"Rockin' around the Christmas tree..."
Rose groans and rolls over, slaps the radio alarm off. Murky gray light filters in through the windows, she doesn't have to look to know it's been snowing again.
She yawns, puts on her robe and slippers and pads down the stairs. The house is cold, she stops to turn the thermostat up before filling and switching on the electric kettle.
There are footsteps from the floor above her, a few moments later John Smith appears, hair more wild than normal, phone pressed against his ear.
"Yeah, yeah...no, it's Ok, I was about to get up, anyway." He tilts the phone away from his mouth as he yawns.
"Is that Pete?" Rose asks.
"Here, talk to your mother." John offers the phone out to her.
"Merry Christmas!" Their son says when she puts the speaker to her ear.
"It's not Christmas, yet." Rose laughs.
"Yeah, well Happy Almost Christmas, then." Pete says. "You guys did remember to water the tree, right?"
"Yes, your tree is fine." Rose says. "It'll still be here when you get back."
"Yeah, that's why I'm calling, the flight is probably going to be delayed, there's a big storm that's supposed to come in and they're trying to get people to transfer to other flights, it would mean staying here another three days. Mr and Mrs Russo said it's fine."
"Ok." Rose opens the fridge and pulls out a pint of milk. "I don't see that being a problem. John, you don't mind if he stays in Italy for a little longer?"
"Tell him he can stay there, we'll rent out his room." John says, walking over to the garden door and pulling the curtain aside to glance out at half a foot of fresh snow. "And I'm going to send his presents to disadvantaged children in Africa."
"It's fine." Rose laughs. "When will you be getting back?"
"Um, January 5th, I think, I'll have to talk to the people at the airport."
Someone knocks at the front door.
John Smith frowns, it's 8:45 in the morning, who on Earth is calling unannounced?
He can see the shadow of the person on the other side through the narrow frosted glass window beside the doorway. It's small, a child, maybe 10 years old. He quickly takes the final steps and opens the door.
In the kitchen behind him, Rose frowns and lowers the phone as the signal goes dead.
"Paper, sir?" A boy dressed in several layers of coats, holding the flap of his bag open like an awning to protect the contents from the light snow that has started to fall again.
"Ah-" This is not the city that was here when he went to sleep, and it isn't the city he saw through the back of the house.
Across the road should be a line of suburban homes with snowmen in the yards and shoveled driveways, cast in gray morning light.
Instead, he is looking out at stone rowhouses, the snow on their roofs sparkling in midday light. Smoke drifts up from narrow chimneys. The air smells like cold and burning things- wood and coal fires, oily exhaust from early automobiles, food cooking. There are a few people out and about, bundled up against the cold. 1920's, he thinks.
"Yes, I'm sorry, can you tell me what day it is?"
"December 22nd , sir." The boy says.
"And, what year?"
The paperboy gives him a slightly suspicious look. "1920, sir."
John wants to ask where they are, but realizes that is a totally inappropriate question as he apparently lives here. He wants a paper, but contemporary currency is going to be useless to the child. "Hang on a minute. Rose?"
Rose has vaguely registered that her husband is talking to someone at the door, but she's been trying to figure out why her phone has gone dead. "What."
"Can you get that blue suit from the closet for me?" He doesn't dare turn around, if this is a quantum mechanism shifting his attention could literally alter whatever is happening outside.
"Get it yourself." She power cycles her phone, hissing with annoyance. "I thought we had this thing fixed."
"Rose, I need you to go get me my blue suit. Now. Please." He speaks in the soft but firm tone he only uses when he's giving a direct order.
Rose looks up slowly, his body is blocking most of the doorway but something is not right about the view of the street. She comes down the short hall and opens the closet, the blue suit is in a clothing bag at the very end of the bar, behind a reflective silver parka and the plush dinosaur costume their son had worn for six months when he was ten. She unhooks the hangar, unzips the bag.
