Rose and Grandad II
Whatever else Rose did not know about the strange man, she did know that if anyone was serious about blowing up a department store to kill living plastic dummies, it would be he. So she took off at a speed she had not known since her days in gymnastics, still holding the plastic arm that he had given her when in that lift. She had barely made it to the nearest main street when it had happened.
BOOM
The explosion shook the ground. Looking back towards her place of (former) employment, Rose saw white and orange flames engulfing Henrick's. With another loud crash, the second floor partly caved in.
'Oh my God' she thought, 'he couldn't have survived that...could he?' she didn't want to think of it and, frankly, she didn't have the time. Passing an inconspicuous 1960s blue police box, she ran back home with the fastest momentum a semi-out-of-shape 19-year-old's body could carry her. The stairs were probably the hardest bit.
As soon as she entered the door her mother pounced on her with the fiercest of hugs that she only reserved for when she was really worried for or really cross with her. After a good minute of Rose trying to calm her blubbering mother down was when the next person in her apartment made himself known. It was Micky Smith, her boyfriend. They had only been dating a few months but Micky went about their relationship, one would think they'd be do an engagement any day now. She liked that about him at first. The protectiveness, the caring, the constant phone calls and offers to take her anywhere she pleased. He was a far cry from Jimmy Stone, that's for sure. But sometimes, especially now, Rose could've done with extra space.
"I've been phoning your mobile. You could've been dead. It's on the news and everything. I can't believe that your shop went up!" Micky finally released her from his death-grip hug.
"I'm all right, honestly, I'm fine! Don't make a fuss," she said, sitting down on the nearest couch.
"Well, what happened?" he was making a fuss.
"I don't know!" she yelled. And that was the truth. She didn't really understand what was going on, even after that man had tried to explain things. Aliens? 'Ha, likely story.'
"What was it though? What caused it?"
Bugger, he really wasn't going to let this go, was he. "I wasn't in the shop. I was outside. I didn't see anything." She didn't like lying to him but it's not like he would believe what she said if she didn't.
Fortunately and unfortunately, her mum, phone in hand, interrupted their conversation.
"It's Debbie on the end. She knows a man on the Mirror. Five hundred quid for an interview."
"Oh that's brilliant! Give it here." she took the phone and hung up. She was done being the spectacle for the night.
"Well, you've got to find some way of making money. Your job's kaput and I'm not bailing you out." she took the phone, which was ringing again, and answered. It was Bev, one of her mum's oldest, and most gossipy friends. The entire apartment block would probably know Rose had a connection with Henrick's by tomorrow morning. To be honest, Rose was too bloody tired to care.
It took a while but she was finally able to wave off Micky. And get him to throw away the plastic arm that she had brought to her flat as he left. He really was a sweetheart, maybe she's being annoyed at nothing. Affection is good, reliability is good. She took these thoughts with her as she went into her room, swiftly undressed, and fell asleep as quickly as she had in recent memory, exhausted from the ordeal leading up to the explosion.
Next Morning
It had been a while since Rose had slept in on a weekday. In fact, she would wager that the last time had been the week before she had gotten hired at Henrick's. But here she was, on a Tuesday, waking up proper at 12:30 pm.
After grabbing a cheap lunch by a foodstand near her block of flats, she returned to her place with the paper in hand to look for employment opportunities. As much as it was nice to wake up after 8 am, her mum was right about her financial situation. If Rose wanted to keep living with her mum, she'd need to find another job. Not to mention that Rose went absolutely batty if she was doing nothing for too long.
She was just arguing with her mum about becoming a butcher's apprentice when she heard a rattle.
'The cat flap' she groaned internally. The blonde got up to check the door.
"Mum, you're such a liar. I told you to nail that cat flap down. We're going to get strays."
"I did it weeks back!"
"No, you thought about it." Rose approached the door and heard another small rattle. Looking down she saw that screws to the cat flap had somehow fallen out. Taken out? She was just about to call to her mum to see what had happened when the flap moved.
Kneeling down at the level of the flap entrance she waited for it again, her body tensed. 'Could the dummy men be back? Do they know I survived? What's going on?' These questions and more swam through her head, making her hold her breath as she waited for the bloody thing to move again.
And it did. But as she braced herself for an encounter with an unmoving plastic face...she instead came face to face from the old man from last night. She let out an audible gasp and he did too. 'He's alive!' she thought. Quickly getting to her feet she unlocked the door and opened it as fast as she could. Rose wouldn't let him get away without answering her questions this time.
