"Save the world," the Doctor mused, "well, at least that's something I've done before,"
Rose would have laughed, except at the moment she was using up all her breath trying to keep up. She had always been a useless runner, and it reminded her briefly of the first time she had encountered a Dalek when she had ended up locked in a room with one, but that was a long, long time ago.
They sprinted out of the woods, and turned down the street when, without warning, Lucy skidded to a halt and swore loudly. The Doctor nearly ran her over, and Amy and Rory both ran ahead a few paces before they realized she'd stopped. Rose was far enough back to stop.
"What's the matter?" Amy panted, voicing Rose's thoughts. Lucy didn't answer, she just stood there, and straightened up, a hand on her hip. She looked around, and sighed.
"Why do you do this to me?" she groaned. "Why do you ALWAYS do this?"
What, disappear?" asked Amy and Rose, practically in unison. Amy cast a sideways glance at Rose and grinned. Rose could tell they were going to get along well. Lucy looked at them and smiled.
"Get's old, doesn't it?" she asked.
"You get used to it," said Rose. Everybody who ever traveled with the Doctor knew that he had a nasty habit of disappearing.
"So, what do we do?" asked Rory. Lucy looked around.
"Well first," she said, "lets get out of the road."
Rose looked at the pavement beneath her feet, and sure enough, a great big line was under her feet. The five of them moved onto the sidewalk, and the Doctor, who had been strangely quiet for the last minute or two spoke up.
"Second," he said. "How do you know who we are, and how did you know how to find us?" he asked. "And who are you?" he added. Lucy looked at him.
"Well, it's a bit of a long story," she asked. "But I'll start with the easy stuff. As to who I am, well you know, but I've been traveling with the Doctor for, oh, two years? Or at least close, you lose track of time in the TARDIS."
"Two years?" asked Amy. "Not long after we left then," she said. "He just can't stand being alone, can he?" Lucy nodded.
"He was pretty cut up, had a lot of good things to say about you two, but yeah, I think it was a couple weeks after you left."
"How did you meet him?" Rose interjected. She loved these stories, hearing all the ridiculous things that happened while she was gone, remembering when she had met the Doctor in a shop, surrounded by a basement full of dummies. Lucy grinned.
"Now that, is an interesting one," she said. "Christmastime, in the year of Our Lord, 1825 in London. Ran into him, literally, right out side a bakery."
"Hold on," the Doctor interrupted. "How on earth were you in 1825, and what on earth were you doing?" As an answer, Lucy held up something that looked like a very large, very clunky watch.
"Jack had something like that," Rose said.
"Are you a - " began the Doctor.
"No, I am not a Time Agent, a Time Agent gave me this, but after I hopped into the year 1821, it broke and I got stuck. As for what I was doing, I was tracking a group of Krillitaines."
"You were tracking a group of what?" asked Rory incredulously.
"Krillitaines," repeated Lucy.
"How do you know about Krillitaines?" asked the Doctor. Lucy sighed.
"Well, you dolt, I wasn't born in 1825, was I? I was born in the 25th century, and I thought I'd seen it all until I saw a guy get killed by a javelin." She said grimly.
"Right," said Amy. "I'm guessing there's more."
"What happened after that?" the Doctor asked. Lucy frowned.
"Well, I was just hanging out to watch, and I obviously tried to leave, but as I did, they brought the dead guy in on a stretcher, and the tarp slipped off his head a moment. And you know what he did? The bastard winked at me."
"What, he just popped back to life and started flirting with you?" asked Amy, voicing Rose's thoughts.
"Boy, that sounds like somebody I used to know," Rose said, thinking of Jack. Was that his way of life or something?
"It was somebody you know," Lucy said. "I met him two hours later after waiting to try and find him, when he appeared outside the stadium and asked me my name. He was a nice guy, I knew him a few years, called himself Captain Jack Harkness, but I always called him Harkness. Never Captain, and certainly not Captain Jack. He gave me this teleport device, and we were going to try and meet Charles Dickens, but I over shot and landed in 1821, and the bloody thing broke, so I was stuck."
