Piper woke up the next morning to someone banging on her door and groaned. "Somebody better be dead or dying and if you're not...you soon will be," she muttered darkly, huffing in annoyance as she got up to answer it. It was Rose.
"There's this man who knows about the Doctor. He's called Clive. Mickey and I are going to meet him, wanna come?"
"Ugh, fine but can I at least get dressed and get something to drink first?"
Rose nodded. "Meet you in the car." Closing the door, Piper walked into the bathroom. She washed her face and brushed her teeth and when she was finished she went to get dressed. She brushed her long, dark waist length hair, wondering whether she should braid it or just leave it down. In the end she left it down. On her way out, she grabbed a bottle of coke and an orange. It didn't take long to get to Clive's house with Rose trying to get Mickey to wait in the car. "He's safe. He's got a wife and kids." She insisted in an attempt to get him to stay in the car.
"Yeah, and who told you that? He did. That's exactly what a lunatic murderer would say."
Rose rolled her eyes before exiting the car with Piper following close behind. Rose knocked on the door. A boy answered the door. "Hello, We've come to see Clive? We've been emailing."
The boy looked at Piper, eyebrows raised. "What about you?"
"Not me. Her."
The boy smiled at her before turning to the house. "Dad," he called. "It's on of your nutters! At least she brought someone sane with her!"
Rose glared at the boy. A heavy set man with short brown hair and glasses appeared at the door, holding his hands out to them. "Hello, you must be Rose. And I'm guessing you're Piper? I'm Clive, obviously."
Rose turned to him. "Just so you know, my boyfriend's in the car. Just in case you're gonna kill us."
"Ah, good point. Fair enough. No murders," Clive said as he waved to Mickey. Mickey waved back. "Please come through, I'm in the shed. A lot of this stuff's quite sensitive," Clive said as they stepped into the shed. "I couldn't just send it to you. Never know who might intercept it if you know what I mean. If you dig deep enough and keep an open mind, this Doctor keeps cropping up all over the place." Clive explained to them. He pulled out a folder of papers. "Political diaries, conspiracy theories and even ghost stories. No first name, no last name, just the Doctor. Always the Doctor. And the title seems to have been passed down from father to son. It appears to be an inheritance. That's your Doctor there, isn't it?" He pointed to a fuzzy photo. Sure enough it was him.
"Yeah." Rose replied. She tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear so she could see better. It was definitely him.
"I tracked it down to the Washington public archive just last year. The photo's enhanced but if you look at the original," Clive said, showing them another picture.
"It must be his father."
"Going even further back," Clive said, showing them more pictures. "April 1912. This is a photo of the Daniel's family of Southampton, and look," he said pointing to a man in the picture. "This was taken the day before they were due to set sail for New York on the Titanic. But for some unknown reason they cancelled the trip and survived. And here we are." He showed them a sketch. "1883. Another Doctor. And look, it's identical. This washed up on the coast of Sumatra on the very day Krakatoa exploded. The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history. When disaster comes, he's there. He brings the storm in his wake and he has one constant companion."
"And who's that?" Piper asked, speaking up for the first time since they had entered the man's house.
He looked at her, lowering his voice. "Death. If the Doctor's back, if you've seen him, Rose, Piper, then one things for certain. We're all in danger. If he's singled you out, if the Doctor's making house calls then God help you."
"But who is he? Who do you think he is?" Rose asked.
"I think he's the same man. I think he's immortal. I think he's from another world." Clive sounded ominous as he said this. Piper and Rose glance at each other before thanking the man for his help. Smiling, he led them back to the door. When they returned to the car, Mickey was sat at the wheel stiffly.
"Alright, you were right, he's a nutter. Off his head, complete conspiracy freak," Rose said as she climbed into the car. Piper said nothing. Something was wrong with Mickey and it made her feel uneasy. "So, what are we gonna do tonight? I fancy pizza, what about you, Piper?"
"Um, pizza's fine," she said distractedly, eyes still on Mickey.
"Pizza! P-p-p-pizza!" Mickey said smiling, before putting the car in gear and driving down the road with Piper holding on like her life depended on it.
As ever, Rose was oblivious to Mickey's drastic change, his skin was shiny and it was like he had a permanent grin on his face. It was creepy. "Do you think I should try the hospital? Suki said they had jobs going on in the canteen. Is that it then? Dishing out chips? I could do A levels. I dunno. It's all Jimmy Stone's fault. I only left school cause of him. And look where he ended up. What do you think?" Rose leant towards Mickey, finally taking a deep breath.
