiming it was the 'best thing since Star Wars'. That relationship hadn't lasted long.).

'Do we have to go see him tomorrow? I mean, we could just go and drop it off now and then we can head back out into the universe!'

'Doctor, please! Mickey barely gets to see me- to see us! He'll love us for coming round.'

'He'll love you coming around, and while you go around , I can finish off some things that need repairing here in the TARDIS!' The Doctor suddenly looked a lot more happy,

'Oh no you don't,' She gave him a sharp look, 'You're coming with me. You can come say hello to my mum as well.'

'What-Please! No, anything but that, I'll go see the boyfriend, but the mother? No way!'

Rose simply batted her eyelids at him. 'Please?'

The Doctor rolled his eyes, 'Fine… but don't expect me to eat anything your mother cooks.'

'Happy Birthday!'

The Doctor and Rose stood in Mickey's doorway, grinning. Their faces soon fell though, when they saw that the person who opened the door was not Mickey smith. Rose had to look him over, study him for a few seconds before realising who it was.

'Alfie!' She said in shock, it was Alfie Griffon! The last time she had seen him had been a few months before she had met the Doctor; she had been out with Mickey and his friends. Alfie had always been the loudest, funniest and most exciting of the group, but right now he looked plain dull. His eyes were red, he looked like he hadn't slept and he had evidently been crying.

'Rose? Rose- Rose Tyler?' Alfie frowned, eyeing her like she was some sort of extinct animal. 'What're you doing here?'

Mickey appeared beside him, his face mimicking Roses surprise. 'Oh- Hey! What're you doing here?' He looked over her and then to the Doctor. 'Um, come in,'

They both stepped in at the same time, feeling more than slightly awkward. Alfie ran a hand through his black hair, and walked over to the couch, throwing himself down. The Doctor looked at Rose and she caught on to what he was thinking,

'Oh- right, Alfie, um, this is- this is the Doctor. Doctor, this is Alfie- he went to school with me.' She smiled.

Alfie laughed, 'Yeah. Until you ran off with that Jimmy Stone. You got a thing about running of with weird guys, aint ya? First a musician, now a Doctor.'

Rose rolled her eyes, 'I didn't just 'run off' with him, I've been travelling.'

'Didn't stop to tell anyone where to though, did you? I mean, your poor mum was driving herself crazy- and Mickey was getting the blame for it all!' Alfie glared at her and then at the Doctor, who didn't seem phased by his tone at all.

'Oi, look, that's all happened now, right?' Mickey cut in, 'Its not like she didn't come back at all.'

Alfie muttered something under his breath but stayed quiet. Rose exchanged looks with Mickey and he led her and the Doctor into the kitchen, putting the kettle on. 'He's got a point, Y'know?' He muttered, and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

'I was just a little bit out with the timing!' He said, leaning against a counter. 'How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?'

'Just, forget it. What're you doing here anyway?' Mickey demanded, frowning. 'You remember my birthday or was it just a coincidence you came today?'

Rose glared at him. 'I remembered! I- We,' She pointed from herself to the Doctor, 'Got you something for your birthday!' She grinned excitedly and passed him a wrapped up package from her bag.

'Oh..' Mickey looked embarrassed for a few seconds before taking it from her, 'Thanks so much!'

Mickey found it hard to put down the little handy knife, declaring that it was the best present he could have- other than the fact that Rose had come back to see him. He pushed it into his pocket and even found himself thanking the Doctor- in a slightly awkward fashion, but the Doctor had merely shrugged and pointed to Rose, saying 'Her idea, not mine.'. They were sitting in the front room now, with tea, and Alfie was staring at his phone.

'Has she rang yet?' Mickey asked, setting his cup on the small coffee table;

'No.' Alfie said,

'Has who rang yet?' Rose said, 'Are you still going out with Lizzy? Did you guys have a fight or something?'

Alfie frowned. 'What're you on about? I'm talking 'bout Becky.'

'Becky?' The Doctor asked, in mock interest. 'Oohh, who's Becky?'

Alfie glared at him. 'She's my sister. She's been missing. Where the 'ell have you two been lately? Its all over the news.'

'Really? Oh- god, I'm sorry! Does anyone know anything?' Rose said, not really sure what to say.

'No! Do you think I would be here if anyone knew something? She's not coming back. Just like the rest of 'em.' Alfie muttered, wiping his nose and sniffing.

'The rest of them?' The Doctor asked, 'What do you mean by that?'

'What do you think I- My god, where the 'ell have you guys been?'

'There's been girls going missing for the last 4 or 5 weeks.' Mickey stated, pulling the handy knife out again and playing with it with a boyish grin. 'I looked into it, but there isn't much I can get out of it. That's why…' He paused and stood up, walking back in to the Kitchen. Rose and the Doctor once again followed him through, leaving Alfie to stare at his phone hopefully. 'That's why I had Alfie come over. Try and get some information out of him, but all he says is that Becky went out and didn't come back. Nothing particularly 'Alien' about that, probably just some sort of weird guy tryin' to get girls.'

'How many have gone missing?' Rose asked, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

'Becky was the fourth. Its bin' happening every Thursday for the last month,' Mickey paused and put the knife back in his pocket, 'And the police are doin' bugger all, other than putting a few new officers on the streets.'

'Couldn't you have like, used your hacking skills or whatever?' Rose asked,

'There's nothing for me to 'hack' into. It's the families that have the real information about the girls, I tried to get in touch with some of them.' Mickey made his way to a nearby stack of papers, rustling through them and pulling one from the pile. He handed it to the Doctor. 'That's from a few weeks back, the first girl who went missing was called Nicola- all it says here is that she's like, 15, and she was a normal teenage girl. Says she was acting a little odd before she went missin', but other than that things were fine.' He started to look through some of the other papers, pulling 2 more out and passing them to Rose, 'The same with the other girls. Its always on a Thursday, but no one can tell what time, where it happened so there aint much people can do.'

'Well you have been doing your research, havnt you?' The Doctor muttered, still scanning through the papers for anything useful. 'Shame there's nothing actually helpful in here.'

'Oi! I've been trying, the best I could get out of them stupid papers was the addresses!'

'And you've spoke to the families?' The Doctor asked, throwing the paper back down.

'Yeah. Well, I tried. Wouldn't let me in though, thought I was some weird reporter or summat', I aint got no ID so its kind of hard.'

Rose and the Doctor looked at each other and both seemed to be sharing the same thoughts.

'That,' The Doctor said, 'Is where I come in handy.'