Chapter Four
"Oh yeah, this is just terrifying," the Doctor said rolling his eyes. "I can't understand why you humans get so scared about walking in between slabs of granite in the dark."
"Cause its eerie walking in the dark with a bunch of dead bodies under ya," Rose said, shrugging.
"Why? They're not gonna leap out and get anyone."
Rose looked at him and smirked.
"Oh yeah; What about, "Are you my mummy?""
"That little boy wasn't buried in the ground," the Doctor replied. "He was lying out where those nanogenes could find him."
"And that…" he added. "Was the reason he and everyone else around him became zombies. It wasn't because of some demented voodoo priest going into graveyards and raising people from the dead like you see in the movies. If the nanogenes hadn't been around, nothing would have happened."
He gestured at the ground.
"What is below our feet is nothing but decaying organic matter. There is probably one chance in a trillion that any of them are going to come back to life, pop up and come after us. We…"
He stopped abruptly. Rose turned to look at him and saw the familiar alert stance he adopted whenever he sensed trouble was near.
"What?"
The Doctor put his finger to his lips.
"I heard something behind us," he mouthed to her.
Rose stood quietly and stared at the Doctor as he listened. Suddenly, she heard the soft rustle of leaves coming from the darkness behind them. Her eyes widened.
"Doctor," she whispered.
The Doctor put his finger to his lips and shook his head. He lowered his hand and formed it into a fist.
"Back up," he mouthed to her.
"But, Doctor…" she mouthed back.
"Do it!" he whispered.
Rose slowly back up as she watched the Doctor ready himself for whatever monster was creeping up on them. She knew why he wanted her to back up. He was going into his must protect Rose at any cost mode and although she appreciated the Doctor wanting to protect her; on the other hand, she found it infuriating that he kept thinking she couldn't take care of herself especially after she had shown him over and over that she could. But, this was no time to argue since whatever was making the noise was coming up fast and so she quickly stepped behind the nearest gravestone readying herself to help the Doctor if need be.
The Doctor gritted his teeth as he turned towards the source of the noise.
"Alright," he muttered to himself as he brought his fist up. "I don't know what you are or what your plans are, but you are bloody well not going to spoil my nice evening with Rose tonight!"
He tensed as he heard the rustling stop behind the tombstone in front of him. He squeezed his fist tight and drew it back praying that he could dispatch the thing quickly before it had a chance to hurt Rose or anybody else. Drawing on senses that had been honed from centuries of battle, he waited as he allowed the creature to make the first move. He smirked as he sensed the creature rising from behind the grave and drew his fist back all the way ready to make contact with it. He hesitated a moment and then he let his fist fly
"BWAAAAAAAAA…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Mickey screamed as he jumped up from behind the gravestone right into the oncoming path of the Doctor's fist. He flinched as the fist stopped mere inches from his nose.
"MICKEY!" The Doctor bellowed angrily as his fist hung in mid air. "WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
"Um…soiling myself right about now," Mickey said eyeing the fist.
The Doctor dropped his fist to his side and glared at him as Mickey gave him a sheepish look.
"What the Hell do you think you're doing, Mickey Smith?" the Doctor said as Rose came up beside him. "I could have put my fist through your face!"
Mickey gulped.
"Well, you did it to me!" he said trying to steady his voice. "So I followed ya so I could get back at ya."
"Yeah, and you nearly ended up with a broken nose!"
"Well, I just figured since you scared me, I'd scare you back," Mickey spat out.
The Doctor let out an angry sigh
"Mickey, do you know what I do for a living?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest.
"You…time travel."
"Uh huh, and what do I usually end up doing whenever I time travel?"
"You snog my girl?"
"I mean besides that."
Mickey stared at him in shock.
"You admit it?" he asked.
The Doctor shrugged.
"I might as well. It's not like it's a big secret anymore, is it? Now…back to my question…what else do I do when I time travel?"
The Doctor sighed as he stared at Mickey's blank look.
"I fight monsters," he said exasperated.
"Yeah…okay…you fight monsters, then. So?"
The Doctor's eyes bulged out of his head.
"So? Mickey, think about it. I've spent centuries traveling through time and most of the time when I land somewhere I invariably meet up with monsters. Most of which tend to try to hide so they can ambush me. This means that 99 percent of the time, they wait till I pass by them so they can attack me from the back."
He leaned in to Mickey's face and glared at him.
"And 99.9 percent of the time I have survived these ambushes. So, Mickey Smith, what does that tell you?"
Mickey gulped.
"That anyone who tries to jump up behind you and scare you, will end up getting knocked arse over teakettle?"
"Ding, ding, ding…thousand points to Mickey Smith!"
"Yeah, but you scared me so I'm just scaring you back," Mickey protested.
The Doctor rolled his eyes and sighed.
"Mickey, how many monsters have you fought so far?"
"Um…those bat thingies in the school. That's it for now," he said.
"Uh huh…Well, I've fought thousands of monsters myself. This means that unlike me, you have the luxury of hearing noises behind you and not automatically thinking they're some monstrous hell spawn from deep space come to destroy you and the ones you love. When I scared you, I was sure you weren't going to freak out and start beating the bleeding crap out of me. Unfortunately, you can't say the same for me. Especially since Rose is with me. That makes me doubly on edge.
He glanced at Rose.
"And before you say anything, I know you can take care of yourself; but just the same I promised your mum I would protect you and I care about you deeply on top of it so I can't help getting overprotective at times. You mean a lot to me, you know."
Rose grinned at him and squeezed his hand.
"I know," she replied.
"So, just a word of advice Smith; next time you want to get back at me, don't do it from behind. I don't think you want the doctor bill after they finish reconstructing your nose. Got it?"
Mickey nodded.
"Good. Glad we got that settled."
He put his arm around Rose.
"Now, if you're done looking at decaying pieces of granite, I think we ought to head home."
He looked at Mickey and gestured in front of him.
"You first so I can keep an eye on you. I get enough heat from Jackie as it is without you going to hospital," he said.
Mickey let out an angry sigh and muttered as he walked in front of them. The Doctor glanced at Rose and shook his head as they followed him out of the graveyard.