The door swung open revealing the man who had the same look of shock on his face that he had before, also noticing that he was quickly pocketing whatever he had used to unscrew the cat flap doors. She also noticed that his coat was still dirty, though likely not from the explosion at Henrick's; his hair seemed clean after all. The old man spoke first.
"What're you doing here?" he demanded.
"I live here!" she responded angrily. 'Not even a hello apparently from this man' she thought.
He paused and sighed. "Of course you do" he muttered bitterly, "That's always how it starts."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Rose said, trying to get back on course. "Anyways, I'm only at home because someone blew up my job."
This did not help things. "Well next time I'll just not save you, heaven knows you people are never grateful for it." His ranting was interrupted by beeping in his pocket. The strange man pulled out yet another alien-looking device and looked at it before pocketing it. Looking now past her into the flat he spoke again. "The signal I'm getting is definitely here, that much is clear." he now looked at Rose. "I am sorry Rose, for my outburst. May I come in?" he asked and then smiled in a way that looked completely forced.
'Well that was a change' she thought.
"Yeah, of course. Come on in." she motioned for the man to come on in, which he did.
"WHO IS IT?" her mum yelled as he stepped into the flat.
Rose led him to her mum to explain away the situation.
"It's about last night. He's part of the inquiry. Give us ten minutes." she hated lying to her mum, and that she had so much practice with doing it. But she couldn't tell her the truth now. Not until she fully understood what had happened.
Her mum turned to face the older man and was visibly alarmed at the state of his clothing but quickly put on her infamous Jackie Tyler smile. "She deserves compensation," she said firmly.
"Oh yes, of course, mam." he responded, uncharacteristically charming, "We're talking millions." he gave a little wave to her and left the doorway entrance as quickly as he could, the charmed affectation gone the second he was out of sight.
"Don't mind the mess. Do you want coffee?" Rose said as she entered their small kitchen.
"Hmm" he muttered looking distracted as soon as he entered the living area. "Yes, might as well. Just milk, please."
She nodded though she doubted he saw it. "So what do I call you then, you never told me your name last night."
"John" he said. Almost too quickly. She doubted that was his actual name but at least now she could think of him as something other than 'that man' so she let it slide.
"Well, John, I'm thinking we should go to the police. Seriously. Both of us."
At this John turned around again from his weird search of the room, looking characteristically annoyed. "I already told you Rose" he happened to glance over at a an award she got from primary school "Rose Tyler, even if you or I went to the police, well, they wouldn't believe us, but even if they did that would only cause more death. And I'm certainly not causing that. Not anymore."
'Okay, that's another red flag.' but she let that go for now. She needed to get what happened sorted.
"Look, I'm not blaming you, even if it was a joke that went wrong. You were just trying to stop it."
"It wasn't a joke" he muttered, continuing his glances around the room.
"I know that," Rose said getting frustrated. Again. "They said on the news they've found a body."
"Chief electrician?" John asked
She nodded. "He was nice. Nice bloke." She finished up his coffee and proceeded to get milk from the fridge.
"I'm sorry," John said. His next thoughts were cut off by another rattling, once again coming from the cat flap.
"What was that? Have you got an animal?" he asked. He heard another clatter, this time closer to the living area sofa, and proceeded towards it
"No," Rose said. She finished up his coffee and turned to get milk from the fridge.
Unbeknownst to her, the plastic arm that she had given Micky had indeed returned to the area; it was also the origin of the signal that 'John' had traced to her flat. Said arm just returned to the flat and laid in wait to take down the being responsible for blowing up their transmitter. And it had found him. So it pounced, flinging itself at the 'elderly human' intending on suffocating their attacker.
"We did have, but now they're just strays. They come in off the estate." Rose came from the kitchen with two mugs of fresh coffee, rolling her eyes at the state of John. 'Bit odd for an old man to play such a childish prank. Maybe he's trying to cheer me up?'
"I told Mickey to chuck that out. You're all the same. Give a man a plastic hand. Oh, John, stop it, it's not funny!"
Finally, he detached the arm from his face, but Rose soon realized that this was no prank, for the arm immediately flew onto her face. She, for the second time in two days, felt her life flash before her eyes. She did not have to wait long for a rescue, however. John leapt into action, grabbing Rose and throwing her onto the couch that was behind them. He quickly pulled out the strange device that he had used to open those double doors in Henrick's and pressed it hard onto the arm. Within that second, Rose felt the arm's grip on her face relax before it fell to her side and was picked up by John.
