The girl in the fireplace
The Tardis appeared on what looked like a spaceship and the four people inside stepped out. Mikcey was the only one who seemed amazed at where they had landed.
"It's a spaceship. Brilliant! I got a spaceship on my first go" he said, looking around with an amazed look on his face.
"It looks kind of abandoned" Alyssa pointed out, noticing that they were the only ones on board.
"Is there anyone on board?" Rose asked.
"Nah, nothing here" the Doctor replied "Well, nothing dangerous. Well, not that dangerous. You know what, I'll just have a quick scan, in case there's anything dangerous." he then took out his screwdriver and began scanning around the area.
"So, what's the date? How far we gone? " Rose asked.
"About three thousand years into your future, give or take" the Doctor replied as he found a light switch on the console and he switched it on causing the ceiling to reveal loads of stars " Fifty first century. Diagmar Cluster, you're a long way from home, Mickey. Two and a half galaxies."
"Mickey Smith, meet the universe" Rose said, putting her arm round his shoulders.
"It's so realistic!" Mickey pointed out.
'Don't worry, you'll get used to it" Alyssa told him.
" Dear me, had some cowboys in here" the Doctor said, looking at the state of the space craft " Got a ton of repair work going on. Now that's odd. Look at that. All the warp engines are going. Full capacity. There's enough power running through this ship to punch a hole in the universe, but we're not moving. So where's all that power going?."
"Where'd all the crew go?" Alyssa asked.
"Good question. No life readings on board" the Doctor replied.
"Well, we're in deep space. They didn't just nip out for a quick fag" Rose pointed out.
" No, I've checked all the smoking pods. Can you smell that?" the Doctor asked, sniffing the air.
"Yeah, it kind of smells like someone's cooking" Alyssa pointed out, sniffing the air aswell.
"Sunday roast, definitely" Mickey pointed out as the Doctor used the panel to open a door and the four walked into a room which had what looked like an old fireplace possibly from the 17th or 18th century at the other end of the room.
" Well, there's something you don't see in your average spaceship. Eighteenth century. French. Nice mantle. Not a hologram. It's not even a reproduction. This actually is an eighteenth century French fireplace. Double sided. There's another room through there" the Doctor pointed out as he and Alyssa looked through the fireplace to see a little girl on the other side. She looked a little younger than Alyssa, had long blonde hair and was wearing a white nightgown.
"Hello" the Doctor said to her as Mickey and rose joined them to see who he was talking to.
" Hello" the little girl replied.
"What's your name?" the Doctor aksed her.
"Reinette" the little girl replied with a polite smile.
" Reinette, that's a lovely name. Can you tell me where you are at the moment, Reinette?" the Doctor asked her.
" In my bedroom" Reinette replied in the same polite manner.
"And where's your bedroom? Where do you live, Reinette?" the Doctor aksed her and Reinette told him that she lived in Paris.
" Paris, right!" the Doctor replied.
" Monsieur, what are you doing in my fireplace?" the little blonde girl asked with a confused expression on her face.
"Oh, it's just a routine fire check. Can you tell me what year it is?" the Doctor asked her.
" Of course I can. Seventeen hundred and twenty seven" Reinette told him politely.
"Right, lovely. One of my favourites. August is rubbish though. Stay indoors. Okay, that's all for now. Thanks for your help. Hope you enjoy the rest of the fire. Night, night" the Doctor told her.
"Goodnight Monsieur" Reinette replied as the Doctor stood up and joined the other three.
"You said this was the fifty first century" Mickey pointed out.
" I also said this ship was generating enough power to punch a hole in the universe. I think we just found the hole. Must be a spatio-temporal hyperlink" the Doctor replied as he examined the fireplace as Alyssa stood at the other end of the fireplace watching him.
"What's that? " Mickey asked, gesturing to the fireplace.
"No idea. Just made it up. Didn't want to say magic door" the Doctor replied.
" And on the other side of the magic door is France in 1727? " Rose asked.
"Well, she was speaking French. Right period French, too" the Doctor replied.
"She was speaking English, I heard her" Mickey pointed out.
"That's the Tardis. Translates for you" Rose told him.
