Chapter 29.

Grumpy Garden Gnome.

It was almost noon on a Sunday when the Doctor returned. The TARDIS materialized in the living room, between the chairs and the telly, producing an audible gasp from the kitchen. Her mum was not a fan of the Doctor landing inside the house. Rose got a smile stuck on her face, though. Seeing that blue box pop up always made her day better.

She could already hear the Doctor singing inside. It was a far cry from how upset he had been when he left her in the alley days ago.

He burst out the doors as she was standing up, wrapping her in a tight hug. If there was one thing in the whole universe that always made her feel better, it was a hug from the Doctor. It soothed all the worrying she had done about him while he was gone. He was smiling, and he had his hair all spiked up, and he laughed into her shoulder.

She managed to get out a high-pitched, "Hi."

He released her, grinning, his expression the perfect display of joy. "Hi. Did you miss me?"

Rose snorted. She always missed him. She liked spending time with her mum, but the Doctor was a different story. "You have no idea. Mum's got a new yoga thing and it's been going on all weekend. It's a miracle I've survived this long."

Jackie came in and gave the Doctor a sort of smile. Since the Doctor came into her life, their relationship had been a challenge. She was not enthralled with him like Rose, but she didn't hate him. It was complicated. "No appreciation for the fine arts, this one." She motioned to Rose, and then eyed the TARDIS, her smile turning into a scowl. "Is that gonna mess up the carpet? It's expensive, you know. I've had it up to here with you ruining my house."

Rose ignored her mother. "Are we off, then?"

The Doctor looked uncertain.

"What is it?"

He scratched the back of his head and cleared his throat, looking guilty. "Well… you know when you told me you wouldn't mind if Grace came along…?"

He stepped aside, and revealed the girl standing in the TARDIS doorway. Grace. She was stocky, she looked grumpy, and her hair made it seem like she had been electrocuted. One of her eyes was bruised and her lip was split. She looked like a mix between a punk rocker and an angry garden gnome, and Rose could not see what the Doctor was so caught up on.

He was right about the eyes, though. She couldn't be human.

Rose glared at the Doctor for lack of a warning, and then focused on the girl, who seemed rather innocuous despite her rough appearance. "Uh, hi."

"Hi." Grace stepped out, surveying Rose as much as Rose was surveying her. "Rose, right?"

"Right. You must be Grace."

"Yup." She popped her lips and took a look around. "Is this…? What year is this?"

It was going great so far. Grace seemed blown away by what she was seeing in the simple living room. She was not nearly as rude as her appearance suggested. But the Doctor was looking at her, watching her, in a way that made Rose wonder what the two of them had been up to.

Jackie walked up behind Rose, incapable of staying out of the conversation for more than a few moments. "Is she an alien? She better not mess up the carpet, either."

Rose waved her off. "Enough with the carpet, Mum." She looked between the Doctor and Grace, wondering what transfixed him in this girl. She was definitely going to interrogate him when she got him alone. "It's 2006."

Grace stopped at the couch, giving it a poke. "Looks a lot like home."

The Doctor cut in, incapable of keeping his cleverness to himself for more than a few moments. "In the 2500s, humans wanted to look back at the days before the war, and this was the last real semblance of peace they had. It was cozy. Homey. Call it wishful decorating." He stepped closer to Rose, murmuring under his breath, "I should have warned you, I know, and I'm sorry, but there were extenuating circumstances."

Rose leaned in, too, lowering her voice to match his. "What is she doing?"

He narrated the girl like she was the star in a nature documentary, provoking a smile from Rose. "Right now, if you look very closely, you may see the exact moment when she catches the scent of sugar-based foods. Right there, you see it? Now she's stalking her prey, moving in for the kill, right through into the kitchen. Fascinating, isn't it?"

"What kind of alien is she?" Rose asked.

"Apparently one that likes to gorge on literally anything that may be remotely unhealthy." He smiled, and grew more serious. "I'm not sure yet. I'm working on it." He leaned around the TARDIS, becoming distracted by what was on the TV. "Is that aquatic yoga?"

Jackie joined their whispering circle. "He does go for the young ones, doesn't he?"

"I do not!" The Doctor straightened. "Rose said I could bring her."

"You bring another one of your girls into my house? You should be ashamed!"

"Mum, I did tell him that. It's fine." She tried to get a view of the girl in the kitchen. She could hear wrappers crinkling. "What happened to her face?"

