Here is where the changes start to snowball. See if you can guess where I'm going next.
Timepetalsprompts holiday bingo: red and green
Rose promptly forgot about her threat to the TARDIS when she stepped out of the ship. The Doctor was unconscious on the ground, with Mickey kneeling beside him. "What happened? Is he all right?"
Mickey's gaze shifted from the Doctor to her and then back, and he shrugged helplessly. "I don't know; he just keeled over. But who is he? Where's the Doctor?"
"That's him, right in front of you." Rose took a deep breath and set her shoulders. "That's the Doctor."
"What do you mean, that's the Doctor?" her mum asked. "Doctor who?"
For once, the line didn't make Rose smile. "The Doctor," she said. "He got… He was hurt, and he did this thing…" She sighed—how could she possibly explain what had happened when she barely understood it herself? "Just help me get him inside."
She bent down and picked up his feet, and Mickey took hold of the Doctor under the armpits. Together (with a lot of grunting on Rose's part), they carried the Doctor up three flights of stairs.
"My room," she huffed.
"Hold on!" Jackie protested. "I'm not having him sleeping in your room!"
Rose threw her an incredulous look. "Mum, he's unconscious. He's ill. D'you really think he's gonna be trying anything?"
"If he's that ill, then we should take him to hospital."
"Have you forgotten he's not human, Mum?" Rose asked as they walked along the balcony towards number 48. "Look, he just needs to rest. I'm not gonna sleep until he's better anyway, so why not my room?"
Her mum set her jaw. "He can sleep in my room." She unlocked the door and pointed to her bedroom. "I don't care what you get up to in that box of his, but you're not sharing a room with an alien under this roof."
Rose rolled her eyes, but did as she was told. Shouldering open the door to Jackie's room, she carried the Doctor over to the bed.
"Look, I've got to get back to work," Mickey said as soon as they got the Doctor lying down on the bed. "I'll come by when I get off, all right?"
"Yeah, whatever," Rose said, more interested in the Doctor's pale complexion. Was he naturally this pale now, or was it because he was sick?
"We need to get him out of these clothes," she mumbled. She untied the heavy boots and let them fall to the floor with a thud.
Jackie disappeared for a moment, then came back with a pair of men's pyjamas. "Here, put him in these." She stared down at the Doctor for a moment. "How sick is he, do you think?"
"I don't know, Mum. He just did this… this thing, and then he started acting all funny." Rose refrained from commenting on the Doctor's driving, knowing her mum already thought travelling with the Doctor was too dangerous. "All I know is there's something wrong."
Her mum nodded, then disappeared again. Rose blinked at when she heard the front door open and close—given the fuss she'd thrown over the Doctor sleeping in her bed, her sudden willingness to leave them alone while Rose undressed him was odd, but Rose wasn't going to argue.
"All right, Doctor," she murmured, pulling him up so he was leaning against her. "Let's get you out of these clothes."
Rose had always loved the Doctor's style—the soft leather jacket, the jumpers, and the dark jeans—but they hung so awkwardly on this new body that she was almost grateful to peel them off him. She took the jacket, jumper, and t-shirt off first and then pulled the pyjama top over his head, ruffling his hair ever more.
Then she laid him gently back onto the bed and bit her lip. Right. I can do this, she told herself, and quickly undid his belt and the button on his jeans. She felt her cheeks flush as she pulled the zip down—the Doctor had always been conscious in her dreams of undressing him.
She let out a breath of relief when she saw he was wearing pants. "Thanks for that at least," she said as she awkwardly removed his jeans and tugged the pyjama bottoms up his legs.
Through it all, the Doctor never regained consciousness. When she was done, Rose sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at him. What am I supposed to do now? she wondered. She felt just as helpless as she had earlier when the Doctor had sent her back to Earth. She'd gone back so she could help him, but here he was, still needing her, and she didn't know what to do.
She lifted her hand hesitantly and ran it through his new hair, enjoying the way the silky soft strands felt between her fingers. The Doctor sighed in his sleep and leaned into the caress, and Rose bit back a smile before giving in to his subtle request and scratching at his scalp.
He hummed, and some of the lines on his face disappeared. Note to self, Rose said, the new Doctor likes having his hair played with. She let herself think, just for a moment, of all the ways she could have her hands in his hair.
Her eyes slipped shut and she imagined kissing the Doctor again. But when her mind stubbornly refused to replace the image of her old Doctor with this new face, she whimpered. What if the new Doctor didn't want her?
The sound of the front door opening interrupted her morose thoughts, and a moment later, her mum was handing her a stethoscope. "Here we go."
Rose took them eagerly and put the earpieces in while her mum kept talking.
"Tina the cleaner's got this lodger, a medical student, and she was fast asleep, so I just took it. Though I still say we should take him to hospital."
Rose pulled the stethoscope down and stared at her mum. Didn't I already say… "We can't. They'd lock him up. They'd dissect him. One bottle of his blood could change the future of the human race." She held up a hand when Jackie tried to argue. "No! Shush!"