"Even French? " Mickey asked.
" Yeah" Rose replied right before the fireplace spun around, taking both the Doctor and Alyssa to Reinette's bedroom.
"What happened?" Alyssa whispered "where are we?"
'I think the magic door took us to the other side" the Doctor replied just as Reinette who was sleeping in the bed at the other end woke up and was quite shocked to see the two people standing in her room.
"It's okay. Don't scream. It's me. It's the fireplace man. Look. We were talking just a moment ago. I was in your fireplace" the Doctor reassured her.
"Monsieur, that was weeks ago. That was months" Reinette replied as he used the sonic screwdriver to light a candle.
"Really? Oh. Must be a loose connection. Need to get a man in" the Doctor told her as Alyssa gave the younger girl a small smile.
"Who are you? And what are you doing here? " Reinette asked, her voice shaking as there came a loud ticking noise which was impossible as the clock on the fireplace mantel was broken.
"Okay, that's scary" the Doctor pointedo ut as he examined the clock.
"You're scared of a broken clock?" Reinette asked and Alyssa was now begining to look just as nervous as she was.
"Just a bit scared, yeah. Just a little tiny bit. Because, you see, if this clock's broken, and it's the only clock in the room, then what's that? " the Doctor asked as he listened to the rather loud ticking noise "because,you see, that's not a clock. You can tell by the resonance. Too big. Six feet, I'd say. The size of a man."
" What is it? " Reinette asked as Alyssa sat on the bed with her.
"Yeah, what is making that ticking noise Doctor?" Alyssa asked.
"Now, let's think. If you were a thing that ticked and you were hiding in someone's bedroom, first thing you do, break the clock. No one notices the sound of one clock ticking, but two? You might start to wonder if you're really alone" the Doctor explained as he walked towards the bed " Stay on the bed. Right in the middle. Don't put your hands or feet over the edge." Both little girls sat stone still on the bed as the Doctor examined under the bed with his Sonic screwdriver, only for something to knock it out of his hand. he then stood back up to see a figure in 18th centruy clothing wearing a smiley faced mask standing behind the bed.
"Reinette, Alyssa,don't look round" the Doctor whispered as soon as he saw the strange figure stood right behind Reinette and the Doctor placed his hands on her temples " You've been scanning her brain. What, you've crossed two galaxies and thousands of years just to scan a child's brain? What could there be in a little girl's mind worth blowing a hole in the universe?"
"I don't understand. It wants me?" Reinette asked in a scared voice before turning round to face the smiley faced droid "You want me? "
"Not yet. You are incomplete" the Droid replied, turning it's head to look at her.
"Incomplete? What's that mean, incomplete? You can answer her, you can answer me. What do you mean, incomplete? " the Doctor asked as the droid walked round towards him and a blade shot out of it's hand, pointing at the Doctor.
"Doctor" Alyssa yelled.
"Be careful" Reinette added.
"Just a nightmare, Reinette, don't worry about it. Everyone has nightmares" the Doctor replied as Alyssa ran towards him as he stood on the fireplace whilst the clockwork droid took a swing at him but got it's blade stuck on the mantlepiece.
" What do monsters have nightmares about? " Reinette asked as she still sat stone still in the middle of her bed.
"Me!" he replied as he activated the mechanism which sent him, Alyssa and the clockwork droid back round the other side where Rose and Mickey were still waiting. The Doctor grabbed a tube from the shelf and fired the contents all over the clockwork droid, causing it to seize up.
"Excellent. Ice gun" Mickey pointed out.
"Fire extinguisher" the Doctor pointed out as rose came over to take a look at the droid.
"Where did that thing come from? " she asked, pointing at it.
" Here" the Doctor replied, indicating that it must have come from the space craft they were on right now.
"So why is it dressed like that?" Mickey asked.
" Field trip to France. Some kind of basic camouflage protocol. Nice needlework, shame about the face" the Doctor replied as he took them ask off to reveal real clockwork underneath "Oh, you are beautiful! No, really, you are. You're gorgeous! Look at that. Space age clockwork, I love it. I've got chills! Listen, seriously, I mean this from the heart, and, by the way, count those, it would be a crime, it would be an act of vandalism to disassemble you. But that won't stop me. " The droid then beamed away and Alyssa asked what had just happened.
