Rose walked straight in to her Mother's flat, leaving the door wide open. The Doctor followed her without hesitation, though Jack and Amber were slightly less comfortable with charging in uninvited.
"Mum?" Rose called again, "Mum, where are you?"
"Probably out shopping or something," the Doctor said cheerfully, and headed straight for the door.
"Oi!" Rose said, "that's not an invitation for you to leave, we're inviting my Mum to this do if you like it or not!"
She smiled coyly at him and the Doctor was powerless to resist.
"Rose Tyler, I can't believe you are making me do domestic…" the Doctor protested feebly.
"Was that a hint of true love and dedication I caught in those words there, Doc?" Jack asked.
The Doctor looked at him balefully and didn't answer.
"I'll take your silence as a yes," Jack said triumphantly.
"Take it how you want," the Doctor said, "I know you're just jealous!"
He grinned at Jack, then went off to find Rose.
"She must be out," Rose said shrugging, leaning against the doorframe to the living room.
"Didn't she say she was going to visit someone?" Amber asked.
"Oh yeah!" Rose said, "She was going to visit old Mrs Wellings upstairs. She's a kind old dear."
"I assume you are talking about Mrs Wellings and not your Mother…" The Doctor said.
"Oi!" Rose said again, and slapped him playfully. "As it happens, I was talking about Mrs Wellings. She's about eighty five, bless her, but she's always looked out for me. Said I reminded her of someone she used to know."
"Well, are we going or what?" Jack asked.
"I'm coming!" Rose said, then skipped in front of everyone and out the door to lead the way.
As they walked, Amber switched her hair from blue to brown.
"What?" she asked as the Doctor and Jack looked at her curiously, "I don't want a rant from some old woman about 'kids these days'!"
"Old women from your time say that?" Rose asked.
"In any time old women say that," Amber said.
"I'd have thought by the year one million they would be radical enough not to care what kids these days were doing!"
"No, because the kids these days are even more radical than they are. Old people will never keep up."
"Watch all this talk of old people!" the Doctor said, "I'm near enough ten times the age of all of you lot put together! I dunno, kids these days…"
Jack laughed, Rose giggled and Amber smiled.
"But you're timeless," Rose said, placing her hand in his. The Doctor beamed adoringly at her.
Mrs Wellings's flat was two floors above Jackie Tyler's. It was a wonder that an eighty five year old could make it up all those stairs really, but somehow, some way or another, Mrs Wellings managed it.
Rose had known Mrs Wellings almost as long as she could remember. She was a kindly old lady, not one of the cantankerous kind. She always had sweets and other things little girls loved, ready for when Rose would find her way to the front door, crying because some boy had called her a name at school. A little later on she would have chocolate ice cream and a girly film for Rose whenever she had a rough time with a boyfriend. She was also full of sound advice, and always told Rose things would be better before long.
"One day you will be swept off your feet by a mysterious stranger," she used to say.
Well, she had definitely been right about that, Rose thought.
The four of them arrived at the front door and Rose knocked, before letting herself in.
"Mrs Wellings?" she called, "Is my Mum there?"
"Yes I'm here Rose!" Jackie called back, "She alright to come in for a bit Nancy?" she said more quietly.
"Yes fine," an elderly voice said.
"Just a warning – she's probably got the whole gang with her. That Doctor and some new fella, Captain Jack?"
"The one and only…" Amber said dryly, and they made their way into the kitchen.
Rose skipped through the door first, followed closely by Amber, as Jack and the Doctor had dawdled behind, engaged in a discussion about a planet called Austra Lia, where the dominant species looked a lot like Kangaroos. Fotunately, that meant anyone over hearing them just thought they were a bit weird, not a lot weird.
Jackie shot Amber a strange look as she walked into the room with her now brown hair, but thought better than to question it. Mrs Wellings also gave Amber a strange look, but it was a curious one, not a hostile, fearful (or otherwise) one.
"And who might you be?" she asked.
"Amber," Amber replied bluntly.
"And where are you from, dear?"
"A very long way away."
Mrs Wellings didn't seem perturbed by Amber's less than friendly nature. She simply smiled almost knowingly.
"Another world?" She asked, causing Rose and Jackie to frown, and Amber to tilt her head a little in surprise.
"Oh don't look at me like that, I know about things from other worlds, Rose here taught me, a long time ago." Mrs Wellings said.
"Nancy!" Rose exclaimed as the Doctor and Jack walked in.
"During the last few years of the war and after it ended, Dr. Constantine trained me as a nurse, there was a lot of demand for trained medical professionals after the war and I got a lot of work, enough to buy a house which I turned into a home for the street children of London. I made money through nursing, and through some of the older children working, managed to turn my small safe home into a care centre for orphaned children. It's still running now, the money it brings in pays the rent on this flat." Nancy said.
It was very surreal talking to an eighty year old they had known as a twenty year old only a few weeks ago. It made Rose understand why the Doctor never went back to the places he had been, why he left so quickly after he was done saving the world.
Time continued for everyone else while the Doctor swanned in and out, people grew old while the Doctor stayed as he always was, Timeless.
"I've been looking out for you Rose – I knew if I found you, you would eventually lead me to all three of you," Nancy continued, "I knew when you vanished for a year that you had gone with the Doctor, I suspected the attack on Downing Street was your handiwork, but I knew I had to wait until you had visited my time before I spoke to you, before I got my chance to thank you."
"Well, you are welcome!" the Doctor said with a cheery smile, "And if I may say so, you are still looking very young for your age!"
