Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. (Obviously.)
Author's Note: This replaces Season Two's "Girl in the Fireplace". I am not a Rose fan, but I will do my best to represent her fairly. This fic, however, will be Ten/Amy.
The Doctor was sitting in the console room, regaling Mickey with a tale from his adventures, so that maybe he would stop complaining about being the 'tin dog.' K-9 had been a very valuable companion, even when he had laryngitis. "And then we discovered it wasn't the Robot King after all, it was the real one. Fortunately, I was able to re-attach the head." He finished with a flourish.
Mickey looked at Rose in disbelief. "Do you believe any of this stuff?"
Rose looked away, slightly put out. She still wasn't even entirely certain why Mickey was there. He was an uncomfortable reminder of home and the estate, when she was supposed to be out in the universe, exploring with The Doctor. "I was there." She admitted, unsure of how to relate to him now - especially since she now realised that her place with The Doctor was far less special than she had first assumed. Luckily, this awkward moment was disrupted by the TARDIS making a high-pitched noise and flashing lights around the console. "What are those, Doctor?" She asked, instantly interested.
"Oh, it's the warning lights. I'm getting rid of those. They never stop." The Doctor said, waving a hand. He moved to turn off the lights, and a moment later, it came.
It was a musical knocking on the TARDIS door.
"What was that?" Rose asked, staring at the door in amazement.
"What?!" The Doctor said in amazement. "That's impossible! We're in deep space!" He started moving slowly to the door, when it came again.
"How can someone be knocking in deep space?" Mickey asked.
"Exactly!" The Doctor said excitedly, moving to the TARDIS doors and flinging it open, his mouth opening in amazement. "Come here!" he said, to a glowing white box, floating outside the door. "Come here you impossible little beauty!"
The box flew into the room and winged it's way around, as if inspecting the place, before thumping The Doctor hard on the chest and falling to the floor.
"What is it?" Rose asked, curious. "Doctor?"
The Doctor picked up the box and stared at it as if it was something rare and precious and fragile all at once. "I've got mail."
Rose suddenly felt as though she were out of the loop again. It was not a pleasant feeling. "It's just a glowing box. How can it be mail?"
The Doctor held up the box to the two companions. "Time Lord emergency messaging system. In an emergency, we'd wrap up thoughts in psychic containers and send them through time and space." He was practically bouncing, a smile on his face as wide as Rose had ever seen it.
"But your people are all dead." Rose said quietly, not wanting to remind him, but knowing she had too.
The Doctor held up the cube. "Not anymore! Maybe the old face was right! There's a living Time Lord still out there, and it's one of the good ones!"
"How can you tell?" Mickey asked, getting into the excitement of it all.
"Good question!" The Doctor crowed, tossing the box to Mickey. "See that snake?" There was a snake emblazoned on the box, swallowing it's own tail. "It's called an ouroboros. It was the mark of the Corsair. Fantastic bloke. He had that snake as a tattoo in every regeneration. Didn't feel like himself unless he had the tattoo. Or herself, a couple of times." The Doctor paused, a mischievous smile crossing his face. "Oh, she was a bad girl."
He gleefully hit the lever to land them, missing the cross look on Rose's face at that statement.
The TARDIS landed hard, and The Doctor, slightly more calm after a tumultuous journey through the time vortex, opened the doors. The three exited the time machine, with Mickey wrapped up in amazement at where they were. "It's a spaceship. Brilliant! I got a spaceship on my first go."
"It doesn't look like your friend's here, Doctor." Rose said, looking around. "It looks kind of abandoned. Anyone on board?"
The Doctor visibly deflated, as if the hope had gone out of him. "Nah, nothing here. Well, nothing dangerous. Well, not that dangerous." He paused, as if remembering what his adventures were usually like. "You know what, I'll just have a quick scan, in case there's anything dangerous."
Rose wanted to cheer him up, and remind him, much as she did before, that while he might not have found another Time Lord, he still had her. So, she smiled her best smile. "So, what's the date? How far we gone?"
The Doctor a nodule as he answered her question. "About three thousand years into your future, give or take." He turned the nodule and opened the observation deck, letting the three of them look up at the stars. Stars that for a moment, one brief moment, had held hope. "Fifty-first century. Dagmar Cluster, you're a long way from home, Mickey. Two and a half galaxies."
