The alarm rang that morning, waking Rose, and she was briefly disconcerted enough to think that she should get up, get dressed, and ready for work. But then her mother shouted at her, reminding her that she didn't have a job anymore because it all burned down, thanks to that mysterious Doctor fellow and those plastic men, Rose mentally added. Rose silently thanked the Doctor for a moment in that she didn't have to work at Henriks' anymore, a snotty, ritzy, and too fabulous of a place (and too expensive for her) that she hadn't been able to stand and only worked at because it was one of the few decent jobs that she could get with her education and lack of experience.
But now she didn't have a job anymore, no way of earning a decent wage to help support herself and her mother, and she wasn't better off than she was before in terms of work experience to boost up her resume. She and her mother were facing a serious lack of funds right now and it wasn't likely that she would immediately find a job to help support them. Bare cupboards wasn't going to be as much of an issue as the fact that they would have to rely on others now, including Mickey and maybe one of her Mum's boyfriends, to help them out if they got into a tight spot, like if the washing machine broke and they couldn't afford a repairman.
She hated the thought of that. She often wished that she and her mum were independent and well-off enough that they could afford to take care of themselves without relying on others for help. She sighed to herself, lying in bed alone now with nothing to do, and wished the day would end right here with nothing to occupy her time, except for TV, reading, and boredom. But she got up, got dressed, and listened to her mum blabber on about getting a job at the butcher's and seeking compensation. It never ended.
There was a knock on the door and she frowned to herself, wondering who that could be as she got up and answered the door to two blokes, one a tall, lanky sort of fellow with dark, curly hair and the other a shorter, homely sort of fellow, maybe about her height or smaller, with blond, short hair. The short fellow had a laptop bag slung across his shoulders. "Hello, Miss. Rose Tyler?" The tall fellow said. "We're with Scotland Yard, and we wish to speak to you about the Doctor you met last night at Henriks' before it blew up. May we come in?" He smiled in a cold way.
Rose gaped at them, shocked. How did they know? Who was this Doctor person that Scotland Yard was looking for him? A criminal, probably, if he wasn't a terrorist. "I can't really say much about him." She said, nervous as she glanced down. "I only met him once last night. He sort of saved my life, or at least got me out of there before it exploded." She frowned. "It was weird. There were plastic mannequins, or people dressed up as plastic mannequins, and they were chasing after us."
"Plastic mannequins." The tall fellow slowly nodded and turned to the shorter fellow. "Wasn't there something in the UNIT files about plastic, the Automatons? Autons?" He corrected himself.
"Autons?" Rose incredulously repeated.
"I think so." The shorter man shrugged. "You know those files better than me."
"I don't know what this is all about, but he warned me that I shouldn't say much about him." Rose added. "He said it would mean death for anyone else."
"Of course. Miss. Tyler," The tall man inhaled, addressing her again, "We want to share with you some information regarding the Doctor, just in case you come across him again."
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" The shorter man hissed. "Mycroft will be very upset with us."
"Well, then he shouldn't have told us about this in the first place if he didn't want us to talk about it." The taller man hissed back.
"I think this is where the Secrets Act is supposed to come in here." The shorter man said.
"Shut up." The tall man muttered.
Rose blinked and said, "All right, come in." She didn't know what was going on here, she didn't exactly trust these guys either, but she waved them through into the flat, hoping to find out more about the mysterious stranger from last night.
"Excellent." The tall man said, entering with the shorter man following and shaking his head. What had she gotten herself into?
"Rose, who is that at the door?" Her mother called out.
"It's just some investigators with the inquiry." Rose told her as the tall fellow and the short fellow walked past her mum's bedroom. "They'll only be here ten minutes. Can you leave us alone for a bit?"
"It might be an hour." The tall fellow added before he moved on.
"An hour? All right then," Rose's mum huffed, annoyed at being driven out of her own home by two men and her daughter, and then she caught sight of the shorter fellow. "Hello, there." She said, straightening up a bit and tossing her hair back to show off her breasts. "I'm alone with a strange man in my bedroom. Anything can happen." She winked.
Before the short man could open his mouth, the tall man shouted, "No! Come along, John." The short man shrugged and walked on by as Rose's mum huffed and continued to get ready to leave the flat. Rose smirked behind her hand.
