AN - So, I just want to apologize for being awful and never updating multi-chapter stories. I promise, I do eventually finish them (I think)! Anyways, this chapter is a bit shorter, but I'm very excited about who I've been able to involve in the story! So, I hope you all enjoy, and, as always, review/favorite/follow to your leisure!
- MH
"I don't understand, ma'am," she said, and then, as though in a sort of daze, she added, "You're very far away from home."
"Well, yes, I am. I'm from London. I was at home, in my bed, and suddenly I'm here! I didn't sign up for this, it's my daughter what's brought this crazy travelling into my life," Jackie told the woman, near hysteria.
"Come, now, Gwen! If we don't find her soon, she'll start stirring up more trouble!" a man yelled from a carriage that waited down the road.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," the maid called Gwen said to Jackie as she started off. "I hope you find your way home. Be safe, in these very dark times!"
"Oh, of course. Leave me standing here in my nightie in the snow! I'm bloody freezin'!" Jackie exclaimed.
Not a moment later, an ear-piercing shriek rang through the street, followed by the screams of a crowd of people. A door opened from a building to Jackie's right, and dozens and dozens of people flooded out, raving about "a real ghost" and "Charles Dickens."
Jackie inched closer to the door as the last few people scrambled past her. She started to peer inside, but as she did, two very familiar figures rushed past her.
"Rose!" Jackie called, relieved that help had arrived. However, when Rose and the Doctor both spun around to look at her, all were frozen in disbelief. "No, hold on. That's the old Doctor. What's going on here?"
"Mum? What the hell are you doing here?" As she asked, she peered up at the Doctor with panic in her eyes. The Doctor, however, was focused on Jackie.
"What do you mean, 'I'm the old Doctor'?" he asked her.
"Oh, I don't know if I should tell you that. Aren't time streams really complicated? I don't think we're meeting in the right order," Jackie said.
"Mum, you shouldn't know anything about that. You don't even know the Doctor!" Rose protested.
Jackie chuckled. "Well, now I really know we've met in the wrong order. Go on, then. Just figure out how to get me home."
"How did you get here that you can't get home?" The Doctor asked her, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
"I dunno. I was just lying in bed, thinking about getting up to make some coffee. I thought I heard something in the kitchen, but then I blinked, and I was here. I thought I was dreaming for a little while."
Just then, another scream pierced the air, and a shorter man with dark hair rushed between them and out onto the street.
"Oh, right. So we've got that to deal with, too," the Doctor said. "Come along, Jackie. We'll figure it out!"
They started running after the man, when another man and the woman that Jackie had spoken to earlier rushed past them in the opposite direction, towards the shrieking woman, who had collapsed, lifeless, onto the floor. Rose was the only one of the three to stop and rush back to them.
"What's wrong with her?" Rose asked. "What's happened?" The man and young maid had picked up the body and were carrying it to the hearse that awaited outside.
"Need to know basis, sweetheart," the man said, shoving the body of the old woman into the hearse and covering her.
"That woman was all blue! It looked like a ghost!" Rose exclaimed, and the man sighed, reaching inside for a rag and a bottle of some clear liquid. The next thing she knew, the rag was shoved into her face, and Rose lost consciousness.
The Doctor spun around. "Rose!" he called, watching as the man and young maid shoved her body into the back of the hearse and took off. He had just started running when something that sounded like the TARDIS began to materialize in the middle of the road. He and Jackie stared at it in awe.
"Oh no," the Doctor said. "This is absolutely not good."
The noise stopped, and there was an eerie silence on the street. A few moments later the door creaked open, and out walked… Rose Tyler?
"Mum!" she shouted, rushing out to hug Jackie, but she stopped when she saw the Doctor, the other OTHER Doctor, standing next to her in his familiar old leather jacket. "I-it's you," she said softly, staring up at him.
"Rose! Get Jackie and get back in here. We're going to cause a paradox!" The Doctor, or, uh, the newest Doctor anyways, called from the console room.
The woman with the crazy hair exited the TARDIS then, and took in the other, other Doctor. "I'm afraid we probably already have, darling!" She called back over her shoulder. Her smile was alluring and mischievous, and she winked at the Doctor in the leather coat. "But, my, how the mind races with ideas."