The suit has not been worn since John arrived, and she had an unexpected wash of emotions as the smell of the Tardis wafts out. He turns to take the clothing when she comes up behind him, she's offering out her arm but freezes when she catches sight of outside.
John fishes in the jacket pocket hopefully, pulls out a handful of change. He sorts through and finds several coins that were minted in 1915 and offers them out. The boy drops them into a pouch and carefully counts out a few pennies, but John waves them away.
"Thank you, sir. Ma'am" The boy hands John a paper and tips his hat. "Happy Christmas."
He turns and trots off down the street. Rose pushes into the doorway so she can look through.
"What is going on?" She asks.
"I'm not entirely sure." John looks down at the paper. "Stokers Guest? Odd name for a town. Lets see..." He opens the paper and skims the headlines. "Oh, look at that, Christmas play at the elementary school used live animals, two chickens are still missing... auto crash on Main street... someone researching rodent behavior has leased the house that used to be owned by a person named Adrian Kelsey..."
"John." Rose says.
"Hm?" He turns the page.
"It's 1920 out there."
John doesn't answer, he's reading something with his brow drawn down.
"John?"
"What?" He says vaguely.
"John!"
The power goes out, plunging the house into shadow. The room abruptly feels smaller, Rose and John turn to find a wall at the end of the entryway, the rest of the house has either vanished or been cut off.
"Great." Rose says. "What are we going to do?"
John is still reading the paper, and she elbows him in annoyance. "Pay attention!"
"Yes, right, well there's no point in hanging around here." He drops the bathrobe and starts dressing.
Rose can't see any alternative, she finds a long coat in the closet and puts it on, slides her feet into her winter boots.
They are on a street lined with row houses, people bustle about with parcels, ignoring the newcomers. A group of children runs past, all of them red faced and covered in snow.
After a few minutes they come to the business district, all of the shop windows are decorated with holiday displays. Rose is watching a little electric train and Ferris wheel and bumps into John when he stops.
She looks up, they have come to a small park which bears the scars of a recent snowball fight, and standing in the center is the thing that has made him freeze.
The Tardis, it's roof coated in a thin layer of snow, light on top glowing brightly.
"Oh my God." Rose murmurs.
They start across the park, are halfway to the Tardis when something moves under the snow, almost knocking Rose off of her feet. She stops, looking around, John turns to look at her. In the silence when their feet stop shuffling they can both hear a soft creaking and sliding under the surface, as though there are snakes moving in the snow.
"What is that?" Rose takes a step closer to John, watching the unbroken top layer.
"I don't know." John takes her hand, pulls her toward the Tardis. "Come on."
Something bursts up out of the snow, Rose's first thought is of a giant snake poised to strike, but the thing doesn't have any discernible head. A worm, maybe, or the tentacle of a colossal squid. It is immediately followed by another, the two arch up above them, waving menacingly.
Several people on the sidewalk scream, the sparse crowd mills about in panic and confusion before dispersing.
John shoves Rose toward the box, breaks into a run behind her. Another of the worms snaps up in front of them, cutting them off, then another. In seconds they are surrounded, but they don't strike, simple wave around.
"What are they doing?" Rose asks. "Why aren't they moving?"
"Hey! Over here!"
Rose and John both turn and see a man, it has to be the Doctor, he's waving the sonic screwdriver. The snakes spot him as well, orient on him and move forward. The Doctor bolts, giving Rose and John an opening into the ship.
"They're-" Rose tries to protest as the things shoot off after the Doctor, but John has her arm in a vice grip and is pulling her toward the door.
She sees the Doctor pitch the screwdriver and has a sudden and horrifying flashback to a scene in Jurassic Park as the nearest snake creature turns it's head briefly to watch the screwdriver pass but stays focused on it's living prey.
"Get in the Tardis!" This comes in sterio from both John and the Doctor.
The head of the worm opens outward like a flower blooming, a huge round mouth filled with a cluster of smaller wiggling tedrils. The Doctor pulls something from his pocket and throws it into the gaping maw, the thing closes around it and there is a flash of light, it twists upward and then falls back, either dead or stunned.