"Does she flirt with every strange man that walks into her flat?" The short man remarked as he, Rose, and the tall man entered the living room.
"Sometimes she does. So what's this all about, then?" Rose murmured, settled down on the sofa. "And can I get some names from you two since you happen to know mine?"
"I'm Sherlock Holmes and this is my friend, Dr. John Watson." The tall fellow introduced themselves as the short fellow waved. Rose waved back at him, feeling awkward. "John, get out the laptop and the Doctor's files." Sherlock told his friend (boyfriend? No.) "We must apprise Miss. Tyler, full disclosure, on what we're dealing with here." As Watson did that, Sherlock steepled his fingers and turned to Miss. Tyler. "This is very difficult to explain, but we shall try…"
About half an hour later, with Rose's mum already gone on some errands or to visit a boyfriend, Rose shook her head with everything that she had just read, heard, and seen about the Doctor. "No, I don't believe you." She said, facing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. "This is all just fake, obviously. It can't be real. Aliens do not exist. The Doctor can't be alien."
"I was just as much a skeptic as you are not more than 24 hours ago," Sherlock Holmes said. "When there was very little scientific evidence for it as far as I knew of. But now that I have seen all of this information, which came from the highest civil authority in the land and from these respected, renowned agencies, even I believe."
"And it's very hard to get him to believe anything. Trust me, I know." John said.
Rose scoffed. "He would believe anything, I bet."
"It might sound outlandish, something only the feeble-minded would accept, but this level of scientific, government detail cannot be denied or fabricated from nothing." Sherlock said. "The Doctor is real, an alien Time Lord, and you have had contact with him. We are interested in finding out more about him and what he is doing here."
"Maybe he's dealing with the plastic Autons?" John asked and shrugged. "That's the only logical thing I can think of right now."
Rose scoffed and muttered, "Autons, what ridiculous nonsense."
"Excellent point, John, but there's got to be more to it than meets the eye." Sherlock frowned to himself. "I can't help but wonder where he has been for these past few years. He has been missing, absent, off of UNIT's and Torchwood's radar for a long time now. Even for a Time Lord like him, who can travel through space and time, for nine years or more the Doctor has not been seen in any form anywhere."
"Space and time?" Rose frowned to herself. It sound too good to be true.
"In any form?" John asked, frowning to himself as he reached over to the laptop. "I could have sworn there were some scattered reports indicating the Doctor might have popped up here and there-"
"Rumors, fiction, unsubstantiated reports, irrelevant details that have no bearing on any important events." Sherlock insisted. "The Doctor is a ghost at this point, a mere shadow of his former self. We're trying to draw him out of the shadows and figure out what has happened to him, where or when he has been hiding."
Rose cleared her throat, starting to get worried by the fact that there were two strange men ranting and raving about aliens and science fiction stuff with her alone in the flat. And she had almost started to believe them. Why did her mother have to go off and leave her here? She felt vulnerable at this point. Then she heard the cat flap moving in the distance and, wondering if a stray had gotten in, she went off to check it out as John and Sherlock continued arguing.
"We're getting nowhere." Sherlock said, shaking his head. "The Doctor isn't here anymore, he isn't going to show up-"
Suddenly, Sherlock and John heard a snatch of conversation coming from the front door between Rose and another man with a northern accent, and the two men poked their heads out to see the Doctor had arrived, according to Mycroft's surveillance footage. They were absolutely flabbergasted and excited by his appearance. They had heard about him only last night, but already he had been built up into a legend in their own minds. He knocked Rose on the head for some reason, Sherlock assumed it was to check if she was plastic if he was searching for the Autons, and then she pulled the Doctor inside.
"Listen, these two whacko men here think you're some kind of alien, which is ridiculous." Rose started to say, pointing at the strangers, not noticing how the Doctor stopped and gaped at them.
"Who are you two people?" The Doctor asked, darkening as John fidgeted under his harsh gaze. "Where did you come from, who do you work for?" Rose frowned to herself, wondering what was going on with this confrontation.
"We're with Scotland Yard." Sherlock said, not quailing as he assessed the Doctor's appearance and noted his emotional stress the harsh exterior. "My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my assistant, Dr. John Watson. It is…an honor to meet you, Doctor." Sherlock truly meant that.
