Wake up.
Kiss mum.
Ride the bus to the shop.
Work.
Eat lunch with Mickey.
Work.
Go back home.
Watch the telly.
Go to bed.
Repeat.
That was her life. Maybe a few dates with Micky on the weekend, telly with her mum, a movie sometimes, but that was mostly it.
A normal, simple life. She never questioned it before, and she probably never would have. Why should she? What was there to question?
For all she knew back then she'd live the rest of her life working at the shop maybe get married and… that would be it. The chances of anything changing was smaller than winning the lottery.
Which was why she found it incredibly ironic that it was a lottery ticket that changed her life.
She hated the basement.
It ticked off every check box in a half decent horror film being all dark, poorly lit and the long winding corridors. And the dummies stored down there didn't help either.
"Wilson?" she banged on his door, "Wilson, I've got the lottery money. Wilson, are you there?"
She sighed, she was going to miss the bus home if she didn't hurry. "I can't hang about 'cos they're closing the shop. Wilson!" she tugged on the door, "Oh, come on."
Something clattered down the corridor making her jump.
"Hello?" she called down the corridor, "Hello. Wilson, it's Rose."
What was he up to this late at night? She crept along and peeked into a door. "Hello? Wilson?"
She squinted into the darkness, one hand searching for the lights.
The lights flickered on showing… Nothing. Only boxes and more dummies.
No Wilson either. What made that sound?
She explored the closets looking for the source of the racket when the door slammed shut, trapping her in.
And then, that was when everything went weird (and a bit terrifying).
One by one the dummies came to life. Creaking, clattering, slowly but surely cornering her. They didn't answer as she told them she got the joke, they didn't answer when she yelled at them to stop, they raised their arms to presumably strike her down and she was backed against the wall with no way out and then-
A cool hand grabbed on to hers and she turned to see a man with piercing blue eyes say one single word, "Run."
"You pulled his arm off." She muttered.
"Yep" he tossed the arm to her, "Plastic."
"Very clever. Nice trick!" she glared, "Who were they then, students? "
He turned to frown at her, "Why would they be students?"
She paused, "I don't know."
"Well, you said it. Why students?"
"'Cos," she floundered for a moment while she tried to think of something to say, "to get that many people dressed up and being silly, they got to be students."
He smiled at her, "That makes sense. Well done."
She smiled back hesitantly, "Thanks."
"They're not students."
She snapped, "Whoever they are, when Wilson finds them, he's going to call the police!"
Another frown, "Who's Wilson?"
"Chief electrician."
"Wilson's dead." He muttered as the lift doors opened.
"Who's dead?"
She jumped as the girl seemed to appear out of nowhere. Everything about her seemed normal, from the half-faded t-shirt to the jeans to the backpack slung over her shoulders the only thing that threw her off was the gold visored space helmet on her head.
"Wilson." The guy in the leather jacket whose name she still hadn't learned repeated as he gently moved her out of the way, "Now hold on, watch your eyes."
"Who's Wilson?" the girl asked.
"Nothing you need to worry about," she said crouching slightly, guessing where the girl's eyes would be, "More importantly, how did you get in? Where're your parents?"
"Someone's dead and my entry point is more important?" she asked seemingly confused.
She opened her mouth to speak but flinched as sparks flew from the lift button. "Oi!"
"Did you find the relay device?" he said.
She blinked, "Sorry wha-?"
"On the roof" the girl quipped.
"Wait, you're with him?" she demanded.
"Okay then," he paused looking at her, "Sorry what was your name?"
"…Rose."
"Hello Rose, I'm the Doctor," he beamed as he grabbed her arm and began to gently guide her towards the door, "The things down there are made out of plastic. Living plastic creatures. They're being controlled by a relay device in the roof, which would be a great big problem if I didn't have…" he patted down his jacket, "I swear I had…"
The girl held up a thing that was obviously a bomb, "You left it in the Tardis."
"Oh," he blinked, "Anyway, we're going to go up there and blow them up, and I might die in the process, but don't worry about me." They reached the exit and she stumbled out, "No, you go home. Go on. Go and have your lovely beans on toast. Don't tell anyone about this, because if you do, you'll get them killed." He shut the door leaving her staring, confused.
