Despite their laughter the night before, the Doctor was actually a bit nervous about Jackie's reaction to the two bombshells they were about to drop on her. If only there were a prescribed gift for, "I've asked your daughter to marry me—oh, and surprise, her biology has changed significantly."
He heard Rose coming down the corridor and turned around, the smile on his face slipping a little when he saw the huge pack she was carrying. "How long are you planning to stay?"
Rose dropped her pack by the door. "No, you plum. This is three weeks' worth of washing. I haven't exactly had time recently."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "Ah, right. Of course."
"So? Are we ready?"
"Wellllll…" Rose rolled her eyes and he hastened to explain. "I thought it would be nice if we made a quick stop to get a present for Jackie. Wouldn't she like something that shows you're still thinking about her even as we hop from planet to planet?"
"You mean something to distract her when we tell her everything?"
The Doctor tugged on his ear. "The thought might have occurred to me, yes."
Rose's lips twitched. "Look at you, being all domestic," she teased. "All right then, take us someplace to go souvenir shopping, and then we'll go to London."
The Doctor adjusted the coordinates to take them to one of his favourite trading posts. When they stepped out of the TARDIS, the familiar smell of spices and heat greeted them. "Where are we?" Rose asked, taking in the brightly coloured tents swarming with people.
"Razda," he said. "Strictly speaking, it's an asteroid, which makes it neutral territory in this part of the galaxy. The perfect place for a little intergalactic trading post."
"Trading post? This looks more like that souk you took me to back in Medieval Morocco."
The Doctor looked around the bazaar with new eyes—just like he did every time he took Rose somewhere. The colours, the spices, the warren of alleys leading off in all directions. "There's a certain similarity, yes."
Rose fanned herself in the heat. "Would the locals be horribly offended if I took my cardi off and just wore my camisole?"
"Nah, the Razdans are a fairly open culture."
She sighed with relief as she unzipped the sky blue cardigan and tossed it back into the TARDIS. "Well come on then, what are we waiting for?"
The Doctor laughed at her exuberance and let her tug him toward the marketplace. "I need to look for a few parts for the TARDIS as long as we're here," he said once they reached the edge of the bazaar. "Most of the stalls with souvenirs and trinkets are that way." He handed her a credit stick and pointed to the left. "Some clothes sellers too, I think."
Rose took the credit stick and tapped it against the palm of her hand. The Doctor recognised the sidelong glance she shot him, as well as the mischievous humour flowing over the bond, and he hid a smile.
"Anything in particular I should stay away from?" she asked, glancing at the stalls then back at him. "Poisonous lippie, jewellery that's really some kind of alien sex toy…"
"Alien sex toy?" he choked out. "Rose, where—" She reminded him of the bracelets she'd almost purchased on Barcelona, and he held back his denial. "Ah, not really. There is such a thing as psychic lipstick, but that's more a black market product."
"Kay. How long do I have to look?"
"I'll probably come find you later, but if I don't, meet me back here in two hours."
Rose lifted up on her toes and brushed a kiss across his lips. The Doctor smiled at her and stroked their bond with the delicate touch they'd learned felt like caring and affection.
Once she was gone, he set off in the opposite direction, toward the parts dealers. After an hour of poking around and haggling, he'd collected an armful of bits and bobs to add to his collection of parts for the TARDIS and other devices he made, along with what he needed to make a new sonic screwdriver—a gift he'd been thinking of making for Rose.
After a quick detour to the TARDIS to drop off the bulky parts, the Doctor walked back to the marketplace. The bond told him which direction he needed to take to meet Rose, and he took a meandering path through the stalls to meet her.
Something glinted in the sun, and his steps slowed so he could see what it was. A table laden with jewellery glittered up at him. "Do you see anything you'd like, sir?" the owner asked.
Out of habit, he started to shake his head and walk away, then he thought of Rose. A keen saleswoman, the stall owner recognised the interest in his eyes. "Surely there's someone you love—mother, sister, lover? Someone who might want a pretty bauble?"
The Doctor ran his eyes over the merchandise on the table, looking for something that would suit Rose. He'd always been so careful before to keep the gifts he gave her strictly friendly; the idea of giving her something only a lover would appealed to him.