For a second, Rose thinks he's going to make it all the way to the Tardis, reaches out a hand for his to pull him in. His fingers brush hers and then another of the worms explodes upward from the snow, mouth wide open, Rose gets a glimpse of his shocked face before he is gone.
"No!" She's back out of the Tardis, vaguely aware of John trying unsuccessfully to grab her jacket and stop her.
The worm is having trouble getting the Doctor down, it thrashes it's head back and forth several times, it's mouth opens again and it shudders then snaps sharply and spits him out. It pulls back, tilts as if considering, the Doctor is moving again, staggering to his feet. The mouth opens again and the tendrils shoot out, wrap around the Doctor. They brighten, pulsing with energy, the Doctor writhes in pain.
Rose runs forward and slams into the thing with her shoulder hard as she can. The worm jerks slightly, feeling her but not perturbed.
"Stop it! Let him go!" Rose kicks the rubbery body but her trainer is completely ineffective, she needs some sort of weapon.
"Look out!" John grabs her shoulder and moves her aside, she registers a flash of silver and then the worm screams in pain and lets go of the Doctor.
John tries to pull the longsword out of it's body to take another swing, but he'd misjudged the resistance and now the thing is burried to the hilt and locked in place by tissue which is oozing bright blue, acrid smelling liquid. It seems to be enough to deter the thing, however, as it retreats into the snow.
The Doctor is still moving, trying to get up. Rose runs over, slipping on the broken chunks of snow and ice, grabs him by the arm and helps him to his feet. She can see he's in pain, and confused, though she's not sure whether the latter is from shock or from seeing two people who should be completely inaccessable in another dimension.
"That's...that's not me, is it?" He manages
"No." Rose tugs him toward the Tardis, he's heavy and uncoordinated. "John! Help me!"
"Oh, good..that would have been...something. I dunno." The Doctor gets an arm around John's shoulders.
"Bad, that would have been bad. But it's bad, anyway." John kicks the door of the Tardis open and then ducks out from under the Doctor to close and lock it behind them.
"Ah, yeah, I suppose it is." The Doctor's legs go out from under him, Rose goes down with him to keep him from crashing to the floor. "Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Don't bother, she's not going anywhere. Locked down. No idea why. Thought she was having a hissy fit but I guess not. Think we're stuck here. Those things can't get in."
John takes his hands off the console, turns to look at the Doctor. "I'm sorry."
"Oh, you always say that." The Doctor shakes his head. "Have to wonder what exactly you keep apologizing for."
"Ssh." Rose says.
The Doctor chuckles, winces. "Don't you tell me to hush, I get to have dying words, you know."
"Stop it, you're not dying." Rose says.
"Yes I am." The Doctor says. "It got me good. Oh, lets see, last words..."
"Shut up, you'll be fine. You'll just regenerate, right?" Rose says.
The Doctor looks like he's about to answer, but his lungs are filling with fluid and he ends up coughing instead.
"No." John says.
"What? Of course he will, he's..." Rose says, but her voice fades at John's expression.
"Not this time. Twelve faces, that's it. No more. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It shouldn't end this way." John says.
Rose feels tears well in her eyes, her lower lip is trembling but she forces it to stay steady enough to manage words. "No, no he's the Doctor. He's got a way around it. He has to. He always does."
"Rose, you have to let go." The Doctor's voice is low and choked.
"No! You're not going to die, you hear me!" Rose almost shouts.
"No, Rose, you have to let go." The Doctor's voice has gotten notably more clear and he actually manages to wrench himself partly out of her grasp. "I can't regenerate if you're touching me."
"Oh! Oh! Sorry!" Rose scoots away.
"What?" John says.
The console room flashes bright with golden light, ionic bonds breaking and re-forming, atoms rearranging themselves.
"What!" John yelps.
"Oh, thank God." Rose gasps, grabs the Doctor again from behind in a relieved hug. "I thought you were dead!"