The door opened again, and the space helmet popped out, "I'm Joule by the way, I'm going to be an astronaut, and do you really eat beans on toast?"
"Not now!" a shout from behind her.
"Oh, sorry." The door shut again.
.
.
Moments later the department store blew up with a great ball of fire and an excessive number of rainbow colored fireworks.
To anyone who asked she told them that she didn't know anything, because what else could she tell them? A guy in a leather jacket with a space-girl blowing up the shop because there was an army of living dummies? Yeah, that was a one-way ticket to getting sent to a mental asylum. Things were bad enough already, it would be best if she just pretended nothing ever happened.
Which was why the very next morning the Doctor had to appear at her front door along with a floating plastic arm which tried to strangle her. She took that as a sign that she couldn't ignore things even if she wanted to. She needed answers.
"All right then. I'll go to the police. I'll tell everyone." She bluffed as she jogged up from behind him, "You said, if I did that, I'd get people killed. So, your choice. Tell me, or I'll start talking."
He smirked, "Is that supposed to sound tough?"
"…Sort of"
"Doesn't work."
"Who are you?" she demanded "Who was she? The girl you were with yesterday."
"Told you. I'm the Doctor, she's Joule. I just call her Jay though, it has more of a ring to it." He added.
"Yeah, but Doctor what?" she pressed.
"Just the Doctor."
"The Doctor." She deadpanned.
He waved the plastic hand, "Hello!"
"And I'm guessing she's just Joule then."
He nodded, "You're catching on quick."
She scoffed and grabbed his arm, "Come on, then. You can tell me. I've seen enough. You're not the police, I can tell that much."
"No, we were just passing through. We're a long way from home."
"But what have I done wrong?" she asked, "How come those plastic things keep coming after me?"
"Oh, suddenly the entire world revolves around you." He huffed, "You were just an accident. You got in the way, that's all."
"It tried to kill me." She countered.
"It was after us not you." He corrected, "Last night, in the shop, me and Jay were there, you blundered in, almost ruined the whole thing. This morning, I was tracking it down, it was tracking me down. The only reason it fixed on you is 'cos you've met me."
"So, what you're saying is, the entire world revolves around you."
"Sort of, yeah."
"You're full of it." She laughed.
"Sort of, yeah."
"But all this plastic stuff. Who else knows about it?"
"No one." He said simply.
"What, you're on your own?" Only him and a teenager against an army of living plastic?
"Well, who else is there?" he countered, "I mean, you lot, all you do is eat chips, go to bed, and watch telly, while all the time, underneath you, there's a war going on."
A war? Hold on a moment. "Okay, Start from the beginning. I mean, if we're going to go with the living plastic, and I don't even believe that" she added "but if we do, how did you kill it?"
"The thing controlling it projects life into the arm." He said holding it up to show her, "I cut off the signal, dead."
"So that's radio control?" she clarified.
"Thought control." He corrected, "Are you all right?"
No. "Yeah. So, who's controlling it, then?"
"Long story." He said simply.
"But what's it all for? I mean, shop window dummies, what's that about?" she paused and snickered "Is someone trying to take over Britain's shops?"
They laughed together at that. "No" he chuckled, "They want to overthrow the human race and destroy you." He looked at her, "Do you believe me?"
"No."
"But you're still listening." He pointed out.
"Really though Doctor." She realized they were near the park and she saw the girl, Joule, still wearing the space helmet, leaning against a blue police box. "Who are you two?"
He stopped and took her hand whilst staring off into the distance, "Do you know like we were saying about the Earth revolving? It's like when you were a kid. The first time they tell you the world's turning, and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling round the sun at sixty-seven miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go…" he dropped her hand and locked eyes with her, "That's who I am. Now forget us, Rose Tyler. Go home."
Well, that didn't tell her anything, about him or the girl, Joule. She watched as he walked towards the police box, tossing the arm to the girl, said girl catching it who then turned towards her to give her a small wave. Hesitantly she waved back and began walking back home.
Then she heard it. A faint whooshing, screeching kind of sound. She ran back to the park as fast as she could, but they were already gone.
Forget us Rose Tyler.
As if it would be that easy. She tried at first, really, she did. But living plastic, disappearing blue boxes and the mention of a constant war kept echoing inside her head (and the fact that mum constantly reminded her that she lost her job in a fountain of fireworks didn't help either).