The bracelets were immediately dismissed as too impractical for their lives. A bracelet could catch on something and trap Rose when they were trying to get away. Necklaces he looked at a little more carefully. She already wore her key around her neck, so maybe he could add a charm to the chain?
"I might be able to help, sir, if you told me who you're looking for."
"Rose," he said automatically, then realised she needed more than that. "My fiancee," he added, enjoying the promise the human word indicated, even though it felt strange on his tongue.
The woman's eyes lit up. "Ah! A special gift for your Rose then." She moved the trays of bracelets off the table, and the Doctor wondered if she didn't think they were special enough, or if she'd seen how quickly he'd passed over them.
Then he realised the bracelets were there to hide the finer jewellery she sold. His practiced eye could easily tell the gems in these pieces were worth far more than anything else on the table.
But even among these admittedly beautiful pieces, the Doctor didn't see one that seemed right for Rose. He sighed and took a half step back, and the woman put her hand on his wrist. "Perhaps I could help. Is there a colour Rose is particularly fond of?"
A year ago, he would have said pink without hesitating. That was still one of Rose's favourite colours, but he wanted this present to have significance for both of them. "Blue," he answered. "Deep, sapphire blue."
The woman's eyes gleamed; sapphire was one of the more valuable—and expensive—precious stones in the galaxy. "I have a few pieces I think you might be interested in, but first, may I see your credit stick? I must be sure you have the money for what I am about to show you."
The Doctor handed it to her without question and waited impatiently while she scanned it. "Yes, very good, sir," she said, her demeanour even more ingratiating now. She lifted up a stack of trays and pulled out the one on the bottom.
Blue gems winked up at him in every setting imaginable. He easily passed over a cat pin with sapphire eyes. The large sapphire heart he dismissed as too cheesy. His hand was hovering over a pair of earrings when he saw it.
Nestled beneath a few charms was a ring set with two vivid sapphires flanking a clear white diamond. The two interwoven strands of the band held the stones in place, leaving no need for a pronged setting that might catch on something.
He picked it up and was surprised by how solid the slender band felt. "Is it made of laurium?" he asked, and she nodded. He knew that laurium, a silvery metal not found on Earth, was lighter than platinum but noticeably heavier than silver. Like platinum, it was completely tarnish resistant.
The Doctor studied the size of the ring and compared it to all his memories of holding Rose's hand. It would fit, he was fairly certain.
"A ring is highly symbolic to the humans of Earth," she told him, breaking into his thoughts. "Among many cultures, it was a symbol of a permanent commitment."
"Rose's ancestors were from Earth," he said absently, turning the ring over in his hand. Until Rose had mentioned a human wedding the night before, it hadn't really occurred to him, and now he wondered why. She had been so willing to accept his own traditions; was there any reason he shouldn't do the same for her?
And we already have a bond, he reminded himself, trying to calm the nerves he felt building at the thought of doing something as significant as proposing the human way.
"Then I am certain Rose would appreciate the gesture of such a ring."
"Hmmm?" The Doctor looked up at the woman, who was holding out her hand expectantly. "Oh, yes. Right." He handed the ring back to her, along with his credit stick.
"Would you like a box to put it in, sir?" she asked, handing him back the credit stick after she'd taken out the money for the payment.
"No, I'll just…" He paused, thinking about all the things he had in his pockets. "Yeah, that might be a good idea."
She bent down and found a small wooden box and placed the ring inside on a soft piece of cloth. He couldn't decide if he was relieved or disappointed that it wasn't the traditional human velvet box. On one hand, if he was going to follow tradition, he liked the idea of going all the way with it. On the other hand… well, there could be too much of a good thing, after all.
"There you are, sir," she said, handing him the box. "I hope Rose appreciates her gift."
Butterflies fluttered in his stomach. "I do too," he murmured and dropped the box in his pocket.
The exchange with the jeweller had taken half an hour, and the Doctor could tell Rose was coming in his direction. He looked at the paths branching out in front of him and spotted a flash of blonde weaving through the crowd. Eager to not be caught standing in front of a table of jewellery, he quickly moved to meet her.
"Did you find something for Jackie?" he said when they met.
She handed him a small, round object that looked a little bit like a fancy golden trinket box. It was heavier than it looked, and he hefted it before handing it back. "Bazoolium?" he asked.
