Mum.

It's the most pleased I've ever been to see her, to hug her and breathe in that tea-and-wash-powder smell of hers that always makes me feel about ten years old again.

Even after everything we've seen, all the places we've visited and people we've met, it's nice sometimes, just sometimes to take a break and sit down on our faded old sofa and catch up with Mum over a cuppa.

But only sometimes. Because the truth, the deep down, awkward-to-admit truth is that I could never go back to this life, this; back to this monotonous, lukewarm existence, after seeing the inferno of colour and adventure and emotion and WOW of life with the Doctor.

Even just after walking through the rickety playground and graffitied walls (I'm sure one of them still says "M.S. + R. T" somewhere) of the Powell Estate, I'm itching for something more, holding my breath for something, anything to happen that will get my heart thumping.

I guess it's a good job the ghosts turn up then.

"You're looking skinny," Mum says.

Alright, so there unknown beings pressing themselves into the surface of this universe and convincing the entire human race they're ghosts, and my mother comments on my weight. Typical.

She's right of course, but I'm not about to go into the reason why. Not yet, anyway.

"Yeah, well," I say, "Let's just say I do a lot of running these days."

Mum makes a "hmmph!" sound, but doesn't pursue the topic; we've got more important things to worry about.

We're walking back to the TARDIS after seeing the ghosts for the first time. The Doctor is rambling about the ghosts and the fabric of reality and all that jazz, more to himself than to me. Mum trails behind us, not looking sure if she should be coming or not.

". . . but if they were crossing between worlds, then there would have been something that made the cracks in the first place, something with a some serious technology. I mean, we're talking about something big enough to shatter the entire . . ."

He doesn't really notice when I stop to grab a discarded newspaper from a bench. The headlines shouts "Election result: Ghost of George Radisson named as MP for Leeds".

Oh, come on. The human race can be pretty thick sometimes but can they honestly believe that –

I notice the date. The date on this paper, today's paper.

"Thursday 23rd March 2006."

Why does that date sound so familiar?

The TARDIS rasps into existence, landing as near as we can to the ghost's point of origin that the Doctor tracked down as it can.

"So, where exactly are we?" I ask.

"Er, good point," the Doctor replies, spinning the monitor round to us. He checks the Gallifreyan writing on the screen. "We're only a few miles away from the Powell Estate! South London. We're in One Canada Square, which is, of course, also known as Cana-

Ooh, 'ello," he interrupts himself, looking at the monitor. The CCTV image has come up, showing us what's outside. Which just so happens to be a dozen or so soldiers with guns pointed right at us.

Well, that's a new one.

"There goes the advantage of surprise," he says.

This is all happening so fast. One moment, I'm getting busted by that Rajesh guy, the next there are Daleks and Cybermen and he's on the floor dead. I'm running down a corridor with the Doctor and Mickey and my dad (Oh God, it's my dad) but it feels like seconds ago that the Daleks were freaking out, ready to exterminate me (apparently taunting a Dalek with the destruction of their leader is not the best of ideas). Everything is a big, fast, dangerous blur. Until we get to the lever room.

"Offline."

The word rings out even through the roaring wind and the screams of the Daleks, who immediately begin to slow in their fall to the Void.

I cuss under my breath and stretch as far as I can forward to reach the lowering lever, but it's too far away (of course). I can hear the Doctor shouting for me from across the room but I keep reaching, further and further and I can't hold on to the clamp, but I keep stretching out because I know that's what he'd do. . .

I cry out as I fall away from the clamp and onto the lever, trying my damn hardest to keep it from lowering, but I'm being pulled away, pulled towards that white wall of nothing and –

"I gotta get it upright!" I hear myself shouting, but the lever is so effing stiff and I can't do it, I can't I can't I –

I look up at the Doctor, I see the fear and pain on his face and I can hear him in my mind saying, "Yes, you bloody well can, Rose Tyler."

And I give another shove on the lever and I feel it finally, finally give a great clunk that shakes my whole body and "Online and locked." says that voice again, quite matter-of-factly and the wind is picking up, pulling the Daleks faster into the Void.

But it pulls me faster too.

"Rose, hold on!" I hear the Doctor yell, but I can barely hear him over my own panic as my feet are lifted from the floor and I'm being pulled harder and harder towards the Void and -

"HOLD ON!"

I'm so scared –

I can feel the lever slipping from my hands and I'm losing my grip -

(I don't want to die, I don't want to - )

I look into the Doctor's face. And I think 'Why the Hell haven't I told you I love you?'

Coz I do. I realise that, clinging to a lever on the edge of the abyss, about to lose hold any second now and fall into Hell; I love him.

And I'm crying out in fear and pain and the effort of holding on, and I can't last much longer –

(Mum will never know. . .)

But suddenly everything and nothing changes because I remember -

I remember why the date on the paper was so familiar, remember where I knew it from.

(I'm so scared, Doctor)

It was on that monument in Hyde Park, the one with the list of the dead, the monument that had my name on. . .

("They keep on trying to split us up but they never ever will.")

And that's when I fall from the lever.