She needed answers. Proper answers, not vague mysterious ones that told her nothing. But where? Where could she get them? It wasn't like there was a place where she could just look them u-
Oh. She's such an idiot.
Barely half and hour later she's in Mickey's flat surfing the web for a mention of 'the doctor' and then,
Doctor Who?
Do you know this man
Contact Clive here
Bingo
It was obvious that Clive's family didn't believe in the stuff that he did (Mickey probably didn't either) but she could tell that he truly believed that the Doctor was real and some kind of mythical god. The photographs, the drawings, the records, it would have taken him years to gather all of these records. She wondered what made him start looking.
"What about Joule?" she asks.
"Joule?" he echoes.
"Yeah, the girl that's with him" She frowned. How did he have so much information on the Doctor but not know who she was, "She was with him when I saw him. They seemed to be working together. You know, space-helmet, backpack, jeans and a tee?"
"You met the mystery girl?" He nods as he pulls a thin folder from under the desk, "She's even rarer than he is because, and get this, there are no records of her at all."
"None?"
"None.", he agreed, "The only way to look for her is to look for the lack of them. 1920." He handed her a picture, "Taken from the seventy sixth brigade, next to Mister Latimer there was supposed to be a person, supposedly his girlfriend, standing next to her."
"But there's no one there." She traced her fingers over the picture, "How did you know someone was supposed to be there in the first place?"
"His diary," he answered, "while I haven't been able to get a copy of it, I do have some notes which say and I quote, 'as always, she refuses to appear in her pictures'."
"So?" she asks, "She was never in the picture in the first place then."
"No but look at the wording, look at the picture." He insisted, "'Appear', that's the word he uses 'appear' not 'have her picture taken', 'appear in her picture'. And then the picture, the date, the angle it was taken at. It was clearly meant to have two people in it but there's only one."
"Don't you think that's a bit too much?" she asked hesitantly, "I mean, immortal aliens are one thing but this?"
"I thought so too." He agreed, "But then I found this. A sketch from Manhattan, 1930." He handed her a drawing.
"Portrait of a girl from space?" she read confused, flipping the drawing over, "Where's the girl? …you don't think?"
He nodded soberly "Somebody drew the girl, Joule you called her, and later on, somehow, she disappeared from it. And before you ask whether she was in there in the first place, the original owner told me that there used to be a drawing of a girl wearing a space helmet. It's her." He sighed, "Every scrap of information I have on her is like this. Pictures missing from frames, names missing from lists… I was beginning to believe she was an actual myth, born from the echoes of the Doctor. But then you come in and…"
She swallowed contemplating everything she was just told. So, Joule was as much of an alien as the Doctor and apparently even more hard to find than he was.
"So," she said, "what happens now?"
"Well, normally I'd invite you for dinner and I'd probably ask if you'd like to keep e-mailing with me but…" he trailed off.
"But?"
"You said he singled you out, and you knew the girl's name."
"Yeah, so?"
"Then I'm sorry but you've got to go."
She blinked, "What? You're kicking me out? After all you just told me."
"I've told you everything I know." He muttered, "And now, you know more about them than I do."
"You can't just kick me out!"
"I have to. I'm sorry." He began ushering her out towards the door, "I can't have my family be a part of this. Better for them to think that I'm a weird parent with a crazy hobby than them learning that it's all true."
"Then why did you invite me in the first place?" she argued. "What the hell was all that for?"
"A mistake." He muttered, "My curiosity got the best of me. I couldn't let the chance to talk to someone who knew the Doctor just go away."
"Is this what you do?" she demanded pushing him away, "Invite people over so that they can be called a nutter by your family and then kick them out?"
"You knew her name." he hissed, "You met him twice. The closer you get to the Doctor the more danger you're in and I know people who have had their entire lives ruined, people who have died for sharing a word with him much less an entire conversation." He took a deep breath, "I'm sorry but I can't let my family be dragged into that kind of mess."
Go home. Try to forget you ever met him because if you don't, there's no telling what would happen to you.
And it turned out he was right. Even before the day was over Mickey had been replaced by a plastic… thing which got its head pulled off by the Doctor and now she was running for her life, again.
They burst out of the building with the headless plastic Mickey hot on their tails and she ran to the padlocked gate as the Doctor did something to the door with the metal tube thingy.