Jackie quieted, and Rose listened carefully for the Doctor's hearts, first the left, then the right. She drew a sigh of relief when she could hear them both, even if the dual rhythm sounded a little fast.
"Both working."
"What do you mean, both?" her mum asked.
Rose removed the stethoscope and nodded at the Doctor. "Well, he's got two hearts."
"Oh, don't be stupid."
The scornful disbelief in her mother's eyes got Rose's back up, and she stood up to leave the room. "Well, he has."
"Anything else he's got two of?"
Rose's face flamed and she whirled back around to face her mum. No matter what Jackie thought, their snogging so far had given Rose only the vaguest idea of what was inside the Doctor's pants.
"Leave him alone," she said fiercely, before fleeing without letting Jackie respond.
I need something to eat.
Of course, her mum followed her into the kitchen, not letting her have a moment to regain her composure. "How can he go changing his face?" she asked. When Rose didn't answer, she pressed further. "Is that a different face or is he a different person?"
The question, so close to Rose's own fears, stung. "How should I know?" she retorted, wincing at how strident she sounded. "Sorry," she mumbled a moment later, and her mum bit her lip and nodded.
"The thing is I thought I knew him, Mum. I thought me and him were—" She broke off without finishing the sentence. Until she knew the new Doctor wanted her, she wouldn't tell anyone that they'd been a proper couple before all this happened. "And then he goes and does this." Rose wiped a stray tear away from her eye. "I keep forgetting he's not human."
The truth trembled on her lips, and Rose quickly sought some distraction. "The big question is," she said, grabbing her mum's hand, "where'd you get a pair of men's pyjamas from?"
oOoOoOoOo
Mickey came 'round at 6:00, like he'd promised. "Want to go into town?" he asked. "I reckon you haven't had time to do any Christmas shopping yet."
Rose glanced down the hall toward the bedrooms, but her mum shook her head quickly. "Oh, go on Rose. He's just resting, and you being here won't do anything extra for him. You should relax with Mickey for a few hours."
Jackie's eyes darted between the two of them, and it was transparently obvious she still hoped they'd get back together. Rose sighed—she'd try to convince her later that that wouldn't happen. Right now, she didn't have the energy for the inevitable argument, especially not in front of Mickey himself.
"All right, fine." She pulled her winter coat on and looked at the Doctor one more time. Still sleeping. "But promise you'll call if anything happens."
Jackie rolled her eyes. "I promise. Now go!"
She and Mickey reached the bus stop just as the one they wanted pulled up. Thirty minutes later, they hopped off on a busy shopping street and joined the crowds of people walking towards the nearby Christmas market to do a little last minute holiday shopping.
"So what do you need?" Mickey asked, pulling a handful of notes out of his pocket and peeling one off. "Twenty quid?"
Rose took it gratefully. "Do you mind? I'll pay you back."
"Call it a Christmas present," Mickey said, dismissing her IOU.
Rose shook her head. She knew it was Christmas—even if the Doctor hadn't told her that's when he was aiming for, everything from the weather to the red and green decorations to the brass band playing Christmas music in the distance made it obvious. But it just felt… weird.
"God, I'm all out of synch," she muttered. "You just forget about Christmas and things in the TARDIS. They don't exist." She thought back to all the festivals she'd been to in the last few months, some in Earth's past and some on alien planets. It made it hard to think in terms of her own planet's holiday. "You get sort of timeless."
"Oh, yeah, that's fascinating," Mickey said sarcastically, "because I love hearing stories about the TARDIS. Oh, go on Rose, tell us another one because I swear I could listen to it all day. TARDIS this, TARDIS that."
His lighthearted ribbing made her smile, for the first time since she'd watched the Doctor change. "Shut up."
"Oh, and one time the TARDIS landed in a big yellow garden full of balloons."
"I'm not like that!" she protested.
"Oh, you so are," he insisted.
"Mmm, must drive you mad," Rose teased as they reached the first market stalls. "I'm surprised you put up with me."
"Oh, that's the thing, isn't it? You can rely on me." Mickey pointed at himself. "I don't go changing my face."
"Yeah."
Rose squirmed; she hated it when Mickey made these veiled (or not-so-veiled) comments, trying to compete with the Doctor for her affection. Their relationship had been over the moment she'd stepped onto the TARDIS, and she'd taken care to make that clear when she'd seen him in Cardiff, but he still seemed to be hanging onto hope that things might change.
She looked for a way to change the subject, and it was as easy as saying the first thing that came to mind. "What if he's dying?"
Mickey spun around like he was ready to walk back to the bus stop and go home. "Okay."
Irritated now, Rose grabbed at his arm to hold him back. "Look, Mickey, I'm sorry if it bothers that I'm too worried about the Doctor to talk about anything else. I thought I watched him die earlier, Micks. I thought he was gone, and I just…" She pressed her lips together.
"Just let it be Christmas," he demanded, taking her hands and swinging them back and forth. "Can you do that? Just for a bit. You, and me, and Christmas. No Doctor, no bog monsters, no life or death."
Rose bit her lip. "That's really unfair, Mickey," she said quietly. "You're askin' me to forget that he's really sick."
