ROSE
chapter i
Rose Tyler is not extraordinary in any way.
She wakes up in the morning looking like a total mess, some time between seven and eight. She works at Henrik's, a shop, like most other people. She dyes her hair blonde and expects everyone to believe that it's her natural hair color. She didn't even get her A-levels. The biggest achievement of her life is first place Jericho Street Junior School under sevens gymnastic team, when she got the bronze.
"Customer announcement," she hears the speakers blare, "The store will be closing in five minutes. The store will be closing in five minutes."
It's then a guard waves a plastic bag in front of her face, and after a couple of promises that she'll just go out back and lock the entrance there so they don't have to wait up for her, she stays in the empty store, and goes down to the basement.
"Wilson?" she calls, her voice echoing off the walls. "Wilson? I've got the lottery money! I can't hang about 'cause they're closing the shop. Wilson! Oh, come on. It's Rose, Wilson!" The moment she turns on the lights, or at least a couple of moments after, the door closes behind her. She curses silently. "Wilson! Come on out, will you?"
Dummies have always freaked her out. They're these strange white things with no faces, and she's glad she turned on the light because she knows they'd look creepier in the dark. The light doesn't stop her from yelping just a bit when she sees one turned in her direction.
She rolls her eyes at how silly she's being, until the dummy starts to walk towards her. "Ha-ha. Very funny." she says, "Who's behind all this?" A dummy on her right starts to walk as well, and Rose continues nervously. "It's Derek, isn't it? Come on out, Derek."
Suddenly, another dummy starts to walk, and another, and another. "Stop it!" Rose exclaims, "I caught you; joke's over. Not so funny anymore." She slowly backs towards the wall, her hands frantically searching her pockets for her phone.
Suddenly, a hand grabs her wrist. "Run."
She doesn't even see his face, but the voice tells her that it is a man, someone she hasn't met before. She runs, though, and normally she wouldn't just follow a total stranger but she thinks that this can be counted as an exception, what with students playing some sort of a stupid prank on her. She follows him into an elevator as the dummies chased them. The door closes on one's arm, and the stranger just pulls it off.
"You pulled off his arm," she breathes, not believing it.
"Yes."
"You pulled off his arm and it just came off, just like that."
The stranger looks quite annoyed with her, rolling his eyes. "I didn't save your life for you to state the obvious." She notices him drumming his fingers on his side, but doesn't dwell on the fact for too long.
"Save my life? It was just a prank played by some students!"
"They're not students." he says, irritably.
Rose lets it slide and says something else. "When Wilson finds out about this, he'll call the cops."
"And I should care because? I don't even know who this 'Wilson' is."
"Chief electrician."
"Oh." he says, then after a few seconds. "He's dead." He says it so casually as the elevator door opens, and the two continue walking at a considerably fast pace. She doesn't believe it. The whole thing is a prank, probably, since there's no way this man could just talk about death like it was just the weather.
"That's not funny. That's sick!"
He shrugs. "I've been called worse."
The two of them are behind Henrik's when she finally realizes that she should ask the question at the top of her mind. "Who are you, then? Who's that lot down there? I said who are they?"
"You're very irritating, you know that? They're not important. Now, go on, continue loving your dull, human life and eat some beans on toast or whatever."
"Who are you?" she insists.
"A name for a name."
"I'm Rose Tyler, then. Now, tell me who you are?"
Normally, she'd say something clever like ask him if he's compensating for something, but she was just attacked by living shop dummies and her mind is reeling. "I'm the Master."
"That isn't a name!" she protests.
He laughs somewhat maniacally and the sound unnerves her. He grabs a hold of her wrist again, tightly and she is scared that he is in fact a madman. "It's mine!" with his other hand, he holds up a tiny circular thing. "I'm going to drop this, and on the count of four we run, do you understand?"
"Count of four?"
"Yes, on the count of four! You humans always ask the most stupid questions in the most dangerous situations. One," she feels his fingers tap against her arm in a fast beat of one-two-three-four. "Two," two-three-four, "Three," two-three-four, "Four!"