The Doctor pats her hand. "Oh, oh I've got it. 'You've killed me again, Rose Tyler.' Yep, that's what I should have said."
Rose jerks in surprise and leans around to look at the Doctor's face. "Doctor!"
"What? To soon?"
"You're a girl."
"Hm? So I am." The Doctor runs her hands over the front of her body, now clothed in an incredibly ill fitting suit. "That's a new one."
"You can't do that!" John finally manages to put words together.
"What? Of course I can. It happens all the time, when you're rebuilding every cell in your body from the ground up something like secondary sexua-"
"I meant regenerate!" John waves her to a stop.
The Doctor now looks honestly baffled. "What ever makes you say that?"
"Time Lord's 101? That part about 12 regenerations? You know, little things like that." John walks over and drops down to look the Doctor in the face.
"Gallifrey needed me for a minute, decided it would be best if I didn't kick off before they got what they wanted."
"Gallifrey is gone." John says.
"Nuh-uh, just parked at the end of time. Most of 'em are still jerks, though."
John laughs, rocks back and rolls to his feet. "Alright, alright, we're going to have a very long talk later. Come on, you need to go lie down."
"Yeah, I think...I think that would be good." The Doctor pulls her shoes off and reaches up, makes a grasping motion at him with both hands.
John pulls her to her feet, for a second it looks like she's going to fall over and he holds her shoulders steady.
"Oh, my center of gravity is so low." The Doctor wiggles her hips, grabs the pants to keep them from falling off. "And I'm all...loose."
John releases his grip cautiously, then grabs her shoulders again. The Doctor looks back and forth between him and Rose. "How did you two get here?"
"There was a-" Rose starts.
"It's not important." John says firmly. "Come on."
"But-" The Doctor shakes her head, winces as the movement makes her go dizzy.
"Nope, not important." He repeats, catching the Doctor as she loses her balance and scooping her up.
"I can walk." The Doctor protests.
"I know." John says, but doesn't put her down.
Rose follows as he carries the Doctor through the door at the rear of the console room, down the hall and into the study. John starts to put the Doctor down but she tightens her hands around his shoulders and makes a noise, and he stops.
"Ok, well I guess there's not really much I can do, anyway." He shifts his grip on the Doctor and sits down, arranges his long legs on the cushion.
"Is it safe in here? I mean, while she's asleep." Rose says quietly. "My pants are soaked."
"Yeah, it should be fine, the console room is probably closed." John wiggles, pokes the Doctor until she moves her sharp elbow from his stomach.
Rose finds that the halls have shifted but she can find her way, she finds most of her old wardrobe in the room the Doctor calls the closet, is slightly surprised that the pants still fit. She'd been feeling vaguely out of shape lately, but apparently that's not the case. Something about being a mom does that to you.
That thought brings up an image of Pete and she frowns. This isn't a matter of just miles or years away, one or possibly both parties have moved between dimensions. And that, Rose finds dry shoes and slips them on, that is a problem.
"What do you think, are we screwed?" Rose asks.
The Tardis makes a sound Rose has always thought of as a shrug.
Rose finds the kitchen and finally has something of breakfast, though between spent adrenaline and the worry now pushed to the front of her mind she isn't very hungry. She wants to go talk to John, but he seems to have committed himself to staying with the Doctor until whenever she wakes up, which Rose can't really make herself feel angry at him for.
She wanders around aimlessly, the Tardis has either grown or rearranged herself so that Rose keeps finding unfamiliar passages and hallways that lead to rooms she's never seen before.
She pushes through a set of double doors and stops, blinking in surprise. She's pretty sure there was never a video arcade in the Tardis before. Two walls in the dim, neon lit room are lined with bulky old video game machines, she can hear Pac-Man chomping away and what she thinks is the theme for Mortal Combat. The long far wall has several pods that she recognizes as FIGS, fully interactive game systems, there's a DDR setup and two large flat TV screens with a long couch in front of them. She can see a handfull of controllers scattered on the coffee table among brightly coloured magazines and walkrthrough, square old NES and Atari controllers, the trident designs from the systems she'd played as a teen, a few strangely shaped button studded gadgets, and what looks suspiciously like a modified Power Glove.
