Okay, here marks chapter two. This is the second half of episode one. And for those of you who read the last chapter, do NOT read this unless you read the updated version of chapter one.
Still don't own Doctor Who, 'cos if I did, the Doctor and El would be together!
I repeat – DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER UNLESS YOU READ THE UPDATED VERSION OF CHAPTER ONE!
Now, on with the story.
This part will not continue with Rose; I feel it necessary to continue it with El and the Doctor.
Oh, and italics will be Gallifreyan along with El's thoughts. Basically, El and the Doctor converse with each other mentally and in Gallfireyan, so the two kind of go together.
An easy way to tell their mental Gallifreyan speak and verbal apart is to look at the quotes used. Quotation marks mean verbal, while apostrophes mean mental.
Bold AND italics mean flashback.
Once inside the TARDIS(I didn't outright say it before 'cos Rose didn't know what it was, same with the Sonic. But El knows, and the Doctor obviously knows what they are.), the Doctor fired up the controls with a bit of El's help. Once they started hurtling through the vortex, to Clom knows where, El and the Doctor moved away from the console. He opened his arms and she ran into them, both of them crying tears of joy and laughing. The Doctor pulled back just a little, and saw that El had her face buried in his chest. He just held her tighter and kissed her hair, before resting his chin on the top of her head. They stayed exactly in that position for hours, enjoying the other's presence after being apart for so long.
"Theta?" spoke El aloud, softly in the lost language of their home.
"Yes, Terra?" he answered, just as softly.
"I've missed you so much, Theta..."
"And I you, Terra."
She pulled back to look at him, tears glinting in her eyes. He used his thumbs to brush them away. El thought back centuries, to where she and the Doctor had been about the equivalent of eight-and-ten-year-olds and in a similar position.
"Terra!" shouted her father angrily. "Get your lazy ass over here and clean this mess up!" The little Gallifreyan girl quickly hurried to her father's side, rag in hand. She swiftly maneuvered the broken glass from her father's wine bottle into the rag and carried it over to the rubbish bin, dumping its contents inside. She then ran back, the rag damp this time, and started to scrub the carpet with it, trying to remove the red stain. After a few minutes of scrubbing, most of the remnants of the reddish-pink dye had come out, leaving only a faint discoloration.
"You little bitch. What took you so long?"
"I'm sorry, Father. I have no excuse," she whispered.
"What was that?!" the grumpy Time Lord asked.
"I'm sorry! I don't have any excuse," she said. Louder this time.
He grinned wickedly down at her, speaking at the same time. "That's right, bitch." He emphasized his point with a blow to the cheek. "Next time, make it faster." He struck the same cheek again. "Now beat it. You go to the Academy tonight. I need you looking decent."
She cringed and ran to her room, face stinging. The young Terra grabbed her new Academy robe and supplies for her first year at the Academy, along with the Sonic Screwdriver and Earth chess set that her friend Theta, otherwise known as the Doctor, had gotten her for her last birthday. She then sat on the windowsill in her bedroomand balanced herself evenly while making sure her abusive father was nowhere in sight. Terra took one last look behind her before pushing herself off and onto the ground. She then ran off as fast as she could, to the place she shared with her Theta. She let the tears fall from her eyes as she ran; her father had struck her quite hard, both physically and emotionally. Terra knew that if her mother had still been alive and not killed by that rogue Dalek, that her father wouldn't have treated her as badly; he would have taken it out on her mother instead. She was somewhat glad that her mother was dead, for the man known as her father could no longer harm her. Terra, however, took the brunt of his drunken anger now that her mother, the Rose, had fallen in battle.
She was taken from her thoughts though, for unbeknownst to her, she had ran all the way to her secret place, and Theta was waiting for her. He grinned over at her, before noticing the rather large bruise on his friend's cheek, and the tear tracks running down her face. Theta then took Terra into his arms, letting her cry her pain into his shirt. He just held her, stroking her hair, calming her down. After a few more minutes, she looked up at him and smiled, not much, but enough for him to know that she would be okay. Theta hated seeing her cry, and he didn't quite know why. He knew he loved her, but the question was... In what way? He took her face in his hands and used his thumbs to wipe her tears away, before kissing her bruised cheek.