He drops his sphere onto the ground, and the two run faster this time, away from the building, and as it turns out, the explosion. At some point, she doesn't know when, he lets go of her, but her world is still spinning when they stop and she sees the smoke from the fire.
"You just blew up my job." she says, "What the bloody hell are you and what gives you a right to just do that?"
When she turns around the Master is gone.
Rose is not paying much mind to the television ("The whole of Central London has been closed off as police investigate the fire. Early reports indicate…"), and even less to her mother ("I know. It's on the telly. It's everywhere. She's lucky to be alive. Honestly, it's aged her. Skin like an old bible. Walking in now you'd think I was her daughter!").
She's saved when Mickey enters the door. "I've been phoning you the whole day! It's on the news, Rose! You could've been dead. I can't believe that the shop blew up just like that."
"I'm all right, honestly!" she insists after a quick hug, "Promise."
"Well," Mickey starts, "What happened?"
"I don't know," she says, not completely lying.
"What do you mean you don't know? You were there, weren't you?"
"I was outside of the shop when the explosion happened." she says, another not-so-much-of-a lie.
"It's Debbie on the end!" she hears her mum call suddenly from the living room, "She knows a man on the Mirror! Five hundred quid for an interview!" Rose gets handed the phone.
"Oh, that's brilliant!" she says, just as she presses the button to end the call.
Jackie sighs. "Well, you need to find some way to make money." The telephone rings again and her mum picks it up again. "Bev! Yes, she's alive. I told her to sue for compensation…"
Rose groans and takes another sip of her tea.
"What are you drinking?" Mickey asks, and then looks at her cup. "No, no, no, no. You need something stronger. Let's go down to the pub. It'll be just you and me, my treat. How about it?"
She rolls her eyes. "Is there a match on?"
Mickey denies it. "No, I'm just thinking about you, babe."
"There's a match on, ain't there?"
He finally gives in. "That's not the point." he says, "But if we go now we'll catch the last five minutes."
Rose smiles and hits him playfully. "Go on, then. I'm fine really." Mickey picks up the plastic arm, and plays with it, pretending to strangle himself, laughing. "And get rid of that too, will you? Bye."
"Bye, bye." He nods and waves goodbye at her, and the door is left open long enough for her to see him throw it into a trash bin.
The next day, Rose Tyler continues her not-so extraordinary routine, waking up some time between seven and eight in the morning. She turns off her alarm, groaning, because anyone who knows her knows that she's definitely not a morning person.
"No use getting up, sweetheart!" her mum says, "No job for you to go to!"
She gets up anyway, gets dressed and meets her mum in the kitchen as the latter makes breakfast.
"There's Finch's." Jackie says, all of a sudden. "They always have jobs."
"The butcher's." Rose deadpans, "Great."
"Well, it might do you good. That shop was giving you airs and graces. And I'm not joking about compensation. You've had genuine shock and trauma. Arianna got two thousand quid off the council just because the old man behind the desk said she looked Greek!" the older Tyler pauses at Rose's pointed look, "I know she is Greek, but that's not the point. It was a valid claim."
Rose hears a rattle at the door and rolls her eyes. "You're such a liar, Mum. I told you to nail the cat flap down. We're going to get strays."
"I did weeks ago!"
"No, you thought about it." she mutters, as she walks towards the door. Four screws are on the ground and the flap moves.
She opens the door and sees the same man from last night. "You!"
"What're you doing here?"
"I should be asking you that considering you blew up my job!" she says, "Not to mention the fact I live here. How'd you find out where I live?"
He suddenly knocks on her head and she winces just a bit. "Nope, just another human. Bye, then. I can't say it was nice knowing you." he drawls the last bit and starts to walk away.
"You. Inside. Now."
"A silly human like you can't just order me around, Rose Tyler." he says, clearly remembering her name. "I am the Master, the last of the Time Lords."
"You say that like it's supposed to sound impressive."
He grins and something about it unnerves her. "Oh, believe me, it is."
Jackie shouts at her from the kitchen. "Who is it?"
"It's about last night, part of the inquiry." she lies easily, "Just give us ten minutes." She looks at the Master and frowns. "Now, come inside."
"If we're going to talk, I'm not going to do it in some earth home. You're coming with me."