"Did he have kids in here?" Rose asks.
The TV screens come up in response to her voice, the room fills with a high pitched midi that is familiar but takes Rose a moment watching the intro screen to place, apparently whoever was in here last was playing the original Legend of Zelda. The TV that isn't attached to this game system shows a rotating pattern of intricate circular shapes, a screen saver. Rose looks around and finds a remote, turns the volume on the game down all the way.
She looks at the remote, the buttons are labeled and she tries the one that says 'local'. A box pops up with a loading icon while 'searching' flashes, Rose wonders what kind of media the Tardis could possibly find in 1920. Newspapers and old film reels?
'Exterior feed unavailable' finally comes up, and the loading screen is replaced with a menu screen, bright thumbnail images on the lower half, white printed text on the top gives her a list of categories. She's apparently accessed the internal storage of the Tardis, she'd never really thought about the ship accessing broadcasts and saving them but it's not particularly surprising.
Rose wonders if the video feed from the Tardis is here somewhere, she searches the screen and finds an icon in circular gallifreyan, when she hovers the pointer finger over it the translation 'login' appears. Ok, she thinks, she might as well try that, the system here looks smart enough not to let her mess anything up.
When she selects the login option more Gallifreyan scrolls across the screen, several characters lock together into a pattern she's fairly sure forms her name, then she is back on the media select screen. There is a new tab now, though it's labeled in Gallifreyan and doesn't translate. When she clicks on it she is presented with rows of labeled thumbnail images which expand to videos that must be from the exterior sensors, some of them are flyovers, others were obviously taken when the Tardis was parked.
"Is there a way to see outside, right now?" Rose asks.
The display obligingly splits into a four way view, she's looking now out at the winter city. It's snowing again, the disturbed surface of the park is fast smoothing over. A group of children run past, she can hear them shouting and laughing. A dog wanders by a minute later and starts to lift it's leg on the corner of the Tardis, then thinks better of it. Shoppers are back on the sidewalk, more of them now, most of them carrying bags and parcels. Everyone seems to have forgotten the events that couldn't have taken place more than 90 minutes prior.
She decides the only halfway useful thing she can do right now is keep an eye on the town outside through the monitors. Watching shoppers walk by isn't terribly interesting, she turns the volume up enough so she'll notice if something starts to happen and picks up a slick interactive magazine titled The Wild and the Weird.
The magazine notices her attention and begins to play a video article about a missing space freighter called the Ontario, which vanished crew and all. According to the wild haired human host, official records listed the Ontario as simply being lost, but onofficial sources state that distress signals came from the crew claiming some sort of alien creature was taking over the ship.
Rose waves her hand over the page and it skips to the next article, something about a living suitcase that eats people, this is followed by an account of 'the man in the blue box' translated from something dug out of an ancient Chinese temple, an interview with someone claiming to have been abducted by talking tomatoes and given the secret to universal peace which he was not to reveal unless local law enforcement agreed to drop all his parking fines, and a rather lengthy piece explaining in needlessly complicated language that in order to fly all one must do is throw themselves at the ground and miss.
Time passes, Rose eventually breaks down and starts playing video games, the fire in the study flickers over the still forms of John Smith and the Doctor.
The ambient sound of the Tardis shifts, the lights in the study come up slightly as the Doctor blinks awake. There are a few seconds of complete and surreal confusion at the discovery of the other person on the couch before senses arrange themselves enough to realize there really is only one Doctor in the room.
"John Smith." The Doctor says slowly, sitting up and looking down, running her hands over her chest.
"Mm?" He answers without opening his eyes.
"I'm a girl."
"Mm-hm."
"When did that happen?"
"That depends." John sits up, rolls his stiff shoulders around. "When is it now?"
"Ah...eight...something." The Doctor peers at the clock over the mantle. "How'd you get here?"