"Let's get you cleaned up for the ceremony tonight. Come on, Ter."
The Doctor grinned at El widely, before leaning down and kissing her full on the lips. She was taken a bit by surprise, so she didn't respond immediately. Once she had realized what happened, El wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself to him. The Doctor then licked her bottom lip, and she opened her mouth. After a moment of tongue wrestling, the two Gallifreyans broke the kiss. He leaned his forehead against hers, and they both started laughing softly. El stood up and kissed his cheekbone, saying, "I'm going to go to the TARDIS wardrobe and find something better for me to wear." She paused, and frowned slightly. "We should probably be getting back to Earth of 2005; the Autons are still out there, you know."
He sighed and nodded. "I'll get the coordinates put in. You just go get ready."
She grinned and ran into the back of the TARDIS. About an hour later, she came back. She had cut her long ginger hair to where it no longer passed her rump; it was about mid-back. El had styled it into a ponytail of sorts, curled elegantly over her shoulder. She wore a long black and white striped top with tight-fitting black leggings, a red scarf around her neck to add a splash of color, black flats on her feet, and a snazzy black beret on the top of her walked over to the Doctor's side, smiling widely. He looked at her and shook his head.
"You're not going to be wearing that all the time, are you?"
"Nah," she answered. "I figure it'd probably get annoying rather fast. Or at least the hat will..."
"Anyway," she continued. "Autons?"
The Doctor stood there for a minute before suddenly saying, "Oh yeah!" and running to the controls to lock on to the city of London. A few minutes later, after the familiar wheezing noise had died down, the two ran outside, hand-in-hand.
With Mickey and Rose at the pizza parlour.
"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. I only left school because of him. Look where he ended up. What do you think?" Rose was chatting to Micley.
"So where did you meet this Doctor?" the painfully obvious Not-Mickey asked.
"I'm sorry, wasn't I talking about me for a second?" Rose retorted, irritated.
"Because. I reckon it started back at the shop, am I right? Was he something to do with that? And what about El leaving? Did she go with him?"
"No." Stil irritated.
"Come on."
"Sort of."
"What was he doing there?" Not-Mickey sure is pushy, isn't he..
"I'm not going on about it Mickey. Really, I'm not, because, I know it sounds daft, but I don't think it's safe. I think he's dangerous. And El's in the middle of that!"
"But you can trust me, sweetheart. Babe. Sugar, babe, sugar. You can tell me anything. Tell me about the Doctor and what he's planning, and I can help you, Rose. We can get Ellen back. Because that's all I really want to do, sweetheart. Babe. Babe, sugar, sweetheart.
"What're you doing that for?" Rose said, getting frustrated.
"You champagne," said a light, feminine French voice.
"We didn't order any champagne. Where's the Doctor?" Not-Mickey squeezed Rose's hand tightly.
"Madam, your champagne," the voice said again.
"It's not ours. Mickey, what is it? What's wrong?" Rose was beginning to get a little worried.
"I need to find out how much you know, so where is he?"
"Doesn't anybody want this champagne?" this time, the waiter's voice was Northern.
"Look, we didn't order it!" Not-Mickey finally looked up. He saw both El and the Doctor holding bottles of champagne.
"Ah. Gotcha."
El and the Doctor took their bottles and started shaking them relentlessly.
"Don't mind us," El began.
"Just toasting the happy couple." The Doctor aimed the bottle at Not-Mickey's face. "On the house!" the Doctor finished, grinning madly. He then released the cork and it flew into Not-Mickey's forehead. Went straight through his "skin" and after a few moments, it popped out of his mouth.
"Anyway." Not-Mickey grinned maliciously as his hand turned into a chopper. He smashed the table they were sitting at and Rose ran away, screaming. The Doctor gets his arm around Not-Mickey's head and pulls. After a few tugs, he manages to get it, but falls onto a table in the process. The rest of the customers scream in terror.
They thought Not-Mickey was dead, but no. His eyes flew open and he spoke, "Don't think that's going to stop me."
The rest of his body got up and started smashing everything in sight. Rose had a brilliant idea; she set off the fire alarm!
"Everyone out! Out now!" Everybody ran to the back. "Get out! Get out! Get out!"