" Short range teleport. Can't have got far. Could still be on board" the Doctor pointed out.
"Is it?" Alyssa asked, fear in her voice and looking nervously around her.
"Don't go looking for it!" the Doctor adviced them as he walked back over to the fireplace.
"Where're you going?" Rose asked as he stood on the fireplace.
"Back in a sec" the Doctor replied as he disappeared round the other side of the fireplace again. Rose then picked up the fire extinguisher and held it like it was a gun.
"He said not to look for it" Mickey told her.
"I think he actually meant that he wants us to go and look for it" Alyssa pointed out so Mickey picked up another fire extinquisher and Rose grinned at him.
"Now you're getting it" she said before the three off them headed down the corridor to explore and Alyssa was asking Rose where the Doctor had disappeared to.
"He probably went back to seventeenth century france" Rose pointed out "what happened when you went with him the first time?"
"Well that clockwork robot was hiding under that little girl Reinette's bed and I think it wanted her for something but I don't know what, all it said that it didn't want her yet because she was imcomplete. Maybe the clockwork robot wants to use her for something but waiting until she's complete" the younger girl explained. Meanwhile, Mickey was trying to act clever with a spaceship camera which appeared to have a real human eye sticking in it.
" Are you looking at me?" he asked it before turning to the two girls "Look at this. That's an eye in there. That's a real eye."
"Oh my god that is just gross" Alyssa pointed out, pulling a face. The eye camera went back inside the bulkhead and the three of them looked inside to see something pink and fleshy wired in at the end.
"What is that? What's that in the middle there? Looks like it's wired in" Mickey stated.
"It's a heart, Mickey. It's a human heart" Rose replied, her voice shaking and Alyssa covered her mouth and jumped back.
"Oh my god I feel sick now" the little girl pointed out, turning pale and Rose walked over to her, putting her arm around her shoulders.
"I think we should leave this area" Mickey suggested. Both Rose and Alyssa couldn't agree more and left, unaware that something was watching them "but maybe it wasn't a real heart."
"Course it was a real heart" Rose pointed out.
"Is this like normal for you? Is this an average day? " Mickey asked.
"Life with the Doctor, Mickey? No more average days" Rose pointed out as the three of them stopped by a large window to see what looked like a french seventeenth century ball room on the other side.
" It's France again. We can see France" Mickey said as the two girls walked over to take a look.
"I think we're looking through a mirror" Rose pointed out as a well dressed man entered the room accompanied by two other men.
" Blimey, look at this guy. Who does he think he is? " Mickey asked as the Doctor joined them, grinning and hands in his pockets.
" The King of France" he replied.
" Oh, here's trouble" Rose inquired "what have you been up to?"
"Oh, this and that. Became the imaginary friend of a future French aristocrat, picked a fight with a clockwork man" the Doctor explained just as a neigh was heard from behind them "Oh, and I met a horse." Just then a big white horse came walking round the corner and stood next to the Doctor.
"Oh he's beautiful" Alyssa pointed out as she walked over to the horse and began stroking the side of it's face "my uncle Tommy owns a horse stable and he sometimes let's me ride on them."
"What's a horse doing on a spaceship anyway?' Mickey asked.
"Mickey, what's pre-Revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Get a little perspective. See these? They're all over the place. On every deck. Gateways to history. But not just any old history" the Doctor explained just as a young woman entered the room on the other side and curtseyed to King louis " Hers. Time windows deliberately arranged along the life of one particular woman. A spaceship from the fifty first century stalking a woman from the eighteenth. Why? "
" Who is she? " Rose asked.
"Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, known to her friends as Reinette. One of the most accomplished women who ever lived" the Doctor explained.
"Hold on am inute, are you saying that the woman in there is Reinette, the little girl Reinette?" Alyssa asked.
"Yeah that's her" the Doctor replied as Alyssa shook her head in disbelieve and pointed out how it was only about an hour ago that she was a little girl.
"So has she got plans of being the Queen, then? " Rose asked.