"I'm askin' to spend the evening with my best girl without the entire conversation being dominated by Doctor," Mickey retorted.
Rose's stomach clenched. Mickey was definitely holding out hope that she would change her mind. "But I'm not your girl anymore, Micks," she told him, trying to keep her voice gentle.
And yet Mickey reared back, hurt on his face. "Then whose are you? The Doctor's?"
Rose opened her mouth to tell him she didn't belong to anyone but herself, but a sudden realisation distracted her. The brass band was following them. Instincts she'd honed in over a year of travelling with the Doctor tingled, and she looked around for a way out.
"Come on," she muttered, grabbing Mickey's hand and pulling him down the street, past the red stalls and the festive Christmas tree.
"I'm not going anywhere with you," he argued, digging his heels into the pavement.
Rose rolled her eyes, then glanced over her shoulder and froze when she realised the musical ensemble was definitely following them. The music stopped suddenly, and the musicians lowered their instruments until they were holding them in a pose that seemed vaguely familiar.
When flames shot out of the bell of the trombone, Rose realised what it reminded her of—they were holding their instruments like guns. She grabbed Mickey and pulled him down behind the booths as the other Santas started shooting into the crowd.
From relative safety, Rose watched the shooters, hoping she was wrong in her assumption. She wasn't. "It's us! They're after us!"
Mickey clutched her hand as they ran from the Santas toward the bus stop. The firing tracked their movements though, and they nearly got caught in a huge blast that destroyed the large Christmas tree they were trying to get away from.
Rose dragged Mickey away from the market, away from the crowds. She didn't see the Santas when she glanced over her shoulder, but she wasn't going to hang around to see if they came after them.
"What's going on?" Mickey panted. "What've we done? Why are they after us?"
"Taxi!" Rose hollered as a black cab came into view. The car pulled to a stop against the kerb, and she pushed Mickey inside before climbing in after him.
"They're after the Doctor," Rose said, just barely holding back a comment about how she'd been right to be concerned about him. She gave the driver her address, and as soon as the car was moving, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialled home.
"I can't even go shopping with you," Mickey muttered resentfully. "We get attacked by a brass band. Who're you phoning?" he asked, finally realising she wasn't replying to anything he said.
"My mum," Rose replied, biting back a curse when she got a busy signal. "Get off the phone!"
"Who were those Santa things?"
"I don't know." Sirens filled the night air, and Rose watched police cars and an ambulance race back in the direction they'd come from. "But think about it. They were after us. What's important about us? Well, nothing, except the one thing we've got tucked up in bed. The Doctor."
"I like that," Mickey grumbled. "Nothing's important about us, huh? It's always just the Doctor, isn't it?"
"Mickey, I don't have time for this!" Rose cried out. "Can you think of any other reason Santa would try to kill us with a trombone? Just… stop trying to compete with the Doctor long enough to be rational, yeah?"
The reprimand stunned Mickey into silence, and Rose let out a grateful breath.
The taxi dropped them off in the courtyard, and Rose tossed the twenty quid Mickey had given her at the driver before bolting toward the building. She took the stairs two at a time and burst through the door of the flat.
"Get off the phone!" she shouted, yanking the handset from her mum's hands.
"It's only Bev," Jackie protested. "She says hello."
"Bev?" Rose asked, then cut off the older woman's chatter. "Yeah. Look, it'll have to wait." She ended the call and set the phone down.
"Right, it's not safe," she told her mum, talking over her admonishment of her rude behaviour. "We've got to get out. Where can we go?"
Mickey had been nodding along, and he spoke up quickly. "My mate Stan, he'll put us up."
Rose scowled at him and shook her head. "That's only two streets away." Doesn't he grasp the meaning of "away?" "What about Mo?" she asked her mum. "Where's she living now?"
"I don't know." Her mum shook her head quickly. "Peak District."
Rose nodded. Peak District. That was far enough away to be safe.
"Well, we'll go to cousin Mo's then."
Jackie stalked away from her. "No, it's Christmas Eve! We're not going anywhere!" She spun around and glared at Rose. "What're you babbling about?"
But Rose had spotted something more concerning than the possible threat from the Santas. "Mum. Where'd you get that tree?"
When she'd left to go shopping with Mickey, Jackie'd had the same white artificial tree set up that they'd used for years. Now, in its place was an elegant green tree, decorated in green and red balls.
"That's a new tree. Where'd you get it?"
Jackie looked at the tree, then back at Rose. "I thought it was you."
"How can it be me?" Rose asked, dread building in her gut.
"Well, you went shopping. There was a ring at the door, and there it was!" Jackie explained.
"No, that wasn't me."
Jackie's voice was quiet when she asked, "Then who was it?"
When the tree lit up by itself and started playing "Jingle Bells," Rose groaned. "Oh, you're kidding me." She pulled her mum behind her and stared the tree down.
The top, middle, and bottom of the tree started rotating around the trunk in different directions, slowly at first, then faster and faster, sending a strong wind across the room. Rose somehow was not surprised when it became moving across the room on its own, chopping through the coffee table like it was kindling.