"So this is the bugger that brought me here," he said, running his device over the arm. "Whatever this Micky did to dispose of this was clearly not enough." John looked to her and saw that Rose's breaths were shakey and short.
" " he began. "The threat to your life has been neutralized. Thank you for the coffee, but now I must depart. Farewell." And without another word, he turned and made his way out the door of her flat. Rose ran outside to catch up with him at the stairs.
"Hold on a minute. You can't just go swanning off," she said indignantly.
John scoffed. "Yes I can. This is me, swanning off. Don't you have a new job to look for?"
"But that arm was moving. It tried to kill me."
"I'm glad you noticed."
"You can't just walk away. That's not fair. You've got to tell me what's going on." she persisted.
"No, , I really don't." At this, the two of them were finally down the stairs. John turned left towards the fields outside the flat, Rose following close behind.
"All right, then. I'll go to the police. I'll tell everyone. You said, if I did that, I'd get people killed. So, your choice. Tell me, or I'll start talking."
"You need to work on your threats. A toddler wouldn't believe you"
"Who are you?" she pushed, ignoring his insult.
"I already told you. I'm John. John Smith."
She laughed. "Oh come on, you're barmy. That's a terrible fake name."
"Brilliant skills of deduction. It's the only name you're getting." he tried walking faster to get rid of her but couldn't manage it. 'Damn this old body.'
"Come on, then. You can tell me. I've seen enough. Are you the police?"
"Ha no, I was just passing through. You could say that I'm not from around here."
"But what have I done wrong? How come those plastic things keep coming after me?"
"Oh, the whole planet revolves around you, does it?. You were an accident, in the wrong place and the wrong time." John sounded like was letting out more than he wanted to.
"It tried to kill me," Rose said angrily.
"It was after me, . Last night, in the shop, I was there, you wandered in, almost ruined my plan. This morning, I detected another signal, this time tracking me down. It fixed on you because of me." he said this all very slow like she might not have gotten it otherwise.
"So what you're saying is, the entire world revolves around you?"
"When I'm attempting to stop an alien incursion, yes!" he responded testily.
"Alien incursion, just listen to yourself. You're full of it. Other people would know."
"Nope. Not anything of this scale anyway. This lot is keeping themselves real hidden. Even I'm having difficulty tracking them down."
For the first time, Rose paused in her words. Could he be telling the truth? What John talked about was insane but wasn't she just strangled by a plastic arm? She couldn't write him off. She needed to know more.
"Okay. Start from the beginning. I mean, if we're going to go with the living plastic, and I don't even believe that, but if we do, how did you kill it?"
"There's a relay, somewhere, controlling it; Animates the arm. I cut off the signal permanently, all plastic stays dead."
"So that's radio control?" she tried to piece together what he was saying.
"Close. Kind of. Thought control...you alright?" he asked.
"Yeah. So, who's controlling it, then?"
"A group called the Autons, you've probably never heard of them."
"But what's it all for?" she pressed, "I mean, shop window dummies, what's that about? Are they trying to take over Britain's shops?"
"They want to overthrow the human race and destroy you," he said very flatly. He glanced over at Rose. "But you don't believe, do you?"
"No."
"Yet you're still following me."
"Really, though, John. Tell me, who are you?" At this, the elderly man stopped and turned to her. His arrogant posture slumped and those intense eyes she'd first seen in Henrick's turned soft and sad.
"Do you remember what I said about loss ? Last night outside that shop. I saw in your house...you've known loss kind of loss that doesn't get better, the kind that leaves a hole that you can't replace. The kind that adults lie to kids about when they say that all things heal with time." he laughed bitterly. "I lost a dear friend many years ago, and what's worse, is that it was my fault. I believed at the time that his loss was necessary. And I sauntered away, thinking that the life I would lead could, one day, make up for the hole that he had left. It almost consumed me, turned me into a man that I never wanted to be. And I still feel that pain, swirling inside me, like the turn of the Earth." he came even closer to her and took her hand, "The ground beneath my feet, spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet, hurtling round the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, and I can always feel it. And if I let go for just a single second" he let her go. "Then I am lost to it."
He turned around and continued to walk, before pausing once again to speak.
"Forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home. You don't want to get mixed in with an old man's foolish quest for atonement."
Strangely, though this left Rose with even more questions, she could understand broadly what he was trying to say. Not knowing how to respond she let John continue his walk away from her and the fields they were currently in. He was walking in the direction of an old blue police box. Walking back to her flat, still pondering the man's words, she heard very loud wheezing and whoosing sounds behind her. Looking back she saw that both John Smith and the old blue box were gone.
