One moment she was warm and dry, the next, there was wind and wetness against her face. The abrupt motionless environment transitions of transporting would take a lot of getting used to.
She opened her eyes to pressing, numbing darkness, the kind of total night you got only on worlds where there was no artificial ambient light anywhere on the horizon.
"It's dark," she said, stating the crashingly obvious but scared enough to want to hear her own voice and Jack's.
"Ssh!" Sharply.
A tiny light flicked on, and Jack's face flared out of the darkness. Lit from underneath, he was all shadows and seriousness. He touched her wrist.
"Over this way."
She followed him blindly a few feet towards a wall and an empty crumbling doorway. They were back amidst the ruins of the Powell Estate.
"About ninety seconds to go," he murmured, encouraging her to crouch down. "This'll give us some cover if the Daleks come prowling."
Another light bobbing ahead gave her a momentary shock, but it turned out to be Commander Harrow, semi-dragging Adam with her.
"We can't be out here at night!" he protested in a panicked whisper. "That's when they patrol! For God's sake let's get to the bunker!"
"Won't matter in, let's see – thirty-nine seconds."
"Keep quiet or I'll stun you," said Commander Harrow. "We only need your resonance pattern to make this work." She jammed a gun against Adam's neck.
"Got a physical fix," Jack muttered. "It's three point six metres ahead of us in that direction. Breaking cover in five."
"Captain," said the Commander sharply.
It was a warning. The darkness was broken again by a wavering orange light, the silence by a distant but distinctive whirring of motors.
"Dalek!" gasped Adam.
"It's miles away. Going in five."
"It'll see you!" Adam cried. "They can detect movement thirty metres across clear ground!"
Jack ignored him, concentrating with a frown on some instrument he was holding, and Rose saw Commander Harrow yank Adam's handcuffs to warn him to stay silent. The Commander was a small woman, but she looked extremely tough.
With silent, practised movements, Jack snaked out from behind the wall and bounded into the open ground. Lit by the glow of his hand-held device, he looked horribly exposed.
The distant orange light stilled.
"It's detected him," said Adam with a groan. "Well, I warned him. We need to get underground now!"
"Just wait," hissed Rose. "Watch."
The light started to move towards them.
Jack was punching buttons on the device. "Opening the portal."
"Captain!" said the Commander. "Extend the field, take us all through. That thing is going to attack us."
"I don't think there's enough power, ma'am."
"We've got to try."
"Yeah," said Jack. "Rose – here – now. Quick!"
Rose darted to join him.
"No! No!" Adam screamed, as Commander Harrow tried to pull him out from behind the cover of the wall.
"Halt!" It was the grating, mechanised tone of a Dalek.
Rose pressed closer to Jack as the machine itself swung round through the shattered arch that had once led into Byron Towers. Illuminated only by the two lights on its dome-shaped head, in the otherwise total darkness it was blazing.
Adam collapsed forward to the ground, sobbing and whimpering, as Commander Harrow let go of him and ran to Jack's side.
"Rose! I love you, Rose!" he cried.
Rose felt Jack's hand on her back, saw Adam's face twist in terror, felt a flare of heat as a bolt seared past her, saw Adam glow and twist and begin to crumple – and then, with no sensation at all, they were bathed in dirty yellow light and staring at a tower block that had blossomed intact from the ground.
And the Doctor was striding towards them, hands deep in his coat pockets, face downcast and peaky.
Two things happened at once. The Doctor looked up, and saw them, and his expression bulged in astonishment. "Rose? Jack? I just – but I just – oh, this has the potential to be not good at all – " And Adam, the older, stockier, silver-haired Adam, stepped out from an alleyway wielding his silly green plastic ray gun. "Er – Adam?"
"I'm surprised you remember, Doctor."
"Well, you know, I never forget a face – but it's interesting that you recognise me, I mean, that's unusual. After all, I looked rather different when we last met."
"I've learned a lot of things, Doctor, since we last – met, you say? Or since, to put it more accurately, you pushed me out of the doors of your ship and abandoned me to a life of misery. I know about the Time Lords, and your ability to change your appearance. I know about their annihilation in the Time War. And I've learned more about the way you treat your so-called companions – the people you pick up, play with and drop again like discarded toys."