She lets out a groan of frustration and walks briskly to keep up with his pace. "Who are you, then?"
"I told you. Is your species normally this daft or are you just special?"
"'The Master' isn't a proper name."
"And what kind of a name is Rose, really? That's a flower."
She sighs. "Point is, I was thinking we should go to the police. I'm still fuzzy about the details so I think you should explain everyth–"
He laughs. "You honestly think that pathetic human police can solve something this big? Please tell me you're joking."
"I'm not!" she says, neither of them noticing the plastic arm that crept up beside him. "They said they found a body in the news–" The plastic arm flies, its hand gripping around the Master's neck as she continues to talk, not noticing the scene happening just beside her. "–I reckon it was Wilson's. All the same, he was nice. Nice bloke." The Master struggles to fish something out of his pocket. "Which is why I think–"
"Do you ever stop talking?" he chokes out.
She turns around to see him. " You're all the same. Give a man a plastic hand," she mutters the last bit, "Stop joking around. I wonder how you got your hand on that though, I told Mickey to chuck it out yesterday."
Suddenly, the arm flies off of him and starts to strangle her, and she is very much aware that he isn't holding the end and the arm is very much acting on its own accord.
He looks kind of triumphant as his left hand finally grasps something, cylinder in shape, colors black and silver with a white glowing bit at the end. The arm suddenly shrinks and just disappears into non-existence.
"That just vanished."
"No, it didn't." he says, showing her a tiny, tiny little arm in the palm of his hand, one so small that she could only see it when she squints. "It shrank."
"Same difference!" she exclaims, "It tried to kill me. Oh my gosh, I was almost killed by a plastic hand."
"You're welcome." he says, looking fairly indifferent to her panicked expression.
"What have I done wrong? How comes those plastic things keep coming after me?"
He scoffs. "You're acting as if the universe revolves around you. You were an accident. It was after me, not you. Last night, in the shop, I was there, you blundered in, almost ruined the whole thing. This morning, I was tracking it down; it was tracking me down. The only reason it fixed on you is 'cause you've met me."
"You're acting as if the universe revolves around you!"
"Of course it does." he says, "I'm The Master."
"You're full of it," she says.
"I'm only saying it because it's true."
She decides not to talk about his huge ego anymore and change the topic. "Does anyone else know about it? The plastic thing?" She continues walking beside him, and the two soon reach the park.
"No one."
"So you're working on it alone?"
"I'm not working on anything." he says, "I just have to find my TARDIS and get out of here. You can deal with your own problems."
"There is living plastic trying to overrun the earth and evidently, you and your laser thing are the only things that can stop it. What's this all about anyway? I mean, shop window dummies, what's that about? Is someone trying to take over Britain's shops?"
"I told you, they want to overthrow the human race and destroy you. Human race." he gestures to himself, "Time Lord." then he gestures to her, "Human. As you can see, not my problem."
"But you are human!" she exclaims, "You look human, you talk human, you might not be acting human but you are."
He grabs one of her hands and places it on his chest. "What do you feel?"
"Your heart. It's racing."
"No, it isn't. Those are two hearts. As you can see, I'm not human. Now, please, leave, before I'm tempted to kill you."
She stays put. "I'm not leaving 'till you agree to help." she says, determined. After a silence, her face softens and she tries a different approach, reaching out to hold onto his hand. "You don't want to, I get it, but if these plastic things are really going to 'overthrow the human race and destroy us' then seven billion lives are depending on you."
"Seven billion lives." he muses, "Is this what being a god feels like? Everyone depending on me, your lord and Master."
She resists the urge to roll her eyes. "I understand how you feel. I've been hurt and betrayed and because of that sometimes I'd rather run away than just do the right thing but–"
He cuts her off, shaking her hand off of his and grabbing her wrist. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"The drums."
His eyes are an unusual mix of emotion; rage, sadness and insanity all reflected in just one look and she's almost afraid to reply. "No, I don't hear anything."
"The drums of war. They're getting louder. They're getting closer." he starts tapping out a beat on a nearby park bench. "One two three four, one two three four, one two three four, one two three four. It's always just there. Do you hear the drums, Rose Tyler?"
