Disclaimer: Not mine. It's sad, I agree.
Chapter Summary:
Rose has disappeared, and Mickey might be losing his mind. Or perhaps Rose is losing her mind, and for some reason, there are pinstripes...


Chapter 2: Pinstripes

There were any number of reasons to be angry with the Doctor, and Rose took advantage of the never-ending supply of hot water while she organized them into clear priorities. Showers were excellent ways of cataloging such things, and the Tardis had never once run out of hot water.

Rose wasn't sure it was the main reason she was angry with the Doctor, but the very fact that the last words she had said to her mother were, "And I'm not having squid for dinner," were not making her feel better about the possibility of never seeing her mum again. This, of course, was probably an addendum to the fact that she wasn't going to see her mum again, which of course was worthy of a very high ranking on the list of Why Rose Will Never Forgive the Doctor.

So, Reason One: Will never see Mum again.

(Reason One A: Last words said to Mum not "I love you." Goodness, she'd managed that with him, Mum really would be put out. And never mind that she'd once before made a choice to never see her Mum again. It was a completely different situation.)

She scrubbed at the blue film on her skin as she pondered the next reason. Her skin wasn't stained blue, at least, but the sticky residue wasn't coming off very easily. Only now could she close her fingers and open them again without feeling as if the skin glued itself together, but the rest of it was proving to be somewhat troublesome, especially in her hair. If she had to cut off her hair….

Reason Two: Stupid blue gunk not coming out of hair; will have to cut it.

It was a little, she reflected, as if she'd been born again, and the blue custard was all that mucus and blood and whatever it was that speeds your passage down the birth canal. Rose wondered how long she'd been in the blue custard – he said she'd been out for four days, laying on the metal grating in the control room. No wonder the blue gunk wasn't coming off easily. No wonder her muscles ached, either. Her entire body felt heavy, but jittery, like she had quicksilver coursing through her veins. Four days and he couldn't have moved her to a bed?

Reason Three: Made me wake up in the control room. Idiot.

Rose glanced down at the water streaming off of her – it was less blue than it had been when she started. That was a good sign, at least. She might have to strike Reason Two from the list, and strangely the idea made her feel a bit better. One less reason to hate him was…well, one less reason to hate him, and Rose felt happier about that.

Of course, Reason One was about as big as you could get, but he didn't say it was impossible to get to her mother, just that the blue box was buried in the rubble of Torchwood Tower. They could find it, after a bit of excavation.

And…then what?

Rose stopped, hands in her lathered hair, and thought for a moment. If she found the crossroads again – if she went through it to find her mum – that would mean leaving the Doctor, wouldn't it? Again?

Something in Rose's heart went thud, and Rose stilled. It wasn't that she hated the other world. She had a place there, a job, a life carved out of five years which wasn't altogether bad. And Mum was there, and chances were fairly good that Mum wouldn't want to leave it, because Mum had Pete and the twins.

Besides, what sort of life would Rose have had with the Doctor, anyway? Travel, danger, being attacked/possessed/deposed/other by aliens?

And, Rose remembered, he hadn't actually said anything about why he'd pulled her through the blue custard.

Oh, that was good. Rose did a bit of rearranging.

Reason Two: Pulled me back here with no explanation, warning, or reason.

Reason Three: Took five bloody years to do it.

There, five reasons, in a fairly good order. Well, four if she didn't really have to cut off her hair, and seeing as she'd gone through the rest of the shampoo, that decision would have to wait until they could at least find a pharmacy. Rose was almost sorry she didn't save a little of the blue gunk to slap in his hair, just to get even. That would have been good, covering her hand with blue and running it through his hair. Maybe he'd reach up and catch her hand as she did it, fingers wrapping around her own all tangled up, which of course would pull her closer to him….

Wait a minute. What was she thinking? She was supposed to be angry with him!

Right. More rearranging. Reason Four: Still looks fantastic in pinstripes. Bloody Time Lord.


At first, Mickey thought Jackie wasn't answering the phone because she wasn't there to answer the phone. That possibility caused more problems than he might have otherwise supposed, because then he would have had to question his own sanity. If Jackie didn't exist, neither did Rose, and Mickey was absolutely certain he remembered them both being there.

This disturbing concept was happily negated when Jackie picked up the line, out of breath and sounding almost annoyed.

"Hello?"

He almost cried. "Oh, thank God, Jackie, I found you."

"Mickey? Oh, no – is your grandmother? What's happened?"

"No, Gram's fine – it's…ah. Can you come down here? I don't think I can say this over the phone."

"I suppose I could. The twins aren't due back for a few hours, but if it's quick I think I could manage it. I'm not sure how to access your offices, it's a bit tricky, isn't it? And I thought you'd always said I didn't have clearance?"

"I'll make sure you've got it by the time you're here. Half an hour?"