"Yeah. Thought it might be worth something in London, where it could be sunny one minute and pouring down rain the next. Mum's always complaining about getting caught in the rain with the washing."
The Doctor reached for her hand and let Rose lead the way past the food vendors back to the TARDIS. "You English are so bizarrely proud of your weather," he commented.
"Complaining about the weather is the national pastime," she said cheekily.
"Did you know that on Shiu, the rainy season lasts five Earth years?"
Rose stared up at him, and he nodded in confirmation. "So how many of our years equals one of theirs?"
"Four," he told her. "But it's a binary system, and the rotation around both suns means that the spread of the seasons actually takes two of their years."
"That's mental," Rose muttered. "I can't imagine going multiple years with nothing but rain. What's summer like?"
Their hands swung between them as they left the bazaar behind and climbed the hill toward the TARDIS. "Oh, hot. In fact, Shiuns usually spend summer on Epel, their sister planet."
"What, like wintering in Majorca?"
"Something like that, yes."
Rose dropped his hand to unlock the TARDIS. "I will never get tired of learning about new places," she said as they stepped inside.
The Doctor grinned, then pulled her into a dance pose and twirled her around the console. This was the life he wanted, and it was finally his.
Rose spun away from him and dropped, laughing, onto the jump seat. "Are we ready to go to Mum's then?"
"Next stop, Powell Estate," he said, dancing a solo turn around the console and starting the dematerialisation sequence. The time rotor churned in time to the wheezing of the TARDIS engines, and when they landed with a thud, the Doctor checked the monitor.
"The Powell Estate, London, England, Earth, the Solar System," he announced grandly.
Rose zipped her cardigan back up and reached for her rucksack. "Come on then," she said and pushed the door open.
Out in the playground, she hoisted her pack up on her shoulders while the Doctor closed the door behind them. The sun was out, but as if to prove her earlier point about London weather, grey clouds in the sky said rain was either coming or going.
"You're walking more slowly than normal," he observed as they approached her mum's building.
"Well, I've never done this before have I?" she said, anxiety making her voice a touch sharp. "And… I know we've been joking about what she might say, but what if we do end up spending the entire time shouting at each other? I don't want a fight hanging over my head for the next three months."
She stopped and drew in a breath. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I just don't know what's going to happen."
He laced his fingers through hers, and the familiar gesture calmed her nerves. "Think of it this way," he said, and she smiled at the teasing note in his voice. "If she gets upset, I can always distract her by telling her about the bond." Rose laughed and bumped her shoulder into his, and he wrapped his arm around her.
When she hesitated at the foot of the stairs, he tugged her close and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "I'm right here with you, Rose," he breathed in her ear.
Rose's throat tightened. She'd never expected the Doctor would show affection so openly, but she was starting to realise his earlier reluctance came from his "all in" personality. He didn't tell her he loved her until he felt he could give her everything.
She squeezed his hand in thanks. "All right, no use dawdling." Rose led the way up the stairs and used her old key to open the door. "Mum, it's us! We're back!"
Jackie rushed out of the kitchen, mock anger on her face. "Oh, I don't know why you bother with that phone. You never use it!"
Rose rolled her eyes and laughed at the familiar complaint, then pulled her in for a hug. "Shut up, come here!"
The Doctor squeezed around them to get into the flat, and then suddenly her mum let go of her to grab him by the arm. "Oh, no you don't. Come here!"
Rose leaned against the wall and watched as her mum planted a kiss on the Doctor's lips. A little help please? he requested.
"Oh, you lovely big fella!" The Doctor flailed a little when Jackie threw her arms around him. "Oh, you're all mine."
She raised an eyebrow. It looks like you're doing just fine, she told him and went on into the living room.
"Just, just, just put me down!" he protested.
"Yes, you are," she insisted, kissing him one last time.
The Doctor staggered back a step when she released him, then joined Rose in the living room. I'll remember this, Rose Tyler.
She just grinned—beneath his protests, she could tell how much he loved being part of a family again.
Rose shrugged her pack off. "I've got loads of washing for you," she said, hefting the bag up into her mother's arms. "And I got you this," she added, pulling the weather predictor out of her pocket. "It's from the market on this asteroid bazaar. It's made of bazoolium. When it gets cold, yeah, it means it's going to rain. When it's hot, it's going to be sunny. You can use it to tell the weather."