"Open the gate." She yelled, "Use the tube thing. Come one!"
"Sonic screwdriver." He said, pocketing said device.
"Use it!"
"Nah, tell you what," he walked towards the familiar blue police box, "let's go in here."
"You can't hide inside a wooden box!" she protested as he went inside. Was he mad?! "It's going to get us! Doctor!"
She yanked the wooden door open-
What.
The.
Hell.
.
She ran back out.
.
And inside again.
.
And out again.
.
She circled it.
.
Inside again.
.
"You alright?" Joule, who was still wearing the helmet and the backpack, was busy doing… something with the plastic head and the weird controls.
"It's going to follow us." Was the thing that she ended up saying.
"The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door," the Doctor said, "and believe me, they've tried. Now, shut up a minute." He glanced at Joule, "Got the signal?"
"Yep and going strong."
"Right," he nodded and turned towards her, "Where do you want to start?"
"Er," she said with as much dignity as she could muster, "the inside's bigger than the outside?"
"Yes."
"It's alien."
"Yeah."
"Are you lot aliens?"
"Yes. Is that all right?"
"Yeah." She said faintly.
"She's called the Tardis," Joule told her from the other side of the console, "What you're in right now, I mean. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Try not to stroke her ego up too much."
Her body took that as a que to start crying.
"Umm, was it something I said?"
"It's fine. Culture shock." The Doctor answered while he waited for her to recover, "Happens to the best of us."
"How is any of what I said culture?"
"Did they kill him?" she gasped as she slowly wrestled her tears under control, "Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?"
"Oh," he looked at the ground, "I didn't think about that."
"Who's Mickey?" Joule asked.
"Her boyfriend, the plastic head."
"Oh" she nodded, "He's probably dead."
"Jay." He warned.
"Only recently though." She continued, "They'd need him to keep the copy alive bu -"
"Jay!"
"Oh," Joule blinked as she noticed that she had starting crying again, "Sor- Oh Shit!"
The console sparked as the Mickey's plastic head began to melt.
"Oh, no, no, no, no, no!" the Doctor scrambled among the controls. "Did you get the signal?!"
"Just a few more seconds!"
"Not enough time." He ran over to a big lever and pulled down hard, "Following it to the source!
Mickey was forgotten for a moment as the entire room(?) shook and she grabbed on to a railing to avoid falling over. The great wheezing, sound echoed once, twice, and then- CLUNCK. It stopped.
"Do you think we got it?" he muttered as he went for the door.
"No idea." Joule followed him.
"You can't go out there." She said (while following them like an idiot), "It's not sa-"
She blinked. They'd moved.
They were now at the Thames.
What?
"So close," the Doctor moaned while Joule re-entered the Tardis, "I got so close."
"We've moved." She stated the obvious, "Does it fly?"
"Disappears there and reappears here." He waved her off, "You wouldn't understand."
"If we're somewhere else, what about that headless thing?" she asked trying not to think about all the impossible things that happened in the last ten minutes, "It's still on the loose."
"It melted with the head." He gave her a look, "Are you going to witter on all night?"
"I'll have to tell his mother. Mickey" She added when the Doctor gave her a confused look, "I'll have to tell her he's dead, and you just went and forgot him, again! You were right, you are alien."
Joule's helmet peeked out of the box, "How has that got anything with him being an alien?"
"Not now," he pushed her back in, "Look, if I did forget some kid called Mickey-"
"Yeah, he's not a kid." She interrupted.
"It's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering on top of this planet." He continued, ignoring her. "All right?"
"All right." She snapped.
"Yes, it is!"
"If you are an alien," she said, "How come you sound like you're from the North?"
"Lots of planet have a north!" he crossed his arms.
"And why is she wearing the space helmet?"
He shrugged, "She told you. She's going to be an astronaut."
"She's an alien."
"So?"
She closed her eyes, "Okay. What's a police call box?"
"It's a telephone box from the 1950's. It's a disguise."
"And the living plastic. What's it got against us?"
"Nothing. It loves you. You've got such a good planet." He smiled at her, "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!"
She was sure she was with a psychopath right now, "Any way of stopping it?"
"Yes, we do." Joule stepped out of the Tardis again holding a blue vial, "Anti-plastic" she tossed the vial to the Doctor.
