Summary: Remember Rose's fellow shopgirl? No? Didn't think so. Well, too bad, you're finding out what happened to her anyway.
Notes: I know it's a bit iffy to center a... anything around an OC. You are, therefore, free to skip this epilogue completely, as it's not necessary, and it's probably a little self-indulgent anyway. Just make sure you remember-- there are two more epilogues, without a single OC in sight. I don't think this one is that terrible, though-- still, I'd understand.
(-)
How they dance in the courtyard
Molly Janson stood behind the counter, blinking helplessly in the general direction that Rose and her friend had gone. ...Hang on, what the hell am I supposed to do now she's wandered off like this?!
She shook her head and let out a short breath, running a hand through her hair. Am I being taken advantage of again? 'Cos I know sometimes I'm taken advantage of.
"Molly!"
Speaking of which. She turned to her boss, smiling pleasantly. "Yes, sir?"
"Where's that Rose girl?"
"Coffee break."
"Ah. Well, you can tell her when she gets back."
"Tell her what, sir?" Molly asked, carefully, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. After all, her landlady had just hiked up her rent and she had to buy some new books for school. She had a feeling what might be coming.
"The... we're coming under new management."
"...And?"
"And they're going to renovate the store. New paint. New design."
"New sales staff."
"Yes."
She put a hand to her forehead. "So... I'm fired?"
"No. We need you here 'till next week."
"Do I still get my paycheck?"
"Oh, of course!"
Behind him, his secretary was walking out with a cardboard box in her hands. She shook her head and mouthed 'no'.
"Right," Molly said. "Well, then. Screw this." She grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder.
"Hang on, you can't just--"
"Do you have any idea how many damn textbooks are in this thing? Do you really want to find out?" She hefted her backpack threateningly.
"I--"
"Also, you're an ugly wanker and I did NOT appreciate it when you slapped me on the ass all those times."
"I never--"
"Screw you!" She stormed toward the exit, feeling a flash of foreboding. Supopse the secretary had been lying?
No, there was Clive with her, the stockboy she had a crush on. Molly was safe.
"I can't believe it," said Clive. "Firin' us, just like that?!"
"Actually, it's a bit more complicated," said Joyce the secretary, looking grim. "He's been embezzling, and they've just launched an investigation into it. How'd you think I knew we weren't getting our last checks back?"
"Hell and damnnation," Molly moaned. "Just when my rent goes up!"
"Really? God. You're having a bad week."
"You don't happen to know anywhere with an open position, do you?" Molly asked wearily, pushing her bangs out of her eyes.
"No, I'm sorry," said Joyce, sounding sincerely apologetic.
"Well. I'm pretty well screwed then." Molly smiled at them cheerfully. "So. What now. Hell."
"There'll be something for you," Joyce said. "I'm sure there will. You're really a fantastic worker."
"Thanks."
"I'm sure something will come up." She nodded decisively. "You'll be fine, I know it. I'll see you around."
"Uh-- all right." Molly waved back at Joyce and Clive, noting that this whole getting-fired thing was probably going to give Joyce a fantastic conversation-starter with the 'hot stockboy'. Well, she wished her luck.
Molly sighed to herself and walked away, in the vague direction of the nearest Underground exit.
Great. Just great. Now what do I do? Finding a damn job was hard enough the first time. Can't change apartments; too much of a hassle, and I think there might've been something in that damned contract she'd barely let me read. Probably 'cos I was dumb enough to tell her I was a law student. Damnnation...
Molly sighed. She didn't really want to think about being a law student. It wasn't just the crazy hours she had these days, or the ridiculously high-priced textbooks, or even that she was so far from home...
...Thing is, I just don't like it much. I really don't. All that damned obtuse language... I can deal with the principles, but all the purposeful obfuscation makes me want to throw the book down and scream, USE BLOODY ENGLISH! Just 'cos something's understandable doesn't mean it's imprecise! Or unscientific! Or unsophisticated!
Damn it, I thought I could deal with it. I know I can understand it, but I thought I'd deal with this, I thought I'd learn to like it.
I think I was wrong. I don't want to do this anymore.