Rose followed her starstruck boyfriend to the nearest window. "Mickey Smith, meet the universe. See anything you like?"
"It's so realistic!" Mickey said staring out at the reds and violets of the Dagmar Cluster.
The Doctor let them explore, trying instead to figure out how The Corsair's hypercube might have led him here. It was a mess, a mess that looked like someone had been trying to repair the ship with the fifty-first century equivalent of sellotape. "Dear me, had some cowboys in here. Got a ton of repair work going on." He took a second glance at the read out, only for his brow to crinkle in confusion. "Now that's odd. Look at that. All the warp engines are going. Full capacity." He leaned in, examining the readout closer. "There's enough power running through this ship to punch a hole in the universe, but we're not moving. So where's all that power going?"
Rose was struck by another fact. "Where'd all the crew go?"
"Good question. No life readings on board." The Doctor replied, checking again.
"Well, we're in deep space. They didn't just nip out for a quick fag." Rose said, attempting to be a bit funny in a situation that had started out odd and was rapidly climbing up her strange-o-meter.
"No, I've checked all the smoking pods." The Doctor answered, but as he said the word smoke, he could smell something. Something like pork roasting. "Can you smell that?"
"Yeah, someone's cooking." Rose said, sniffing again.
"Sunday roast, definitely!" Mickey agreed, gad for something that smelled so familiar in a place that was so alien.
The Doctor hit a switch, and a panel opened into a room, where a fire was burning brightly in a white-painted brick fireplace, a miniature grandfather clock sitting on top of the mantel. "Well, there's something you don't see in your average spaceship. Twentieth century, British." He moved forward toward the fireplace, scanning it carefully with the sonic. "Nice mantle. Not a hologram. It's not even a reproduction. This actually is a twentieth century British fireplace, another little bit of home, Mickey. Double sided. There's another room through there."
Rose looked through a porthole on the wall, feeling the strange-o-meter start rising again. "There can't be. That's the outer hull of the ship. Look."
The Doctor may have looked, if it weren't for the fact that he was staring into the fireplace, which on the other side of the flames, sat a ginger-haired girl who was looking at him oddly. "Hello."
The ginger girl looked back at him, and replied, a bit suspiciously. "Hello."
"What's your name?" He asked, voice friendly. He could feel the other companions bending down beside him to look into the fireplace.
"Amelia Pond." The girl replied, looking slightly less suspicious.
"Oh, that's a brilliant name. Amelia Pond. Like a name in a fairy tale." The Doctor responded, noting her accent. "Can you tell me where you are at the moment, Amelia?"
"In my bedroom." Amelia replied, as if he had asked a particularly daft question.
"Are we in Scotland, Amelia?" The Doctor asked instead.
"No. We had to move to England. It's rubbish." Amelia replied, scrunching up her nose and giving a great sigh of annoyance. "What are you doing in my fireplace, mister?"
The Doctor didn't have a good answer for that, not really. "Oh, it's just a routine...fire check. Can you tell me what year it is?"
"What kind of question is that?" Amelia asked, but she answered anyway. "It's Easter, 1996."
"Right, lovely. One of my favourites. August is rubbish though. Stay indoors. Okay, that's all for now. Thanks for your help. Hope you enjoy the rest of the fire. Night night." The Doctor advised.
"Good night, Fireplace Man." Amelia replied, just as he got up from the flames.
Mickey looked at The Doctor as he turned away from the fireplace. "You said this was the fifty-first century!"
"I also said this ship was generating enough power to punch a hole in the universe." The Doctor said slowly. "I think we just found the hole. Must be a spatio-temporal hyperlink."
"What's that?" Mickey asked, adding it to his list of 'Terms-The-Doctor-Used-That-He-Didn't-Understand.'
"No idea. Just made it up. Didn't want to say 'magic door."' He said frankly.
"And on the other side of the 'magic door'" Rose said, lowering her voice slightly over the words. "Is Easter, 1996 somewhere in England?"
"Certainly seems that way." The Doctor said easily. "I don't have a better idea." He let Rose and Mickey discuss magic doors and spaceships while he searched for something to control the fireplace. He found a lever, and pulled it, with a effusive, "Gotcha!" vaguely hearing Rose call after him as the fireplace turned, and him with it, into a child's bedroom.