Mickey pushed Rose and Jackie toward the door, then picked up a chair to ward the tree off with. "Get out! Go, go! Get out!"
Rose skidded to a halt in front of her mum's open bedroom door. "We've got to save the Doctor."
"What're you doing?" Jackie demanded from the front door.
"We can't just leave him."
Her mum opened her mouth to argue, but then they heard glass breaking in the living room. "Mickey!" she called out. Wood chips started flying, and Jackie yelled again. "Leave it! Get out! Get out!"
"Mickey!" Rose shouted from the Doctor's bedside.
"Get out of there!" Jackie ordered.
He finally dropped the chair and darted for the bedroom, much to Jackie's chagrin. "No, leave him. Just leave him!"
"Get in here!" Mickey ordered, and a moment later, Rose heard the scraping sound of furniture being dragged across the floor.
She crouched by the Doctor and took his hand. "Doctor, wake up!" He didn't respond, and the creepy sounding Christmas music from the tree kept getting closer and closer. Rose spun around and fumbled in his coat pocket, retrieving the sonic screwdriver. Maybe if she put it in his hand, the memory of all the times he'd used it to save the day would wake him up.
Mickey and her mum were fighting to hold the wardrobe up against the door, and Rose knew they only had seconds before the tree chopped through the few barriers keeping them safe. She wrapped his limp fingers around the sonic and looked hopefully at his face, but nothing happened.
The tree tore through the door and into the room. "I'm going to get killed by a Christmas tree!" her mum shrieked as she cowered against the wall.
Rose looked down at the man who'd saved her life so many times before. There was only one more thing she could think of that might wake him up.
She got down on her knees by the bed and leaned close. "Help me," she whispered into his ear.
As if those were the magic words, the Doctor sat bolt upright in bed and pointed the sonic screwdriver at the tree. The murderous Christmas decoration exploded a moment later.
"Remote control," he mused, then swung his legs out of the bed and reached for the dressing gown. "But who's controlling it?"
Rose followed the Doctor out onto the balcony. Down in the courtyard, three of the Santas from before looked up at them, one of them holding a remote control in his hands.
"That's them," Mickey said. "What are they?"
Rose hushed him, seeing the hard look on the Doctor's face. He slowly raised the sonic until it was aimed directly at the Santas, and she wasn't surprised when they backed up, then beamed away a moment later.
"They've just gone," Mickey said in disbelief. "What kind of rubbish were they? I mean, no offence," he told the Doctor, "but they're not much cop if a sonic screwdriver's going to scare them off."
"Pilot fish," the Doctor said.
Rose blinked. "What?"
"They were just pilot fish." He gagged and doubled over, just like he had before in the TARDIS.
Rose crouched down in front of him, her hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?
"You woke me up too soon," he grunted. "I'm still regenerating. I'm bursting with energy." As if on cue, he breathed out a cloud of golden energy. "You see? The pilot fish could smell it a million miles away. So they eliminate the defence, that's you lot, and they carry me off. They could run their batteries on me for a couple of—Ow!" His back arched and he spun around, resting against the railing now.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Jackie said, and Rose was just the tiniest bit satisfied that her mum finally understood something was seriously wrong.
"My head!" the Doctor moaned. "I'm having a neural implosion. I need—"
"What do you need?" Jackie asked.
"I need—"
"Say it. Tell me, tell me, tell me," she rambled, not giving the Doctor a moment to get a word in edgewise.
"I need—"
"Painkillers?"
"I need—"
"Do you need aspirin?"
Rose recoiled—aspirin would kill him!
"I need—"
"Codeine? Paracetamol? Oh, I don't know, Pepto-Bismol?"
"I need—"
"Liquid paraffin. Vitamin C? Vitamin D? Vitamin E?"
"I need—"
"Is it food? Something simple. Bowl of soup. A nice bowl of soup? Soup and a sandwich? Soup and a little ham sandwich?"
"I need you to shut up."
"Oh, he hasn't changed that much, has he?" Jackie muttered.
Rose had been watching the entire conversation in mute horror. This man, wracked by spasms of pain and too sick to be able to tell them what he needed, he couldn't be the Doctor. Where was all the superior biology he boasted about? She'd always thought the Doctor was nearly invincible.
The Doctor grunted again and threw himself back against the wall, landing right next to Rose. "We haven't got much time," he panted. "If there's pilot fish, then—" He pulled a piece of fruit out of his pocket. "Why's there an apple in my dressing gown?"
"Oh, that's Howard," Jackie said. "Sorry."
"He keeps apples in his dressing gown?"
Jackie nodded. "He gets hungry."
"What, he gets hungry in his sleep?"
"Sometimes."
The Doctor cried out again and collapsed all the way to the ground. "Argh! Brain collapsing." He groped around until he found Rose's hand. "The pilot fish. The pilot fish mean—" He gasped in pain and squeezed her hand tight, a panicked look on his face as he tried to force the words out. "Something… something… something is coming."
The words sent a wave of trepidation through Rose, which was only made worse when the Doctor passed out. Something was coming, and the Doctor wouldn't be able to stop it.