She sighed. That was all well and good, but how exactly was she supposed to get out of it? It just wasn't done... She had scholarships and passports and proud family back home, and wouldn't just going back taste a lot like defeat?
And where would I go from there? Work? More school, without a scholarship this time? You'll put that on them?
Molly sighed again. Wait a sec, where exactly am I going?
She turned around, looking for a clue as to where she was. Bloody hell.
She was trying to figure out how to retrace her steps when she suddenly caught sight of a man in a leather jacket, wandering the other way. Dark hair, big ears-- the one who'd taken Rose out for coffee or whatever?
"Hey! Mister!" she called, waving her hand. That didn't help much, given that they were in the middle of London and he had his back to her.
She gritted her teeth. It was probably foolish to get herself even more lost than she was, but-- damn it, Rose was her only friend here, and she wanted to know where the hell she'd gone.
Molly strode after the black-jacketed man, and promptly got herself hopelessly lost.
After several blocks-- she hadn't been counting-- Molly was forced to admit that she'd totally lost track of the man ten minutes ago, and she didn't have the slightest clue where she was. Not to mention she was getting a bit tired. Stress and strange food and the apartment that seemed to be years away from everything but a crappy little pub had made her probably more fit than she'd ever been in America-- though she was still a little chubby and actually did have big bones-- but this was still rather pushing it, and she fought down her fear of getting lost.
Shade; she needed shade. She ducked into a small side-alley and leaned against the wall, closing her eyes.
When she opened them, she realized she hadn't been the only one with that idea. Against the other side of the wall were a strange man, wearing a khaki trenchcoat over what seemed to be the shirt and vest of a three-piece suit over jeans, and an oriental-looking girl in a school uniform, whose hair, except for two black strips that framed her face, was dyed blue. There seemed to be a sword at her back. Molly hoped to heaven that it wasn't real.
"Oh, hello," said the man, pushing his just-slightly-too-long hair behind his ear. "I'm the Doctor. Have we met before?"
"Is this-- really-- the time?" the girl panted.
"This sort of thing usually turns out to be important."
Molly thought back furiously, remembering that first night, when she'd agreed to tutor Rose in a pub. Bad idea; the shopgirl had had a terrible day and was quickly totally inebriated. As Molly awkwardly talked about functions, Rose had slurred something about the guy she'd traveled with-- the Doctor-- "Yeah, no other name, prob'ly makes 'im feel all manly"-- and how he'd dumped her for Madame du Pompadour, and how he had never, ever been like that before-- "especially when he was the big-eared bloke with the Northern accent"-- and how he'd shown her all of time and space and terrible danger and "it's an addiction, really"-- and the song that kept playing in her head, and the nightmares of war and blood and death under alien skies--
"Do you know Rose?" Molly asked. "Rose-- Tyler, I think it is?"
"Oh, yes!" said the Doctor, a smile lighting up his face. "Rose Tyler. Yes, I remember her. Oh! Of course. You're that other shopgirl from when Tenth lost his marbles and dumped her in 2005. What was your name?"
"...Molly," she said, feeling a little dizzy. "Molly Janson." If what Rose said was true...
"Right. Sorry for just swanning off with no explanation there. It's sort of what I do."
"You can say that again," said the girl, straightening and rolling her eyes. "There's got to be something we can do!"
"We seem to have lost him; if we can get back to his ship--"
You're fool enough to think you've escaped me so easily? And you claim the title Time Lord.
Molly jumped. "What the hell!"
Do not move, humans. Your fate is already sealed.
"Wait, leave these two out of it!" the Doctor cried. "Rumiko didn't mean to insult your mother--"
"--yeah I did!"
"--and this girl doesn't even know what's going on!"
She already knows too much. She has heard me, has she not? I shall kill her already. Why don't you explain to her how you've killed her before she dies?
"Actually--"
That wasn't a suggestion.
"Right." The Doctor coughed, as the girl-- Rumiko-- turned her back to his, hand straying toward the sword at her back, scanning the alley for-- probably anything. "The voice you're hearing in your head is a Kahlat. Basically, it's a... sort of a psychic alien ninja, really. The truth is more complicated, but I imagine our friend wants me to keep it short."
You figured that out all on your own?
"Why is a psychic alien ninja attacking us?" Molly asked plaintively, backing toward the other two.
