A/N: The final author's note is very important, please read that. Thanks!
"Well, we've landed," Footsteps were heard as the Doctor ran toward the doors. I clutched my head as I slowly tried to get up, flinching and immediately gripping the edge of the console as the dizziness set in. I closed my eyes, letting the blood rush down my body, holding my breath.
"Powell Estate! Fantastic!" I shook my head to let the blood flow away fast, shuddering. "Oh, and Ricky's here! Look at him! All apey! Fantastic!"
Someone yelped, while Rose chided for the billionth time that his name was Mickey and that he wasn't an ape. I opened my eyes and stood up with the help of the console, and the sight in front of me made me suppress laughter. The Doctor was hugging a very confused Mickey and rocking him about, muttering the word 'fantastic' over and over.
I walked toward them as the Doctor finally let go of Mickey, who massaged his shoulder. "Why's he hugging me?" He then noticed me. I waved awkwardly. "Hey Mickey,"
"And who's she? Another one of yours, then?" He pointed to me and turned to the Doctor.
"Liza Cole, and I can speak for myself, thank you very much."
The Doctor turned to Mickey. "She's my friend. Met her after we left London. After your whole Raxacoricofallapatorian thing."
I jumped out of the TARDIS, taking a huge breath as I smiled. "I never thought I'd be this happy to be outside on Earth. Ever." I spun around, looking up at the tops of the buildings which were outlining the sky in a way.
The Doctor laughed as Rose kicked a can and went to put an arm around Mickey. "Me either." She turned to Mickey, who was in a better-ish mood now that Rose was talking to him. "So, how've you been?"
"Good, I was working over there when I heard the noise..."
Their voices started to trail off as I walked further away from them. I put my hands in my pockets and stood on my toes, looking up at a building that looked similar to Rose's in the show. I frowned at the lack of Jackie Tyler. She would've been downstairs by then- the TARDIS dematerialising wasn't the quietest thing- especially if one knows to look for it.
"Whatcha looking at?" I turned around toward the Doctor, who was walking toward me. I shrugged, grinning. "At Rose's apartment. I mean, Jackie should've come down here by now,"
"What, do you think she got kidnapped by a rogue band of aliens or something?"
My eyes widened and I smacked his arm. "Well, now I do! I thought she was sick or hurt or something, and now thanks to you, I'm imagining her in a Cyber conversion theatre or a spaceship, or-"
"Oi, don't get your hopes up for another adventure! The chances of aliens specifically targeting Jackie is ridiculous."
"I wasn't, after what just happened, an adventure's the last thing on my mind."
"Like I was saying, there's a high chance that she went shopping or something, or was talking to her friend about magazines and beans and other people."
"Yeah, maybe," I looked down, kicking a few pebbles away. "I wanted to meet her."
"Because she slapped me?"
I looked up at him, scoffing. "If that was the criterion for how I wanted to meet people, then the list would be huge."
And then I realized what I had just said. I tried hard to not laugh as I saw the Doctor's horrified face. "You mean there's a lot of people who are gonna slap me?!"
I pressed my lips together, turning away. "Spoilers." And then I burst out laughing. I looked up at the Doctor, whose face was a mix of horror and confusion, and started laughing harder. "Why are you laughing?!"
"Have you seen your expression?"
"How would you feel if someone told you that you were gonna be slapped by someone's mum?"
"I'd ask them if they were mad at me for piloting the TARDIS horribly and landing a year later than I should've."
He scowled at me, turning and walking away, muttering something about stupid references. I grinned at him and turned to Rose and Mickey, who were walking toward us. "Have you seen my mum anywhere?"
I shook my head, "Where is she, though, I wanted to meet her,"
Mickey frowned at me. "Who are you?"
I shrugged. "I told you. Liza Cole."
He raised an eyebrow. "How did you meet the Doctor?"
"Mickey-" Rose clicked her tongue.
"He materialized around me while my friend was being eaten by a mirror. Why are you so curious anyway?"
"Well, Rose here says that the Doctor isn't like any other bloke-"
"And you wanna disprove that. How did I not figure this out, it even happens in School Reunion," I shook my head and kicked a rock on the ground.
"School what? What the hell are you talking about?"
I shook my head. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
At that moment, someone screamed and something fell down. My head snapped toward the sound as the Doctor whirled around to see what was going on.
Rose pushed past me, running toward a shocked Jackie Tyler, Mickey hot in her heels for some reason. Although, he did imprint on her when he was a kid in an alternate timeline plus there was also the fact that Rose and the Doctor were gone for god knows how much time in his perspective, so maybe it made sense for him to follow her everywhere.
A grin found its way onto my face as my heart started pounding. I walked toward the Doctor, who was staring at me, amused. "Are you gonna go running towards her as well?"
I shook my head, staring at Jackie as she threw her arms around Rose, hysterical as she cried about something related to her being worried about the alien man. The Doctor shook his head at that as we walked towards them.
I grinned, grabbing his hand and pulling him along. Jackie seemed to notice me, and looked at Rose, who started explaining stuff which I couldn't hear because 1) Rose wasn't as loud as Jackie, and 2) The Doctor had his own complaints about me pulling him towards someone who had slapped him and was probably gonna slap him again because of my 'vague implications'.