"No, he's already got a Queen. She's got plans of being his mistress" the Doctor said.
"Oh, I get it. Camilla" Rose said in amusement.
"I think this is the night they met. The night of the Yew Tree ball. In no time at flat, she'll get herself established as his official mistress, with her own rooms at the palace. Even her own title. Madame de Pompadour" the Doctor explained as King louis and his two servants left whilst Reinette came over to the mirror to check her appearance.
" The Queen must have loved her" Rose pointed out.
"Oh, she did. They get on very well" the Doctor implied.
"The King's wife and the King's girlfriend?" Mickey asked.
"France. It's a different planet" the Doctor said as Reinette turned around to see another woman with her back to her.
" How long have you been standing there? Show yourself!" Reinette demanded and the woamn tuned around to actually be a clokwork droid and the Doctor grabbed the fire extinguisher from Mickey, rotated the mirror and sprayed the droid.
" Hello, Reinette. Hasn't time flown? " the Doctor asked in a cheery manner as his three companions followed behind him.
"Fireplace man!" Reinette pointed out as the droid began to creak after being sprayed.
"What's it doing? " Alyssa asked in a nervous voice.
" Switching back on. Melting the ice" the Doctor replied.
" And then what? " Alyssa asked, getting more scared now as the droid slowly repaired itself.
"Then it kills everyone in the room. Focuses the mind, doesn't it?" the Doctor said before walking over to the clockwork droid with a serious look on his face "Who are you? Identify yourself" he turned to reinette "Order it to answer me."
"Why should it listen to me? " Reinette asked.
" I don't know. It did when you were a child. Let's see if you've still got it" the Doctor said and Reinette made her way over to the droid.
" Answer his question. Answer any and all questions put to you" she told it sternly.
"I am repair droid seven" the droid replied in a female metalic voice.
"What happened to the ship, then? There was a lot of damage" the Doctor implied.
"on storm. Eighty two percent systems failure" the droid replied.
" That ship hasn't moved in over a year. What's taken you so long? " the Doctor asked.
"We did not have the parts" the droid replied.
"Always comes down to that, doesn't it? The parts" Mickey stated.
"What's happened to the crew? Where are they?" the Doctor asked.
" We did not have the parts" the droid said again.
"There should have been over fifty people on your ship. Where did they go?" the Doctor questioned.
"We did not have the parts" the droid repeated and the Doctor was now begining to get annoyed.
"Fifty people don't just disappear. Where. Oh. You didn't have the parts, so you used the crew" the Doctor pointed out as Alyssa looked at him with confusion.
"The crew?" the little girl asked.
"We found a camera with an eye in it, and there was a heart wired in to machinery" Rose pointed out.
" It was just doing what it was programmed to. Repairing the ship any way it can, with whatever it could find. No one told it the crew weren't on the menu. What did you say the flight deck smelt of? " the Doctor asked Rose.
"Someone cooking" she replied.
"Flesh plus heat. Barbeque. But what are you doing here? You've opened up time windows. That takes colossal energy. Why come here? You could have gone to your repair yard. Instead you come to eighteenth century France? Why? " the Doctor asked the droid, eager to get answers.
"One more part is required" the droid replied.
"Then why haven't you taken it? " the Doctor asked.
" She is incomplete" the droid replied.
"What, so, that's the plan, then. Just keep opening up more and more time windows, scanning her brain, checking to see if she's done yet" the Doctor implied, gesturing to Reinette.
"Why her? You've got all of history to choose from. Why specifically her? " Rose asked.
"We are the same" the droid implied.
"We are not the same. We are in no sense the same" Reinette told the droid furiously.
"We are the same" the droid said again before it teleported away without any warning.
"What happened, where did it go?" Alyssa asked, looking around in confusion.
" It's back on the ship. Rose, take Mickey, Alyssa and Arthur" the Doctor said ". Get after it. Follow it. Don't approach it, just watch what it does. "
" Arthur? " Rose asked in confusion.
"Good name for a horse" the Doctor pointed out.
"No, you're not keeping the horse" Rose told him sternly.