"So, where did you meet this Doctor," Mickey asked randomly.
Rose looked confused and mildly annoyed. "Sorry, was I talking about me for a second?"
Mickey ignored her. It was then that Piper knew something was really wrong. Mickey never ignored Rose. Ever. "Because I reckon it started back at the shop, am I right?"
"Sort of," Rose said.
"What was he doing there?"
Rose sighed and fell back into her seat. "I'm not going on about it, Mickey."
"You can trust me, sweetheart. Babe, sugar, babe, sugar." Mickey's voice changed before returning to normal. "You can tell me anything. Tell me about the Doctor and what he's planning and I can help you, Rose." He said, grabbing Rose's hands tightly. "Because that's all I really wanna do, sweetheart, babe, babe, sugar, sweetheart."
"What are you doin that for?" Rose asked, finally taking notice that something was wrong with him. Piper watched, keeping her eyes on Mickey at all times while slowly getting to her feet.
"Your champagne," someone said. Piper looked up to see the Doctor holding a bottle. He looked at her and winked.
"We didn't order any champagne." Piper frowned at this.
"Where's the Doctor?" Not Mickey asked.
Piper leaned towards the Doctor and whispered in his ear "Try Rose."
He nodded. "Madam, your champagne." The Doctor held the bottle out.
"It's not ours. Mickey, what is it? What's wrong?"
"Rose..." Piper said, annoyed that she was ignoring the Doctor.
"I need to find out what he knows, so where is he?"
"Doesn't anyone want this champagne?" The Doctor asked them.
"Look, we didn't order any..." Not Mickey sneered, trailing off. "Ah, gotcha." Not Mickey released Rose's hand and stood up as the Doctor began to vigorously shake the bottle in his hand.
"Don't mind me, just toasting the happy couple. On the house!" The Doctor aimed the bottle at Mickey and pulled the cork, watching as it flew towards Mickey, hitting him on his forehead. The cork disappeared into his head causing them to look at him as he chewed on it. A few seconds later he spat it back out, leaving Rose and Piper scared.
"Right," not Mickey said as his hand changed into a chopper. He began to destroy the table as the Doctor ran towards him, grabbing his head pulling on it until it came off. This made Rose scream. Everyone else began to panic. "Don't think that's gonna stop me," Mickey's head told the Doctor.
Doing her best to remain calm, Piper looked around, trying to look for anything that could be used as a weapon or an escape. Her eyes lit up when she saw a fire alarm. She ran towards it and smashed it, setting it off. "Everyone, get out! Out now! Get out. Out! Out! Out!" Rose and Piper yelled together. Leaving the rest of the body at the restaurant, all three ran through the kitchens and out the back door, the Doctor still carrying the head. Piper's eyes immediately sought the blue box from before. It was there. Rose ran to the gate, despite knowing her only way out was locked. The Doctor used the silver thing to lock the door, or so Piper assumed. She barely paid any attention to Rose.
"Open the gate! Use the tube thing. C'mon." She pulled against the locked gates.
The Doctor didn't bother to look at her as he corrected her, "Sonic screwdriver."
"Well, use it," she demanded.
"Nah, tell you what, let's go in here." He walked towards the box and as he went past her, grabbed Piper by the hand, pulling her with him. He opened the door and pulled her inside.
"You can't hide inside a wooden box!" Rose exclaimed fearfully. Mickey was still banging on the restaurant door. "It's gonna get us! Doctor!" Rose screamed in fear, trying the gate again. Inside the Tardis the Doctor was attaching the head to some wires.
Piper didn't notice when he turned around to stare at her. She was too busy looking around in awe. "It's smaller on the outside!"
The Doctor's eyebrows raised. "Well that's new. Never heard that one before," he muttered.
Rose finally ran inside, she looked around before running back out again. She ran around the box in shock before looking back towards the door, running into the Tardis again. "It's gonna follow us!" she panicked.
The Doctor never took his eyes off the brunette. "The assembled lords of Genghis Kahn couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried." In the middle of the room stood a console, which had many different controls on it. It glowed a soft blue colour. The room itself was bronze in colour and had coral struts and a seat by the side of 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." he explained. "Right, where do you wanna start?"
"Um, the inside's bigger than the outside?" Rose said slowly.
"Yes."
"It's alien?"
"Yeah."
"Are you alien?"
"Yes, is that alright?" looking at Piper as he said it.
"Yeah," both girls answered.
"It's called the Tardis, this thing. That's Time And Relative Dimension In Space." Rose started to cry. "That's okay, culture shock. Happens to the best of us," he said a little insensitively.