After we finally reached Jackie, I let the Doctor go and he almost barrelled into Mickey, who had to jump out of the way to not be hit by a 900 year old Time Lord. The Doctor somehow regained his balance without bumping into anything or anyone (thankfully), but still had a lot of comments to make in a language I couldn't understand.
I turned to Jackie, who was eyeing me curiously. I held my hand out, taking a deep breath. "Jackie Tyler- I'm a huge fan, I've been looking forward to meeting you." And then I mentally smacked myself. Of all the things to say-
Jackie, on the other hand, looked pleased. "Oh, hello dear, you must be Liza. Rose was just telling me about you. Glad to see that at least someone appreciates me around here," She glanced at Rose and the Doctor, the latter shrugging and leaning against the wall, keeping his distance away from Jackie.
"Oi, you could come and say hello, at least." She scowled at the Doctor, who backed away further, muttering a nervous 'Hello, Jackie' to her. I bit my lip and clenched my fists together, trying to stop myself from bursting into hysterics for the second time in the last fifteen minutes.
"What are you doing, backing off like that? I'm not gonna bite you!" She started walking toward him. The Doctor still didn't look convinced, but he at least stopped for a moment. Jackie took it as her opportunity and threw her arms around him. He stumbled backward, muttering some gibberish as he awkwardly patted her back in response to her comments about him keeping Rose safe and getting her an actual human friend or something.
She rocked him about for a few moments and let go of him, walking back toward us. The Doctor, on the other hand, shuddered, folding his hands, and came back walking toward us.
Jackie turned back toward me. "So, what are you exactly? To him?" She gestured to the Doctor, whose eyes widened. I frowned.
"We're friends- why?"
She raised her eyebrows and surveyed my appearance. I frowned and looked down at what I was wearing- oh. Of course. I shook my head and made an 'X' sign with my hands. "No, we're not, we're totally not- the other alternative was hypothermia, really."
She raised an eyebrow, and I looked at the Doctor, who seemed absolutely mortified. "Seriously, Jackie, we were in danger, the TARDIS was dying, it was cold, and Rose had a blanket while this one was concussed in the corridor as usual-"
I scowled at the whole 'as usual' part and he shrugged. "Stop pretending like it isn't true," He turned back to Jackie, "Anyway, like I was saying, she was freezing and the TARDIS was out of power and the temperature was dropping-"
Jackie interrupted him and turned to me and Rose, "Hold on, you were all freezing?" She turned back to the Doctor, glaring. "What the hell were you doing, letting them freeze like that?!"
He threw his hands up, straightening his posture. "I just told you, the TARDIS was dying, meaning, the central heating was definitely gonna be off!"
"Why didn't you tell me that in the first place instead of backing off as if I was a Slickeen or some green alien thing with one eye that was about to kill you?!"
"Actually, they're called Solmens and-"
"Oi, stop interrupting me! Like I was saying, you all need a warm cup of tea and some toast!" She picked up her bags and marched into the apartment with us following her. Rose was still talking to Mickey (or to be precise, Mickey was talking about work or something while Rose was idly listening), while the Doctor started prodding the side of my head.
I turned toward him, scowling. "What?"
"I'm bored."
"We've been outside the TARDIS for less than an hour. How can you be bored already?"
"I dunno, I'm the Doctor, I get bored easily!"
"Translation, you have no trouble to get into." I shrugged, "I mean, I could tell Jackie that you almost got Rose killed at Van-"
"Don't! I'd rather be bored-"
I grinned at him and took his jacket off me. "Oh, and by the way, I forgot to tell you."
"What?" He raised an eyebrow.
"You look unrecognisable without this thing, and I'm not cold anymore, so be the Doctor again." I tossed it at him and he caught it, frowning.
"What, so I'm not the Doctor unless I'm wearing the jacket?"
I shrugged. "I mean, you're certainly more Doctor-ish, but you really have to ask Rose more about it." I turned around and skipped toward the stairs on top of which Jackie was climbing.
"And all this was because this genius over here forgot to turn on your shield things?" We had just recounted our previous adventure to her as she poured us some tea, which was even better than the TARDIS fandom page proclaimed it to be. Maybe Jackie's tea was really the magical cure to everything.
The Doctor scowled at her. "Oi, we had gone through someone's personal timeline and it was the only way I could get the TARDIS to cooperate!"
"Cooperate? What do you mean, cooperate?" Mickey raised his eyebrows at us.
I took a sip of my tea and turned toward him. "Se- the TARDIS is alive. Meaning, she controls what we do most of the time even though we like to pretend that we control her."
Mickey turned to the Doctor, "So you;re saying that your living spaceship told you not to go wherever you went, and you disagreed with it?"
"Her." The Doctor looked at me with a smile on my face, seemingly proud that I had defaulted to correcting everyone that Sexy was a she, and not an it.
Mickey, on the other hand, looked less pleased. "Yeah, whatever. You didn't listen to her. What kind of an adrenaline junkie are you?"