" I let you keep Mickey. Now go! Go! Go!" the Doctor said as he ushered his three companions out of the window.
"Now what?" Alyssa asked.
"I think we find where that droid went" Rose stated before the three of them headed down the corridor to find where the droid had gone.
"So, that Doctor, eh? " Mickey said in a teasing voice.
" What are you talking about? " Rose asked.
"Well. Madame de Pompadour. Sarah Jane Smith. Cleopatra" Mickey implied with an amused grin.
"Cleopatra. He mentioned her once" Rose said with a sigh.
"Yeah, but he called her Cleo" Mickey stated.
"Well they might have been really good friends and she aprobably allowed him to call her..." Alyssa stated before her sentence was suddenly cut off by someone grabbing her and injecting her with something. The last thing she heard before she fell unconcious was Rose calling out to her and Mickey. A little while later, she began to regain conciousness and the first thing she saw through her blurred vision was one of the clockwork droids.
"W-what happened?" she asked groggily before her vision came back into focus and she found herself strapped to a slanted table and realized that Rose and Mickey where also strapped to tables also.
"Rose, Mickey, what's going on?" the young girl asked in a scared tone.
"They're going to chop us up, just like the crew. They're going to chop us up and stick us all over their stupid spaceship. And where's the Doctor? Where's the precious Doctor now? He's been gone for flipping hours, that's where he is!" Mickey said in a panicked tone.
"Stop it Mickey you're scaring her" Rose stated on noticing how scared and confused Alyssa looked.
"You are compatible" A droid in a blue coat said as it approached Rose.
"Well, you might want to think about that and i don't know why you took Alyssa too, I mean she's still a child and I don't think she would be compatible would she so I don't know why she's here aswell, strapped to a table" Rose pointed out "anyway you really might want to think about it because me, Alyssa and Mickey,we didn't come here alone. Oh no. And trust me, you wouldn't want to mess with our designated driver" the droid shot a blade out of it's arm with a little cog wheel spinning at the end "Ever heard of the Daleks? Remember them? They had a name for our friend. They had myths about him, and a name. They called him the" her setence was cut off a drunken vocie singing in the distance "They called him the. They called him the, the" the Doctor then came staggering in, clearly drunk with his tie round his head, a pair of sun glasses over his eyes and was carrying a goblet.
"And still have begged for more. I could've spread my wings and done a thou" he sang before breaking into a huge grin "Have you met the French? My god, they know how to party."
"Oh, look at what the cat dragged in. The Oncoming Storm" Rose said sarcastically.
"Oh, you sound just like your mother" the Doctor said as he staggered around and Alyssa thought to herself "is he drunk?."
" What've you been doing? Where've you been? " Rose asked.
" Well, among other things, I think just invented the banana daiquiri a few centuries early. Do you know, they've never even seen a banana before. Always take a banana to a party, Rose. Bananas are good" the Doctor chuckled before he made his way over to the blue coated droid " Oh ho, ho, ho, ho, brilliant. It's you. You're my favourite, you are. You are the best! Do you know why? Because you're so thick. You're Mister Thick Thick Thickity Thick Face from Thicktown, Thickania. And so's your dad. Do you know what they were scanning Reinette's brain for? Her milometer. They want to know how old she is. Know why? Because this ship is thirty seven years old, and they think that when Reinette is thirty seven, when she's complete, then her brain will be compatible. So, that's what you're missing, isn't it, hmm? Command circuit. Your computer. Your ship needs a brain. And for some reason, God knows what, only the brain of Madame de Pompadour will do. "
"The brain is compatible" the droid revealed.
" Compatible? If you believe that, you probably believe this is a glass of wine" the Doctor said before he removed the android's head and began to pour the contents of the goblet over it's head "Multigrain anti-oil. If it moves, it doesn't" he then switched off the droid switch on the console and walked over to his companions "right you three,that's enough lying about. Time we got the rest of the ship turned off. " He untied the three of them and Alyssa walked over to him, rubbing her wrists.
"So you wern't really drunk then, you was just pretending?" she asked.
"Nah, I was juat playing a little trick on them droids" the Doctor told the young girl who smiled response.
