However Improbable
by ErtheChilde


'Always search for truth. My truth is in the stars and yours is here.'


Disclaimer: This story utilizes characters, situations and premises that are copyright the BBC. No infringement on their respective copyrights pertaining to episodes, novelizations, comics or short stories is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan oriented story is written solely for the author's own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All fiction, plot and Original Characters with the exception of those introduced in the books and graphic novels, are the sole creation of ErtheChilde and using them without permission is considered rude, in bad-taste and will reflect seriously on your credibility as a writer. A short drop and a sudden stop may be in order if you are found plagiarizing.

Warning: Spoilers: If it existed in any form of Doctor Who canon, whether television, novelization, or graphic novel, it's probably going to be mentioned here. For this particular fic, anything up to and including The Unquiet Dead.
Canadian Writing British: As a Canadian, I am not all-knowing when it comes to British idioms, sayings or sang. I write what sounds right to my ears and when in doubt, I look things up on the Internet. So I might not always get it right. If I'm way off about something please drop me a line and I'll correct it.

AN: As decided by the poll: an adventure in nineteenth century London! Sorry it took so long to put up, I've had one of those weeks :P

AN2: This is not a crossover, although it might seem like one at times. The secondary characters mentioned in this story who might be rather recognizable would lead you to believe that it is a crossover, however, as they have made appearances in various prose adventures with the Seventh Doctor and Iris Wildthyme and have been spoken about familiar by the Doctor in several incarnations, obviously those characters are part of the Whoniverse. Also, the other characters that pop up and would make you think this is a crossover…well, they're all part of the story, aren't they? So nope…no crossovers here :P

AN3: I'll get a cover picture done up for this and add it to the chronology later. I'm exhausted!


ONE

'Funny how much the Sun looks exactly like London,' Rose remarked dryly from the front door, one hand on her hip and the other around the solar helmet she had been about to put on.

The Doctor held back a groan.

'Don't tell me,' he implored, trudging away from the center console to join her in the doorway.

Instead of the stellar colony on Sol that he had been trying to bring them to, he and Rose were now staring out at the familiar vista of London's South Bank. Albeit, a significantly less modernize and less developed version than the one from Rose's own time, but recognizable all the same.

In the distance, Westminster Bridge was decidedly less crowded than it was on any given day in the twenty-first century, and the smell of car exhaust was noticeably absent from the air. Instead, the smell of manure and sewage reigned, and in the air echoed with the sounds of horse traffic and steam boats on the river.

'Industrial era,' the Doctor determined. 'Pre-automotive or just at the beginning, judging from the number of carriages.'

He glanced down at Rose, but saw she had slipped back into the TARDIS and was laying the solar helmet on the jumpseat. She leaned over the console and frowned at the viewscreen, which he had configured to display spatio-temporal locations in English during one of their first trips together.

'August 6, 1889,' Rose read, and shot him a teasing grin. 'Think I'm a bit underdressed for it?'

'Nah – still naught but a hop, skip and a jump away from where I was aiming. Give us a mo and I'll have it sorted.'

'You say,' Rose accused lightly as he went to check the coordinates he'd entered in a long-standing, probably futile attempt to figure out why he hadn't landed where he meant to. 'Bit random, isn't it? What's so special about today that the TARDIS brought us here?'

The Doctor shot her an unimpressed look.

Early into their travels together, Rose had developed the frankly absurd – yet worryingly plausible – notion that the TARDIS was the true cruise director of their adventures, with the Doctor acting as mere co-pilot. He had been trying fruitlessly to disabuse her of the idea, but on occasions such as this one, it wasn't exactly an easy feat. In fact, it was times like these when his landing plans came out wrong that she liked to joke that he'd been overruled by the real boss.

'Not a thing I can think of,' the Doctor replied, eyes flitting over the flight coordinates and equations, trying to figure out where he'd gone wrong. 'Well, except maybe the grand opening of the Savoy, but that's not exactly important…'

'The Savoy?' Rose repeated. 'Like…? The Savoy? As in, the poshest hotel in all of London?'

'S'ppose so.'

'Right…we're staying.'

The Doctor glanced up at Rose, surprised at the firmness in her tone. 'What? Why?'

'Cos I want to crash the opening,' she explained with a grin.

He raised an eyebrow. 'Not exactly the most exciting thing to gatecrash, is it? Not compared to asbestos robots…'

'Oh, come on,' Rose pleaded. 'The robots and the mad scientist will keep, won't they? Besides, I haven't had a chance to dress up in ages –'

'Women didn't even start dining at the Savoy until 1890,' he pointed out.