"I told you, I don't."
His face is inches away from hers. "Then you cannot possibly understand how I feel."
He lets go of her, and walks away towards a blue box in a nearby alleyway, stepping in, and it isn't that which she finds unusual.
It's that the box fades away, leaving the place altogether, after a few seconds.
found 17 700 000 results under "the master".
Rose skims through the first page; sighing, nothing but dictionary definitions and Wikipedia pages pop up. She tries again.
found 107 300 results under "the master drums".
found 77 900 results under "the master two hearts".
found 55 300 results under "the master living plastic".
She tries one last time.
found 128 results under "the master blue box". Did you mean "the doctor blue box"? Do not show searches for the doctor blue box.
She sighs and shuts her computer. There really isn't any way that she's going to find out more about this man.
When Mickey picks her up for lunch the next day, Rose can tell there's something different, but honestly, she's too tired to question it.
"What do you want to eat?" she asks, "I was thinking pizza."
"Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!"
She shrugs. "Or maybe Chinese,"
"Pizza!" he says as he steps forward on the gas.
"Alright then," she concedes, "Whatever you want, I guess."
When they arrive at the restaurant after a quiet ride in the car, they get a table and sit down. After ordering her food, she attempts to start conversation. "What do you think I should do for a job?" she asks, "Do you think I should try the hospital? Suki said they had jobs going in the canteen. Is that it then, dishing out chips? I could do A Levels. I don't know. It's all Jimmy Stone's fault." She grimaces at the memory of her ex-boyfriend. "I only left school because of him. Look where he ended up. What do you think?"
"Where did you meet this Master?"
She's annoyed by the question. "I'm sorry, wasn't I talking about me for a second?" she says, "In fact, when did I even tell you about him, I haven't talked to you ever since–"
"Because I reckon it started back at the shop, am I right? Was he something to do with that?"
"No."
"Come on!"
"Sort of." she admits, "I didn't tell you though because–"
"What was he doing there?"
She glares at him. "Because I think he's dangerous. And I don't want you to be in danger, yeah? I know it sounds daft, but I don't think he's safe."
"But you can trust me, sweetheart, babe, sugar, babe, sugar." his voice changes pitch, and she brushes it off as some kind of joke Mickey's trying to pull to ease the tension. "You can tell me anything. Tell me about the Master and what he's planning, and I can help you, Rose. Because that's all I really want to do, sweetheart, babe, babe, sugar, sweetheart."
The second time he does it, it's in the exact same manner and she frowns. "What're you doing that for?"
"Where's the Master?"
"Forget about him for a moment, Mickey, what's wrong?"
A new voice interrupts their conversation. "What's wrong is that you're a horrible person because your boyfriend is made out of plastic and you didn't even notice until now."
She freezes. The Master.
"Ah." Mickey says, smiling at the man. "Gotcha."
"On the contrary," the Master says, "I believe that's my line."
Rose is not ashamed to admit it. She screams when the Master stabs her boyfriend in the head with a fork. What freaks her out, she supposes, is when his skins starts to morph, absorbing the utensil until a few seconds later, when he spits it out.
"Anyway," Mickey says, as his hand starts to form into some sort of chopper and it smashes into the table and the structure collapses to the floor.
The Master struggles with Mickey for a while as customers scream, until he pulls off his head. Rose runs to the fire alarm and pulls it. "Everybody out! Everybody out! Now! Get out!"
The Master carries her boyfriend's head in one arm and grabs her hand to pull her into the direction of the kitchen and into the alleyway as the Master locks the back entrance. The blue box is in the middle of it and the Master goes inside.
"A wooden box? You honestly think you can hide from that thing in a wooden box?" she shouts.
He steps out of it and rolls his eyes at her. "Yes, I do. Now, are you going to come inside or are you going to die?"
She runs inside the door, thinking maybe it won't be so bad. She's looking at the ground when she realizes that it's not dark at all, on the contrary the room is very well lit.
She looks up and she realizes this definitely cannot be the inside of a wooden box.
"It's going to get in."