"What the hell were you three even doing anyway?"
The Doctor turned to me. "Do we tell her?" My eyes widened as I jerked up, giving him a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you look.
Jackie turned and glared at the Doctor, while Mickey raised an eyebrow, "Why are you asking her what you should do?!"
"Well, Ricky,"
"Mickey. How many times should I tell you that?"
"Whatever. Mickey, you wouldn't believe me if I told you." He turned back to me, raising his eyebrows. I bit my lip, frowning. I mean, Jackie did come to know eventually, but only in the finale- meaning- I shook my head.
The Doctor turned back to Jackie and Mickey. "Nope, we can't tell you."
"What, so you'll just listen to some random girl?" Mickey turned to Rose. "And you're actually okay with this?"
The Doctor scowled at Mickey and was about to open his mouth, but I beat him to it. "Okay, Mickey, basically I'm from another world where all of this is a story, meaning I know what happens next- in the grand scheme of things, anyway, so he decided that he's supposed to ask me literally everything about the future, except when he isn't."
"Oi, we can't risk changing show cannon or whatever, remember what happened last time?!" I shuddered and turned back to Mickey, who still looked unconvinced. I sighed and put my cup of tea down. "You touched a garbage bin when Rose was at Clive's and got stuck to it and then got pulled into it."
He jerked forward, his eyes wide. "How the hell did you know that? Nobody was around at that time!"
I shrugged, taking another sip of tea. "I told you, this is all a story where I come from, and I know what happens in the future, Ish, And this piece of info is particularly important to an event that's gonna happen at some point in the future, which is why we can't tell you now."
Mickey still looked at me warily. "So you know what happens in the future."
I nodded, placing my teacup down, rubbing my hands together.
"Isn't that supposed to be dangerous, I mean, what if you changed something that wasn't meant to be changed just because you didn't like how things went?"
I sighed, leaning back on the couch we were sitting on, closing my eyes. Images of the Doctor being eaten by the space bacteria flashed through my head. And then the Doctor's face when he thought Rose was killed by the Dalek. I opened my eyes and looked at him, trying to push away the images. "Believe me, been there, done that, never wanna do it again."
The room then faded into a silence, Mickey looking at me with an uncertain look while Rose stared at him almost like she was about to kick herself or something. The Doctor then cleared his throat. "Anyway enough about us, what have you two been up to?"
I looked up at him, a small smile on my face, and he nodded, still talking to them as Rose joined in, asking about Bev and Jessica, and the butcher and everyone else, making it seem like what had just happened didn't ever happen.
A/N: Hey guys! Okay, I know I kinda made Mickey a bit of a prick here lol, but I had my reasons- 1) I feel like it would be extremely unrealistic if Liza was friends with literally everyone, and 2) I feel like even though a lot was resolved in Aliens of London/ World War Three (aka, Jackie trusted the Doctor more), Mickey was still suspicious of the Doctor, and I feel like the fact that the Doctor now has someone else travelling with him- someone who knows a lot about Mickey despite not knowing him at all, and someone who knows the future- it juts would make Mickey a little unsettled and questioning. Especially since Rose always keeps telling him that the Doctor is different.
On another note, I've been forgetting to tell this to everyone, but it's really important, and that is that Liza's story is cannon only until Series 10, for a variety of reasons, number one being (and now here I am, anticipating the pitchforks) that I have very mixed feelings towards the 13th Doctor and her plotlines (scratch that- I'm not a fan of her plotlines). I mean, I do like her at times, but then there's episodes like Arachnids in the UK or The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos where I really question a lot about her moral values and hypocrisy. I don't hate her, and I feel like a lot of what's going on with her has to do with the writing, but like I said: mixed feelings. And another thing is that I write fanfic based on my attraction to fictional characters, and I'm heterosexual, meaning I don't feel attracted to 13- romantically at least (and also I feel like she isn't characterised well enough for me to grasp her personality properly, but that's something for another day). I really hope I'm not offending anyone, but this is what I've chosen to do because of the reasons I just said.
So all in all, after Twice Upon a Time, I'm just gonna be making shit up (and the 13th Doctor's gonna be a man, sorry to anyone I offended) and basically have one or two seasons or smth.
And another thing, I completely forgot to put a warning at the beginning of the series, but this book series will have a major character death, and that can be triggering to some people if not warned prior ig, so consider yourself warned (lol).
Anyway, that A/N was a whole word dump, lol, so ig I'll be signing off then. Bye! I love you guys!
PS: The next chapter WILL be The Empty Child, I swear. Or at least, a part of it.
Replies to reviews:
NeoMulder: Lol, I couldn't really write those months properly, but I will be touching on a few specific incidents in the next chapter (mainly because I wanted to get to the Empty Child soon since there's not much happening atm in the story lol), but I assume that he was avoiding everyone as much as possible while taking the TARDIS on test drives for the most part (translation: he crashed the TARDIS many times and in many places). And judging by the fact that he gets bored so often, I would say that this was much more torturous than the Power of Three. Also, I'm glad to see that your enjoying the story so much :)