' – and Mum'll flip once I get home and tell her,' Rose went on, obviously not hearing him. 'Oh, especially if we went to Afternoon Tea!'

'No – not happening,' the Doctor argued. 'That's worse than feeding ducks if you're looking for tedious.'

'I'll bet they'll have finger sandwiches and fancy cakes and jams,' she wheedled.

'If I wanted finger sandwiches and fancy cakes – which I don't, by the way, cos they always leave me hungry – I'd visit Versailles and Marie-Antoinette before the Revolution,' the Doctor grumbled. 'And jam just gets everywhere. Three days after eating it, you find you've spilled a bit on your favorite jumper and every time you put your elbows down you feel it sticking –'

'Alright,' Rose cut him off with a sigh. 'We won't go. Was a stupid idea anyhow. It's fine.'

Which, of course, meant it wasn't.

The Doctor fixed Rose with a measuring look, trying to determine what had put her in this particular mood. It wasn't just the last trip home – not completely, at least. She had taken everything that happened with Quevvils remarkably in stride. Better than he had, even.

The entire matter had left a bad taste in his mouth, and was part of the reason he had been so eager to leave right after sorting it all out. The memory of being forced to control Rose like a puppet had dredged up bitter memories, memories of another life and another spirited blond girl whose fate he had controlled, albeit not in the same literal sense he had been forced to with Rose.

'You always know! You just can't be bothered to tell anyone! It's like it's all some kind of a game and only you know the rules!'

He clamped down hard on that memory, banishing Ace and her justified anger back into the lock-box of his memories. He wouldn't make the same mistakes with Rose, which meant making an effort not to figure out what was on her mind.

Her disposition could have been influenced by yet another abrupt departure from her mother, but he somehow doubted that. If she had really been that worried about Jackie, she wouldn't have let him convince her to leave the Estate.

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what it was really about, but the tense set of her shoulders and way she was hugging her elbows close to her body suggested she wasn't in the mood to open up. Which was fine, as he wasn't in the mood for another one of the emotional conversations she always managed to trap him in.

Still, the situation bothered him.

It was rare for Rose to express interest in a particular destination or time. She usually left it up to him, despite his track record of botched landings. He had a suspicion that part of it was due to some deeply ingrained self-consciousness that he might deride her destination choices.

Rather like he just had.

And…there's the guilt, he thought with a wince. Ah, well, nothing for it then…

'Worse things than Afternoon Tea,' he conceded heavily. 'And the French couldn't make a good cuppa if their lives depended on it.'

Rose's head whipped up, eyes wide. 'Really?'

'Just don't expect me to dress up.'

'Never do!' she laughed, hurtling forward to squeeze him in a brief hug before heading out of the console room. She paused in front of the hallway, and grinned back at him. 'And who knows? The TARDIS wouldn't just bring us here for a fancy meal – maybe there's a murder or something going on?'

'Oi! Don't go trying to placate me!'

Her laughter echoed as she disappeared, and the Doctor shook his head at her retreating form.

'If they could see the Oncoming Storm now,' he grumbled to himself. 'Bending over backwards just to get a pretty girl to smile. It's disgraceful, is what it is.' He glared up at the ceiling. 'Just so's you know, I blame you for all this. Never would've turned into a sodding activities director if you hadn't brought us to London in the first place.'

The TARDIS hummed back at him in smug reproach; they both knew he wouldn't have changed meeting Rose Tyler for almost anything in the world.

'Go on thinking that. Now, why'd you go and decide this was a better idea than asbestos robots and the sun?' he went on. 'Rose's right – can't just be cos you figured she needed a pick me up…'

· ΘΣ ·

'No more chips for me,' Rose announced dramatically when she returned. 'If we keep landing in the eighteen hundreds, I'm gonna need a smaller waistline. Didn't Victorian women breathe?'

She paused in the doorway to show off the silk and lace walking dress suit the TARDIS had led her to in the wardrobe. It had a high neckline with ruffles that itched a bit where she wasn't used to feeling fabric, and black ribbon at her collar, elbows and waistline. The skirt was floor-length, but luckily flared out enough to give her room to walk without showing off the trainers she was wearing underneath.

Tea or not, she was sure the day would involve running at some point, and she had not intention of breaking an ankle in the boots that came with the dress.