She let out a peal of laughter. "Forty-five minutes, a girl needs her make-up." And Jackie hung up without another word.

Mickey set the receiver back down, but the sense of relief he'd originally felt washed away the second the phone dropped from his hand.

Knowing Mickey was disturbed – knowing something had gone wrong – knowing disaster had not struck Mickey's grandmother – Jackie had not been the least bit concerned about her daughter, Rose.

More worried than before, Mickey picked up the phone and rang through to security, beginning to wonder if he, in fact, wasn't going insane.

Clearing Jackie Tyler through security was easy; being the wife of Pete Tyler had its advantages. It helped, too, that she was friendly to everyone she met, which was a change from his first wife. Everyone loved the second Jackie, everyone who met her wanted to do nice things for her, and even though she knew it, she rarely took advantage of it. Mickey was somehow profoundly grateful for it as he escorted her into the facility and they boarded the lift that would take them below.

"Never been in here before, quite a treat, this," said Jackie, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. "What brought this on, then?"

Mickey remained silent, not knowing how to start. Jackie patted his arm.

"Mickey, are you sure it's not Rita-Anne?"

"Yes," he said thickly. "Gram's fine. I spoke with her ten minutes ago. She sends her love."

"Then what's wrong?"

He glanced at her. "I…."

She patted his arm again. The lift stopped, and the doors opened to a long hallway, at the end of which was a bolted door. Jackie looked at it and frowned.

"Mickey, you're starting to scare me."

"I'm sorry, Jackie," he said thickly. "I don't mean to. I just don't know how to say this…." He took a breath. "Rose disappeared this morning."

Jackie looked at him, eyes wide, completely silent. Mickey walked to the door and began unfastening the bolts.

"She came in a little late, and I was curt with her. There's been a strange blue box here, in that room behind the door there, actually, and it started humming. The same sort of hum from the Doctor's Tardis."

He threw open the door, and Jackie peered into the room. There, in the center, was the blue box, still humming jauntily. Mickey found that once he'd started talking, he couldn't stop.

"We ran tests on it, and they came back this morning. I handed her the results and sent her down here to examine the box, and we had a power fluctuation and the alarms went off. When everything came back online – well, she was gone. Just – gone. The test results, too, and I can't find Rose anywhere. I can't find a trace of Rose, except that you're here, so I know she has to be here. Or she was here, and I think that blue box has something to do with it, and I just don't know what else to do, and—"

"Mickey," said Jackie slowly, "I think you're hysterical."

Mickey blinked at her. "Wh-what?"

"Sweetheart, did you stay up very late last night? Were you playing with all those odd alien devices and perhaps something fogged your memory?"

"Jackie, I'm telling you – Rose was here this morning—"

"Mickey, you're telling me things I already know."

Mickey wasn't sure if he was relieved or just very afraid. "But…how? Who told you?"

"You did, Mickey. Four ago – when it happened. Rose disappeared four years ago into the blue box, in that room."

Mickey slumped against the wall. "But…it was….I remember her. This morning. Today."

Jackie patted his arm. "I think you've been working too hard, dear," said Jackie kindly. "Now, take me to your office, and we'll see about finding you a nice cup of tea."

"F-four years ago?"

Jackie nodded, sympathetically.

"But….where did she go?"

"Home, of course," said Jackie. "Where else?"

Mickey swallowed. "Yes. Tea. Okay."

He shut the door again, and let her lead him back to the lift, wondering what in the hell was going on.


Rose didn't see the Doctor immediately upon returning to the console room, and it gave her heart a curious flutter to think he wasn't there. It wasn't until she heard the bang of something below the grating fall, and the high-pitched and surprised "Ouch!" that she realized he was in his usual place, fixing something below.

She moved as quietly as she could, which wasn't difficult once the banging began again, and somehow managed to get to the open grating without him noticing. He was hard at work, focused entirely on some sort of circuitry, his sonic screwdriver lodged between his teeth, a set of wires in either hand, and for the extreme malfunction, a mallet resting on his chest.

She didn't say anything. It was too good, just standing there, drinking it in, seeing him again. His hair so mussed it fooled you into thinking it was curly; the way his sideburns shaped his face; his jacket firmly buttoned when other men might have tossed it and the tie in the corner. It felt like the previous five years hadn't happened, like it was just her and him and the Tardis. Maybe a Jack, maybe a Mickey, but always like this, just them.

And him, just as distracted as he had always been. Which was just as well – Rose really didn't have the slightest idea what she was going to say when he finally noticed—

"Oh, hello."

He held the sonic screwdriver in his hand now, and was looking up at her with a near unreadable expression. She tried to smile back at him, and found it hard going.

"Hello."

"The blue came out, looks like."

