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The TARDIS wheezed and groaned, as it faded into existence on the street outside Jackie's flat. Upon stepping out of the TARDIS, Zoe immediately crossed her arms, trying to keep some of the warmth from being stolen by the chill in the air. The Doctor stepped out right behind her, appearing unbothered by the cold. She wondered idly if it was thanks to his leather jacket or superior Time Lord biology. She thought of the Doctor's regenerations wearing brown striped suits and tweed jackets in freezing cold weather and decided it must be the latter.
"Like I promised, it's yesterday night again just after the explosion," the Doctor said, closing the TARDIS door behind him. "Your job blowing up should only have just aired on that telle you love so much."
Zoe rolled her eyes. "Despite what you may think, I don't watch that much television." At the Doctor's raised eyebrow, she said, "Like I said, binge-watching Doctor Who was a reward to myself for dealing with my supervisor's crap." And it called to me in ways most shows don't, she added silently. Out loud, she continued, "That isn't something I do a lot. I usually read and write," she tilted her head in consideration, "or doodle. Badly."
The Doctor just shook his head in tolerant amusement. "One day, you're going to realize there is no show called Doctor Who, and feel very, very silly for insisting otherwise."
She let out an annoyed huff. "Once I prove I'm from an alternate universe, you'll eat your words, Doctor," she promised. Then she had to stifle a yawn.
He looked at her with concern, seeming to note the slight bags under her eyes. "Didn't you sleep at all? That was the point of us waiting until now."
"I did sleep," she said. "It just took a few hours before I could fall asleep."
Understatement. Of. The. Year. She spent half the night lying in bed, combing over everything that had happened in the last two days. Over and over again.
August's phone call, the implication he was dying, and his final words to her. Her waking up in another reality where the Doctor was real and Jackie insisted she was Rose.
The lingering guilt from making Jackie cry, because she insisted back she wasn't Rose. Even though it's true, she should have thought about it from Jackie's point of view. It must have seemed like Rose was disowning her own mother for her father.
Vicki's death hit her hard. She just couldn't shake the feeling it was her fault. That bit of guilt hovered over her head like a miniature storm cloud.
Seeing the Autons melt into a giant, plastic monster. Because what the hell? That should have been impossible. How was that possible?
Then the piece de resistance — the vivid memory of falling headfirst to the ground with the Doctor, thinking they were both going to die and it would be all her fault…only for them to land in the TARDIS' swimming pool.
It was too much, too fast. Really, it was a wonder she managed to sleep at all.
The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, but right then, the front door of the flat slammed opened, and Jackie appeared at the top of the steps with a phone attached to her head. "I know! She could have died." They heard her cry into the phone. "She deserves compensation." She spotted them over the banister at them. "Hold on, Maurice," she said, right before tucking the phone against her chest. "Rose! Rose, is that you?" She put the phone back against her ear. "Maurice, I've got to call you back. My daughter just got home."
"Rose?" the Doctor repeated, his brow wrinkling in confusion. "I thought your name was Zoe."
"It is Zoe," she muttered low enough for him to hear, as Rose's mother descended upon them. She realized she should have taken the time to explain her situation with Jackie before they arrived. Oh, well. Here goes nothing.
"Rose," Jackie said, pulling Zoe into a fierce hug, oblivious to her discomfort. Not to the Doctor though. His gaze narrowed in on Zoe's expression and the way her arms hung awkwardly at her sides. She was clearly uncomfortable with the woman's embrace. "Why didn't you answer your phone? I've been worried sick over you. It's all over the news. Someone blew up your job."
"Sorry. Didn't have it on me today," Zoe explained hastily, taking the opportunity to step away from Rose's mom.
"Oh, that makes sense," Jackie said. "I'm just so relieved to see my daughter safe!"
"Hang on," the Doctor said, looking back and forth between the two. "Did you say 'my daughter?' You look nothing like each other."
Zoe glanced at Jackie, noting the differences between them. Jackie was blonde, short, and had a round face while she was tall, had dark brown hair and hazel green eyes. They had nothing in common with each other; she couldn't even say their noses looked similar.
Jackie spun on the spot to stare down the Doctor, finally realizing they weren't alone. Her hands braced her hips, showing off her brash attitude. "Of course she takes after me!" she snapped. "Where do you think she gets her beauty from? Her father? Ha."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow at Zoe, seeming to ask silently if the woman was serious or not. He'd seen her mother's portrait after all.
"Jack…I mean, Mom," Zoe said, forcing the word out and getting a pointed eyebrow raise from the Doctor. She knows, she knows, but what else can she do? The woman sees what she wants to see. "Please don't. Let's just go inside."
"Oh, alright. But, who is this man? Why are you with him?"