They exited through the kitchen, the Doctor still carrying the plastic head. He reached out and took El's hand in his, dragging her along right next to him. The Doctor used his Sonic to seal the exit shut. Rose, completely oblivious, ran down the alley, past the TARDIS, to a gate that was secured shut by padlocked gates.
"Open the gate! Use that tube thing! Come on!" Rose shouted, worried about being killed by Not-Mickey.
He held it up before pocketing it. "Sonic screwdriver," El said, finishing his thoughts. The Doctor grinned at her.
"Use it!" she shouted in exasperation.
"Nah."
"Tell you what, let's go in here."
He unlocked the TARDIS door and held it open, allowing El to go in front. He came in right behind her. The Not-Mickey Auton continued to beat at the metal door to the kitchen; it was almost destroyed.
"You can't hide inside a wooden box! El! It's going to get us! Doctor!"
She tried to open the gate once more, and failing to do so, ran inside the TARDIS. Upon entering the bigger-on-the-inside box, she stops. Rose looked around, and ran back outside. She could hear the vague sound of a siren in the distance. She continued to run around the TARDIS, until the Not-Mickey Auton finally made it through the kitchen door, when she ran back inside the TARDIS.
"It's going to follow us!" Rose yelled at the Doctor.
"The assembled hoardes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried." El told Rose.
"Now, shut up a minute." commanded the Doctor. He and El were busy talking what sounded like complete gibberish to Rose and wiring the plastic head up to the TARDIS console.
"You see, the arm was too simple, but the head's perfect," the Doctor said to Ellen, who looked at him, eyebrows raised.
"We can use it to trace the signal back to the original source!" she finished for him, grinning. Rose looked between them again. She noticed that El was more carefree when with him. Why, she had no idea.
The Doctor cleared his throat and began speaking, clearly addressing Rose this time.
"Right. Where do you want to start?"
She thought for a moment. "Er, the inside's bigger than the outside?"
"Yes." He nodded.
"It's alien." Not a question, like usual.
"Yeah." He nodded again.
"Are you alien?" She looked almost as if she didn't want the answer.
"Yes. Is that alright?"
"Yeah. But El. What about El? You two obviously know each other!" At that, the Doctor and El shared a glance.
"We should tell her, Theta," sighed Ellen. "She's pretty deep in this already."
He tensed, but gave a stiff nod.
"I'm-" El started, but took a deep breath. "I'm the same as him. We grew up together."
Rose looked at her in disbelief. "You mean to tell me you were alien this whole time, and you didn't tell me?"
"Rose, I couldn't. I was trying to keep you safe! If-"
"Save it," Rose spat. "Whatever you're going to say is probably just another lie!"
El was taken aback, and her eyes grew dim. Upon seeing that, the Doctor's face darkened. "Don't you dare speak to El like that." He reached over to El and pulled her close, stroking her hair like he had when she was upset when they were younger. "If you're going to judge her, at least hear her out. I'm positive that El had your best interests in mind."
Rose thought for a moment, then nodded stiffly. "I'm sorry, El. Please explain why you lied."
The Doctor tensed, as if he was about to say something, but El patted his stomach to calm him. "As I was saying, if I had told you what I was, less... friendly alien life would have targeted you even if you hadn't met him." She pointed at the Doctor, who was still glaring at Rose.
Rose's gaze softened, but she was still angry. "Is your name even Ellen Rogers like you said? Or is it something like his? Are you known as 'the Nurse'?"
El thought for a moment. "Yes, and no." She paused to gather her thoughts.
"Back on our home planet, we had multiple names. Every one of our people did. We had a true name, which very few knew, a last name, which we went by in public before we chose our titles, and a title. Our true names were known only by immediate family, for one who knew our true name could see our thoughts, sense our deepest fears. True names helped you see a person for what they really were."
At that, El looked up at the Doctor and smiled softly. He returned the smile; his eyes reflected the love he felt for her. This did not go by unnoticed by Rose, but she chose to let it slide.
"Our last names were our family names. Our people didn't choose our titles until we reached the age of twenty. Not Earth twenty, mind you. And since we were forbidden to tell others our true names, we went by our family name until our twentieth birthday, where we went before the Council and chose our titles. These titles were what we were to be known by until our final deaths. This lump here," she nudged him to emphasize her point. "chose to be known as 'the Doctor'. He actually chose mine, though."
