Hello again! Here we are with the second chapter, possibly the shortest of all of them so far. Ah well!
UPDATE: And this is why we don't leave our laptops unattended… The Mickey invasion has repelled!
This chapter is dedicated to Verity359, thanks for the review!
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Chapter 2 - Rose
It was sunny. It wasn't supposed to be sunny when the world ended. It was, in fact, for all intents and purposes, an utterly normal day. The TARDIS had been wheezing for weeks now, and her landings had been becoming rougher and less like landings and more like crashes. Of course, being the Doctor, he'd tried to put the TARDIS' discomfort off as Rose's imagination, but after several well-crafted digs at his driving skills – even the Doctor had to admit that they needed to stop off in Cardiff to refuel. And of course (in the Doctor's words) Rose would have to turn this stop in to a domestic – calling her mum to Cardiff for a good catch up. She'd put up with the Doctor's half-hearted moaning and whining for a full hour (only because she'd seen right through it, the mad man was a complete pushover and a softy when it came to getting what she wanted) before ignoring him and calling her mum anyway. Rose had even put up with her mother's moaning and whinging that she would have to go to Cardiff of all places! (Rose had seen right through that too), before abruptly cutting her off, hanging up the phone and wandering back to her room to get changed.
An only-just-this-side-of-not-being-a-painful-crash-landing later and Jackie Tyler appeared in all her track suited glory on the TARDIS monitor. Less than a minute later her impatient hammering on the door had accompanied a somewhat shrill, "I know you're in there! Put my daughter down you mad alien! Doctor!"
"Subtle, your mother, isn't she?" grumbled the Doctor from his perch on the railing, eyeing the door distastefully. "Almost enough to disrupt the perception filter, with that mouth of hers. Although-" he paused, tugging his left ear slightly, sucking the air in through his teeth "for all the rest of the world knows, she's just a mad woman yelling to herself in the middle of Cardiff bay." He grinned "Might just get herself arrested before I have to step outside." A more manic grin slowly bloomed across his face "Then it's not my fault if we can't go shopping because we had to spend our time going to bail her out instead – ooh I like that!"
"Doctor!" chided Rose, having finally pulled herself up from the TARDIS floor with a grin "Play nicely with my mum or we'll have to take a trip back to Amazonia Prime. Never did get to finish that spa day as someone seemed to think it was funny to get himself arrested for impersonating the president-"
"It was a simple mistake to make-"
"The female president."
"Well it wasn't my fault!" spluttered the Doctor, trying very hard not to recall the image of Rose being forcibly thrown into his prison cell wearing little more than a string bikini for the crime of being his accomplice "How was I supposed to know we'd landed during the female revolution and all men were banned in the city?! If you ask me-"
"I didn't." interrupted Rose, grinning with her tongue lightly touching her front teeth. The Doctor continued as if he hadn't heard her.
"…quite a few of those 'women' guards had as manly, hairy hands as I do! Not as manly as mine but-"
"God, 'e goes on a bit, doesn't he? Oh look at you sweethear'! How are you? Where have you been? Ooh, tell you wha' – show me where the kitchen is an' I'll make us all a cuppa-"
Rose grinned at the Doctor's horrified face. While he had been ranting, she's snuck down to the TARDIS exterior doors and let her mum in, preferring to see her before she got herself arrested.
As Jackie bustled her way to the kitchen, (the TARDIS happily removing the doors from the corridors apart from the ones leading to the cleanest kitchen), the Doctor turned to pout at Rose.
"The assembled hoards of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried. But apparently not enough to stop your mother! I was relying on those doors! We'll never get rid of her now!"
"Oh shut up." She replied beaming, taking his hand and dragging him down the corridor after her mum "It's only a cup of tea." Rose's grin widened, wickedly, "Or we could just start shopping now, if you'd prefer…"
The Doctor's eyes widened before he dived forwards, now tugging Rose towards the kitchen by their joined hands, "No! Nope! Love a good cup of tea, me!" he babbled "All those free radicals and tannins, nothing better!"
Rose just laughed at him and let herself be dragged into the kitchen.
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Everything had gone surprisingly smoothly considering this was her mother and the Doctor together in a small space; and even during their shopping trip, everything had gone smoothly. There had been polite conversation between the two, no arguing, no one had been arrested or slapped, no alien invasions or major world events taking place; just a simple bit of Earth retail therapy. Granted, most of it had been window shopping, but Rose had had an excellent day with the two most important people in her life, and a good old fashioned gossip with her mum.
"…I'm just saying, he's got great hair and since he's lost the weight, I wouldn't kick him out of bed-"
"He's on the telly, mum!" Rose grinned, sneaking a glance at her own much-thinner-than-he-was and great haired eye candy "An' he's minted, course you wouldn't kick 'im out your bed!"
"Ooh you cheeky prat!" Jackie screeched, walloping Rose on the arm playfully, "I brought you up better than that! No respect for your poor old mum!"