"No, it won't." The Master says, irritated. "The assembled hoards of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and from what I've heard, they've tried." He sets down Mickey's head on the console, the center of the giant room. He crosses his arms.
"It's bigger on the inside."
"Your observation skills are clearly ten out of ten. What else?"
"Is this, like, magic or something?"
"No, it's alien."
"Alien." she repeats, dumbfounded.
"Remember what I said about not-being human?" he asks, "Then again, you might not. I've forgotten what the capacity for the human brain is."
"Which means, you're alien."
"You're alien too, if you think about it. The human race is just another species among many, and one of the more primitive ones as well."
"What is this thing?"
"Time and Relative Dimension in Space. In other words, a TARDIS."
"What happened to–" Mickey, she finishes in her head. Oh, God, Mickey. Is he dead? Is he still alive? Is he hurt? Where is he? The thought of him makes her start to cry and not the silent type of it either.
"Oh, dear Rassilon." he says, "You're crying. Why on earth are you crying? You're already useless enough as it is."
"Did they kill him? Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?" she chokes out the last word.
"Mickey?"
"My boyfriend! They turned him into plastic then, then, you just pulled off his head and now you're just letting it melt!"
"Melt?"
The Master turns around quickly and curses in a language she doesn't know, immediately pulling levers and pressing buttons as a loud whirring sound accompanies his actions. Rose panics. "What are you doing?"
"Following the signal. It's fading. Wait a minute; I've got it."
The noise stops and he walks towards the door. "You can't go out there," she protests, "That thing's still there. It's not safe!" She goes right after him when he doesn't listen to her and she's surprised to find herself on top of a roof. "We've moved."
"Yeah."
"So, did we fly?"
"We were there, now we're here. Really, it's too much for your little brain to handle. And stop worrying! The plastic body melted along with the head. There's nothing for you to be scared of anymore, of course, besides me."
She ignores his last comment. "I'll have to tell his mother." He gives her a questioning look. "Mickey. I'll have to tell his mother he's dead, and you just went and forgot him, again! You were right. You are an alien. Normal people would care!"
"Do I have to say it again? Your boyfriend, your planet, not my problem."
"So, what? You're just going to leave me here to fend for myself as the world ends?"
"Believe me, if I could, I would."
"Then what's stopping you? Go ahead and leave in your stupid blue box!"
"My 'stupid blue box' is the reason I can't!" he shouts, "It's not letting me leave. I even found this," he holds up a vial, "on the console. You know what it is? Anti-plastic. The 'stupid blue box' wants me to save your bloody planet so you better be thankful that it's trapping me here."
"It's like a car, right, your car? Just put in the keys or whatever your substitute for keys on your planet are, and drive it away from here if you want to leave so badly."
"My TARDIS," he stresses the name, "Is alien too. It makes its own decisions sometimes, and this one happens to be rather stubborn. Now, do you want to continue arguing about it or do you want to shut up so I can go and save the world?"
She's silent.
"I thought so." he paces around the rooftop.
"I'm coming with you, then."
"You'll just be dead weight. This is something I can handle on my own."
"Then why do you look so lost? Just walking around up here when all the trouble is obviously not happening on this roof." she points out, "What is it that you're looking for?"
"The transmitter. The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal." he says, running a hand through his hair, defeated and Rose feels kind of proud. "A huge circular metal structure like a dish, like a wheel. Radial. Close to where we're standing."
She points to the Eye behind him and he looks. "Like that?"
"What?"
"The Eye." she says, and in a strange turn of events now she is frustrated with him, she smirks though. "Is your species normally this daft or are you just special?" she asks, trying to mimic him.
He narrows his eyes at her and turns around again to see the Ferris wheel. "Oh."
"Not so stupid now, am I?"
"Not a time for you to be petty, Rose Tyler." as they walk down the stairs, out of the building and towards the Eye he continues talking. "Think of it, plastic all over the world, every artificial thing waiting to come alive. The shop window dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables–"
"The breast implants."
The Master smiles a little at that and Rose notices, and she can't help but feel the sense of triumph that overcomes her. This is the first time she's seen him smile and it's almost like she's won a game.