"The Rose," they said together. Miss Tyler looked at them in astonishment.
"Why 'the Rose?'"
This time, the Doctor nudged Ellen. "She's beautiful and delicate, yet sturdy and can defend herself. Oh, and it was her mother's name. Not to mention she's also persistent, and hard to get rid of." He grinned as El lightly smacked him on the arm. "Not that I'd ever want to get rid of her, of course."
El rolled her eyes. "Anyway, it's called the TARDIS, this thing. T-A-R-D-I-S. That's Time And Relative Dimension In Space."
As El finished her introduction, Rose burst into tears. As usual, the Doctor had no idea what she was crying about.
"That's okay. Culture shock. Happens to the best of us," the Doctor said, trying to cheer her up just a little. El shook her head in the background. 'He really IS oblivious..,' she thought, careful to keep that thought guarded.
"Did they kill him? Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?"
"Oh." The Doctor looked sheepish. "I didn't think of that."
Rose looked a bit angry at that. "He's my boyfriend. You pulled off his head; They copied him and you didn't even think? And now you're just going to let him melt?"
"Melt?" The Doctor turned around and quickly walked to the console, where El was trying to get a signal off of the head.
"Oh, no, no, no, no, no!" the Doctor shouted, frustrated with the plastic. He ran around the console, Rose shouting behind him. "What are you doing?!"
"Following the signal," El answered quickly, flipping switches and pushing buttons. "It's fading. Wait a minute, I've got it."
The Doctor was watching the monitor closely. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Almost there. Almost there. Here we go!"
And he ran out the door, El on his heels.
"You can't go out there! It's not safe!" And Rose Tyler followed the two aliens outside. She saw the Doctor muttering furiously to El, in the gibberish language they were speaking in earlier. It was very beautiful gibberish, but gibberish nonetheless.
"I lost the signal! I got so close!"
"Hush now, dear. We'll find it again. I promise." She patted his arm.
"We've moved," Rose said, interrupting the couple's moment. "Does it fly?"
El and her Doctor turned around and saw Rose. They started speaking at the same time, but two completely different sentences.
El's was kind and simple; "Disappears there and reappears here."
The Doctor, however, was blunt. "You wouldn't understand."
Rose glared up at him, and spoke to Ellen. "If we're somewhere else, what about that headless... thing? It's still on the loose!"
"It melted with the head," she replied.
The Doctor added, "Are you going to witter on all night?"
Rose's features darkened with fury.
"I'll have to tel his mother. Mickey. I'll have to tell his mother he's dead, and you just went and forgot him, again!" She glared at him. "You were right. You are alien."
"Rose-" El tried to calm her, but the Doctor cut in.
"Look, if I did forget some kid called Mickey-"
"Doctor-" El started, trying to keep the Doctor from digging his hole deeper.
"Yeah, he's not a kid." Rose was starting to get snotty.
"-it's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering about on top of this planet, all right!"
"All right." Rose looked dumbstruck as the Doctor crossed his arms, El rubbing his arm calmingly.
"Yes, it is!"
Rose's confused look returned as she asked another question, calmer now. "If you are an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North? And El from Scotland?"
"Lots of planets have a north. And El? That's just coincidental." Indignant. He turned his head towards El and away from Rose.
"What's a police public call box?"
He turned towards it and said, "It's a telephone box. From the nineteen-fifties." He grinned and ran a hand down the sleek wood. "It's a disguise."
"Okay. And this, this living plastic. What's it got against us?"
El answered that question. "Nothing. It loves you. You've got such a good planet, lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. Its food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein plants rotted."
"So Earth, dinner!" The Doctor finished. Rose looked in-between the two Time Lords again, and shook her head. They really were good for each other.
"Any way of stopping it?"
The Doctor held up a vial of a slightly congealing blue liquid. "Anti-plastic."
"Anti-plastic," Rose repeated.
"Anti-plastic," he grinned. "But first, El and I have to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?" The Doctor walked off towards the Thames.
"Hold on. Hide what?"
He turned to look at her. "The transmitter. The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."
"What's it look like?"
"Like a transmitter," the Doctor said, not wanting Rose to get involved.