Rose tried to heft the Doctor to his feet, and her mum quickly took his other arm. "Here, let me help you, sweetheart." Together, the Tyler women moved the unconscious Time Lord back into bed.
The Doctor had broken out in a cold sweat by the time they had him lying down. Jackie disappeared for a second and returned with a cold cloth. "You need to try to get his fever to break," she told Rose. "Maybe we should give him some aspirin."
"Can't," Rose said, brushing damp hair from the Doctor's forehead and resting the cloth there. "He's deathly allergic—it'd kill him." She didn't say anything more, and after a moment, she was vaguely aware that her mum left the room.
Rose sat by the Doctor, wiping the sweat from his brow. She couldn't decide what to think about this new man. On the one hand, he had two hearts and he knew about their past. The kinds of things he'd said about the pilot fish had certainly sounded like Doctor-like things to know. But then here he was, lying in a bed in her flat, pale and vulnerable. The Doctor had never looked so weak. She needed him to be strong.
His shivering got worse, and Rose climbed onto the bed next to him so she could more easily take care of him. When he whimpered in his sleep, she shifted carefully so she was sitting with her back against the headboard, then she pulled his head into her lap.
"I've got you, Doctor," she whispered. "Stay with me, yeah? Come on, you can beat this." He didn't respond, and Rose screwed her eyes closed to fight back the tears that threatened. She was stronger than that—she had to be stronger than that.
The front door opened and shut, and she glanced up just as Mickey walked past the room with his laptop in hand. His jaw tightened when he saw the way she was sitting with the Doctor, and Rose had the fleeting hope that maybe this whole disaster would finally convince him that their relationship was over.
The Doctor shuddered violently, and Rose shifted her free hand to press against his chest. The right heart was still beating, though the pulse seemed a little erratic, but she couldn't feel anything on the left side of his chest.
"Doctor, you've gotta wake up," she pleaded. "Who's going to take me to Barcelona if you don't, or back to Insala for the spring festival? You promised, remember? To make up for landing in the middle of monsoon season last time?"
His tremors seemed to ease, and Rose kept up a rambling monologue of all the reasons the Doctor couldn't leave. Three words hovered on the tip of her tongue, but she bit them back. She'd heard too many stories of people waking up from a coma with clear memories of things people had said to them while they were unconscious. If she ever told him that, it would be after she knew he still wanted her.
A voice in the doorway startled her, and she looked up. "I brought you a cuppa," her mum said, crossing the room to set it down on the bedside table. "How's he doing? Any change?"
Rose picked up the tea and took a sip before shaking her head. "He's worse. Just one heart beating."
"I found it!" Mickey called out from the living room. He appeared in the doorway a moment later. "Pilot fish. They're scavengers, like the Doctor said. Harmless—they're tiny. But the point is, the little fish swim alongside the big fish."
"Do you mean like sharks?" Rose asked, rubbing at her forehead. Her mum patted her arm, then walked back into the living room.
Mickey nodded. "Great big sharks. So, what the Doctor means is, we had them," he said, tilting his head toward the courtyard where they'd seen the Santas, "now we get that."
"Something is coming," Rose murmured. In her lap, the Doctor tensed again, picking up on her unease. "How close?" she asked, resuming the gentle stroking of his temples.
This time, the only reaction her familiarity with the Doctor got from Mickey was resignation. "There's no way of telling," he told her, "but the pilot fish don't swim far from their daddy."
Her hand stilled. "So, it's close?"
Her mum's voice interrupted them. "Rose, you need to come see this!"
Rose and Mickey looked at each other, then Rose slid out from underneath the Doctor and entered the living room just in time to see static clear on the telly, revealing a face that looked like a goat's skull with deep set red eyes.
The alien growled, and they all jumped back in surprise. "The face of an alien life form was transmitted live tonight on BBC1," the newscaster said.
"I think we've found the shark," Rose said soberly.
oOoOoOoOo
In the bedroom, the Doctor moaned pitifully. Rose bit her lip, looking from the busted door to the television screen.
"I'll go sit with him," her mum offered. "You and Mickey figure out what you can about these aliens, all right Rose?"
It only took the government fifteen minutes to release a cover story, but Rose knew the face they'd seen in that transmission wasn't kids with masks. That was an alien, though not one she'd ever seen before.
"Rose." Mickey had returned to his computer as soon as the transmission had ended, and Rose stood up to look over his shoulder when he called her name. "Take a look," he said, nodding at the radar image he'd picked up. "I've got access to the military. They're tracking a spaceship. It's big, it's fast, and it's coming this way."
"Coming for what, though? The Doctor?" she asked, thinking about what he'd said about the pilot fish feeding off his energy.
"I don't know," Mickey said. "Maybe it's coming for all of us."
The radar image disappeared, replaced by an image of four aliens like the one they'd seen before. They started talking, and Rose was more frightened by her inability to understand them than she was by their savage appearance.
"Have you seen them before?" Mickey asked.
"No." She listened a moment longer, hoping she just wasn't tuned into the TARDIS or something, but the alien sounds continued without translation.