"We came through our front door." John says.
"We?"
"Rose is here somewhere."
"Ok...you came through your door into...what? The Tardis?"
"No, no, the town out there." John says. "We found the Tardis, then some sort of worms or snakes came up out of the snow."
"Right, right, I remember that...vaguely...hm, this is a bigger problem than I thought, then, if it's ripping inter-dimensional portals. I need to find some clothes that fit, then we can see what's going on out there."
"Doctor," John puts a hand on her arm. "Rose and I, we have a son."
"Congratulations, how old is he?"
"18, he's in Italy right now, will be for...well, twelve days from when we left, our time."
"Plenty of time to sort things out." The Doctor smiles.
"You know it doesn't work that way." John says.
"Oh, bah, it'll be fine. You got here, we can get you back. Can't close a door so tight you can't get it back open."
"How did you manage to get more regenerations?" John asks.
"Usual way, you know. They needed me." She pulls the closet open, gives John a revised history of Gallifrey around the cracked door while she tosses clothes around for several minutes before finding something that seems acceptable.
"You look nice." John comments when she comes back out.
The Doctor smiles, then looks slightly surprised. " Oh, I like that. That's funny."
"Most girls do." John says.
"Well, aren't you foxy." The Doctor pokes him in the chest.
"So I've been told." John winks at her. "Speaking of which, I wonder where Rose has gotten off to?"
"All passengers please report to the console room."
Rose jerks awake, looks around in utter confusion at the bright, slightly tinny female voice that has risen above the pings, buzzes, and mechanical grunts from the video games surrounding her. She blinks hazily at the flat screens on the wall in front of her, one of them is playing a demo for what looks like a Mario Kart ripoff featuring amoeba, on the other street lights glow yellow under a haze of falling snow. Reality drifts together around her as she realizes where she is.
"Repeat, all passengers please report to the console room." The voice has the flat, forced enthusiasm of announcers the universe over.
Rose finds her way back to the front of the ship and stops at the door to the console room, finding herself vaguely nervous at the thought of this new Doctor. She can hear John laughing, though, and that makes her feel better.
The console room has shifted, and seems to have decorated itself for Christmas, there is a tree tucked into the corner by the stairs, topped with a cardboard Tardis that has quite obviously been made by a child. A red velvet loveseat and armchair have been arranged near one curving wall, a small table and lamp between them.
John is standing to stage left of the new console, he catches her eye and flashes a grin. "Oh, good, you're up."
The Doctor steps out from behind the console, and Rose is slightly surprised at how much she looks like, well, a girl. She'd known last night, of course, but the Doctor had been hidden under layers of ill fitting clothes and confusion. The hair has been pulled back and pinned now, the suit looks as though it's been tailored to her tall and narrow form, and she seems to exude an aura of bright competence. She looks like the sort of person you'd gravitate toward in an emergency.
"You alright?" The Doctor asks.
"Yeah, I just...you look like...you look like the Doctor." Rose manages.
"I'm not quite sure how I should take that." The Doctor laughs.
The Tardis hums, the Doctor looks around at the monitor, which is displaying the view outside
"Oh, oh my."
There is a man in a space suit standing in the snowy park, looking very out of place. Something moves behind him, one of the things that had attacked them, rising up out of the snow.
"Doctor!" Rose gasps.
"I see it." The Doctor says. "Looks like we're about to get a new friend."
She takes a few quick steps to the door, pulls it open, grabs the man in the space suit and tugs him through. Almost immediately the Tardis shudders again, sensors on the console begin to beep, the exterior video goes dead.
"What's happening?" Rose has to shout over the heavy throbbing of the struggling engine.
"Everything in a three mile radius is in flux, the city is moving!" The Doctor scrambles for the controls as thin plumes of acrid smoke begin to drift from the console.
The gravity in the room seems to go haywire, for several nauseating seconds they are being pulled uncertainly toward walls, floor, and ceiling in rapid succession. The ornaments on the tree sway and clink, the Christmas lights flash, Deck the Halls begins to play from nowhere in particular. The music is hitting it's second course of 'fa-la-la's when they settle again with a soft thump.