"Are those things safe? " Mickey asked, nodding at the now tunred off droids.
"Yeah. Safe. Safe and thick, way I like them. Okay. All the time windows are controlled from here. I need to close them all down. Zeus plugs. Where are my Zeus plugs? I had them a minute ago. I was using them as castanets" the Doctor explained.
"Why didn't they just open a time window to when she was thirty seven?" Rose asked.
"With the amount of damage to these circuits, they did well to hit the right century. Trial and error after that. The windows aren't closing. Why won't they close? " the Doctor pondered just a bell ringing could be heard.
"What's that? " Alyssa asked, looking around to see where the ringing was coming from.
" I don't know. Incoming message? " the Doctor suggested.
"From who? " Mickey asked.
" Report from the field. One of them must still be out there with Reinette. That's why I can't close the windows. There's an override" the Doctor explained as the droid who he poured the anti-oil over it's head reactivated itself and expelled the anti-oil from it's finger.
"Doctor look out " Alyssa yelled as the droid advanced towards him but the Doctor quickly jumped around.
"Well, that was a bit clever" the Doctor stated before the off switch turned itself on " Right. Many things about this are not good. Message from one of your little friends? Anything interesting? "
"She is complete. It begins" the blue coated android stated before he and the others teleported away from the area.
"What's happening?" Rose asked.
" One of them must have found the right time window. Now it's time to send in the troops. And this time they're bringing back her head" the Doctor implied.
"How long will it be before they come for her?" Rose asked.
"Oh I should say about five years at the least" the Doctor replied "Possibly sometime after her thirty seventh birthday, not sure which date exactly but it will be some point after that."
"We have to warn her" Alyssa implied as she headed out the room followed by Rose who had agreed on the younger girl warning Reinette about the clockwork droids coming for her. The two girls then went through one of the time windows leading to a music room where Reinette was standing and it wasn't long before she noticed the two of them standing behind her.
"Madame de Pompadour. Please, don't scream or anything. We haven't got a lot of time. I've come to warn you that they'll be here in five years" Rose told her.
" Five years?" Reinette asked with a look of confusion on her face.
"Some time after your thirty seventh birthday. I er, I can't give you an exact date. It's a bit random. But they're coming. It's going to happen. In a way, for us, it's already happening. I'm sorry, it's hard to explain. The Doctor does this better" Rose pointed out.
"Then be exact, and I will be attentive" Reinette told her.
"There isn't time" Alyssa piped up.
"There are five years" Reinette replied simply.
"For you, we havn't got fivem inutes" said Rose, gesturing to Alyssa aswell.
" Then also be concise" Reinette said.
" Er, there's, say, a vessel, a ship, a sort of sky ship, and it's full of, well, you. Different bits of your life in different rooms, all jumbled up. I told you it was complicated. Sorry" Rose replied, looking a little sheepish.
" There is a vessel in your world where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book, so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age while I, weary traveller, must always take the slower path"Reinette implied.
" He was right about you" Rose indicated.
"So, in five years these creatures will return. What can be done?" Reinette asked.
" The Doctor says keep them talking. They're kind of programmed to respond to you now. You won't be able to stop them, but you might be able to delay them a bit"Rose suggested.
"Until?" Reinette asked.
" Until the Doctor can get there" Alyssa said "he promised that he will come and he never breaks his promises."
"He's coming, then? " Reinette asked.
"Yeah, he promised, like Alyssa just said" Rose pointed out.
"But he cannot make his promises in person? " Reinette asked.
"He'll be there when you need him. That's the way it's got to be" Rose explained.
"It's the way it's always been. The monsters and the Doctor. It seems you cannot have one without the other" Reinette implied.
"Tell me about it. The thing is, you weren't supposed to have either. Those creatures are messing with history. None of this was ever supposed to happen to you" Alyssa pointed out.
"Supposed to happen?" Reinette asked with a surprised expression "What does that mean? It happened, child, and I would not have it any other way. One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel." Just then they heard Mickey calling for them and the three of them left the room and Mickey appeared from behind a tapestry.
"The time window where she's thirty seven. We found it. Right under our noses" he pointed out as Reinette walked under the tapestry.