"This is the Doctor. He saved my life. If it weren't for him, I'd be dead," she said. There. Hopefully that saves him from Jackie's famous slap later on, she thought, if it even comes to that.
Jackie's expression lightened at hearing that. Well, she regarded him with less suspicion anyway. "Doctor? Doctor who?"
"Just the Doctor," he said.
"Oh, well, thank you for saving my daughter," she said. "Come on in then. I'll make us some tea." She hustled up the steps and into the flat with the Doctor and Zoe following suit. Jackie headed straight for the kitchen, leaving the Doctor and Zoe in the living room. Standing there, Zoe realized with some chagrin that the Doctor was here a day earlier than the original timeline, and with the arm sucked into the Auton monster, what would the Doctor use to track down the Nestene Consciousness?
"Did you work at the shop with Rose then?" Jackie called out over the sound of running tap water and dishes being pulled from the cupboard.
"Nope," he said, popping the p. The Doctor flitted across the living room like a hummingbird in a room full of nectar. He first poked at a pink, frilly ornament sitting innocently on an end table. Zoe thought it might be a glass pig dressed in a tutu. The Doctor seemed to come to a similar conclusion, as he gave it one last disparaging poke before turning swiftly to pick up one of Jackie's abandoned paperback novels off the coffee table. He flipped through the pages at an unbelievable pace, his eyes darting left to right at a speed that made Zoe's eyes twinge with sympathy pains. His expression, which had morphed from one unreadable emotion to the next, finally settled on disappointment, as he tossed the book over his shoulder. "Rubbish ending."
"Here we are," Jackie sing-songed, as she came into view, carrying a tray with three teacups and a bowl of sugar cubes. Needing a distraction, Zoe claimed a teacup from the tray and simply cradled the cup in her hands, soaking in its warmth. Jackie gave her a strange look but seemed to brush off whatever she'd found odd about this to turn her attention to the Doctor. "Now tell me all about how you saved my girl. Don't leave a detail out. She could have died you know. She deserves compensation!"
But the Doctor didn't seem to hear her. He was staring at some gilded framed pictures on the wall. His eyebrows were raised so high on his forehead, they threatened to disappear into his hairline. An incredible feat, really. Instead of answering Jackie's question, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at one of the taller portraits. "Who's that?"
Both Zoe and Jackie turned to look at what he was talking about, and Zoe felt her heart convulse in her chest as if an electrical current had passed through her body. It was a still shot of Jackie and Rose, the real Rose, posing in their swimsuits. Rose with her dirty blonde hair, sporting a huge grin and sticking her tongue out at her mother whose expression was one of fond exasperation.
"That's Rose," Jackie said, sounding annoyed and flustered at once. "Can't you tell just by lookin' at her? That picture's only a year old after all."
"I thought you said she was Rose," the Doctor said, pointing at me.
Jackie jumped to her feet and glared, first at the Doctor, before swiveling her heated gaze on me. "What's this then? Is he in on your little joke from this morning? Well, it's not funny. I'm not havin' it."
"What joke?" the Doctor asked.
"I said stop! That's a picture of Rose," she said, throwing her hands in my direction with a helpless air. "It's as obvious as day!"
An uncomfortable silence descended on the flat. The Doctor's gaze was focused on Zoe, serious and intent like she was a puzzle he couldn't solve. She fidgeted under the attention, finding herself wishing for the hundredth time that she'd woken up yesterday on her lumpy, plaid couch. She sipped at her tea and nearly choked on the bitter liquid, and then thinking better of it, she set it down on the tray. She wasn't much of a tea drinker anyway.
At seeing Zoe's reaction to the tea, Jackie hugged herself, seemingly in an effort to comfort herself. "You never take your tea without two lumps of sugar," she whispered, more to herself than them. "What, why…" As she struggled to find the words, a loud gyrating buzz interrupted her. It filled the air like an angry bee.
The Doctor walked forward and plucked the source of the sound from under a white, fluffy couch pillow: a vibrating red cell phone. He flipped it open and answered with false cheer. "Hello." His brows furrowed in irritation at whatever the caller said. "Oi, I should be asking that! Who is this?" The Doctor seemed to be listening with half an ear now, rolling his eyes at Zoe. "Ricky? What kind of name is that?"
Zoe stilled hearing this, remembering too late that Rose's boyfriend, Mickey, had shown up at the flat the night of the explosion, so he could drag her to a pub in the show, something about sports. Did he call her before he showed up? She had a feeling this is one of those strange differences between the show and this reality. She should have been prepared for this possibility though, but in between running from Autons, swimming in the TARDIS pool, and facing Jackie, Mickey had been the furthest thing from her mind.