"I don't understand what they're saying," she said as the transmission ended. "The TARDIS translates alien languages inside my head, all the time, wherever I am."
Mickey glanced at her, then back at the blank monitor. "So, why isn't it doing it now?"
"I don't know," she said, though she had a horrible suspicion she did. "Must be the Doctor. Like he's part of the circuit, and he's, he's broken."
Rose pushed herself to her feet and paced the living room, playing anxiously with her hair as she tried to decide what to do. This was exactly the kind of situation she and the Doctor were used to, but she didn't have the Doctor today. Could she face the invading aliens on her own? Not without being able to understand what they're saying, she realised. Not to mention that I don't even know how I'd get there.
She walked over to the bedroom and looked helplessly at the Doctor. "How is he?" she asked her mum, even though she could tell at a glance that he was only getting worse, his breaths coming in gasps and pants and his pale skin clammy with sweat.
"His breathing's laboured," Jackie answered, wiping the sweat away from his eyes.
"Probably because he's only got one heart working," Rose said. "Without his cardiovascular system working properly, he's having problems breathing." She clenched her hands into fists. "What if he dies, Mum?"
"Rose Marion Tyler, I don't want to hear another word like that come out of your mouth," her mum said severely. "You were the one who told me that your dad wouldn't just give up, so don't you dare give up on the Doctor."
Rose blinked back tears and went back to pacing the living room. Mickey kept her updated on what the military had learned about the aliens—the Sycorax, they learned when someone finally managed to translate the message.
"They will die?" Rose repeated.
Mickey frowned. "That's what it says. Why?"
"Well, it's kinda odd, isn't it?" Rose said. "I mean, they're talking to humans, so why not say, 'You will die?' Unless…" She pursed her lips. "It sounds like they have hostages."
Mickey looked at his computer and shook his head. "It'd be all over UNIT's secure website if the aliens had taken hostages."
"Yeah…" But Rose couldn't dislodge the feeling that they were missing something.
Lost in thought, she wandered back to the bedroom. Her mum had fallen asleep with her head resting on the bed. The Doctor looked a little better than he had earlier, but he was still peaky and unconscious. Rose sat down on the other side of the bed and brushed her knuckles against his cheek. The crease in his forehead smoothed out, and the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile.
Rose jolted in surprise at the familiar reaction. The Doctor had always relaxed like that when she'd touched him. "You're really him," she whispered.
The feeling of abandonment she'd been fighting all day faded. The Doctor hadn't left her, he was just ill—and she wouldn't be upset with him for that.
A few minutes later, she felt eyes on her back. "What do you need, Mickey?" she asked without turning around.
"You need to take a break, babe," he said. Rose looked at him incredulously, but he crossed his arms and stared her down. "I mean it. You've been fussing over him all day, and then worrying about those aliens. Go take a shower and get something to eat. We'll still be here when you're done."
"Unless the aliens invade," Rose said darkly, but she headed for the loo anyway. Until Mickey had said something, she hadn't realised she'd been wearing this outfit for over 24 hours. Suddenly, she could feel dust and grime sitting on her skin, and she wrinkled her nose. The world would still be there when she got out of the shower. Hopefully.
oOoOoOoOo
Just after dawn, Rose heard voices in the hall outside the flat. She stuck her head outside and saw one of the neighbours chasing her husband, wearing nothing but her dressing gown and slippers.
"Sandra?"
The woman spun around, a frantic expression on her face. "He won't listen. He's just walking. He won't stop walking!" Sandra turned back and continued to follow Jason. "There's this… sort of light thing. Jason? Stop it right now! Please, Jason, just stop."
Rose and Mickey looked at each other, then around the Estate. It was immediately evident that Jason wasn't the only one who'd been… possessed, or whatever had happened. They followed Sandra and Jason up the stairs to the roof.
As one, the people walked right to the edge of the roof and stood there, poised to jump. Like Sandra, their loved ones grabbed at them, trying to get them to come down, but they wouldn't be moved.
"What do we do?" asked Mickey.
A chill wind blew across the roof. Rose looked out over London and remembered the last time she'd been up here. The Doctor had been with her, and together, they'd watched an alien shuttle crash into Big Ben.
Then she remembered the look on his face the next day when she'd given him permission to do whatever he needed to do to save the planet—even if it meant she would die. He'd told her later how much her faith in him had meant, and Rose took a deep breath and drew upon that same faith.
"We wait," she said. "The Doctor will wake up in time to save all of us, so for now, we wait and we do whatever we need to to make sure there's still a planet to save when he wakes up."
"You really love him, don't you?" Mickey asked dully.
"He's still the Doctor," Rose said, and that was the only answer she needed to give. Some facts were just so constant, they didn't need to be explained. Rose Tyler loved the Doctor—no matter what he looked like. That was a fact.
Does the Doctor love Rose Tyler, though? she wondered, before shoving the thought away. That didn't matter right now.
oOoOoOoOo
Rose frowned at the telly during Harriet's speech. Whatever the Prime Minister was going to say, it couldn't fix this. But then she heard a familiar name, and she snapped to attention.