Jackie ignored the gift. "I've got a surprise for you and all."
The Doctor's hand came to rest on her back. "Oh, I get her bazoolium, she doesn't even say thanks," Rose said, turning it over in her hand.
Her mum just continued on, as if Rose hadn't even spoken. "Guess who's coming to visit?" she asked, her eyes wide and earnest. "You're just in time. He'll be here at ten past. Who do you think it is?"
Rose was still a little annoyed by the way her mum had just brushed off the gift she'd put so much thought into. "I don't know."
"Oh go on, guess," Jackie insisted.
"No, I hate guessing. Just tell me."
"It's your granddad. Granddad Prentice. He's on his way any minute. Right, cup of tea!" she said and went back into the kitchen.
Rose stared at her with her mouth open. The Doctor sensed her disquiet and rubbed her back. What's wrong?
She's gone mad, Rose said, looking after her mum.
Tell me something new.
She shook her head quickly in answer to his amusement. Granddad Prentice, that's her dad. But he died, like, ten years ago. The Doctor's amusement disappeared. Oh, my God. She's lost it.
Rose took a deep breath and followed her mum into the kitchen. "Mum?" she said. "What you just said about Granddad."
Jackie stood in the middle of the kitchen, anticipation lighting up her face. "Any second now."
"But he passed away. His heart gave out. Do you remember that?"
"Of course I do."
Rose's fear and concern melted into confusion. "Then how can he come back?"
"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Jackie looked at her watch. "Ten past. Here he comes."
Before Rose's eyes, a ghostly figure appeared in the kitchen and walked around Jackie before standing beside her to face Rose and the Doctor. Rose's jaw dropped. What is going on here?
"Here we are, then. Dad, say hello to Rose. Ain't she grown?"
Doctor, how is this possible?
It isn't.
The Doctor stared at the silvery figure for a long moment, then spun on his heels and raced out of the building, with Rose right behind him. Outside, they could see dozens of ghosts interacting with people, even playing games with children. "They're everywhere," he said, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"Doctor, look out!"
He turned in the direction Rose pointed just in time to watch one of the figures pass through his body. The cold chill he felt at the contact was familiar somehow, though he couldn't put a finger on it. Whatever it was, it didn't feel friendly.
"They haven't got long," Jackie said as she walked past him to stand by Rose. "Midday shift only lasts a couple of minutes. They're about to fade."
"What do you mean, shift?" the Doctor demanded. The storm he'd felt after the Opening Ceremony was breaking around them, and the uncertainty of events put an edge in his voice. "Since when did ghosts have shifts? Since when did shifts have ghosts? What's going on?"
"Oh, he's not happy when I know more than him, is he?" Jackie said, tossing a look over her shoulder.
Something wasn't right about this. He groped around for what was wrong, then he finally pinned it down. Humans were notoriously frightened of ghosts. "But no one's running or screaming or freaking out."
"Why should we? Here we go. Twelve minutes past."
The silver darkened into black, and then the figures faded altogether, the sense of wrongness that had been worrying at the Doctor's time senses disappearing with them.
Everyone in the street went on as if this was the normal order of business. The sound of children laughing and playing seemed almost eerie now.
Scale of 1-10, how dangerous is this? Rose asked.
He took her hand and squeezed. Ten.
She shivered, and he wrapped an arm around her as they walked back inside.
"Jackie, you still haven't explained about the shifts."
"Oh, all right. Here, I'll turn on the telly and you can learn about it for yourself."
With the timelines swirling around them, the Doctor was unwilling to let Rose go. He tugged her down with him and they sat cross-legged on the threadbare carpet, their joined hands between them. Together, they watched programme after programme dedicated to nothing but the ghosts.
This doesn't make sense, he told her when they found a chat show interviewing a woman in love with a ghost.
He kept changing the channel, going through the international broadcasts. France, India, Japan: every place on Earth seemed to have ghosts. "It's all over the world."
He flipped the channel one more time, and Peggy from EastEnders was railing at a ghost. They've even made their way into fiction.
Rose rubbed soothing circles over the back of his hand with her thumb, and he brushed against their bond with a silent thank you.
