Present Day, 2007.

"I should have brought a camera." Rose Tyler giggled, remembering details of the trip The Doctor had just taken her on.

"I don't think the staff of Boots would quite understand what was wrong with the pictures." The Doctor replied. "Besides, you could have taken pictures with your new camera phone."

"Forgot to bring the charger. Hasn't worked in 2 days." She shrugged.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Give us a look…"

Rose removed the phone from her back pocket and handed it over. "Are you going to zap it with the Sonic Screwdriver?"

"Sonic screwdriver?" He tutted. "Don't make me roll my eyes again. I don't like it. Makes me all dizzy. No, I'm going to plug it in and charge it up for you." He disappeared under the console for a moment, returning with a wire connection for the phone. "See!"

Rose leant against one of the rails that surrounded the console. "I can't believe we finally got to Barcelona, The Planet I don't think I'll ever be able to tell that joke with a straight face again!"

"I know. Nice to give the old girl a break too." The Doctor smiled patting the TARDIS console. "The last trip took quite a lot out of her." Rose dropped her head and immediately, the Doctor knew he'd said something wrong. Mickey. Barcelona had been a pleasant diversion from the reality that Mickey wasn't coming back. "Sorry. That was thoughtless…"

"S'alright." Rose said quietly, not looking up. Her hair had fallen across her face so he couldn't see her expression. "It's not like he's dead, or anything. I'm sure that he's alive and well and probably much happier than he'd been in i this /i reality for a long time. He has his Gran back and he's saving people from Cybus Industries."

Before The Doctor could reply with something devastatingly witty that he just knew would cheer her up, Rose's phone started beeping. "Message." was all Rose said and she picked it up from the Tardis' main console. As she was reading it, her phone beeped again.

"You're popular." The Doctor said (not quite the devastatingly witty remark he had planned.)

"They're all voicemail messages." Rose looked up at him. "Five missed calls."

"Five?" The Doctor wrinkled his nose in derision. "Jackie must want something."

"Only 2 of them are from Mum." Rose frowned. "I don't recognise the other number." She dialled in for the voicemail messages.

The first one was Jackie "Just checking in." The next 2 were from a David Vaughan. He was a journalist who wanted to talk to Rose about an article he was writing on Harriet Jones (PM... And MP for Flydale North). Then Jackie again confessing that she'd passed Rose's mobile number onto this journalist who'd called around looking for her. "Very good looking. Kind of like a young John Taylor." (Whoever John Taylor was!). The last one was David Vaughan again, wanting to arrange a meeting.

Rose hung the phone up, sighing loudly. "Oh well done, Mum!"

"What's she done now?" The Doctor couldn't help but smile.

"Set a journalist on me!" Rose exclaimed.

The Doctor's smile faded a little. "A journalist? We'll need to be careful."

"Get him and his big head!" Rose rolled her eyes. "He wants to talk to i me /i because I know Harriet Jones, you weren't even mentioned!"

"Are you going to do it?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Why not." Rose shrugged. "I mean, we were all over the news when we were in Downing Street, remember? Ooh, you could come along because you didn't look like that in the pictures! Bloke won't have a clue!" Before The Doctor could discuss it further with her, she was dialling the number David Vaughan had given her.

"Hi. David Vaughan." David introduced himself.

"David, this is Rose Tyler." She said. "You've been looking for me."

David straightened up at his desk and grabbed a pen and paper. "Rose! Great to hear from you. You've obviously listened to the messages, so you know what I'm after."

"See, that's just it." Rose scrunched her nose. "I don't see why you'd be interested in talking to me."

"I'm interviewing people who've had experience of the Prime Minister for an upcoming feature in The Independent." He explained. "Look, the best way to do this would be to talk face to face. I'm not big on phones."

"I don't know…" Rose started.

"I'll be in Starbucks in Greenwich tomorrow morning at 11.00." David wasn't giving her a chance to turn him down over the phone. "All the coffee and muffins you could ask for on an expense account.

The Doctor was already in situ at a table, surrounded by several parts of The Guardian newspaper, a large coffee and an equally large blueberry muffin when Rose came into the coffee shop. The man at the next table stood to greet her. He was around the same height as the Doctor, but a bigger build. Sandy blond hair, blue eyes, square chin… not exactly beaten with theugly stick Rose thought.

"Hi. I'm David." He shook her hand. "Nice to finally meet you."

Friendly smile, good grip . Rose thought. "Nice to meet you too." She grinned nervously.

"Can I get you anything?" David asked as they sat down.

"Coffee would be nice." Rose said.

He gestured to the waitress. "Can we get a large pot of coffee please?" Again with a warm smile.

The Doctor peered out from behind the sports section. This guy was good. Completely charming and disarming (and other ming words that would probably come to mind over the course of the interview!). He'll have Rose eating out of his hand.