"Because we-- Rumiko and I happen to have interfered with its secret plot to take over all the world governments. It's very vindictive, you see."
You have failed. When my transmission is sent, the rest of my clan will know how and where to attack.
"Which is why we were hoping to blow up his ship," the Doctor explained.
Molly tried desperately to understand this. Actually, even believing it would suffice. "When did I come into this?"
"When you came within a yard of me," the Doctor said, ruefully.
"It's a proximity effect," said Rumiko, eyes darting everywhere.
"Yes, it seems to be using classic villain logic. By happening to come across you, and thereby forcing it somehow to kill you, the responsibility for that, of course, is completely mine. Total idiocy, of course. Still hard not to buy into."
"Right," said Molly, moving instinctively in the protective circle they'd formed. Her heartbeat was rapid and loud with panic in her ears; her head, as always, was sweating buckets, causing her glasses to slip down her nose. She didn't dare push them back up. "Where is it?"
"We can't see it," said the Doctor.
"It's invisible?"
"No. It's psychic. It takes the image of what's behind it and projects it into our brains, so we can't see it."
Molly blinked-- then blinked again, quickly darting her eyes around. "It projects the background into our heads so it's seamless?"
"Right. Edits it out for us."
I believe that is enough. It is wrong to not explain to people how they shall die, if the opportunity arises...
"If we could just break its concentration..." the Doctor muttered.
"How?! We don't know where it is!" Rumiko yelled.
Molly slipped her glasses off with one shaking hand, folding them up. "Hold these for me?" she asked the Doctor.
The Doctor took them, blinking down at the slightly battered frames. "Why-- oh--"
"Oh, god help me," Molly breathed-- and threw herself with all her might to her left.
The mental yelp flashed through her brain as whatever the hell it was she had tackled fell to the ground under her. She scrabbled around desperately for its arms-- it'd had a gun--
Stupid human bitch! How dare you!
She grabbed its wrist and pushed it away from her as hard as she could-- the alien was scratching at her side, hitting her in the stomach-- "Any time anyone would like to help me over here!"
She couldn't hold its gun at bay much longer-- it was readying those claws to stab into her belly--
A sword at the green man's throat.
"I don't know if you've got a juglar vein," said Rumiko, "but I figure there's gotta be something in there you don't wanna see severed. Drop. The. Gun."
The ninja glared at her and obeyed.
"Oh, thank god," Molly breathed, relaxing very slightly.
"Ah, here we go--" The Doctor was at her other side, taking something from the alien's wrist. "Oh, look! A self-destruct button. Thank you so much for saving us the trouble!"
Hah. You will never manage to penetrate the subtle workings of our--
The Doctor took out a strange metal rod and pointed it at the control device.
"Self-destruct in two rh'shim," said a voice.
"You were saying?" said the Doctor, with a wide grin.
...The message!
Molly yelped as the ninja escaped her grasp, tumbling her to the pavement, disappearing from view again as it ran away.
"Don't worry," said the Doctor, "this monitors its life signs too. I'm afraid it may be just a little bit too close to its ship when it explodes. Regrettable..."
"But I'm sure as hell not warning it," said Rumiko, sheathing her blade. "What did you say your name was? Molly Janson?"
"Yeah."
Rumiko bowed to her, deeply. "My name is Yamakata Rumiko. But after that, I'd say you can just call me Rumi-chan. How the hell did you find it?! I couldn't sense it at all!"
"Simple," said the Doctor, holding up Molly's glasses. "She's-- oh, dear lord. You're blind as a bat, aren't you?"
"Can I have those back?" said Molly, faintly stung, grabbing them from his hand.
"Blind?" said Rumiko, confused.
"Not blind, just extremely myopic. Nearsighted." The Doctor shook his head. "I haven't seen lenses that thick since--"
"Nearsighted?" Rumiko said blankly. "I thought that was corrected at birth."
"2005," the Doctor reminded her.
"Oh. Wow. Dark Ages. Not that I should be complaining. Wait, what exactly just happened?"