"Anti-plastic." She repeated incredulously.
"Anti-plastic" he pocketing it, "But first I've got to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?"
"Hold on," she held up a hand, "hide what?"
"The transmitter. The consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."
"What's it look like?"
"A huge circular metal structure, like a dish" he paced at the edge of the bank. "Radial. Close to where we're standing. Must be completely invisible."
She blinked at the huge circular metal structure behind him.
He noticed her staring. "What?"
She nodded at the wheel behind him. "What?"
Joule sighed and he looked at her, "What? What is it? What?"
"Is he normally like this?" she whispered to Joule.
"Mostly," She nodded wearily. "Just… give him time."
He glanced behind him once, twice, "Oh…" he grinned as he finally noticed the London eye, "Fantastic!"
She crept behind the Doctor as they went through the tunnels beneath the London eye., "Why'd you send Joule back to the Tardis?"
"You'd rather have her coming with us? I'd thought you'd be against kids being in danger."
"Yes, I mean no, I mean," she flustered for a moment, "You let her come with you when you were blowing up the shop."
"Totally different situation," he muttered, "Here, we're going up against the Nestene consciousness. The brains of the whole thing. We know them and they know us. Bad memories. It's bad enough that I'm here, better to keep her as backup, just in case."
"And that's somehow worse than being next to an explosion with fireworks?"
"That, was not my fault.", He scowled, "How was I supposed to know she modified the charges?"
"You're telling me she put all the fireworks in there?"
"I just did, now shush."
The tunnel ended leading them to a multi-level chamber, lit orange by a vat of golden, orangish something in the middle.
"The Nestene Consciousness." He whispered to her, "That's it, inside the vat. A living plastic creature."
"Well, then. Tip in your anti-plastic and let's go."
He shook his head, "I'm not here to kill it. I've got to give it a chance."
He went over to the catwalk and cleared his throat, "I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation."
The stuff in vat growled and she could only guess that it gave him its consent as the Doctor thanked it and asked for permission to approach. She contemplated whether it would be safer to stay up here or follow him down but then- "Oh, God! Mickey!" she ran down to him, "It's me!"
Mickey was crouching at a railing shivering and she pulled him into a hug, "It's okay. It's all right."
"That thing down there, the liquid." He trembled, "Rose, it can talk!"
"You're stinking," she muttered as he pulled her closer, "Doctor, they kept him alive!"
"Yes, that's nice," he commented as he continued downstairs, "Keep the domestics outside, thank you."
She watched as he approached the edge of the pit and began talking to it.
"Rose, we should run." Mickey whispered, "Run while it's distracted by him. That thing, it's… It's not…"
"Just, calm down all right?" she placated, "The Doctor, he's real and he's here to help and we've got backup if things go wrong."
That was when things went wrong. "Doctor!" she cried out warning him just a bit too late as a pair of dummies sneaked up and grabbed him.
"That was just insurance." He protested as one of the dummies held up the anti-plastic vial, "I wasn't going to use it. I was not attacking you. I'm here to help. I'm not your enemy. I swear, I'm not." He frowned. "What do you mean."
A door slid back revealing the Tardis.
"No. Oh, no. Honestly no." he struggled as the Nestene consciousness growled, "Yes, that's my ship. That's… that's not… It's harmless right now! Yes, I should know. I was there!" Another growl, "It wasn't my fault. I couldn't do it, I tried! I couldn't bring back your world! I couldn't bring back any of them!"
The Nestene gave a deafening roar.
"What's it doing?" she yelled over the noise.
"It's… It's the Tardis! The Nestene identified it. It's terrified." He shouted as he kept struggling in the dummy's grip. "It's going to the final phase. It's starting the invasion! Get out, Rose! Take Mickey and just leg it now!"
Invasion.
The dummies.
Mom.
She whipped out her mobile and tried to warn her, to stay indoors but as always, she didn't listen, saying something about doing some late-night shopping (because of course today had to be the day she decided to) and then-
Crack
She flinched as a great bolt of lightning arched towards the ceiling, presumably where the London eye was.
"It's the activation signal." the Doctor cried, "It's transmitting!"
The end of the world. Happening right now, in front of her.
The end of the world.
"Get out, Rose!" he shouted, "Just get out! Run!"