Finally, he had to turn the telly off. He tossed the remote back onto the coffee table and looked at Jackie. "When did it start?"
"Well, first of all, Peggy heard this noise in the cellar, so she goes down—"
The Doctor cut off her recap of EastEnders. "No, I mean worldwide."
"Oh." She paused for a moment. "That was about two months ago. Just happened. Woke up one morning, and there they all were. Ghosts, everywhere. We all ran 'round screaming and that. Whole planet was panicking. No sign of you, thank you very much."
The Doctor opened his mouth to protest that they'd been busy, but Rose silenced him with a look. He raised an eyebrow in question, and it wasn't until she rolled her eyes at him that he realised he'd nearly told her mum they'd been… otherwise occupied for most of that time, in their timeline.
Jackie looked at them both strangely, then shrugged when it was obvious they weren't going to say anything. "Then it sort of sank in. It took us time to realise that we're lucky."
Everything in the Doctor recoiled at the thought, and he didn't trust himself to keep an even tone. Your turn, he told Rose.
"What makes you think it's granddad?" she asked.
Jackie got a far-off look in her eyes. "It just feels like him. There's that smell, those old cigarettes. Can't you smell it?"
"I wish I could, Mum, but I can't." Rose was scared and worried both, and the Doctor agreed—this was decidedly not good.
"You've got to make an effort." Jackie grabbed her other hand. "You've got to want it, sweetheart."
"The more you want it, the stronger it gets." That was a phenomenon the Doctor was familiar with, and it wasn't something harmless beings would generally use.
Jackie nodded. "Sort of, yeah."
The Doctor ran his free hand through his hair. "Like a psychic link," he said, piecing things together quickly. "Of course you want your old dad to be alive, but you're wishing him into existence. The ghosts are using that to pull themselves in."
"You're spoiling it."
He could see the hurt on her face, the desperate need for the ghost to be her father, but he couldn't play into her delusion. Maybe someday he could explain that he was only doing this because he cared about her, but right now, she wouldn't believe that.
"I'm sorry, Jackie, but there's no smell, there's no cigarettes. Just a memory."
Rose twisted a little to lean against the sofa. "But if they're not ghosts, what are they then?"
"Yeah, but they're human!" Jackie insisted. "You can see them. They look human."
"She's got a point." Rose tapped the fingers of her free hand against her knee. "I mean, they're all sort of blurred, but they're definitely people."
The Doctor pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. "Maybe not. They're pressing themselves into the surface of the world. But a footprint doesn't look like a boot."
Jackie shook her head slightly and went into the kitchen, making more noise than was strictly necessary to prepare tea. The Doctor ignored her. He looked up at the ceiling, still trying to pin down the feeling that he knew what these ghosts were. That brief contact had felt vaguely familiar. He ran through all the humanoid species he knew, trying to find one that felt like the imprint he'd gotten when the ghost passed through his body.
He couldn't forget the news commentator's words comparing the appearance of ghosts to a military formation. Everyone was so certain these figures were ghosts from their past; what if they were invaders from their future?
Rose watched the Doctor jump to his feet and leave the flat. He was probably going back to the TARDIS to run scans or build some sort of device to reveal what the ghosts actually were. That left her with the domestic task.
"Oh, he's not half rude, that one!" Jackie said, holding a cup of tea out for Rose.
"Mum, you have to understand," Rose said as she took the cuppa. "To people who haven't been here the whole time, this sounds a bit… far-fetched. And the Doctor, he always trusts science first. Ghosts don't fit into what he knows of the universe, so he's got to try and find an explanation."
Her mum sat down in her favourite chair. "Well if you'd use your phone, I would have told you about them."
Heat spread across Rose's face. She was definitely not going to explain that they'd been too engrossed in each other to think about picking up the phone.
"So, what's the reason for your visit?" Jackie asked.
She'd had almost forgotten about the things she'd wanted to tell her mum. With all this weirdness with the ghosts going on, right now really wasn't a good time to tell her that her life had been extended to such a degree that the Doctor didn't even know when she would die.
Jackie took in her hesitation with narrowed eyes. "Oh, I knew it!" she said. "Himself has got you up the duff, hasn't he?"