"Excuse me?"
"Quit the monologuing and get on with it," Jack muttered.
"The reality field is about to collapse," said Commander Harrow. "Do it!"
Adam raised his ray gun. "This is for everyone you ever destroyed," he said.
Rose had been expecting Jack and his colleague to intervene and arrest Adam before he could fire at the Doctor. Her fingernails bit into her palms and she had to stop herself flinging herself at Adam to deflect the beam. Instead of stepping forward, Jack coolly levelled what looked like a small rod towards the pair of them and suddenly, Adam wasn't there at all.
The Doctor was a few feet back.
He stopped, and looked around, and rubbed the back of his neck, and saw them.
"What – " he began.
"Go," said the Commander.
And they were back on the time ship.
Rose had been on the point of running towards the Doctor, despite Jack's firm hand on her arm. He relaxed his grip and she stumbled a little as the rubbery floor of the ship replaced the concrete. "Doctor!"
"He should be OK now," said Jack, joining the Commander at the instrument panel. "We're just checking."
"Normality restored one hundred per cent! Back on track!" Commander Harrow cried. "Damage at the pinch point zero zero three, oh that's well within parameters." Her rather severe features were animated, and she actually broke into a smile. "Good work, Captain."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"That was close."
Having managed to avoid the indignity of losing her footing, but feeling light-headed, Rose sank down onto the soft chair. "What happened?" she demanded.
"We pinched a few seconds out of time," said Jack, making a pincer motion with his fingers. "We put it in a loop. It's the best we can do. In those three seconds or so, Mitchell is always raising the annulment device, always firing it at your friend. The beam never hits. It's crude, maybe, but it works with minimal damage to the timeline. Not enough to cause any impact. Usually the people involved never realise anything's happened."
"The Doctor did."
"Yeah, I saw that. Pity I won't remember it. Pity I won't remember him. Can't even look forward to it." He grinned.
"Adam… the Dalek killed him."
"Won't have happened now," said Commander Harrow. "He'll be reintegrated, along with anyone else who died in the damaged timeline who shouldn't have."
"But Adam… the older Adam… where is he?"
"He's trapped forever in the loop we created," said Jack.
"That's horrible."
"What he tried to do was horrible."
It didn't make Rose feel any better about it. "I want to go home," she said. A bleakness had come over her, a trapped helpless feeling, a sudden realisation that she was still, however gently, being held prisoner. Her stomach felt achy and she was tired in the way you could only be after the release of long-held tension.
"We have to get Mitchell's ship back to base and you need to report for memory adjustment, Captain," said Commander Harrow. "Debrief her, and put her back where she belongs."
She almost didn't dare open her eyes this time, as the getting-familiar spin of matter transportation giddied through her head and steadied.
"It's OK," said Jack's voice. "You can look."
It was the Powell Estate, more or less where they had been before, across the concourse from her own block of flats on a grey, blowy February morning. Never had the rain-stained concrete, the swirls of litter and the brave patches of grass looked so welcoming. Over in the distance she could see fifteen-year-old Haley Clarkson pushing her baby along in a pram.
"Is this real?" she asked, hesitant even to move.
"As real as you're gonna get."
She turned around. There was the TARDIS almost right behind her, solid and blue and the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
"Doctor!"
She didn't have her key. She had no idea what had happened to her own clothes, the ones she had folded over an upholstered chair in a bedroom in Chelsea in another reality. It was in the pocket of those jeans. She hammered on the door, which was unyielding and silent.
"Hey," said Jack quietly.
Rose whirled around, and saw the Doctor stumbling and skating down the outside stairs of the flats.
He made a deep noise at the back of his throat as they collided and Rose felt her feet leave the ground. She scrabbled at his hair and, without putting her down, he kissed her hard. Then they clung together, wordless at first.
"Eww, what are you wearing?"
"Old clothes. Shut up."
"They stink. You stink."
"Shut up."
They fell apart, though neither let go entirely.
"Guys," said Jack. "Hate to interrupt, but I gotta go and have my brain fried."
Taking his eyes from her, the Doctor switched his attention decisively to Jack. "Jack – have we met yet, or not?"