"Did they kill him? Mickey? Did the kill Mickey? Is he dead?" Rose asked, trying to keep herself from breaking.
"Oh. I didn't think of that."
Piper's eyes narrowed and she looked at him carefully. She didn't believe his words for a second. She thought for a moment before coming to a conclusion. He was an alien and must be trying to save the world or something. Clearly if he cared so much about their world and the humans then he wouldn't forget about one. At least not entirely. That meant that he had a reason for not telling Rose the truth. But what was it? Rose was angry. "He's my boyfriend! You pulled off his head, they copied him and you didn't even think?" Copied? Copied! That's it! Has to be it. To make a copy of something you need the original, everyone knew that. But what if they needed him alive to sustain the copy? That meant that he was still out there somewhere! She was about to tell Rose this when she interrupted her. "And now you're just gonna let him melt?!"
"Melt?" The Doctor looked confused.
"The head's melting, Doctor," Piper said, pointing to the console behind him.
He turned back to the console. "No, no, no, no, no!" He yelled, furiously pressing buttons. The Tardis made a wheezing, groaning noise as it began to shake.
"What are you doing?"
"Following the signal. It's fading," The Doctor answered. "Wait, I've got it. No, no, no, no, no! Almost there, c'mon. Almost there. Here we go!" The shaking stopped and the Doctor ran out of the Tardis, pulling Piper with him. He didn't know why he kept doing that. There was just something about this girl that was different.
"You can't go out there, it's not safe." Rose called from inside the Tardis. The Tardis had parked on the north bank of the Thames.
The Doctor looked around. "I lost the signal. I got so close!" He muttered angrily.
"We've moved. Does it fly?"
"Disappears there and re-appears here. You wouldn't understand."
"Materialization controlled by a circuit, right?" Piper said shyly. The Doctor looked at her in shock.
"How...?"
"If we're somewhere else, what about that headless thing? It's still on the loose." Rose interrupted.
"It melted with the head. Are you gonna witter on all night?"
"If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?" Rose questioned.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Lot's of planets have a North."
Piper shrugged. Surprisingly, that made sense.
"What's a police public call box?"
Piper answered before the Doctor could. "Telephone box from the 50's and 60's. It's what they used to have."
The Doctor smiled fondly at the box. "It's a disguise."
"Okay, and this living plastic, what's it got against us?"
"Nothing, it loves you. You've got such a good Planet with lots of smoke and oil and plenty of toxins in the air. It's perfect." He moved to stand by them. "Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. It's food stock was destroyed in the war, so Earth, dinner."
"Anyway of stopping it?" Piper asked.
The Doctor held a tube with blue liquid in it. "Anti-plastic."
"Anti-plastic?" Rose repeated slowly.
"Is she always this slow?" He asked Piper, who smirked. "Yes, but first I've gotta find it. How can you hide something that big in a city so small?"
"Hold on, hide what?"
He walked back to the Tardis. "The transmitter. The consciousness is controlling every single bit of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."
"What's it look like?"
"It's round and massive and slap, bang in the middle of London." Both girls glanced at each other before turning to stare behind him at the London Eye. "Like a dish, like a wheel, must be completely invisible." he continued, not paying any attention to them. "Close to where we're standing." The Doctor finally looked at them, noticing they weren't paying attention. "What?" He turned to look behind him then back again. "What is it? What?" The Doctor grinned as he finally caught onto what they were looking at. "Oh, fantastic!" Grabbing both their hands, he pulled them across the bridge. "Think about it, every artificial thing coming to life. Shop dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables."
"The breast implants."
"Still, we've found the transmitter. Must be somewhere underneath." The Doctor muttered to himself.
"What about down here?" Rose called.
The Doctor looked at it. "Looks good to me." He opened the hatch and climbed down, turning to help them down. Through the door was a flight of stairs, leading to a big room. "Inside that vat is the Nestene Consciousness. A living plastic creature."
"Well, then, tip in your anti-plastic and let's go." Rose told him.
"I'm not here to kill it. I'm here to give it a chance." The Doctor said firmly before walking towards the vat that held the creature. "I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness. Under peaceful contract according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation." The creature in the vat splashed against the sides. "Thank you, if I might have permission to approach?"
Having not paid any attention to Rose, Piper didn't notice when the blonde ran to Mickey. "Oh, my god. He's alive!"
"Of course he's alive. They needed him to keep the copy going." Piper said, before the Doctor could respond.