"What?" Rose said, spitting out the tea she'd just drank. "Mum, no! Time Lords were almost all sterile. The chances of that—"
Jackie snorted. "Is that the line he gave you? Oh, when that alien gets back in here…" She rose halfway out of her seat, and Rose grabbed her before she went outside to confront the Doctor.
"Let me finish," she insisted. "Time Lords…" She looked at the ceiling and called up the memory of what the Doctor had said before they bonded. "They didn't have kids like humans do. They used these things called… looms."
"Does that mean I won't be getting any grandchildren?"
Rose's embarrassment and annoyance were strong enough to attract the Doctor's attention. It's just Mum, she told him, unwilling to distract him from the much more important task of ghost hunting. Besides, she wanted to see the look on his face when she told him her mum wanted a grandchild.
"Well?" Jackie demanded.
Rose pinched the bridge of her nose. "Not without a lot of jiggery pokery," she said. "I mean, genetically it would work, but since they didn't reproduce sexually, he'd have to take a sample of his TNA and use it to fertilise one of my eggs—"
Jackie waved her hand. "That's enough information on the biology side of it." She looked at Rose for a long moment. "Have you thought about it though? Having his baby?"
"God, Mum, do you even…" Rose stopped and collected herself. "We don't exactly have a child friendly life, you know?"
Her mum hummed noncommittally and took her cup back into the kitchen. Rose knew her too well to think that was the end of it, and her eyes darted around the room, looking for a way to redirect the conversation.
The newspaper was sitting on the coffee table and a headline caught her eye. "Mum," she said as she stood up, "I'm gonna go see how the Doctor is doing. We're parked in the playground if you want to come out."
She scanned the article as she walked back to the TARDIS. The whole idea of ghosts had been off to her from the start, but she hadn't been quite as uneasy about it as the Doctor was. This though… this wasn't right.
"According to the paper," she said as she pushed the door open, "they've elected a ghost as MP for Leeds. Now don't tell me we're going to sit back and do nothing."
The Doctor popped up from below the console, holding something vaguely gun like in his hand and wearing a backpack on his back. "Who you gonna call?"
"Ghostbusters!" she said, laughing along with him.
"I ain't afraid of no ghosts."
She didn't call him on the lie. This was the storm they'd sensed after the Olympics, she was sure of it. All around her, she could feel the strange sense that someone was playing with their timelines.
His fear was a dark river that ran through their bond, threatening to carry her away with it. Rose was determined though that instead of being caught up, she'd be the anchor that kept him from getting swept away entirely.
They kept the laughter up as they ran out of the TARDIS. Jackie was waiting for them, and she and Rose watched while the Doctor set cones up on the grass.
"When's the next shift?" he asked Jackie.
"Quarter to. But don't go causing trouble," she warned him. "What's that lot do?"
"Triangulates their point of origin."
"I don't suppose it's the Gelth?" Rose asked, even though she knew it wasn't something that simple.
"Nah." He started plugging wires into the cones, blocking off an area that Rose guessed would create some sort of field within the perimeter. "They were just coming through one little rift. This lot are transposing themselves over the whole planet. Like tracing paper."
Rose saw the look on her mum's face and tipped her head back to look at the sky. Here it comes…
"You're always doing this. Reducing it to science. Why can't it be real? Just think of it, though. All the people we've lost. Our families coming back home. Don't you think it's beautiful?"
The Doctor looked at her, squinting when the sun hit him in the eyes. "I think it's horrific," he said bluntly.
Oh, points for diplomacy, Doctor.
He shook his head almost imperceptibly. "Rose, give us a hand." He unspooled a coil of wire, leading it back into the TARDIS, and Rose jogged after him.
The end of the wire plugged into the console right under the monitor, and he pointed at the screen as he told her what to do. "As soon as the cones activate, if that line goes into the red, press that button there," he said, pointing to a blue button right next to the port. "If it doesn't stop," he shoved the sonic under her nose, "setting fifteen B. Hold it against the port, eight seconds and stop."
Rose was vaguely aware of her mum standing in the doorway looking disapproving, but she kept her attention focused on the Doctor's instructions. "Fifteen B, eight seconds."
"If it goes into the blue, activate the deep scan on the left."
Rose's hand hovered over the controls, and she tapped into her connection with the TARDIS. The ship let her keep moving until she was over the right button. "This one."