As they were waiting for the coffee, David took out a minidisk recorder. "I'm switching this on now so we don't miss anything from the start. I'm recording it so we both have a full record of what's being said... and my shorthand is fairly atrocious!"

"They still make you do shorthand?" Rose laughed.

"Oh the whole secretarial thing, unfortunately! Shorthand, typing, Dictaphone..." David rolled his eyes. "A wise man once said to me, learn to type and learn to juggle. That way you'll never be short of a job."

The waitress returned with their coffee. "Okay, we're ready... So tell me, Rose Tyler, all about you."

"Um... I thought this interview was about Harriet Jones." Rose frowned.

"She's the cornerstone of it." David explained. "But what I want is a background to the people who've had dealings with her during her rise to power. You were in Downing Street during the Alien Crisis a couple of years back and…

"And you want to know how the hell I managed that?" Rose's internal alarm was ringing.

"I wouldn't have put it quite like that." David still had that disarming smile. "You signed into Downing Street and you gave your occupation as "assistant" to some expert on something or other. Right?" David shrugged. "But if I wanted to know about the experts, I'd have gone to the experts. But they're just boring know-it-alls who are absolutely no fun to talk to. What I'm interested in are the ordinary people caught up in extraordinary situations. And I'd say being trapped in Downing Street during an alien invasion counts as extraordinary, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, it's a typical Tuesday for me!" Rose smiled.

"So tell me what happens on a typical Monday..."

The Doctor munched away on his muffin, while listening intently to Rose giving details of her not exactly fascinating early life.

"... Shortly after your job blew up, you were the subject of a year long Missing Persons hunt."

"I had an opportunity to travel, assisting my expert and I took it. It was wrong of me not to stay in touch, but I had my reasons." Rose said quietly. Reason being a miscalculation by the TARDIS, but you don't need to know that

"I get that. The pressure to be someone you're not." David nodded, aware of her reluctance to talk. But he was a journalist and getting people to open up was his forte. "I dropped out of med school after the first year, despite much consternation from my parents. They weren't a bit happy that I switched to journalism... Especially my Mum. She can be quite formidable when she wants."

"Must be a Mum thing, really." Rose sighed, knowing exactly what he meant. "Still, if they weren't worried about ya, then there'd really be something wrong. Bless 'em!"

"So, you were just back after your year away when you went to Number 10." David steered the conversation back on track. "That must have been impressive."

The Doctor ordered a top-up coffee, extremely impressed with the line of questioning and the methods. Offering up a personal anecdote to empathise with the interviewee, softening them up for the Big Question which was surely just around the corner.

"Of course it was." Rose exclaimed. "I mean who wouldn't be impressed with Number 10. And meeting Harriet - I mean, the Prime Minister – she was cool. Thrown into a difficult situation and she took charge. She made the decision to launch the missile that destroyed the place. We were sealed in a bomb-proof room."

"That was the start of her rise to power." David explained. "And it wasn't because the Cabinet was decimated. It was because of the stories that emerged about her. The way she organised people and got things back up and running…"

"She left that bomb shelter and started giving people orders like she owned the place!" Rose beamed proudly, remembering their emergence from the rubble and Harriet, completely unphased, took control.

David talked with Rose for another hour about her and Harriet. The "Big Question" the Doctor was anticipating never materialised. Maybe he was being a bit self absorbed. He was definitely over caffeineated after a further 2 large mugs and a toffee apple muffin.

David put the minidisk into the pocket of his jacket. "And we're done." He gestured again to the waitress to settle up the bill. She handed him the slip of paper. "And I'll take the bill for your friend at the next table too." He smiled at Rose. Her face dropped, and The Doctor nearly choked on his muffin.

"I beg your pardon?" Rose frowned.

"Your friend who has been keeping an eye on us. It's the least I can do, under the circumstances." David turned around to face the Doctor. He raised his coffee mug like like he was calling a toast. "Hello, Doctor."

"Told you so!" The Doctor sighed to Rose. He picked up his mug and muffin and moved over beside her.

"As usual, Doctor, it's all about you." Rose rolled her eyes. "Even when it's all about me, it's all about you!"

The Doctor cut to the chase. "So what do you want?"

"Six words." David said, looking the Doctor in the eye. "Don't you think she looks tired ? Those six little words caused a lot of trouble the for PM. So, in order to quell the rising tide of questions about her health, she went for a full check up."

"What happened?" Rose asked quietly. "Is she okay."

"Yeah." David smiled. "She's fine. If she hadn't gone when she did, precancerous cells in her cervix would have gone undiagnosed and could have caused serious problems down the line. We managed to keep it quiet."

"We?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

David smiled. "Harriet Jones is my Mother."