"Excuse me, Captain Jack Harkness?" asked Amy, eyebrows lifted skyward. Rose grinned.
"Yeah…" she said. "Don't ask."
"And then you met the Doctor while chasing Krillitaines?" asked the Doctor.
"Yeah, we were both running at the same spot in different directions, and we both had our own tracking devices we were staring at, so we ran right into each other. I think I irritated him quite a bit, because he had just arrived, and I had been tracking the Krillitaines progress for weeks, so I knew more than he did. He didn't like that," she said with a grin. "But he let me tag along, and we bagged them in the end."
"And now you travel with him?" asked Amy.
"Yep," she said. "We've done all kinds of fantastic things together, one time involving an accidental trip into history, which was how I knew you, Doctor," she said.
"Really?" asked the Doctor. "When was that? I wish I'd seen you," he seemed quite happy with the situation, but his smile slackened when he saw the expression on Lucy's face.
"It wasn't fun," she said quietly. "For some reason, we stumbled on the battle at Canary Wharf,"
Rose felt something drop in the pit of her stomach. Oh God…she thought. It all came flooding back to her in that moment, the Cybermen, the Daleks, Torchwood, all of it…the day she lost the Doctor. The day her life had changed, and it had all ended. The traveling, the laughter, and the Doctor she knew and loved. He had changed so much after that day.
"It was a long time before he could say anything about the experience, but for some reason, he needed to watch all of it. We roamed the building, staying out of sight, and watching. By the way," she added, looking in Rose's direction. "I always wanted to congratulate you on your part. You were brilliant."
"Thanks," she muttered. There was another pause.
"So now," said Amy, breaking the awful silence, "We've got to track down the Doctor."
"Yeah, where is that man, that idiot, why did he go disappearing like that? It's not like he didn't know I was bringing you," she said irritably.
"How did he know?" the Doctor asked, his curiosity resurfacing. Rose looked at him a moment, and noticed he had been extremely quiet at the mentioning of Canary Wharf. It had obviously caused some painful memories to resurface, as it had for her. She looked back at Lucy, and had the feeling that she knew a lot more than she let on.
"This," she said. She took out a post card. "I decided to take a break, and I went on vacation to Norway, and visited - "
"Bad Wolf Bay," Rose whispered. "Dålig Ulv Stranden,"
"Yeah," Lucy said distantly. "Sent him a picture, e-card, whatever those things are. About five minutes later the TARDIS materialized about three feet in front of me and he pulled me in, yelling at me to tell him why I chose that particular post-cart, and that particular spot in Norway. I said I didn't know, and then he told me what Bad Wolf meant, and that whenever you reappeared, everything always seemed to go to hell, and boy was he right,"
"Well thanks," Rose spat at her, but she wasn't too irritated. It seemed as though she had spent too much time with the Doctor; with all hell breaking loose around her. It wasn't her fault, it was just that cataclysmic events always seemed to be set in motion, and then she would see the Doctor.
"What do you know about the problem now?" asked Rory. Lucy looked at him.
"All we know is that there is something up there that is working on obscuring the sunlight, and whatever it was did that about eight minutes ago, and could be long gone already, as it probably thought somebody would try and investigate as soon as the blip happened," she said grimly. The Doctor frowned slightly, and then looked off, as though he was staring into space, but then he narrowed his eyes.
"Somebody's coming," he said quietly. Rose spun around, and sure enough, two people were sprinting towards them from down the road. Amy, Rory, and Lucy all turned quickly to see the two people getting closer. Rose squinted, shielding her eyes from the sunlight, and the moment she got a better look at their faces, she felt a little leap of joy somewhere in her midsection, mixed with confusion. She lowered her hand, beaming, and looked at the Doctor. He had put on his glasses in an attempt to see them better. After all those years of making himself look clever, Rose was fairly certain that the Doctor actually believed he needed glasses now.
A moment later, recognition spread across his face, and he grinned that old, familiar grin that she loved so much.
"Well look who it is," he said.
"Speak of the devil," said Rose quietly, smiling.
For Martha Jones, and none other than Captain Jack Harkness had just sprinted up to them, both of them completely winded.