"Round and massive, slap bang in the middle of London," El elaborated, seeing as her Doctor wasn't going to say anything. She glared at him to emphasize her point. The three walked back in the opposite direction, Rose lagging behind a bit.
"A huge, circular metal structure like a dish, like a wheel." El and the Doctor stopped walking in front of the railing that overlooks the London Eye and looked at Rose. "Radial. Close to where we're standing. Must be completely invisible."
Rose was staring at something behind them, looking as if she was contemplating something.
"What?"
"What?" The Doctor said as he turned around, wanting to know what she was looking at.
Rose looked pointedly at the Eye in the background.
"What?" Rose nodded at the ferris wheel. He turned around again, this time El turning too. She started laughing at him and his obliviousness.
"What is it? What?" he looked at Rose, then El, and turned around once more.
"Oh." You could almost see the little lightbulb that exploded above the Doctor's head as he realized that the Eye would be the perfect transmitter for the Nestene. "Fantastic!" he grinned.
The trio ran across the Westminster Bridge, the Doctor clasping El's delicate hand as per usual.
"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 Doctor said when they stopped in front of the Eye.
"The breast implants," Rose added under her breath. The Doctor didn't hear it, but El sure did. She laughed quietly.
"Still, we've found the transmitter. The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."
Rose ran over to the side of the parapet and looked down over the edge. "What about down here?" she said, seeing a large manhole entrance at he bottom of the steps. He tugged El along, over to where Rose was looking.
"Looks good to me," the aliens said together, grinning.
They ran down to the hatch and the Doctor opened it, turning the wheel. As he did so, smoke came pouring out and it emitted a red glow. The trio climbed down a shot ladder into a room built of bricks, with chains hanging everywhere. The Doctor went down first, as to preferably keep the females out of danger. He made his way across the room, where there was a steel door waiting. As soon as the two women were behind him, her opened the door and they moved on down a flight of stairs into a multilevelled chamber.
They looked over a railing, at the tub in the middle of the room, where there was an orange thing moving around, and the Doctor spoke to Rose. "The Nestene Consciousness. That's it, inside the vat; A living plastic creature."
"Well, then. Tip in your anti-plastic and let's go."
The Time Lords looked at Rose like she was crazy. "We're not here to kill it. I've got to give it a chance," the Doctor answered. He and El continued down the stairs to a catwalk overlooking the Nestene vat.
"We seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation!"
The stuff in the vat flexed and let out a screech.
"Thank you. If we might have permission to approach?"
Rose was slowly making her way down the stairs, but upon reaching the bottom, ran over to a huddled humanoid shape in the corner. The Doctor watched her run, and shook his head, turning back to the vat.
"Oh, God! Mickey, it's me!" She finally made it to where he was sitting. "It's okay. It's all right."
He shushed her. "That thing down there, the liquid. Rose, it can talk!" Mickey grabbed her arm.
"You're stinking," she said quietly to him. Rose raised her voice and addressed the two Time Lords. "Doctor, El, they kept him alive."
"Yeah, that was always a possibility. Keep him alive to maintain the copy," said the Doctor as he headed down the stairs next to Rose, gently tugging El behind him. He continued to head down another flight of stairs.
"You knew that and you never said?" Rose asked him angrily.
He turned to look at her. "Can we keep the domestics outside, thank you?"
Rose glared up at him. "What about you and El?"
"That's different."
"How?"
"She and I aren't starting rows in the middle of a crisis!"
Rose looked away, pouting, but followed him down the stairs, Mickey right behind her.
The Doctor continued down the stairs. "Am I addressing the Consciousness?"
The vat let out another screeching noise.
"Thank you. If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you shunt off?" he smiled falsely.
The plastic in the vat formed a sort of face and screeched at him.
"Oh, don't give us that," began El. She was beginning to get frustrated with the plastic alien. "It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights."
The Consciousness seemed to grow angry and screamed loudly at El, which did not sit well with the Doctor.
"She was talking!"
The Consciousness quieted itself.
"This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk, but they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you on their behalf. Please, just go."
"Doctor!" El shouted. He turned to see two shop dummies grab her arms and restrain her.
Another pair of dummies grabs him, one removing the anti-plastic from his pocket.
"That was just insurance; I wasn't going to use it."
The Consciousness squalled up at him in anger.