"Well, that pony has some fire in it. Everybody OK?" The Doctor flips on the exterior monitors as she comes around the console to check on her friends and the new arrival.
"Yeah, we're fine." John lets go of Rose, who tugs her shirt straight.
"How about you? Hello!" The Doctor strides over to address the man in the space suit, who is still sitting on the couch looking stunned. "You can take that helmet off, it's perfectly safe in here. Well, mostly safe."
He reaches up and unhooks the neck clasps, pulls the helmet off with a soft hiss of escaping gasses, holds it in his gloved hands looking at it with mild suspicion.
"Hi." The Doctor says brightly. "I'm the Doctor, this is Rose Tyler and John Smith."
"Dave." He puts the helmet down on the couch. "David Watson. What just happened?"
"You seem to have wandered into some sort of space-time bubble, same as these two." The Doctor nods toward John and Rose. "And now you're in my ship. The two are not generally connected."
"Is that what happened to the crew?"
"What crew?" The Doctor asks. "Where did you come from?"
"The SVSF Ontario. We were...exploring." Dave says. "This place, that town out there, was in the cargo bay."
"Really, now that's interesting." The Doctor says. "And the crew is gone, you say?"
"They vanished without a trace." Rose says. "Whole ship went missing."
The three others all turn to look at her.
"How in the world did you know that?" The Doctor asks.
"I pay attention." Rose smirks at her. "There's a thing, video article, about it in one of the magazines down in- hey, did you have kids in here?"
"What? Yes, on and off, why?" The Doctor arches an eyebrow at her.
"You have an arcade." Rose says.
"I do? Oh, yes, I do, I'd forgotten about that. Alright, so you were out looting space derelicts-"
"We're not looting, that vessel has been designated irrecoverable and is now considered public property under-"
"Ok, ok, you were 'exploring', then. And you found a town in the cargo bay."
"Pretty much, yeah. I thought it was...I don't know what I thought, maybe something malfunctioned. It wasn't the whole town, there was this sort of dome that had grown from this stuff, some sort of fungus or...no, I think it was more of those things that came up out of the snow, or something to do with them. I found some of it up in the log room, most of it was down in the cargo bay. Once I went in- to the dome, I mean- there just wasn't any way out, the wall or door or, I guess portal, vanished."
The Doctor nods. "Alright, that explains why my location readings were all hinky. We were, quite literally, in two completely different places and times, and, ah, not. I should have landed in 1920, which we apparently did, just in a rather bad spot. Or good one, depending on how you look at it."
"Ok, that explains how he got here, what about us?" Rose asks.
"The pocket exists between our dimensions, the places where they rub against eachother, for lack of a better term, is vulnerable to disruption. In this case, you two have ties to both myself and the Tardis, strong enough ones to permeate the barrier and let you pass through." The Doctor says.
Rose glances at John, who shrugs, makes sense to me.
"So, how do we get back?" This seems like the obvious next question.
"That depends on where exactly we are now, what that stuff is, and whether it can be manipulated. The first thing we're going to do, though, since I've got a single solid reading for our location, is see if we can move and have a look from the outside. I don't much fancy sitting in here with those things potentially out and about. You may want to hang onto something, this can get a bit hinky."
John comes over to the console by the Doctor. "Need a hand?"
The Doctor grins. "Love one."
Rose groans.
"Alright, we're going to pick up and set down just outside the area of disturbance." The Doctor says.
The engines engage easily now, the Tardis lifts herself with considerably more gentle buffeting, settles again and locks in place.
"I do not think we are where we wanted to be." The Doctor says.
"So, where are we?" Rose asks.
"Ahhh...I have no idea." The Doctor says "Exterior sensors are down. Should be safe enough to go have a look."
Rose walks over and pulls the door open, pokes her head out. After a moment she leans back in. "Some sort of museum."