Complicated

By The Plot Thinens

Chapter 9 – The Bad Date and the Eye-Spy game

Rose and Mickey were sitting in the middle of an Italian restaurant. At first Rose had just wanted to get takeout. The place they had ended up going to was a little more upscale and Rose felt bad being too much of an expensive 'date', but Mickey had insisted and Rose wasn't in a mood to be difficult. Rose decided that she would just order the cheapest thing on the dinner menu instead. At least that way she wouldn't feel too much like a freeloader. They had ordered their food or rather Rose ordered. Mickey claimed that he wasn't very hungry. He just sat there and smiled. Rose felt guilty eating while he just watched but she was so hungry. She felt drained from low blood sugar so she continued to dig in with her fork and knife. She could always let him pick if he changed his mind. Rose finished chewing the food in her mouth and stared at the remains of her pineapple pizza.

"Thanks, Mickey this is really sweet of you. I mean you're the nicest Ex I've ever had, that's for sure."
Smiled Rose, but she didn't look up from her plate. She was a little nervous but she couldn't understand why, it was just Mickey for Pete's sake. He was as harmless as they came. That was part of the reason she had dated him in the first place after her last abusive relationship with Jimmy Stone had ended. Maybe if she opened up a little to Mickey she would feel less nervous, just not too many details. If she were vague enough she could talk about her problems a bit without risking her friend's safety.

"It's just John and I are going through a rough time now but I feel…" began Rose.

"So where did you meet this Doctor bloke?" interrupted Mickey, he clearly didn't seem interested in what Rose had to say about her marital problems.

"I'm sorry, what?" asked Rose. Rose was confused, she could have sworn that she never mentioned the Doctor to Mickey, but she was rather out of it for the walk over. Maybe she let it slip when she was talking about John earlier and she knew that a lack of food in her stomach did tend to make her a bit listless. Or was he referring to John's title of Doctor, but Mickey already knew how she met John.

"Because I reckon it started just before that shop fire last night, am I right? Was he something to do with that?" Questioned Mickey. Now Rose was sure that something smelt fishy. How would Mickey have known that she and the Doctor had anything to do with the shop fire last night? He couldn't have guessed. She wagered that it would be best to play coy for now.

"No." she answered maybe a bit too fast. Rose inwardly kicked herself, her 'no' might as well have been a yes. That had been a kneejerk reaction and now she had pretty much admitted that she had knowledge of the Doctor and what he was up to.

"Come on. What was he doing there?" asked Mickey again attempting to put on some charm. Well she couldn't take back what she had hinted to now, the only logical step was damage control. She had to convince him not to ask her anymore questions for his own safety. Trying to be firm Rose replied,

"I'm not going on about it, Mickey. Really, I'm not, because, I know it sounds daft, but I don't think it's safe. I think it's dangerous to say anything at all." Mickey now seemed a bit miffed, but he poured on yet more charm all the while having that same silly grin on his face.

"But you can trust me, sweetheart. Babe, sugar, babe, sugar. You can tell me anything. Tell me about the Doctor and what he's planning, and I can help you, Rose. Because that's all I really want to do, sweetheart, babe, babe, sugar, sweetheart." Said Mickey in what was trying to come off as a seductive tone but with an odd almost inhuman twitch that was anything but seductive. Mickey then placed his hand over Rose's sleeve and that's when Rose got the wrong idea.

"Mickey, I'm flattered. Really, that you are still interested in me. And I appreciate your support, but I'm a married woman and you need to respect some boundaries now. John and I are still together." Rose stated firmly as she tried to pull away. She might have been trying to convince herself more of the last part than Mickey though. Mickey's grip tightened a bit more on her arm and jus then was the time the waiter decided to come over. Rose and Mickey were locked in a stare off and now Rose was starting to realize that she had been ignoring some very obvious things that were wrong with Mickey.

"Your champagne." Declared the waiter. Mickey not breaking eye contact with Rose and very annoyed said,

"We didn't order any champagne." 'Mickey' tightened his grip and demanded to Rose,

"Where's the Doctor?" The waiter walked around the table to Rose and stated,

"Madam, your champagne." Rose was now a little distressed from the growing pressure of Mickey clamping down on her arm and not looking at the waiter she declared,

"It's not ours. Mickey, what is it? What's wrong? " Rose was now very worried and redoubled her efforts to pull free. Mickey, totally unfeeling to her struggle and growing fear hissed,

"I need to find out how much you know, so where is he?" The waiter now sounding a bit put off announced to the two,

"Doesn't anybody want this champagne?"