Whatever Mickey said next made the Doctor scoff, and with an irritated look, he tossed the phone at Zoe. She nearly fumbled the catch. "Some stupid ape named Rickey. Says he's your boyfriend." He air quoted the word boyfriend like the idea was ridiculous.
With an uneasy look at Jackie who hadn't stopped staring at her since the Doctor answered the phone, she raised the phone to her ear. "Hello?"
"Rose! Who was that?" Mickey demanded more than asked. "Why is there a guy at your place?"
She grimaced and rubbed her temple with her free hand. She so did not have time for his misplaced jealousy, and she didn't have the energy to pretend to be something she wasn't. It was bad enough she was pretending to be someone's daughter; she wasn't going to add girlfriend to that list now. She cleared her throat. "That was the Doctor."
"Doctor?" Mickey said, his tone turning to concern now. "Are you hurt then? I only just heard on the news about your work."
"I'm fine," she said, super aware of how stiff she sounded and of both Jackie and the Doctor's stares. Jackie had her mouth gaping half-open, looking at her with something halfway close to fear. The Doctor was simply observing her, taking in her body language and words with his sharp analytical gaze. She wondered if she looked as tense as she felt.
"Oh, well, then," Mickey charged on, now that it was clear Zoe was not hurt. "You should come to the pub. It'll cheer you up."
"Is there a game on?" Zoe asked, feeding the line she could remember from the show. She didn't have to fake the edge to her words, feeling affected by the uneasy tension in the room.
"Well, yeah, ok, there is one, but you'll have fun. Come on!"
"Not tonight," she said with finality. Not ever, she added silently to herself. Mickey had been one of her least favorite characters in the show. It took several episodes for her to warm up to him. If this followed the show's storyline, it would be a while before Mickey became someone she considered worthy of respect.
"Oh, alright then," he said, sounding put out. "You probably need to sleep and all that."
"Yeah," she said, then added as an afterthought, forcing her voice to be light, "Thanks for checking in."
"Of course. I've gotta go. Love you."
A stifling few seconds of quiet followed, a silence she knew she was supposed to fill with a simple love you, too, but she couldn't bring herself to say it back. "Right," she said instead. "Talk to you later then." She pressed the End button before he could say anything else. She expelled a huge breath and tucked Rose's phone in her pocket, figuring she may need it later.
"Well, that was more like it," Jackie said, looking somewhat relieved. "That was more like my Rose. When are you going to end it with that poor boy?"
Zoe swung wide hazel-green eyes to her. That was new. Were Mickey and Rose experiencing relationship problems before the Doctor's arrival in the show? She couldn't remember. "I...I need to tell him in person. It's not right to break up over the phone."
Jackie raised an eyebrow at her. "Dangling him on the hook ain't right either, love." She sighed then and added, "Well, I'm tuckered out. I think I'll head to bed early. See yourself out, Doctor?" Her eyes promised physical harm on his person if he even tried to stay the night at the flat with her daughter.
He flashed her a huge grin. "Right-o."
She narrowed her eyes at his cheerful demeanor, but she turned her back on him and trudged down the hall toward her room anyway. The moment her back was turned, the Doctor's smile fell away and his eyes lost their mischievous glint.
Zoe frowned to herself, watching Rose's mother retreating form. For a moment back there, she'd thought Jackie was starting to realize she was not in fact her daughter, Rose, yet an awkward phone call with Mickey had convinced her otherwise.
The familiar sound of the screwdriver warbling to her left snapped Zoe's attention away from Jackie to the Doctor. He was pulling his arm back with the screwdriver in tow, and she understood too well in that instant what he'd done. She just couldn't understand why.
She raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Did you just scan Jackie?" she whispered a moment before she heard the bedroom door close with an audible click.
The Doctor glanced up from the screwdriver's readings to give her a look. "Yes."
"May I ask why?"
He returned his gaze to the screwdriver, a frown forming on his brow from whatever readings he saw there.
"The pictures on your dresser in your room," he said after a moment, tearing his gaze away from the screwdriver to look at her. "Those were definitely pictures of your uncle and mother. There's a distinct resemblance between you and them that can't be faked." He glanced at the family photos decorating the west wall of the flat, showing off the real Rose. "I may have been a tad rash. I'm not saying I'm convinced you're from a different universe. Definitely not. But that," pointing in the direction of Jackie's room, "that is definitely not your mother, but she's convinced you're her daughter." He waved the screwdriver under her nose. "Looks aside, you don't have a single thing in common with her. DNA included. She's just an ordinary human, and let's not forget Rickey, you are way too smart to have a stupid ape like him as a boyfriend."
He tucked his screwdriver into his inside jacket pocket. "Something is going on here," he murmured.