Run? Run where? The stairs were gone from the lightning…
The Tardis! She dragged Mickey to the blue box and pulled at the door. "I haven't got the key!"
"Joule!" she hit the door, "Open the door! Open up! Oh, come on!" she gave a frustrated growl when there wasn't even a reply.
She looked back at the Nestene consciousness and the Doctor, who was still struggling in the dummy's grip. Everything was going to end, and there was absolutely nothing she could do. Today was the day she was going to die.
She held on to Mickey as her life flashed in front of her eyes. Growing up, dad, Mickey, Jimmy. She wasn't smart, she wasn't special, she could barely call herself competent. She had so many things she regretted and so much she wished she did. Everything seemed meaningless. If she'd only taken up something useful that might have been able to help she would have…
Oh
She stood up and ran towards an axe propped up on a wall. "I've got no A levels," she stated, "No job, no future." She swung the axe and freed a long chain, grabbing it, testing its strength. "But I tell you what I have got. Jericho Street Junior School under 7s gymnastic team. I've got bronze!" and she swung. hard, knocking the two dummies into the vat.
The Doctor yelled her name and caught her as she swung back, grinning at her. "Now we're in trouble."
They ran as the Nestene began screaming and she caught a glimpse of it turning blue as the Tardis's doors swung shut behind them.
Mickey left the Tardis first, scrambling out and trying to hide behind a wooden pallet and she quickly followed once again speed dialing mum, laughing when she began chattering away about 'things trying to shoot her' and ending the call mid-sentence.
"Fat lot of good you were," she muttered as she tried to pull Mickey up. Then she realized he was still staring at the Tardis, looking more scared than she'd ever seen him. Oh, of course. Culture shock. The bigger in the inside blue box. She'd forgotten about that (and didn't that say something about tonight?).
The Doctor stood at its door beaming, "Nestene consciousness?" he snapped his fingers, "Easy."
"You were useless in there." She sounded much bolder than she felt, "You'd be dead if it wasn't for me. And you!" she pointed a finger at Joule who peaked from behind him. "Why didn't you open the door when I called? So much for backup."
She shrugged, "You could have been an Auton. It wasn't worth the risk."
"So you would have let us die out there?!"
"That was my fault," the Doctor interrupted before Joule could reply, "I didn't think they'd take the Tardis so I told her not to open up the door under any circumstances. Sorry" he looked away almost shy, "So, do you want to come?"
"What?"
He patted the blue wooden doorframe fondly, "This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."
"Almost free of charge." Joule muttered from behind. "It uses a heck ton of Artron energy."
"Oi, technicalities."
"Don't," Mickey clung to her side, "He's an alien. He's a thing."
"And none of those were actual reasons."
"Hush you" he pushed Joule behind him. "What do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep or" he knocked at the wooden frame again, "you could go anywhere."
She thought how the world almost ended today, "Is it always this dangerous?"
He nodded, "Yeah."
Plastic coming to life to take over the world, dying beneath the London eye and there he was smiling like nothing had happened, confidently saying that it would always be this dangerous. At first glance, saying no seemed like the obvious answer but… the thrill, the rush of danger and success. She saved the world today. And because of that short moment, because she'd remembered her gymnastic lessons, she'd felt special, she'd felt more than she'd ever felt before. She wanted to say yes. So badly. But then she remembered Mickey clinging on to her waist, she remembered mum, probably waiting for her back home.
"Yeah, I can't," she heard herself say, "I've er, I've got to go find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so" she trailed off. She knew she'd probably regret saying no, but she also knew she couldn't just leave them, no matter how small they seemed to be in the scale of things.
"Okay" he nodded after a pause, "See you around." He added after another one. The doors shut behind him.
A series of whooshes, screeches, and a gust of wind later the Tardis was gone, like it was never there in the first place.
"Come on, let's go," she tugged at Mickey after she shook herself out of the numb haze she was in, "Come on. Come on."
They were halfway out of the alley when the Tardis rematerialized again.
"By the way," he said looking entirely too smug for his own good, "did I mention it also travels in time?"
He left the door open.
.
She turned and looked at Mickey. "Thanks."
"Thanks for what?" the confusion showed on his face.
"Exactly" she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek-
.
.
And ran towards a whole new world of possibilities.