"Look, we didn't order it." Snarled 'Mickey'. 'Mickey' was now completely losing his patience with the waiter for interrupting his interrogation and turned to the man only to realize with great surprise that it was, in fact, the Doctor. The plastic Mickey jumped up and snarled
"Ah, Gotcha." The Doctor pulled Rose up from the table behind him and began shaking the bottle of champagne,

"Sorry to break up your date, but here have one on the house. No hard feelings." Smiled the Doctor. He very quickly popped opened the fizzing bottle of alcohol and the cork flew through the air, hitting 'Mickey' in the face. To Rose's horror the cork was absorbed into his forehead only to be spit out of his mouth seconds later.

"Anyway." said the plastic Mickey as his hand morphed into some kind of chopper. Rose screamed and stepped back as the Doctor ran forward and grabbed at the Auton Mickey's head. After a few strong tugs its head popped off.

"Don't think that is going to stop me." hissed the severed plastic head cradled in the Doctors arms. That was the final straw and onlookers began to panic and scream as they made a mad dash for the exits. The headless body began to flail about indiscriminately smashing anything in its path searching blindly for the Doctor. The few stunned guests that remained watching the scene Rose managed to herd out by shouting,

"Everyone out! Out now! Get out!" It seemed to work and the Doctor and Rose made a hasty retreat through the kitchen in the back of the restaurant. The Auton was now catching up to them and the Doctor soniced the door shut just in time to watch a sizeable dent smash into the door coming from the other side.

"Alright then, no time to waste, into the TARDIS." Ordered the Doctor. He did not seem worried at all, which was a stark contrast to Rose. Her survival instinct told her to remain close to this man or risk death. What a paradox that the safest place that you could be around a man, who always it seemed was surrounded by danger, was right next to said man. The Doctor led Rose over to the familiar blue box that he had parked behind the restaurant that they had just 'left early'. With all chivalry and pomp of a man with all the time in the world, the Doctor unlocked the TARDIS and stepped aside to let Rose in. It was too dangerous to leave this human alone on her own so he would have to take her with him again. Honestly he could meet a thousand humans and never see the same one again, but this pink and yellow human, it was like fate was throwing her at him.

Rose had run into the TARDIS as soon as she was granted entrance. It was still a disorienting experience getting into the TARDIS but now she was starting to get used to it. She looked back outside the doors of the TARDIS to see that the plastic body had broken through the kitchen door and was running for them. The doctor closed the door before the thing could come in and its pounding could be heard on the door, but it was so muffled for plastic pounding on wood. It was almost as if the TARDIS wasn't really made of wood at all.

"It's not going to get in, yeah?" asked Rose for reassurance. The Doctor smiled and declared

"The assembled hoards of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried." Understanding that she was now safe and out of danger she took in a deep breath and looked at the Doctor.

"You came back." Stated Rose feeling touched by the gesture and a bit disbelieving that he was here.

"Yeah well can't help it if you're a magnet for plastic creatures. That's three times I've had to save you in one day now, Rose Tyler." Replied the Doctor as he followed Rose into the TARDIS. His response made Rose feel like he had only ran into her by coincidence, which was probably the case. She sighed and sat down on the jump seat. Was he on purposely going out of his way to make her feel like she was nothing or was this just all part of the Doctor's 'charm'? She mused sarcastically. The Doctor was still on the subject of Autons as he placed the plastic Mickey head on the console.

"You see, the arm was too simple, but the head's perfect. I can use it to trace the signal back to the original source. " explained the Doctor as he tinkered with the head. Rose looked a bit confused and pointed to the console

"And you can find that source with this the TARIS?" asked Rose. The Doctor rolled his eyes a bit as he turned to Rose and replied

"It's called the Tardis. S. That's Time And Relative Dimension In Space." She nodded her head and made an effort to put that name to memory. Rose's mind was rebooting now that she was out of harm's way and her mind flashed to Mickey Smith. She began to burst into tears. He wasn't her boyfriend anymore but that didn't mean that she didn't still love him as a friend. What had happened to him? She already experienced firsthand how deadly and unfeeling these Autons were. She'd ask the Doctor, surely he would know.

"Did they kill him? Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?" she implored the Doctor for information through her tears.

"Oh. I didn't think of that." Said the Doctor a little dumbstruck. The victim that the Autons had imitated honestly had not crossed his mind. He was more focused on the bigger picture.