The Doctor grinned. "Yeah!"
Despite the situation, Rose felt a little giddy that she was learning to communicate with the TARDIS like a pilot, not just a passenger. She let out a little laugh and boosted herself up onto a control-free section of the console.
The Doctor moved to stand in front of her, his hands on her knees. So, what was Jackie bothering you about?
Rose reached out and played with his hair. She wanted to know when we're going to give her a grandchild.
His wide eyes and red ears were exactly what she'd hoped for. "Right!" he said, a little too loudly as he wheeled around to look at her mum. "Now, what've we got? Two minutes to go?"
Jackie looked at her watch and nodded, and he ran back outside to finish setting the cones up. Rose watched through the open door as he used the not-gun attached to his pack to activate the cones, then she fixed her gaze on the monitor.
The line shifted into the red, and she followed the Doctor's instructions to the letter. After holding the sonic to it for eight seconds, it shifted back toward the centre of the screen.
What's the line doing? he asked as he finished one and moved onto the next.
It's all right. It's holding!
"You even look like him," her mum said, out of the blue.
"How do you mean?" Rose asked absently, her attention focused on their experiment. Then she realised—their experiment. This wasn't just a life she observed anymore, and maybe that showed. "I suppose I do, yeah," she said, grinning a bit.
Jackie paced across the grating behind her. "You've changed so much."
"For the better."
The line shifted a little, but it didn't go into the red.
"I suppose."
The disapproval in her mother's voice frustrated Rose, and she rounded on her. Can't she ever be pleased that I'm finally happy? "Mum, I used to work in a shop."
Jackie crossed her arms across her chest. "I've worked in shops. What's wrong with that?"
"No, I didn't mean that." Rose sighed and turned back to the console.
"I know what you meant. What happens when I'm gone?"
Rose's eyes widened. Had her mum already figured it out on her own? But how? "Don't talk like that."
"No, but really. When I'm dead and buried, you won't have any reason to come back home. What happens then?"
Rose wasn't going to tell her, she wasn't, but she kept pressing. "Mum, I know you want me to come home and have a normal life, but I can't."
"Well why not?"
"Because I…" Rose gave in. Apparently this conversation was happening now whether she liked it or not. "Because you're right, I've changed. Do you remember what I did to save the Doctor's life when he sent me home?" Rose kept an eye on the scanner, but her attention was all on her mother.
"You opened this thing up," Jackie said, "an' there was lots of light. Then the doors shut and you disappeared for months. Months, Rose!"
"Yeah, and that changed me. I'm not… Mum, I'm not gonna die, not for a really, really long time."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jackie asked, angry denial on her face.
"Here we go!" the Doctor shouted, to Rose's relief.
"The scanner's working. It says delta one six," she called back, conveniently ignoring her mother.
"Come on then, you beauty!" he said, and she laughed a little at his exuberance.
"Rose, what do you mean, you're not gonna die?"
Her jaw tightened. "Do we have to do this now?"
"Oh, you started it! You can't just leave it there."
"Fine then," she snapped back. "What I did, it changed me, it changed my body. I'm more like the Doctor now than I am human. An' you know what, I'm glad. Because that means that I won't have to leave him on his own."
The line went into the blue before her mother could reply to that, and Rose activated the deep scan. The TARDIS hummed in response, and Rose knew she was fixing on coordinates.
A moment later, the Doctor ran back into the TARDIS and tossed his coat over a strut. "I said so! Those ghosts have been forced into existence from one specific point, and I can track down the source."
Rose saw what was going to happen a moment too late to stop him from pulling the lever. "Allons-y!"
Jackie stalked over to the edge of the control room and boosted herself up on one of the outer railings. Rose shook her head and waited for her Time Lord to come down far enough off his high to realise something was wrong.
"I like that," he said, rambling on. "Allons-y. I should say allons-y more often. Allons-y. Watch out, Rose Tyler. Allons-y," he said, turning to her with a manic grin. "And then, it would be really brilliant if I met someone called Alonso, because then I could say, 'Allons-y, Alonso,' every time."
Finally, his speech lost momentum and he caught her mood. "You're staring at me."
"My mum's still on board," she said quietly, tossing a glance over her shoulder.
Jackie glared at them with her arms crossed. "If we end up on Mars, I'm going to kill you."
