A/N: Ok kiddos, I've had this idea zooming around my brain for the last day or so and haven't got round to writing it yet. Slightly inspired by a song lyric but not overly, but yes, on with the story. Reviews welcome as always, not sure when I'll actually get this up because my internet is being a bit of a dimwit and doesn't look like it'll be fixing itself anytime soon.
XXX
Jackie Tyler set her mug of tea down as she heard a knock on the door of her flat. She heaved a sigh as she got out of her seat and weaved her way through the numerous pieces of furniture in her living room to answer the door. She smiled as a fresh faced man stood there, his head closely shaved and his dark skin making his brown eyes look almost black.
"Alright Jackie? Is Rose in?"
"Yeah, in her bedroom sweetheart, d'you want a cuppa?"
"Nah thanks Jacks; I'm alright for the moment." She stood aside and let him pass her, and watched as he knocked on Rose's bedroom door, and, after a small shout of something which sounded like 'come in', he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
He was a nice lad, Mickey. Had a pretty stable job, always polite, never in trouble, oh yes, Jackie approved of him. She went back to the sofa and sat down heavily, picking up her cup of tea with one hand and her magazine with the other, and began to scan over the articles boredly, not really interested in who whatsername from Eastenders was getting married to and how many bottles of champagne they had ordered for the occasion.
"Mickey," Rose began.
"Yeah?" he looked down at her from his spot at the top of her bed, arms wrapped around his knees. She was lying on her stomach, legs swinging about in the air and head resting on her hand, a thoughtful look etched across her face.
"D'you ever think there could be more?" she asked. "Than this," she added, trying to make her question a little more specific.
"Than what?"
"Than spending every free hour lying on this bed and not doing much, and in our non spare hours working away in dead end jobs that we don't really like?"
"Oh cheers, shoot me down in flames why don't you?"
"Well let's face it, I work in a shop, you work at a garage and apart from that we don't do anything."
"Rose, we live on a council estate in south London, we went to a rubbish school and got rubbish jobs. We were never meant to do anything except this. Someone's gotta do it haven't they?"
"What so I might as well give up now?" she said sulkily.
"That's not what I'm saying babe! But you've just gotta come to terms with the fact that we're not gonna change the world, and the most we'll get to do is get married and have kids, isn't that enough?"
"Great, I was born to squeeze out babies…"
"Rose…" Mickey was beginning to get frustrated with her attitude. Why did she want to do something huge and massive? Why wasn't she satisfied with getting by, having a laugh and just living her life?
"Wouldn't you ever want to travel the world? See it all for yourself rather than on the telly?"
"The furthest I could get on my salary'd be the Isle of Wight, and that's hardly exotic. Look, Rose, maybe one day we can go to Greece or something, but for now, we've just gotta settle for living here, working our nine to fives, and seeing the world through the telly. It's all we can do. It doesn't matter if you want to do it or not, you've gotta do it for a certain amount of time."
"No I don't," she told him firmly. "I could quit my job right now if I wanted, use the money I've got and go and see everything."
"Yeah but you won't will you Rose?"
"Might do," she said, trying not to smile. She bit her lip; trying not to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she knew as well as he did that she wouldn't drop everything and zoom off to the Far East.
"No you won't," he was smiling broadly now, his white teeth contrasting brilliantly with his skin tone. "You're gonna stay here with me, and we're gonna go down the pub with our mates on a Saturday night, and you're gonna keep working at the shop, and we're gonna stay on this estate and then maybe in five years we'll have better jobs, our own place, might even be a ring on your finger." Rose laughed slightly, not believing a word of it. She knew he was half serious, but she couldn't see herself ever marrying him. The thought scared her like nothing else, chaining herself to one person, one lifestyle for the rest of her life. No, she decided, that wouldn't happen.
"Even so, am I the only one who feels like a bit of a waste sitting here?"
"Yeah," Mickey told her, smiling sadly.
The next day Rose Tyler's job went up in smoke. Quite literally. And things weren't quite so dull anymore.
XXX
"Morning," she took the cup of tea that was offered to her and smiled sleepily. The Doctor leaned against the counter, fresh faced as usual, as though he hadn't slept, which Rose doubted because he was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. She wasn't awake enough to form words so she grunted in thanks, causing the Doctor to chuckle lightly.
She popped a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster and sipped her hot tea quietly, waiting for her breakfast. When her toast popped up, the edges slightly burnt, she took a knife and tried to butter it, but apparently her brain had decided it was far too early to be completing such tasks efficiently. Sighing with frustration, the Doctor took the knife from her and buttered her toast quickly, muttering about how useless humans actually were. She struggled to find an insult that she could retaliate with, and by the time she was eating her toast she had given up, deciding that she'd rather eat than insult him poorly.
"Where we going today then?" she asked brightly, after having a shower and getting dressed, which, along with the toast, had successfully woken her up. The Doctor looked up from the control panel which he'd been frowning at, pressing the occasional button rather harder than necessary.
"Kaspa," he answered finally.