Relief flooded through her. He may not believe she came from a different universe, but he'd at least found tangible proof that she didn't belong here. That she really is a Zoe and not a Rose. "That's what I've been trying to tell you," she said in a rush. "I woke up here in Rose's room yesterday morning, but everyone who's met Rose thinks I'm her. I don't know how I got here or why or where Rose is."
The Doctor scoffed. "You're not from another world, but it certainly does seem like you've been dropped into someone else's life."
"So that's possible, but traveling between universes is a stretch," Zoe said with little humor. "Right."
Well, at least he figured out this much so far. Unfortunately, they still didn't know how she'd gotten here, where the real Rose was, and why everyone thought she was Rose. Until then, she supposed she was stuck here…
She looked around the small flat, knowing she would be expected to live Rose's life for her. Get a different job with Nickie's getting blow up. She supposed she should snoop around Rose's room to see if she was going to university under her mother's nose like she suspected.
Even as she contemplated staying, she found herself horrified by the very thought of living someone else's life. If she was living Rose's life, who would live Zoe's life? So when she saw the Doctor heading for the front door, seemingly ready to leave her behind in a life that wasn't her own, she hurried after him.
"Wait. Where are you going? Take me with you!"
The Doctor paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked over his shoulder back at her. His steel blue eyes filled with an intense empathy that stunned her. Here was a man who knew what it was like to stand in a crowd, be seen, and perceived to be someone he wasn't. He also knew what it was like to be forced into a situation you didn't ask for. But his understanding gaze was also tinged with sympathy, and the last thing she wanted in that moment was for the Time Lord to feel sorry for her.
"Zoe," he started hesitantly.
"Doctor, please," she said. "You need me. I know where the Nestene Consciousness is."
"I can find it on my own just fine."
"You don't have to do it alone."
The Doctor shook his head. "You don't know what you're asking."
She jutted her chin up and pointed at herself. "Psychic here, or so you'd like me to believe."
He stared her down, his expression similar to his future self's Oncoming Storm, causing goosebumps to prickle along her forearms. "This is about more than just your safety - which I cannot guarantee if you come with me - if I'm right, and I'm almost always right, you know too much about future events. Telling me where the Nestene Consciousness is before I'm meant to know could be disastrous and change events too far from their natural order."
Zoe bit her lip, feeling what she thought a criminal must feel when they're about to confess to murder. "The timeline has already changed," she said before she could convince herself to hide the truth.
The Doctor froze. "What?"
"Everything is different because I'm here," she said fast. "The timeline I know has her. Rose Tyler." She nodded to the pictures of Rose and her mother on the wall. She glanced uneasily down the hall to Jackie's room before adding in a lower voice, "And she's missing. And for some reason, I'm here instead. I'm here, and she's not, and it's changed everything. You were supposed to run away from the Autons with Rose, not me. She worked in that shop, the one you blew up, not me. I knew that if I 'worked' there, you'd eventually show up. I'm just so relieved you arrived as fast as you did."
She took a breath, bracing herself to say what she'd realized earlier. "The arm."
The Doctor who had been silently listening, his expression growing graver with every word out of her mouth, paused, thrown by the seemingly abrupt topic change. "Arm? What arm?"
"The plastic one that attacked us in the elevator. It escaped the building before the explosion in the timeline I know. You were tracking the arm to use it to find the Nestene Consciousness. Because of me, you don't even have that. The arm got sucked into some sort of melted plastic monster instead." She felt her face scrunch up at the memory.
"Auton," the Doctor said automatically.
"Right. And that Auton didn't happen before. That was new," Zoe said, repeating what he'd said earlier. "New, new."
For reasons beyond Zoe's understanding, the Doctor's face lit up as if he finally understood something. He grinned at her, his smile shiny and bright and shocking in context. "This changes things then," he said, grabbing her arm and opening the front door in one go.
"Changes what?"
"Everything," the Doctor said. "You're coming with me."
Wondering if it was possible to experience verbal whiplash, Zoe asked in a daze, "What changed your mind? Not that I'm complaining."
"I'm dangerous, yeah, but you might be just as dangerous, Zoe Peyton. Better you stick with me."
Author's Note
So I have weird feelings about this chapter, but overall, I'm satisfied. Needless to say, it wasn't as exciting as the one before, but it was important and needed to happen before we dived into the next mini-adventure waiting for the Doctor and Zoe.
Please let me know what you think. Your reviews are my life-sustenance.
For this chapter's question, answer me this...
What's a weird or unique eating habit you have or know about?
I personally have a weird eating habit. Or, I'm told it's weird anyway. I like to dip my Oreos in milk (that's not the weird part). If milk cannot be found, I will resort to dipping them in water rather than eating them dry. I just prefer my Oreos to be moist. Weird or not weird - what's your verdict?