'Your species would've died out if they couldn't breathe,' the Doctor answered, scowling at something on the the view screen. 'Masters of thoracic breathing – or, well, mistresses I suppose. Don't reckon they did much heavy lifting, so it didn't matter much to them. The TARDIS is registering aberrations in the quantum foam.'

Rose blinked at the subject change. 'Er, okay.'

'Means there's something wrong with reality,' the Doctor amended, glancing up finally. His expression changed from a scowl to something like surprise and…discomfort? 'That what you're wearing?'

'S'not too much, is it?' she asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

'Course not,' he said quickly, looking away again. He started rifling through his coat, murmuring something under his breath that she didn't quite catch. From its cadence, though she recognize his native tongue.

'You sure?' she prompted.

'Uh-huh,' he answered, distracted as he finally located and pulled out his sonic. His eyes cut back to her quickly. 'Bit bright, though.'

Both the dress and the fancy hat it came with were a golden, almost burnt orange colour that had appealed to her because it seemed cheerful; something about the nineteenth century always struck her as dreary and dirty. Exactly the opposite of how she wanted to feel while they were sitting in one of the poshest hotels ever, but if the Doctor thought it wasn't right…

'Should I change then?'

'Nah, no time,' he said, programming something into the sonic before putting it back in his jacket. Then he offered her a tight grin, and just as suddenly as it had started, the weird disquiet was over. 'Quantum foam, remember?'

'Yeah, still don't know what that means,' Rose told him.

'Basically has to do with the foundations of the universe,' the Doctor explained as he motioned for her to head for the door. 'Had the TARDIS do a bit of a scan while you were getting kitted out – there's something making minor adjustments and additions to those foundations.'

'Dangerous?'

'Dunno. Might just be some minor fallout from the Time War, in which case it's just a matter of letting the dust settle,' he said, and she could sense the effort he put in to making that sound off-hand.

'And if that's not it?'

'Well, then we know why the TARDIS decided this was a better way to spend our time than exploring the surface of the sun.'

He started to offer her his hand, and then held back.

'Actually, best play this carefully,' he mused. 'Remember when we were in Southampton, what I said about Victorian morals?'

'Vaguely,' she replied, raising an eyebrow.

'Yeah, well, not to be taken lightly. Even the lower classes don't look too kindly on people that don't conform to their ideals, and since you've decided to stroll about playing the proper English socialite…'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning there'll be questions as to why a young woman like you is wandering around in my company,' he explained. 'Suppose if anyone asks we can say I'm your tutor, or legal guardian. Those are a few of the socially acceptable reason for a man and a woman to be wandering around together, unless they're married or related – and even this backwards time, no one's gonna believe you're my sister. Or worse, a daughter.'

'I wouldn't want them to,' Rose made a face. The very idea disturbed her on an almost cellular level.

'Me neither, seeing as how it'd mean I'd have to pretend I was married to your mother at some point.'

'You're asking for another smack, you are!'

'The point is, on the off chance we start attracting attention, we need a story, and you always complain when I make something up on the spot.'

'Yeah, but you don't just make stuff up on the spot, you just go along with what people assume!'

'And? What's wrong with that?'

'Only that I always get mistaken for a servant or a prostitute or something,' Rose shot back. 'You never bother correcting it.'

'Works out well, though. Considering I'm the one they're usually trying to kill. They ignore you entirely, so you can come save me, so I can save the day,' he smirked. 'That's a functional routine, right there.'

'I'm trying to figure out how you stayed alive before you met me,' Rose said, pretending to sigh heavily. 'All I can figure is you've got a tremendous horseshoe up your ar –'

'Now that language is definitely not befitting of your station, madam,' the Doctor lectured, though his eyes sparkled with humour. 'Good thing no one's about to hear it, or they'd question your breeding.'

'They can go right ahead, I'll tell 'em I've been hanging around with my tutor too long and he's taught me bad habits,' she shot back.

'Didn't need to teach you anything,' he snorted and offered her his arm. At her raised eyebrow, he explained, 'Hand-holding in public's a bit of a faux pas. Even married couples didn't do it, even if they were that rare breed of happily married duo that actually liked each other.'

'Victorian people were weird,' Rose decided, taking his arm and letting him lead her from the TARDIS.

'Apply that thought to the human race in general, and you get how I feel all the time,' he told her as he turned to lock the door.

'Doesn't stop you from exploring the universe, though.'

'Nah – it's the weirdest cultures that are the most interesting.'

'Or the ones most likely to eat you,' Rose said sagely.