The Doctor and Rose stepped quietly out of a small blue box and onto a bristling cobbled lane in 17th century England. The Doctor almost looked out of place in his brown pinstripe suite and lighter brown overcoat, but somehow where ever he went he managed to fit in, no matter what he wore. Rose was looking lovely as usual, dressed in one of the traditional corset-topped dresses of the era.
As they walked down the busy street they discovered they were in a market place, hence the activity, and so, there was only one thing to be done – shop.
As they wandered deeper into the bazaar the crowd thickened a little, but it was nothing compared to the malls of the modern day Earth. They were cut off suddenly by an annoyed looking man pushing past them, knocked Rose into The Doctor and almost sending them both sprawling. Though as they steadied themselves and prepared to hurl insults at the man (most probably none of which he would have understood) they saw the reason he had huffed past them, and so was unlikely to pay any further attention to them.
In his right hand he had a firm grasp of a young woman's wrist. She appeared to be a couple of years younger than Rose, with soft brown hair that had natural highlights of blonde streaked through it. Her soft features were contorted with anger as she tried frantically to pull away from the man, trying her hardest to escape his iron grip.
"Get away from me!" she screeched, which only served to anger him more, it seemed.
"You are mine and you shall do as I say!" he said shortly, backhanding her across the face with his free hand. Her eyes darkened in fury.
"I'm not yours yet!" she declared, "We're betrothed! Not married! I'm not yours yet! And I won't ever be!" she continued to struggle.
"You have been betrothed to me and you will go through with the marriage! Your parents already decided long ago we were to be wed, you have no part in this decision! You ought to be thankful I chose to marry you! You'd have no better offers!" The public scene was starting to attract quite a crowd.
Rose looked to The Doctor, "Why can't she call the wedding off? And why is she getting married to him in the first place? He's got to be almost three times her age!"
"Rose, we're in the 17th century! Women didn't have a say back then, they were possessions. Although, seems like this one's not to happy about that. Too modern for her day. Shame." Rose just looked at The Doctor. "You see, a bit ahead of her time here. No woman would dare speak out against a man in this day and age, let alone in public!"
"Well I think she's a little confused then." They returned their attention to the argument. The woman was still trying to pull he wrist free, twisting it as far as she could until the pained expression crept up through her angry visage. If she didn't stop soon she'd probably end up breaking her wrist.
"You and I both know they're not my parents! They don't own me and neither do you!"
"Even more reason for you to honour their wishes! More reason you should respect me! I think I'm being more than fair, marry a slut's daughter!"
At hearing that the girl looked thunderous. She viscously jammed the stiletto heel of her boot down onto his toes and wrenched her wrist from his grip. In the few seconds he remained dazed she brought her fist up and connected it violently with his jaw. She punched him. She didn't slap him. She punched him!
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, "she has a nice right hook!" he exclaimed, almost awed.
At the girl's final outburst the authorities seemed to take action, moving toward the girl. Quick as a fox she turned on her heel and bolted.
Having seen enough for one day, and wanting to avoid further trouble on what was supposed to be a day off, The Doctor and Rose headed back for the TARDIS.
As they were almost at the door the heard the distant sounds of boots running on cobbled pavement. The Doctor grinned at Rose, "What do you reckon?"
Rose matched his grin, "I think so."
The Doctor placed his key in the blue boxes locked and opened the door, motioning Rose inside. The running boots were drawing closer. The Doctor turned back to look at the lane just as the girl rounded the corner, authorities still in tow.
"Oi! You!" The Doctor called to her, "care to join us?"
To Rose's surprise, though not The Doctor's, the girl heeded the call, heading straight for the blue box. She slowed to a walk as she crossed the threshold, The Doctor closing the door behind her.
The girl's eye's widened when she saw the sheer size of the room housed within the tiny blue box. Her eyes flicked to the doorway as she contemplated turning right back around and leaving. She obviously decided against it.
The three stood in silence for a few minutes, waiting for the girl to gather her thoughts and make the first move. Finally she spoke, "Is…is it alien?" she asked timidly.
The Doctor looked impressed. "Very deductive!" he smiled, then looked to Rose, "shall we keep her?"
"Yeah, I reckon so," Rose replied. She walked over the girl and offered her hand, "I'm Rose Tyler and that's the Doctor. Nice to meet you."
The girl shook her hand, "Nice to meet you too, Rose Tyler, Doctor. I'm Eluna Vorehndorah Kelliance. You can call me Ellie." She smiled. "Well, I suppose you want to know what that scene was about then? I might as well tell you know, that way you ain't be asking questions later, aye?"
"I don't think we'd mind hearing about it."
"Well, in return for saving me I think you earned the full story. My dad died a little while before I was born, he was killed by some muggers on the street coming home one night. A few days after I was born my mother disappeared. Some people say she couldn't handle the stress of a baby. Others say she was murdered or kidnapped. Some people seem to think she never existed. Those ones've got to be barmy, o'course, cause if she didn't exist then I wouldn't be here, would I? Still, what with my parents both gone and all the Charlesborough's took me in. Apparently they'd been trying for years for a kid of their own and so when the chance came along they snapped me up and tried to make me theirs. I wouldn't be having none of that, though. They told me my name was Janette Sapphire Charlesborough and that I was their daughter. I believed them for a while, until I found the locket my parents had left me. Found out my real name. Since then, I refused to answer to anything but my real name. Parents weren't too happy with that, though. They ended up deciding to marry me off, figured it'd make me more compliant. Fools. You can train a dog to do tricks and walk by your side, but it'll always be a wild animal. Can't cage a bird forever."
Doctor smiled, "Indeed you can't. Well, you told us about you, so I guess we'll tell you about this, hey? You're inside what's called a 'TARDIS', which stand for 'time and relative dimension in space'. It's a space ship that can go anywhere in the universe, as well as anywhere in time." He had one of his patent grins on his face, "also, as you may have noticed, the inside is bigger than the outside. It's supposed to be able to change into something from the time and place that it lands in to camouflage itself, but the chameleon circuit's broken. Could fix it, but I like my blue box."
The girl looked around in awe, "wow. So, neither of you are from here then? Are you from the future?"
"Rose is. About three centuries, in fact. I'm from…somewhere a little further away than that. Anywho, now that we're done with the introductions, how about we do a little exploring through space and time! Rose, we haven't visited your home in a while, how would you like to say hello from your mother? I figure the more often we go back there the less time we have t stay there."
"Sure Doctor, that'd be nice. And Jackie's not that bad, really."
The Doctor rolled his eyes, but went to the control panel to set the TARDIS in motion, "How about you show Ellie the wardrobe, Rose? When you're done we can go visit, okay?"
Rose nodded and turned to a door at the other side of the room, motioning for Eluna to follow.
Half an hour later the two girl's emerged, both sporting jeans and grey jumpers, Rose wearing a pink shirt underneath and Ellie wearing a lilac one. Rose's hair was half up in plaits, while Ellie chose to wear her slightly long her swept up in a neat pony-tail. She didn't look remotely out of place in Rose's time.
Together they opened the TARDIS door and stepped out into the twenty-first century. "Eluna, welcome to the Powell Estate, twenty-first century London!" the Doctor announced, grinning like a Cheshire cat, "This is Rose's home, so I'll leave her to show you around."