"Assistant?" John muttered to himself.
"The pleasure isn't mine." The Doctor growled. "Can't you people leave me alone?" Sherlock felt slightly offended, but mollified himself.
"What are you doing here?" John asked the Doctor, intimidated but standing up for himself.
"Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock asked before the Doctor could answer 'It's none of your business'. "He's looking for the Autons or something like that, probably using his sonic screwdriver to scan for them."
Rose laughed, trying to relieve the tension. "Sonic screwdriver, see, this is the kind of ridiculous things these two have come up with."
"Yeah, sonic screwdriver, ridiculous." The Doctor said, trying to look nonchalant even though he felt offended by her ridicule. His sonic screwdriver was a useful device, a scientific tool he had used to save his life more than once. He stiffened and then asked Sherlock, "How did you two find out so much about me? Who else knows about this?"
"Well, if it isn't obvious," Sherlock started to explain the situation to the Doctor and Rose, both of them skeptic for different reasons, as John turned around, thinking he had heard or seen something dart behind the armchair. He extracted himself from the conversation, not really being noticed at this point, to check out what was behind there. Suddenly, a plastic arm leapt out from behind the armchair and attacked John, trying to choke and strangle him.
The Doctor, Rose, and then Sherlock looked up and round to see what was going on as Rose asked, "What is it with men and plastic arms?"
"John!" Sherlock shouted, darting into the room to try and wrench the plastic arm off of his friend, but then it flew around and attacked Sherlock instead.
"Sherlock!" John shouted, and tried to struggle with the plastic arm strangling Sherlock, both of them falling and crashing into the glass coffee table.
The Doctor and Rose stood off to the side, watching the scene in shock and horror, and then for some reason, the Doctor started laughing helplessly. Rose frowned and elbowed him sharply. "Ow! What you did you do that for?" The Doctor asked, rubbing the sore spot.
"They're in trouble! Can't you help them?" Rose asked, starting to realize that this was a serious situation, and maybe all of the alien stuff was true, with the way that plastic arm had spun round in midair.
The Doctor sighed and said, "All right," reaching into his coat pocket to remove—
"Is that your sonic screwdriver?" Rose said, laughing in spite of herself as she saw the small device.
"Hey, don't laugh! This is a real lifesaver here and I should know!" The Doctor insisted, waving the device, before he jumped into the fray and depowered the homicidal plastic arm. "See? Harmless." He said, tossing the arm back at Rose, who then hit him with it. "Ow! What was that for?" He asked her.
"For taking so long." Rose said, glancing down at her other two visitors, lying on the floor and gasping for breath, both of them bruised and scratched by the fall, glass, and strangulation with marks and nicks left behind. Not to mention the wreck of a coffee table. Her mother wasn't going to like this mess one bit. "They could have been killed." Rose said, realizing how dangerous this whole situation was.
"Clever observation." Sherlock managed to say. He had been through worse than this before, though he couldn't exactly remember when.
"It's what they deserve. This is why you don't go messing about in things you don't understand!" The Doctor shouted at them, further annoying Sherlock. "You could have been killed. Next time, stay well clear of me, you got that?"
"Got it." John muttered, feeling tired, beaten, and having just about enough of it.
"How dare you threaten them like this." Rose said, feeling offended.
"They threatened me." The Doctor told her. He truly did seem alien in that moment.
"Wait a minute here!" Sherlock shouted, standing up. "You can't just dismiss us like this, Doctor. We want to help you."
"Help him?" John asked, staring up at Sherlock. "When did this become about helping him? We wanted to learn more about him, but now we should be helping ourselves by getting out of here." John added.
"Help me? No, I've had enough of this. I'm getting out of here." The Doctor muttered, taking off.
"Hold on a minute, you can't just go swanning off like this!" Rose shouted at the Doctor, taking off after him.
"I'm not letting you leave either!" Sherlock shouted after the Doctor before he turned around to his friend still lying on the floor. "The game is afoot, John! Get up, we're leaving before he can get away from us!"
"Can't I just rest here for one minute more?" John asked.
"There is no time!" Sherlock shouted, leaving the flat.
"Isn't there always supposed to be time with a Time Lord?" John muttered to himself, but he got up and followed after them.