"I was not attacking you. I'm here to help. I'm not your enemy. I swear, I'm not."
The Nestene screamed a reply to the two Time Lords.
"What do you mean?" El asked, confused.
A door behind them flew open, revealing the old Type Forty TARDIS.
"No. Oh, no. Honestly, no."
The Nestene growled a question.
"Yes, that's our ship."
The face roared at them.
"That's not true!" shouted El, who was struggling against the Autons. "We should know, we were there. We fought in the war, side by side. It wasn't our faults!"
"We couldn't save your world! We couldn't save any of them!" yelled the Doctor, tears in his eyes.
The Nestene started moving about and flexing.
"What's it doing?!" Rose called down, frightened.
"It's the TARDIS!" grunted El. "The Nestene's identified it as superior technology; it's terrified. It's going to the final phase. It's starting the invasion!"
"Get out, Rose!" commanded the Doctor. "Just leg it, now!"
The plastic in the vat continued to roar and screech, and Rose decided to phone her mother.
"Mum?"
"Oh, there you are! 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 mum?"
"I'm in town."
Rose started to panic. "No, go home! Just go home right now!"
Jackie looked at the screen on her phone before putting it back to her ear.
"Darling, you're breaking up. Listen, I'm just going to do a bit of late night shopping. I'll see you later. Ta-ta!"
Jackie hung up the phone.
"Mum! Mum!"
The Nestene Consciousness began to throw crackling energy bolts around; it was angry.
"It's the activation signal!" El shouted. "It's transmitting!"
Up above them, the London Eye lit up with a blue aura and started to emit a round blue light.
Rose looked shocked. "It's the end of the world."
The plastic in the vat was beginning to become extremely agitated. The Doctor and El were both still struggling against the Autons that were trying to thrust the two Time Lords into the vat.
"Get out, Rose! Just get out! RUN!" shouted El, worried for her best friend's fate.
"The stairs have gone," she replied, running to the TARDIS with Mickey. "I haven't got the key!"
The two sank down onto the floor, seemingly resolved to their fates.
"We're going to die!" Mickey shouted, acting like a crying child.
"No!" the Doctor exclaimed. The Autons were still trying to force the two aliens into the tub of living plastic. He saw them slowly pushing El back; she was almost at the edge of the catwalk. His features darkened with rage.
"Time Lordsss...," the Nestene whispered to the fighting Gallifreyans.
Rose slowly stood up. As she did so, Mickey grabbed her leg and held it as a lifeline. "Just leave 'em!" he yelled at her. She ran around the chamber. "There's nothing you can do!"
The Doctor looked up at her, if only for a moment, before returning his gaze to his Terra.
Rose grabbed a hatchet, aiming it at a nearby chain. "I've got no A levels, no job, no future." She began to choke up. "But I'll tell you what I have got." She hit the chain. "Jericho Street Junior School Under Seven's Gymnastic Team." Rose managed to knock the chain loose and she grabbed it, much like one would a swinging rope. "I've got the bronze!"
She ran over to the edge of the floor and swung off, kicking the Autons that were holding the Doctor away and into the vat. The anti-plastic fell in as well. The Doctor swiftly moved over to El, knocking her Autons into the now blue Nestene Consciousness. He pulled her into his arms and away from the edge. He released her.
"Rose!" he shouted, grabbing Rose as she swung back over the platform. The Doctor grinned over into the vat.
"Now we're in trouble."
Explosions rung out through the chamber as the Eye stopped transmitting, causing all of the shop dummies to stagger and fall over. The Doctor grabbed El's hand and the three ran to the TARDIS, where Mickey was pretty much strangling the alien plant. They all went inside, Rose pausing to grin at the Consciousness. More explosions blew, the TARDIS dematerializing.
As soon as the TARDIS rematerialized, Mickey ran out of the door. He was terrified of the blue box that was bigger on the inside. He fell over onto his knees on the complete other side of the alley. Rose stepped out, calm, cool, and collected. She dialed her mother on her mobile.
Back over at the Queen's Arcade, Jackie pulled her ringing mobile out of her purse. She answered it, still breathing heavily from fear and adrenaline.
"Rose, Rose, don't go out of the house!"
On the other side of the line, Rose was laughing at Jackie's antics.