She's happy but she doesn't let it show. He hasn't seen her smile yet and she's not giving in that easily.
"Still, we've found the transmitter. The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath." he starts to look around the area, unsuccessful.
She looks over the parapet and sees a large manhole entrance at the bottom of some steps. "What about this?"
He scowls at her.
Rose Tyler: 2. The Master: 0.
Both climb down a ladder into a chamber of sorts, made out of metal, with some gooey reddish thing at the middle. " The Nestene Consciousness. That's it, inside the vat." the Master whispers, "A living plastic creature."
He walks on their platform, trying to get to a place where he can tip in the anti-plastic, she realizes, as she sees him take the vial out from his coat pocket.
"Rose!"
Mickey.
She runs towards the source of the sound and sees him. He doesn't look too bad, a few scrapes here and there, but aside from that, he's fine. She immediately pulls him into a tight hug. " Oh, God! Mickey, it's me! It's okay. It's all right."
"That thing down there, the liquid. Rose, it can talk!"
And to think she thought he was dead. She stops for a second to shoot a look at the Master who just smirks and shrugs at her in reply. The smug look is wiped off of his face when two shop window dummies grab him by both of his arms and a third grabs the vial from his hand.
He glares at the dummies for just a second and then puts on a charming smile. " I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation." The stuff in the vat flexes. "If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. Respectfully, I ask that you leave this planet alone."
The vat growls and makes a noise when the shop dummy raises the vial. "Now do you honestly believe that I would actually use that against you?"
A door in the back slides back, revealing the blue box. "Yes, that's my ship. That's not true. Of course, I know! I was there."
The stuff in the vat makes something akin to a face and makes a growling noise, loud and deep not stopping for a long time, as the Master's charming smile falters, and is replaced with something sadder, he shakes his head and says one word, barely audible. "No." he says, "If I couldn't save my world, I couldn't save yours."
The goo makes a loud noise and lights start to flicker all around the chamber. "Master!" she shouts, "What's happening?"
"Starting its invasion! Get out!"
"I'm not leaving you!"
"Save the sentimentality for later!" he shouts as he struggles against the dummies, trying to get his weapon, but failing because he is restrained. "Now get out, bring Rickey with you–"
"Mickey!"
"–And get out of here!"
She does the first thing she thinks of, calls her mum. After a couple of rings Jackie finally picks up. "Oh, there you are." her mum says, "I was just going to phone. You can get compensation. I said so. I've got this document thing off the police. Don't thank me."
"Where are you?" she asks, urgently.
"I'm in town."
"Go home! Go home right now!"
"Darling, you're breaking up. Listen, I'm just going to do a bit of late night shopping." she freezes, the shop window dummies, "I'll see you later. Ta-ra!"
Her mum hangs up and she panics. "Mum! Mum!" Realization dawns on her and she whispers quietly, mostly to herself. "It's the end of the world." She looks at the scene before her, Mickey panicking as well, the stairs gone, she's got no key to enter that bloody blue box. "I've got no A Levels, no job, no future." I've got absolutely nothing to lose.
She looks around quickly and spots on axe on the wall and she smashes the glass to get it. "But I tell you what I have got: Jericho Street Junior School under 7s gymnastic team. I've got the bronze!"
Rose chops through the rope holding a very long chain to the wall and takes firm hold. She backs up, and then starts a fast and powerful run then she jumps. She lets out the breath she was holding when she lands on the platform on the other side of the vat, and kicks the two dummies in, the anti-plastic falling in with them.
The Master stares at her before scowling at her indignantly. "I could've handled that!"
(Rose Tyler: 3. The Master 0.)
"Well?" she asks, as the vat begins to bubble. "Run!"
Mickey's already waiting for both of them at the TARDIS and the Master puts in his key and the three go inside. She catches the sound of the explosion, quiet compared to the whirring sound of the machine.
It materializes on the embankment. The Master holds the door open for her but Mickey runs through it first, terrified.
She hears her phone ring and she answers it. Mum. "It's not safe. There were these things, and they were shooting! And they–" Rose knows that it was wrong of her to hang up, but she does anyway.