"She picked a fight with a 5'11 mustachioed mayor in 1851 North Carolina."

Rose frowned at him. "What?"

"It's a long story."

"You went without me?"

He winced. "It was meant to be a short thing – pop in, pop out." He watched her for a moment, and then he put his hand on her arm. "It went a little south, anyway. You're still my best mate."

Rose smiled. She liked to hear him say that.

He lowered his voice further, breathing in her ear. "We can talk about it later."

Jackie couldn't stand to be left out. "It's 'cause you got a crush, ain't it?"

Rose immediately regretted sharing her suspicions with her mother. She had speculated that the Doctor was infatuated with the girl because of their adventure together in the alternate timeline – an adventure Rose had not been a part of. She was, admittedly, a little bitter about it, but she didn't want her mother teasing the Doctor.

His voice got high. "I do not!"

"Look at you blushing!" Jackie countered. "You throw my Rose out to the side like last week's trash and go for someone else, just like that?"

"God, Mum, stop."

He seemed to have a very serious comeback assembled, but he held up his hand instead. He frowned, bobbing his eyebrows. "Anybody hear that?"

Rose felt a tingle of adrenaline. "What?"

"Exactly. Nothing. No munching. No wrappers."

The Doctor broke away from them and rushed into the kitchen. Rose followed. He checked the cabinets and even looked in the fridge, groaning. It would have been comical – looking in the fridge for someone who had vanished – if he didn't look so worried about it.

He blew past Rose, hovering in the door. His face grew serious for a moment.

"I would never throw you out, by the way."

Rose nodded, urging him on. "I know. I know that."

They ran downstairs. Rose had an instinct to follow the Doctor whenever he suddenly started running. It was a survival thing. But she wondered where his panic came from – Grace was just a girl. What did he think she could get into in a few seconds?

She had not gotten far. The Doctor stopped running as soon as he was out the door, and Rose crashed into him. Grace was sitting in the wet alley, petting a ratty little dog.

The Doctor stormed toward her. "That dog better not have been dead when you found it."

The dog ran off, and Grace glared at the Doctor. "You scared him!"

"I think that's the McAllister rat," Rose pointed out. "He'll be back. And, in the meantime, does anyone wanna tell me what you mean by that? It better not have been dead?"

"Long story." The Doctor grimaced at her, probably realizing she was tired of hearing that excuse. He held out a hand to Grace. "The ground is wet. Come on."

Grace looked at his hand, but didn't take it. She laid back, soaking the backs of her clothes. Her eyes rolled shut. "It never rains at my house. They block it out. It's dangerous. It eats right through your skin. They filter it before they let people near it."

The Doctor crossed his arms, nodding to Rose. "Easily entertained. Slightly impulsive." While he spoke, Grace flipped onto her stomach and rolled into the puddle, pretending to swim. "Okay, very impulsive. Time to get up, now."

Grace got out of the puddle, but ignored his hand, twisting around a light pole instead. She looked at Rose with those imposing eyes, giving her a strange sense of pressure.

"Do you have a dog?"

"No."

"We should get a dog." She pointed at the Doctor. "You should get a dog."

"I think a dog might listen better than you. Let's go inside."

"Are there any wars going on?" Grace smiled at the Doctor, but turned to look at Rose. "Is there an ocean nearby? I want to see it. How do you all communicate? Your TV was small."

"Um, yeah, a few. We use phones."

Grace had a lot of questions. Her list went on as she spun around on the sidewalk. She looked at the sky like she had never seen clouds before.

Rose cut in when she got the chance. "I have an idea. We could go to a museum, let you have a look around. If you want history, you'll find it there. Loads of it."

The Doctor smiled. "I love museums!"

Rose could not help a thought. Of course you do.

He walked over and carefully detached Grace from the pole, motioning to the side door they had come out of. "Where would you like to go? The Louvre? The MET? The Smithsonian?"

Grace began saying, "I like the sound of-"

And Rose said, "What about the-?"

But the Doctor cut them both off. He stopped in the middle of the street and gasped, his grin becoming impossible. "I know just the place! Trust me, you'll both love it."

"He said that about the library," Grace said to Rose.

"What library?"

"Big one. Lots of books."

"She complained from the front door to the back door." The Doctor opened the door for them. "But this is different. This is a world of history. This is the greatest collection of humanity that was ever… well, collected."