"It's not safe! There were these things, and they were shooting! And they-" Rose, still laughing, hung up her mobile.
"Hello? Hello?"
"A fat lot of good you were," Rose said as she walked over to Mickey, who was trying to hide behind rubbish. The Doctor stayed in the TARDIS's doorway, an arm around El's waist, holding her close to him. Since they escaped, the Doctor hadn't let her out of arm's reach.
Mickey muttered unintelligible things and pointed at the TARDIS.
"Nestene Consciousness?" began the Doctor.
El snapped her fingers. "Easy," she finished.
Rose looked at them strangely, gloating. "You were useless in there; you'd be dead if it wasn't for me. Both of you." She pointed at herself. "And did you two do that often? The finishing each others' sentences thing. It's weird."
"Yes, we would. Thank you. And yeah, that tends to happen. We hear the other's thoughts, if we haven't sealed off our minds," El stated, truly grateful.
The Doctor nodded. "Right then, we'll be off!" he clapped his hands. "Unless, er, I don't know, you could come with us. This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the Universe, free of charge."
"Don't," Mickey spoke up. "He's an alien. He's a thing!" Mickey looked and saw El still lingering behind the Doctor. "El, you're going with him?"
She nodded, still being held by the Doctor.
"Wait, the alien in the tub thing said 'Time Lords'. As in, more than one. Plural. You're the same as him?"
"Yup," she answered, popping the p. (Like another Doctor we all love does! You'll find that this regeneration of El is quite a lot like another Doctor of ours. A lot of his strange quirks he picked up from El, for this story's purpose. If you happen to guess which one, drop me a review and/or a PM telling me your guess. If you get it right, well, you get a free pixel cookie and a mention at the start of the next chapter!)
"But we've known you for years! How-"
"He's-" the Doctor shot a pointed glance at Mickey. "-not invited. What do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go anywhere."
Rose's mind was torn. "Is it always this dangerous?"
The Doctor grinned mischievously. "Yeah."
Mickey wrapped his arms around his girlfriend's waist in fear of her decision, hoping to sway her into staying with him.
"Yeah, I can't. I've er, got to go and find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so..."
The Doctor's grin faltered slightly. Behind him, El's face fell. She was hoping that her human friend would join them on their journeys.
"Okay. See you around."
El pulled him back inside the TARDIS, and the familiar wheezing noise and gusty winds filled the alley as it dematerialized.
Rose stared at where it had been for a few moments before addressing Mickey.
"Come on, let's go. Come on. Come on."
The two made it almost to the end of the alley when they heard the TARDIS materialize behind them. They both turned around at the sound. The door opened, and out popped El's head.
"By the way, did we mention it also travels in time?"
Rose smiled sadly as El walked away from the door, expecting her to follow. But Rose knew that she couldn't. She would love to, of course, but she could already tell that her feelings toward the strange alien, which were simply friendly now, would later develop into something more if she stayed with them. He was El's partner, she could tell, and she wouldn't put her best friend through that kind of stress. And they had just found each other again! They never outright said it, but El had been in London with Rose for the past five years! And Rose knew that by the way the two acted when they reunited, that they had been estranged.
"I'm sorry, El, Doctor. I just can't."
The Doctor stood in the doorway again, El by his side. They both wore looks of disappointment.
"Okay. I guess.. we'll see you later then," answered El. "Bye," she muttered.
The Doctor swallowed and addressed them both. "Rose." He nodded in her direction. "Ricky." He nodded in his direction before closing the door to the TARDIS and helping El set up the flight controls. As the dematerialization process began, he quietly came up behind El and snaked his arms around her waist. She leaned into his embrace, and he kissed her temple.
Even though Rose hadn't come with them when they both clearly wanted her to, the Doctor felt strangely happy. It was just him and El in the TARDIS now, but that was how they had intended it as children. The two of them, travelling the Universe together. He and his Heart.
Took longer than I had intended to get this chapter up, but I hope you're pleased with it.
If you're confused about the Heart thing, just think. Time Lords have two hearts. In this story, the Doctor will call El his 'heart' because he loves her so much, and the same for her. It was something they came up with during the Time War. All will be explained later, though. Don't let it eat you!
Ta-ta!
Dianalee~