"Wait, you knew? You both knew and didn't say anything?"
Piper rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, Rose. Think. It is kinda obvious when you think about it." She turned around to find Rose, Mickey and the Doctor all staring at her. "What?" She asked, eyebrows raised.
"You're starting to sound like him," Rose said pointing to the Doctor.
"Can we keep the domestics outside?" He continued, making his way down the metal stairs. Piper followed close behind, leaving Rose and Mickey on the platform. "Am I addressing the Consciousness?" he asked. It moved and groaned. "Thank you. If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest with the greatest respect, that you shunt off?" Piper let out a small giggle. "Oh, don't give me that. It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights." The plastic splashed over the side of the vat. "I. AM. TALKING!" The Doctor yelled and she jumped. The room fell silent. "This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk but they're capable of so much more. So I'm asking you on their behalf, please just go." Suddenly, Rose yelled out as hands latched onto both the Doctor and Piper's arms from behind. It was the shop window dummies. One went through the Doctor's jacket and pulled out the anti-plastic. He struggled against their hold. "That was just insurance, 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." The Consciousness screeched in fear. "What do you mean?" His eyes widened as a door slid open to reveal the Tardis. "No, oh no, honestly no." He turned back to face the Consciousness. "Yes, that's my ship...that's not true. I should know, I was there. I fought in the war. It wasn't my fault." Tears slipped down Piper's cheeks as she watched the Doctor struggle to explain himself. "I couldn't save your world. I couldn't save any of them!" He turned to Piper. "It's the Tardis. The Nestene's identified it as superior technology. It's terrified. It's going into the final phase. It's starting the invasion. Get out Rose! Just leg it!" He yelled at her before turning back to Piper. "I'm sorry, Piper." Electricity shot up into the sky. "It's activating the signal. It's transmitting."
Piper struggled as the dummies began to push her towards the vat. Rose and Mickey ran to the Tardis but found to their dismay, they couldn't get in. "I haven't got the key!" She cried.
"We're going to die!" Mickey cried. Rose looked around, looking for anything that could help them. Then she heard it. It was the voice the Doctor had been talking to the whole time.
Time Lord.
Rose ran to grab an axe. "I've got no A levels. No job. No future. But I tell you what I have got. Junior school under 7's gymnastics team. I've got the bronze." She swung at the rope, grabbing onto the chains on the wall tightly. She swung off the catwalk, kicking the dummies holding Piper. Once free, Piper did a backflip, kicking the dummies holding the Doctor and knocking them into the vat. The one holding the anti-plastic fell in and the Consciousness screeched in pain and fury as it lit up golden before being destroyed.
"Rose!" The Doctor ran to help her as she swung back to them. "Are you alright?" She nodded. He turned to Piper. "That was one hell of a backflip." He praised her. "Now we're in trouble." He smiled as he led them all to the Tardis. As the pipes exploded, the signal was lost and the dummies slowly stopped moving. The Doctor didn't pay any attention to Mickey, who was holding onto the machine for dear life.
The moment Rose left the Tardis, she phoned her mum. She smiled as Jackie answered before hanging up, happy that she was alive and well. The Doctor leaned against the doorway of the Tardis while Rose walked to Mickey, who was hiding behind a wooden crate. "Fat lot of good you were." Rose said, helping Mickey to his feet.
"Nestene Consciousness? Easy." He snapped his fingers.
"You were useless in there. you'd be dead if it weren't for me." Rose reminded him.
"Yes, I would." He paused. "Right then, I'll be off, unless, I dunno, you wanna come with me. This goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge." He smirked.
"Don't. He's an alien. He's a...thing!" Mickey pointed hysterically.
"He's not invited. What do you think?" He waited, giving them an opportunity to think about it.
"Is it always this dangerous?"
"Yeah."
Mickey wrapped himself around Rose's legs, like a child. "Yeah, I-I can't. I've got to find my mum. Besides, someone's got to look after this stupid lump...so."
The Doctor could see Rose was uncertain. He turned to Piper before moving to the side with a huge grin on his face. His grin turned into a smile as she ran inside. "Well, I didn't do too bad if I've got one of you." She watched as he walked around the console, pushing buttons. She closed her eyes, listening to the noise. She could tell that noise was going to become her favourite noise. "Oh, wait. I forgot to tell her." He leaned over the console and pressed more buttons. He ran to the door and opened it. "By the way, did I forget to mention, it also travels in time?" He smiled as Rose ran inside. A few minutes later, the Tardis disappeared, leaving behind a confused Mickey.