"This is Jack from before," said Rose. "When he was a Time Agent."
"Oh, I see. Complicated."
"See you both when I meet you." Jack raised his wrist.
Rose broke away from the Doctor and ran to him, before he had a chance to activate the transporter. "Thank you," she said, and because she suddenly knew that she would never have the chance to again, even if he wasn't going to be able to remember it – she kissed him, on the mouth. He leaned into her, only a little, and held her eyes as she stepped back.
"I'm sorry, Rose," he said, and shimmered out of the air.
"How did you know I was there?"
"I sensed it. Seriously. A bit weird, that – doesn't always happen, hasn't in a while. It was just a feeling that I ought to go and look outside, and – well. There you were. With Jack. Your mother, though – "
They were halfway up the steps. He nodded upwards and made a face.
"How long was I gone? I've totally lost track."
"Thirty two hours and seventeen minutes. A night, a day, another night, half a morning. The night you disappeared – I was on my way back to the TARDIS when I saw you right over there, with Jack, and Adam Mitchell, and another woman – momentarily, just a glimpse, then you all vanished."
"Yeah."
"Well, given that I'd just seen you off to bed in the opposite direction, and we won't meet Adam for another five years, and Jack – well, Jack shouldn't really be around at all, I had just the slightest idea that something might be wrong. I hotfooted it back up to your mum's place, she said you'd just got in and gone straight to bed, but when we looked in your room you weren't there. Cue much confusion."
"Mum probably just thought I'd done a bunk to get my head together."
"Your mother had various theories, most of which featured me as the principal villain. She wasn't terribly interested in the fact that I'd seen an apparition of you." His hand went up to his face.
Rose stopped and looked at him more closely. Before, she'd gazed into his eyes. Now she noticed that he had a red and black bruise across his cheekbone. The skin was broken and grazed, caked with a scab of blood. "Did she hit you?"
"It was partly an accident. Partly. I don't think she meant to draw blood."
"My mum hit you!"
"You're not supposed to laugh! You're supposed to be concerned, dab my wounds with a handkerchief, perhaps."
"I haven't got a handkerchief. I've barely got a jumper!"
"So before we get bombarded by awkward questions, perhaps we ought to get our stories straight. Where were you?"
"It's more like, where were you. Don't you remember Adam coming at you with a big green gun?"
"No. I know something happened to time, though. It's an unmistakeable feeling, like goosebumps. Someone or something punctured a hole in time. A tiny one, a little stitch."
"Yeah. That was Jack and the other time agent."
"They really shouldn't do that, you know."
"They saved your life! They saved Earth! They knew what they were doing."
"They're kids playing firemen in a nuclear reactor," he said sternly. Then he sighed and spread his arms along the metal railing of the balcony and looked upwards. "But with all of the rest of us gone, what can I do alone?"
"You're not alone," said Rose, quietly. "Not any more. Remember?"
The Doctor's face softened, and he looked at her quizzically with the beginnings of a smile, and brought the back of his hand to touch her cheek.
She knew then that everything was going to be OK.
"Rose! Oh my God, Rose."
Jackie scuttled down the stairs and caught Rose in a fierce hug, which was always like being crushed by pillows.
"What happened to you, sweetheart?" She held her at arm's length. "Where have you been? And what in heaven's name are you wearing?" She wrinkled her nose.
"All right, I can take a hint," said Rose. "Definitely time for a shower and a change then. I'll tell you both everything once you stop holding your noses at me!"
"And tea," said the Doctor. "Jackie, we need a nice hot cup of tea. Several, ideally."
Rose dropped Vinny's jeans and jumper to the bathroom floor with a shudder of relief. As soon as her hand released each garment they seemed to grey momentarily, then vanished right before her eyes.
"Oh. Weird," she said, aloud.
Even weirder, there was blood on the floor where they had been.
It took Rose a moment to register that this was what the darkish mark on the cream tiled floor was. She knelt to examine the sticky patch, and it slipped under her touch and came up bright red on her fingers.
Without thinking, she turned to the sink to rinse her hand and she realised she was stepping in fresh pools of it. Blood was running down her legs.
She opened her mouth to scream for her mother, but no sound came.