" No, you can't go in there, the Doctor will go mad" Rose called to her as she walked under the tapestry, right onto the ship itself.
" So, this is his world" she stated as Rose, Alyssa and Mickey followed through when they suddenly heard screaming in the distance "What was that?"
"The time window. The Doctor fixed an audio link" Mickey replied.
"Those screams. Is that my future?" Reinette asked.
"Yeah. I'm sorry" Rose said sympatheticly just as they heard Reinette's voice from the furture calling for help, possibly calling for the Doctor.
"That's my voice" the young woman implied with a shocked expression on her face.
" Rose, Alyssa come on. We've got to go. There's, there's a problem" Mickey stated, trying to hurry along.
"Give us a moment" Rose told him and Mickey left as she walked over to Reinette " Are you okay?."
" No, I'm very afraid. But you and I both know, don't we, Rose, the Doctor is worth the monsters" Reinette stated before she went back through the tapestry. After she disappeared, Rose and Alyssa headed off to find the Doctor and found him standing outside one of the time windows accompanied by Mickey.
"You found it, then? " Alyssa asked him.
"They knew I was coming. They blocked it off" he replied. The two girls looked to see the ballroom on a large screen in the bulkhead.
" I don't get it. How come they got in there? " Rose asked.
"They teleported. You saw them. As long as the ship and the ballroom are linked, their short range teleports will do the trick" the Doctor explained.
"Well can't we use the Tardis to teleport in there?" Alyssa asked.
"We can't use the Tardis. We're part of events now" the Doctor told her
" Well, can't we just smash through?" Mickey asked.
"Hyperplex this side, plate glass the other. We need a truck" the Doctor replied.
"We don't have a truck" Mickey implied.
" I know we don't have a truck!" the Doctor replied, agreeing with Mickey.
"Well, we've got to try something" Alyssa said. Just then the Doctor got an idea and ran off down the corridor as rose asked what he was doing and he came back a few moments later, sittign on top of Arthur the Horse.
"Oh you're kidding me" Rose said,shaking her head as the doctor gave her a wink and a cheeky grin before he rode Arthur through the time wondow causing it to disappear in the process.
"Doctor?" Alyssa called out, running to where the time window was before turning to face Rose and Mickey "it's gone, the time window's gone."
"Where did it go, how is he going to get back?' Mickey asked as Alyssa whimpered and slid down into the floor.
"He's gone, the Doctor's gone" the little girl said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Well he can't have, we can't fly the Tardis without him" Mickey pointed out and Alyssa asked if they were going to be stuck there forever but Rose reassured her that the Doctor will probably find a way to get back.
"I hope so" Alyssa mumbled quietly. After waiting around for five and half hours, the Doctor came back and Rose walked over to him and gave him a hug as Alyssa breathed a sigh of relief, glad he was back.
"How long did you wait? " he asked.
"Five and a half hours" Rose replied.
"Great. Always wait five and a half hours" the Doctor said as he let go of Rose.
"Where have you been, we thought you wasn't going to come back" Alyssa stated.
"Explain later. Into the Tardis. Be with you in a sec" the Doctor said as he ushered the three of them into the Tardis before heading off.
"Now where is he going?" Alyssa asked in a fed up tone "he gets back and then goes off again."
"No idea" Rose replied "we'll probably hear about it when he comes back." A little while later, the Doctor returned to the Tardis looking a little disappointed and told his companions about how he offered to take Reinette across the stars but when he came to fetch her, he found out that she had died.
"Oh she seemed so nice" Alyssa said.
"Why her? Why did they think they could repair the ship with the head of Madame de Pompadour? " Rose asked.
"We'll probably never know. There was massive damage in the computer memory banks. It probably got confused. The Tardis can close down the time windows now the droids are gone. Should stop it causing any more trouble" the Doctor explained.
" Are you all right? " Rose asked, noticing that the Doctor was looking a little sad.
" I'm always all right" he replied as Mickey walked over to Rose, telling her that she and Alyssa needed to show him around the rest of the Tardis, so the three of them left whilst the Doctor pondered around the console room, deep in thought.