A/N: I must be insane... this started as just a bit of fluff drabble to cheer myself up out of end-of-series doldrums. But hey, if it cheers up other people too, then lay on MacDuff. I'm starting to have fun with this. This bit, particularly, is quite lighthearted, I think. Next issue: JACK!
The Doctor leaned over the console, drumming his fingers restlessly and sucking on his teeth. Rose scooted up beside him to peer over his shoulder. "Problem?"
"Yes. I mean no. I mean… just thinking." He shook his head, straightened up and lifted a finger in her direction as if he were about to deliver some sort of lesson; then squinted in a distracted manner and turned to walk the other way around the console instead. Rose kept on his heels, bemused.
"The problem," he announced, moments before she was about to prod him again, "lies in getting back to the scene of the crime safely." He flipped a couple of switches on his route around the time controls.
"Well that's easy, isn't it? Just tell the TARDIS to reverse course – put us right back where we left. That's how I got back to the station in the first place. At least, I think it is," Rose grimaced at her inability to recall clearly; then grinned and punched the Doctor lightly in the arm. "Starting to sound like you now. Couple of amnesiacs, off to save the universe, we are."
The Doctor muttered something under his breath that she couldn't quite make out. 'Other have mercy?' That made no sense. Before she could inquire, he interrupted her thought process again.
"Well we could do that, yes, if we wanted to risk tearing a hole in the web of time. Dropping back into the same time-stream right after a major disruption of the space-time continuum… not the best odds. Nasty things can come crawling out of holes like that."
"Reapers," said Rose grimly, with a shudder.
He glanced at her in surprise. "How did you—oh… right," he frowned, his eyes going a bit distant in the manner she was beginning to recognize as signifying he'd just remembered something. He waved his hands dismissively, bringing himself back to the subject at hand. "Well, I'm not sure exactly what happened but if I regenerated because I absorbed all of the energy of the Time Vortex… I must've done something big. No, best we don't land too close to the event." He turned his gaze back to the TARDIS controls with a fiendish gleam and thumbed the temporal altimeter. "But, if we aim for… let's say twenty-four hours ahead – well that ought to be safe enough, eh old girl?"
"Sounds good to me," Rose agreed, in lieu of the TARDIS who seemed unlikely to voice a response.
"Off we go then!" the Doctor proclaimed, engaging the time engines with a jaunty tug of one of the levers, flinging out his free arm to drape it over her shoulders. This was, as it turned out, fortunate, because the time ship suddenly lurched beneath their feet with a groan of protest, and she found herself clutching at him for balance.
"That shouldn't happen," he mused, peering up at the time rotor. He held his position on the bucking deck like a sea captain amid a storm, almost absentmindedly supporting Rose with his left hand, while the right pulled thoughtfully at his lower lip.
"What's going on?" Rose gasped over her initial shock, finding and grabbing hold of the edge of the console to hold herself upright.
"Either we've run into some turbulence – which is unlikely – or the TARDIS isn't happy with the coordinates I just put in. Come on now!" he raised his voice, addressing the ship directly, "Don't be that way – what's the matter; don't you trust me?"
The console replied with a dissatisfied 'blaaat'.
"We'll just see about that," he shot back, producing a mallet from somewhere beneath the console.
"I'm not sure this is a good idea, Doctor," Rose felt her voice go a bit sing-song as she held tight to the edge of the console to weather another jolt.
"Nonsense, I know what I'm doing!" he called back, an almost gleeful grin splitting his features. He hovered, predatorily, over the console as if it were a particularly challenging game of Whack-a-Mole. Two sharp, expertly-placed taps from the mallet later, the time ship wheezed to a sudden halt. "There, you see?" he started triumphantly, and then coughed and spluttered as a well-aimed jet of lubricating fluid hit him in the face. "No need to get shirty with me, now," he scolded, wiping his face on the back of his sleeve and tossing a contemplative look at the monitor readouts.
Rose let go her death-grip on the console carefully. "So where are we?"
"We're on the Gamestation, for all her waffling about," he reported, dragging a finger down the monitor screen. "It's been more than twenty-four hours though. More like a month."
"A month?" she cried in dismay.
He looked up apologetically. "She wouldn't let me get any closer, Rose, I'm sorry."
"Well," Rose gathered herself with a deep breath and clapped her hands together. "In any case we might find some clue, right? Surely he'd have found a way off the station by now, but he would've left a message?"
The Doctor shrugged at her, a bit helplessly. "I don't remember him, Rose – you tell me."
"He would have," she decided determinedly, and strode purposefully for the door.
The Doctor hesitated another moment, eyes back on the monitor, then suddenly yelped and leaped after her. "Wait!"
She felt her arm caught in his surprisingly strong grip; and then she was yanked completely off-balance and thumped on top of him in a muddle of limbs to the floor. "What was that for?" she demanded, pulling herself out of the tangle and glaring.
He held up his hands in a defensive posture, still lying half on his back. "Sorry. It's just – there's no air."
"No air?" Rose frowned, shooting a glance at the door, which was, in fact, locked, with an amber warning light informing her so. "Good thing you tackled me, then," she observed dryly; "or that big nasty lock might've stopped me, yeah?"
He turned his eyes from her to the door, took a few beats to process this; then grinned sheepishly. "Ah… yeah, I guess so. Sorry 'bout that."
"Guess that's why the TARDIS didn't want to land us here," she conjectured.
"Seems that way," he grunted, crab-walking up the ramp and bouncing back to his feet. "Sorry, old girl," he called in a generally upwards direction. He resumed his spot at the controls, absently flicking a couple of switches and scratching the back of his head. Rose repressed a snort of amusement as his hair stuck itself out at all angles in response.
"So what now?" she asked instead, dusting herself off.
"Hold on a tick," he replied, without looking at her: his eyes were fixed again on the monitor. "Scanning the news feeds. Things have sure been shaken up down there, haven't they?" he added, mostly to himself.
"Aha!" he cried suddenly; and Rose jumped. He stabbed a finger triumphantly at the indistinguishable stream of characters on the screen. "Survivors of the Gamestation Battle – sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? Like some sort of tournament," he laughed delightedly and continued, "—have been evacuated to…" he paused, frowned quizzically, then finally looked up at her. "London," he concluded. "Why is it always London? Why not Rio De Janeiro? Or Pittsburgh?"
"Why not London?" Rose countered his mystified musing with a smile. "Who knows – maybe it's some sort of cosmic nexus point."
"Or just a fantastic coincidence," he grinned brightly.
Rose couldn't quite muster a rejoinder upon hearing his favorite word so utterly mispronounced like that – Glaswegian, honestly, for god's sake – but he didn't seem to mind, enthusiastically twisting knobs and pulling levers to reset their destination point.
"London it is, then!"