Amber smiled as the trio reminisced about their time in war-torn England. She didn't have much of clue of what they were on about, but it was nice to listen to. She felt Jackie Tyler was probably thinking something entirely different. Amber's telepathy was no where near refined enough to simply read thoughts, but she could pick up on emotions, and pure venom was exuding from every pore of Jackie Tyler. Amber guessed this had something to do with the Doctor daring to take her baby into Blitz London. However, she at least had the sense to hold her tongue while in Nancy's company.
"How is Jamie?" Rose asked.
"He grew up to be a fine young man, and married a lovely young lady called Sarah. They had two children, but I'm on great-grandchildren now! I have four, three girls, one boy and one more on the way!" Nancy beamed so proudly, it bought a little of the twenty-year-old that Rose had known forward.
"That's so lovely," Rose said, a dreamy smile coming over her features.
"Don't get any ideas!" the Doctor said, "I'm not having children running around in the TARDIS!"
Rose punched his arm playfully.
"I'm not going to have kids yet!" she said, "but I'm not ruling it out as a possibility for later. Have to find someone to have them with first though…"
"I'm sure the…" Jack began, but Amber smacked him before he could finish his sentence.
Both the Doctor and Rose looked at her gratefully.
"That was weird," Rose said, as they walked away from Nancy's with Jackie. "It feels like only yesterday she was twenty."
"In a way it was," the Doctor said, "Time does not run in straight lines, it crosses over, overlaps, loops and spirals…"
"Don't go into the technicalities…" Rose said, pointing at him with a cheeky smile, "I know you are only showing off how brilliant you are for being able to understand it when it just does everyone else's heads in."
"So, where are we going?" Jackie asked.
"For dinner, with the Prime Minister, so! Back to the TARDIS to take advantage of the extensive wardrobe!" the Doctor said.
"You have a wardrobe on that thing?" Jackie asked.
"It's bigger on the inside remember Mum?" Rose said, linking arms with her Mother.
"Speaking of doing your head in…" Jackie muttered, "and wasn't your hair blue before?" she asked, turning to Amber.
"Yes," the assassin replied simply.
"Don't mind her," Rose said to her Mum to prevent her from getting annoyed. She was worried that antagonising Amber would only lead to someone getting hurt.
"Don't worry," Amber said. Somehow Rose knew she was talking to her.
"Were you reading my mind?" Rose said.
"Sort of," Amber replied.
"Well, don't – I don't appreciate my private thoughts being poked about in!"
"I can't read your thoughts, I'm not that good…" Amber said, "I can just pick up on general moods."
"How did you manage to fly the TARDIS then?" Jack asked, "I figured you must have been a pretty powerful Telepath."
"The TARDIS was helping me," Amber said shrugging, "She wanted me to know what to do." She added, patting the blue box they had just arrived at fondly.
"Traitor!" the Doctor said amicably to his ship.
"Right then!" the Doctor said, "Rose, Jackie! Go and take a look in the wardrobe for something you would like to wear, something smart please ladies, and you can keep whatever you pick."
"Come on Mum!" Rose said, "We can pick something really gorgeous out!"
Jackie nervously followed her daughter into the depths of the time ship.
"Lovely woman," Jack said, causing the Doctor to go off on a tirade. Jack laughed as he complained about Jackie's stubbornness and inability to comprehend things larger than the plotlines on Eastenders.
"You just don't like the idea of having her as a Mother-in-Law." Jack said knowledgably.
"What gives you that impression?" the Doctor asked. Jack didn't answer, he just laughed to himself.
"What do you think?" Rose said, walking in with a twirl.
She was dressed in a long, elegant dress, not at all like her usual Jeans and T-shirt combos. The difference was breath taking. It was like 1860s Cardiff all over again.
"Wow!" Jack said for both him and the Doctor. Rose grinned.
"Mum's just coming, so the wardrobe is all yours Jack – go and find yourself a nice tux!"
Jack grinned and sprinted back to the wardrobe, passing Jackie on the way, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable in a dress. The Doctor was reminded of the 1980s Jackie at Sarah and Stuart's wedding, and couldn't help grimacing a little – that had been a bad day.
"What's that face for?" Jackie demanded.
"Nothing, Jackie, I err… stubbed my toe on the console." The Doctor said, then smiled, large and fake, "dead clumsy me!"
Jackie regarded him warily, but nodded, accepting his story, then turned to play with Rose's hair.
Meanwhile, Jack returned out of the wardrobe, dressed in a very smart tux which made him look almost respectable.
"Not bad!" Rose said.
"How about that drink then Doctor?" Jack said with a flirtatious grin.
"No ta!" the Doctor said, grinning back, "I know what you are like on alcohol!"
"Once you two are finished flirting…" Amber said, walking out from behind her ship, returning it to its home in the locator.
Jackie watched with awe as the ship slid into the box, then turned to look at Amber, whose hair was now back to blue, her clothes back to normal and the gemstone back in the centre of her forehead. Jackie's jaw dropped very unflatteringly.
"Ready?" the Doctor said to everyone, looking round. He nodded at Jack, Rose and Jackie, but paused when he came to Amber. "Amber, change would you?"
Amber looked at what Jackie and Rose were wearing, then cultured herself a very flattering blood red dress and a pair of elegant black sandals. Her hair she took out of the tight ponytail and allowed to fall loose over her shoulders. Rose thought if Jack stared any harder his eyes would pop out.
"Amber…" the Doctor said, tapping his forehead like he had done before they first left the TARDIS.
Amber rolled her eyes again, then concentrated briefly, creating a silver tiara for herself that incorporated the blue stone.
"That's better," the Doctor said, "Fantastic! Let's go!"
"How did she do that?" Jackie asked, finally finding her voice.