"He's my ex-boyfriend; still my friend. You pulled off his head. They copied him and you didn't even think? And now you're just going to let him melt?" She shouted indignantly and pointed to the head on the console. The Doctor turned his head and began to panic as he dashed to the plastic head.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no!" he shouted as he set the TARDIS in motion. Rose secured herself down on the jump seat this time, her body seemed to know what was coming before her head did.

"What're you doing?" asked Rose. The Doctor pulled a lever and declared,

"Following the signal. It's fading. Wait a minute, I've got it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Almost there. Almost there. Here we go!" The Doctor scurried about madly around the circular console as he fiddled with the controls trying to lock in on the now fading signal. He got all that he could from the head's frequency and would have to settle with the best guess that the TARDIS could calculate as to the location of the signal's origin. The TARDIS came to stop and before Rose could even say another word he was running for the doors. Rose was about to say that the Auton was out there but remembered that this was a spaceship and all that shaking the TARDIS just did probably meant that they were in another location again. Now that she had reasoned that out, she ran after the Doctor before he could get too far ahead of her. She'd be damned if she let him out of her sight again.

"I lost the signal, I got so close." Said the Doctor feeling exasperated. He stormed up to some guard railing overlooking a river. He pounded his hands down on the old railing and cursed himself for letting his conversation with Rose distract him from the task at hand. Everything in his life recently seemed to be made difficult thanks to his association with this human female. If the Doctor had been in a better mood or had even warmed up to the idea of human matrimony, he might have made a comment to himself about that being what every male who tied the knot thought. His tunnel vision now lifting he took a look around at his surroundings. He then noticed that they had landed near the Thames. In fact, the TARDIS had been parked here in the same spot just the other night.

"Ah, Westminster. Lovely, right back where we started this little adventure, just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, love that film. I trained Toto, you know." The Doctor stated to Rose over his shoulder. Despite the fact that he was shooting off random fact about himself it was clear that the Doctor was irritated and trying to distract himself from that emotion with sarcastic and snarky comments. Out of ideas for now, the Doctor rambled on about nothing, it was therapeutic for him. However, Rose wasn't listening. She looked out onto the water of the Thames and sighed. She was just so relieved that the magic ship had 'disappeared and reappeared' them away from that plastic monstrosity.

"If we're somewhere else, what about that headless thing? It's still on the loose." Rose declared a bit worried for the public's safety. The Doctor was annoyed with Rose for interrupting his story about American 1930s film history and replied,

" It melted with the head. Are you going to witter on all night?" Rose's thoughts of the plastic Mickey again led her mind back to the original that for all she knew was dead. Her mind flashed to images of a funeral and a grave, would they even find a body? What about all the people besides herself who will miss him and be devastated at his loss?

"I'll have to tell his mother." Sniffed Rose, the Doctor looked on at her confused as to what random thing she was going on about. Rose was affronted by his forgetfulness and insensitivity,

"Mickey. I'll have to tell his mother he's dead. And you just went and forgot him, again! You really are alien." Snapped Rose, visibly upset. The Doctor from what she saw so far was the opposite of John. John would never have been this insensitive or forgetful. It just made this whole unfair situation that she had been thrown into sting all the more. Rose's anger took the form of a disapproving glare that momentarily unnerved the Doctor, but he was too angry and irritated himself to give Rose and inch. The Doctor took an offensive stance and looked Rose dead in the eye.

"Look, if I did forget some kid called Mickey…" He said in a firm tone.

"Yeah, he's not a kid." She interrupted and the Doctor raised his voice over hers and continued,

" It's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering on top of this planet, all right?" Rose was upset at him referring to her as a stupid ape but couldn't deny the severity of the situation once she had been reminded what was at stake.

"All right." She clipped now on the defensive, she had just about had it with this man.

"Yes, it is!" snipped the Doctor. Rose not wanting to back off or look at the Doctor until she calmed down raised her eyes upward and then they moved to the Doctor Spaceship. It would serve as a fine distraction from the Doctor. It was probably the first time she ever really taken a good look at it. Usually when she was in front of it her mind was on other pressing matters. It was such an odd thing to be a spaceship. Odder still and out of place was the glowing text above its doors.

"What's a police public call box?" she asked in spite of her recent anger. Rose was too young to realize that the form this ship was taking was actually from her country's very own past. Upon being asked about his beloved ship, the Doctor turned to the battered blue box with a smile. Rose watched as he lovingly caressed it and a twinge of envy went through her, she didn't know why. She was furious at him and what did she care if this Doctor man was paying sweeter attentions to an alien spaceship than to his own 'technically-still-his-wife'? The more she watched him interact with the box the more her anger and negative thoughts started to fade away. It seemed that the Doctor's joy for his transportation was catching and she couldn't help but admire the odd and wonderful thing too.