"Yeah, mostly." The conversation was too normal. It was too close to an exchange that might have happened before Canary Wharf, and Rose burst into tears. Quick as a flash – Time Lord, him, he would have said – he was out of the grating and pushing her back to the jump seat, where she sat with a thump, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand.

"Stupid to be crying like this," she sniffed.

"Had a hard day," he said. "Here, I've got a handkerchief."

"When did…thanks." She took it and blew her nose, and then frowned. "Blue!"

This disarmed him more than anything. "Hopefully won't stay that way."

She crumpled the handkerchief in her hand, keeping her eyes focused on her lap. It wasn't that she didn't want to look at him, but that she wasn't sure what would happen if she did. For a moment, she half wished that she wasn't sitting there, and that he'd left her where she was.

"Rose—"

"Why'd you do it?" she blurted out, still not meeting his eyes. "I mean…the console room, Doctor. Of all the places to let me wake up!" She groaned and covered her eyes with the hand not holding the handkerchief. "Oh, I had to pick the last thing on the list, didn't I?"

"List?"

"I came up with a bloody list, in the shower, of reasons why I ought to knock your head in, and that was the last thing on it," she said. Without thinking she moved her hand back down and stared him in the eyes. "Reason Number Six. You pull me out of the blue custard and let me lay on grating for four days. Four days. Do you have any idea how much my muscles ache?"

"I put a blanket under you," he said, trying to be helpful, and she stared at him for a moment before bursting into laughter. "Rose? I think you're hysterical."

"YOU THINK?" She fell to her side, aching with laughter. She felt nearly hysterical, really. It was an odd sensation, and Rose didn't like it.

The Doctor scooped her up from the jump seat. "Allons-y, not another word until you've slept," he said firmly.

"No," said Rose through the laughter, and started to struggle a bit.

"No arguments now, this is Doctor's orders—" Her hand brushed his face in her struggles, and it nearly seemed to stick to his skin, as if coated in glue. She tried to pull it away lightly at first, but it refused to budge. It took far too much effort to pull it away, and felt like she pulled two pieces of very strong tape apart.

"Put me down!"

He did, dropping her feet onto the grating with a clang. Her hand fell away from his cheek in a sudden rrrrrip, and he stared at her in shock. "That hurt, you nearly ripped my skin off!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Nuh-uh—"

Rose reached out and touched his cheek again. Her fingers stuck fast. She rested them there for a moment, suddenly well aware that she was touching him – touching him, like she'd wanted to do since Norway, and hadn't been able to do even in dreams. His skin was cool, and just the tiniest bit rough, but as much as she wanted to cup her hand around his chin, she pulled it away, feeling it rip as their skin broke contact. His eyes went wide, and he stared at her for a moment, before his hand went to his reddening cheek in shock.

"Ow," he said.

"I was having a good day, you know," she said.

"That hurt," he said, utterly and completely surprised.

"You pulled me out of what was going to be a really good day!"

He looked up at her. "Did you have to hurt me?"

She stared at him, unable to think of an appropriate response. It was just too much.

"I'm going to bed."

"Right where you left it," he said numbly.

"Don't you dare wake me up."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"And when I wake up, and my brain's not all fogged up, and my head doesn't hurt and my muscles don't ache, we're talking. We're going to sit down and have a cup of tea and have an extremely long conversation about what has happened in the last four days, and the last five years before it."

"Right – wait – five years?"

Rose looked at him oddly. "Yeah, five years."

He looked completely confused now. "What happened five years ago?" He frowned, and then backed away from her, banging his fist against his head. "Wait. Stupid, stupid, stupid….oh, this is mad. This is brilliantly mad. But if you say – five years? Five years…and four days here…and I thought…but no. No no no no no…"

"Ah, Doctor?"

He looked at her, with that half-mad glint in his eye, the one she recognized from before. "Two possibilities, Rose. Tell me which is right. You say five years we have to discuss. Would you be saying we have to discuss the five years since we first met in the basement of Henrik's, or the five years since I last saw you in Norway?"

Rose's mouth dropped open. "Norway."

He reeled. "Ah. That complicates matters."

"Why?"

"If it's been five years since we saw each other in Norway – Jackie's going to kill me."

Rose stared at him. "How?"

"Oh, I'm sure she's got something up her sleeve."

"My mother is on the other side of the blue box, Doctor," said Rose, trying to keep calm.

"You don't have near enough confidence in your mother!"

And just then, the phone on the control panel began to ring. The Doctor held up a finger to Rose, and leaned back to answer it. "Hello!"

"Doctor, is she there?" said the person on the other end of the line, in an altogether familiar voice, and sounding intensely worried. "Is she awake? How is she? I've been worried sick! You said you'd call the moment she woke up, and it's been a week now, Doctor, and I just want to know if my little girl is all right…."

The Doctor looked at Rose and held the phone out. "Rose? It's your mother. I think she wants to talk to you."

Rose fainted.