If it hadn't been such a disaster, the look of horrified confusion on his face would have made Rose laugh. She knew—deep down in her bones she knew—that her mum was the last person on Earth he ever would have taken with him into such an uncertain situation. Not because he didn't trust her or because she wouldn't know what to do, but because he actually liked her and wanted to keep her safe.
Too late now, she thought ruefully, crossing all her fingers that this wouldn't turn out to be as dangerous a situation as they both knew it was.
The TARDIS landed, and the outside scanner flicked on. It looked like a warehouse, but more importantly, they were completely surrounded by soldiers.
The Doctor crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. "Oh well, there goes the advantage of surprise. Still, cuts to the chase," he said, walking toward the door. "Stay in here; look after Jackie."
After her mum's attitude earlier, that was the last thing Rose wanted—plus, the Doctor's dismissive tone rankled. I'm not a child minder.
He turned on his heel. Rose, I have no idea what's going to happen out there. If we all go out together and something goes wrong, we won't have anyone to come to the rescue.
Rose nodded. When he put it like that, she felt like he was trusting her with something important, not shoving her in the back because he didn't trust her.
Then she realised what he was going to do. He was stepping out there, on his own with no protection, into a group of people who were all pointing guns at him.
Quick as a wink, she moved in front of him and put her arms up across the doors. "Doctor, they've got guns."
"And I haven't," he said, putting his hands on her hips and pulling her away from the door. "Which makes me the better person, don't you think? They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine."
She stared at him, and his recklessly carefree facade disappeared for a moment. He kissed her quickly. I'm counting on you, Rose, he told herbefore exiting the TARDIS.
Rose shifted closer to the door and lifted up on her toes so she could look out the window. Her mum crept up beside her, standing by the still ajar door. At least she's keeping her mouth shut, for once.
In the warehouse, a professionally dressed woman walked toward the Doctor. "Oh! Oh, how marvellous." She started clapping, and soon all the soldiers were clapping too. "Oh, very good. Superb. Happy day."
Confusion flowed over their bond in both directions. Were we expected? was the shared question.
"Um, thanks," the Doctor said. "Nice to meet you. I'm the Doctor."
Rather than the usual confusion over name and title, this was greeted with even more enthusiastic applause. "Oh, I should say," the woman said exclaimed. "Hurray!"
"You, you've heard of me, then?"
The woman looked down her nose at him. "Well of course we have. And I have to say, if it wasn't for you, none of us would be here. The Doctor and the TARDIS."
By now, Rose was getting creeped out by the clapping. Who were these people, and how did they know so much about them? Knowing not only the Doctor by name, but their ship?
The Doctor held up his hands, and finally they stopped. "And you are?" he asked.
"Oh, plenty of time for that," she said dismissively. "But according to the records, you're not one for travelling alone. The Doctor and his companion. That's the pattern, isn't it, right?" Suddenly she looked less like someone welcoming a visiting dignitary and more like someone who pointed guns at blue boxes. "There's no point hiding anything. Not from us. So where is she?"
The fierce wave of protectiveness from the Doctor nearly knocked Rose over. Rose… I'm going to take Jackie.
What? No!
Yes. I need you to work on getting us out, remember?
"Yes. Sorry. Good point. She's just a bit shy, that's all." His hand reached into the TARDIS, and Rose watched as he tugged her mum out into the warehouse with him. "But here she is, Rose Tyler."
Rose leaned her head against the door. She hated this plan, but he was right—it was the best chance they had. Her mum couldn't rescue a hamster from a cat; she'd be useless in getting them out of this trap.
"Hmm. She's not the best I've ever had. Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins. A lot of that." Through the window, Rose saw him mime talking with his hand, gaining a laugh from the woman. "And just last week, she stared into the heart of the Time Vortex and aged fifty-seven years. But she'll do."
"I'm forty," Jackie protested, and even though Rose couldn't see her face, she knew her mum was glaring at the Doctor.
"Deluded. Bless. I'll have to trade her in. Do you need anyone? She's very good at tea. Well, I say very good, I mean not bad. Well, I say not bad. Anyway, lead on. Allons-y. But not too fast. Her ankle's going."
"I'll show you where my ankle's going," her mum muttered as they were led away from the TARDIS.