Rose snickered and was about to retort when a surprised "Oomph!" came from the Doctor. Fully expecting him to have walked into something (again!), Rose rolled her eyes and turned to look at her mad alien with an eyebrow raised.
"You alright there Doc-" she stopped; the playful smirk sliding off her face as she stared in horror at the Doctor, and his darkening shirt.
"Rose, what are you- Oh my god!" Jackie, noticing Rose was no longer walking next to her, turned around.
"Doctor!" Rose cried, lurching forwards to catch the Doctor as his knees buckled and he dropped to the pavement. Quickly turning him onto his side, Rose cradled his head in her lap, staring dumbfounded as the thick crimson liquid soaked his shirt.
"Doctor! Can you hear me? Doctor?!"
Rose's voice cracked as her hand slipped underneath his shirt collar, trying to stop the bleeding. There, just a fraction of an inch above his left heart, was a small, jagged hole. Panic crawled down Rose's spine like icy water, he'd been shot!
Distantly, Rose heard her mum scream for an ambulance, but Rose blanked the sound out, focusing on the injured man in front of her. "I've got you. Look, it's me, Doctor! Don't die. Oh my god, don't die, please Doctor, don't die!" Rose panicked. She didn't know what to do! She'd travelled with him, seen all manner of amazing things, but when she was at home, she was useless! This was just like Christmas! Just like with the Sycorax, she'd been utterly helpless to save him then too – but this was different, a cup of tea couldn't fix a bullet wound…
Rose blinked, suddenly coming back into herself from her panic, a small smile appearing on her face. The TARDIS! She'd be able to help! If Rose could just get the Doctor to the Med Bay, she could use the stasis chamber until she could figure out which emergency programme held the nanogenes, or at least something like it.
The Doctor sagged in her arms, eyes slipping closed. "No! Doctor!" Rose screamed, horrified, suddenly aware of her tears splashing down onto his ashen face. "Mum! We 'ave ta get 'im into the TARDIS!"
Jackie rushed forwards, shoving her mobile phone into her hoodie pocket as she did so. Her eyes widened at the amount of blood currently soaking the Doctor's shirt and the way Rose's eyes shimmered with an almost golden glow but pushed these thoughts aside as she knelt by her daughter.
"Don't worry sweetheart." She soothed, internally cringing at her choice of words – don't worry?! "Help's on the way love. We'll sort it."
Rose whirled to face her "We can't let them take 'im to a 'ospital! They'll kill 'im!"
"I know sweetheart!" Jackie stammered, taken aback by the almost feral snarl that seemed to rumble in her daughter's throat, "I called Mickey, he's got some of himself's sort of help on the way. But 'e said we can't move the Doctor or they won't know where we are."
To Jackie's surprise, Rose grinned. The golden hint in her eyes seemed far more prominent, and her smile suddenly had too many teeth. "We move him to the Med Bay. The TARDIS can help him until they get here and if they are not friends of the Doctor, the TARDIS will help me protect him."
"But we can't–"
Rose ignored her, carefully lowering the Doctor's head from her lap before standing. "I want you safe, my Doctor." She smiled gently at the prone man, more luminescent tears slipping down her cheeks. She turned to address the crowd that had gathered around the fallen Doctor. "You will disperse." She ordered, her cockney accent noticeably absent. "You will forget the events you have witnessed here." Her eyes appeared to pulse as the crowd turned as one away from the scene and walked away, continuing their day as if nothing unusual had happened.
Jackie gaped at her daughter in shock. How on Earth had she done that?! Even the Doctor couldn't do that as far as she knew. Could he? He was an alien, maybe he could do all sorts of tricks like that to get what he wanted? But how could her Rose do something like that? And her eyes… Jackie was pulled from her thoughts as Rose's shoulders slumped forwards as she took an unsteady step backwards.
"Rose?" Jackie asked concerned as the younger Tyler woman seemed to sway in place before seeming to snap out of it, blinking furiously. Rose's brown eyes focused back onto the world around her before catching on the Doctor's still form.
"Mum! We nee' ta move 'im! Help me!"
Mentally shoving the strangeness of the last few minutes aside, Jackie bent down to pick up the Doctor's skinny legs. Why Rose couldn't have ordered a few of those strong looking men to stay and help, Jackie didn't know. But wisely, she decided to keep her mouth shut on the matter.
One precarious trip to the TARDIS Med Bay later, and Rose had the Doctor wired into the stasis chamber. Jackie, meanwhile, had gone to put the kettle on saying, "If it helped at Christmas, it can't do any harm now". Rose sat, perched on the edge of the Doctor's bed, nervously chewing her finger nail. The TARDIS hummed reassuringly to the girl and she absent-mindedly stroked a nearby coral strut. Now all she could do was to wait until help showed up. She glanced at the Doctor's ashen face and gently stroked his hair back from his forehead.
'Please Mickey,' she thought, 'please have gotten the right help…'
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So yeah, lesson in life: Never leave your laptop unattened with your work up *shakes fists* silly people!
Nothing else to add here, so I'll just say: Drop me a review and let me know what you thought!
Love and hugs,
Spannerspoon out.