"Doctor, if you're out there, we need you. I don't know what to do," Harriet continued. "If you can hear me, Doctor. If anyone knows the Doctor, if anyone can find him, the situation has never been more desperate. Help us. Please, Doctor. Help us. God help us."
"Well, are you going to call then?"
Rose looked up at her mum, standing in the hallway with her hands on her hips. "And say what?" she asked. "The Doctor's lying unconscious on my mum's bed. But I swear he'll get better in time to help us."
Jackie raised an eyebrow. "You really believe in him that much, then?"
"He's never let me down, Mum. He's always come through."
Shattering glass drove them to the floor for cover. Rose turned and looked around the flat; it was littered with broken glass from every single window, broken in one instant.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Jackie yelled, but Rose was already chasing Mickey down the stairs so they could get a better view of what was happening.
Standing in front of the TARDIS watching a spaceship slowly move into place over London, Rose started to make an escape plan. No one else had a place they could safely hide from these aliens, but if the TARDIS could keep out the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan, then it could keep out the Sycorax.
Rose ran back inside and started giving orders to Mickey and her mum. "Mickey, we're going to carry him. Mum, get your stuff, and get some food. We're going."
"Where to?" Mickey asked.
"The TARDIS," Rose said firmly as she grabbed the Doctor's dressing gown. "It's the only safe place on Earth."
"What're we going to do in there?" her mum asked incredulously.
"Hide."
"Is that it?" she demanded.
Rose dropped the dressing gown and pointed out the window. "Until the Doctor wakes up, yeah! Mum, look in the sky. There's a great, big, alien invasion and I don't know what to do, all right? I've travelled with him, and I've seen all that stuff, but when I'm stuck at home, I'm useless. So right now, that means the most important thing I can do is make sure the Doctor lives long enough to get this sorted. If that means running and hiding, then I'm sorry—that's what we're gonna do."
Her mum left the room, and Rose gestured for Mickey to help her with the Doctor. "Oh, lift him up." Together, they managed to get the Time Lord sitting up and wrapped in the navy blue dressing gown.
This time, Mickey grabbed his feet and Rose took his arms. As they shuffled out the door and towards the stairs, the Doctor's head lolled against her stomach. "Good thing the new you is such a skinny bloke," she muttered as they walked through the door with the outline of a Christmas tree carved into it. "I don't think I could have carried the old you, even with help."
Jackie followed them out of the flat, burdened by half a dozen or more shopping bags. One of them fell just outside the door, and she bent over to pick it up.
"Mum, will you just leave that stuff and give us a hand?" Rose demanded.
"It's food!" Jackie protested. "You said we need food."
"Just leave it!"
Rose lost sight of her mother as she and Mickey turned the corner into the stairwell. They worked silently to get the Doctor down three flights of stairs, then across the glass-littered courtyard until they were at the TARDIS doors.
At the TARDIS, Rose fumbled to unlock the door without dropping the Doctor, then quickly adjusted her grip on him when the door was open, letting Mickey push inside first. She rolled her eyes when she spotted her mum, still carrying all the food, dropping a bag yet again as she stared up at the spaceship.
"No chance you could fly this thing?" Mickey asked as they circled the console.
"Not anymore, no."
"Well, you did it before."
"I know," said Rose as they lowered the Doctor onto the grating, "but it's sort of been wiped out of my head, like it's forbidden." She frowned, a hazy feeling of fingers brushing against her temple teasing the edges of her memory. "Try that again and I think the Universe rips in half."
Mickey nodded. "Ah, better not, then."
"Maybe not," Rose agreed, her voice droll.
"So, what do we do? Just sit here?" he asked.
Rose nodded firmly. "Until the Doctor wakes up, yeah."
"Right, here we go," her mum said, pouring something out of a thermos. "Nice cup of tea."
Rose gratefully took the proffered cup. "Ta," she said, closing her eyes and humming when she sipped at it. Her mum annoyed her to death sometimes, but she did make the best tea.
Jackie nodded firmly. "You drink that and look after himself. I'll get the rest of the food."
"Tea," Mickey said after she left. "Like we're having a picnic while the world comes to an end. Very British."
Rose drank her tea and circled the console, hoping to see something she could use to wake the Doctor up. Tools and devices on the TARDIS tended to appear when and where you needed them, but today, she didn't find any new gadgets lying out.
Mickey picked up on her mood and quickly changed the subject. "How does this thing work?" Rose glanced back and realised he was looking at the scanner. "If this picks up TV, maybe we could see what's going on out there. Maybe we've surrendered. What do you do to it?"
Rose joined him by the scanner. "I don't know. It sort of tunes itself."
They hit a few buttons, but that only resulted in the circular symbols on the screen spinning and redrawing.
"Maybe it's a distress signal," Mickey suggested.
Rose shrugged. "I don't know. Could be, I suppose."
He shot her a sidelong glance. "So we're just going to sit here, in the TARDIS, until the Doctor wakes up. That's your grand plan."
"Yep."
"What if he doesn't wake up though?"
Rose crossed her arms over her chest. "You don't hafta stay," she retorted.