"Hey!" said Lucy happily. Jack looked up at her and grinned.
"Hello Lucy," he said. "miss me much?"
"Doctor!" interjected Martha, smiling. "I knew I'd find you here! What was that space ship? We saw it a few blocks away, and thought if there's a great big space ship falling from the sky, the Doctor's bound to be there, and I was right!"
"Well, you're pretty much right," he said carefully. She looked at him, with narrowed eyes.
"Come on then, what was it? Something in the space ship? And what the hell was the darkness about?" she asked. The Doctor sighed.
"Well, you did find me, but I'm not the Doctor you think I am, and that crashing space ship," he said, with an odd expression on his face; it seemed as though he was torn between being embarrassed, and feeling awkward. "That was us."
Martha stood there for a moment, and Rose noticed that Jack wasn't paying any attention to the conversation, and was looking at Amy. Amy was noticing too.
"So, you're the other Doctor? The one that Donna made all those years ago?" asked Martha incredulously. The Doctor nodded.
"Apparently the other one wears bowties now," supplied Rose. Martha frowned.
"So he's changed?" she asked. Rose nodded solemnly, and their quiet mourning was interrupted by Jack.
"Hello," he said smoothly, holding his hand out to Amy, who shook it, somewhat warily. "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, and who might you be?"
Amy looked rather affronted, and jerked her hand away from him a moment later. It appeared to Rose that Jack had been pulling her closer. Amy made a funny sort of noise, the type someone makes when their offended or irritated.
"Married, for starters," she said irritably. Jack looked mildly surprised. This was probably the first time in his life that his charms, rather than charming the lady had backfired. "And you can stop flirting with me right now, thank you." She hissed. Jack put his hand down, looking remarkably uncomfortable, being him, and Rose found it hard to stop grinning. Lucy cleared her throat.
"Ah – hem," she said. "So, who are you?" she asked Martha. Martha looked around.
"Sorry, Martha, Martha Jones, and you are…?"
"Lucy Scullvanger," said Lucy, extending her hand, which Martha shook.
"Oh, and I'm Amy," said Amy. "And this is my husband, Rory,"
Rory nodded at Martha and Jack, but didn't say anything. He was so different from Amy, who was all chatter and spirit.
"So, Lucy, did the Doctor say anything about where he might be off to before you came to find us?" asked Rose, getting back on the important topic once again.
"No, he didn't, but…" she trailed off, staring at some point behind Rose, and she turned around.
"Well, for starters, Lucy, you must always know, that I am a madman with a box, and said madman, with said box, sometimes just needs to…disappear."
And there he was. Rose stared at him, her mouth slightly open, looking at the man she had known so well. His hair was quite a bit darker, and slightly longer, and sure enough, there was the bowtie that Amy had spoken of. However, there was something else that she had not expected. He was wearing a cheeky grin, similar to that of her old Doctor's, but it was the thing atop his head that made her stare.
"Oh, brilliant," the Doctor grumbled, voicing Rose's thoughts. "I've got no dress sense," Lucy groaned.
"Oh…my…God…" she whispered. "Save me!"
Amy, however was laughing.
"Doctor!" she said, and she ran up to him, because nobody else seemed able too.
"Ha, ha," he said, grinning and casting a quick glance at everyone. "Hello Pond!"
"What is that?" asked Martha. The Doctor looked at her.
"What does it look like?" he asked her.
"It looks like you've got a cake on your head," mused Lucy. The Doctor shot her a dirty look.
"It's a fez," he said, as though this was the most obvious and wonderful thing in the world. "I wear a fez now, fezzes are cool."
Everyone just stared at him. Rose was torn between being afraid and slightly amused. Was he the Doctor still? Her Doctor? The one she had come to care for so much, and the bigger question: Did he still care for her? However, as she looked at him, there was something about him, and as he looked at the group of people, his eyes found hers, and they stared at each other a moment. And for some reason, Rose understood. There was something in his eyes, in those new eyes, those different eyes that was still the same. She knew it was him, even though he looked different, but it was him. It was the Doctor, her Doctor, Martha's Doctor, the same Doctor she had met all those years ago in the shop basement, and she smiled.