"It's a telephone box from the 1950s. It's a disguise." The Doctor smiled in an almost comical way. Rose also thought that it was comical that this space alien would think that his spaceship taking on such an out of date and out of place form would count as a good disguise. The Doctor probably could have doted on about his TARDIS all night but Rose changed the subject to the emergency at hand. Which was currently still invading aliens threatening Earth.

"Okay. And this, this living plastic. What's it got against us?" asked Rose. The Doctor came out of his daze and got down to the business again of being a superior uppity alien know-it-all and replied,

"Nothing. It loves you. You've got such a good planet. Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. It's food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein plants rotted, so Earth, dinner!" Rose was horrified. She didn't want her planet to be used as an alien's dinner.

"Any way of stopping it?" She inquired, after all the fate of her planet was at stake. The Doctor being so proud of himself produced a vial of blue liquid and put it up to the blonde's face.

"Anti-plastic." He smiled, waving the vial a bit. Rose looked at him a little disbelievingly, it all seemed either too ridiculously easy an answer or just plain ridiculous.

"Anti-plastic." She parroted back. At least the fluid's name left no confusing what it did, which made it easier for Rose. Got to stop a living plastic creature? Then of course use anti-plastic.

"Anti-plastic. But first I've got to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?" asked the Doctor to no one in particular. He was genuinely stumped and a bit annoyed at himself as he surveyed London from where he was standing.

"Hold on. Hide What?" Asked Rose, she wanted to be useful but she was having trouble keeping up with the Doctor's fast pace talking. It also didn't help that every time he opened his mouth he either talked to her like everything he said was so evident or without providing her cheat notes to keep up with.

"The transmitter. The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal." The Doctor explained looking quite frustrated with himself.

"What's it look like?" asked Rose wanting any information she could. The Doctor started to walk back over to the guard railing besides the Thames and gestures a circular shape to Rose over his head as he spoke,

"Like a transmitter. Round and massive, slap bang in the middle of London." The Doctor was now standing in front of the London Eye, which was right across the river, but he wasn't looking at it. He was too busy explaining to Rose,

"A huge circular metal structure like a dish, like a wheel. Radial. Close to where we're standing. Must be completely invisible." The massive and brightly lighted structure was impossible to not catch a viewer's attention at night and Rose was no exception. The second her eyes caught sight of it she knew without a doubt that this was what the Doctor was describing. And she gestured to it with her eyes and a slight nod of the head. The Doctor catching her signal turned to face the giant Ferris wheel, but seemed to look right past it.

"What, what?" The Doctor asked, truly puzzled. Rose gestured again to the enormous structure. She couldn't believe his obliviousness. It was bloody obvious, why didn't he see what was right in front of him as clear as day? If she had stopped to really ponder on that thought, she might have found it quite believable that he would miss something so apparent based on his handling of other subjects in his life. The Doctor looked again. Nope, still not clicking.
"What? What is it? What?" He asked again not getting the joke. Rose rolled her eyes.

'Oh …come… on!' she thought to herself. The Doctor looked behind him again and finally the penny dropped.

"Oh." He breathed as he looked again to the structure that was the answer to his question.

"Fantastic!" he grinned happily, quite impressed for once, and ran off to cross the bridge over the river. That goofy smile of his was infectious and she felt herself smiling too. Then as soon as she registered that he had moved she was chasing after him again.

Rose was following close behind the Doctor having no trouble keeping up with him this time. The Doctor's joy was catching and despite all the crazy things that had happened to her in the last 24 hours, and the rockiness of their recent interactions, she began to smile and laugh. Then the most unexpected thing happened. Without stopping the Doctor offered out his hand for Rose to hold onto. It all happened in an instant. Rose felt a flood of shock, joy, hope and comfort all in the brief four seconds it took her to grab onto his hand. The Doctor pulled Rose along with him and any emotion she had been feeling just a moment ago was increased tenfold. For the first time since he changed he wasn't running away from her but running with her. They crossed the bridge thick as thieves to their destination and to save the Earth.

Author's notes: This chapter seems a bit short and since you don't seem to like short chapters, I've decided to combine two. I hope that you guys are enjoying this story. Yes sir, as I've been told, free entertainment for just the price of a smile…or a comment. Would be nice, just sayin'.