"What, like the ghost?" she asked, smiling slightly.
"No, the planet. It's a small planet in the Catonia Nebula. And I suppose the date'll be…ooh, about sixty five thousand years in your future." Rose nodded.
"And the people. What are they like?"
"Alien!" the Doctor said, grinning madly, before pulling a lever and darting around the control panel manically, twisting dials and hammering buttons. Rose grinned and held onto one of the pillars for supported as the machine jumped a little every time the Doctor pressed another button.
Rose stepped outside the TARDIS and frowned. "I thought you said the people were alien?" she said turning round as the Doctor stepped out after her, his long overcoat flapping in the strong breeze.
"They are," he said confidently. Rose shook her head in disbelief and looked back at the people. They just looked like average people. If Rose didn't know better, she'd say that they were on Earth, but there were a few pointers that helped her in her decision that the Doctor had not indeed taken a wrong turning. Firstly, the sky was yellow, like a real kid's yellow, rather than a wishy washy yellow, and along with two blue suns at different points in the sky, (one directly above them and one on the horizon) she could quite quickly tell that this was not her home planet. But she couldn't for the life of her, see what was so alien about these people. The Doctor tapped her on the arm and pointed in the direction of one of the people walking down the fairly crowded street. She appeared to be having an argument with a man, and getting quite angry about it. Rose was about to say something but the Doctor cut her off. "Keep watching, you'll see," he said quietly.
Suddenly, the woman snapped her mouth wide open and a long tongue whipped out, throttling the man who had disagreed with her. Rose gasped as the man collapsed in a heap on the floor, and the woman withdrew her tongue before stalking off, her face contorted with a satisfied sneer. "Doctor is she-"
"Women have complete control. Any man who disagrees, well…" he drew a finger across his throat and pulled a face, clearly showing that any man who had the nerve to disagree with a woman was as good as dead the second they opened their mouth.
"Bloomin' heck," Rose muttered, "Don't wanna catch them at the wrong time of the month then do they?" The Doctor snorted, and took Rose's hand in his own.
"Come on. Exploring to do."
They wandered around the city they'd landed in for a while, not really taking anything in. It was average, compared to other places they'd visited. It wasn't beautiful and interesting, but it wasn't ugly and dull either. It was different, Rose decided. Just different.
All of a sudden they heard a scream, and before she had a chance to say anything, she was being pulled along by the Doctor to see what the source of the commotion was. When they got there, Rose felt the Doctor tense up beside her, squeezing her hand tighter than normal, before pulling her down as a shrill robotic voice yelled something and shot a ray of green light in her direction.
They quickly rushed over to one of the large steel buildings, poking their heads round the corner to watch. Around fifteen Daleks were killing everything in sight, not caring who or what it was. "Come on," the Doctor whispered, taking her hand once more and pulling her along, back to the direction of the TARDIS.
They arrived at the blue doors, quickly stepping inside, slightly breathless from running about half a mile to get back to their safe house. The Doctor sat down on one of the seats, his head in his hands. Rose sat next to him and put an arm around him in an attempt to comfort him. She knew as well as he did that there was always gong to be another group of Daleks, no matter how many times they wiped them all out, some of them would find a way to escape. She also knew as well as the Doctor that he wouldn't ever be able to get over the memories that the image, or the voice of a Dalek brought.
"What are we gonna do?" she whispered, not wanting to sound unsympathetic.
"Nothing," he got up suddenly and walked over to the control panel, punching information into the TARDIS, obviously setting course for another planet, another time, away from the war that had begun on this planet.
"Nothing?" Rose asked indignantly. "You're just gonna let those people die?"
"Yeah," the Doctor replied bluntly.
"Why? What have they done wrong?" she felt disgusted with him. He'd never let a whole race die out. How could he just walk away from this planet?
"Nothing."
"Then why are you-"
"They're not real," he was smiling wryly now. "Kaspa doesn't exist. The Catonia Nebula doesn't exist."
"But I saw it…" Rose whispered. "I saw that planet. I saw those people…"
"You might have seen it. But Rose, none of this is real." She turned her head sharply so she was looking directly at him.
"What d'you mean?" she asked confusedly.
"Oh Rose…" he stepped around the console and walked towards her, stopping right in front of her. He raised his hand and cupped her face, rubbing his thumb gently across her cheek bone. "It's a dream," Rose shook her head, not believing him, not wanting to believe him. "But for what it's worth, Rose Tyler, I love-"
Rose sat up suddenly, her heart racing, her pyjamas sticking to her slightly as she was covered in a thin layer of sweat. She looked around at her surroundings and realised she was in her bedroom, at the Tyler residence. Not the TARDIS. Not even her Mum's flat. She sank back onto her pillows, feeling incredibly frustrated. It had seemed so real that time, right up until the trouble seemed to come too easily. Until the Doctor had run away from a planet, not even trying to save the inhabitants, she should have known really.
She used to waste her time dreaming of being alive.
Now she only wastes it dreaming of him.