"Nah, where else would I go? Mind," Mickey said, a cheeky note in his voice, "stuck in here with your mum's cooking."
Rose sat upright. "Where is she?" Mickey shrugged, and she set her tea down and moved toward the door. "I'd better give her a hand. It might start raining missiles out there."
"Tell her anything from a tin, that's fine," Mickey called out.
"Why don't you tell her yourself?"
"I'm not that brave," he said quietly.
"Oh, I don't know." Rose grinned at him, then backed out of the TARDIS.
She didn't realise her mistake until a huge hand grabbed her by the neck and spun her around. Looking around at the inside of the Sycorax ship, Rose let out a scream.
"Get off! Get off me!" Rose demanded, straining towards the TARDIS.
Mickey ran out after her, then froze in shock when he saw where they were. Behind him, the doors to the TARDIS were wide open.
"The door!" Rose cried. "Close the door!"
She watched with her heart in her throat as he ran back to the ship, slamming the door shut just before a Sycorax reached it. Furious at being thwarted, the alien grabbed Mickey instead and dragged him forward.
The Sycorax leader roared victoriously as the two of them were pushed towards the centre of the room. Rose looked around at the huge gathering of aliens, and her heart sank. Earth didn't stand a chance against this many armed invaders. She threw a glance over her shoulder at the TARDIS. Please wake up soon, Doctor.
The hand holding her arm suddenly shoved Rose to the right, and she landed right in the arms of a familiar woman. "Rose," Harriet breathed, and Rose wrapped her arms around her. "Rose! I've got you. My Lord. Oh, my precious thing. The Doctor, is he with you?" she whispered in Rose's ear.
"Yeah," Rose answered, even though her conscience pricked at the slight falsehood. "He'll be here soon. We've just gotta stall for time."
Harriet let go of her, and the humans all faced the Sycorax leader. He spoke again in that grating language, and Rose realised with a knot in her stomach that he was pointing at her as he walked towards them.
The man with Harriet started to read a translation off a hand-held device. "The yellow girl. She has the clever blue box. Therefore, she speaks for your planet."
"But she can't," protested Harriet.
Rose was finally in familiar territory. She'd traveled with the Doctor for over a year; she'd seen him talk his way out of situations like this dozens of times.
"Yeah, I can."
"Don't you dare," Mickey ordered, a catch in his voice.
Rose took a step forward. "I said it, didn't I? This will give the Doctor time to get here."
Harriet grabbed at her arm. "They'll kill you."
Rose shook her free. "Never stopped him." She straightened her shoulders and tilted her chin up, then stepped closer to the arena filled with aliens. A rumbling filled the room, and she wondered if they were amused or impressed by her boldness.
Looking around at her audience, Rose wracked her memory for things she'd heard the Doctor say in similar situations. "I, er, I address the Sycorax… according to Article Fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation," she began, her hands clenched in fists at her side. "I command you to leave this world with all the authority of the… Slitheen Parliament of Raxacoricofallapatorius."
The Sycorax leader had looked almost worried for a moment when she mentioned the Shadow Proclamation, but she could tell she'd lost him with the Slitheen. Still, she couldn't give up, so she continued to stammer out references to her travels with the Doctor, hoping she would stumble onto something that would convince them to leave.
"And er… the Gelth Confederacy as ah… sanctioned by the Mighty Jagrafess and, oh, the Daleks!" she added, pointing for emphasis. "Now, leave this planet in peace! In peace," she concluded, her fear finally seeping into her voice at the end.
Her frightened gaze darted around the room. The Sycorax didn't look particularly intimidated, an impression borne out a moment later when the entire group burst into laughter.
The leader started talking, and behind her, Harriet's assistant read the translation. "You are very, very funny. And now you're going to die."
"Leave her alone!" Harriet yelled, at the same time as Mickey shouted, "Don't touch her!" Rose heard them try to run toward her, but a moment later, she heard the scraping sound of their feet dragging across the ground as they were forced back.
Rose stared at the leader, listening to the translation of his words. "Did you think you were clever with your stolen words? We are the Sycorax; we stride the darkness." He leaned in Rose's face and hissed in her ear, startling a squeak of fright from her.
"Next to us you are but a wailing child. If you are the best your planet can offer as a champion—"
"Then your world will be gutted—" the Sycorax said, and the translator echoed him.
"And your people enslaved."
The translator paused. "Hold on, that's English."
"He's talking English," Harriet agreed.
Hope grew in Rose's heart. "You're talking English."
"I would never dirty my tongue with your primitive bile," the Sycorax leader said.
Rose backed up and pointed at him. "That's English. Can you hear English?" she asked, looking around at the other three humans.
"Yeah, that's English," Mickey said.
"Definitely English."
The Sycorax raised his fists in the air angrily. "I speak only Sycoraxic!"
"If I can hear English, then it's being translated," Rose said slowly. "Which means it's working. Which means—"
She turned to look at the TARDIS, her heart racing. The doors opened slowly, and the Doctor stood there, still dressed in his striped pyjamas and blue dressing gown.
He raised an eyebrow in the sexiest smirk Rose had ever seen. "Did you miss me?"