"Whatever that thingy was doing..." said Molly, putting her glasses back on. "Projecting the background in our minds... it must have been assuming we all had normal vision. So when I looked over where it was, I saw a really suspicious blot of perfectly focussed things. And then I recklessly threw myself at it. Which may have been stupid. Ah well, it worked." She struggled to her feet. "Ow. Holy crap."
"I..." Rumiko shook her head. "Wow. I don't think you understand what you saved us from. That gun is really, really painful." She kicked at it in disgust. "You were fantastic. Doctor, may we keep her?"
"Wha?" Molly blinked.
"She's not a puppy, Rumiko," the Doctor remonstrated. "We have to ask."
"Fine, fine, what I mean is will you let her on?"
The Doctor paused, considering. "It's her choice."
"And if she says yes?"
"Says yes to what?" Molly asked, tottering back against the wall.
Rumiko turned to her. "See," she said, "this man has a machine that goes through time and space."
"Yeah," said Molly, "I think Rose said something about that."
The Doctor frowned. "She did?"
"She was really, really drunk."
"Ah. Say no more."
"And he can go anywhere," Rumiko continued. "All sorts of cool places. And all sorts of trouble. You know.. like this."
"This was a little scary," said Molly, listening to her heart rate slow back down.
"Well, yeah, but-- if we hadn't been here to stop it, what would've happened? Earth would've been taken over by those damn alien ninjas! That's what this guy does, as far as I can tell. He stops really, really bad things from happening. And he's a little crazy, so he needs help."
"Oi!"
"Says Dr. Hung-by-his-Underwear-in-a-Tree-When-I-First-Met-Him."
"I was perfectly in control of that situation!"
Rumiko rolled her eyes. "The truth. Yeah, it's dangerous. And sometimes terrifying. But you get to do something. You get to see real things, help real people... and it's really, really dangerous, but I think it's worth it."
It would get me out of next month's rent...
Molly shook her head violently. I can't make this sort of decision based on THAT! "If it's so important... I probably shouldn't come. I mean, I'm not that athletic, I'm not that good under pressure, I'm not--"
"Did fine two minutes ago," said Rumiko.
"Speaking of which..." The Doctor turned. Right on cue, there was a faint explosion.
"...It's gone," said the Doctor, and put the scanner in his pocket. "It's over."
"See? You just saved the world." Rumiko grinned.
"No, I didn't."
"Yeah, you really did."
Molly blinked. "What would they have done?"
"Oh, slave camps to build their spaceships, eugenics programs, weeding out the infirm, the usual," the Doctor said, grimly.
"That really would've happened?"
"Yes."
"And now it won't?"
"Not today."
"...Oh." Molly considered this. "...You're sure I wouldn't be a liability?"
"As fast a learner as you are? Impossible."
"You're sure?"
He nodded. "And no, I'm not just saying that because Rumiko wants a pet."
"I..." Molly looked away, trying to assess this information. I just nearly got killed by a space ninja... and tackled it and saved the people who were with me... and the entire planet... and...
I want to see things. I want to make a difference. I'm scared and lazy, but-- I still really do.
"You'll really let me?" said Molly.
"Yes."
"And I could come back someday?"
"Absolutely. Whenever you wanted."
"...Yeah, I lost my job, my rent went up, and I hate my school. My family'll understand. If they don't, well, they can just deal with it." She straightened. "Sounds nice to get the hell out of this place. May I come along?"
Rumiko grinned. "I knew it! Yes! Don't worry, you'll love it." She grabbed her hand. "Come on! Let's get out of this city. I know this fantastic soba shop, satellite seven--"
"We just went there yesterday!"
"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. And besides--"
"Don't you misquote Douglas Adams at me--"
"Yeah, yeah, 'cos you've been around like a billion years and saved everyone's life in the universe five times over and I say if you're gonna get us into trouble so often--"
"I don't get us into trouble!"
"--if you're going to get us into trouble so often, you can at least take us somewhere nice for dinner afterwards!"
Molly had taken a ballroom dancing class once, her mother's idea, a rather silly mother-daughter thing. She still couldn't tango, but she remembered one thing.
"I do not get us into trouble! Trouble is everywhere, we just stumble into it!"
When standing on the sidelines, you waited, and listened to the rhythms, until the upbeat caught you up.
And Molly found herself swept into the dance.
(-)