Mickey is hiding behind a pallet. Rose smiles at him playfully. "Fat lot of good you were," she remarks, teasing only a little bit.
She hears the Master's voice coming from the blue box. "You coming, Rose Tyler?"
"You were useless in there. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me." He mumbles something, not looking her in the eye. "Sorry, what was that?"
"I s'pose, you did help a little bit."
It's the closes thing that she'll get to a thank you, so she lets it go. "What did you say earlier?"
"I asked if you were coming."
"Don't." Mickey interrupts, "He's an alien! He's a thing."
He pulls out his weapon thing from a while ago. "A thing with means to kill a pathetic idiot like you. I believe I was asking her, not you. What do you think, Rose Tyler? Live out the rest of your days on your boring planet with your boring boyfriend, or go anywhere in the world?"
"You hate me, have insulted me on many different occasions, and called me stupid more times than I can remember." she says, "Why should I come?"
"Because you have to." he says, "TARDIS says so."
"Is it always this dangerous?"
"I'll protect you, then. Don't you trust me?" he says.
"No." she says, laughing to show it was meant as a bit of a joke. "Yeah, I can't. I've err… I've got to go and find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so."
He shrugs. "Fine, then. Bye."
She waves awkwardly. "Yeah, bye." She helps Mickey up as the blue box fades from existence. "Come on, let's go. Come on. Come on." The two walk towards home again but she hears the TARDIS' sound, which makes her turn around.
"Nope, never mind. I take it back. It's not 'fine'; you're coming with me." The Master says, "The entire universe at your disposal, time too. This is your last chance."
The entire universe at your disposal, time too.
She thinks about it, and looks at Mickey. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"Exactly."
She kisses him on the cheek, turns around, and runs towards the blue box.
Rose doesn't look back.
"What made you return?"
The TARDIS made a room for her, bigger and better than her old one, but it's still pink (and yellow too) and she loves it to bits. She opens the wardrobe to find clothes in her size already inside and after looking around she approaches the Master as he tinkers around in the console room.
"What do you mean?"
"You came back for me," she says, "After I said no, you–"
He interrupts. "Well, that's a long story."
"We're in a time machine." she says, "I'm sure you can spare a few moments."
"The TARDIS was on autopilot when it crashed here." he admits, as if that's supposed to make her realize something deep and meaningful. At her confused expression he shoots her a look of annoyance, but it doesn't look like he means it that much anymore. "Like I told you, the TARDIS thinks on it's own. It probably thought that coming here would be best for me, and it didn't want to go anywhere else after, and I assumed it was because of the Nestene."
"Wasn't it though? You saved a planet, everyone's happy now, you're a big hero."
"Well, I was going to go to Barcelona next, the planet not the city, but the TARDIS didn't want to leave the Time Vortex." she doesn't question what that is anymore, and gestures for him to continue. "She wanted you to come with us."
She doesn't know what to say. The blue box she's travelling in is the only reason why she's still on this journey. "Oh."
"She thinks I need you." he says, softly, rather frustrated. "But I don't!" he denies it, louder. "So, yes, if it was up to me you'd still be on Earth with that idiot boyfriend of yours."
She shrugs. "'Kay then. Tomorrow we start the whole journey across time thing, yeah?"
"Yeah." he replies, "Go ahead and waste yet one-third of your short life doing something completely and utterly pointless."
"And by that you mean…?"
"Sleeping."
"You don't need to sleep?"
"Of course, I don't! My race is by far the most superior, so of course my physiology would be better than yours."
Rose rolls her eyes and makes her way back to her room and stops in her tracks. "Master?"
"What is it, Rose Tyler?"
She turns around and smiles at him for the first time. "It's always better with two." she says and she starts to walk away after. "Good night."
AN: Hello, everyone! This is my first time writing DW fanfiction, and I'm pretty nervous about how it'll turn out. My friend and I were talking about what DW would be like if it was the Master instead of the Doctor that Rose met during Rose and this fic was born. This might be a stand-alone, it might be a multi-chap, I don't really know. I have all these ideas running around in my head, and one of them is the Doctor making an appearance at some point too. Anyway, if you enjoyed this fic please review! ~Bell